empowered maximized awakened plants

[Urpriest]

By RAW they can't do it at all because there is no listed LA.
snip

You misread the OP. It's referring to a character with an awakened tree as a guest using the symbiotic creature template, not just playing such a tree outright.

[nedz]

You can very rarely find natural bonsai, though they're pretty huge compared to the bonsai you see in garden centres.

If it's not a tree, what is it?

Bonsai are man made, but you can get very small trees. They're usually referred to as shrubs though, so YMMV.

[Tvtyrant]

Bonsai are man made, but you can get very small trees. They're usually referred to as shrubs though, so YMMV.

Yeah, the entire point of Bonsai is to shape a plant so that it is an almost identical copy of the adult version shrunk down. A natural bonsai would be a dwarf plant, and isn't really the same.

[Clistenes]

You can very rarely find natural bonsai, though they're pretty huge compared to the bonsai you see in garden centres.

If it's not a tree, what is it?

A plant, maybe a shrub, maybe a bush, but not a tree unless it's big enough. You wouldn´t call an apple tree sprout that is only a few weeks old and a few inches tall a tree; the same goes for an old stunted apple tree that is only a few inches tall.

I found the definition of tree "In botany, a tree is a perennial woody plant with a single main trunk taller than about 2 metres, with xylem tissue in the trunk and branches that continues to enlarge during the life of the plant by the process of secondary growth.·

And anyway, I think they intended the spell to work only for real, big trees; otherwise they would have allowed its use for any plant (what would be the mechanical difference between a cabbage and a bonsai?).

[ericgrau]

You misread the OP. It's referring to a character with an awakened tree as a guest using the symbiotic creature template, not just playing such a tree outright.

Whoops.

Well "I saw this on a forum somewhere" should have been a big clue to say "no". The only reason it's online is because it's exploiting a loophole.

Theoretically it does seem to work because the awakened creature's type is plant. You could always awaken a sapling to get size tiny. It might not be a typical tree but it is still a tree and the spell doesn't seem to have any special age restrictions.

I think the reason for restricting the spells to trees is primarily fluff. Druids have a lot of tree spells. But it also prevents certain animated objects forms of movement and special attacks. And prevents potential issues figuring out how it works on plants with very complicated shapes. What do you do with a sentient 10 foot tall flower? A 20 foot long vine? It's pretty easy to figure out how a tree might move like an animal tho.

[EpsilRon]

What do you do with a sentient 10 foot tall flower?

Give it a handlebar mustache and a monocle and have it "speak" in an upper class british accent. Make it as smug and sarcastically catty as possible.

[Tvtyrant]

You know, an Epic level Druid could cast an Intensified spell, which would maximize and then double the scores. 36 Int is pretty dang good.

[toapat]

You know, an Epic level Druid could cast an Intensified spell, which would maximize and then double the scores. 36 Int is pretty dang good.

beat you to that a while ago.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I've played a character with the Symbiotic Creature template using a maximized empowered awakened guest plant and have posted about it here before, so it's possible the OP's player saw one of my posts and got the idea from that.

I would note, however, in case they "forgot" the original context, that this was "perfectly acceptable" for a highly-optimized noncaster who was using and abusing several other high-power and possibly cheesy things (bloodline IL stacking and Item Familiar being two of them) and who was in a party that included a Tainted Scholar necromancer, a DFI sublime chord/ur-priest, an Ubermount-style arcane heirophant, and a Spell-to-Power erudite. It was also fairly grounded in the world's flavor, since the DM had already established an order of martial artists and divine casters that worshiped evil gods of self-perfection and discovery by hybridizing creatures, grafting their members, awakening plants, and so forth.

This build idea, or a Symbiotic Creature in general, isn't the kind of thing you drop on a normal game, particularly if you're trying to get one by the DM and you're the kind of player who just copies builds you read about on a forum. I'd veto the player's idea unless he's able to make his character fit in well with the group and show that it won't overshadow anyone else, but from the description in the OP I doubt that's the case.