The Tree of Life [Archive] - Wizards Community

The Tree of Life [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
NightBreeze
02-10-07, 08:59 AM That ended up long, so please bear with me ;)

My epic level druid will be someday try to create a Tree of Lfe. I'm not doing this for power purposes, only for role-playing ones: this will be his greatest feat. It will become a symbol of the power of nature, and the center of a movement that will reshape the world as we know it: the tree will give strength to the land, and protect the nearby creatures and plants. It will extend over time, creating new forests and sending his seeds to the far side of the world. The epic spell cd is already soaring high, and it would be even higher if I wanted to implement everything. However, I like the idea of the tree evolving on his own and gaining power.

So...the idea is to create a Colossal tree (at least 500fts in height) that has a living mind and can move to a some degree. It should have some magic powers and will be the capston of a mythal (some kind of personal-area power). The spellcraft dc before reducion will probably be several thousands.

What I need are suggestions and ideas about the tree, it's powers, appearance and characteristics, ideas about how to translate them in the epic spell creation rules and ideas about the way to decrease the dc.

There will be no epic spellcasting ritual: he doesn't like helpers and he wants to do this alone.
He is willing to give almost any resource: gold, xp, time and so on. He won't however be willing to put his own life on risk, and he would not try to anger too many really powerful people.

As for the tree, it will be colossal, with his own will, personality and powers. I'd like the idea of the tree espanding on his own over time, growing, creating seeds and so on.

I will use the life seed to give him life, increasing the dices by 4 steps, so he will get 3d20 in INT, WIS, CHA. Also, I'd want to give him at least 1 level of druid, so he can start learning by himself.

Major power: self-growing. I want him to have fast healing 1, and when he doesn't have wounds to heal, this fast healing translates into growing. My reasoning for the mechanics is: The Ring of Fast healing costs 300k for fast healing 3. So, fast healing 1 is 100k, translated into 4000XP. 4000XP would give me -40 to a spellcraft DC, so i would grant fast healing 1 at a +40 DC. To make it permanent and instantaneous, it would be 40x10, so 400.
However, it is not just a fast healing: it's also growing.
We can say that if it doesn't have wounds to heal, he grows for 1 hp of living matter each round. According to the DMG, a normal tree has 150hp, so he would create wood equivalent to 4normal trees in an hour. This growth of course is distributed on it's entire dimensions. I realize that it may become a little too big this way: that's much of wood created in an year. so we can state that this power is not used only for growing: it's also stored for other uses, like giving energy to the nearby forest, creating seeds and so on.

Let's go further: I'll be willing to sacrifice one level of mine to give him a level of druid. As he's a living plant, that can move and speak, he should be able to cast spells and become stronger over time, gaining new levels of druid. However, I don't really like the moving, so I would state that unlike a treant, he can move his leafs and branches but he is anyway rooted.

Also, as he is that great, he needs many hp and hd. I'd like to give him at least 100HD.

Other thing: he shoud have magica immunity, but he can lower it to permit benefical spells. Maybe use the +105 ad hoc, from the spell "create living vault" ?

Now, as for the mitigating factors: they should be many, and spectacular.

1) He is creating an 8-9th level spell, "Tree to seed" (ok...it's a crappy mane, but still who cares. It transforms the targeted tree into a seed. The sead can be easily transported and doesn't age. At any moment it can be planted and grow up to a perfect replica of the tree in full round.
He will collect dozens, hunderds, thousands of different seeds from all across the prime material and the outer planes, then he will use them as material components during the creation of the tree.

2) I remember for somewhere that the heart of an great gold wyrm used as the material component of a spell provides 5000XP for it. That's -50 DC. by using the hearts of all 10 types of dragons, it's -500 DC.

3) Others and others and others....I need suggestions. The spell shall be really epic and complex.

Any idea? :D
gula
02-10-07, 09:37 AM How about Imprint Personality?
http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=10111907&postcount=103
runestar
02-10-07, 10:03 AM How about an advanced elder treant from the ELH, with druid spellcasting lvs and epic feats to duplicate the effects you want? Can't move? Then don't have it moved...
NightBreeze
02-10-07, 11:45 AM @Gula: That's a wonderful idea, thank you. However, I won't use it exactly as it's written there: I'll imprint some aspects of my personality (some aspects, because I want the Tree to be an independent personality) and then I'll imprint the Tree's personality to the Mythal. As the druid is NE, a fine idea would be if he gathered a druid from each alignament, in order to imprint their personalities upon the Tree, for the sake of balance

@Runestar: that's a nice idea....so, we shall use it while tranforming _____ into the tree. However, the only thing that we shoud give it during the transformation are size, hit dies. Later we should add the other special abilites.... Any thought on how we should add the druid levels and how to increase the size? Colossal is way too little :D
NightBreeze
03-06-07, 12:13 PM :bump:
demi d20
03-07-07, 02:41 PM Try basing your spell on Origin of the Species. And I definitely like the idea of advancing an Elder Treant as the "base creature".
Rohano
03-08-07, 10:15 AM On the Fast Healing calculations... please realize that most incremental bonuses (like different amounts of FH) have non-incremental costs.
Look at the price of a +1 shield and then look at the price of a +2 shield. Then the +3. The prices don't increase by a set amount each time - it's a carefully sculpted ladder.
In other words, I think the cost you calculated for Fast Healing 1 is waaay too expensive (+40 DC?! I have to be flipping Boccob to give my creation fast healing?).

I like your idea but I think it could be a bit too overpowered. First of all, if your tree doesn't need to heal and therefore grows, it'd be growing at an enormous rate pretty much all the time. In a few years you end up with the Yggdrasil sitting where your home country used to be, not to mention your home planet is probably falling to pieces and the tree's burning down because its roots hit the molten core.

Anyway I think that with some work, it could be done, but I'd suggest that its growth be HD-based, like any other creature. If it wants to get bigger, it has to earn its growth (and none of that age progression nonsense - it takes too long).

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
NightBreeze 02-10-07, 08:59 AM	That ended up long, so please bear with me ;) My epic level druid will be someday try to create a Tree of Lfe. I'm not doing this for power purposes, only for role-playing ones: this will be his greatest feat. It will become a symbol of the power of nature, and the center of a movement that will reshape the world as we know it: the tree will give strength to the land, and protect the nearby creatures and plants. It will extend over time, creating new forests and sending his seeds to the far side of the world. The epic spell cd is already soaring high, and it would be even higher if I wanted to implement everything. However, I like the idea of the tree evolving on his own and gaining power. So...the idea is to create a Colossal tree (at least 500fts in height) that has a living mind and can move to a some degree. It should have some magic powers and will be the capston of a mythal (some kind of personal-area power). The spellcraft dc before reducion will probably be several thousands. What I need are suggestions and ideas about the tree, it's powers, appearance and characteristics, ideas about how to translate them in the epic spell creation rules and ideas about the way to decrease the dc. There will be no epic spellcasting ritual: he doesn't like helpers and he wants to do this alone. He is willing to give almost any resource: gold, xp, time and so on. He won't however be willing to put his own life on risk, and he would not try to anger too many really powerful people. As for the tree, it will be colossal, with his own will, personality and powers. I'd like the idea of the tree espanding on his own over time, growing, creating seeds and so on. I will use the life seed to give him life, increasing the dices by 4 steps, so he will get 3d20 in INT, WIS, CHA. Also, I'd want to give him at least 1 level of druid, so he can start learning by himself. Major power: self-growing. I want him to have fast healing 1, and when he doesn't have wounds to heal, this fast healing translates into growing. My reasoning for the mechanics is: The Ring of Fast healing costs 300k for fast healing 3. So, fast healing 1 is 100k, translated into 4000XP. 4000XP would give me -40 to a spellcraft DC, so i would grant fast healing 1 at a +40 DC. To make it permanent and instantaneous, it would be 40x10, so 400. However, it is not just a fast healing: it's also growing. We can say that if it doesn't have wounds to heal, he grows for 1 hp of living matter each round. According to the DMG, a normal tree has 150hp, so he would create wood equivalent to 4normal trees in an hour. This growth of course is distributed on it's entire dimensions. I realize that it may become a little too big this way: that's much of wood created in an year. so we can state that this power is not used only for growing: it's also stored for other uses, like giving energy to the nearby forest, creating seeds and so on. Let's go further: I'll be willing to sacrifice one level of mine to give him a level of druid. As he's a living plant, that can move and speak, he should be able to cast spells and become stronger over time, gaining new levels of druid. However, I don't really like the moving, so I would state that unlike a treant, he can move his leafs and branches but he is anyway rooted. Also, as he is that great, he needs many hp and hd. I'd like to give him at least 100HD. Other thing: he shoud have magica immunity, but he can lower it to permit benefical spells. Maybe use the +105 ad hoc, from the spell "create living vault" ? Now, as for the mitigating factors: they should be many, and spectacular. 1) He is creating an 8-9th level spell, "Tree to seed" (ok...it's a crappy mane, but still who cares. It transforms the targeted tree into a seed. The sead can be easily transported and doesn't age. At any moment it can be planted and grow up to a perfect replica of the tree in full round. He will collect dozens, hunderds, thousands of different seeds from all across the prime material and the outer planes, then he will use them as material components during the creation of the tree. 2) I remember for somewhere that the heart of an great gold wyrm used as the material component of a spell provides 5000XP for it. That's -50 DC. by using the hearts of all 10 types of dragons, it's -500 DC. 3) Others and others and others....I need suggestions. The spell shall be really epic and complex. Any idea? :D
gula 02-10-07, 09:37 AM	How about Imprint Personality? http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=10111907&postcount=103
runestar 02-10-07, 10:03 AM	How about an advanced elder treant from the ELH, with druid spellcasting lvs and epic feats to duplicate the effects you want? Can't move? Then don't have it moved...
NightBreeze 02-10-07, 11:45 AM	@Gula: That's a wonderful idea, thank you. However, I won't use it exactly as it's written there: I'll imprint some aspects of my personality (some aspects, because I want the Tree to be an independent personality) and then I'll imprint the Tree's personality to the Mythal. As the druid is NE, a fine idea would be if he gathered a druid from each alignament, in order to imprint their personalities upon the Tree, for the sake of balance @Runestar: that's a nice idea....so, we shall use it while tranforming _____ into the tree. However, the only thing that we shoud give it during the transformation are size, hit dies. Later we should add the other special abilites.... Any thought on how we should add the druid levels and how to increase the size? Colossal is way too little :D
NightBreeze 03-06-07, 12:13 PM	:bump:
demi d20 03-07-07, 02:41 PM	Try basing your spell on Origin of the Species. And I definitely like the idea of advancing an Elder Treant as the "base creature".
Rohano 03-08-07, 10:15 AM	On the Fast Healing calculations... please realize that most incremental bonuses (like different amounts of FH) have non-incremental costs. Look at the price of a +1 shield and then look at the price of a +2 shield. Then the +3. The prices don't increase by a set amount each time - it's a carefully sculpted ladder. In other words, I think the cost you calculated for Fast Healing 1 is waaay too expensive (+40 DC?! I have to be flipping Boccob to give my creation fast healing?). I like your idea but I think it could be a bit too overpowered. First of all, if your tree doesn't need to heal and therefore grows, it'd be growing at an enormous rate pretty much all the time. In a few years you end up with the Yggdrasil sitting where your home country used to be, not to mention your home planet is probably falling to pieces and the tree's burning down because its roots hit the molten core. Anyway I think that with some work, it could be done, but I'd suggest that its growth be HD-based, like any other creature. If it wants to get bigger, it has to earn its growth (and none of that age progression nonsense - it takes too long).