D.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

  Minor action

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  This ability can only be used if the sapling is grounded. The sapling becomes braced (+2 defenses), and its speed becomes 5 feet, regardless of any modifiers that normally apply. It cannot voluntarily stop being grounded while this ability lasts.

  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 their speed. However, a sapling’s movement speed cannot be more than 10 feet slower than its base speed, even while slowed (-10 speed, -2 Armor and Ref) or under similar effects, except with the ingrain ability. In addition, saplings are unaffected by difficult terrain from inanimate natural sources, such as heavy undergrowth.

Automatic Languages: Common, Sylvan.

D.14.1 Treant Archetype

Rank 1 – Nourishing Ingrain

At the end of each round while you are ingrained, you regain hit points equal to 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 +3 bonus to your durability.

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 durability bonus increases to +5.

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.

D.14.2 Base Class Effects

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

Level	Rank	Durability	Bonus1	Special
1	1	+0	x1	—
2	1	+1	x1	—
3	1	+2	x1	+1 to two attributes
4	2	+2	x2	HP: 2x durability
5	2	+3	x2	—
6	2	+4	x2	Legacy item: rank 3
7	3	+4	x3	HP: 3x durability
8	3	+5	x3	—
9	3	+6	x3	+1 to two attributes
10	4	+6	x4	HP: 4x durability
11	4	+7	x4	—
12	4	+8	x4	Legacy item: rank 5
13	5	+8	x6	HP: 6x durability
14	5	+9	x6	—
15	5	+10	x6	+1 to two attributes
16	6	+10	x8	HP: 8x durability
17	6	+11	x8	—
18	6	+12	x8	Legacy item: ranks 7
19	7	+12	x10	HP: 10x durability
20	7	+13	x10	—
21	7	+14	x10	+1 to two attributes

1. This bonus applies to your accuracy, magical ✨ power, mundane power, trained skills, and defenses.  

Defenses

You gain a +3 bonus to your Brawn and Reflex defenses. In addition, you gain a +5 bonus to your Fortitude defense and a +4 bonus to your Mental defense.

Resources

• Attunement points: 3 (see Attunement Points).
• Fatigue tolerance: 3 + your Constitution (see Fatigue).
• Insight points: 1 + your Intelligence (see Insight Points).
• Trained skills: 3 from among your class skills, plus additional trained skills equal to your Intelligence if it is positive (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.

Starting Items and Equipment

You can start with the following items and equipment:

• Any one of the following: buff leather, leather lamellar, or breastplate
• Any two of the following: club-like weapons, club, or dagger
• A buckler or standard shield
• A standard adventuring kit (see Standard Adventuring Kit).
• A rank 0 wealth item (1 gp)

Class Skills

You have the following class skills:

• Strength: Swim.

• Dexterity: Balance.

• Constitution: Endurance.

• Intelligence: Craft, Knowledge (nature).

• Perception: Awareness, Creature Handling, Survival.

• Other: Intimidate.