Tending the forest and the trees

[weckar]

Through some research, I found there is no magic a druid can possess to simply speed up the growth of a single plant. A strange omission, but fine; so be it.

However, I found Awaken is an option that can make them into creatures -- after which they could be magically aged up.

Making me think, if Awaken makes a tree into a creature with intelligence and potentially a lot of hit dice, what would be good feats for a tree?

And have I overlooked some method to get a mature tree from a (specific) sapling before my grandchildren are born?

[Fizban]

Ignoring whatever cheesy published tree I expect you want to abuse (:smallcool:)-

Actually, it's entirely possible that's part of why there's nothing more than Plant Growth. Because a 1/3 increase in productivity doesn't do anything you don't already have access to. The moment someone published or just considered the possibility of wacky magical plants, they could point out that instantly growing "a plant" is bad, bad idea.

The major question of feats begins with who assigns them of course, since the DM can simply decide that an awakened plant has feats similar to other plants and beasties. So Power Attack, Cleave, Improved Sunder, flat bonuses, all the way up to just filling out extra feats with Toughness X times. If you're able to awaken a Colossal plant the 32 hit dice are well known as qualifying for Epic feats, for whatever that's worth. More significantly I would say Savage Species and Draconomicon feats such as Roll with It and Rapidstrike are what you'd want to look at- except you have to rule on what Con score they have first, and by the time the BAB is high enough to take Rapidstrike the Dex is too low.

As for a spell to make a plant grow more immediately, off the cuff:
A 0th could make a single non-magical non-fruiting flower grow in under a minute.
A 1st could make a single non-magical plant of maybe Tiny size grow fairly immediately, and provide maybe 1 day's worth of food for a Medium creature (assuming an energy-dense probably root-based plant).
A 5th could maybe grow a (non-magical non-edible etc) tree up to some amount of size when compared to Wall of Stone or Wall of Iron, vary economy breaking conclusions to taste.

The Goodberry spell gives a suggestion on how much food could be produced by a 1st level spell if you have a suitable plant (2d4 berries), except it also effectively "expires" within 1-3 weeks at most (1 day/level), where actual food produced could be saved (and also required berries to be in season come to think of it). This is the point where you can start totaling what the spellcaster is magically producing out of mostly nothing: if a 1st level spell can instantaneously create 1 day's worth of preservable food, the druid is now a mobile farm worth X acres and Y water based on how many times they can cast it. Which quickly becomes ridiculous, as googling calories in a potato I get 160ish: so 1 day's worth of potatoes for a person is more than 10, while 1 plant produces 5-10, but it takes 10 weeks for those to grow normally (so if you get enough potatoes to feed one person for one day, that's 70 or more days worth of growth, per spell, per day, not even counting the water consumption).

So that immediate consumption requirement on Goodberry, Create Food and Water, and Heroes' Feast, is actually really important, as the spells are more accurately removing the need for food from a target than actually creating food. But if you prefer Wall of Iron/Salt shenanigans, well you should be able to grow all sorts of things instantly.

[Thurbane]

I think the article has been lost now, and while not official, I'm pretty sure Rich Burlew's NPC class that was a variation on the Adept had a spell to help crops grow. Can't remember if it sped up the process, or just helped the crops thrive in a normal timeframe.

Here we go: the Gleaner. http://web.archive.org/web/20061212080440/http://www.giantitp.com/articles/gk7uKJeF296jRcx1NJw.html

Looks like I was misremembering the new spells; none do what I thought they did. Purify Plants and Animals is probably the closest, and it doesn't do anything to accelerate growth. Also, the class was Keith Baker's.

[Crake]

Quaal's feather token (Tree) is a 400gp magic item that, as far as I can tell, as an instantaneous effect, causes a fully grown oak tree to spring into existence, so the ability to create a tree exists in core dnd magic, but it seems to be limited to magic items.

[weckar]

Thanks Crake, and all. Feather token is the very reason why I said a specific tree or sapling.

[Morof Stonehands]

For what it's worth:

Womb of the Earth (Dragon 279) can grow a single harvestable plant in 24 hours. It's unfortunately a cleric spell (Level 1) not a druid, and has some other stipulations about how the land has to be in order to be cast. Not sure if it's something you can use but there is at least a basis for this type of magic.

[Thurbane]

For what it's worth:

Womb of the Earth (Dragon 279) can grow a single harvestable plant in 24 hours. It's unfortunately a cleric spell (Level 1) not a druid, and has some other stipulations about how the land has to be in order to be cast. Not sure if it's something you can use but there is at least a basis for this type of magic.

How bizarre that it's not a Druid spell.

[Remuko]

How bizarre that it's not a Druid spell.

right? smells like a new houserule to me.

[Maat Mons]

The only wacky magical plants I can think of are the ones from Dragon 357 (pages 52-58) and those ones from Pathfinder (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/magic-plants/).

If there's a way to make a Fey Cherry grow on short order, it would have been great for that Surviving an Ice Age thread we had a while back.

[weckar]

All I want to do is grow trees in a heavily deforested area, with seeds and cuttings from my own tree xD

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by weckar
All I want to do is grow trees in a heavily deforested area, with seeds and cuttings from my own tree

There’s a spell or a cantrip from one edition of Dark Sun that guarantees germination of all seeds it’s cast on. Not quite the accelerated growth you’re looking for, but it does help with reforestation overall.


Originally Posted by Maat Mons
If there's a way to make a Fey Cherry grow on short order, it would have been great for that Surviving an Ice Age thread we had a while back.

Hmm. :smallsmile:

[unseenmage]

Stuff that causes aging could age a plant IF said stuff can target said plant.

Plants are considered objects for the purposes of spells.
Animate Objects makes it a creature.

From there hit it with time Dragon breath weapon or Bestow Curse for aging.

EDIT: Planar Shepherd/Acorn of Far Travel fast time bubble shenanigans optional.