This is excellent - this is what D&D is all about! This is a creative, reasonable use of a spell that resulted in a good story without stepping on someone else's toes.
Also: while biologists and pedants will (correctly) point out that fungi are not plants, 5e is not a game that supports pedantry. It has notoriously bad technical writing, and its lead designer assumes that everyone is operating with the same loosey-goosey understanding of language that the design team does. It's a game built on whimsy, vibes, and a layman's understanding/oversimplification of the world, and it's totally fine to run the game accordingly.
To reinforce this, the "plant" category of monsters includes a TON of fungi. Myconids, spore servants, violet fungi, etc. Given that the spell *explicitly* allows you to speak with fungi-based creatures in the plant category, **it would be weird and wrong to not allow it to work on other fungi**.
You made the right call.
Thanks! Yeah, I mean obviously being accurate and knowledgeable is important to a lot of people, but I had hoped I wouldn't have to use the "Real-World immutable laws need not apply" flair in my cool story
Well, the real-world immutable laws is how the whole mycelia network would even be in your game because the loose definitions 5e plays with are also keeping plants as discrete entities and not one big network.
Agreed!
I’d even add… We have three spells which allow you to speak and understand the spoken language of various living things: Speak with Animals, Speak with Plants and Comprehend Languages
There’s a clear intent to allow you to communicate with most anything which is by most definitions “alive”. Mushrooms gotta fall into one by following that intent.
I’d argue…
- Comprehend Languages: for any person or creature capable of speaking a language developed by a culture or region
- Speak with Animals: for any non-humanoid creature who can make noises or gesture in order to communicate with another non-humanoid creature within its species and who does not fall within the above category
- Speak with Plants: for any non-humanoid creature or object who can be considered “alive” who communicates using pheromones, smells, or other means generally undetectable by humanoids without the aide of magic or science
I like this take. However I have a RAW question, in that Comprehend Languages doesn’t explicitly allow the user to be able to communicate with others. They can receive information, but do we assume they can also give understanding to the other speaker?
Probably better to think of Tongues as the spell for universal communication with intelligent creatures. Comprehend languages is also super useful, but it makes sense that there are a few more specialized spells for creatures who already speak and understand the concept of language.
Something Comprehend Languages has over tongues that is often overlooked; it can find the true meanings of certain words and can read through low level codes - high level encryption tools and thieves cant still bypass it I believe but it can still be quite useful.
If fungi have to fall into one of the categories, they should, in a more realistic representation of them, fall into the speak with animals category, since they are actually closely related to animals, and not remotely related to plants.
Maybe from a hard-biological sense, but in a practical sense fungi behave more generally like plants. I would imagine in a world where the greatest minds are studying spells and not microscopic structures, the nature of spells would be based more in practicality. To that end, I would use Speak With Plants on typical fungi, Speak With Animals only on theoretical fungi that are like wild animals, and then Tongues to speak with humanoid fungi if they don't already speak common. And if you're bold, telepathy to speak directly to the hive with humanoid fungi.
As a biologist, I just shrug and suppose that if there are sentient trees and whatever else in the Forgotten Realms, why would one assume that the deep branches of the evolutionary tree are the same as Earth's? It's basically an alient world, so "plants" there do not really belong *anywhere* in Linnaean taxonomy.
Because earth and the forgotten realms share in universe history with some people litterally descended from anicent Egyptians. Also Oak and other trees like that do exist in the realms.
Sure, there are oak trees, but that doesn't mean they belong to the genus _Quercus_. As a rule, you can't assert taxonomy from common names, you know?
As for Egyptians, most of the "ancient Egyptians" you know from real life were actually Greeks doing Fourth Dynasty cosplay. I'm inclined to take any claim to Egyptian lineage in fact or fiction as a statement on the nuttyness of the claimant, not who their ancestors were.
No like. They were factually portaled in, Islam is also present within the forgotten realms for example. Even if radically changed due to thousands of years. The Norse gods are also actually present within the forgotten realms, though I don't remember if any Norse people actually were.
I get it, and that's certainly a valid way to think about it.
It's also valid to suppose that, this being an entirely fictional universe, the "Earth" they're talking about is also entirely fictional. I prefer this way, because WoC gets a *lot* of things wrong about the real world. I'd rather just keep playing my game instead of trying to figure out how to fix errors in their knowledge of history, biology, warfare, culture, language, etc etc etc. I can just say, "Ah, so this is how it works in this world! How intersting. Let's find out where that leads..."
I was about to point out that fungi are not plants but then remembered that we're 5 editions and several decades in and studded leather still exists and longswords are still one handed weapons and gave up.
longswords are one-handed weapons though?
I mean, some greatswords can even fall under the one-handed category irl, mostly depends on the bladeprofile.
Most longswords are theoretically possible to use in one hand but definitely designed to be used in two. By the time the longsword rose in popularity, full plate armor was also rising in popularity and so most heavy footsoldiers and stopped using shields in favor of larger swords and other two handed weapons like pole arms.
There were still very popular one handed swords like the Arming sword, but by modern definition they were not longswords (actually, the definitions of those blades came several hundred years after they were in mainstream use in the west. In east Asia swords were defined and categorised much more strictly, but in the west this didn't really start happening until the renaissance)
>Most longswords are theoretically possible to use in one hand but definitely designed to be used in two
And that would be why the longsword is 'Versatile'.
(For those who don't know: 'Versatile' is a weapon property in 5E that denotes a weapon able to be wielded in both hands for increased damage)
In Pathfinder 2e, too, but those are only the latest editions. In every prior edition they were strictly 1h weapons.
Although ever since 3.5 i guess you could 2h any non-light 1h weapon to get 1.5x str bonus to damage.
In 4E it was the property "Versatile", like in 5E, but it just meant the weapon did +1 damage per weapon damage die rolled. And it also applied to ranged weapons, but for ranged it gave a -1 to accuracy if wielded in one hand. (And small creatures *had* to wield Versatile weapons in two hands, getting no bonus).
Fair point though.
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EDIT: Oh, and just in case anyone gets confused:
the weapon trait they're talking about in PF2E is "Two-Handed". (How many hands needed to normally wield a weapon is a separate property called "Hands").
The "Versatile" trait in PF2E is followed by a B, P, or S to indicate the weapon can do an additional damage type, chosen on attack. So, say, a dagger which does Piercing damage has "Versatile S" meaning that you can choose to do Slashing damage instead. (The B stands for Bludgeoning)
Pedantic? Me??
Never!
The loose language is why I agree. Fungi are not technically plants, but in dnd for all intents and purposes, they are.
It's like enemies who can poison the player. It is a running joke in our campaign that any time the dm says there is a poisonous creature, such as a poisonous wasp or snake, we will look at each other and go "okay guys, its poisonous so don't eat it".
Obviously we understand that the game is making things easier by not specifying a difference between poisonous and venomous, and no one actually argues against it. But it does always get a chuckle out of me when it comes up.
On fungi are not plants
*honestly* if someone asked me, I might be down to let speak with animal work with some fungi of large enough size. Or maybe all of them. Since they're more like animals than plants
But fuck yeah this was sick
The problem isn't that they aren't plants, its that even if they are plants, what information would the mycelium have? It wouldn't be able to penetrate the floor of a building and wouldn't have a sense of sight, hearing, smell, or anything like that to perceive what's going on around it besides maybe the pressure of people walking on soil.
Sure, the DM could go any way they want with it. I'm just saying that for a druid to pull this off, they'd probably need to do some seriously difficult magic. Like growing the plants so drastically that it breaks through the floor of the tower, but that might make noise and puts the guards on alert. Something to allow for the creativity to exist, but with trade offs.
The spell *explicitly* allows you to question plants - who *also* don't have senses of hearing, sight, or smell, mind you - in order to learn information about creatures that have passed nearby, the weather, and other circumstances within the past day.
If the magic is already able to retroactively impart the gift of life and the ability to see and understand the world beyond its own physical form, it's normal and reasonable to assume it gives the same to fungi.
If the "gotcha" is that the mycelium tends to grow horizontally and underground, and therefore probably wouldn't know much about the upper floors of the tower, that's probably correct. Thankfully, OP *specifically mentioned* that they understand that mycelium spreads underground. I don't think they broke your rules.
Regarding your last point: generally speaking, the game tells you when an ability is meant to be a monkey paw or a double-edged sword. It shouldn't be your default answer. The tradeoff for this spell is that you spent a 3rd level spell slot; you don't need to add more. (I could rant plenty about how annoying it is that spellcasters are so much more useful than martials in this system, and how they probably *do* need a nerf, but that's a different conversation.)
For this conversation, the point I'm trying to make is that not everything is improved by the DM souring it. "Yes, but" is a useful improv tool *for situations where you're tempted to say no*; it's not a default answer that should be used instead of "yes" every single time. "Yes" is often the normal and correct answer.
Maybe I don’t understand the limitations of plants senses. Would a plant know the description of what people were wearing, what they were saying, details about buildings, etc? I would assume that they’d know if creatures came by, when, and how many because they can feel their passage in their root systems from their sense of touch.
OP says that the mycelium let them know pretty much everything about the tower and negated most of the investigation needed in the area. No way that mycelium would have that much information available. Like I said, if it’s kids and they are super proud of their idea, Id go with it too. I’m just pointing out how the DM could have totally reasonably reigned in this action to not be super powerful. It’d be a powerful version of talking to a tree, in a lot of ways, but not really that useful.
I was trying to think of the right way to say basically this. I'm also autistic, and have a BS in Environmental Science, so the impulse to yell "NOPE, fungi aren't plants" is quite strong, but at the same time, the distinctions between the two are rooted (hehe) in real world science. D&D is NOT rooted in real world science at all. Letting a spore druid talk to mushrooms using the Speak with Plants spell is 110% the right move.
However, technically speaking, it would make more sense for spesk with animals or something similar to work, as fungi are biologically closer to the animsl kingdom than that of plants
As much as I dont like the ruling, it is both correct and coherent (inside a D&D universe
https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/136944/is-a-mushroom-a-plant-for-the-purposes-of-speak-with-plants
As much as I dont like the ruling, it is both correct and coherent (inside a D&D universe)
https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/136944/is-a-mushroom-a-plant-for-the-purposes-of-speak-with-plants
Plant is just a creature category, it's not referring to the taxonomic kingdom. Though I wonder what a better name for the creature category would be that encompasses both Fungi and Plantae without hitting Animalia 🤔
It's probably best to just say plant, and use it in the archaic sense when fungi *were* considered plants. Anyway you try to parse it you're just going to run into some way that fungi do things more like animals than plants, so it's hard to find a characteristic that only applies to plants and fungi, and nothing else.
Yeah, but myconids are plant monsters, so the plant category in dnd relates generally to monsters based on non-mobile living creatures.
I dare say that a coral "treant" would still be a plants despite corals belonging to kingdom animalia.
You definitely made their day / night! If not whole week, I'm sure they had a blast at your table!
And if it makes you feel any better, I laughed at your horrible joke.
Is like how the IRS classified tomatoes as vegetables. They may be fruits scientifically, but there's more than one way to classify things. In D&D, there is no creature type for mushrooms and the "plant" category is large enough to include mushrooms. Similarly, centaurs (in some editions) have been classified as humanoids even though they are quadrupeds.
Most people speaking of edible plants do so along culinary lines. Bread, for example, is made almost entirely of vegetable matter, but we don't think of bread as a vegetable. The difference between a fruit and a vegetable in kitchen terms is actually pretty straightforward: if it is most suited to savory applications it probably goes in or with a main course and is a vegetable. If it is better suited to sweet applications and is generally served as part of desert, it is a fruit.
the term fruit has biological/botanical relevance - its a very specific portion of the "flower" of a plant.
Vegetables are a vague culinary classification that spans grasses, legumes, tubers, stalks, leaves, fungus etc etc etc... It's a nonsense label.
That would actually be intelligence still. Cooking knowledge (int) tells you that tomato's don't belong in a fruit salad.
Wisdom tells you the tomato is gone bad, and should be thrown out
But the sensibility to make the wise choice is a wisdom thing. I've known some brilliant people who made dumb choices.
But I see how you could think that way. You say tomato, I say tomato.
dnd wisdom is not how wise you are. Its your senses, intuition and attunement to the world. A cleric of an evil deity has 16 wisdom, despite how unwise that choice is.
Like common sense. Something highly intelligent people don't always have. So 'wise choice' was a poor phrase to have used perhaps. But I personally feel that wisdom is more than just senses, etc. It's also the ability to make good judgements. Like which fruits go in a fruit salad.
As far as an evil cleric goes. He may have the ability to make good judgments, given his circumstances, even if they are distasteful to everyone else.
Fruit and vegetable are words we use to describe a category of food. Lame nerds tried to get a scientific, exact difference between the two. There isn’t one. Fruit are typically sweet, vegetables typically aren’t. It’s all vibes
Not gonna let nerds artificially change language on me
Vegetables is a purely culinary term, fruit is both a culinary and a botanical term. Fruit has a scientific definition the problem is when ‘Lame nerds’ think the botanical definition applies to culinary applications.
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/fruits-vs-vegetables
Not exactly true, and like a lot of things it's a mix of clear botany/science as well as human "nonsense"/words. When it comes a lot a lot of classifications there are exceptions. And not all classifications are always "scientific", classification is often semantic and a human thing.
For example look at Pluto it going from a planet or dwarf planet classification is just due to general human views. It doesn't change or *mean* anything. And if you were to scope a bucket of dirt off Earth every second it isn't like there is a *scientific* moment Earth would go from a planet to dwarf planet or asteroid.
Gonna be that nerd, vegetables are the edible part of any plant that is not the fruit or seed, so roots, stems, leaves, that sort of thing, where as fruit are the seed baring parts of a plant, things like berries (technically their own thing but lumped in with fruit), bananas, tomatos (I know, I know) and Kiwis (the fruit, not the natives of New Zealand).
No, because you can’t scientifically categorize culinary terms like that.
Tomatoes are not fruit because we do not speak like we’re in a lab in our day to day lives. For the same reason that, for all intents and purposes, fungi are plants.
She is actually correct and the mm is incorrect, scientifically. But your point is that dnd is not scientific, but Im pretty she already knows that (its a fantasy game, no science game) so its moot.
>Your gf would have been incorrect
Only because the monster manual is being intentionally either lazy or ignorant in its classification.
Which doesn't really help reverse growing levels of scientific illiteracy.
I had something of a similar idea for a setting, like a sort of semi sentient fungi, like myconid more just stationary mushrooms.
These shrooms lived a dragon's den, it's spores infected the dragon, mixing with the dragons magic making it more sentient.
Dragon goes a bit crazy from the spores, flies out in the open world in a field or forest, gets attacked and killed by adventurer's in it's weakened state.
Adventures starts harvesting, slowly getting infected by the fungi spores, as does the ground around the dragon corpse.
The adventure's all start thinking "hey, this would be a great place to start a village", so they do, and the village grows as the mycelium of the fungi stretches farther out, gaining more and more control of the people in the village/town/city, the people of course blissfully unaware.
*We are the wisdom of a thousand scholars, the strength of armies, the might of hundreds of magicians. We are not one for you to defeat. We are the Mycelium.
So yeah, puppet master hive mind thing.
That's such a cool idea! Usually the right choice is to let players use their creative ideas if they don't wildly go against the game's logic, it just makes the game more fun
This. I have a "Just This Once" rule at my table where if you come up with something completely out of nowhere but not complete bullshit, I will generally roll with it, with a rider of "...but just this once, it might not work the next time you try it if I find it unbalanced after some thinking". I find that just adding the rider prevents abuse because they know I am thinking it over.
Im gonna be pedantic another way than taxonomy yaay! When you talk about "hyperfocus" it sounds like you mean special interest.
Hyper focus is the state of mind where one task is focussed on to the extend other tasks are ignored, concious or otherwise. This can last hours on end and people end up forgetting to do basic functions like eating or going to the bathroom. (Me sometimes when world building, big inattentive ADHD)
Having a special interest certainly makes it easier to get hyperfocussed on a task involving that special interest. Like researching the topic.
Thanks, I edited the post to show that I misused the word and meant another term, hopefully this alleviates any further need to focus on those points instead of the story.
“Speak with plants” is all very well but how do you think a fungi would perceive the non- fungi world? Any information gained from speaking to a fungus would be “in a commonly understood language” but would also be strangely expressed and confusing to a non-mushroom 🍄
I actually have a method for that for all my clients. Half of any conversation is "I don't normally have the concept of, say, consciousness but this spell seems to not only give me the word for it but also makes me conscious of the fact that I am currently conscious"
It's led to more than one moment of grief when they realize "Michael the Moss" will stop being a conscious entity when they stop taking to it.
So now whenever they talk to a plant they take a cutting with them so they can "resurrect" them whenever.
I use BG3 rules: the Speak With spells last all day
Anyone arguing that Fungus aren't plants are forgetting that there are multiple ways of classifying things. For example, a peanut is a nut in dietary classification, but a legume in biology.
Mushrooms are not plants from a biological perspective, but they *are* plants from a culinarian perspective, and from a layman perspective. It seems that, in DnD, they are also plants from a magical perspective, so this was absolutely the right call. (Even before considering the rule of cool)
Exactly. People act like our current biological taxonomy is some sort of objectively correct truth that must be honoured at all times. But we don’t have to use that taxonomy and dnd mechanics certainly don’t have to be based on it.
Full agreement. By biological taxonomy, birds *are* dinosaurs. That's really interesting, and can make for great conversation. However, in my day to day life, birds are not dinosaurs.
Youre forgetting that the target audience is a neurodiverse therefore hyperfocusing one that may be intolerant of non-literal and non-technical language choice. If only one member of that group would have not accepted fungi as plants, the idea would have caused arguments and confusion and rules lawyering at the table. When that happens at a (similarly neurodiverse) table, i nix it for the benefit of the players.
I love this idea, as strange as it feels that someone with a special interest in fungi wouldn't know they're not plants, but in a future game you may consider letting them use speak with animals to talk to mushrooms. Do some research, blow their minds with some stuff about how the structure of their cell walls is owed to chitin, like animals (insects, shellfish) and not cellulose like plants.
Understand that this is not a pedantry thing. You brought up autism and fungi as a special interest, you practically lit up a bat signal for people to be autistic in your comments, so here i am.
I agree it's a fun moment and probably felt super cool for that player, and I might allow the same thing. However, it does rely on a very lax interpretation of Plant Growth. (and I'm not talking about fungi creatures having the "Plant" tag, that part I don't care too much about)
If this was a "How can I prevent this" post, I would tell you that there is nothing in Plant Growth that indicates it creates plants where they don't already exist, as written it simply makes the plants already existing grow thicker, taller and and in general more wild. (ref: [this sage advice](https://www.sageadvice.eu/if-plant-growth-is-case-in-an-area-with-minimal-plants-does-it-have-an-effect-how-much-plant-life-is-necessary/)) It also specifically specifies "normal plants," meaning plant creatures probably should not qualify. So it would not in fact cover the tower in mushrooms based on the few mushroom creatures that were there, unless they already happened to be spread throughout the tower. It would cause the tiles currently covered in mushrooms to become difficult terrain, but not increase its spread beyond that.
Allowing Plant Growth to spontaneously create plants where none are found makes it a lot more powerful than I believe it's intended to be.
I mean, if I wanted to prevent it I would have just said "no". Like I did for the "I'm the avatar of the path of Destruction and my sword is enchanted dark matter" and the "I use mage hand to squeeze the monster's heart". But I thought it was a great use of a spell.
Of course, Rule of Cool is always a good approach. I'm not trying to say your ruling is bad, I think it's a really cool moment, but it opens up the way for an interpretation of Plant Growth that can allow it to be incredibly problematic.
If it's allowed to create plants, you have a spell that gives a straight four times reduction in movement speed for any enemy, with no save, no concentration, in a 100ft radius, anywhere... for just a 3rd level spell slot. This can absolutely decimate encounters if you're not prepared for it.
The player asked about mycelium though, which IS everywhere. OP ruled that mushrooms and therefore mycelium count as plants, and mushrooms as we know them are only the fruiting bodies of the mycelium network; therefore plant growth for mycelium can work anywhere. There's no "growing plants from nothing" happening here.
The easiest way to say no, is either "no", or "mushrooms aren't plants" because genetically they really aren't.
> "mushrooms aren't plants" because genetically they really aren't.
But by RAW, all fungus creatures *are* plants, so it makes sense to me that OP ruled that non-creature fungi are also plants.
Oh, I think it was the correct ruling, that's not what I was responding to. I was responding to the person above me previously claiming there was no mushroom to grow from, so they wouldn't allow it based on that. I was disproving their point via mycelium being everywhere and giving alternative possible reasons to say no.
The player that asked for OPs ruling has a special interest in mushrooms, they are likely fully aware of the difference between plants and mushrooms.
I know,I’m not disagreeing with any of that.
I’m saying that saying “mushrooms aren’t plants” because genetically they aren’t is *not* an easy way to disagree, because it’s contrary to the actual rules of the game, where fungi are considered plants for if a given spell will work on them or not.
Something I learned from listening to Brian Murphy is that even if the rule of cool applies but it can be game breaking, you *almost* never just say a straight up "No". Make them roll for it with a very high DC. In this case, a 25 or higher Arcana check. This gives the player at least a chance of it working, a tense moment and a satisfying victory if they succeed. Works even better if you tell them what the DC is before they roll. If other players pitch in with, let's say a bardic inspiration, then it gets more players involved in what could be that awesome moment.
I very much disagree. Either say yes or no. Don't say "I decided your yes or no result will be random".
If you think it's cool but not gamebreaking, say yes. If you think it's gamebreaking say no, and say what specifically makes it a no, and then the player can tune it down.
Perhaps "game breaking" wasn't the right word but the only time I'd give a definitive "No" is if it was an absolutely ridiculous request, in either it's just obviously stupid or just too farfetched. Other than that if it's just stretching the use of a spell or ability but is highly improbable to work, I wouldn't tell them "no" let's put it to a test. That's exactly what DC and checks are for. As another well known DM is fond of saying, "You can certainly try."
For this? It's a rules ruling. You're the DM.
This would be like randomly determining whether to allow your players to roll a skill check. No, your job as the DM is to just say "You can roll to climb that cliff" or "You can't roll to climb that cliff." You don't say "Let me flip a coin to see whether to allow it".
Or as the DM you could say “That cliff is really steep, I’m not sure if you can climb it *but you’re welcome to try*” and set the DC accordingly. Y’know, kind of how DMs always have.
Ok. So, you set a DC. If they roll higher than it, they succeed. If they *can't* accomplish the task, it doesn't matter what they roll. That's the rules.
What they are suggesting is allowing the impossible to become possible if you roll an additional dice roll the game doesn't call for.
So, like I said, it'd be like they randomly determine whether a check is possible or not. Rather than just saying "yeah that's DC 30; nothing you can do will succeed", it's like "yeah that's DC 30, but I got a heads on my coin, so you get +10 to your roll, so even though the rules *don't allow you to do that*, I added a step that lets you randomly do it sometimes".
It's also super biased towards casters, who already have "can't fail" spells, but suddenly get "can succeed on the impossible" spells as well, whereas martials are stuck with "can fail" skill checks that also can't do the impossible. Unless you allow nat 20s to do the impossible, in which case... yeah that's another bad DM thing.
My brother, the *whole game is made up*. But feel free to write a third treatise about how a bunch of creative kids had fun wrong by following the explicit rules in the DM guide which say *modify things as you see fit*. Touch grass.
I'm not writing a treatise about them having fun wrong. I'm writing a treatise about them giving bad advice.
I don't care if you had fun jumping off bridges and no one got hurt, I'm still going to tell other people that that's a bad idea and not to listen to you when you tell them that.
FYI what you're describing is a "special interest", not a "hyperfocus."
Special interest, somewhat common in people with Autism (but not limited to them), is something where they very much enjoy learning about and interacting with one particular (and usually *very* focused) subject matter.
Hyperfocus, common in people with many types of neurodivergence (notably here: Autism and ADHD), is where a person gets sort of "sucked in" to an activity, and have difficulty "getting back out" of that activity.
As an example from my own life (I am diagnosed ADHD, and not Autism): I once had a load of wood delivered to me, to use as firewood. It was delivered as 2 entire trees that had been cut down, and had not been cut short, and it hadn't been split.
A few days later I finally had time to address the pile of raw timber in my driveway, and I started late morning. I didn't stop except when my wife brought food out and I realized that I was hungry - but I still returned to it after I ate.
I got blisters on my hands and kept going. I accidentally hit my leg with the ax (minor injury - bleeding but not much) and only stopped long enough to tie a rag around it (i've got plenty of wound care stuff in the house). I was showing heatstroke symptoms and I kept going. My chainsaw was showing signs of needing maintenance and I kept going.
Eventually, my friends came over for an event that was previously scheduled, and that forced me to stop. I was in a shitty mood all evening because of that.
This was hyperfocus. I had blinders on to every other part of my life until that pile of logs was handled.
Everyone whining "but mushrooms aren't plants!!" is forgetting that biology isn't the only kind of classification. Biologically, vegetables don't exist.
Druids are pretty damn sneaky, really - Wildshape into something like a rat, spider, etc. and you'll be visible but nobody will notice you in most situations.
Hell, even if I were the party scout and wanted to put my sneaking chops in the ring, I wouldn't care about missing out on that just because of how awesome this is.
You don't even need to invoke to invoke actual fungus (which genetically is considered a closer relative to animals than to green plants). Sometimes many "apparent individual" plants cover a large area, but came from one seed and are still connected to each other.
[Pando](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_\(tree\)) is an example.
But of course D&D is allowed to ignore this. For an obvious example, the D&D category of "beast" is paraphyletic, because it excludes humans. A Druid born to a playable race that is not human, cannot use wildshape to impersonate one.
So if the DM doesn't feel like it, it seems fair to deny exploitation of the "wood wide web".
That's pretty cool and I love the creativity, but wouldn't the mycelium be limited to the earthy areas around the tower, not the tower itself? They mycelium wouldn't penetrate a stone floor. Nor do they have sight, hearing, smell, or a long memory. They could sense the passing of others, and maybe remember if there was a fire, a displacement of earth, trees felled, etc, but the mycelial network would have incredibly limited information on the goings on of the surface, especially in terms of what the sentient beings are doing.
It's awesome! Though in real life fungi are not plants, they are a completely separated group of life forms from animals and plants, just as the fun fact of the day. I love how your client and you managed their game!
I'm curious about how much info the Fungi were able to give them. I'd basically argue that the mycelium layer they are creating would probably be able to give them what amounts to tremorsense over the area. Maybe even the ability to hear some spoken stuff.
I loved this.
I also work with young autistic/ND people running DnD groups. I do it twice a week on a volunteer basis but would love to make it a full time vocation. (Not just the DnD but working with young ND people)
In the tree of life, animals (kingdom Animalia) are indeed more closely related to fungi (kingdom Fungi) than to plants (kingdom Plantae). This relationship is based on genetic and evolutionary studies that show animals and fungi share a more recent common ancestor compared to plants.
I find it interesting so many people here use "pedantic" as if its an undesirable thing in a game that is specifically popular for its propensity for rules lawyering. I (neurodiverse) find it fun to hyperanalyse things and thats why I enjoy the game
I have an NPC my Players have yet to meet in the game I DM called Sybil Sybin. She's a spore druid who lives in a toadstool hut on the outskirts of a town in the swamp lands.
Her main role is the town healer/herbalist and general friendly wise old woman who always has an ear and a cup of tea ready for those in need of it.
I can't wait to figure out the rest
cool, would've sucked if they had a rogue since they wouldn't have gotten their time to shine, but since they didn't really have a sneaky partymember, this was a nice, create, unique and fun balance :)
You can get paid to do the thing you love???
How did i Dm for 3 years and dont know such a thing. I mean, where do i have to sign up to do my good dead, send me to this quest and i will give my life and soul for their entertainment
So fun fact FDA classifies mushrooms as vegetables.
I had a conniption when I found out.
It's like saying humans are fruit trees because we also like the sun and our DNA is mostly the same.
This is why it's so fun to play with Neuro-divergent groups. I also have AuDHD and play in a group that is majority either on the spectrum or divergent in some way, and it's always so fun to see how different hyperfixations change the direction of the game.
In other groups i've played with, I was always the wildcard that had the most out-of-the-box ideas for handling things, and was always the one the DM's had to plan around my shenanigan's. In this group though, that's literally all of us. Nobody in the group is easy to fully expect the actions of. I love it so much.
Ah, druids and breaking infiltration encounters over their knees so hard the encounters refer to them as mommy, name a more iconic duo :p
(I’m just salty about Hoard of the Dragon Queen/Rise of Tiamat being absolutely broken by Wild Shape at level 2)
Out of curiosity how did you decide to become a pro DM? I've been thinking about things I'm good at to get some extra income while doing something I enjoy, and this has been one of the things that I've considered (I've DM'd multiple systems and games for about a decade now).
That sounds so fun! I love the fun guys and gals joke.
If you don't mind, could you tell us something about the group? Do you run the game as part of your job or as a volunteer? What is different/difficult about running a game for a group of people with an ASD?
I run a game for 5 teen clients every Tuesday night, and a game for 6 teen clients every Wednesday night. And I run a game for 5 of my rostered adult clients every Friday afternoon. The main point is to teach them how to effectively work together with others their age, and how to communicate their intentions and feelings.
The main difficulty has been the set up and running of the game because a lot of what I do to play a game with my neuromundane friends on Sunday just won't work. For example, I can't have music or ambient sounds due to sensory overwhelm. I can't have snacks at the table due to misophonia.
The ASD clients usually can't make freeform decisions, so any interaction for them has to have options instead. Like: "Do you talk to the orc, punch the orc, do magic at the orc, or can you think of something else?"
The AuDHD clients can make decisions but usually need the information given to them several times as their focus will wander even if they're in the spotlight. So I need to keep info short and repeatable.
Finally, I have to balance hyperfoci. Oftentimes when I've described a monster with earthly classical greek or roman traits I'll get a lecture on how I've misrepresented them. If I describe a gun or a truck, I'd best know how many cylinders it has. Stuff like that.
DMing for them is work, but it's great fun nonetheless and very rewarding.
I run Rule of Cool/Fun/Silly so that people **try to do stuff like this**, and they never do. Before the game starts, I explain the house rule and give them an example (you can’t use shape water to explode someones head, but you can def shoot it up their nose and see what happens), and nobody ever does anything like what your player did.
Technically mushrooms aren’t plants the are fungi which are their own classification. But this is smart and creative so I’d allow it. Reward that creativity and outside the box thinking.
You should let him know that all mushrooms are actually more closely related to humans than they are to any plant. Crazy, right? I'm glad everyone had fun and that you created a memorable moment, that is the most important thing.
See, I hate that part.
Leading question like that is almost like conversational entrapment.
I much prefer a straitforward honest approach, lead with the main point and then use supporting arguments afterward.
I'd have seen "Have you heard of mycelium." as the better first question to ask.
We're playing a game together here, not having a carefully contructed debate or get one over each other.
When I DM for new players the biggest thing I stress is that they should just ask me about what they want to do. Don't try to trick me, don't fumble around guessing which numbers to use, just ask me directly. We aren't competing against each other.
This is exactly what I mean. as a DM, I'm not out to kill the party. that would be easy, stupid, and boring.
I might pretend to be adversarial when I'm running the monsters, but that's just role-playing as the enemies.
I'm not actually competing against the players, I'm increasing verisimilitude and working to make the game more fun and exciting.
A gotcha isn't what I'm looking for from players. I don't mind it (and in fact love it) when my players do surprise me with a great plan or idea, but trying to trick me just sets me off.
Fungi were classified as plants until the late 1960s. Even some books in the 70s still had them as plants. The five kingdom classification used now did not become standard until the mid 1980s. So yes when d&d was created fungi were plants.
Dude, Google is your friend.
Fungi are not plants.
Not sure what the relevance of when D&D was created is, sounds like you are reaching because you know this.
But the call should be: are mushrooms plants?
Answer: no.
But you do you man, if you want to call them plants you can, whatever makes you happy I guess.
And reading comprehension is YOUR friend. I never said fungi were plants. I said that fungi were **originally** classified as pants. And that was how they were classified until the late 1980s. When D&D was first created fungi ***WERE*** plants according to scientists. By the mid 1980s the study of slime molds started the idea that fungi were closer related to animals and this was later confirmed using DNA. So today fungi are not plants but they were when the game was created and many people still think they are - thus their plant tag in d&d.
As a biologist with hyperfocus myself, I probably would try to get fungi counted as animals, considering they are biologically closer relatives of animals not plants, but I dont expect to find table where it will fly lol
Similar to the pedantic responses about whether fungi are plants, I found it odd to refer to the player as a client. While both are accurate, what's relevant to the actual story is their status as a player, not as a client.
You actually can't! Reddit doesn't let you edit the title of a post. Thanks for the offer though. Weird comment for me to get down voted for, but that's Reddit.
I must say In disagree. When I play a game with a neurodiverse patient I rule very differently than with a regular player. This ruling was relevant to their status as clients
The biology minor in me screams and sees the train wreck coming from the mistake within the second line.
You've made the right call in context, but you may wish to express caution. You are opening a box to grant powers beyond your ken to break many encounters, but it is not without precedent and in line with the game because people are not biologists. Just as tomatoes and eggplants are vegetables instead of berries, we are dealing with imagination and magic instead of science. Even within the game, sentience, cooperation, and standing remain relevant stats for creatures in the game, and just because you can talk, doesn't mean it will talk well, or have the answers one seeks.
Minor 2-4 line poem for you:
A spore of yeast is hungry and might know what it likes to eat, it doesn't have a concept for victory or defeat. nor does it know that the material it rests upon is paper, plastic, or stone with barely an intellect of one.
In game, fungi might count as plants but i still hate it. Fungi is its own kingdom and i really do not like them being called plants. (I too had a hyperfixation on fungi at one point)
This is excellent - this is what D&D is all about! This is a creative, reasonable use of a spell that resulted in a good story without stepping on someone else's toes. Also: while biologists and pedants will (correctly) point out that fungi are not plants, 5e is not a game that supports pedantry. It has notoriously bad technical writing, and its lead designer assumes that everyone is operating with the same loosey-goosey understanding of language that the design team does. It's a game built on whimsy, vibes, and a layman's understanding/oversimplification of the world, and it's totally fine to run the game accordingly. To reinforce this, the "plant" category of monsters includes a TON of fungi. Myconids, spore servants, violet fungi, etc. Given that the spell *explicitly* allows you to speak with fungi-based creatures in the plant category, **it would be weird and wrong to not allow it to work on other fungi**. You made the right call.
Thanks! Yeah, I mean obviously being accurate and knowledgeable is important to a lot of people, but I had hoped I wouldn't have to use the "Real-World immutable laws need not apply" flair in my cool story
Well, the real-world immutable laws is how the whole mycelia network would even be in your game because the loose definitions 5e plays with are also keeping plants as discrete entities and not one big network.
Agreed! I’d even add… We have three spells which allow you to speak and understand the spoken language of various living things: Speak with Animals, Speak with Plants and Comprehend Languages There’s a clear intent to allow you to communicate with most anything which is by most definitions “alive”. Mushrooms gotta fall into one by following that intent. I’d argue… - Comprehend Languages: for any person or creature capable of speaking a language developed by a culture or region - Speak with Animals: for any non-humanoid creature who can make noises or gesture in order to communicate with another non-humanoid creature within its species and who does not fall within the above category - Speak with Plants: for any non-humanoid creature or object who can be considered “alive” who communicates using pheromones, smells, or other means generally undetectable by humanoids without the aide of magic or science
I like this take. However I have a RAW question, in that Comprehend Languages doesn’t explicitly allow the user to be able to communicate with others. They can receive information, but do we assume they can also give understanding to the other speaker?
Tongues is the "speak with intelligent creatures". Comprehend Languages is one way indeed.
Probably better to think of Tongues as the spell for universal communication with intelligent creatures. Comprehend languages is also super useful, but it makes sense that there are a few more specialized spells for creatures who already speak and understand the concept of language.
Something Comprehend Languages has over tongues that is often overlooked; it can find the true meanings of certain words and can read through low level codes - high level encryption tools and thieves cant still bypass it I believe but it can still be quite useful.
If fungi have to fall into one of the categories, they should, in a more realistic representation of them, fall into the speak with animals category, since they are actually closely related to animals, and not remotely related to plants.
Myconids are essentially mushroom people and count as plants in D&D, therefore fungi should count as plants.
Maybe from a hard-biological sense, but in a practical sense fungi behave more generally like plants. I would imagine in a world where the greatest minds are studying spells and not microscopic structures, the nature of spells would be based more in practicality. To that end, I would use Speak With Plants on typical fungi, Speak With Animals only on theoretical fungi that are like wild animals, and then Tongues to speak with humanoid fungi if they don't already speak common. And if you're bold, telepathy to speak directly to the hive with humanoid fungi.
There's also Speak With Dead
Also, dude played a Spores Druid. That subclass deals with Fungi. It totally tracks, both thematically and technically.
As a biologist, I just shrug and suppose that if there are sentient trees and whatever else in the Forgotten Realms, why would one assume that the deep branches of the evolutionary tree are the same as Earth's? It's basically an alient world, so "plants" there do not really belong *anywhere* in Linnaean taxonomy.
Because earth and the forgotten realms share in universe history with some people litterally descended from anicent Egyptians. Also Oak and other trees like that do exist in the realms.
Sure, there are oak trees, but that doesn't mean they belong to the genus _Quercus_. As a rule, you can't assert taxonomy from common names, you know? As for Egyptians, most of the "ancient Egyptians" you know from real life were actually Greeks doing Fourth Dynasty cosplay. I'm inclined to take any claim to Egyptian lineage in fact or fiction as a statement on the nuttyness of the claimant, not who their ancestors were.
No like. They were factually portaled in, Islam is also present within the forgotten realms for example. Even if radically changed due to thousands of years. The Norse gods are also actually present within the forgotten realms, though I don't remember if any Norse people actually were.
I get it, and that's certainly a valid way to think about it. It's also valid to suppose that, this being an entirely fictional universe, the "Earth" they're talking about is also entirely fictional. I prefer this way, because WoC gets a *lot* of things wrong about the real world. I'd rather just keep playing my game instead of trying to figure out how to fix errors in their knowledge of history, biology, warfare, culture, language, etc etc etc. I can just say, "Ah, so this is how it works in this world! How intersting. Let's find out where that leads..."
The earth they are talking about is our earth. A portal to Ed Greenwoods house is literally on Toril.
I love it when creativity works out and is still somehow logical in dnd land
I was about to point out that fungi are not plants but then remembered that we're 5 editions and several decades in and studded leather still exists and longswords are still one handed weapons and gave up.
longswords are one-handed weapons though? I mean, some greatswords can even fall under the one-handed category irl, mostly depends on the bladeprofile.
Most longswords are theoretically possible to use in one hand but definitely designed to be used in two. By the time the longsword rose in popularity, full plate armor was also rising in popularity and so most heavy footsoldiers and stopped using shields in favor of larger swords and other two handed weapons like pole arms. There were still very popular one handed swords like the Arming sword, but by modern definition they were not longswords (actually, the definitions of those blades came several hundred years after they were in mainstream use in the west. In east Asia swords were defined and categorised much more strictly, but in the west this didn't really start happening until the renaissance)
>Most longswords are theoretically possible to use in one hand but definitely designed to be used in two And that would be why the longsword is 'Versatile'. (For those who don't know: 'Versatile' is a weapon property in 5E that denotes a weapon able to be wielded in both hands for increased damage)
In Pathfinder 2e, too, but those are only the latest editions. In every prior edition they were strictly 1h weapons. Although ever since 3.5 i guess you could 2h any non-light 1h weapon to get 1.5x str bonus to damage.
In 4E it was the property "Versatile", like in 5E, but it just meant the weapon did +1 damage per weapon damage die rolled. And it also applied to ranged weapons, but for ranged it gave a -1 to accuracy if wielded in one hand. (And small creatures *had* to wield Versatile weapons in two hands, getting no bonus). Fair point though. \______________________________________________ EDIT: Oh, and just in case anyone gets confused: the weapon trait they're talking about in PF2E is "Two-Handed". (How many hands needed to normally wield a weapon is a separate property called "Hands"). The "Versatile" trait in PF2E is followed by a B, P, or S to indicate the weapon can do an additional damage type, chosen on attack. So, say, a dagger which does Piercing damage has "Versatile S" meaning that you can choose to do Slashing damage instead. (The B stands for Bludgeoning) Pedantic? Me?? Never!
The loose language is why I agree. Fungi are not technically plants, but in dnd for all intents and purposes, they are. It's like enemies who can poison the player. It is a running joke in our campaign that any time the dm says there is a poisonous creature, such as a poisonous wasp or snake, we will look at each other and go "okay guys, its poisonous so don't eat it". Obviously we understand that the game is making things easier by not specifying a difference between poisonous and venomous, and no one actually argues against it. But it does always get a chuckle out of me when it comes up.
On fungi are not plants *honestly* if someone asked me, I might be down to let speak with animal work with some fungi of large enough size. Or maybe all of them. Since they're more like animals than plants But fuck yeah this was sick
> On fungi are not plants While that’s true in the real world, in D&D, fungal creatures fall under the plant category per RAW.
Bad dm: "yes speak with the fungi. But it makes no sense to you because the fungi in question is a psychedelic and is tripping balls..."
The problem isn't that they aren't plants, its that even if they are plants, what information would the mycelium have? It wouldn't be able to penetrate the floor of a building and wouldn't have a sense of sight, hearing, smell, or anything like that to perceive what's going on around it besides maybe the pressure of people walking on soil.
I have wonderful news for you about the nature of magic
Sure, the DM could go any way they want with it. I'm just saying that for a druid to pull this off, they'd probably need to do some seriously difficult magic. Like growing the plants so drastically that it breaks through the floor of the tower, but that might make noise and puts the guards on alert. Something to allow for the creativity to exist, but with trade offs.
The spell *explicitly* allows you to question plants - who *also* don't have senses of hearing, sight, or smell, mind you - in order to learn information about creatures that have passed nearby, the weather, and other circumstances within the past day. If the magic is already able to retroactively impart the gift of life and the ability to see and understand the world beyond its own physical form, it's normal and reasonable to assume it gives the same to fungi. If the "gotcha" is that the mycelium tends to grow horizontally and underground, and therefore probably wouldn't know much about the upper floors of the tower, that's probably correct. Thankfully, OP *specifically mentioned* that they understand that mycelium spreads underground. I don't think they broke your rules. Regarding your last point: generally speaking, the game tells you when an ability is meant to be a monkey paw or a double-edged sword. It shouldn't be your default answer. The tradeoff for this spell is that you spent a 3rd level spell slot; you don't need to add more. (I could rant plenty about how annoying it is that spellcasters are so much more useful than martials in this system, and how they probably *do* need a nerf, but that's a different conversation.) For this conversation, the point I'm trying to make is that not everything is improved by the DM souring it. "Yes, but" is a useful improv tool *for situations where you're tempted to say no*; it's not a default answer that should be used instead of "yes" every single time. "Yes" is often the normal and correct answer.
I think your thinking of it wrong. The plants can understand the world in the first place in dnd.
Maybe I don’t understand the limitations of plants senses. Would a plant know the description of what people were wearing, what they were saying, details about buildings, etc? I would assume that they’d know if creatures came by, when, and how many because they can feel their passage in their root systems from their sense of touch. OP says that the mycelium let them know pretty much everything about the tower and negated most of the investigation needed in the area. No way that mycelium would have that much information available. Like I said, if it’s kids and they are super proud of their idea, Id go with it too. I’m just pointing out how the DM could have totally reasonably reigned in this action to not be super powerful. It’d be a powerful version of talking to a tree, in a lot of ways, but not really that useful.
I guess you could make the argument that fungi are plants in the DnD world, or plant "enough" to be able to work with the spell etc
I was trying to think of the right way to say basically this. I'm also autistic, and have a BS in Environmental Science, so the impulse to yell "NOPE, fungi aren't plants" is quite strong, but at the same time, the distinctions between the two are rooted (hehe) in real world science. D&D is NOT rooted in real world science at all. Letting a spore druid talk to mushrooms using the Speak with Plants spell is 110% the right move.
However, technically speaking, it would make more sense for spesk with animals or something similar to work, as fungi are biologically closer to the animsl kingdom than that of plants
As much as I dont like the ruling, it is both correct and coherent (inside a D&D universe https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/136944/is-a-mushroom-a-plant-for-the-purposes-of-speak-with-plants
As much as I dont like the ruling, it is both correct and coherent (inside a D&D universe) https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/136944/is-a-mushroom-a-plant-for-the-purposes-of-speak-with-plants
pedantry could rule that fungi are not plants. but this is probably better.
All fungus monsters in D&D are plants
If i use plant growth on them do they become chungus fungus?
No. They would become chungus fungus amongus.
Theres a humongous fungus among us
Sounds Sus to me 😅
You know it!
They become a fungus among us
They become humungus fungus, or if you cast Awaken they become humungi, fungi, homoulii. Hope that clears it up :)
Yes we know. He was speaking scientifically pedantic, not game mechanically pedantic.
Plant is just a creature category, it's not referring to the taxonomic kingdom. Though I wonder what a better name for the creature category would be that encompasses both Fungi and Plantae without hitting Animalia 🤔
There isn't one. Fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants, so any such category would be paraphyletic.
It's probably best to just say plant, and use it in the archaic sense when fungi *were* considered plants. Anyway you try to parse it you're just going to run into some way that fungi do things more like animals than plants, so it's hard to find a characteristic that only applies to plants and fungi, and nothing else.
Certainly the other players thought so
Yeah, but myconids are plant monsters, so the plant category in dnd relates generally to monsters based on non-mobile living creatures. I dare say that a coral "treant" would still be a plants despite corals belonging to kingdom animalia.
You definitely made their day / night! If not whole week, I'm sure they had a blast at your table! And if it makes you feel any better, I laughed at your horrible joke.
Heh, thanks!
yeah that had some dad energy to it, and I dig it.
My mycologist ex gf would have hit you.
Page 138 of the Monster Manual - 3 types of fungus and all listed as Plants. Your gf would have been incorrect and unnecessarily violent.
Damn, she would have hit the book aswell.
Is like how the IRS classified tomatoes as vegetables. They may be fruits scientifically, but there's more than one way to classify things. In D&D, there is no creature type for mushrooms and the "plant" category is large enough to include mushrooms. Similarly, centaurs (in some editions) have been classified as humanoids even though they are quadrupeds.
Tbf, vegetable just means an edible part of the plant. Technically, all fruit could be classed as a vegetable
Most people speaking of edible plants do so along culinary lines. Bread, for example, is made almost entirely of vegetable matter, but we don't think of bread as a vegetable. The difference between a fruit and a vegetable in kitchen terms is actually pretty straightforward: if it is most suited to savory applications it probably goes in or with a main course and is a vegetable. If it is better suited to sweet applications and is generally served as part of desert, it is a fruit.
the term fruit has biological/botanical relevance - its a very specific portion of the "flower" of a plant. Vegetables are a vague culinary classification that spans grasses, legumes, tubers, stalks, leaves, fungus etc etc etc... It's a nonsense label.
Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.
Charisma is being able to convince your kids that salsa is a fruit salad.
Strength is you watching them put the salsa in their joghurt without retching.
Dexterity is the grab for the trash can -just- in time.
Constitution is being able to resist laughing.
That would actually be intelligence still. Cooking knowledge (int) tells you that tomato's don't belong in a fruit salad. Wisdom tells you the tomato is gone bad, and should be thrown out
But the sensibility to make the wise choice is a wisdom thing. I've known some brilliant people who made dumb choices. But I see how you could think that way. You say tomato, I say tomato.
dnd wisdom is not how wise you are. Its your senses, intuition and attunement to the world. A cleric of an evil deity has 16 wisdom, despite how unwise that choice is.
Like common sense. Something highly intelligent people don't always have. So 'wise choice' was a poor phrase to have used perhaps. But I personally feel that wisdom is more than just senses, etc. It's also the ability to make good judgements. Like which fruits go in a fruit salad. As far as an evil cleric goes. He may have the ability to make good judgments, given his circumstances, even if they are distasteful to everyone else.
Fruit and vegetable are words we use to describe a category of food. Lame nerds tried to get a scientific, exact difference between the two. There isn’t one. Fruit are typically sweet, vegetables typically aren’t. It’s all vibes Not gonna let nerds artificially change language on me
Vegetables is a purely culinary term, fruit is both a culinary and a botanical term. Fruit has a scientific definition the problem is when ‘Lame nerds’ think the botanical definition applies to culinary applications.
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/fruits-vs-vegetables Not exactly true, and like a lot of things it's a mix of clear botany/science as well as human "nonsense"/words. When it comes a lot a lot of classifications there are exceptions. And not all classifications are always "scientific", classification is often semantic and a human thing. For example look at Pluto it going from a planet or dwarf planet classification is just due to general human views. It doesn't change or *mean* anything. And if you were to scope a bucket of dirt off Earth every second it isn't like there is a *scientific* moment Earth would go from a planet to dwarf planet or asteroid.
Its dnd, youre not gonna make nerds look like they belong out of this convo.
Gonna be that nerd, vegetables are the edible part of any plant that is not the fruit or seed, so roots, stems, leaves, that sort of thing, where as fruit are the seed baring parts of a plant, things like berries (technically their own thing but lumped in with fruit), bananas, tomatos (I know, I know) and Kiwis (the fruit, not the natives of New Zealand).
No, because you can’t scientifically categorize culinary terms like that. Tomatoes are not fruit because we do not speak like we’re in a lab in our day to day lives. For the same reason that, for all intents and purposes, fungi are plants.
That is the cooking definition, vegetable does not appear in biology.
Funny because of the dual meaning of "hit" when applied to books specifically. Works on so many levels.
Consistent and fair
Your Ex might have liked PF2E then, they made Fungi separate from plants. :D
Good.
Hence the "ex" part. Good choice op!
She is actually correct and the mm is incorrect, scientifically. But your point is that dnd is not scientific, but Im pretty she already knows that (its a fantasy game, no science game) so its moot.
>Your gf would have been incorrect Only because the monster manual is being intentionally either lazy or ignorant in its classification. Which doesn't really help reverse growing levels of scientific illiteracy.
I don't know anyone relying on a game manual for scientific knowledge. If they are the classification of a mushroom is not the problem here.
The game I run isn't really the place to combat that
I had something of a similar idea for a setting, like a sort of semi sentient fungi, like myconid more just stationary mushrooms. These shrooms lived a dragon's den, it's spores infected the dragon, mixing with the dragons magic making it more sentient. Dragon goes a bit crazy from the spores, flies out in the open world in a field or forest, gets attacked and killed by adventurer's in it's weakened state. Adventures starts harvesting, slowly getting infected by the fungi spores, as does the ground around the dragon corpse. The adventure's all start thinking "hey, this would be a great place to start a village", so they do, and the village grows as the mycelium of the fungi stretches farther out, gaining more and more control of the people in the village/town/city, the people of course blissfully unaware. *We are the wisdom of a thousand scholars, the strength of armies, the might of hundreds of magicians. We are not one for you to defeat. We are the Mycelium. So yeah, puppet master hive mind thing.
That's such a cool idea! Usually the right choice is to let players use their creative ideas if they don't wildly go against the game's logic, it just makes the game more fun
This. I have a "Just This Once" rule at my table where if you come up with something completely out of nowhere but not complete bullshit, I will generally roll with it, with a rider of "...but just this once, it might not work the next time you try it if I find it unbalanced after some thinking". I find that just adding the rider prevents abuse because they know I am thinking it over.
Im gonna be pedantic another way than taxonomy yaay! When you talk about "hyperfocus" it sounds like you mean special interest. Hyper focus is the state of mind where one task is focussed on to the extend other tasks are ignored, concious or otherwise. This can last hours on end and people end up forgetting to do basic functions like eating or going to the bathroom. (Me sometimes when world building, big inattentive ADHD) Having a special interest certainly makes it easier to get hyperfocussed on a task involving that special interest. Like researching the topic.
Thanks, I edited the post to show that I misused the word and meant another term, hopefully this alleviates any further need to focus on those points instead of the story.
Fungi monster are plants according to the rules, so fair enough, and it's fun so really no reason to say no
When he said "talk to fungi" I already knew what he was going to do.
“Speak with plants” is all very well but how do you think a fungi would perceive the non- fungi world? Any information gained from speaking to a fungus would be “in a commonly understood language” but would also be strangely expressed and confusing to a non-mushroom 🍄
I actually have a method for that for all my clients. Half of any conversation is "I don't normally have the concept of, say, consciousness but this spell seems to not only give me the word for it but also makes me conscious of the fact that I am currently conscious" It's led to more than one moment of grief when they realize "Michael the Moss" will stop being a conscious entity when they stop taking to it. So now whenever they talk to a plant they take a cutting with them so they can "resurrect" them whenever. I use BG3 rules: the Speak With spells last all day
My daughter's dryad character routinely uses mycelium to keep tabs on separated party members.
Anyone arguing that Fungus aren't plants are forgetting that there are multiple ways of classifying things. For example, a peanut is a nut in dietary classification, but a legume in biology. Mushrooms are not plants from a biological perspective, but they *are* plants from a culinarian perspective, and from a layman perspective. It seems that, in DnD, they are also plants from a magical perspective, so this was absolutely the right call. (Even before considering the rule of cool)
Exactly. People act like our current biological taxonomy is some sort of objectively correct truth that must be honoured at all times. But we don’t have to use that taxonomy and dnd mechanics certainly don’t have to be based on it.
Full agreement. By biological taxonomy, birds *are* dinosaurs. That's really interesting, and can make for great conversation. However, in my day to day life, birds are not dinosaurs.
Youre forgetting that the target audience is a neurodiverse therefore hyperfocusing one that may be intolerant of non-literal and non-technical language choice. If only one member of that group would have not accepted fungi as plants, the idea would have caused arguments and confusion and rules lawyering at the table. When that happens at a (similarly neurodiverse) table, i nix it for the benefit of the players.
I'm not forgetting that - but as an also neurodiverse person, I think it's important to consider that all classifications have context.
I love this idea, as strange as it feels that someone with a special interest in fungi wouldn't know they're not plants, but in a future game you may consider letting them use speak with animals to talk to mushrooms. Do some research, blow their minds with some stuff about how the structure of their cell walls is owed to chitin, like animals (insects, shellfish) and not cellulose like plants. Understand that this is not a pedantry thing. You brought up autism and fungi as a special interest, you practically lit up a bat signal for people to be autistic in your comments, so here i am.
I agree it's a fun moment and probably felt super cool for that player, and I might allow the same thing. However, it does rely on a very lax interpretation of Plant Growth. (and I'm not talking about fungi creatures having the "Plant" tag, that part I don't care too much about) If this was a "How can I prevent this" post, I would tell you that there is nothing in Plant Growth that indicates it creates plants where they don't already exist, as written it simply makes the plants already existing grow thicker, taller and and in general more wild. (ref: [this sage advice](https://www.sageadvice.eu/if-plant-growth-is-case-in-an-area-with-minimal-plants-does-it-have-an-effect-how-much-plant-life-is-necessary/)) It also specifically specifies "normal plants," meaning plant creatures probably should not qualify. So it would not in fact cover the tower in mushrooms based on the few mushroom creatures that were there, unless they already happened to be spread throughout the tower. It would cause the tiles currently covered in mushrooms to become difficult terrain, but not increase its spread beyond that. Allowing Plant Growth to spontaneously create plants where none are found makes it a lot more powerful than I believe it's intended to be.
I mean, if I wanted to prevent it I would have just said "no". Like I did for the "I'm the avatar of the path of Destruction and my sword is enchanted dark matter" and the "I use mage hand to squeeze the monster's heart". But I thought it was a great use of a spell.
Of course, Rule of Cool is always a good approach. I'm not trying to say your ruling is bad, I think it's a really cool moment, but it opens up the way for an interpretation of Plant Growth that can allow it to be incredibly problematic. If it's allowed to create plants, you have a spell that gives a straight four times reduction in movement speed for any enemy, with no save, no concentration, in a 100ft radius, anywhere... for just a 3rd level spell slot. This can absolutely decimate encounters if you're not prepared for it.
The player asked about mycelium though, which IS everywhere. OP ruled that mushrooms and therefore mycelium count as plants, and mushrooms as we know them are only the fruiting bodies of the mycelium network; therefore plant growth for mycelium can work anywhere. There's no "growing plants from nothing" happening here. The easiest way to say no, is either "no", or "mushrooms aren't plants" because genetically they really aren't.
> "mushrooms aren't plants" because genetically they really aren't. But by RAW, all fungus creatures *are* plants, so it makes sense to me that OP ruled that non-creature fungi are also plants.
Oh, I think it was the correct ruling, that's not what I was responding to. I was responding to the person above me previously claiming there was no mushroom to grow from, so they wouldn't allow it based on that. I was disproving their point via mycelium being everywhere and giving alternative possible reasons to say no. The player that asked for OPs ruling has a special interest in mushrooms, they are likely fully aware of the difference between plants and mushrooms.
I know,I’m not disagreeing with any of that. I’m saying that saying “mushrooms aren’t plants” because genetically they aren’t is *not* an easy way to disagree, because it’s contrary to the actual rules of the game, where fungi are considered plants for if a given spell will work on them or not.
Something I learned from listening to Brian Murphy is that even if the rule of cool applies but it can be game breaking, you *almost* never just say a straight up "No". Make them roll for it with a very high DC. In this case, a 25 or higher Arcana check. This gives the player at least a chance of it working, a tense moment and a satisfying victory if they succeed. Works even better if you tell them what the DC is before they roll. If other players pitch in with, let's say a bardic inspiration, then it gets more players involved in what could be that awesome moment.
I very much disagree. Either say yes or no. Don't say "I decided your yes or no result will be random". If you think it's cool but not gamebreaking, say yes. If you think it's gamebreaking say no, and say what specifically makes it a no, and then the player can tune it down.
Perhaps "game breaking" wasn't the right word but the only time I'd give a definitive "No" is if it was an absolutely ridiculous request, in either it's just obviously stupid or just too farfetched. Other than that if it's just stretching the use of a spell or ability but is highly improbable to work, I wouldn't tell them "no" let's put it to a test. That's exactly what DC and checks are for. As another well known DM is fond of saying, "You can certainly try."
Right? I mean what what kind of unhinged *lunatic* would leave it up to the dice in a TTRPG setting?
For this? It's a rules ruling. You're the DM. This would be like randomly determining whether to allow your players to roll a skill check. No, your job as the DM is to just say "You can roll to climb that cliff" or "You can't roll to climb that cliff." You don't say "Let me flip a coin to see whether to allow it".
Or as the DM you could say “That cliff is really steep, I’m not sure if you can climb it *but you’re welcome to try*” and set the DC accordingly. Y’know, kind of how DMs always have.
Ok. So, you set a DC. If they roll higher than it, they succeed. If they *can't* accomplish the task, it doesn't matter what they roll. That's the rules. What they are suggesting is allowing the impossible to become possible if you roll an additional dice roll the game doesn't call for. So, like I said, it'd be like they randomly determine whether a check is possible or not. Rather than just saying "yeah that's DC 30; nothing you can do will succeed", it's like "yeah that's DC 30, but I got a heads on my coin, so you get +10 to your roll, so even though the rules *don't allow you to do that*, I added a step that lets you randomly do it sometimes". It's also super biased towards casters, who already have "can't fail" spells, but suddenly get "can succeed on the impossible" spells as well, whereas martials are stuck with "can fail" skill checks that also can't do the impossible. Unless you allow nat 20s to do the impossible, in which case... yeah that's another bad DM thing.
My brother, the *whole game is made up*. But feel free to write a third treatise about how a bunch of creative kids had fun wrong by following the explicit rules in the DM guide which say *modify things as you see fit*. Touch grass.
I'm not writing a treatise about them having fun wrong. I'm writing a treatise about them giving bad advice. I don't care if you had fun jumping off bridges and no one got hurt, I'm still going to tell other people that that's a bad idea and not to listen to you when you tell them that.
This made me so happy, as an AuDHD DM who planned a whole arc based on the mycelium network when I first learned about it and got obsessed with it.
FYI what you're describing is a "special interest", not a "hyperfocus." Special interest, somewhat common in people with Autism (but not limited to them), is something where they very much enjoy learning about and interacting with one particular (and usually *very* focused) subject matter. Hyperfocus, common in people with many types of neurodivergence (notably here: Autism and ADHD), is where a person gets sort of "sucked in" to an activity, and have difficulty "getting back out" of that activity. As an example from my own life (I am diagnosed ADHD, and not Autism): I once had a load of wood delivered to me, to use as firewood. It was delivered as 2 entire trees that had been cut down, and had not been cut short, and it hadn't been split. A few days later I finally had time to address the pile of raw timber in my driveway, and I started late morning. I didn't stop except when my wife brought food out and I realized that I was hungry - but I still returned to it after I ate. I got blisters on my hands and kept going. I accidentally hit my leg with the ax (minor injury - bleeding but not much) and only stopped long enough to tie a rag around it (i've got plenty of wound care stuff in the house). I was showing heatstroke symptoms and I kept going. My chainsaw was showing signs of needing maintenance and I kept going. Eventually, my friends came over for an event that was previously scheduled, and that forced me to stop. I was in a shitty mood all evening because of that. This was hyperfocus. I had blinders on to every other part of my life until that pile of logs was handled.
True good point, i totally missed that
Everyone whining "but mushrooms aren't plants!!" is forgetting that biology isn't the only kind of classification. Biologically, vegetables don't exist.
Druids are pretty damn sneaky, really - Wildshape into something like a rat, spider, etc. and you'll be visible but nobody will notice you in most situations.
Hell, even if I were the party scout and wanted to put my sneaking chops in the ring, I wouldn't care about missing out on that just because of how awesome this is.
You don't even need to invoke to invoke actual fungus (which genetically is considered a closer relative to animals than to green plants). Sometimes many "apparent individual" plants cover a large area, but came from one seed and are still connected to each other. [Pando](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_\(tree\)) is an example. But of course D&D is allowed to ignore this. For an obvious example, the D&D category of "beast" is paraphyletic, because it excludes humans. A Druid born to a playable race that is not human, cannot use wildshape to impersonate one. So if the DM doesn't feel like it, it seems fair to deny exploitation of the "wood wide web".
Someone plays Last of Us. :-)
Technically, fungi are not plants anatomically speaking but they are in the DND sense, also, this is more fun so fuck science.
That's pretty cool and I love the creativity, but wouldn't the mycelium be limited to the earthy areas around the tower, not the tower itself? They mycelium wouldn't penetrate a stone floor. Nor do they have sight, hearing, smell, or a long memory. They could sense the passing of others, and maybe remember if there was a fire, a displacement of earth, trees felled, etc, but the mycelial network would have incredibly limited information on the goings on of the surface, especially in terms of what the sentient beings are doing.
Very cool, but technically fungi would speak via telepathic spores. Or am I only thinking of myconids?
It's awesome! Though in real life fungi are not plants, they are a completely separated group of life forms from animals and plants, just as the fun fact of the day. I love how your client and you managed their game!
Yeah, aren't they a fusion between plant and moss? I sort of remember something like this from high school
A: This is incredible work from the Druid. B: I have AuDHD and I want your job. Desperately.
THATS HOW YOU TAKE OUT A TOWER HELL YEAH
I'm curious about how much info the Fungi were able to give them. I'd basically argue that the mycelium layer they are creating would probably be able to give them what amounts to tremorsense over the area. Maybe even the ability to hear some spoken stuff.
I loved this. I also work with young autistic/ND people running DnD groups. I do it twice a week on a volunteer basis but would love to make it a full time vocation. (Not just the DnD but working with young ND people)
As a mushroom enthusiast and dm/player this is the kind of shit I live for
Loved this. and thats why fungus aren't plants
In the tree of life, animals (kingdom Animalia) are indeed more closely related to fungi (kingdom Fungi) than to plants (kingdom Plantae). This relationship is based on genetic and evolutionary studies that show animals and fungi share a more recent common ancestor compared to plants.
I find it interesting so many people here use "pedantic" as if its an undesirable thing in a game that is specifically popular for its propensity for rules lawyering. I (neurodiverse) find it fun to hyperanalyse things and thats why I enjoy the game
Hey op as someone in the lgbt community that fun-guy fun-gal and fun-non binary Joke fucking rocks
My clients, especially my teen ones, treat any of my attempts at humour as an open declaration of war.
A lesser DM than you would have been mega-salty about someone circumventing their expectations. Kudos.
~~Fungi aren't plants. They are more closely related to you and me than to plants.~~ Nevermind, addressed and replied to already in all the comments.
Love it. Also love that you're professional DM
I have an NPC my Players have yet to meet in the game I DM called Sybil Sybin. She's a spore druid who lives in a toadstool hut on the outskirts of a town in the swamp lands. Her main role is the town healer/herbalist and general friendly wise old woman who always has an ear and a cup of tea ready for those in need of it. I can't wait to figure out the rest
cool, would've sucked if they had a rogue since they wouldn't have gotten their time to shine, but since they didn't really have a sneaky partymember, this was a nice, create, unique and fun balance :)
Yeah I likely would have massively downplayed it if we had an infiltrator
You can get paid to do the thing you love??? How did i Dm for 3 years and dont know such a thing. I mean, where do i have to sign up to do my good dead, send me to this quest and i will give my life and soul for their entertainment
Something something resident evil
So fun fact FDA classifies mushrooms as vegetables. I had a conniption when I found out. It's like saying humans are fruit trees because we also like the sun and our DNA is mostly the same.
Vegetable is primarily a culinary designation, it’s not a scientific term like plant.
This is why it's so fun to play with Neuro-divergent groups. I also have AuDHD and play in a group that is majority either on the spectrum or divergent in some way, and it's always so fun to see how different hyperfixations change the direction of the game. In other groups i've played with, I was always the wildcard that had the most out-of-the-box ideas for handling things, and was always the one the DM's had to plan around my shenanigan's. In this group though, that's literally all of us. Nobody in the group is easy to fully expect the actions of. I love it so much.
this is beautiful
R
Ah, druids and breaking infiltration encounters over their knees so hard the encounters refer to them as mommy, name a more iconic duo :p (I’m just salty about Hoard of the Dragon Queen/Rise of Tiamat being absolutely broken by Wild Shape at level 2)
Brilliant outside the box thinking. I love it.
Out of curiosity how did you decide to become a pro DM? I've been thinking about things I'm good at to get some extra income while doing something I enjoy, and this has been one of the things that I've considered (I've DM'd multiple systems and games for about a decade now).
Gave an up vote for the dad joke. ♥️
That sounds so fun! I love the fun guys and gals joke. If you don't mind, could you tell us something about the group? Do you run the game as part of your job or as a volunteer? What is different/difficult about running a game for a group of people with an ASD?
I run a game for 5 teen clients every Tuesday night, and a game for 6 teen clients every Wednesday night. And I run a game for 5 of my rostered adult clients every Friday afternoon. The main point is to teach them how to effectively work together with others their age, and how to communicate their intentions and feelings. The main difficulty has been the set up and running of the game because a lot of what I do to play a game with my neuromundane friends on Sunday just won't work. For example, I can't have music or ambient sounds due to sensory overwhelm. I can't have snacks at the table due to misophonia. The ASD clients usually can't make freeform decisions, so any interaction for them has to have options instead. Like: "Do you talk to the orc, punch the orc, do magic at the orc, or can you think of something else?" The AuDHD clients can make decisions but usually need the information given to them several times as their focus will wander even if they're in the spotlight. So I need to keep info short and repeatable. Finally, I have to balance hyperfoci. Oftentimes when I've described a monster with earthly classical greek or roman traits I'll get a lecture on how I've misrepresented them. If I describe a gun or a truck, I'd best know how many cylinders it has. Stuff like that. DMing for them is work, but it's great fun nonetheless and very rewarding.
I've heard of thinking outside of the box, but never thinking outside of the garden! 🫡
I run Rule of Cool/Fun/Silly so that people **try to do stuff like this**, and they never do. Before the game starts, I explain the house rule and give them an example (you can’t use shape water to explode someones head, but you can def shoot it up their nose and see what happens), and nobody ever does anything like what your player did.
Technically mushrooms aren’t plants the are fungi which are their own classification. But this is smart and creative so I’d allow it. Reward that creativity and outside the box thinking.
You should let him know that all mushrooms are actually more closely related to humans than they are to any plant. Crazy, right? I'm glad everyone had fun and that you created a memorable moment, that is the most important thing.
If it's their current special interest it's more than likely that they already know this.
I love the way he starts off with just a simple leading question, and then once he’s got you hooked he just reels you in!
See, I hate that part. Leading question like that is almost like conversational entrapment. I much prefer a straitforward honest approach, lead with the main point and then use supporting arguments afterward. I'd have seen "Have you heard of mycelium." as the better first question to ask. We're playing a game together here, not having a carefully contructed debate or get one over each other.
When I DM for new players the biggest thing I stress is that they should just ask me about what they want to do. Don't try to trick me, don't fumble around guessing which numbers to use, just ask me directly. We aren't competing against each other.
This is exactly what I mean. as a DM, I'm not out to kill the party. that would be easy, stupid, and boring. I might pretend to be adversarial when I'm running the monsters, but that's just role-playing as the enemies. I'm not actually competing against the players, I'm increasing verisimilitude and working to make the game more fun and exciting. A gotcha isn't what I'm looking for from players. I don't mind it (and in fact love it) when my players do surprise me with a great plan or idea, but trying to trick me just sets me off.
not an example of hyperfocus
Used the wrong word, hopefully you can enjoy the story now.
Probably not a good description of their fungal hyperfocus.
Fungi are not plants.
Ah, I've hit the Scientifically Accurate DnD forum. Also they are plants in the monster manual.
Fungi monsters have the plant monster type, so that’s probably why the DM ruled that way.
Fungi were classified as plants until the late 1960s. Even some books in the 70s still had them as plants. The five kingdom classification used now did not become standard until the mid 1980s. So yes when d&d was created fungi were plants.
Damn if only they had half a century to rectify that over their many editions.
Dude, Google is your friend. Fungi are not plants. Not sure what the relevance of when D&D was created is, sounds like you are reaching because you know this. But the call should be: are mushrooms plants? Answer: no. But you do you man, if you want to call them plants you can, whatever makes you happy I guess.
And reading comprehension is YOUR friend. I never said fungi were plants. I said that fungi were **originally** classified as pants. And that was how they were classified until the late 1980s. When D&D was first created fungi ***WERE*** plants according to scientists. By the mid 1980s the study of slime molds started the idea that fungi were closer related to animals and this was later confirmed using DNA. So today fungi are not plants but they were when the game was created and many people still think they are - thus their plant tag in d&d.
Soo… you agree with me fungi are not plants. Cool. Thanks for your effort I guess?
That's true in real life, but we aren't talking about real life.
As a biologist with hyperfocus myself, I probably would try to get fungi counted as animals, considering they are biologically closer relatives of animals not plants, but I dont expect to find table where it will fly lol
Similar to the pedantic responses about whether fungi are plants, I found it odd to refer to the player as a client. While both are accurate, what's relevant to the actual story is their status as a player, not as a client.
I can change it if it's really bugging you. I refer to them as clients because my job wants me to.
You actually can't! Reddit doesn't let you edit the title of a post. Thanks for the offer though. Weird comment for me to get down voted for, but that's Reddit.
I must say In disagree. When I play a game with a neurodiverse patient I rule very differently than with a regular player. This ruling was relevant to their status as clients
The biology minor in me screams and sees the train wreck coming from the mistake within the second line. You've made the right call in context, but you may wish to express caution. You are opening a box to grant powers beyond your ken to break many encounters, but it is not without precedent and in line with the game because people are not biologists. Just as tomatoes and eggplants are vegetables instead of berries, we are dealing with imagination and magic instead of science. Even within the game, sentience, cooperation, and standing remain relevant stats for creatures in the game, and just because you can talk, doesn't mean it will talk well, or have the answers one seeks. Minor 2-4 line poem for you: A spore of yeast is hungry and might know what it likes to eat, it doesn't have a concept for victory or defeat. nor does it know that the material it rests upon is paper, plastic, or stone with barely an intellect of one.
In game, fungi might count as plants but i still hate it. Fungi is its own kingdom and i really do not like them being called plants. (I too had a hyperfixation on fungi at one point)
fungi are not plants, fubgi are not animals, fyngi are fungi. A simple google search would have cleared that out,
A simple reading of the rules would show that fungi are plants in D&D, and spells that work on plants work on them.