It comes up fairly often in discussions and players of wood kineticists often want to run with it, so I think it is worth talking about Timber Sentinel, Protector Tree and planting trees.
Having a fair bit of landscaping experience, planting 6ft + trees and getting them to root well and thrive for more than a month can be a pretty difficult task, even with relatively fast growing trees. Many old growth forest type trees can be incredibly persnickety and difficult to cultivate. When you plant tiny saplings, it can be a bit easier, largely because you do it in bulk and many don’t make it, but the best situated ones will likely thrive.
All of this is to say, GMs really don’t need to let players bully them into letting “planting forests” being a very easy thing for any kineticist to do. I think it is very reasonable to require nature checks to figure out what a good mix of trees would be for an environment and where to plant them, and that the pace would need to go much, much slower than indiscriminately throwing trees down every 5 feet and expecting all of them to take. Also, planting trees in the wrong season can easily kill them so that is another very fair narrative restriction on using timber sentinel to narratively overcome skill challenges without any kind of check. That is not saying “shut them down!!!” But asking for a nature check related to long term tree growth is very fair.
Planting a forest isn't something that is going to be done during combat, so it really isn't a combat balance concern.
If planting a forest isn't relevant to the plot or game mechanics, then it can be something that the character does 'off screen' as a character backstory thing.
Planting a forest could be an interesting justification for an Earn Income activity during Downtime. I don't think it should remove the need for the Earn Income roll, and would probably be a Nature or Survival check.
If planting a forest is part of the plot, then it should be handled as any other character ability that has plot relevance. I agree that Timber Sentinel shouldn't always negate any type of checks needed for the plot mechanics.
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You’re making immature trees that probably won’t have much wood value for decades. I don’t see this as any sort of real balance issue. Let abilities do cool things.
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In a campaign I was running with a Plant and Earth kineticist we just sat down early on and agreed that
1) I'd let him get away with a LOT when it was "cool" and "interesting". But my doing so was NOT a precedent for what I'd always allow
2) I would NOT let him substantially change the world.
So, he once used Protector Trees to act as a windbreak to protect the Following (Quest for the Frozen Flame) from a snowstorm (cool). But he could NOT just create Apple Trees so the Following didn't have to forage any more (World changing).
Obviously subjective as all heck but it worked fine for us. He got to do cool things, I didn't have to change the world or the campaign. Far better than coming up with some kind of firm guidelines.
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Are there really that many players of wood kineticists bullying their GM into letting them plant forests?
Not that I wouldn't be amused that there were enough players bullying their GMs into letting them plant forests that it required discussion of how to handle it. It would be even funnier if it required Paizo to issue errata because of players "bullying GMS into letting them plant forests."
That's just funny.
It is extremely easy for there to be a drought, and outbreak of fungus, or a plague of insects if it becomes a real problem for the GM. I always prefer to accommodate weird player plans and adapt as a GM. It's much more fun when the game is cooperative and the players engaged in the world building.
I never said "don't ever allow players to plant forests." I just pointed out that getting a forest to grow is hard enough, even with the magical ability to make the trees appear, that GMs should feel comfortable asking for a nature check on level for the difficulty of what success in the task should be (like it is really fertile farm land in the right season, maybe that is a relatively easy Simple DC). Just being able to make a tree appear doesn't need to mean automatic forest that will last for decades or centuries.
I'm curious: has there ever been a recorded case where Protector Tree's ability to create permanent trees became a genuine problem in a campaign? I agree that it can make the fiction a little weird, since Wood Kineticists in the in-game world would be amazing reforesters and could each generate about six acres' worth of trees in a day of sustained work, but I haven't yet encountered a situation where this became a practical problem or impacted roleplay. This isn't to say that this can't be a problem, though, as there are clearly risks to this mechanic, which is why I'd be interested in knowing more about others' experiences with it.
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I'm curious: has there ever been a recorded case where Protector Tree's ability to create permanent trees became a genuine problem in a campaign?
Sort of. In Quest For the Frozen Flame in Session 0 discussions with the wood kineticist he asked how many fruit trees he could create to help the Following in its foraging.
He was happy with my answer "1 or 2 per day, tops".
So, a potentially genuine problem nipped in the bud. As I say, sort of a case.
In the seasons of ghosts AP thread it came up to the point of James Jacobs suggesting GMs not allow it to be used for a specific challenge.
It come up in setting threads fairly often.
In a campaign I was playing it came up as an issue we talked through in season 0.
"I want to use my unlimited powers to create a lasting change to my environment" is something that needs to be adjudicated based on what the player wants to accomplish rather than "do the rules allow for this" I feel.
I think the operative principle is- does this enable more stories, cut off potential stories, or does it have minimal effect.
Like a Kineticist should not singlehandedly be able to solve Rahadoum's desertification crisis, but if you wanted to make a small lake next to your cabin and plant some trees so that it looks nice? That's a fine thing to spend downtime on if it's meaningful to the player.
Like you can put a stop to "I'm going to plant a forest" by "every time the player starts doing that, you start rolling for random encounters."