Awakener (5e Class)
Staff in hand, a human woman cries out to the world as she channels nature’s energies, the plants around her writhing and combining into larger forms before summoning a thundercloud to unleash deadly lightning on the approaching band of brigands.
An ancient elf pours through an even more ancient arcane tome as several small creatures of vines help sort through other books in the library, while a much larger collection of living vines holds some lamps up high to provide adequate illumination.
Three human-shaped saplings dance across the battlefield in tandem with their half-orc master, executing complex maneuvers at his command as they leave one soldier after another dead in their wake.
Calling upon the natural energies of the world, an awakener is capable of animating the plants around them and then controlling them, not dissimilar to how a necromancer raises the dead to do their bidding. However, awakeners do not necessarily use necromantic energies to raise their plant minions, sometimes opting to instead use other methods. This makes their minion-creating techniques far more stable, and far less taboo or outright illegal as they aren’t raising the dead, but rather giving sentience and mobility to life.
Not as in tune with nature as a druid or as spiritual as a cleric, an awakener typically only discovers they even have magical abilities after much time is spent experimenting with and researching plants. Not unlike a wizard, awakeners tend to be more studious, and it’s in their rigorous research and experimentation that they cast their first spell.
Studious at Heart
Though an awakener gets their power from their devotion to plants and nature in general, their application of that power in the form of spells is learned. Without that practice and repetition, the most they can do is simply awaken the plants, and time and practice is required to actually control them or do anything useful with them. Study of plant biology in tandem with this helps an awakener learn how to fully awaken a plant, and though they don’t have much control over its overall form each awakener has their own style. Whether that’s focusing on flower plants to have aesthetic minions, vines for durability and flexibility, trees for brute strength, or plants covered with fruit for interesting shapes and color schemes (or a portable food source that you don’t have to carry) is up to the awakener themselves.
Selectively Natural
An awakener is only an awakener because of their devotion to plants specifically. It is not nature as a whole that they are concerned with: animals and people, wind and rain, cold and lightning, all of that is secondary to the center point of their lives: the plant. Plants are their livelihood, and it is this trait above all else that all awakeners, good and evil, share. The other trait that all awakeners have in common is a general dislike of fire. They accept its usefulness in cooking and for other constructive purposes, but as it is a destructive force that can very much destroy the things they love most, there is no room in their hearts for fire.
Creating an Awakener
Whatever an awakener's purpose in life may be, it will always involve plants of some kind. Whether that means you treat your awakened as cherished pets, useful tools, or expendable minions, they will always be an important part of your life. You may have been born with a special gift for connecting on a spiritual level with plants, and later learned how to channel magic into them to bring them to life. Or you might have been a bright young child, learning everything about everything until you suddenly discovered how to control magically control plants. Or maybe you were taught by an ancient and powerful being, such as a fey spirit or elderly wizard, and you used that knowledge to develop your own unique way of interacting with the world. When did you first start controlling plants? Did you always know, or did it take you years of study and practice? Do you find joy in this ability, or is it merely a tool to advance other agendas? Perhaps you were once apprenticed to a wizard or druid, but just couldn't quite learn their ways and so adapted them to your own benefit. Or were you imbued with strange powers a nature spirit, and after much practice controlling your powers have only just learned how to use them properly?
- Quick Build
To create an awakener quickly, follow these suggestions: first, make Wisdom your highest ability, followed by Dexterity or Constitution. Second, choose the sage background. Third, take the quarterstaff, sling with 20 sling bullets, and the explorer's pack in addition to other equipment that is given to you. Fourth, choose the ray of frost and thorn whip cantrips, and take the cure wounds, entangle, longstrider, and thunderwave spells for your spellbook.
Class Features
As a Awakener you gain the following class features.
- Hit Points
Hit Dice: 1d8 per Awakener level
Hit Points at 1st Level: 8 + Constitution modifier
Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d8 (or 5) + Constitution modifier per Awakener level after 1st
- Proficiencies
Armor: light armor, shields
Weapons: clubs, daggers, darts, maces, quarterstaffs, slings
Tools: herbalism kit
Saving Throws: Intelligence and Wisdom
Skills: Choose two from Arcana, Insight, Investigation, Medicine, Nature, Perception, Religion, and Survival.
- Equipment
You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:
- (a) A quarterstaff or (b) any simple weapon
- (a) A shield or (b) a sling and 20 sling bullets
- (a) A dungeoneer's pack or (b) a scholar's pack
- leather armor, a druidic focus, an herbalism kit, and a spellbook
- If you are using starting wealth, you have 4d4 x 10 gp in funds.
| Level | Proficiency Bonus | Features | Cantrips Known | —Spell Slots per Spell Level— | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | ||||
| 1st | +2 | Animative Botany, Spellcasting | 1 | — | — | — | — | — |
| 2nd | +2 | Botany Specialty | 2 | 2 | — | — | — | — |
| 3rd | +2 | Morphic Power | 2 | 3 | — | — | — | — |
| 4th | +2 | Ability Score Improvement | 3 | 3 | — | — | — | — |
| 5th | +3 | Sensory Awareness | 3 | 4 | 2 | — | — | — |
| 6th | +3 | Enhanced Plants | 3 | 4 | 2 | — | — | — |
| 7th | +3 | Botany Specialty feature | 3 | 4 | 3 | — | — | — |
| 8th | +3 | Ability Score Improvement | 3 | 4 | 3 | — | — | — |
| 9th | +4 | — | 4 | 4 | 3 | 2 | — | — |
| 10th | +4 | Plant Fighting Style | 4 | 4 | 3 | 2 | — | — |
| 11th | +4 | Resistant Plants | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | — | — |
| 12th | +4 | Ability Score Improvement | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | — | — |
| 13th | +5 | — | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 1 | — |
| 14th | +5 | Botany Specialty feature | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 1 | — |
| 15th | +5 | Regenerative Plants | 5 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | — |
| 16th | +5 | Ability Score Improvement | 5 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | — |
| 17th | +6 | — | 5 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 |
| 18th | +6 | Botany Specialty feature | 5 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 |
| 19th | +6 | Ability Score Improvement | 5 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| 20th | +6 | Death by Plant | 5 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
Animative Botany
At 1st level, you have the ability to magically manipulate the plants around you, bringing them to life to do your bidding. As an action, you can target one Tiny plant within 15 feet of you. That plant becomes permanently awakened as if by the awaken spell, except it uses a specific stat block based on the plant’s size and it is permanently under your control. Once you use this feature in this way, you cannot do so again until you finish a long rest. If you have spell slots, you can use this feature to expend any number of spell slots to awaken multiple plants in any combination of sizes all at once. The plants you can awaken, and the total levels of the spell slots you must expend to awaken them, are shown in the Awoken Plants table. When you use this feature, you can choose to combine multiple normal plants into a larger awakened, such as many small shrubs becoming a Large awakened. A plant you have awakened using this feature takes a vaguely humanoid form.
Plant Slots. You have 1 plant slot, and this number increases as you gain levels in awakener, as shown in the Awakener table. You can’t awaken more plants than you have plant slots, and larger plants consume more slots. The Awoken Plants table below shows how many plant slots each size of plant consumes, and how many levels of spell slots you must expend to awaken each size of plant. Stat blocks for these are linked in the table.
Initiative. Your plants take their turns after yours as a group. You can use an action on your turn to give your plants orders. Each plant receives the same command unless you also use your bonus action to give one of those plants a separate command. A plant will carry out the command until the task is complete, then return to you to await further instructions. If no instructions are given, the plant will follow you and defend itself, but otherwise do nothing. You have a weak psychic connection with your plants, allowing them to understand the intent of your commands as well as allowing them to know exactly where their commands are sending them to, even if the location of their target is outside of their blindsight radius. A plant that is further than 300 feet away from you has this connection broken until you are within 150 feet of the plant, and a plant whose connection with you is broken will stop moving and take no actions.
Life and Death. Any awakened plant that dies crumbles into ashes and is destroyed. If you die, all plants you have awakened also die. Your plants are living creatures, and thus need to eat, drink, and even breathe and sleep. Plants eat by photosynthesizing and drink by extending their roots into soil or water. Instead of sleeping during a long rest, they enter a trance for 4 hours, during which they are still aware of their surroundings but cannot move. A plant that moves of its own volition must restart its long rest. Plants respire, which is a form of breathing, so harmful gases can still affect them like any other creature. A plant can perform all of these things simultaneously. If one of your features permanently changes the size of one of your plants, you treat it as though it’s a completely new plant, potentially changing its features.
Food. For an awakened to survive without sunlight, it needs to be exposed to plenty of bright light. Add the radii and cone lengths of each source of bright light, then consult the Required Light column of the Awoken Plants table below. If the plant receives the required amount of light for a total of 8 hours each day, it is considered fed for the day. For example, one torch (20-foot radius) or four candles (four 5-foot radii) can feed a Small plant, while three torches (three 20-foot radii) or one bullseye lantern (60-foot cone) is required to feed a Gargantuan plant. For the most part, this section can be ignored.
Bonuses. Your plants start out weak, as do you. As you get more powerful, so do your plants, not only by gaining additional powers and features from your levels but also through a base increase to their basic statistics. You add your proficiency bonus to their attack rolls, as well as half that to their AC, rounded down. You also add double your proficiency bonus to their hit points before all other modifiers. For simplicity, this is not already included in the stat blocks for these creatures.
| Awoken Plants | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Awakened Size | Combined Spell Slot Levels | Plant Slots Required | Required Light |
| Tiny | 1 | 1 | 10 feet |
| Small | 2 | 2 | 20 feet |
| Medium | 4 | 4 | 30 feet |
| Large | 8 | 7 | 40 feet |
| Huge | 16 | 11 | 50 feet |
| Gargantuan | 32 | 16 | 60 feet |
Spellcasting
Combining the divine essence of nature itself and the arcane methods of the wizards, you can cast spells that deal with elements from the best of both worlds. See chapter 10 of the Player’s Handbook for the general rules of spellcasting and the end of this class description for the awakener spell list.
Cantrips. At 2nd level, you know two cantrips of your choice from the awakener spell list. You learn additional awakener cantrips of your choice at higher levels, as shown in the Cantrips Known column of the awakener table.
Spellbook. At 2nd level you have a spellbook containing four 1st-level spells from the awakener spells of your choice.
Preparing and Casting Spells. The Awakener table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your awakener spells of 1st level and higher. To cast one of these spells, you must expend a slot of the spell’s level or higher. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a long rest. You prepare the list of awakener spells that are available for you to cast, choosing from the awakener spell list. When you do so, choose a number of awakener spells equal to your Wisdom modifier + half your awakener level, rounded down (minimum of 1). The spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots. For example, if you are a 5th-level awakener, you have four 1st-level and two 2nd-level spell slots. With a Wisdom of 16, your list of prepared spells can include five spells of 1st or 2nd level, in any combination. If you prepare the 1st-level spell cure wounds, you can cast it using a 1st-level or 2nd-level slot. Casting the spell doesn’t remove it from your list of prepared spells. You can also change your list of prepared spells when you finish a long rest. Preparing a new list of awakener spells requires time spent studying your spellbook and memorizing the incantations and gestures: at least 1 minute per spell level for each spell on your list.
Spellcasting Ability. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for your awakener spells, since your magic draws upon your devotion and attunement to nature. You use your Wisdom whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Wisdom modifier when setting the saving throw DC for an awakener spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.
Spell save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier
Spell attack modifier = your proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier
Ritual Casting. You can cast an awakener spell as a ritual if that spell has the ritual tag and you have the spell prepared.
Spellcasting Focus. You can use a druidic focus (found in chapter 5) as a spellcasting focus for your awakener spells.
Learning Spells of 1st Level and Higher. Each time you gain an awakener level, you can add one awakener spell to your spellbook. The spell must be of a level for which you have spell slots, as shown on the Awakener table. On your adventures, you might find other spells that you can add to your spellbook (see the “Your Spellbook sidebar in the Wizard class in the Player’s Handbook).
Botany Specialty
When you reach 2nd level, you pick the specific way in which you awaken your plant minions: through Necro Botany, Viva Botany, Elder Botany, or Fungal Botany, all detailed at the end of the class description. Your specialty grants you features at 2nd level and again at 7th, 14th, and 18th level.
Morphic Power
Starting when you reach 3rd level, the plants you awaken change as they are put under your spell. When you use your Animative Botany feature, choose one of the following enhancements for that plant:
Hardy. The plant becomes thick and tough, increasing its maximum hit points by half and adding its Constitution modifier (minimum of 0) to its AC but reducing its speed by 5 feet for each size it is above Tiny.
Nimble. The plant grows long and spindly, increasing its reach with melee attacks and its speed by 5 feet.
Spiked. The plant becomes covered in sharp thorns. Each of its melee attacks deal an additional die of damage as piercing damage.
Toxic. The plant’s melee attacks don’t add any modifiers to the damage roll but a creature hit by the plant’s melee attacks must make a Constitution saving throw against your spell save DC. On a failed save, it becomes poisoned for 1 minute. An affected creature can remake the save at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.
If you awaken multiple plants at once, each plant can gain a different enhancement.
Ability Score Improvement
When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 with this feature.
Sensory Awareness
At 5th level, the connection you have with your awakened allows them greater perception over the surrounding areas. Creatures that are not hidden from you do not have advantage on attack rolls against your plants as a result of not being outside their blindsight radius, nor does a creature being outside your plants' blindsight radius give the plant disadvantage on its attack rolls.
Enhanced Plants
Starting at 6th level, the plants you awaken are a little bit different from those of other awakeners. Choose Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma. All plants you awaken have the chosen score increased by 2. Any change to a plant’s Strength or Dexterity score will affect its attack and damage rolls accordingly, and any change to its Dexterity or Constitution score will affect its AC or hit points, respectively. Increasing your plants' Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma may help them make better decisions.
Plant Fighting Style
Beginning at 10th level, the plants you awaken adopt a particular style of fighting. All plants you awaken gain the style you choose.
Defense. Your plants gain a +1 bonus to AC and saving throws.
Grappler. When your plants make a melee attack against a creature during each of their turns, they can use a bonus action to attempt to grapple it. A creature successfully grappled in this way has ¾ cover and is restrained until it breaks free from the grapple, and the plant cannot make attacks against or grapple any other creature if the grappled creature isn’t at least one size smaller than the plant. If the plant wishes to attempt to grapple a second creature in this way, the second creature must be of a size smaller than the plant. Otherwise, the plant may still grapple creatures as normal using its action.
Pack Tactics. Your plants have advantage on melee attack rolls against a creature if at least one of your plant's allies is within 5 feet of the creature and isn’t incapacitated.
Protection. When a creature one of your plants can see attacks a target other than one of them that is within 5 feet of that plant, that plant can use its reaction to impose disadvantage on the attack roll. If the attack misses its target and the roll is equal to or higher than the plant’s AC, the attacker rolls for damage against the plant. The plant has resistance to this damage.
Resistant Plants
Starting at 11th level, your plants have some natural resistances imbued into them. For each plant you awaken, choose one of the following damage types: acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison, or thunder. If you choose fire, your plant is no longer vulnerable to fire damage. For any other type of damage, the plant gains resistance to damage of the chosen type.
Regenerative Plants
Starting at 15th level, the magic that holds your plants in their mobile form causes them to move and grow so quickly, they repair damage done to themselves. Your plants are always under the effects of the regenerate spell, except they regain 5 hit points at the start of each of their turns instead.
Death by Plant
By 20th level, your control over your plants is so fine that even your thoughts can influence their actions. As an action, you can allow each of your plants to take either an additional action or an additional bonus action during their next turn (their choice). You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a short rest or long rest.
Botanist Specialties
Though it is universally agreed upon by awakeners that plants are good and that they deserve to roam free, not all of them bring this about in the same way, and opinions on methodology can vary widely. From forming them into humanoid shapes with just their tough fibers to using skeletons as anchors for the transformation, from choosing only wilted and dying plants to choosing young and spritely plants, from keeping them exactly the way they are to creating strange and even terrifying abominations, everyone has their own idea on what an awakened plant should look like. The visual characteristics of your awakened plants should reflect your choice, possibly even before you actually make it. It’s only after an awakener has started accumulating power that their magic takes on a specific tendency towards life or necromancy or stranger powers, even without a specific deity or powerful being guiding their progress.
Necro Botany
Rotting and falling apart, plants awakened by a death botanist usually aren’t pretty to look at. Wilting, brown, smelly, and in overall horrendous condition, these awakened have been animated by the dark power of an awakener who specializes in necro botany, the most likely form of awakening to be confused with outright necromancy. While there is much truth to this, the rotten appearance may just be because the awakener prefers to only awaken plants that are on death’s door and are about to die anyways from old age, disease, poor environmental conditions, or humanoid carelessness. Some may even look evil not because the plants themselves are rotting, but because the awakener used the bones or bodies of humanoids as pre-made trellises for their awakened to use for bodies, making zombies and skeletons that are controlled by plants rather than straight necromantic energy. Evil or not, awakeners who practice necro botany are more likely to be less caring for their plants, using them as expendable minions rather than treating them like beloved friends.
- Necroplants
When you choose this specialty at 2nd level, the plants you awaken darken and rot, resembling zombies. Plants you awaken gain a zombie’s Undead Fortitude feature and both its condition and damage immunities, and they are considered to be undead in addition to being plants. In addition, they do not need air, food, water, or sleep, and they finish a long rest after just 2 hours and a short rest after only half an hour.
- Infuse the Dead
Also at 2nd level, instead of targeting living plants to turn into your awakened, you can choose plants that have already perished. You must expend twice the number of total spell levels to reanimate such a plant, and you cannot use your Animative Botany feature in this way without expending at least one spell slot. In addition, you know the cantrip shillelagh. It is an awakener spell for you and is included in the number in the Cantrips Known column of the Awakener table.
- Dark Tendrils
Starting when you reach 7th level, your plants protrude long, thin roots from all over. At the start of each of your plants’ turns, if a creature is grappled or restrained by that plant, the plant deals necrotic damage to that creature equal to its Constitution modifier + your proficiency bonus and gains temporary hit points equal to the damage dealt.
- Infectious Darkness
At 14th level, your awakened plants gain the ability to awaken other plants. Each of your awakened plants can awaken plants that are up to 2 sizes smaller than they are, and have a number of plant slots equal to half the number of plant slots they consume. Use the Awakener Table for your awakened plants. Your plants don’t need to expend spell slots to awaken plants, and otherwise awaken plants the same way you do with your Animative Botany feature. Plants awakened by your plants can also awaken smaller plants using these same rules. Plants awakened by other plants take their turns after the plants that awakened them.
- Undying Vegetation
Starting at 18th level, awakened plants no longer crumble into ashes when they die: instead, they come back to life at the end of their next turn two sizes smaller. Small and Tiny plants still crumble into ashes when they die. The smaller plant continues following any previous orders.
Viva Botany
Voted least likely to get you an intervention by some clerics, awakeners who practice viva botany do so with full hearts. To be able to use the power of goodness and light to make an already good thing better was their dream, but they never thought they could do it with actual magic. Whether this power comes from pure good-will for all of plant-kind or from a joint belief in both one or more gods and plants, the awakened plants of viva botanists are the least likely to cause a stir due to their relatively normal appearance. A viva botanist’s plants might look as humanoid as possible, have shades of beige and white instead of or in conjunction with green and brown, be slender and graceful, or be any combination or variation of those things.
- Virulent Plants
When you choose this specialty at 2nd level, your plants are infused with powerful holy magics. They gain resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical weapons as well as to necrotic and radiant damage.
- Protective Energies
Also at 2nd level, you can protect creatures from harmful energy. You know the cantrip resistance. It is an awakener spell for you and is included in the number in the Cantrips Known column of the Awakener table. In addition, you can expend a spell slot of 1st level or higher whenever you cast this cantrip to either target an additional creature within range or to target one of your plants, regardless of range. When you expend a spell slot of 2nd level or higher in this way, you can target an additional creature within range or another one of your plants for each level the spell slot is above 1st.
- Healing Enervation
Starting at 7th level, when you roll for initiative, creatures you designate regain 1 hit points at the end of each of their turns if they are within 5 feet of at least one of your plants. This increases by 1 for each other plant within 5 feet of that creature, and by another 1 for each size above Tiny the plant is for each plant. Your plants cannot regain hit points in this way, and this effect lasts for 1 minute. You can use this feature a number of times equal to half your Awakener level, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
- Beacon of Growth
At 14th level, you positively glow with the holy light of your power. You can use a bonus action on your turn to increase the size of one of your plants that is within 15 feet of you to its next size. You must expend spell slots equal to the cost of the size the plant is being increased to minus the current size of the plant, halved, and you cannot increase a plant’s size if doing so would increase your number of plants to above your maximum. For example, you can increase a Medium plant to a Large plant by expending 2 total spell slot levels (8 for Large minus 4 for Medium, halved). Once you've expended a total number of spell slot levels equal to your {5e|proficiency bonus}} in this way, you cannot do so again until you finish a long rest.
- Ascendant Vegetation
Starting at 18th level, your plants don’t crumble into ashes when they die: rather, they glow bright white before disappearing in a flash. Each creature you choose within 5 feet of one of your plants that dies regains 1d8 hit points for each hit die the plant has. This radius increases by 5 feet for each the plant is above Tiny. In addition, your plants have advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Elder Botany
They say that only those who don’t believe in the true spirit of nature are elder botanists. The elder botanists believe otherwise: to continually change, grow, and adapt is nature’s way, and the only way to survive is to adapt and evolve faster than your competition. Always looking for the “perfect plant”, awakeners who practice elder botany are often seen as lesser than those who practice viva or necro botany by those very same people. In all honesty and truth, the only people who actually care are those same people and some druids and clerics who are invested in the nature and plant domains, so the elder botanists don’t pay them much heed, knowing that they don’t need lofty morals to make their form of botany special. It’s enough for them to know that they have it right in their own ways, even if no two elder botanists can agree on which exact way is the right way.
- Abhorrent Plants
When you choose this specialty at 2nd level, your plants gain otherworldly features when you awaken them. When you awaken one or more plants, choose one of the following modifications for each plant. Each plant can have a different modification.
Tentacled. Your plant grows long, tentacle-like vines. Your plant has advantage on grapple checks, and can grapple creatures from twice as far as its normal reach. In addition, the plant can grapple up to three creatures instead of two.
Mouthed.Your plants form a “head” with a “mouth”. They gain the Bite attack action, which they can use as a bonus action. The Bite has a reach of 5 feet, one target, and deals 1d8 bludgeoning damage plus another 1d8 for every 2 sizes the plant is above Small. It uses the plant’s Strength modifier for its attack and damage rolls, and its reach cannot be increased by any means. The attack has advantage if it is against a creature the plant is grappling.
Limbed.Your plants create true legs and arms, giving them an increased speed of 10 feet and both a climbing speed and a swimming speed of their equal to their movement speed.
Eyed.Your plants grow numerous, randomly placed eyes all over their bodies. They lose blindsight and instead have truesight out to half their old blindsight radius, and can see in both regular and magical darkness out to a range of their old blindsight radius. They are no longer blind beyond that radius.
- Terrible Vines
Also at 2nd level, you can create deadly plant life where none thought possible. You know the cantrip thorn whip. It is an awakener spell for you and is included in the number in the Cantrips Known column of the Awakener table. In addition, you can expend a spell slot of 1st level or higher whenever you cast this cantrip to create an additional vine, targeting a different creature in range with it. When you expend a spell slot of 2nd level or higher in this way, you create an additional vine for each level the spell slot is above 1st, choosing different creatures for each vine.
- Shapeshifting Body
Starting at 7th level, your plants constantly shift and change shape, moving from one strange form to the next. Each time you complete a long rest, you may change what options your plants have for your Abhorrent Plants, Morphic Power, Resistant Plants, and Growth Spasms features. You choose which features change and to what except for Growth Spasms: instead, reroll the feature.
- Growth Spasms
Beginning at 14th level, each time you complete a long rest, your plants randomly grow new parts. For each plant you have, roll a d100 then consult the Growth Spasm table. That plant gains the rolled feature. A plant that has gained something from this table three times no longer rolls on the table. You also roll on this table for each plant you awaken with your Animative Botany feature.
| Growth Spasms | |
|---|---|
| d100 Roll | Effect |
| 1-8 | Your plant grows thorny spikes across the central portions of its body. Any creature that touches it or hits it with a natural weapon or unarmed strike takes 2d6 piercing damage. |
| 9-14 | Your plant grows long claws. It gains the Claw action, which is identical to the plant’s Whip or Slam action except it deals an additional die of damage and deals slashing damage instead. |
| 15-25 | Your plant is riddled with holes. Ranged attacks have disadvantage against the plant. |
| 26-30 | Your plant grows a long tail. It gains the Tail action and 1 legendary action, which it can use to take the Tail action. The Tail deals the same damage as the plant’s Whip or Slam action, except the creature must also make a Strength saving throw against your spell save DC. On a failed save, the creature is knocked prone. The Tail’s reach is twice that of the plant’s Whip or Slam action. The tail can be used to grapple creatures as if it were an arm, but if it grapples a creature it can only make attacks against that creature. |
| 31-38 | The plant grows fat and bulky. Its speed is reduced by half (after all other speed modifiers) and it takes half damage from all sources. |
| 39-42 | The plant is covered in toxic berries that release a deceptive, sweet smell that entices creatures to eat them. Each creature that starts its turn within 5 feet of that plant must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC or be charmed by the plant for 1 round and compelled to move within reach of that plant and use its action to eat a berry. Each berry consumed causes 1 level of exhaustion. |
| 43-58 | Your plant changes colors like a chameleon. It has advantage on Stealth and Intimidation checks and adds your proficiency bonus to them. |
| 59-65 | Your plant forms a crude cannon on one of its arms. It gains the Scatterthorn action, which has a recharge of 5-6. Each creature in a 10-foot cone must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or take 2d4 piercing damage. Creatures that succeed on their save take half as much damage. The damage of the effect increases by 1d4 and the size of the cone increases by 10 feet for each size the plant is above Tiny. The plant cannot use this action if the arm that has the cannon is being used to grapple a creature. |
| 66-69 | Your plant grows several more limbs. It can make one additional melee attack on each of its turns when it uses its action to attack. |
| 70-87 | Your plant grows 50% taller without increasing its size. Its speed is increased by 10 feet. |
| 88-94 | Your plant grows gigantic, leafy wings. Your plant gains a fly speed equal to half its speed, but it must move at least 15 feet in a straight line before taking off, and if it doesn’t move at its full fly speed during subsequent turns it falls a number of feet equal to its remaining movement. |
| 95-100 | Your plant grows vocal chords and can speak any language you know. |
- Destructive Vegetation
At 18th level, your plants no longer just crumble into ashes when they die: instead, roll on the Plant Death table for a possible death effect. For each size above Tiny that the plant was, increase the result of the roll by 1 and the damage of the fireball spell by 1d6. For every two sizes above Small that the plant was, increase the radii of the fireball and stinking cloud spells by 5 feet. If a creature can make a saving throw to resist any of these effects, the effect uses your spell save DC.
| Destructive Vegetation | |
|---|---|
| d100 Roll | Effect |
| 1-6 | Crumbles to ashes. |
| 7-11 | Simply dies: can be awoken again if targeted within 1 minute after death. |
| 12-17 | Releases a stinking cloud spell centered on itself as it crumbles to ashes. The spell does not require concentration. |
| 18-22 | Explodes with a fireball spell, then crumbles to ashes. |
| 23 or higher | Simply dies, then reanimates at the start of its next turn at half its hit point maximum. |
Fungal Botany
Perhaps the rarest of all awakeners, fungal botanists tend to awakened mushrooms, molds, and even massive collections of the infectious diseases caused by fungi, if they can find a large enough culture to awaken. Most fungal botanists are loners and/or denizens of the Underdark, where you can find the rare and massive tree-like mushrooms that grow in huge, glowing forests. It’s hard to find such prime examples of a fungus on the surface, but a fungal botanist’s magic allows even the tiniest spores to quickly grow into massive colonies, taking over host plants to allow for the botanist’s control. With their versatile control over fungi, fungal botanists have a wide array of skills and uses for their abilities: to heal or to harm, to help or to hinder. Though rare, fungal botanists can be either the best of allies or the worst of enemies. Try not to cross them, though, because even the friendly ones might decide to put a little something in your afternoon tea.
- Fungal Growth
When you choose this specialty at 2nd level, your ability to awaken plants has been refined into the activation and growth of hundreds of thousands of fungal spores spreading across your target. Whenever you awaken a plant with your Animative Botany feature, it rapidly becomes covered in a type of fungus of your choosing: mushrooms, mold, slime mold, or any other kind of fungus. The type of fungus used does not change the awakened’s stats. Alternatively, you can target a large enough mushroom or collection of mushrooms or other fungi for your awakened. For the purpose of simplicity, these will still be referred to as “plants” by the features and traits of this class. Your plants are suffused with tendrils of fungi, which help hold them together. All damage dealt to your plants is reduced by an amount equal to half your combined proficiency bonus and the plant’s Constitution modifier, rounded down. Additionally, your plants do not need to photosynthesize: instead, they consume organic materials and absorb the moisture from them. Instead of using the Light Required column of the Awakened table, a Medium plant requires the exact same amount of food as a human. For each size the plant is below Medium, halve the amount of food it needs. For each size above Medium, double that amount.
- Fungal Breath
Also at 2nd level, you can blast creatures with puffs of deadly spores. You know the cantrip poison spray. It is an awakener spell for you and is included in the number in the Cantrips Known column of the Awakener table. In addition, you can expend a spell slot of 1st level or higher whenever you cast the cantrip to have an additional puff of noxious gas project from the plant at a creature within the spell's range of the plant. When you expend a spell slot of 2nd level or higher in this way, an additional puff is projected from a different plant for each level the spell slot is above 1st.
- Spores
At 7th level, you have learned how to control the infectious spores of your plants. Choose two of the following spore options. Each plant you awaken with your Animative Botany feature gains one of them, and can use it as an action. Once used, a spore option cannot be used by the same plant again until that plant finishes a short rest or long rest. If a spore option forces a creature to make a saving throw, the DC for that save is your spell save DC.
If you awaken multiple plants at once, each one can have a different spore option. You gain a third spore option at 14th level.
Armoring Spores. Each creature of the plant’s choice within 10 feet of it gains a +2 bonus to its AC until the end of the plant’s next turn, as the spores condense into rubbery shells around the creatures.
Enhancing Spores. Each creature of the plant’s choice within 10 feet of it gains advantage on the plant’s choice of Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma saving throws until the end of the plant’s next turn, as spores strengthen both the mind and body of the creatures.
Healing Spores. Each creature of the plant’s choice within 10 feet of it regains hit points equal to the damage of the plant’s Whip or Slam action and is cured of the blinded, deafened, paralyzed, and poisoned conditions, as spores soothe and repair damaged tissue and absorb all foreign agents in the bodies of the creatures. The creatures are also cured of nonmagical diseases afflicting them.
Illuminating Spores. Each creature of the plant’s choice within 10 feet of it must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or begin emitting bright light out to a radius of 5 feet and dim light for another 5 feet for 1 minute, as glowing spores attach themselves to the bodies of the creatures. Creatures illuminated in this way cannot benefit from being invisible, nor can they take the Hide action.
Murderous Spores. Each creature of the plant’s choice within 10 feet of it must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or take necrotic damage equal to the damage of the plant’s Whip or Slam action and have its maximum hit points reduced by the same amount, as spores rend and tear at the creatures, consuming their flesh and weakening them. This reduction lasts until the creature finishes a long rest.
Paralytic Spores. Each creature of the plant’s choice within 10 feet of it must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or be poisoned for 1 minute. A creature poisoned in this way is paralyzed, as spores lock the limbs of the creatures in place. A creature can remake the save at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.
Toxic Spores. Each creature of the plant’s choice within 10 feet of it must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or take poison damage equal to twice the damage of the plant’s Whip or Slam action, as spores interrupt their basic vital processes.
- Melding Fungi
At 14th level, you plants are able to combine with one another into larger forms. Each plant gains the Meld action, which the plant uses to choose another of your awakened plants that is within 5 feet of it. A plant that takes this action has a speed of 0 and cannot take bonus actions. If a plant is targeted by another plant’s Meld, it does not have to reciprocate and can instead target a different plant with its own Meld, creating a chain. Once all of your plants have taken a turn, each plant in a Meld chain that is still within 5 feet of the plant it chose is combined with that plant. For each chain, add up the total number of spell slot levels it would take to awaken those plants using your Animative Botany feature. If the total equals or exceeds the number required for a larger size of plant, the plants combine into a plant of that size. Plants are allowed to skip sizes. For example, four Small awakened can become a Large awakened using this feature.
- Spread the Growth
Starting at 18th level, your plants no longer turn into ashes when they die: instead, they rapidly decay into a pile of rotting plant matter upon which new funguses begin to grow. If the plant is Large or larger when it dies, you can use your reaction to have it release a 30-foot radius cloud of spores into the air around it, infecting other plants and awakening them. Choose any number of plants within the area, up to a number that would fill half the dead plant’s plant slot count. Those plants are awakened as with your Animative Botany feature but do not consume plant slots. After each plant has taken three actions, it dies.
Awakener Spell List
Awakeners typically gain spells that match their personality and ideals, but enjoy having a variety to choose from when preparing their spells.
- Cantrips
acid splash, druidcraft, light, mage hand, mending, minor illusion, prestidigitation, ray of frost, shocking grasp
- 1st
alarm, charm person, color spray, cure wounds, detect magic, detect poison and disease, entangle, expeditious retreat, false life, find familiar, fog cloud, goodberry, grease, identify, jump, longstrider, mage armor, magic missile, purify food and drink, ray of sickness, shield, sleep, thunderwave
- 2nd
alter self, barkskin, blindness/deafness, blur, crown of madness, darkvision, enhance ability, enlarge/reduce, gentle repose, gust of wind, hold person, invisibility, knock, lesser restoration, locate animals or plants, locate object, mirror image, misty step, moonbeam, phantasmal force, protection from poison, ray of enfeeblement, spider climb, spike growth, web
- 3rd
call lightning, counterspell, daylight, dispel magic, fear, feign death, gaseous form, haste, hypnotic pattern, tiny hut, magic circle, major image, plant growth, protection from energy, sending, slow, speak with plants, sleet storm, stinking cloud, water breathing, vampiric touch
- 4th
banishment, confusion, conjure minor elementals, control water, dimension door, black tentacles, fabricate, freedom of movement, greater invisibility, grasping vine, hallucinatory terrain, ice storm, secret chest, locate creature, private sanctum, resilient sphere, polymorph, stone shape, stoneskin
- 5th
awaken, cloudkill, commune with nature, conjure elemental, creation, dominate person, dream, greater restoration, geas, hold monster, mass cure wounds, mislead, modify memory, planar binding, scrying, telekinesis, teleportation circle, tree stride, wall of stone
More on The Awakened
The awakened of an Awakener are similar to both golems and plants that were awoken by the awaken spell. However, they have unique traits that neither possess as a result of the exact nature of their creation. Unlike golems, they are capable of complex decision making and can adapt the orders of their master to suit the situation. However, this does not make them sentient, nor do they have free will. An awakened is still bound by the magic of its awakener and cannot disobey their commands. Whereas awoken plants are merely charmed by the creature that awakened them, the awakened are permanently under the control of their awakener, and do not have the ability to feel joy, fear, or anger, unlike awoken plants that have a true personality.
Adaptive Thought. The awakened are capable of looking at a situation and determining the best course of action for themselves, using their orders as an end goal with twists and curves on the path to get there rather than a straight line that must be traversed at any cost. Like the difference between zombies and skeletons, an awakened can understand that falling into a pit of spikes is an undesirable outcome and, like a skeleton, can avoid falling into the pit. If ordered to get to the other side, an awakened will attempt to find a way across that will not harm it, but if no such path exists then it will still willingly jump into the pit.
Limited Memory. The awakened can retain the memories of orders that were given to it long ago, and can even remember multiple sets of orders at once. This allows for complex interactions with the world around based on different commands that it's been given. For example, an awakened that was ordered to carry a specific person when that person tells it to, but then is ordered to attack a different creature, can remember to carry that person even as it is attacking a different creature. However, it will immediately stop attacking the creature and start carrying the person if the person tells the awakened to carry it, after which the awakened will return to attacking the creature until the creature is either defeated or it receives a new order. Since it can adapt previous commands to changing circumstances, it can also understand that the person carrying it might want it to move somewhere, as that is the entire purpose of carrying something: to move it. So if the creature it is carrying tells it to move somewhere, it will break off from attacking again and move to the desired location, wait for the creature to dismount, then return to attacking the creature until the task is complete. An awakened never forgets a task it has been given, and will work until either the task is complete, the task can no longer be completed, it dies, or until it is ordered to stop.
In addition to the core spells the awakener has access to, any expansion or homebrew spells that meet these prerequisites are available to the awakener if your DM is allowing that kind of thing: 1) The spell must available to either wizards or druids, 2) The spell must either mess with the mind/body (i.e. charm, paralysis, poison, etc.) or have something to do with plants (like summoning vines, or can be flavored to summon vines or other plant-like things such as black tentacles), and 3) under no circumstances can the spell ever deal any amount of fire damage (because, you know, plants).
Multiclassing
Prerequisites. To qualify for multiclassing into the awakener class, you must meet these prerequisites: 13 Wisdom.
Proficiencies. When you multiclass into the awakener class, you gain the following proficiencies: shields, clubs, daggers, slings.
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