Came up in another board, so just want to throw it out for discussion:
9th level defiler is in garden with 3 trees of life, and casts a 5th level spell.
How is the defiling damage divide among them? All to the closest? Defiler’s choice? Evenly spread? Every tree takes 5 levels?
At my table it would depend on the skill of the defiler. If an appropriate feat, class feature, or NWP was used the defiler could draw on a specific tree or draw from across them. I’d default to drawing from the nearest first, moving out from there, and burning them out one at a time for a defiler that had not practiced some form of “controlled/directed defiling”
And, how powerful the druid is protecting those trees.