Hello, I have some questions to the 3rd level spell Plant Growth.
PLANT GROWTH 3rd-level transmutation Casting Time: 1 action or 8 hours Range: 150 feet Components: V, S Duration: Instantaneous This spell channels vitality into plants within a specific area. There are two possible uses for the spell, granting either immediate or long-term benefits. If you cast this spell using 1 action, choose a point within range. All normal plants in a 100-foot radius centered on that point become thick and overgrown. A creature moving through the area must spend 4 feet of movement for every 1 foot it moves. You can exclude one or more areas of any size within the spell's area from being affected. If you cast this spell over 8 hours, you enrich the land. All plants in a half-mile radius centered on a point within range become enriched for 1 year. The plants yield twice the normal amount of food when harvested.
All of my questions are related to the option of casting the spell as an action. 1) Do the overgrown plants in the area provide also obscurement, does it limit the vision in the area? Spell does not say it specifically, but it somehow make sense from the description. 2) Is it considered difficult terrain for purposes of other features, which interact with difficult terrain? like for example feat Mobile or druid feature Land's Stride allow to ignore difficult terrain. 3) Are these overgrown plants considered magical because they were affected by spell, or not anymore, since the spell has duration of Instantaneous? Again how would it interact with druids feature Land's Stride?
By default, the spell doesn't create obscurement, but this is one of the spells in the game that has a lot of variety depending on where you cast it and what your DM thinks. If you're in an open field casting this on grass, then no... the ground becomes overgrown but it doesn't produce tall plants that obscure vision. However, if you're in a forested area that already has plants that provide some amount of cover, it would be reasonable, but it's entirely dependent on your DM... the spell, on its own, does not give you that benefit.
As for the plants... they are not considered "magical" after the growth is complete. There's no spell affecting them to dispel and they are permanently grown until an outside force affects them. It's a bit like casting Cure Wounds on someone... after the spell is complete, the closed wound is not magical and cannot just be dispelled. So any movement feature that only works on natural difficult terrain still applies to the difficult terrain left behind by this spell.
Oh, thank you! I'm so used to thinking of it as just creating difficult terrain that I didn't read the spell description closely enough. Okay, so Mobile feat, no, it does not help in this situation. Land's Stride, however, gives you immunity to general nonmagical difficult terrain, but for nonmagical plants specifically you cannot be harmed or slowed by them. So Land's Stride still works.
Thank you very much. I have couple more questions :-)
1) What if there is already difficult terrain, when the spel is cast? Would it then be like 5 feet of movement for every 1 foot?
2) In general, in these kinds of terrain (Plant growth area or just normal difficult terrain), can a character avoid the extra cost of movement by jumping? Standing jump costs exactly the same movement as just walking. The only thing, I am not sure, if the height of the long jump matter in this case or not. I guess it would be up to DM call, right?
Long Jump. When you make a long jump, you cover a number of feet up to your Strength score if you move at least 10 feet on foot immediately before the jump. When you make a standing long jump, you can leap only half that distance. Either way, each foot you clear on the jump costs a foot of movement.
This rule assumes that the height of your jump doesn’t matter, such as a jump across subway tracks or a chasm. At your GM’s option, you must succeed on a DC 10 Strength (Athletics) check to clear a low obstacle (no taller than a quarter of the jump’s distance), such as a hedge or low wall. Otherwise, you hit it.
When you land in difficult terrain, you must succeed on a DC 10 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to land on your feet. Otherwise, you land prone.
Multiple instances of difficult terrain do not stack with itself:
Every foot of movement in difficult terrain costs 1 extra foot. This rule is true even if multiple things in a space count as difficult terrain.
It's less clear if the plant growth area should stack with difficult terrain or if it should supersede it using the specific beats general rule. Should it make a difference if the original difficult terrain was due to the presence of plants in the area or if it was due to something unrelated such as a soft sandy beach?
The precedent set by the rule that difficult terrain doesn't stack with itself I think should be enough to lean towards these NOT stacking.
For example, if originally there was an area of soft sandy beach that also had thick and overgrown beach grass which would normally be enough to be difficult terrain on it's own . . . those would not stack -- they would be just difficult terrain. So, now if we cause that beach grass to grow so much that it creates an area of plant growth which requires 4 feet of movement for every 1 foot moved . . . this should probably still not stack with the soft sandy beach underneath. It's still just a cost of 4 feet for every 1 foot moved in my opinion.
As for the 2nd question. A DM is just not going to let you cheese the situation, but even if allowed I'm not sure that it would work out well.
If there was some small area of difficult terrain that you could actually jump completely over then yes this should allow you to avoid the movement penalty. But if we're talking about Plant Growth which creates an area 200 feet across filled with overgrown plants. Now jumping is probably just cheesy.
Interestingly, I don't see any rule against jumping more than once on your turn. So, could you "jump" 1 foot at a time, over and over? But that's where these clauses come in:
This rule assumes that the height of your jump doesn't matter, such as a jump across a stream or chasm. At your DM's option, you must succeed on a DC 10 Strength (Athletics) check to clear a low obstacle (no taller than a quarter of the jump's distance), such as a hedge or low wall. Otherwise, you hit it.
When you land in difficult terrain, you must succeed on a DC 10 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to land on your feet. Otherwise, you land prone.
It's unclear what happens when you "hit" an obstacle. Also, it seems that if the obstacle is taller than a quarter of the jump's distance, you might just not be allowed to attempt the jump.
While the Plant Growth area is not technically difficult terrain for the purposes of interacting with that second rule and the automatic Dex check upon landing . . . a DM can always call for a check if a PC tries to do something that might fail so he can follow this same guideline and require this check -- or potentially an even more difficult check -- upon landing in the Plant Growth area.
Some combination of these rules probably make it too difficult or perhaps impossible to benefit from jumping through the area.
Would the spell Freedom of Movement help in the area created by Plant Growth?
Freedom of Movement: You touch a willing creature. For the duration, the target’s movement is unaffected by difficult terrain, and spells and other magical effects can neither reduce the target’s speed nor cause the target to be paralyzed or restrained.
I would say no. Plant Growth doesn't create any difficult terrain nor does it target you or reduce your speed. So it doesn't interact with any of the things that Freedom of Movement does and thus FoM won't help you.
I can actually see both rulings. A very textualist reading says your speed is the same in the effect of plant growth but each foot of that movement costs more of that speed. The same is true for difficult terrain but it is called out in the text of the spell.
But clearly the result is that your effective speed is slower (quarter speed) in the plant growth effect and the functional mechanics are identical to difficult terrain. The only difference is that plant growth doesn't say "quarter speed" anywhere in its text. So if the spirit of the rule is that you can move your normal 30' on your move despite magic, then Freedom of Movement should help you in plant growth.
So the real answer is your group should come to an agreement before you try to use FoM to help the party against an enemy you’ve slowed with PG.
Agree with the others that there's nothing in the spell that says it obscures vision, like wall of thorns, which says "the wall blocks line of sight".
According to JC, and the RAW of plant growth , the spell does not cause difficult terrain, nor are the plants magical
Re casting plant growth in an area with difficult terrain, if I were DM I'd say these 2 things stack and would further reduce movement beyond the 1/4 limitation of plant growth. "Growth" is additive. That is, the existing plants increase in size, thickness, height, length, mass, etc. But since there's nothing in the RAW or sage advice, it's a DM decision.
Re jumping to escape the effects of the spell, I'd say that jumping requires walking/running before leaping, unless you're just doing a standing broad jump. In all cases of jumping, the plants hinder your jump.
You didn't ask about this, but IMO this is one of the most valuable parts of plant growth:
You can exclude one or more areas of any size within the spell's area from being affected.
This allows the spellcaster to create walking paths in between the areas of the plant growth, thus allowing melee combat against those surrounded by the plant growth. The spell itself doesn't do any damage, but it's easier to hit something who's speed is reduced by 75%.
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Started playing 1e in the late 70s and stopped in the mid-80s. Started immersing myself into 5e in the last year.
But clearly the result is that your effective speed is slower (quarter speed) in the plant growth effect and the functional mechanics are identical to difficult terrain. The only difference is that plant growth doesn't say "quarter speed" anywhere in its text. So if the spirit of the rule is that you can move your normal 30' on your move despite magic, then Freedom of Movement should help you in plant growth.
I sort of agree with you on this, with a slight amendment. Freedom of movement allows you to be unaffected by regular old difficult terrain, and that magic can't slow you down. Plant Growth, once cast, is no longer magic, it's just damn thick grasses and underbrush, and is, essentially, super-difficult terrain. The grasses/underbrush whatever it is is completely natural, it was just fed by magic to get it to being as big as it is.
So Freedom of Movement doesn't stop the plants from slowing you down, because they aren't magical. And normally, FoM would allow you to keep your regular speed when it should have been halved by difficult terrain. But as this grass etc is so thick it's slowing you down to a quarter, I'd probably say that FoM would interact with plant growth such that you move twice as freely as everyone else in the plant growth, but half as freely as you would normally, so I'd treat it as regular difficult terrain, instead of super-dificult terrain.
Agree with the others that there's nothing in the spell that says it obscures vision, like wall of thorns, which says "the wall blocks line of sight".
According to JC, and the RAW of plant growth , the spell does not cause difficult terrain, nor are the plants magical
Re casting plant growth in an area with difficult terrain, if I were DM I'd say these 2 things stack and would further reduce movement beyond the 1/4 limitation of plant growth. "Growth" is additive. That is, the existing plants increase in size, thickness, height, length, mass, etc. But since there's nothing in the RAW or sage advice, it's a DM decision.
Re jumping to escape the effects of the spell, I'd say that jumping requires walking/running before leaping, unless you're just doing a standing broad jump. In all cases of jumping, the plants hinder your jump.
You didn't ask about this, but IMO this is one of the most valuable parts of plant growth:
You can exclude one or more areas of any size within the spell's area from being affected.
This allows the spellcaster to create walking paths in between the areas of the plant growth, thus allowing melee combat against those surrounded by the plant growth. The spell itself doesn't do any damage, but it's easier to hit something who's speed is reduced by 75%.
It's easier to catch up to them (if your speed isn't also reduced), but it's no easier to hit them.
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I started playing D&D from the basic box set in 1979.
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Hello, I have some questions to the 3rd level spell Plant Growth.
All of my questions are related to the option of casting the spell as an action.
1) Do the overgrown plants in the area provide also obscurement, does it limit the vision in the area? Spell does not say it specifically, but it somehow make sense from the description.
2) Is it considered difficult terrain for purposes of other features, which interact with difficult terrain? like for example feat Mobile or druid feature Land's Stride allow to ignore difficult terrain.
3) Are these overgrown plants considered magical because they were affected by spell, or not anymore, since the spell has duration of Instantaneous? Again how would it interact with druids feature Land's Stride?
By default, the spell doesn't create obscurement, but this is one of the spells in the game that has a lot of variety depending on where you cast it and what your DM thinks. If you're in an open field casting this on grass, then no... the ground becomes overgrown but it doesn't produce tall plants that obscure vision. However, if you're in a forested area that already has plants that provide some amount of cover, it would be reasonable, but it's entirely dependent on your DM... the spell, on its own, does not give you that benefit.
As for the plants... they are not considered "magical" after the growth is complete. There's no spell affecting them to dispel and they are permanently grown until an outside force affects them. It's a bit like casting Cure Wounds on someone... after the spell is complete, the closed wound is not magical and cannot just be dispelled. So any movement feature that only works on natural difficult terrain still applies to the difficult terrain left behind by this spell.
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Technically not difficult terrain either.
Oh, thank you! I'm so used to thinking of it as just creating difficult terrain that I didn't read the spell description closely enough. Okay, so Mobile feat, no, it does not help in this situation. Land's Stride, however, gives you immunity to general nonmagical difficult terrain, but for nonmagical plants specifically you cannot be harmed or slowed by them. So Land's Stride still works.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
Thank you very much. I have couple more questions :-)
1) What if there is already difficult terrain, when the spel is cast? Would it then be like 5 feet of movement for every 1 foot?
2) In general, in these kinds of terrain (Plant growth area or just normal difficult terrain), can a character avoid the extra cost of movement by jumping? Standing jump costs exactly the same movement as just walking. The only thing, I am not sure, if the height of the long jump matter in this case or not. I guess it would be up to DM call, right?
Multiple instances of difficult terrain do not stack with itself:
It's less clear if the plant growth area should stack with difficult terrain or if it should supersede it using the specific beats general rule. Should it make a difference if the original difficult terrain was due to the presence of plants in the area or if it was due to something unrelated such as a soft sandy beach?
The precedent set by the rule that difficult terrain doesn't stack with itself I think should be enough to lean towards these NOT stacking.
For example, if originally there was an area of soft sandy beach that also had thick and overgrown beach grass which would normally be enough to be difficult terrain on it's own . . . those would not stack -- they would be just difficult terrain. So, now if we cause that beach grass to grow so much that it creates an area of plant growth which requires 4 feet of movement for every 1 foot moved . . . this should probably still not stack with the soft sandy beach underneath. It's still just a cost of 4 feet for every 1 foot moved in my opinion.
As for the 2nd question. A DM is just not going to let you cheese the situation, but even if allowed I'm not sure that it would work out well.
If there was some small area of difficult terrain that you could actually jump completely over then yes this should allow you to avoid the movement penalty. But if we're talking about Plant Growth which creates an area 200 feet across filled with overgrown plants. Now jumping is probably just cheesy.
Interestingly, I don't see any rule against jumping more than once on your turn. So, could you "jump" 1 foot at a time, over and over? But that's where these clauses come in:
It's unclear what happens when you "hit" an obstacle. Also, it seems that if the obstacle is taller than a quarter of the jump's distance, you might just not be allowed to attempt the jump.
While the Plant Growth area is not technically difficult terrain for the purposes of interacting with that second rule and the automatic Dex check upon landing . . . a DM can always call for a check if a PC tries to do something that might fail so he can follow this same guideline and require this check -- or potentially an even more difficult check -- upon landing in the Plant Growth area.
Some combination of these rules probably make it too difficult or perhaps impossible to benefit from jumping through the area.
Would the spell Freedom of Movement help in the area created by Plant Growth?
Freedom of Movement: You touch a willing creature. For the duration, the target’s movement is unaffected by difficult terrain, and spells and other magical effects can neither reduce the target’s speed nor cause the target to be paralyzed or restrained.
I would say no. Plant Growth doesn't create any difficult terrain nor does it target you or reduce your speed. So it doesn't interact with any of the things that Freedom of Movement does and thus FoM won't help you.
I can actually see both rulings. A very textualist reading says your speed is the same in the effect of plant growth but each foot of that movement costs more of that speed. The same is true for difficult terrain but it is called out in the text of the spell.
But clearly the result is that your effective speed is slower (quarter speed) in the plant growth effect and the functional mechanics are identical to difficult terrain. The only difference is that plant growth doesn't say "quarter speed" anywhere in its text. So if the spirit of the rule is that you can move your normal 30' on your move despite magic, then Freedom of Movement should help you in plant growth.
So the real answer is your group should come to an agreement before you try to use FoM to help the party against an enemy you’ve slowed with PG.
Agree with the others that there's nothing in the spell that says it obscures vision, like wall of thorns, which says "the wall blocks line of sight".
According to JC, and the RAW of plant growth , the spell does not cause difficult terrain, nor are the plants magical
Re casting plant growth in an area with difficult terrain, if I were DM I'd say these 2 things stack and would further reduce movement beyond the 1/4 limitation of plant growth. "Growth" is additive. That is, the existing plants increase in size, thickness, height, length, mass, etc. But since there's nothing in the RAW or sage advice, it's a DM decision.
Re jumping to escape the effects of the spell, I'd say that jumping requires walking/running before leaping, unless you're just doing a standing broad jump. In all cases of jumping, the plants hinder your jump.
You didn't ask about this, but IMO this is one of the most valuable parts of plant growth:
This allows the spellcaster to create walking paths in between the areas of the plant growth, thus allowing melee combat against those surrounded by the plant growth. The spell itself doesn't do any damage, but it's easier to hit something who's speed is reduced by 75%.
Started playing 1e in the late 70s and stopped in the mid-80s. Started immersing myself into 5e in the last year.
I sort of agree with you on this, with a slight amendment. Freedom of movement allows you to be unaffected by regular old difficult terrain, and that magic can't slow you down. Plant Growth, once cast, is no longer magic, it's just damn thick grasses and underbrush, and is, essentially, super-difficult terrain. The grasses/underbrush whatever it is is completely natural, it was just fed by magic to get it to being as big as it is.
So Freedom of Movement doesn't stop the plants from slowing you down, because they aren't magical. And normally, FoM would allow you to keep your regular speed when it should have been halved by difficult terrain. But as this grass etc is so thick it's slowing you down to a quarter, I'd probably say that FoM would interact with plant growth such that you move twice as freely as everyone else in the plant growth, but half as freely as you would normally, so I'd treat it as regular difficult terrain, instead of super-dificult terrain.
It's easier to catch up to them (if your speed isn't also reduced), but it's no easier to hit them.
I started playing D&D from the basic box set in 1979.