D&D 3E/3.5 3.5E - Why is Speak With Plants a 3rd level spell?

[CleverNickName]

One of my players asked me why speak With animals was a 1st level Druid spell, yet speak with plants is a 3rd level. "So I can talk to dinosaurs at first level, but houseplants are a problem?"

I replied, "well, you see, plants don't have vocal cords and lungs and stuff. It's tricky because you have to tune your mind in to the plant..."

That didn't really hold up. "Neither do sharks, but that doesn't seem to be a problem," he retorted. I started in on something about brains and mouths, but I could tell he wasn't buying it. And frankly, neither was I.

He wanted to move speak with plants up to a 1st level druid spell. I normally frown on this sort of thing, but I like to keep an open mind. We like to treat rules like guidelines instead of laws. So to keep the game moving, I told him that the spell would remain as-written, but I would look into it and get back to him by the next gaming session.

I'm leaning toward making it a first-level spell, but I don't wanna break the game.

So I guess my question is: what issues could I expect if I make speak with plants a first-level druid spell? Put your powergamer goggles on, roll up your min/max sleeves, and help me break this down into worse-case scenarios. I'm sure that the Wizards made it a 3rd level spell for a reason, but I can't figure what it might be, except for maybe flavor and mystery.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Keep in mind that in C.Champion, a Druid or Ranger can swap Wild Empathy for a spell-like ability of speak with animals OR speak with plants, a total of 3 times/day (divided between the two as you wish), CL equal to class level. So...it appears that late edition the designers agreed with your player on the relative power of speak with plants.

One benefit SWP has over SWA I can maybe think of is that if you're using it for info. gathering, SWP is much more useful. No one is suspicious of plants listening in on a private conversation (maybe in D&D they should be).

 

[CleverNickName]

Keep in mind that in C.Champion, a Druid or Ranger can swap Wild Empathy for a spell-like ability of speak with animals OR speak with plants, a total of 3 times/day (divided between the two as you wish), CL equal to class level. So...it appears that late edition the designers agreed with your player on the relative power of speak with plants.

I didn't even think of that...excellent tip. XP for you!

One benefit SWP has over SWA I can maybe think of is that if you're using it for info. gathering, SWP is much more useful. No one is suspicious of plants listening in on a private conversation (maybe in D&D they should be).

Is it really that much more useful, though? The spell description has an escape clause to prevent abuse: "A regular plant’s sense of its surroundings is limited, so it won’t be able to give (or recognize) detailed descriptions of creatures or answer questions about events outside its immediate vicinity." Depending on how heavy-handed I am with this caveat, I can make this spell downright useless. I don't think an apple tree would ever have anything too terribly useful to say.

An awakened apple tree, on the other hand...

 

[bobhayes]

Two theories:

Theory One

In the Olden Days, the spell text was minimal to non-existent, and undoubtedly a lot of solve-the-mystery or tracking-based adventures would have been derailed if the 1st level druid could interrogate the local underbrush.

The addition of the fluff text which rules on the ability of plants to give useful information (i.e., very little) makes that balance consideration unnecessary.

When they copied the spells over from 1st edition to 2nd edition to 3rd edition to 4th edition, not every spell got looked at closely for balance. This is obviously one that slipped through.

Theory Two:

Speak with Plants gives you the same ability as the Tongues spell, with regard to plant-based creatures who don't normally have a language (where Tongues will not work.)

And Tongues is a third-level spell. Ergo, SWP must also be a third-level spell.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

I think it'd be fine as a 1st level spell, especially if the DM makes ordinary plants less (or at least differently) observant than animals in certain respects.

On thing to consider is that speak with plants enables communication with plant creatures which might have an Int greater than 2-- so in some cases might be a bit more useful than talking to an animal of, well, animal intelligence (ie, what bobhayes said!). But I don't think that alone justifies its level 3-ness.

 

[CleverNickName]

Excellent feedback...thanks for the input, guys.

Here's how I think I'm going to handle it.

The local flora doesn't have sensory organs, so their knowledge of their surroundings would be limited to pretty much just touch and temperature. And ordinary plants don't have an intelligence, wisdom, or charisma score, so even though it could collect a little bit of data about its surroundings, it wouldn't be able to reason, interpret, or influence it.

So with that in mind, using speak with plants on ordinary plants would be a lot like checking a weather instrument. The plant would give data, but the druid would have to interpret it. Something like this:

Druid: (casting spell) "Rose bush, tell me what you know."

Rose bush: "Current time: mid afternoon. Sunlight, temperature, and moisture normal for the season. Recent limb loss due to light pruning. Two flowers in full bloom were recently removed."

Druid: (turning to the rest of the party) "The gardner was here today."

I think that is pretty fitting of a first-level spell.

Now, if the plants were intelligent and capable of reason, I could go a little further...

Druid: (casting spell) "Braeburn, tell me what you know."

Braeburn (Treant): "Welcome back, my lady. Three men came by while you were away; they knocked thrice on your door and called for you, but left after you didn't answer. I think they were friends of yours. They took my best apple, I'm afraid...I was saving it for you."

Druid: "Thank you, Braeburn. You will let me know if they return?"

Braeburn: "Of course, my lady."

Yeah, I like that.

 

[Alexander123]

I also think that the spell should be a first level spell. Unless it is somehow more powerful than SWA in which case second level, but I don't see how it would be.

 

[DumbPaladin]

We had a couple problems adjudicating Speak With Plants in our group because it leaves so much up to interpretation. Plants don't have Intelligence or Wisdom scores, so there's no way to know just how knowledgeable a plant will be, or what sort of worldly concepts it has. My argument was that this is magic, so the plant should be able to tell you quite a bit, although only about things in its immediate vicinity. My DM wasn't quite so sure.

Since animals always have an Int of 1 or 2, the information you can glean from them is often rather useless, or simple. I think some DMs fudge this and simply have the animal spew all manner of wise discourse, which is fine by me, but not exactly RAW. But plants ... who knows? What if they should be treated as INT 10? Int 20? Big differences, both of those, from INT 1 or 2.

Since it's a higher level spell, I argued that we should get higher than INT 1 ... and our DM agreed with that argument. That could be a reason for the disparity ...

 

[CuRoi]

I always take intelligence and wisdom into consideration for all monsters and NPCs. So Speak with Animals yields some not terribly useful results sometimes. Animals aren't concerned with human speech or details and they think in a very foreign manner. I usually center reponses around the animals habitat and general manner of living and the players have to interpret whether they learned anything useful or not. Therefore - level one : )

Speak with Plants - this one is tough. As others have mentioned, there is no intelligence or wisdom guideline for a tree. I treat it closer to a mini-Commune spell. The plant has a good feel for the earth and the like, perhaps for the passing of animals, weather conditions, changes in climate, etc.

I'd agree with being unable to supply detailed descriptions, but would provide info about powerful forces especially forces they might be sensitive to (negative planar, fire, positive energy, etc.) For instance, I think a plant could "know or feel" the difference between the passing of a Cleric of Death and a Druid. I also would think they have soem sort of community which they can "communicate" with on a certain level as pposed to the idea that they are just solitary lifeforms...a tree in a forest isn't "alone" by any means.

The spell does list limitations but also seems to ascribe personalities to plants which indicates a farily high level of sentience. So that seems to open some room for actual conversation.

My current DM's take:
Druid: "I cast speak with plants to see if they know where the evil monster went"
DM: (Roleplaying a Ficas or other indoor plant) "Gasping - WATER, WATER! I think he went that way... WATER!"

AD&D had it at 4th level and was actually less vague than the current description - you could ask questions (whether creatures had passed, etc.) and even ask the plants to trip up pursuers (though not animate them entirely).

 

[Sorrowdusk]

But couldnt say...the grass remember being trapled recently by something?