Species - Awakened Tree

by somanyrobots

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Awakened Tree

Sometimes when a traveler wanders through a deep and misty forest, they imagine the trees have eyes. Sometimes they aren't just imagining things.

Awakened trees are generally assumed to have a magical origin — most often the product of an awaken spell cast by a powerful druid. But some appear to wake spontaneously, without any clear stimulus. Archdruids theorize this is a response by the forest itself, creating protectors or guardians to defned it in times of need.

Awakened trees can be mistaken for treants — a separate species of living tree, mightier and capable of awakening trees itself. An awakened tree might aspire to becoming a treant, through decades of meditation and growth, or might seek its own adventures in its current form.

Arboreal Protectors

Most awakened trees continue to dwell in their home forests, intent on guarding the wood. Especially when a tree awakens simultaneously, it may have a calling to protect its silvan home. Awakened trees and treants sometimes form loose communities, uniting against major threats and supporting each other amid perils. These communities rarely amount to more, however, as tree-kin are mostly solitary and rarely attracted to trade, construction, or other hallmarks of organizied societies.

Other awakened trees find themselves adrift. Perhaps a tree was awakened too late to save a forest on the verge of destruction, and finds itself bereft. Maybe it was awakened by magic and never had a home forest clearly in need of defense. Or perhaps it spurned its duty, embracing a selfish outlook and setting out to find adventure for adventure's sake.

Ability Score Increase

Your Strength score increases by 2, and your Constitution or Wisdom score increases by 1.

Type

You are a Plant.

Age

Awakened Trees are usually physically "adult" when they wake, already strong and mature trees. Their lifespans are presumably related to the trees from which they are made, but nobody has yet witnessed one die of old age.

Alignment

Awakened Trees may be of any alignment, but often feel a strong sense of duty to their homes. A tree that prioritizes this duty may tend towards a Lawful alignment, while one that rebels is more attracted to Chaos. Similarly, a tree that aims for peaceful coexistence with civilization may be Good, while a more aggressive and violent tree would tend toward evil.

Languages

You can speak, read, and write Common, either Druidic or Sylvan, and one other language of your choice.

Size

Your size is Large.

Speed

Your walking speed is 25 feet.

Natural Armor

You have tough bark in place of skin. While you aren’t wearing armor, your base Armor Class is 12 + your Constitution modifier.

Fear of Fire

Anytime you take fire damage, you have disadvantage on all attack rolls and ability checks until the end of your next turn.

Reaching Branches

Your branches are natural weapons, which you can use to make unarmed strikes. If you hit with one, you deal slashing damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike. In addition, your unarmed strikes and grapples have an additional 5 feet of reach.

False Tree

You gain advantage on Stealth checks when pretending to be a tree, and you can use your Constitution in place of Dexterity for such checks. If you spend at least 10 minutes staying motionless in one spot and digging your roots in a bit, you gain an additional bonus on the check equal to your character level.

Solar Replenishment

You don't need to eat as long as you receive at least two hours of direct sunlight each day. You treat any day with less than two hours of sunlight as a day on half rations, and any day with no sunlight as a day on no rations.

I Speak For the Trees

There's honestly not an enormous amount of difference between treants and awakened trees; available lore is somewhat fuzzy on the differences and occasionally uses them interchangeably. It's probably best to treat them as two variants of the same basic creature type. You can use this species for either, or both, but the ability contours follow the weaker statblock of an awakened tree.

Species Feats

The following are options for feats which can be selected only by awakened tree characters.

Ironwood Bark

Your bark has developed tremendous hardness and resistance to damage.

  • Increase your Strength or Constitution score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
  • When you would suffer nonmagical bludgeoning or piercing damage, you can reduce it by an amount equal to your proficiency bonus.

Solar Enrichment

You can put down deep roots, soaking in vital nutrients and luxuriating in proper sunlight. If you spend eight hours motionless in full sunlight, you gain the following benefits for the following 24 hours:

  • When you finish your next long rest, you gain temporary hit points equal to your character level.
  • You gain advantage on the next ability check you make for each ability score.
  • When you would remove a level of exhaustion, you can remove two.

Fire-Hardened

Your bark has grown particularly resistant to flames, and you occasionally welcome fire as part of your natural development. You gain the following benefits:

  • You can increase your Intelligence or Wisdom score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
  • When you take fire damage, you can attempt a Constitution saving throw with the DC equal to half the damage dealt. On a success, you can ignore your Fear of Fire trait.
  • When you take fire damage, you gain temporary hit points equal to your proficiency bonus, which fade at the end of your next turn.

Appendix 1: Large Species

The Awakened Tree makes use of some general rules for Large PCs. Being Large has significant benefits and drawbacks, but is generally assumed to be a significant power boost. If you use the Detect Balance Plus system for measuring species power, being Large is worth 12 points.

Large Creature Rules

Large Appetite. You require four times as much food and water (you consume 4 rations per day).

Large Armor. Your armor must be specially constructed, costing four times the normal amount and weighing twice as much.

Large Build. You follow the rules for large creatures for carrying things, which means you double your carrying capacity and the amount you can push, drag, and lift.

Oversized Weapons. Large creatures are able to wield bigger weapons which do more damage. When you use your Strength to attack with an oversized weapon, it deals 1d4 bonus damage. Oversized weapons cost four times the normal amount and weigh eight times as much.

Less Obvious Benefits

  • Large creatures cannot be grappled by Small ones, and suffer no movement penalty when grappling them.
  • Large creatures emit larger auras (such as aura spells or a paladin's aura) and their ability ranges extend farther, covering significantly larger areas.
  • Large creatures can become Huge when targeted with enlarge/reduce.

Less Obvious Drawbacks

  • Large creatures have to squeeze in 5-foot spaces.
  • A Small creature can pass through a Large one's terrain (treating it as difficult terrain).
Why Not Double Damage?

The DMG includes a monster rule for oversized weapons, which suggests doubling the weapon's damage dice. That rule quickly becomes overpowered if applied to PCs. Adding 1d4 extra damage tracks with the enlarge/reduce spell, and is a powerful benefit without being overwhelming.

Changelog

v0.3

  • Forgot to include languages

v0.2

  • Replaced Reach with Reaching Branches (1d6 natural weapon + Reach for unarmed strikes and grapples)

v0.1

  • Rough Draft
Credits

Awakened Tree species created by somanyrobots
Discord | Patreon

Design

Large Species rules are adapted from:

Detect Balance Plus maintained by somanyrobots

Art

Tuinvale Treefolk, by Jason A. Engle © Wizards of the Coast LLC

Background Stains

Jared Ondricek

Fan Content Policy

This work is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC.

5E SRD Content

  • This work includes material taken from the System Reference Document 5.1 (“SRD 5.1”) by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available here.

  • The SRD 5.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License available here.