Speak with Plants 5e: Questions, Commands, and Terrain
I like Speak with Plants for the moment a trail goes cold and the party has one nearby witness left to ask. The spell can also open a way through brambles or slow a pursuit. This guide uses the 2014 rules before comparing the revised spell.
Speak with Plants 5e Quick Spell Reference
- Casting time
- 1 action
- Range
- Self
- Components
- V, S
- Duration
- 10 minutes
- Classes
- Bard, Druid, Ranger
You imbue plants within 30 feet of you with limited sentience and animation, giving them the ability to communicate with you and follow your simple commands. You can question plants about events in the spell's area within the past day, gaining information about creatures that have passed, weather, and other circumstances.
You can also turn difficult terrain caused by plant growth (such as thickets and undergrowth) into ordinary terrain that lasts for the duration. Or you can turn ordinary terrain where plants are present into difficult terrain that lasts for the duration, causing vines and branches to hinder pursuers, for example.
Plants might be able to perform other tasks on your behalf, at the GM's discretion. The spell doesn't enable plants to uproot themselves and move about, but they can freely move branches, tendrils, and stalks.
If a plant creature is in the area, you can communicate with it as if you shared a common language, but you gain no magical ability to influence it.
This spell can cause the plants created by the entangle spell to release a restrained creature.
What Can Plants Tell You?
The 2014 spell gives plants within 30 feet limited awareness, the ability to communicate with you, and enough movement to follow simple commands. For 10 minutes you can ask about events in the spell’s area over the past day, such as who passed nearby or how the weather changed. The spell takes an action to cast and works without concentration.
Ask about something the plants could have noticed. At a fork, you might ask whether a group passed after the rain started and which path it took. A bush might describe several heavy travelers brushing against it on the eastern path. The DM decides how much detail it can provide. The spell’s description gives no precise senses, shared plant memory, or guarantee that the plants know a traveler’s name or destination. Wilderness travel
Does the Area Follow You in 2014?
The 2014 wording describes imbuing plants within 30 feet of you and asking about the spell’s area. It leaves room for adjudication about what happens when you walk farther during the ten minutes. When that matters, agree on how your table will apply it before spending the slot. One reasonable ruling is to mark the plants within 30 feet when you cast and keep that set for the duration. The revised rules explicitly define a stationary area.
What Commands Can Ordinary Plants Follow?
Simple commands can use the limited movement the spell gives plants. Think of asking a vine to shift its tendrils or a branch to bend aside while its roots stay in place. The DM decides whether an additional task is possible. For example, moving a loose key from a branch to within reach could be possible if the branch can actually bend that far. The spell provides no attack, damage, or grappling procedure for a commanded plant.
Plant creatures have their own rule. You can speak with one in the area as if you share a language. A treant can listen to a request and decide how to respond. Treat that conversation like other negotiations, using the creature’s goals and disposition.
How Do You Clear or Create Difficult Terrain?
You can make plant-caused difficult terrain ordinary for the spell’s duration. You can also make ordinary terrain difficult where plants are present. The first option can open a route through a thicket. The second can make an overgrown trail harder to cross during a retreat. Loose stone or deep mud has its own movement cost if it still makes that space difficult after the plants move.
For example, crossing 15 feet of brambles normally costs 30 feet of movement when the brambles make the ground difficult. Clear that strip with Speak with Plants and it costs 15 feet, assuming the underlying ground is ordinary. The change lasts for the spell’s duration, so plan the group’s return route if you’ll be away longer than ten minutes. The terrain change applies to the route itself, including to enemies who use it.
Can Speak with Plants Free Someone From Entangle?
The 2014 spell specifically lets you cause the plants created by entangle to release a restrained creature. This ends that creature’s restraint from those plants. The release clause applies to the creature you free, and entangle has its own duration and concentration rules for the remaining area. Speak with Plants itself needs no concentration, so a caster already concentrating on entangle can use it. Entangle · Restrained vs. grappled
Speak with Plants 2014 vs. 2024 Rules
The revised spell explicitly creates an immobile 30-foot Emanation. Walking away leaves that area where you cast it. The revised text also omits the 2014 provision for releasing a creature from entangle. If a player tries that interaction in a revised game, resolve any proposed command as a DM ruling. The ten-minute duration and the two terrain options are available in both versions.
Speak with Plants FAQ
Does it automatically clear Plant Growth?
The 2014 one-action version of plant growth assigns its own movement cost of 4 feet per foot traveled. Speak with Plants converts difficult terrain caused by vegetation into ordinary terrain. As a rules interaction, that conversion alone gives no explicit way to cancel Plant Growth’s separate movement cost. A DM can adjudicate whether a specific command moves enough foliage to open a route.