New Spell: Summon Plant
PDF Link | D&D Beyond Link: Summon Plant
Art Credit: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Okq2k
Between the baseline awaken spell and the two new force of nature and animate tree spells from The Elements & Beyond, you have plenty of higher-level spells to summon plant allies — but what about at lower levels? Today’s preview spell summon plant is only 2nd-level, and, much like the new summoning spells from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, it contains its own stat-block that scales with the spell’s level and it has three distinct options for the summoned creature. Casting summon plant allows a character as low as level 3 to call upon an ally made of weighty bark, grasping vines, or sharpened thorns to aid in battle!
Although Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything includes spells to summon aberrations, beasts, celestials, constructs, elementals, fey, fiends, undead, and even shadowspawn, it has no spells for summoning plants, leaving us a niche into which to adapt this spell. Summon plant would have been a part of The Elements & Beyond, but as one of the youngest pieces of content in D&D Unleashed, it only reached its final design after Tasha’s released, leaving not enough time to revise and playtest it before the compendium’s release. As a result, it will only be appearing in Legends of Prestige and Prowess, but thanks to this preview you can still use it immediately! Though it doesn’t appear on the spell lists for the Nature cleric, Green Thumb sorcerer, or Archfey warlock, we still recommend that lenient DMs allow such a character to learn or prepare the spell if that character’s player really wants to use it.
Compared to summon beast at the same spell level, the minion from summon plant fills a very different kind of niche. While summon beast creates a fast-moving minion that can either have flyby attacks or pack tactics, enabling mobile offensive strategies, the new spell summon plant creates a slow-moving minion with a bit more AC that deals less damage and can’t do hit-and-run tactics or easily gain advantage on attacks. To make up for those missing offensive traits, the plant spirit has a potent control angle for each attack. Bark-plants can knock foes prone on a successful attack, thorns-plants can stay at range while outputting similar damage as the beast spirit from summon beast, and vines-plants deal even less damage but automatically restrain their target on a hit.
Like the land beast, the vines-plant can climb; on the other hand, the thorns-plant wards off grappling attackers by threatening them with extra damage, and the bark-plant has an additional +1 to AC. As with the other new summoning spells, the option that allows flying movement or a ranged attack (thorns in this case) suffers reduced hit points, accounting for the strategic benefits of being able to summon the creature during combat at any location you can see within 90 feet. Imagine placing your thorny artillery at the top of a nearby tower and having it rain spiky death upon your foes! Finally, just like a treant, awakened tree, and many other kinds of plant monsters, all kinds of plant spirits have resistance to physical damage that isn’t slashing, but that benefit is balanced out by their dire vulnerability to fire damage. Try not to conjure this plant spirit against evocation wizards, fire elementals, red dragons, or most devils unless you think you can protect it from the flames! And if you’re a 5th edition DM struggling against your players’ plant spirits, there are dozens of new monsters in The Elements & Beyond that will burn them right to cinders!
PDF Link | D&D Beyond Link: Summon Plant
