School of Necro-botany

The School of Necro-botany focuses on the symbiosis of life and death. As you focus your studies in this tradition, you learn to use the life flowing through the very heart of the world you live in to breathe a semblence of life into what others would discard. As you progress, you learn how to use this synergy to strengthen, guard, and destroy.

Often those that come into contact with a necro-botanist confuse them with the more well-known necromancers. While this is a common misconception, it is one most necro-botanists take offense to, as unlike a necromancer which uses life and death to fuel their power, a necro-botanist seeks their power through the harmony of life and death.

Symbiosis

Beginning when you select this school at 2nd level, you are able to fuse transmutation and conjuration magic together using your own life essence. When you spend at least an hour in nature and are near a dead creature, you perform a ritual that causes the plants and vegetation around the creature to become one and fuse with it. As a final element of the ritual, you sacrifice some of your own vitality, and the dead creature rises as a servant under your control.

• You may have as many servants as your proficiency modifier.
  • A small or medium creature counts as one
  • A large creature counts as two
  • a huge creature counts as four
• For each servant you create, you must sacrifice 5 Max HP which is not regained until you choose to dispel your servant, or it is killed.
• Servants created this way are not considered undead as they move via the vegetation they are fused with and are not targeted by spells or actions which target undead.
• Servants created this way use the statblock of the creature they were in life with the following exceptions:
  • Their alignment is lawful neutral if not already
  • Reduce their AC by 1 and their HP by one-tenth (minimum of 1)
  • They are vulnerable to fire and resistant to poison
  • Servants who were undead before being created lose their undead status and gain vulnerability to fire, otherwise, remain they remain unchanged

Rule of Harmony

Beginning at 2nd level, for every servant you create, you gain a number of temporary hit points which remain until they are used, or the servant is destroyed.

• For every small or medium servant, gain 5 temporary hit points
• For every large servant, gain 10 temporary hit points
• For every huge servant, gain 20 temporary hit points

As your understanding of Necro-botany grows, so does this ability.

• At 6th level, the temporary hit points gained from this ability are renewed every morning at dawn.
• At 10th level, the temporary hit points gained from this ability may also be renewed through a short or long rest.
• At 14th level, you may perform a 10-minute ritual where you commune with your servants to renew your temporary hit points. Doing so reduces their hit point maximum by the same amount.

Toxicity

Starting at 6th level, the hours you have spent hours researching the harmony between life and death and have given you an understanding of poisons. You have learned how to both protect yourself from them as well as wield them to harm your foes.

You gain resistance to poison damage and the poisoned condition if you are not already, otherwise you gain immunity. You have memorized the poison spray cantrip. It is always prepared and does not count against your list of known spells.

Your servants gain the ability to spew poison as well. They use your Spell Save DC to cast the spell doing 1d12 damage which increases at 11th level (2d12), and 17th level (3d12).

At 10th level, when one of your servants is destroyed, it explodes, showering all creatures in a 10-foot radius of it with poison according to the rules above.

Crawling Vines

Beginning at 10th level, you are connected to your servants by more than mere commands. An underground mycelial network connects you to your servants and offers a number of benefits:

• If you are the target of an attack requiring an attack roll, you may command a servant within 10 feet of you to use its reaction to block the attack, applying the attack roll to the servant's AC instead of your own.
• If one of your servants is the target of an attack requiring an attack roll, you may use your reaction to retaliate using a cantrip you know.
• The ground in a 10-foot radius surrounding your servants is considered difficult terrain to all other creatures but you.

Overgrowth

Starting at 14th level, you can channel your life force into your servants to make them stronger.

Once per turn, you may sacrifice hit points to confer a number of benefits to your servants. You may sacrifice up to all but 1 of your current hit points, choosing a different effect and servant for each 5 hit points sacrificed. Each effect can only be applied once to each servant, but each servant can have multiple effects active at once. Choose from the effects below:

• Vitality. Gain temporary hit points equal to half its hit point maximum.
• Toughness. Gain a +5 bonus to AC.
• Protection. Gain advantage on saving throws.
• Rage. Gain advantage on damage rolls.
• Might. Increase their hit die by one size, and apply your intelligence modifier to the damage roll.
• Shield. The servant becomes a wall of vegetation 15-feet long by 15-feet wide and 5-feet thick. Each 5-foot cube of the wall has an AC of 15, 20 HP, is immune to psychic damage, and vulnerable to fire damage. At the end of 1 minute, or if the entire wall is destroyed, the servant returns to the place it was at before Overgrowth.