Undead Plants; what type would they be?

[Togath]

a semi homebrew question;
which seems like a more appropriate type for undead plants/fungi?
Undead, construct, or plant? I was mainly planning on fleshy plants or fungi, but couldn't decide which type to give them.
If it helps with an opinion, they're intended to be based on several of the Golgari plant zombies from MTG.

[RebelRogue]

Undead trumps any other type.

[Phelix-Mu]

I believe saying that undead trumps any type is a reference to type precedence determined by templates, which seemed best explained in Savage Species. Certainly, the animated plants would gain more immunities and special qualities from undead type than plant.

However, I would like to explore, for a moment, some of that flavor. Not a huge expert on golgari, but maybe plants that feasted on negative energy might have undead traits, but remain plants. Depends somewhat on flavor and out-of-combat stuff. Since undead aren't alive, they don't grow and don't reproduce, barring having some kind of growth special ability or spawning or such. If they were still plants, kind of like a specially-bred plant that fed on the energy of death/decay, then they might still grow/be alive, etc. Having them grow or reproduce in the manner of the fungus or slimes (DMG 76) could result in some truly horrific scenarios (scene of recent battle carnage infested with corpse-eating plants, think fungus gundam).

Plus, if we are mainly talking about using these in a campaign against experienced players, stick with plant type with undead flavor/traits. Too many ways to fight undead. Killing plants is generally less easy.

In a related note, I once used epic spell design to create a fungus that ate only undead. Designed by a circle of druids fed up with a necromancer's efforts to turn a whole nation of people into his undead minions, they unleashed the spores on his army of gun-wielding zombies (long story). The results were *AWESOME*.

[TuggyNE]

Generally speaking, any template that makes an undead sort of thing changes type to Undead, no matter what it was before (although many of them have restrictions on allowed original types). So there's very strong precedent in 3.5 for simply saying "Undead" and leaving it at that. I believe there's also a couple of plantish monsters in 3.5 that spawn/convert undead; the orcwort is probably the foremost example. (I don't recall offhand what their type is though.)

If you wanted to, though, you could shift undead into a subtype with a lot of traits, but it would require some extensive additional homebrew; very likely you'd have to rework the current "undead/constructs have no Con" assumption, and not improbably also a few of their immunities. And, of course, you'd have to slightly modify a bunch of monsters according to a new set of general rules.

Alternatively, misuse the Augmented subtype a bit and give them Undead (Augmented Plant) type.

[Malimar]

Generally speaking, any template that makes an undead sort of thing changes type to Undead, no matter what it was before (although many of them have restrictions on allowed original types). So there's very strong precedent in 3.5 for simply saying "Undead" and leaving it at that. I believe there's also a couple of plantish monsters in 3.5 that spawn/convert undead; the orcwort is probably the foremost example. (I don't recall offhand what their type is though.)

Orcworts are Plants and their wortlings are Plants. But they're fruits which grow from the tree, not created from anything else in particular (aside from, like, digestion). (MM2)

Myconids are Plants. They create Myconid Servants which are as the regular zombie template, except they retain their previous creature type. (MM2)

Yellow Musk Creepers are Plants. They create Yellow Musk Zombies (from any living thing with a brain and an intelligence score), which are their own special template, which changes Type to Plant. (FF)

So there's actually a fair bit of precedent for undead-like Plant creatures.


That said: if you're actually taking a dead plant or a plant creature and then use negative energy/[Evil]/necromancy to animate it again, I think it should at that point lose the Plant type and gain the Undead type.

If you're using something other than negative energy/[Evil]/necromancy to animate it again, you could make an argument for Plant or Construct (or even Deathless, if it's positive energy).

[Story]

Alternatively, misuse the Augmented subtype a bit and give them Undead (Augmented Plant) type.

How is that misuse?

[Togath]

Generally speaking, any template that makes an undead sort of thing changes type to Undead, no matter what it was before (although many of them have restrictions on allowed original types). So there's very strong precedent in 3.5 for simply saying "Undead" and leaving it at that. I believe there's also a couple of plantish monsters in 3.5 that spawn/convert undead; the orcwort is probably the foremost example. (I don't recall offhand what their type is though.)

If you wanted to, though, you could shift undead into a subtype with a lot of traits, but it would require some extensive additional homebrew; very likely you'd have to rework the current "undead/constructs have no Con" assumption, and not improbably also a few of their immunities. And, of course, you'd have to slightly modify a bunch of monsters according to a new set of general rules.

Alternatively, misuse the Augmented subtype a bit and give them Undead (Augmented Plant) type.

I'll probably go with undead(and since I was planning on using pf, it's already mostly the changes you had mentioned[such as bonus hp, and being able to be critted/sneak attacked])

[TuggyNE]

How is that misuse?

It's not terribly severe, but generally it's use is for a particular subset of templates that change types, not for mixing types.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I'm almost certain I've seen type traits added to a creature as a special ability before.

I wanna say the blood amniote in libris mortis has an ability called "ooze traits," the details of which explain how, even though its an undead creature, it has all of the traits normally associated with being an ooze.

I don't see any reason you couldn't brew a similar ability for plant or undead traits and then give the ability to your creature while giving it the other type as its actual type. I think I've seen a "plant traits" special ability on a creature before too.

[The Viscount]

Blood amniote does indeed have strange ooze-like traits, as does the gelatinous creature template. Undead-like traits have been given to creatures now and again. Death giant has a few, I believe, as does graveyard sludge.