The spell Fire Storm includes the line:
If you choose, plant life in the area is unaffected by this spell.
Can this be used to exclude plant type creatures from the spell's damage, or would this be limited to non-creature plant life?
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Yes, you can exclude plant creatures from being affected if you want
The spell's text generically refers to "plant life", which by any natural reading includes living creatures of the type "plant" - plants are explicitly what they are, by their very definition!
If it had been desired, it could have been written differently - for instance, it could have referred to "natural vegetation and ground cover", which would have included mundane plants but could be understood to exclude animated, ambulatory plant creatures. However, it doesn't make that distinction.
This reading is consistent with fire storm as it existed in previous editions of D&D. The 3.5e version of fire storm is even more clear about this, explicitly referring to plant creatures:
The raging flames do not harm natural vegetation, ground cover, or any plant creatures in the area that you wish to exclude from damage.
So the natural reading is that you can avoid affecting plant creatures with fire storm if you want, and that is consistent with how fire storm has historically worked in D&D.
