Awakened Shrub 5e: Stats and Better Uses Than Combat

An awakened shrub is a CR 0 Small Plant with AC 9, 10 hit points, a 20-foot speed and a Rake attack at +1 that deals 1 slashing damage. As a combatant it's barely a threat. As a talking bush with Intelligence 10 that can stand unnoticed in a garden, it's one of the most useful low-level creatures a DM has: a spy, a witness, a messenger or a comic sidekick. It's vulnerable to fire, resists piercing damage, and in the 2024 rules loses the False Appearance trait the 2014 version uses to hide.

Table of Contents

• •Awakened Shrub Stat Block (2014)
• •The Awakened Shrub in the 2024 Rules
• •How Awakened Shrubs Fight
• •Running Awakened Shrubs
• •How Players Beat Awakened Shrubs
• •Awakened Shrub Encounter Ideas
• •Frequently Asked Questions

Awakened Shrub Stat Block (2014)

Rake deals 1d4 − 1, which averages 1.5 and can roll 0. False Appearance makes a motionless shrub indistinguishable from a normal one, which is the trait that gives this creature a job.

The Awakened Shrub in the 2024 Rules

The shrub comes from the Awaken spell, the same 5th-level spell that makes an awakened tree. In 2024 the spell can target a natural plant that isn't a creature, which then becomes a Plant creature. In both editions the result is charmed by the caster for 30 days, and afterward decides how it feels about them.

How Awakened Shrubs Fight

Badly, and that's the point to plan around.

• •To-hit: +1 against AC 16 needs a 15, so it hits 30% of the time. Against an unarmored wizard (AC 12) it's 50%.
• •Damage: about 0.3 to 0.75 per shrub per round. Eight shrubs surrounding one AC 16 fighter (the most that fit around a Medium creature) deal about 3.6 a round with the 2014 Rake and 2.4 with the 2024 one.
• •Staying power: resistance to piercing turns a 1d8 + 3 longbow hit (7.5 average) into 3, so an archer needs three or four hits to drop one 10-hit-point shrub.

Shrubs are best at blocking. Small creatures with 20 feet of speed can still fill a corridor or a gate, and a party that doesn't want to hurt them (they talk, after all) has a real problem. Use them as a living hedge between the party and the thing that actually matters: a fleeing villain, a ritual, a door.

Running Awakened Shrubs

Each shrub is 10 XP. Under the 2024 rules, a Low encounter for four level 1 characters is 200 XP, so twenty shrubs would "fit." Don't do that. The budget doesn't capture how little they threaten.

Better: add shrubs as a cheap complication to a real fight. Two goblins and four shrubs that report the party's every move to them is a sharper encounter than six goblins. Under the 2014 Dungeon Master's Guide guidelines our encounter calculator uses, six shrubs alone are 60 XP ×2 = 120, Easy for four level 1 characters.

Out of combat, a shrub is an NPC. It has Intelligence 10, Wisdom 10, and a voice. Give it a name and a grudge. Our NPC generator is handy if you want a personality for a talking hedge in a hurry.

How Players Beat Awakened Shrubs

• •Fire. A Fire Bolt (1d10, doubled to 11 on average) kills one on an average hit. Burning Hands averages 21 against a shrub that fails the save, and even a successful save leaves it taking about 10 (halved, then doubled), roughly its whole hit point total.
• •Slashing or bludgeoning. Swords and clubs do full damage. Arrows don't.
• •Ask questions. A captured shrub that was ordered to watch a road knows who used it.
• •Strength saves. Strength 3 (−4) is its weakest score, with Charisma (−2) next. Against a DC 13 Strength save like Entangle, it needs a 17, so the spell holds it 80% of the time.

Awakened Shrub Encounter Ideas

The hedge that informs. A merchant's garden has four awakened shrubs along the wall. They tell the merchant who climbs over at night. The party's contact was caught that way, and the shrubs will happily describe the party too, unless someone can make a better offer than "not being burned."

The druid's apprentice. A young druid saved for years for one agate and awakened a rosebush. It's her only friend and it's been stolen. A thieves' guild is using it as a lookout.

Topiary rebellion. In a wizard's estate, the topiary animals are awakened shrubs whose 30-day charm ran out. They want to leave. They need someone to open the gate and they're too short to reach the latch.

Frequently Asked Questions

What CR is an awakened shrub?

CR 0, worth 10 XP, in both 2014 and 2024. It has AC 9 and 10 hit points.

Can an awakened shrub talk?

Yes. In 2014 it speaks one language its creator knows. In 2024 it speaks Common plus one other language. It has Intelligence 10.

What damage is an awakened shrub weak to?

Fire. It's vulnerable to fire damage, so fire deals double damage. It resists piercing damage.

How do you make an awakened shrub?

Cast Awaken, a 5th-level Bard or Druid spell with an 8-hour casting time and a 1,000 gp agate that the spell consumes. The GM picks the stat block, and the SRD offers the awakened shrub as one option.

Stat blocks: System Reference Document 5.1 (2014) and 5.2.1 (2024), Wizards of the Coast, CC-BY-4.0. Tactics, encounter math and ideas are Loreify's own.