Plant Companions

[flash_cxxi]

In Dragon 357 in the Divine Class Acts article it give the rules for Plant Companions for Druids/Rangers.
I love Rangers, but to me a Ranger will/should always have an "Animal" Comapnion.
I have never liked Druids that much (I have played 1 back in 2E) but I must say that this article really got me itching to play a Druid with a Plant Companion as this really looks to me to be what a Druid is about.

What does everyone think about these rules?
What types of Plants does everyone think should be used as Plant Companions (Trees/Shrubs/Flowering Plants/Vines/etc...)?
What does everyone think about using more exotic plants or magical plants as companions with some kind of restriction placed on them (eg. can't take this plant as a companion until 5th level, only starts with 1 HD instead of it's statted HD, etc...)?

Cheers for the input =)

[mevers]

flash_cxxi wrote:

In Dragon 357 in the Divine Class Acts article it give the rules for Plant Companions for Druids/Rangers.

I love Rangers, but to me a Ranger will/should always have an "Animal" Comapnion.
I have never liked Druids that much (I have played 1 back in 2E) but I must say that this article really got me itching to play a Druid with a Plant Companion as this really looks to me to be what a Druid is about.

What does everyone think about these rules?

I really like the Plant Companion. The thing I like the best is that they give you options to "build" exactly the sort of plant companion you want to have. This prevents trawling through stacks of splat books looking for the "best" or most powerful option. Instead you just build the plant companion you want, and the way they structured the "upgrades" if you want the better ones, you have to wait for them.

Now, if only they would release similar rules for animal companions, that would go some way to starting to fix some of the problems with the druid.

flash_cxxi wrote:

What types of Plants does everyone think should be used as Plant Companions (Trees/Shrubs/Flowering Plants/Vines/etc...)?

The beauty of the rules is that you can flavor your plant companion however you want, and choose options that represent that. So basically, use what ever you feel best matches your character / concept.

flash_cxxi wrote:

What does everyone think about using more exotic plants or magical plants as companions with some kind of restriction placed on them (eg. can't take this plant as a companion until 5th level, only starts with 1 HD instead of it's statted HD, etc...)?

Not sure what you are getting at here. The plant companion works in a different way to the animal companion. You don't need a variety of starting options, as you can just "build" the plant companion you want. If you were allowed to start with better plant options, then you are back to the same issues as are raised with the Druid animal companion, it is all about trawling through books looking for the "best" plant companion. Much better to keep it simple, as they presented it.

flash_cxxi wrote:

Cheers for the input =)

No problem.

[MercLordDeadboy]

Back about 2 years or so, one of the players in my campaign playes a druid. She wanted a plant companion as she was trying to play a character sorta like Poison Ivy. I had her save a vegepygmy and he became her companion. The party promptly calle him Stan Stan the vege man.