So I got one in between two campaigns and made my own awakened billbery shrub slave. Some may say that slow 10hp minion with pathetic attack is useless but it gives you extra set of hands (or branches in this case) to do things other than attacking. It can pour potions into your mouth, picks up the longbow you drop when you switch to melee weapon and attack in the same action, searches for items in your bag of holding in battle etc. As we play with Exploring Eberron I have a bunch of Blast Disks loaded with buffs and the shrub acts as delivery system for those. It can even live in your bag of holding only extending branches out to do what you asked it to do, which eliminates slow speed and low HP drawbacks (but it would likely stop it from doing Help action unless your DM is super generous). You can train it, as it's intelligent and can speak, and it's absolutely loyal to you, doing everything you command it to do without eating your bonus actions for commands. Oh, and our Druid often Druidcrafts berries out of it if we run out of Goodberries materiel in a dungeon.
I love the Shrub! If you have an Artificer, beg them to make you a new pot every 30 days so that you can replace Bill Berry every once in a while without wasting gold. you should be able to hatch a new one every month right on schedule as the older one moves away from home.
And/Or... be an artificer yourself, and give your Shrub infusions to attune to itself, like a Belt of Giant Strength, Ring of the Ram, or Horn of Blasting :)
Right on schedule as the older one moves away from home.
Pot of Awakening could be read as it does not have 30 days loyalty period, as it says shrub is loyal to you and do what you ask without mentioning time limit like in Awakening spell.
But even if it does become independent thinker in 30 days you're still it's creator and master. If you didn';t mistreat it you can convince it to continue working for you. And you did mistreat it you can intimidate or force it into servitude/savery if it flies down your allignement.
NPCs that aren’t subclass pets are supposed to steal a share of XP when they’re in fights. But, they have no way to use/benefit from that XP, as written. That bums me out... let’s fix it.
You could just let them use their monster stats as their racial features and starting ability scores, and staple class levels on top at some throttled rate (figuring out what it takes to earn Level 1 is weird, but maybe hold them back a grade and grant level 1 at 300 XP, level 2 at 900, etc)... but that would probably get overpowered quickly, and give the shrub too many abilities that would slow play in combat. Instead, how about we let him evolve into other Plant monsters, which all should have relatively simple and streamlined monster stat blocks?
I wrote out a long and tangled system (on my phone!) about using DMG chapter 3 encounter difficulty tables to calculate a monsters approximate PC level equivalent... but deleted it: really, forget the math, just trust that it scales pretty fairly if you let Shrub evolve up to a new Plant through one CR tier at a time (0->1/8->1/4->1/2->1->2...) by hitting the same XP totals a PC uses for levels (300, 900, 2700...) AND empty it’s XP pool each time it chooses to evolve, rather than keeping that total towards the next level like a player would. So that CR 0 Shrub can evolve to a CR 1/8 Twig Blight with 300 XP, but then has 0 XP and must earn 900 more XP to evolve from Twig-> CR 1/4 Thorn Blight, etc...A CR 0 Shrub hoping to grow one day to be a CR 5 Shambling Mound will take 34000+ 23000+ 14000+ 6500+ 2700+ 900+ 300 (81,400 XP), which seems about on target to be a fair companion for 11th level PCs (85,000 XP for players), so if you’ve somehow faithfully raised a Shrub through two tiers of play without it dying along the way, I think it’s a fair reward going into T3!
Nor really appropriate in a party that already has other (less powerful) class pets, or that already is pretty big... but I think it could be a fun rough system for Awakened Shrubs and Pots of Awakening for a 2-3 player group.
NPCs that aren’t subclass pets are supposed to steal a share of XP when they’re in fights. But, they have no way to use/benefit from that XP, as written. That bums me out... let’s fix it.
You could just let them use their monster stats as their racial features and starting ability scores, and staple class levels on top at some throttled rate (figuring out what it takes to earn Level 1 is weird, but maybe hold them back a grade and grant level 1 at 300 XP, level 2 at 900, etc)... but that would probably get overpowered quickly, and give the shrub too many abilities that would slow play in combat. Instead, how about we let him evolve into other Plant monsters, which all should have relatively simple and streamlined monster stat blocks?
I wrote out a long and tangled system (on my phone!) about using DMG chapter 3 encounter difficulty tables to calculate a monsters approximate PC level equivalent... but deleted it: really, forget the math, just trust that it scales pretty fairly if you let Shrub evolve up to a new Plant through one CR tier at a time (0->1/8->1/4->1/2->1->2...) by hitting the same XP totals a PC uses for levels (300, 900, 2700...) AND empty it’s XP pool each time it chooses to evolve, rather than keeping that total towards the next level like a player would. So that CR 0 Shrub can evolve to a CR 1/8 Twig Blight with 300 XP, but then has 0 XP and must earn 900 more XP to evolve from Twig-> CR 1/4 Thorn Blight, etc...A CR 0 Shrub hoping to grow one day to be a CR 5 Shambling Mound will take 34000+ 23000+ 14000+ 6500+ 2700+ 900+ 300 (81,400 XP), which seems about on target to be a fair companion for 11th level PCs (85,000 XP for players), so if you’ve somehow faithfully raised a Shrub through two tiers of play without it dying along the way, I think it’s a fair reward going into T3!
Nor really appropriate in a party that already has other (less powerful) class pets, or that already is pretty big... but I think it could be a fun rough system for Awakened Shrubs and Pots of Awakening for a 2-3 player group.
Of course, a DM that allows that will most likely rule that a CR 0 monster doesn't take a share of the XP.
It can pour potions into your mouth, picks up the longbow you drop when you switch to melee weapon and attack in the same action, searches for items in your bag of holding in battle etc. As we play with Exploring Eberron I have a bunch of Blast Disks loaded with buffs and the shrub acts as delivery system for those.
It has a move of 20 and 10hp. Using it in combat should be an immediate death sentence.
It can even live in your bag of holding only extending branches out to do what you asked it to do, which eliminates slow speed and low HP drawbacks (but it would likely stop it from doing Help action unless your DM is super generous).
Ah, well this is what makes it so amazing for you. Huge stretches of the rules tend to do that.
I mean it's a cool item and I love it, but most of the utility you're talking about is only possible because your DM is allowing it. I don't think most would. I mean if a BoH can make a small creature untouchable, why wouldn't you just carry around a gnome wizard the same way?
In one campaign our party acquired a tavern and we turned every adventure into "getting more cool stuff for the bar" regardless of the "real quest." In one adventure we got a pot of awakening and grew an awakened grape vine who we were going to train to be a vintner.
I remember a game where one of our players had gotten a pot of awakening, and when we awakened our shrub, it turned out that the original creator of the Pot specifically made it in order to have a creature do their taxes for them, so the plant awakened as Roger, the shrubccountant, who desperately just wanted someones taxes to file. After the fact, the DM decided on using a system similar to yours, and eventually ended up as a shambling mound that was constantly asking party members, NPCs, enemies, etc., if they needed help managing any of their financial records
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So I got one in between two campaigns and made my own awakened billbery shrub slave. Some may say that slow 10hp minion with pathetic attack is useless but it gives you extra set of hands (or branches in this case) to do things other than attacking. It can pour potions into your mouth, picks up the longbow you drop when you switch to melee weapon and attack in the same action, searches for items in your bag of holding in battle etc. As we play with Exploring Eberron I have a bunch of Blast Disks loaded with buffs and the shrub acts as delivery system for those. It can even live in your bag of holding only extending branches out to do what you asked it to do, which eliminates slow speed and low HP drawbacks (but it would likely stop it from doing Help action unless your DM is super generous). You can train it, as it's intelligent and can speak, and it's absolutely loyal to you, doing everything you command it to do without eating your bonus actions for commands. Oh, and our Druid often Druidcrafts berries out of it if we run out of Goodberries materiel in a dungeon.
I love the Shrub! If you have an Artificer, beg them to make you a new pot every 30 days so that you can replace Bill Berry every once in a while without wasting gold. you should be able to hatch a new one every month right on schedule as the older one moves away from home.
And/Or... be an artificer yourself, and give your Shrub infusions to attune to itself, like a Belt of Giant Strength, Ring of the Ram, or Horn of Blasting :)
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Pot of Awakening could be read as it does not have 30 days loyalty period, as it says shrub is loyal to you and do what you ask without mentioning time limit like in Awakening spell.
But even if it does become independent thinker in 30 days you're still it's creator and master. If you didn';t mistreat it you can convince it to continue working for you. And you did mistreat it you can intimidate or force it into servitude/savery if it flies down your allignement.
NPCs that aren’t subclass pets are supposed to steal a share of XP when they’re in fights. But, they have no way to use/benefit from that XP, as written. That bums me out... let’s fix it.
You could just let them use their monster stats as their racial features and starting ability scores, and staple class levels on top at some throttled rate (figuring out what it takes to earn Level 1 is weird, but maybe hold them back a grade and grant level 1 at 300 XP, level 2 at 900, etc)... but that would probably get overpowered quickly, and give the shrub too many abilities that would slow play in combat. Instead, how about we let him evolve into other Plant monsters, which all should have relatively simple and streamlined monster stat blocks?
I wrote out a long and tangled system (on my phone!) about using DMG chapter 3 encounter difficulty tables to calculate a monsters approximate PC level equivalent... but deleted it: really, forget the math, just trust that it scales pretty fairly if you let Shrub evolve up to a new Plant through one CR tier at a time (0->1/8->1/4->1/2->1->2...) by hitting the same XP totals a PC uses for levels (300, 900, 2700...) AND empty it’s XP pool each time it chooses to evolve, rather than keeping that total towards the next level like a player would. So that CR 0 Shrub can evolve to a CR 1/8 Twig Blight with 300 XP, but then has 0 XP and must earn 900 more XP to evolve from Twig-> CR 1/4 Thorn Blight, etc...A CR 0 Shrub hoping to grow one day to be a CR 5 Shambling Mound will take 34000+ 23000+ 14000+ 6500+ 2700+ 900+ 300 (81,400 XP), which seems about on target to be a fair companion for 11th level PCs (85,000 XP for players), so if you’ve somehow faithfully raised a Shrub through two tiers of play without it dying along the way, I think it’s a fair reward going into T3!
Nor really appropriate in a party that already has other (less powerful) class pets, or that already is pretty big... but I think it could be a fun rough system for Awakened Shrubs and Pots of Awakening for a 2-3 player group.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Or you can just use sidekick system from TcE.
....I’ve never read that and forgot it existed. Oops >_<
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Of course, a DM that allows that will most likely rule that a CR 0 monster doesn't take a share of the XP.
I have a weird sense of humor.
I also make maps.(That's a link)
It has a move of 20 and 10hp. Using it in combat should be an immediate death sentence.
Ah, well this is what makes it so amazing for you. Huge stretches of the rules tend to do that.
I mean it's a cool item and I love it, but most of the utility you're talking about is only possible because your DM is allowing it. I don't think most would. I mean if a BoH can make a small creature untouchable, why wouldn't you just carry around a gnome wizard the same way?
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Because code of Galifar made humanoid slaves illegal, unfortunately...
In one campaign our party acquired a tavern and we turned every adventure into "getting more cool stuff for the bar" regardless of the "real quest." In one adventure we got a pot of awakening and grew an awakened grape vine who we were going to train to be a vintner.
I remember a game where one of our players had gotten a pot of awakening, and when we awakened our shrub, it turned out that the original creator of the Pot specifically made it in order to have a creature do their taxes for them, so the plant awakened as Roger, the shrubccountant, who desperately just wanted someones taxes to file. After the fact, the DM decided on using a system similar to yours, and eventually ended up as a shambling mound that was constantly asking party members, NPCs, enemies, etc., if they needed help managing any of their financial records