Copyright 2009 Wizards of the Coast.

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That’s the actual title of the entry, so we have another case of Old School Titling here. Dangerous plants have been a part of the game since its beginnings, and I bet a lot of the individual monsters collected in this entry appeared before in some form or another.

Lore-wise, there isn’t much on these other than “they exist”. They don’t have strange magical origins like some of the other plant creatures we saw before, they’re just ambulatory carnivorous plants with enough strength and mobility to hunt people. D&D worlds are already filled with impossibly lethal predators, so it’s not such a stretch to say some of those are plants.

All of the monsters in this entry are Beasts, which in rules terms means they behave like “animals” rather than like people. They also have the Plant keyword (obviously). Their Int score is 2, so their behaviors are all instinctive. Everything else varies per stat block.

Ambush Vine

The apex predator of the plant kingdom, ambush vines can hunt anywhere: on the surface, underground, and even in water. Wherever they are, they’re always hunting, and using the tasty nutrients of their victims to fuel their explosive growth rate. Ambush vines can form blights so vast they threaten civilization, and its rumored that this contributed to the fall of the old eladrin empire of Cendriane.

As their name implies, ambush vines are a lot more cunning than your average plant. They can burrow just under the surface or blend into the surrounding normal vegetation to wait for victims, and then launch surprise attacks against them.

Ambush Vines are Large Fey plants, and Level 16 Elite Controllers with 308 HP. They have tremorsense 20, and nothing in their stat block says they’re blind so I guess they can see as well even without eyes. Their speed is 6 in almost any mode of movement other than flight. They can move over the ground with Forest Walk, climb, burrow and swim.

A vine’s most basic attack is a Reach 2 Poison Lash that targets Reflex, deals physical damage, and inflicts ongoing poison damage. It can also attack with Lashing Vines in a Close Burst 4 pattern, which does more damage than the basic attack. It’s also super-effective against immobilized targets, dealing extra damage and healing the vine for 5 HP. As a minor action, the vine can use a Reach 4 Foot Snare to deal the same damage as the basic attack and knock a target prone.

Though ambush vines deal extra damage to immobilized foes, they can’t do the immobilizing themselves, so they must be paired with other monsters capable of it. Fortunately, they can make their own!

When the vine is first bloodied, it undergoes Rapid Growth as an emergency response, producing two Ambush Vine Shoot minions (see below). It can also make a minion voluntarily using Sprout Vine, a minor action which costs 10 of its own HP and produces a single minion.

Ambush Vine Shoot

This is the juvenile form of the ambush vine. It’s a Medium Fey plant, and a Level 15 Minion Controller. Their senses are the same as those of an adult specimen, though their only special movement mode is burrowing.

These minions have a single attack, Wrapping Vines, which deals minion-tier damage and restrains (save ends). “Restrained” is one step worse than “immobilized”: it roots the victim in place and inflicts a -2 penalty to attacks. A restrained target also counts as immobilized, so the shoot’s “parent” vine can deal extra damage against them.

The shoot also has a passive trait named Enwrap, which affects adjacent enemies and inflicts a -2 penalty to their saves against being immobilized or restrained.

Bloodthorn Vine

This is a vine with pale leaves and one single large thorn. It feeds by impaling victims on that thorn, which is hollow and capable of draining blood. As it does so, the vine’s leaves take on a reddish coloration.

Bloodthorn vines are Medium Natural plants, and Level 2 Soldiers with 41 HP. By the logic I’ve been using, them being low-level means they might occur near the archetypical Starting Village. This means they’re one more threat common civilians must be wary of in their daily lives, along with stirges, anhkegs, and giant ants. Bloodthorns are much less lively than Ambush Vines, having only a ground speed of 5 with Forest Walk and no special movement modes. They have Blindsight 10 but again are not blind themselves.

Their basic attack is a Striking Vine with no riders on its physical damage. The real danger here is the Impaling Thorn, which does the same damage and grabs the target. The vine can sustain the grab with a standard action to deal heavy automatic damage to the victim and heal 5 HP. It can use Pulling Vines as a minor action to shift 1 square and pull a grabbed victim along with it.

Fortunately, the bloodthorn vine can only impale a single victim at a time… but you can have multiple bloodtorn vines on the same encounter group.

Greenvise Vine

Copyright 2009 Wizards of the Coast.

So named because “Piranha Plant” is already taken. This is a Large Natural plant, and a Level 7 Soldier with 83 HP. Its speed is only 4, so it relies on grabbing targets to prevent them from running away.

The greenvise’s basic attack is a Striking Vine, and they can also use an Ensnaring Vine vs. Reflex to do the same damage and grab the target. That’s when the big chomper comes into play: Vise Bite targets a grabbed victim’s Fortitude, deals a bit of initial damage, restrains, and inflicts ongoing physical damage. A save ends both the restrained condition and the ongoing damage but does not end the grab. You have to escape from that using the default rules.

The Greenvise also has the same Pulling Vines trait as the Bloodthorn.

Sample Encounters and Final Impressions

I actually have an easier time distinguishing between killer plants when I see them all together than when I see them in separate entries over multiple books.

We have three encounters here:

  • Level 2: 3 bloodthorn vines and 3 stirges. Probably competing to see who can drain the party dry first.

  • Level 9: 2 greenvise vines, 1 spectral panther, 3 quickling runners. The quicklings and the panther can be used to herd the party towards the slow-moving plants.

  • Level 17: 1 ambush vine, 1 lingerer fell incanter, 1 lingerer fell knight. Sinister vestiges of lost Cendriane.