Building an Elder Frost Fir Druid

[Statboy]

My PC's stumbled across a couple of Frost Firs with a baby still in the dirt. They killed them before realizing the baby was there and now want to adopt the baby frost fir. They have re-potted it and are taking it with them. I will now have the extended group of frost firs begin hunting the PC's through the forest culminating in a fight with an Elder Frost Fir. According to the wiki some Elder Frost Fir's become druids and even disguise themselves as humans.

I was hoping to make this about a CR 6 encounter. The hardest part is building the Elder Frost Fir, which while they're mentioned in the wiki, they don't actually have a statblock. I was kind of thinking about a CR 3 from racial and 4 druid levels. But I'm not sure how to build out the 3 racial levels. Would an Elder be large instead of medium? Should I point buy him or start with the stats of a regular frost fir then advance it a few point? Should they have more racial abilities than a regular frost fir? Has anybody built this creature yet?

[Statboy]

bump for ideas?

[Chuck Mount]

You might be over thinking it. An elder seems to just be a "stud". Really good a fertilizing the others. I would just throw the Advanced template on it and give it a couple of levels of Druid. If you want it bigger, make it large. If you want it to disguise itself as human, make it's druid level 4. I'm assuming, wildshape for Frost Fir druids is what gives them the ability.
CR1, +1 for Advanced, +4 druid levels and you're about where you want to be. If you want it to have higher stats, just give it higher stats. Just don't go overboard.

[cavernshark]

I'll take a stab at this.

Frost Firs are usually CR 1 with 2 hit dice. You could give it the advanced template to make it CR 2. Two levels of Druid (we'll assume it's an off-role class) bring it to CR 3 but each subsequent druid level is another CR bump since we're moving beyond the base hit dice. So four druid levels + advanced is CR 5.

Depending on your party size, consider rolling some of the CR into the druid's animal companion instead of doing a domain. That will probably make for an more interesting action economy. Maybe a snowy owl that lives in the tree?

[cavernshark]

Chuck Mount wrote:

You might be over thinking it. An elder seems to just be a "stud". Really good a fertilizing the others. I would just throw the Advanced template on it and give it a couple of levels of Druid. If you want it bigger, make it large. If you want it to disguise itself as human, make it's druid level 4. I'm assuming, wildshape for Frost Fir druids is what gives them the ability.

CR1, +1 for Advanced, +4 druid levels and you're about where you want to be. If you want it to have higher stats, just give it higher stats. Just don't go overboard.

Generally, I agree with chuck. Though note that the combination of advanced and class levels is going to be a pretty big surge of stats all around. One thing you should also pay attention too is the fact that frost firs are plants, and therefore immune to polymorph effects -- including Wildshape. You could always override that in this instance, but I'd be prepared to defend it or find a way to alter your druid levels.

[Chuck Mount]

I assumed that a class ability would override the racial resistance. You're probably right though. In the description, it says that some elders have learned to take a humanoid form. I was making the assumption that, in the case of these things, Wildshape only lets them do that and nothing else. It's not in the rules anywhere. Just my assumption. I've never even heard of these before. I;m a little behind when it comes to new stuff. :)

[Statboy]

Thanks guys, this seems pretty good. Advanced plus 4 levels of druid. Its in the wiki that these elder frost firs can disguise themselves as human so I'm guessing they could polymorph at least some. It would be a stretch to think a simple disguise kit would help a tree looking bro look like a human.