Treant 5e: Animate Trees, Siege Damage and the Forest's Guardian

A treant is a CR 9 Huge plant with AC 16, 138 hit points, resistance to bludgeoning and piercing damage, and vulnerability to fire. On its own it is a slow, tough bruiser with two 16-damage slams. Its real power is Animate Trees: once a day it wakes up to two nearby trees, and each one uses the full treant stat block. A treant in a forest can turn a CR 9 fight into three Huge creatures with 138 hit points each. It also deals double damage to objects and structures, so a treant can tear through walls and gates fast. The 2024 version drops False Appearance, swaps its rock for a piercing Hail of Bark, and makes animated trees act right after it in initiative.

Table of Contents

• •Treant Stat Block (2014)
• •Treant in the 2024 Rules
• •Animate Trees: 2014 vs 2024
• •How Treants Fight
• •Siege Monster: Treants Against Walls and Gates
• •Running a Treant Encounter
• •How Players Beat a Treant
• •Treant Encounter Ideas
• •Frequently Asked Questions

Treant Stat Block (2014)

The SRD 5.1 treant, identical to the 2014 Monster Manual.

Read it as a fortress with legs. Resistance to bludgeoning and piercing means maces, hammers, arrows, crossbow bolts, rapiers and spears all deal half damage. Only slashing weapons and spells get full value, and fire gets double. Its damage is steady rather than explosive: two slams at +10 for 16 (3d6 + 6) each, or one rock thrown 60/180 feet for 28 (4d10 + 6).

False Appearance (2014 only) makes a motionless treant indistinguishable from a normal tree. The party can walk right up to it in a forest.

It is chaotic good, has Intelligence 12 and Wisdom 16, and speaks Common, Druidic, Elvish and Sylvan. Most treants a party meets should be willing to talk before they fight.

Treant in the 2024 Rules

SRD 5.2.1 keeps the AC, hit points, ability scores, resistances, fire vulnerability, Slam, Siege Monster and CR.

Two notes. Hail of Bark has a single 180-foot range with no long-range disadvantage, where the rock had disadvantage past 60 feet. And Multiattack only lists Slam in both editions, so the treant's ranged attack is always one per turn.

Animate Trees: 2014 vs 2024

This is the action that decides the fight, and its exact wording differs between editions.

What both versions share:

• •Once per day, as an action, the treant animates up to two trees it can see within 60 feet.
• •Each tree uses the treant's statistics except Intelligence and Charisma 1, and it can't speak. That means AC 16, 138 hit points, resistance to bludgeoning and piercing, vulnerability to fire, and Siege Monster.
• •A tree stays animate for 1 day, or until it dies, the treant dies, or the tree and the treant are more than 120 feet apart. Then it takes root if possible.

2014 specifics:

• •The trees "have only the Slam action option" and act as the treant's allies. Read literally, each tree can only take the Slam action: one slam per turn, no Multiattack, no rocks. A looser reading (a DM ruling, not rules text) treats Multiattack as part of the Slam option, so each tree slams twice. Decide before the fight, because the looser reading doubles the trees' damage.
• •The 2014 text doesn't say when the trees act. Roll initiative for them or let them act right after the treant.
• •The treant can use a bonus action to turn a tree back into an ordinary tree.
• •Because they keep the treant's traits, animated 2014 trees also have False Appearance.

2024 specifics:

• •The trees lack only the Animate Trees action. They keep Multiattack (two Slams) and Hail of Bark.
• •They act immediately after the treant on its initiative and obey it. They act in the same round they're animated.

What it adds up to. Against AC 16, a +10 attack hits on a 6 or higher, 75% of the time.

An average of 72 a round is more than a 2024 fire giant, the other CR 9 heavy hitter, deals even when both its swings land (62). Under the strict 2014 reading the trio averages 48, still double a lone treant. Either way, the party now has to chew through 414 hit points instead of 138.

How Treants Fight

Turn one: wake the forest. If there are trees within 60 feet, Animate Trees is the best first action almost every time. In 2024 the trees get their turns that same round. Pick trees on both sides of the party so they're attacked from two directions.

Pin the party in the middle. The treant and its trees have only 5-foot reach and a 30-foot speed. They aren't fast, so position matters. Animate trees behind the party, where they've just walked past them, so the party has to choose between running forward into the treant or back into the trees.

Hammer the weapon users who can't hurt it. A fighter with a warhammer or a ranger with a longbow does half damage to the treant and to every tree. The treant has no reason to fear them. The characters to worry about are the ones with fire or slashing weapons.

Hail of Bark the fire caster. The treant's one ranged attack per turn should go at whoever is holding the fire spells. In 2024 the piercing hail reaches 180 feet with no long-range penalty.

Use False Appearance (2014). A motionless treant, or a motionless animated tree, is just a tree. The party sees a grove. A treant guarding a clearing can wait until everyone is in the middle before moving.

Don't fight to the death for no reason. Chaotic good and intelligent, a treant fights to protect its forest. If the party stops cutting, burning or trespassing, or explains themselves in Elvish, Sylvan or Druidic, it should listen.

Siege Monster: Treants Against Walls and Gates

Siege Monster doubles all the treant's damage against objects and structures. Its animated trees have the same trait. Here is what that looks like using the SRD's object tables (wood AC 15, stone AC 17; a resilient Large object such as a 10-foot section of palisade or a heavy cart has 27 hit points).

What this means:

• •A wooden gate or palisade section doesn't last a round. A single slam (32) typically breaks a 27-hit-point Large wooden section, and the treant hits AC 15 on a 5 or higher.
• •Stone takes longer but still falls. Against stone (AC 17), it hits on a 7 or higher. Castle walls often have a damage threshold (an amount of damage a single hit must meet, or the hit does nothing). A doubled 32-damage slam or a 56-damage Hail of Bark clears most thresholds a DM is likely to set.
• •Bark from 180 feet. In 2024, the treant can knock apart a wooden watchtower from 180 feet away at 56 damage a hit.

A treant and two trees are a siege engine that walks. Use them when an enemy fort sits on the edge of a forest it shouldn't.

Running a Treant Encounter

A treant is worth 5,000 XP. Animated trees don't add XP, but they can triple the damage. Using the 2024 SRD 5.2.1 budget for four characters:

A rule of thumb: if a treant can animate trees, budget it like three treants (15,000 XP). If it fights in a clearing with nothing to animate, it is a single CR 9 creature.

The 2014 Dungeon Master's Guide thresholds put one treant against four level 9 characters at Medium (5,000 against a 4,400 Medium threshold). Three treants would be multiplied by 2 to 30,000 XP, which is past Deadly even for level 12. Set up your own party in the encounter difficulty calculator.

How Players Beat a Treant

Fire. Vulnerability doubles fire damage. A Fireball deals 56 on average to a treant that fails its save, and its Dexterity save is −1: against DC 15 it fails 75% of the time. That's about 49 damage expected per treant, and a 20-foot-radius Fireball can catch the treant and an animated tree together. Burning Hands averages 21 against it.

Blight. Blight (4th level) is built for plants. In 2014 the treant makes the save with disadvantage and takes maximum damage, 64 necrotic. In 2024, a plant automatically fails its save, so the treant takes 8d8, an average of 36.

Slashing weapons, not bludgeoning or piercing. Swap the warhammer for a greataxe if you can. Magic doesn't help here: the treant resists bludgeoning and piercing damage from any source.

Kill the treant first. When the treant dies, its animated trees go back to being trees in both editions. The trees are 138 hit points each. The treant is 138 hit points that ends all three.

Pull the trees out of range. A tree stops being animate if it ends up more than 120 feet from the treant. A fast party can sometimes split them by running, especially in 2014 if the trees act on their own initiative.

Burn the forest? Think twice. It works mechanically and destroys what the treant is protecting. If the party is the good guys, a treant is usually someone to bargain with.

Talk. Druidic, Sylvan and Elvish all work. A druid or anyone who speaks for the forest can turn this encounter into an alliance, and an allied treant brings Siege Monster to the party's side of the next siege.

Treant Encounter Ideas

The logging camp. A timber company has cleared half a valley and the loggers have started disappearing. The treant has animated two of the trees at the edge of the cut, and they stand motionless among the stumps (2014 False Appearance makes this an ambush). The company hires the party. The question the party has to answer is whether the company or the treant is in the right.

The fort at the forest's edge. A garrison built a wooden fort on land a treant considers its own. Every few nights a section of palisade is torn out. The party arrives on the night the treant comes for the gate with two animated trees, and has to decide whether to defend the fort, negotiate or open the gate.

The sick elder. A treant is dying of a blight in its roots. It can still animate trees, and it is lashing out at anything that comes near. A dryad asks the party to get close enough to cure it. The fight is about surviving the treant's fury long enough to reach the roots, not killing it.

If a treant becomes an ally in your campaign, Loreify's D&D note-taking app records what was promised and which grove it guards.

Frequently Asked Questions

What CR is a treant in 5e?

A treant is CR 9 (5,000 XP) in both the 2014 and 2024 rules. It has AC 16, 138 hit points and a 30-foot speed.

How does Animate Trees work?

Once per day, a treant animates up to two trees within 60 feet. Each tree uses the treant's stat block with Intelligence and Charisma 1 and can't speak. In 2014 the trees can only use Slam; in 2024 they keep everything except Animate Trees and act right after the treant. The trees revert if the treant dies or they get more than 120 feet away from it.

Is a treant weak to fire?

Yes. Treants are vulnerable to fire in both editions, so fire damage is doubled. They also resist bludgeoning and piercing damage.

What does Siege Monster do?

It makes the treant deal double damage to objects and structures. A 16-damage slam deals 32 to a wall or gate, and the 28-damage rock or Hail of Bark deals 56.

What's the difference between a treant and an awakened tree?

An awakened tree is a CR 2 tree given a mind by the Awaken spell, with 59 hit points and one slam. A treant is a CR 9 creature with 138 hit points, two slams, a ranged attack and Animate Trees. Trees a treant animates use the treant's own stat block, so they are far stronger than awakened trees.

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.