I am a DM running a small campaign of 2 players. One player is a druid and wants to use Plant Growth on the crops for the village we have been helping. It is already harvest season and I am arguing that by the definition of the spell, it can't instantly create more yield for what is currently being harvesting as the plants have finished their growing cycle, but it will enrich the next years growth and harvest. She is arguing that it should increase the yield of this harvest because it says it does. I tried to explain that it doesn't magically make something out of nothing and what the spell does is enrich the growth of the plant so that it will yield more come harvest season.
I know I am the DM and I should get final say on it, but I don't want to act as a dictator for the rules if I don't need to be. Who's argument would be more accurate?
plant growth is a spell with a duration of “instantaneous”. none if the effects after the casting are magical, yet the effects persist.
“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.“
the spell says the plants are enriched for 1 year. spell also says the plants yield twice the normal amount of food when harvested.
the spell doubles the yield when harvested, not when harvested in a year.
If the player had cast the spell on a freshly sewn field that hadn't grown anything yet, 2X Zero yield is Zero yield.if the player cast the spell on a field ready for harvest, its effects are instantaneous, and the yield is doubled.
If the spell is cast in an area that has plants that can be harvested multiple times in a year, then all harvests in that year on those affected types of plants are doubled.
an additional caveat would be that the plants being harvested produce twice the amount of food. somehow harvested plants for other uses wouldn't work. For example, perhaps a player wanted to grow an especially thick wall of thorns in an area. the thorn vines wouldn't be twice as thick. only harvestable quantities of food the plant provides would be doubled.
I am a DM running a small campaign of 2 players. One player is a druid and wants to use Plant Growth on the crops for the village we have been helping. It is already harvest season and I am arguing that by the definition of the spell, it can't instantly create more yield for what is currently being harvesting as the plants have finished their growing cycle, but it will enrich the next years growth and harvest. She is arguing that it should increase the yield of this harvest because it says it does. I tried to explain that it doesn't magically make something out of nothing and what the spell does is enrich the growth of the plant so that it will yield more come harvest season.
I know I am the DM and I should get final say on it, but I don't want to act as a dictator for the rules if I don't need to be. Who's argument would be more accurate?
I highlighted the parts of the argument that I would look at, personally. The spell doesn't need to follow our world's rules, the same way Reverse Gravity or Fireball don't need to follow them.
Here's another point, if that's too pedantic: How often will that player realistically use Plant Growth? It's already a very niche spell, and the longer casting time could maybe only come up once in an average campaign, if that. Purely on the basis of allowing characters to use their cool abilities, I'd argue that it should work.
What are the consequences of allowing it? It doesn't seem like doing this will break any story arc or narrative. I'm a DM who usually opts for Rule of Cool or player fun above written rule though, so our styles may be different.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
Thank you for this insight. I was looking at this logically and it seems as though situations such as this, as much of DnD, is better determined by math instead. Even though it countered my argument, I really liked the "2X Zero yield is Zero yield" view point. I have since told the player that I admit defeat on this argument and will allow the crops to be doubled this year. My thought process on this was that you can't make something out of nothing as the plants are finished with their growing cycle, thus the next years growth would have been affected by the spell and the next years harvest would be doubled because the plants grew double what they typically would.
As for the reasoning behind the argument, we just finished Dragons of Icespire Peak and I randomly put them through an encounter with Goblins to buy me time until the next campaign. But I haven't introduced my players to "things may not always be what they seem" type of scenarios, so although it breaks the technically canon Goblin personality, I made this a group of goblins that had been watching humans and learned to work the earth from them. These Goblins had been exiled from their original group and were hoping to mesh with the rest of "normal" society. I had a group jump out at the players and the players did what I expected, they immediately killed the goblins. Then when they followed the trail to the goblins camp, I was trying to lure them into killing the camp and then discovering a note written in broken common describing their plight. But ONE player caught on to the miniscule detail in my description of the camp and also caught that I quickly passed over the fact that there were young goblins in the camp. This caused them to be cautious and the rest of the story is, they convinced Phandalin to accept these goblins into their community and having just been the victims of a dragon attack, food was already a scarcity and I was trying to get the players to think more outside the box as this player has used this spell in almost every community we came across that got attacked by the dragon based on the random roll table provided, as well as add some more dramatic flair. This is the first campaign I have been the DM, and they seemed to enjoy how I ran it, but I did not really do much outside what the book has until now.
I would allow it to work now, as the player is asking for. As Van said, how often is this going to happen. And maybe the harvesting time will last twice as long for the yield if they already started harvesting but not finished.
Anyway, it’s a cool RP moment so don’t get too hung up on it. I did the same with my Druid to help a village. Doing cool things like that is rewarding to the player. And is it really breaking anything to allow it? I also used create/destroy water to fill a small settlement in the deserts cistern because they helped us and it felt like something my Druid would do.
I tried to explain that it doesn't magically make something out of nothing and what the spell does is enrich the growth of the plant so that it will yield more come harvest season.
Just look at what the 1 action cast version does.
The spell absolutely causes the plants to grow basically from nowhere, magically. That's exactly what it does.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
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I am a DM running a small campaign of 2 players. One player is a druid and wants to use Plant Growth on the crops for the village we have been helping. It is already harvest season and I am arguing that by the definition of the spell, it can't instantly create more yield for what is currently being harvesting as the plants have finished their growing cycle, but it will enrich the next years growth and harvest. She is arguing that it should increase the yield of this harvest because it says it does. I tried to explain that it doesn't magically make something out of nothing and what the spell does is enrich the growth of the plant so that it will yield more come harvest season.
I know I am the DM and I should get final say on it, but I don't want to act as a dictator for the rules if I don't need to be. Who's argument would be more accurate?
plant growth is a spell with a duration of “instantaneous”. none if the effects after the casting are magical, yet the effects persist.
“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.“
the spell says the plants are enriched for 1 year. spell also says the plants yield twice the normal amount of food when harvested.
the spell doubles the yield when harvested, not when harvested in a year.
If the player had cast the spell on a freshly sewn field that hadn't grown anything yet, 2X Zero yield is Zero yield.if the player cast the spell on a field ready for harvest, its effects are instantaneous, and the yield is doubled.
If the spell is cast in an area that has plants that can be harvested multiple times in a year, then all harvests in that year on those affected types of plants are doubled.
an additional caveat would be that the plants being harvested produce twice the amount of food. somehow harvested plants for other uses wouldn't work. For example, perhaps a player wanted to grow an especially thick wall of thorns in an area. the thorn vines wouldn't be twice as thick. only harvestable quantities of food the plant provides would be doubled.
I highlighted the parts of the argument that I would look at, personally. The spell doesn't need to follow our world's rules, the same way Reverse Gravity or Fireball don't need to follow them.
Here's another point, if that's too pedantic: How often will that player realistically use Plant Growth? It's already a very niche spell, and the longer casting time could maybe only come up once in an average campaign, if that. Purely on the basis of allowing characters to use their cool abilities, I'd argue that it should work.
What are the consequences of allowing it? It doesn't seem like doing this will break any story arc or narrative. I'm a DM who usually opts for Rule of Cool or player fun above written rule though, so our styles may be different.
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
Thank you for this insight. I was looking at this logically and it seems as though situations such as this, as much of DnD, is better determined by math instead. Even though it countered my argument, I really liked the "2X Zero yield is Zero yield" view point. I have since told the player that I admit defeat on this argument and will allow the crops to be doubled this year. My thought process on this was that you can't make something out of nothing as the plants are finished with their growing cycle, thus the next years growth would have been affected by the spell and the next years harvest would be doubled because the plants grew double what they typically would.
As for the reasoning behind the argument, we just finished Dragons of Icespire Peak and I randomly put them through an encounter with Goblins to buy me time until the next campaign. But I haven't introduced my players to "things may not always be what they seem" type of scenarios, so although it breaks the technically canon Goblin personality, I made this a group of goblins that had been watching humans and learned to work the earth from them. These Goblins had been exiled from their original group and were hoping to mesh with the rest of "normal" society. I had a group jump out at the players and the players did what I expected, they immediately killed the goblins. Then when they followed the trail to the goblins camp, I was trying to lure them into killing the camp and then discovering a note written in broken common describing their plight. But ONE player caught on to the miniscule detail in my description of the camp and also caught that I quickly passed over the fact that there were young goblins in the camp. This caused them to be cautious and the rest of the story is, they convinced Phandalin to accept these goblins into their community and having just been the victims of a dragon attack, food was already a scarcity and I was trying to get the players to think more outside the box as this player has used this spell in almost every community we came across that got attacked by the dragon based on the random roll table provided, as well as add some more dramatic flair. This is the first campaign I have been the DM, and they seemed to enjoy how I ran it, but I did not really do much outside what the book has until now.
I would allow it to work now, as the player is asking for. As Van said, how often is this going to happen. And maybe the harvesting time will last twice as long for the yield if they already started harvesting but not finished.
Anyway, it’s a cool RP moment so don’t get too hung up on it. I did the same with my Druid to help a village. Doing cool things like that is rewarding to the player. And is it really breaking anything to allow it? I also used create/destroy water to fill a small settlement in the deserts cistern because they helped us and it felt like something my Druid would do.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
Just look at what the 1 action cast version does.
The spell absolutely causes the plants to grow basically from nowhere, magically. That's exactly what it does.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.