ideas for new gardener plants

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Shark_Force
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ideas for new gardener plants

Unread post by Shark_Force »

i've just been thinking lately about some possible plants that the resistance might have worked on to provide to the gardeners. there's a pretty good variety so far, but i tend to think of them as being the combat engineers of the resistance, and i'm just curious what sorts of things you'd expect them to have.

one that i've considered has been underground tunnels that push things through them to help with transporting supplies. where the tunnels come to the surface would be something like thickets or bushes to cover up the entrance, and they'd be used to covertly transport various materials as needed.

another that i think would make a lot of sense would be something that grows very quickly and produces something like sandbags. perhaps they would form bushes (anything as obviously non-natural as sandbags would be a bit too visible, though perhaps the third idea i've had could help with that). some sort of hedge-like plant could work to fill the role perhaps.

a third would be a network of vines that would function basically as camouflage netting. i mean, normal vines could do that, but these would be designed to quickly grow and to quickly blend in with other growth, maybe even disguise themselves as other plants entirely. perhaps even going so far as to develop a proper stealth field that covers an area underneath them once they've fully matured.

but i'm sure that isn't everything a combat engineer could possibly want. what else could you imagine being developed?

edit: almost forgot, a plant that would function like a slap patch, except obviously immobile, and probably with more daily charges :P

edit again: and i keep getting new ideas... some sort of plant that could act as a sensor system. basically functions as a spotter for a gardener using direct control of their plants.

and another plant that grows various types of bio-tech explosives found in the core book. intended to provide useful supplies to anyone needing them, without the need to go all the way back to an actual base. the kind of thing you'd plant around a bao house you expect covert operatives to work from.
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Re: ideas for new gardener plants

Unread post by Shark_Force »

so... nothing? am i really the only person who's thought about this?
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Re: ideas for new gardener plants

Unread post by Slight001 »

Honestly, I don't really think about the gardener all that much. I should... designing a unique house with a unique subterranean ecosystem would lend itself to unique 'plants'. Their unique

I like what you've done, trying to make them more active rather then simply waiting for their plants (hours to months iirc) and hoping the enemy finds itself in range...

From what I can remember of the O.C.C. I liked the idea of the Gardner, but like the other O.C.C.'s when I started working on the Hel'Brek the various book O.C.C.'s were found wanting as the stimulus that created them was gone. I'll likely look at the gardener again as I cycle between the Hel'Brek and my other projects.
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Re: ideas for new gardener plants

Unread post by Shark_Force »

well, there is *certainly* an element to the gardener of growing plants, spending months or years growing fully mature plants as defensive positions to help fight the machine if they ever come somewhere. but that's really just one side.

something like, say, a photon infuser plant, that takes 6 weeks or more to mature... but an immature plant can be grown in less than a day. boom shrooms and glowfruit plants can take as little as 2 hours for the immature form, and both of those plants offer a remarkably formidable amount of attack power. in under a day, even a level 1 gardener can easily have 4-6 plants grown to immature (provided they didn't roll poorly for bio-e... one change i would make for rolling bio-e for every class would be to reduce the variability down a lot more for just that reason; i dislike that one player can wind up with 40 while another can wind up with 240 while playing the exact same class, i'd feel a lot better about, say, 1d6x10 + 100 to keep things a bit more consistent, but that's an entirely different subject).

but seriously, review the class... average of easily 100+ starting bio-e for whatever assortment of upgrades completely separate from their plant fortification allowance (though presumably the former *can* be used to purchase the latter). a decent combat suit of living body armour as a backup. just as many handheld weapons as most other OCCs as well (one per WP). yeah, they can sit around a base somewhere spending years growing a bao house orchard. but they can also lay down one heck of an ambush given about 10 hours or so (seriously, look at the size of the AoE on boom shrooms and glowfruits... a gardener can dish out a *ton* of damage in an area very quickly). and yeah, the immature plants will quickly run out of payload and die in most cases, but if you just wanted to set up an ambush, that's really just fine. you'll get new saplings and be able to repeat that ambush somewhere else soon enough :)
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Re: ideas for new gardener plants

Unread post by Slight001 »

Shark_Force wrote:one change i would make for rolling bio-e for every class would be to reduce the variability down a lot more for just that reason; i dislike that one player can wind up with 40 while another can wind up with 240 while playing the exact same class, i'd feel a lot better about, say, 1d6x10 + 100 to keep things a bit more consistent, but that's an entirely different subject).

Yeah... I've been looking at that (BIO-E values) and hating it... I already changed how upgrades are handled to make it more reasonable... especially if the player were to lose their host armor... Imagine losing your host armor at level 10... by the rules you are stuck with stage one weaponry/senses/defenses... until they get to level 11 and then they have an even longer wait... if the player was an idiot perhaps I could understand... but if they were doing something heroic and making a sacrifice for the greater good... and survived. Why were they being punished for surviving? I've had players tell me that they'd rather roll up a new PC and restart at level 1 so that they could at least have an excuse and feel like they were making progress.

I decided to just implement a time line event. I decided that stimulus would continue to allow per level or six months of time. The time required could be modified by the regeneration capacity of the host armor. IIRC... the rate dropped down to something like 1-2 months.

As far as the Bio-E collection, I've been thinking about that. I kind of hate the bio-e system. It is depicted as the PC's nervous system developing a harmony with the bio-tech they are utilizing... and yet we have the demonstration of PC's gaining Bio-E as rewards so... just how does this system supposed to work?

Lately I've stopped looking at the palladium line of games from the perspective of running a game and instead from the perspective of a worldbuilder creating a setting that could allow for a variety of stories with a set of consistent rules/mechanics. I love this setting, but I find it's mechanics and many elements are inconsistent with the realities of the world that was created/presented. In my opinion this is the result of an obsessive focus on creating game mechanics instead of the world itself rather than developing the game to fit the world.

Shark_Force wrote:but seriously, review the class... average of easily 100+ starting bio-e for whatever assortment of upgrades completely separate from their plant fortification allowance (though presumably the former *can* be used to purchase the latter). a decent combat suit of living body armour as a backup. just as many handheld weapons as most other OCCs as well (one per WP). yeah, they can sit around a base somewhere spending years growing a bao house orchard. but they can also lay down one heck of an ambush given about 10 hours or so (seriously, look at the size of the AoE on boom shrooms and glowfruits... a gardener can dish out a *ton* of damage in an area very quickly). and yeah, the immature plants will quickly run out of payload and die in most cases, but if you just wanted to set up an ambush, that's really just fine. you'll get new saplings and be able to repeat that ambush somewhere else soon enough :)


Yeah I looked at them. They are a highly effective force multiplier. Their defensive and ambush capabilities are rather useful, but situational. I tend to look at anything that requires more than a single action/attack as a questionable choice... that's me though. I fully understand it's value from a strategic and tactical view. They can create from nothing death and life by their choices. These guys would need to have minds capable of planning on large scales and in all four dimensions. Layering and enveloping... yeah they are going to need to be able to process scale and and time. I could see a team of Gardeners engineering a terrifying gauntlet of death.
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Re: ideas for new gardener plants

Unread post by Shark_Force »

Slight001 wrote:
Shark_Force wrote:one change i would make for rolling bio-e for every class would be to reduce the variability down a lot more for just that reason; i dislike that one player can wind up with 40 while another can wind up with 240 while playing the exact same class, i'd feel a lot better about, say, 1d6x10 + 100 to keep things a bit more consistent, but that's an entirely different subject).

Yeah... I've been looking at that (BIO-E values) and hating it... I already changed how upgrades are handled to make it more reasonable... especially if the player were to lose their host armor... Imagine losing your host armor at level 10... by the rules you are stuck with stage one weaponry/senses/defenses... until they get to level 11 and then they have an even longer wait... if the player was an idiot perhaps I could understand... but if they were doing something heroic and making a sacrifice for the greater good... and survived. Why were they being punished for surviving? I've had players tell me that they'd rather roll up a new PC and restart at level 1 so that they could at least have an excuse and feel like they were making progress.

I decided to just implement a time line event. I decided that stimulus would continue to allow per level or six months of time. The time required could be modified by the regeneration capacity of the host armor. IIRC... the rate dropped down to something like 1-2 months.

As far as the Bio-E collection, I've been thinking about that. I kind of hate the bio-e system. It is depicted as the PC's nervous system developing a harmony with the bio-tech they are utilizing... and yet we have the demonstration of PC's gaining Bio-E as rewards so... just how does this system supposed to work?

Lately I've stopped looking at the palladium line of games from the perspective of running a game and instead from the perspective of a worldbuilder creating a setting that could allow for a variety of stories with a set of consistent rules/mechanics. I love this setting, but I find it's mechanics and many elements are inconsistent with the realities of the world that was created/presented. In my opinion this is the result of an obsessive focus on creating game mechanics instead of the world itself rather than developing the game to fit the world.

Shark_Force wrote:but seriously, review the class... average of easily 100+ starting bio-e for whatever assortment of upgrades completely separate from their plant fortification allowance (though presumably the former *can* be used to purchase the latter). a decent combat suit of living body armour as a backup. just as many handheld weapons as most other OCCs as well (one per WP). yeah, they can sit around a base somewhere spending years growing a bao house orchard. but they can also lay down one heck of an ambush given about 10 hours or so (seriously, look at the size of the AoE on boom shrooms and glowfruits... a gardener can dish out a *ton* of damage in an area very quickly). and yeah, the immature plants will quickly run out of payload and die in most cases, but if you just wanted to set up an ambush, that's really just fine. you'll get new saplings and be able to repeat that ambush somewhere else soon enough :)


Yeah I looked at them. They are a highly effective force multiplier. Their defensive and ambush capabilities are rather useful, but situational. I tend to look at anything that requires more than a single action/attack as a questionable choice... that's me though. I fully understand it's value from a strategic and tactical view. They can create from nothing death and life by their choices. These guys would need to have minds capable of planning on large scales and in all four dimensions. Layering and enveloping... yeah they are going to need to be able to process scale and and time. I could see a team of Gardeners engineering a terrifying gauntlet of death.


the host armour replacement thing is relatively a minor issue to me... it's an MDC world. if your host armour is completely destroyed, you're not going to have good odds of survival anyways. but yeah, it does seem odd that they get such a basic set, especially if they're an experienced soldier. you'd think that cloning technology would be available, and while i could see the resistance hesitating to use it for humans, i do think they'd feel perfectly comfortable using it for a host armour or warmount, provided it was used well (as you said, if it was just a character being dumb, that's a whole different thing).

bio-e rewards i think represent someone putting in extra effort to design something more compatible with your nervous system. they *can* do that, but it is incredibly inefficient. your basic amount of bio-e requires only a bit of time with an engineer, but i would presume that exceeding that basic amount involves a substantial investment of time from someone, be that a librarian, geneticist, or engineer, and when you've got perhaps a few hundred of those people who all have other important work to do in the first place, you're going to be a pretty special person if they think it's worth spending a week optimizing your suit or whatever to a higher level.

or, to look at it another way... it's the difference between NASCAR and a family sedan. the former probably costs over 10 times as much as the latter because it requires a team of dedicated professionals to custom build all kinds of things, but it isn't 10 times as fast, doesn't turn in 1/10 the radius, doesn't accelerate 10 times as fast, etc. it is certainly a superior machine, but not to the extent that the cost might suggest. that kind of optimization may theoretically be available for almost any car, but it isn't worth expending the resources for a typical car, and certainly a typical family doesn't have the kind of cash to supe up their family sedan the way a custom-built racing car is.

so lets say in a house of 200,000 people, 100,000 of those are soldiers of some kind, and the house can afford to optimize 500 "things" in a year's time, give or take. that reward isn't so much "you did a good job, have an upgrade", it's someone deciding that you as an individual are more likely to give good value for the huge investment of time and effort that is being dedicated to improving your host armour/warmount/whatever. it works like that in modern workplaces to some extent (a company might be willing to pay for your education if they know you're a great employee, but they're not going to extend that offer to every single one of their employees, just the ones where they expect their investment to pay off). and while i'm not in the military, i bet it's like that for them as well; if you seem to be someone who's just in for a few years and then it's off to the reserves, they're not going to recommend you for special training. if you don't have the reflexes to be a fighter pilot, they're not going to teach you how to fly an F-22. and so on.

it isn't that they couldn't have done it before you impressed them. it's that now you've impressed them, and they've decided that you are worth investing that extra effort more so than the guy who got bored of waiting in ambush and decided to go hunting for fresh meat to pass the time, or the guy who has a drinking problem, or even the guy who doesn't really have any major flaws, but also hasn't really shown that they're above average either.

that's why biotics, for example, almost never get bonus bio-e... they're viewed as expendable, very few live for long or reach higher levels, and most of them aren't exactly mentally stable either, so they need to really stand out when they're competing with dreadguards and outriders for the same amount of investment.
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Re: ideas for new gardener plants

Unread post by kronos »

Been awhile since I've looked at the Gardener stuff.. but something I created on the Rifts forum, EShemarrians specifically, might be of interest..

Vine Missiles.. these are missiles that upon striking something, release a mass of vines that grapple whatever they hit and anything in an area.. can be adapted for Splicers as hand grenades, a variant of organic rocket (instead of an explosive contains these vines), or even a type of mine. After they serve their purpose, they can take root and possibly turn into a type of mine, or just can die and act as fertilizer.

Also created a plant type 'robot' that would be stored in a seed type container, and could be released to act as temporary soldiers, a few hours unless they are given water, sunlight and other nutrients plants need. If they are kept in an area that allows for plenty of plant growth, these plant 'robots' can live for a few years and act as guardians for those areas, or used as combat units else where, but would require water/food/sunlight over time.
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Re: ideas for new gardener plants

Unread post by BookWyrm »

Shark_Force wrote:i've just been thinking lately about some possible plants that the resistance might have worked on to provide to the gardeners. there's a pretty good variety so far, but i tend to think of them as being the combat engineers of the resistance, and i'm just curious what sorts of things you'd expect them to have.

one that i've considered has been underground tunnels that push things through them to help with transporting supplies. where the tunnels come to the surface would be something like thickets or bushes to cover up the entrance, and they'd be used to covertly transport various materials as needed.

another that i think would make a lot of sense would be something that grows very quickly and produces something like sandbags. perhaps they would form bushes (anything as obviously non-natural as sandbags would be a bit too visible, though perhaps the third idea i've had could help with that). some sort of hedge-like plant could work to fill the role perhaps.

a third would be a network of vines that would function basically as camouflage netting. i mean, normal vines could do that, but these would be designed to quickly grow and to quickly blend in with other growth, maybe even disguise themselves as other plants entirely. perhaps even going so far as to develop a proper stealth field that covers an area underneath them once they've fully matured.

but i'm sure that isn't everything a combat engineer could possibly want. what else could you imagine being developed?

edit: almost forgot, a plant that would function like a slap patch, except obviously immobile, and probably with more daily charges :P

edit again: and i keep getting new ideas... some sort of plant that could act as a sensor system. basically functions as a spotter for a gardener using direct control of their plants.

and another plant that grows various types of bio-tech explosives found in the core book. intended to provide useful supplies to anyone needing them, without the need to go all the way back to an actual base. the kind of thing you'd plant around a bao house you expect covert operatives to work from.



Sorry I'm late. Was fighting off a bad cold.
Having re-read this thread, then gone back to the first post, I thought of a few things;

Hauler-Vines; This network of vines & roots usually laces the supply-tunnels of a House's base to enable them to move critical supplies under the proverbial 'nose' of the Machine's forces, like a series of hands relaying an item in succession in one direction. While few in the Resistance understand the term 'bucket-brigade' as it applies, after watching this network in action usually provides understanding.
After the House establishes an underground base, a Gardener (see Rifter #50, 'Forced Choices') assigned to surveying any connecting naturally-formed passes/tunnels (or ones formed by the growing base-plant) carefully spreads a series of seeds in the tunnel to form the aforementioned network. These seeds take a few days to sprout & interconnect with each other, following the curvature of the tunnel. This root-like 'webbing' also reinforces the tunnel, shoring up weak spots. The webbing gains its nutritional requirements from the earth it is embedded in, plus the occasional tending by the Gardener or an assigned maintenance person. These people are nicknamed 'water-bringers'.
One strange side-effect of the network having a rudimentary 'sense' of it's home is that, if any machine enters, the vines emit a high-pitched shrieking and expel the intruder out the nearest exit with enough force to send it flying several dozen meters.
When a supply-tunnel is collapsed, even partially, the Hauler-Vines creature suffers and begins to wither, but does try to clear the tunnel of debris. Usually this last act of service cannot forestall the death of the vines, and once it dies, any remaining tunnel crumbles. A tactic of an evacuating House is to kill the tunnel-vines with a specific poison (known only to the Gardener) if the tunnel is compromised by the Machine's forces. The vines emit the warning shriek & then collapse the tunnel in upon itself.
The vines appear as greenish-brown roots, only a few centimeters (4-6) in length when relaxed. When active, they thicken up & move the 'supplies' down the tunnel in smooth but rapid succession.

Camo-Vines: A variation of the Tangle Weed (Rifter #50, pg. 71) with the powers of Chameleon Skin (Splicers main book, p. 163, as the Skinjob ability) added, the Camo-Vines plant resembles a large blanket of interwoven vines and leaf-like pads that provide not only some shelter but camouflage from enemy forces. The leaves sample the surrounding area and shift their colors, much like a chameleon, to better blend in. The plants natural cool state reduces thermal detection by feeding on the heat and spreading it out, reducing the thermal signature.
Using the Camo-Vines as directed (above) adds +15% to use of the Camouflage skill when in use.

Sandbeans: These are large sandbag-like plant sacs that appear as brownish-grey sacks. Various weights (up to 100lbs) are available. The plant itself that grows these sacks is similar to the tomato plant. If damaged or cut open, the Sandbeans spill out large quantities of edible bean-like seeds. Many a survival kit contains a handful of these seeds for consumption. While many complain they are flavorless, several smaller Houses owe their survival in times of food shortages to this plant.

Slap-Leaf: A hand sized leaf used in the treatment of cuts & wounds. Produces an aloe-like salve that can speed up healing time by as much as a full 1/4. Slap-Leaves can be layered into 'casts' to aid in mending broken bones. A single Slap-Leaf can help the injured person recover 1d6 hit points each. When used up, the Slap-Leaf will turn brown, dry up & flake off. When used in a cast, recovery time can be reduced by as much as 20% (roll 1d4; 1=5%, 2=10%, ect.)

Sensor-Vines: Resembles a large sheet of vines and leaves. If disturbed, emits a loud whistle-like noise.

ok, that's all I've got for now. As of this posting it's 2am and I need sleep.
EDIT: Came back, tweaked it a bit. Hope you like.
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Re: ideas for new gardener plants

Unread post by Shark_Force »

so expanding on this, i've started to consider how gardeners might be used in environments other than the typical environment i'd been considering. we think of forests and jungles... but what does a gardener have to offer above the tree line on a mountaintop, or in swamps, or in rivers or lakes or the ocean, or on a glacier, or in underground caverns? heck, there are alien plants and environments, and probably by the current time in the splicers setting even without alien plants and environments there could easily be plants bioengineered from before the machine went berserk.

so, here are some more simple ideas:

reeds that supply oxygen to people hidden underwater.
lilypads that can support tremendous weights (like terrestrial warmounts), perhaps even be shaped into crude MDC ponchos that provide some limited camouflage.
plants that shed seeds similar to dandelions except that when they land on metal objects, they start to eat them. in all likelihood, versions usable against other great houses also exist, probably deploying a variety of chemicals.
plants that float in the air (maybe tethered, maybe not) to provide a better location for sensors of all varieties. maybe even plants that can act as barrage balloons.
plants that look like lichen covering a surface but which actually easily part to allow passage through them, for covering up openings in rock faces or inside caves.
plants that grow in highly acidic areas which absorb that acid and concentrate it for use as a weapon.
lithovore plants that can emit light or heat to feed photosynthetic or thermosynthetic metabolisms (or even one that produces blood for vampiric ones)

and of course, it is easy to imagine variations on the standard plants... hanging moss that works like razor grass, an aquatic version of the bao house, etc.

edit: and another one... hedge roads. dense vegetation (doesn't literally have to be hedges, it's just a play on "hedge rows") that limits the speed of travel through it, but can be made sensitive to something (perhaps a smell that the house's biotech shares or a broadcast via bio-comms) to become a smooth clear road for people you want to. this isn't from another enviroment, just something i came up with when i tried to think of common military engineering needs irl).
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Re: ideas for new gardener plants

Unread post by Cr'Imson »

Slight001 wrote:Yeah... I've been looking at that (BIO-E values) and hating it... I already changed how upgrades are handled to make it more reasonable... especially if the player were to lose their host armor... Imagine losing your host armor at level 10... by the rules you are stuck with stage one weaponry/senses/defenses... until they get to level 11 and then they have an even longer wait... if the player was an idiot perhaps I could understand... but if they were doing something heroic and making a sacrifice for the greater good... and survived. Why were they being punished for surviving? I've had players tell me that they'd rather roll up a new PC and restart at level 1 so that they could at least have an excuse and feel like they were making progress.

I decided to just implement a time line event. I decided that stimulus would continue to allow per level or six months of time. The time required could be modified by the regeneration capacity of the host armor. IIRC... the rate dropped down to something like 1-2 months.

Shark_Force wrote:the host armour replacement thing is relatively a minor issue to me... it's an MDC world. if your host armour is completely destroyed, you're not going to have good odds of survival anyways. but yeah, it does seem odd that they get such a basic set, especially if they're an experienced soldier. you'd think that cloning technology would be available, and while i could see the resistance hesitating to use it for humans, i do think they'd feel perfectly comfortable using it for a host armour or warmount, provided it was used well (as you said, if it was just a character being dumb, that's a whole different thing).

See the Lazarus Glands (Splicers, pg. 87).



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Re: ideas for new gardener plants

Unread post by Slight001 »

The problem with lazarus Glands, besides their price... 80... really?... and it's weakened permanently..., is their limited application. They are restricted to only three types of HA's... Carnivore, Herbivore, Omnivore... as written they are not applicable to any other metabolism. So my personal favorites Thermovore and Parasitic. As if that wasn't bad enough the glands aren't guaranteed to regenerate with the rest of the HA... 80 bio-e is a lot for a chance and penalty.

As for defensive plants... What about caves/tunnels and deserts anyone given them much thought?
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Re: ideas for new gardener plants

Unread post by Shark_Force »

well i bet a death blossom cactus would be pretty easy :P
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Re: ideas for new gardener plants

Unread post by taalismn »

Shark_Force wrote:s

so, here are some more simple ideas:

reeds that supply oxygen to people hidden underwater.s irl).



Gill-Weed---engineered from bladderwort plants. Absorbs(or, for larger and more energetic plants, separates oxygen and hydrogen via organic electrolysis) and collects the gas in various small air bladders that can be emptied via reed-like stalks. Hydrogen- or methane-filled bladders can be collected and burned for fuel.

Bang-Truffles---Large subterranean biomasses that give off chemicals, heat emissions, and sounds that imitate human activity in shallow burrows. If a machine attempts to investigate and attack, the biomass goes up in a massive explosion. Even if the Machines start bombarding concentrations of Bang-Truffles from range, it wastes effort; the explosion serves to spread truffle-spores far and wide. Incidentally, the bang-truffle can be safely assimilated by vegan host armors.
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Re: ideas for new gardener plants

Unread post by RockJock »

I'll be surprised if this hasn't already been done, but a tree that grows wood that is easily treated to make it into mdc "ironwood". The machine has trouble identifying the trees since they appear totally normal until treated.
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Re: ideas for new gardener plants

Unread post by taalismn »

Stim-Reeds----Hollow grass-like plants that are filled with a sugary sap that's laced with herbal stimulants. Depending on the strain of plant, or possibly its age, the strength of the stimulant can vary from 'good cup of coffee alertness' to '4d6 minutes of +1 on initiative, dodge, and roll followed by twice the duration of -1 to initiative, dodge, and roll"
Also available as Host Armor-strength herbal stims(have a very good chance of inducing heart attack/kidney failure/convulsions, hit point damage/death in normal humans who try eating the stuff).
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Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
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Re: ideas for new gardener plants

Unread post by abe »

How about a lichen missile? You fire it at the machine and let go to town on it!
howdey folks!!!!!!!!
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