How quickly can a Plant Companion of a Druid manifest new abilities through Natural Selection?

Question

The Natural Selection of the Plant Companion ACF reads, in part:

Each new ability has a delay in levels between when you select it and when your plant companion gains it. You may select a new ability for your plant companion at any druid or ranger level in which a previously selected ability does not manifest. Your plant companion can only evolve one new ability at a time.

The "delay in levels" range between 1 and 3, meaning that if I select an ability at level 1, it will manifest at either level 2, 3 or 4, depending on which ability I select. For this example, let's say I chose Roots, which has a delay of 3 levels, and thus manifest at level 4.

You may select a new ability for your plant companion at any druid or ranger level in which a previously selected ability does not manifest.

This means I cannot select a new ability when Roots manifest, at level 4, but instead must wait until level 5 to even select the new ability. If I select Alacrity, with a delay of 2, that ability then manifests two levels later, at level 7.

Or does it?

The section could be read to imply there are three stages to a Natural Selection ability:

1. Selection.
2. Evolution.
3. Manifestation.

Some rules are clear; stage 1 and 3 cannot coincide:

You may select a new ability for your plant companion at any druid or ranger level in which a previously selected ability does not manifest.

Only one ability can progress in stage 2 at one time:

Your plant companion can only evolve one new ability at a time.

However, in my reading, nothing prevents a new ability from being selected, stage 1, while another is evolving, in stage 2. Since they cannot evolve at the same time, the Druid must choose which of the two evolves at any given level.

• That could mean if I select Roots at level 1, I can select Alacrity at level 3, while Roots is still evolving, and as Roots manifests at level 4, Alacrity starts evolving then, and manifests at level 5.
• It could also mean if I select Roots at level 1, Alacrity at level 3, then after Roots has manifested at level 4, Alacrity evolves at level 5 and manifests at level 6.

Either option means the Plant Companion gains Alacrity earlier than my initial reading allowed, at level 7.

Which of these interpretations are valid, RAW, if any? How quickly can a Plant Companion manifest new abilities?

Answer 1

Only on levels when a selected ability manifests are you barred from selecting new abilities.

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The headline above is simply a logical reversal of the line from Dragon #357, p91 (emphasis mine):

You may select a new ability for your plant companion at any druid or ranger level in which a previously selected ability does not manifest. Your plant companion can only evolve one new ability at a time.

Selection and manifestation are the only two components to the evolution process as presented in the article. Again, if an ability previously selected is not manifesting at a particular level, then one, and only one, new ability may be selected at that level. Whether another ability is waiting to manifest is not part of the rules presented; whether another ability is 'in progress' is unimportant. Only whether an ability previously selected is manifesting is important.

So, the querent in the original question has the correct understanding of how the manifestation of abilities works. Choosing Roots at 1st (3 level delay before manifestation), Alacrity at 2nd (2 level delay), and Powerful at 3rd (1 level delay) has all three abilities manifesting at 4th level.

Choosing abilities that have complementary evolution periods, as the querent in the original question did, helps maximize the number of abilities that may be chosen.

Answer 2

The initial interpretation holds true

The line:

Your plant companion can only evolve one new ability at a time.

is clear, you cannot have two abilities selected at once.

1. Select one ability.
2. Evolve that ability.
3. Manifest that ability.
4. Back to step 1.

There are no shortcuts, and unless your DM allows another ruling, RAW Natural Selection gives you one ability per ( ability level delay before manifestation plus one for selection )

So if you only choose abilities with a level delay of 2, for simplicity's sake, by level 15 your Plant Companion would have 15 / (2 + 1) = 5 abilities.