Mechanism: Enchanted Plants (PEACH)

[talse]

This is an idea for a base class I'm trying to make called the arborealist, he uses plants as weapons. Primarily they'll be focused on poisons, buffs or sun energy. I'm just not sure how to make the whole system work is the thing, like how many levels of plant or if they're the right power. Here's what I've got so far.


Arborealist plants start with a seed that was designed by the planter. It is comprised of a base and modifiers applied when the seed is created. Seeds have a level that describes how difficult they are to grow and how long they take to mature. Plants require some form of dirt in a place with at least 8 hours of sunlight a day to grow. Plants mature after as many days as the level of the plant, minimum of 1 day.

Bases:
Level 0
Flash: Releasing stored photosynthesis energy nearby enemies become blinded
Creatures in 10 ft radius are dazzled for 3 turns.
Level 1
Sun Beam: focusing stored photo synthesis energy a small beam of energy can be released on an enemy.
A 1d4 ray of strong sunlight, deals an additional 1d4 damage to creatures harmed by sunlight.

Allergen: Releasing spores the plant weakens all nearby creatures with functioning immune system.
1 dex damage

Modifiers
Activate: by naming the plant the arborealist can activate the plant at will by recalling the name after it has grown to full, activating it’s powers. +0 levels

Fruit bearing: a fruit bearing plant will produce a fruit when it matures, storing the effect of the plant and making it portable. The fruit can be thrown like a pebble. +1 Level.

[talse]

No comments?

[Vadin]

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this stuff...

How does it work? How do bases and modifiers interact? How many does a character get of each? How can I put them together? What do they do? How much damage do they do? What do they roll to hit? What's with the levels thing?

At present, there isn't really a lot to comment on, as you've just got some random phrases thrown up in a post without any real context or mechanics.

[KingGolem]

I think it's a neat idea. Nice. :smallsmile: However, it looks like your just getting started. Write up some more ideas for seed abilities and then maybe try and compare them to the spell casting abilities of other classes. Maybe you could think of a ratio of seed power levels to spell levels? Furthermore, you should probably put some stuff in bold and make it easier to read, and specify in the thread title that this is for 3.5 edition(isn't it?).

EDIT: Wow Vadin, we posted at the exact same time. Weird.

[talse]

Ok, I've got a mechanic for determining how many plants you can have.

Activation requires a knowledge nature check DC 10+plant level+number of dormant plants, failed check by more than 5 wastes the plant.

You would plant as many seeds as you want, but to activate them at will or in fruit form you'd have to have a reasonable amount, say 4 or 6 at low levels. then you'd have to grow some more. as skill levels increase so will durability.

I think a similar mechanic for the growing would also work, but i don't know what skill, maybe profession gardening?

[Vadin]

Which skill it is is immaterial. It has no real effect on the mechanics. Instead, try sketching out just how these plants actually work. Apparently (from what I'm gathering), they're grown by players. It takes as skill check to make them grow or use them or something. The plants have levels and effects. Modifiers can change the level of the plant...maybe. I'm not too sure what you're saying in the first post. What, mechanically, are characters who use this system supposed to be able to do? Deal XdY damage at-will? Have X number of abilities that they can use Y times per day? Are there any existing mechanics that could be used as a frame of reference as something similar to this system?

[talse]

The closest comparison would be a spell caster except all the abilities are custom made pretty much and the theoretical possiblity of infinite uses with really lucky rolls.

The way in envision it working is like this, the character starts with level 0 and 1 bases and gets access to levels 2, 3, 4 and 5 at level 5, 9, 13 and 17. the highest level base they get is also they highest level plant they can plant.

Plants would take a certain amount of time (days i figure) to mature and would last some time longer (maybe 3xmaturation time) without dispelling harmlessly.

Mod's would become available in sets, 0 and 1 being available at level 1 and the more being available at 3, 7, 11 and 15. Mods might effect any number of things like maturation rate, longevity or what have you. Mods would increase or decrease levels as apropriately, for example a mod that makes a plant take more time to mature might make it a lower level, or if it turns a single target into an area effect then it might even go up 2 levels.

At level 20 they can plant level 6 plants, which would allow for modding even level 5 bases.

Does this make sense to anyone else?

:edit:
also does anyone think a shambling mound is too powerful to be controlled by a level 9 character?

[talse]

I'm working for at least 2 or 3 examples in each of 6 levels. I'm not sure on aptness yet though.

Set 1
Fruit bearing: a fruit bearing plant will produce a fruit when it matures, storing the effect of the plant and making it portable. The fruit can be thrown like a pebble. +1 Level.

Set 2
Multiple charges: With extra effort plants can manifest their powers multiple times.
For each additional charge on a plant, add +2 to the DC, up to 10, for 6 total uses. +1 Level

Set 3
Conditioning: in Lieu of activating manually, a conditioned plant will activate when a certain criterion is met. These plants don’t count towards dormant plants for activation DC. +1 level.

[Vadin]

I hate to try and rain on your parade, I really do, but are you expecting members of this class to be sedentary, or be adventurers? Because adventurers don't tend to wait several days for their powers to come back. In the middle of a dungeon, when the class's wizard and cleric need to recharge their spells and everyone needs to heal, the party will sleep. That's not even a day, then, and the arborealists plants that take 1 day to grow are now only 1/3 grown (assuming an 8 hour rest period and a 24 hour day). How do you plan to work around the 'my powers take several days to come back' problem?

[talse]

an early mod, probably set 2, accelerated growth, Plants mature in a matter of rounds instead of days. Would that be +1 level or +2 you think?

[Vadin]

I think I can't really tell. Flesh out, revise, and organize the rules for these enchanted plants (or a similar system, as the growing in days thing isn't all that usable for adventurers, but is very abusable by a party with an inexperienced DM, but the actual effects themselves and the system for it seems interesting), and then we'll see about balancing/improving/praising/seeing them.

[talse]

How's this fair for mechanics?

Making seeds: an Arborealist can make up to 20 seeds a day. They are made by taking a base, these indicate what the plant will do, and then applying any mods they want to. There is no DC on making seeds.

Planting seeds: Planting a seed requires soil or earth with at least 8 hours of sunlight a day. To plant requires a skill check DC 10+highest level plant+1 for every 2 plants. Once successfully planted plants take care of themselves. An arborealist can only attempt planting every 30 minutes.

Maturation: A plant will take 1 day for every level to mature, 1 day minimum. Once mature it will “bloom” and act as the base describes. Mods may effect blooming and maturation. If a plant is not allowed to bloom for 3 times it’s maturation period or 5 days, whichever is longer, it will lose it’s power and wither.

Is anything usable popping up or am i being tolerated like an annoying pet?

[Vadin]

The whole system still hits this problem of 'so I managed to use all of my stationary one shot abilities and now I have to spend the rest of the day today planting more of these things and hoping that enemies will come along after I wait another day or so for these things to actually grow'.

In effect, you're creating a class that can't adventure before a certain level because it can't use its abilities while going out and adventuring. It can only use its abilities if it has several days to restore itself to not too terribly much power.

At higher levels, I've no idea about whether it's balanced or not.

If you're looking for balance in terms of damage output, try comparing it to psionics. Ideally, it should be able to stay in the game all day using low-level unaugmented or barely augmented powers that don't use up a lot of resources, and it should be able to expend larger amounts of resources to deal greater amounts of damage a few times per day. Or the warlock, who can deal Xd6 damage (about 1/2 HD rounded up) all day long and has a host of other abilities that alter that damage, effect enemies without doing massive damage and usually inflicting some sort of condition, and enhance the warlock's out of combat abilities.

Anyone else's thoughts?

[talse]

Perhaps the arborealist isn't a total crapshoot fighter like wizard and actually can fight, maybe as well as druid or cleric?

[KingGolem]

I have a question about the "fruit bearing" modifier. It says that the fruit makes the plant's effects portable. So...what if it didn't have the fruit bearing quality? Could it only be used where it was planted? Would/could you carry it around in a pot? I don't know, but I think that you shouldn't have to apply modifiers to plants in order to make them usable. Also, how would they grow plants if there was no sunlight? There is no sunlight in dungeons. One more minor detail, I think that the skill check ought to be on making the seeds. Making seeds strikes me as a more complicated process than planting them.

And yeah, I like Vadin's idea of comparing it to the psion or warlock.

Oh, and this came up while I was typing. I think it would be a good idea to give the arborealist some combat ability. Maybe they could grow plants for use as melee weapons? Ooh, and armor too. That would be cool. However, I think that you need to overhaul/define exactly how plants are carried.

[Shadow_Elf]

I'm not sure which direction you want to go with this, but maybe, in addition to being able to prepare a few plants (daily spells), they can also interact with local plants, using abilities that entagle things or attack with thorns. Or maybe an ability that changes by environment? (mauled-by-moss underground, strangled to death by a willow by the coast, that sort of thing?)
Also, i can't really help with mechanics, because I didn't get into DND before 4e made it simple enough for me to understand :smallbiggrin: