PF - Can Plants Be Enslaved?

[unseenmage]

@My players. Shoo. Let not your eyes lead your play astray in this place.

Just like it says on the tin, I'm looking for stuff that would allow one to enslave plant type monsters as well as at least one Mcguffin that would allow one or a few plants to resist or escape enslavement.

Mind controlling plant monsters from the Darklands are wreaking havoc on the local settlements of other evil enslaving races.

The PCs are getting to the point where the why and how of this should be explained and honestly I got nothing. Yet.

PCs were told that a duergar slaver brought minslaver fungus into their settlement and it grew out of control. mindslaved duergar attacked the kobold lair the PCs were clearing chasing a drow slaving party in as well.

The PCs got the kobold and drow to help repel the attack and freed all the kobold's slaves while they were at it.

Now I need a BBEG to've been responsible for the fungus and maybe even some fungus freedom fighters or vengeance seekers to've escaped said BBEG.

Any help or advice is appreciated. Party is two level six characters. A goblin nonelemental kineticist and a 3.x Warlock very nicely converted to PFwho recently got the Nightmare Creature template in exchange for +2 ECL.

I'm trying to avoid using a Fungus Queen because I used that one extensively as a necromancer player in our last game.

If it helps they're adventuring through Candlestone Caverns with the goal of stopping the flow of Midnight Milk from the Midnight Mountains.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by unseenmage
Now I need a BBEG to've been responsible for the fungus and maybe even some fungus freedom fighters or vengeance seekers to've escaped said BBEG.

On this point, you might try incorporating a fuldrex (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/plants/fuldrex/), or even a small community of them. They sometimes serve fungal lords, but they’re quite cowardly on their own. Perhaps a previous adventuring party came through and killed whatever they were serving, but they survived and are now attempting to follow their former master’s commands as best they can. Or perhaps they’re trying to pursue some ill-conceived plan of their own, perhaps with the ultimate goal of—mu ha haa—dominating all the fungal races of the world.

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[AvatarVecna]

The "verdant spell" metamagic allows MA spells to bypass a plant's immunity to MA, in exchange for the attached spell being unable to affect nonplants. This doesn't get around type restrictions, so Verdant "Dominate Person" wouldn't work, and Verdant "Dominate Monster" would be an epic spell. You'd likely need to employ Suggestion and Charm Monster for most of it.

The spell "Command Plants" will also be useful here, particularly if you can find a way to cast it from a Cha-based class (in order to have a good chance of acing the opposed Cha check). An Arcanist (Collegiate Initiate) can pick up druid spells, as can {any arcane caster}/Collegiate Initiate PrC, although both require you to be good alignment. The mythic ability "Beyond Morality" lets you ignore alignment prereqs.

But also since you're DM, you could probably rule that Verdant "Dominate Person" works on plants and nobody else, or you could rule that Collegiate Initiate doesn't have an alignment prereq regardless.

[Doctor Despair]

If 3.5 is allowed, Evangelist's "Convert the Unfaithful" is a dominate monster effect that is not mind-affecting, so a high charisma could let the Evangelist pseudo-dominate plants

Green Ear lets bards' music affect plants, so Fascinate/Suggestion might be of use for minor tasks. Not as effective as the Evangelist ability though

[Segev]

The easiest way to explain it is to make a spell that does it. Use command undead or control undead as a basis.

[Morty_Jhones]

personaly i would just delacre that the plant had been Awakenened, and was now has int 8 and then was Dominated some how.

seems a Druid of Rot sort of thing to do. so it could be anyone. also this opens an intresting side quest.. can the party FREE the fungus?

[Psyren]

The "verdant spell" metamagic allows MA spells to bypass a plant's immunity to MA, in exchange for the attached spell being unable to affect nonplants. This doesn't get around type restrictions, so Verdant "Dominate Person" wouldn't work, and Verdant "Dominate Monster" would be an epic spell. You'd likely need to employ Suggestion and Charm Monster for most of it.

You can also use metamagic reducers or rods

[AvatarVecna]

You can also use metamagic reducers or rods

Sorta?

Sacred Geometry, Spell Perfection, and Universalist Wizard's "Metamagic Mastery" won't let you reduce a spell if unreduced it would be beyond 9th lvl, which Verdant Dominate Monster would be. Magical Lineage would work to reduce it 1 level, but Verdant is +2. There isn't a Verdant Spell Metamagic Rod that I can see. You could probably reverse-engineer what the cost of one should be, but at the very least it'd be something a player would have to ask permission for if they wanted to do the same, which I personally try to veer away from. Also if the DM was willing to say "it just works", they could just do that with the lower-level version.

That said, there's Metamagic Gems (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/e-g/gem-metamagic/), which looks like they should work. There isn't an explicit Verdant Spell one, but it specifies that these gems exist for any metamagic feat.

(I've probably missed a few others, although in general I wouldn't be shocked if most of them have either the "won't let you ignore because it's beyond 9th lvl equivalent" problem or the "won't reduce more than 1 level" problem.)

[zlefin]

I didn't realize that PF changed domains like Plant and Earth to remove the "rebuke/command" creatures of that type, and that they changed commands in general (even for command undead) to be less permanent; that always seemed so flavorful, but I guess it had issues being under or overpowered and too campaign dependent.

poking around it seems now all of those are feats instead, if you have the appropriate domain.