Sidekick for an Awakened Shrub

[thegreatqwerty]

An awakened shrub has H O R R I B L E stats. 10,10,10,10,10,10. so, since the spellcaster is SUPER WEAK, that leaves me between the expert and the warrior. so, my thoughts are expert -> weapon mastery -> Heavy XBow, use that with coordinated attack, later get fighting initiate ->archery improve aim, then either sharpshooter or dex bonus, but would that be less optimal then a warrior-> weapon mastery ->longbow ->fighting initiate+attacker style -> sharpshooter? not sure what is a better sidekick awakened shrub. thanks in advance.

cheers, the great qwertyuiop :smallbiggrin:

[Damon_Tor]

I played quite a bit with awakened shrubs. We had a year-long gap between campaigns, so my artificer grew awakened shrubs in various pots of awakening (a possible infusion for them) with the intent to train them as artisans to run his business and make bank.

It mostly worked as intended except that he caught feelings and started thinking of them as his sons.

Also (and perhaps more relevant to your situation) my DM noted that nothing about the awakened spell halts the normal aging and development of the awakened creature. An awakened bear cub will one day become an awakened bear. And so is stands to reason that an awakened shrub could, depending on what sort of shrub it is, grow up to become an awakened tree. Which is a vastly more combat capable as compared to a shrub.

In my case, because only a year has passed, the DM decided that my eldest son had grown only partway to tree-size: too large to continue to work at the workshop designed for small creatures, but not so big as to imbalance the 5th-11th level campaign he had planned when used as a sidekick.

We're now level 16 and it's decades later. My artificer is dead and I'm playing the now full-size awakened tree as my PC. He has levels in warrior and artificer.

Anyway, talk to your DM about whether or not your shrub can grow bigger over time and, if so, if the timeframe of the campaign would include enough years to grow a shrub into a tree.