E.14 Sapling

Saplings are young treants that have left their forest home in search of adventure. They tend to be slow to think and act, but resilient once they have made up their mind.

Creature Type: Unlike most other playable species, saplings are considered animates instead of humanoids.

Size: Medium.

Attributes: +1 Constitution, +1 Willpower, -1 Dexterity, -1 Intelligence

Special Abilities:

• Barkskin: A sapling gains a +2 bonus to Armor defense.
• Ingrain: A sapling can bury its roots into the ground.

  Ingrain

  Usage time: Minor action.

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  This ability can only be used if the sapling is grounded. The sapling’s land speed becomes 5 feet, regardless of any modifiers that normally apply. It cannot voluntarily stop being grounded while this ability lasts. It gains a +4 bonus to Fortitude defense and a +2 bonus to Armor defense.

  If the sapling finishes a long rest with this ability active for the duration of the rest, it acquires nutrients sufficient to replace a day’s worth of food and water. This ability lasts until the sapling ends it as a standard action, or until it stops being grounded.

• Limited Equipment: Saplings can wear armor, but it is treated as barding instead of normal armor, reducing its effectiveness (see Barding).
• Made of Wood: Saplings are vulnerable (-4 defenses) to Fire attacks. In addition, they are both creatures and plants.
• Treant Archetype: Saplings only gain two class archetypes instead of three. Instead, they treat the Treant archetype as one of their archetypes, and they gain ranks in it just like they gain ranks in class archetypes.
• Tree Appearance: When a sapling stays perfectly still, observers must make a DV 15 Awareness check to recognize that it is not an ordinary tree. Careful observers may still notice that the ordinary tree has appeared where no tree used to be, so they may be suspicious of a sapling even if they do not pass this check.
• Unhurried and Unfaltering: Saplings have a -10 penalty to speed with all movement modes. However, saplings ignore all flat penalties to their land speed, such as from wearing heavy armor. Those penalties still apply to any other movement modes normally, and a sapling’s land speed is still reduced while it is slowed (half speed, -2 Armor and Ref) or under similar effects. This also does not change effects that completely replace the sapling’s land speed, such as the ingrain ability. In addition, saplings ignore difficult terrain from inanimate natural sources, such as heavy undergrowth.

Automatic Languages: Common, Sylvan.

E.14.1 Treant Archetype

Rank 1 – Nourishing Ingrain

At the end of each round while you are ingrained, you regain hit points equal to twice your rank in this archetype, and you may choose to remove a condition. If you do, you increase your fatigue level by one.

Rank 2 – Sturdy as the Mighty Oak

You gain a bonus equal to three times your rank in this archetype to your hit points (see Hit Points). In addition, you gain a +1 bonus to your vital rolls (see Vital Wounds).

Rank 3 – Animate Plants ✨

Rank 4 – Tall as the Noble Pine

Your size category increases to Large. Unlike normal for increasing your size, this does not increase your base speed. You also gain a +1 bonus to your Strength, and a -1 penalty to your Dexterity.

Rank 5 – Nourishing Ingrain+

The healing from your nourishing ingrain ability increases to three times your rank in this archetype. In addition, removing a condition with that ability no longer increases your fatigue level.

Rank 6 – Sturdy as the Mighty Oak+

The hit point bonus increases to four times your rank in this archetype.

Rank 7 – Tall as the Noble Pine+

Your size category increases to Huge. This increases your base speed to 40 feet. Your normal movement speed is still only 30 feet due to the penalty from unhurried and unfaltering. The modifiers to Strength and Dexterity increase to +2 and -2, respectively.

E.14.2 Base Class Effects

If you choose treant as your base class, you gain the following benefits.

Attributes

You gain a +1 bonus to your Constitution. In addition, you gain a +1 bonus to either your Strength or your Willpower.

Hit Points

You have 10 hit points + twice your Constitution, plus 2 hit points per level beyond 1. This increases as your level increases, as indicated below.

• Level 7: 24 hit points + four times your Constitution, plus 4 hit points per level beyond 7.
• Level 13: 50 hit points + eight times your Constitution, plus 8 hit points per level beyond 13.
• Level 19: 100 hit points + fifteen times your Constitution, plus 15 hit points per level beyond 19.

Defenses

You gain a +2 bonus to your Fortitude defense.

Resources

You learn four trained skills from among your class skills (see Skills).

Weapon Proficiencies

You are proficient with simple weapons and club-like weapons.

Armor Proficiencies

You are proficient with light, medium, and heavy armor.

Skills

You have the following class skills:

• Dexterity: Swim.

• Dexterity: Balance.

• Constitution: Endurance.

• Intelligence: Craft (wood), Knowledge (nature).

• Perception: Awareness, Creature Handling, Survival.

• Other: Intimidate.