Species Proposal: Treant

[Klown]

A gigantic tree that can move and attack with human-like skills. Living over 100 years has made it strong and wise, but being a tree it is the least dextrous species in the land, usually racing with Roxanne to not be last place in the annual 'Dungeon Crawl Race'. It moves surprisingly quiet considering it's size, but is still a bit unstealthy; though it can improve stealth by sticking it's roots deeper and slowing down.

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Innate Abilities

Tough Bark 1: +10 AC, +10 SH, +10% HP
Rooted: Active ability, 0% fail rate, can be turned on & off at will. When rooted, Treant gains slow 3 & Regeneration 1 & Fast Metabolism 1 & +Stealth
Fire Vulnerability 1
Slow 2
Slow Healing 1
Slow Metabolism 1
Can walk into deep water with no penalty or fear of drowning

Level Bonuses

+1 Str or Int every 3rd level
40% more HP than average
20% more MP than average
+5 magic resistance per level
Tough Bark 2 at level 10, +20 AC, +20 SH, +20% HP; Tough Bark 3 at level 20, +30 AC, +30 SH, +30% HP


Skill Aptitudes

Fighting: 3
Short Blades: N/A
Long Blades: -1
Axes: -1
Maces & Flails: 1
Polearms: 0
Staves: 0
Unarmed Combat: 1

Throwing: 2
Slings: -2
Bows: -2
Crossbows: -2

Armour: N/A
Dodging: -4
Stealth: -2
Shields: 2

Fire Magic: -4
Ice Magic: -1
Air Magic: 0
Earth Magic: 1
Poison Magic: -1

Spellcasting: 0
Conjurations: -1
Hexes: -2
Charms: -1
Summonings: -1
Necromancy: -2
Translocations: -2
Transmutation: 0

Invocations: 1
Evocations: 1

Experience: 0


[nordetsa]

Not being able to teleport while being extremely slow and vulnerable to both fire and ice is just asking to be killed despite its massive hp/armor/shield boost.

Also whats up with so many restrictions? No jewelry will expose this species to mutation and item destruction.

[Lasty]

Weapons being one-handed is almost completely irrelevant if they can't also use shields.

Having a gigantic HP pool and amazing AC combined with vulnerability to the two most common forms of damage means that this race will generally meander along plowing through everything up until the point that they run into a centaur/yak pack with freezing arrows/bolts and get completely destroyed unless they are able to deal massive amounts of ranged damage very quickly: escape from anything is not an option under (almost) any circumstances.

Since they can't use armour and are bad with all non-throwing ranged weapons, they'll almost always be sad when they don't get int on level up.

They can't escape from anything or approach it without giving many extra attacks to it, meaning that they will need to use ranged attacks on a large number of enemies. However, the only ranged attack they don't have a significant penalty to is Throwing, where they have an absurd bonus. Of course, since they have no reason to train dodging or armour ever, I suppose it doesn't matter how big their penalty on other ranged combat might be, since they'll have XP to spare.

[Klown]

Updated a bit.
If a centaur pops up, you can throw a longsword at him, cast a spell, or hide around the corner, wait for it to show up, and smack him with your buffed great sword.
The AC boost is pretty equal with other tank characters at those points in the game; more or less.

It gives some extreme buffs at the cost of everyone's favorite escape plans.

[johlstei]

This sounds like you are basically playing crawl roulette, does anything scary hit me enough times before I hit them them enough times? Hope not since I have permanent stasis and slow 3 so I'm not going anywhere. I don't think they would be satisfying to play even if it is possible to win. No jewelry is just kicking them while they are down. I especially don't understand why they can't use shields if they are holding weapons in one hand.

[Lasty]

The updates don't address any of my criticisms. The fundamental problem with the design is this: most monsters pose no threat to these creatures, but certain monsters will be capable of killing them amazingly quickly and with almost no recourse. This race would be like playing a Chei follower who wears an amulet of stasis that doesn't block paralysis all game, but with a gigantic HP pool in place of huge stats.

Also problematic: because the race's features are so cripplingly restrictive, ranged combat skills are pretty much the only thing they should ever do or ever train. Among the skills that would be pointless on these:
*Armour
*Dodging
*Most melee skills
*Translocations
*Charms
*Transmutation (unless it would allow them to switch into a form that can move quickly).

[johlstei]

Treant transmuter might be viable, especially if they keep their boosted AC with things like spider form. I think unarmed might be the way to go with them(along with large rocks). Blade hands + 5/5 slaying sounds great, plus spider form to run away in.

[TeshiAlair]

1. I agree with the others that this specific proposal is VERY swingy.

2. That being said, the concept of a Treant species is neat, and a nice contrast to all the fire-themed species lately. One cool idea might be to have slow healing normally, but fast healing and slowed movement after staying still a while (aka root). This would reduce the amount of '5', and encourage stand and fighting rather than corridor blocking.

[Klown]

The updates don't address any of my criticisms.

Feel free to create a better version.

[indspenceable]

A gigantic tree that can move and attack with human-like skills. Living over 100 years has made it strong and wise, but being a tree it is the least dextrous species in the land, usually racing with Roxanne to not be last place in the annual 'Dungeon Crawl Race'. It has stored enough sunlight and water to be virtually hungerless during it's adventure into the dungeon. It hates fire and cannot wear those small human clothes, or even wield some of their puny weapons; though he can throw such weapons. It moves surprisingly quiet considering it's size, but is still a bit unstealthy.

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Innate Abilities

Never hungers
Tough Bark 1: +10 AC, +10 SH, +10% HP
Rooted: Cannot increase move speed by any means, physical or magical; also cannot blink or teleport by any means, physical or magical
Clarity
Fire Vulnerability 2
Ice Vulnerability 1
Slow 3
Can't wear jewelry, armour, or shields.
Can walk into deep water with no penalty or fear of drowning
Cannot wield one-handed weapons(but they can throw them), and all two-handed weapons become 'one-handed' for it, giving it a +5+5 slaying boost for added swinging power.


Level Bonuses

+1 Str or Int every 3rd level
50% more HP than average
30% more MP than average
+5 magic resistance per level
Tough Bark 2 at level 10, +30 AC, +30 SH, +30% HP; Tough Bark 3 at level 20, +50 AC, +50 SH, +50% HP


Skill Aptitudes

Fighting: 4
Short Blades: N/A
Long Blades: -1
Axes: -1
Maces & Flails: 1
Polearms: 0
Staves: 1
Unarmed Combat: 1

Throwing: 4
Slings: N/A
Bows: -2
Crossbows: -2

Armour: N/A
Dodging: -4
Stealth: -2
Shields: N/A

Fire Magic: -4
Ice Magic: -3
Air Magic: 0
Earth Magic: 1
Poison Magic: -1

Spellcasting: 1
Conjurations: 0
Hexes: -2
Charms: -1
Summonings: -1
Necromancy: -2
Translocations: -2
Transmutation: 0

Invocations: 0
Evocations: 0

Experience: +1


Spoiler: show

This feels like this overlaps with formacids a great deal.

[sardonica]

Is this a joke?

[*]Can't wield most weapons, or any armor
[*]Huge negative resists, no jewelry
[*]Can't teleport or blink
[*]Can't haste
[*]Ultra slow

I think this is a joke, like maybe its a stoner tree or something?

[pratamawirya]

Why cold vulnerability? Don't say that that's because treants in the lord of the ring hate cold, because AFAIK the trees in crawl don't.

[Klown]

Since some trees 'die' in the winter. :p
Not really die, but not the green monsters we love.

[TwilightPhoenix]

You must not win very often.


I think the only good thing about this species is that they can follow Chei with zero drawbacks. Except they'd still make bad Chei followers because other species would still have all their equipment slots as well as access to translocations to let them make up for all those drawbacks.

Also not mentioned: absurdly slow with bad stealth. There's a reason why the resident slow species, Nagas, are good at stealth.

Also, no rPois. The first Kobold with a Blowgun you see could easily result in gameover.

[Klown]

Some players like to make it even more challenging.

[and into]

I think the most interesting idea offered so far is from TeshiAlair: having a species for which movement and non-movement differed in some meaningful way could make for some very interesting approaches to game play. Perhaps give treants an ability to to enter their "rooted" form, which takes a few turns to do, anchors you in place (can't move), gives bonus to AC ("Your bark hardens as you enter your natural dormant state"), gives very fast regeneration, and you get a stealth boost ("you blend in with the scenery"). You can't move until you "retract your roots," which takes one or two turns.

After tough battles you can plant yourself for an extra quick and safe recovery, or you can do it after noticing enemies who are a few turns away, but at expense of some mobility.

Perhaps becoming "rooted" after an enemy of *low* intelligence notices you, but before it has a chance to get adjacent, will cause it to no longer see you, provided you take no action other than resting / waiting. (Gets the "?" above head, wanders around as if it hadn't seen you before. If it moves into a space adjacent to you, however, it can tell that you are not a normal tree and resumes attack.)

As for other intrinsics, how about:

Slow movement speed, but not super-slow as originally proposed. Give unique double-edged trait of "constant movement speed." You can be affected by slow and haste, but only non-movement actions would be slowed or sped up. Berserk would have all the usual effects except you'd keep constant movement speed. Swiftness has no effect. This could even extend to things like guaranteed protection from "covers ground slowly" mutation, but you would also be immune to the "covers ground quickly" beneficial mutation. Perhaps Chei can still slow you and give support if you worship him, but otherwise, nothing short of divine intervention will affect how quickly you move. You can change your form with transmutations, but your constant move speed is never supressed by any polymorph, you keep it no matter what.

Drop the two-handed as one-handed and bizarre throwing mechanics. Keep fire vulnerability (makes sense) but drop cold vulnerability. No boots are allowed, but all other armor slots as well as the usual one ammy + 2 rings jewelry slots are available.

Drop the -Tele. Drop the progressive increase to AC, just give a "Tough bark (AC + 5)" or something, or maybe "AC + 3, SH + 10" or whatnot along those lines. Drop the insane +HP and MP boosts, at most an innate lvl 1 robustness and / or just give good HP growth and average MP growth. Slow leveling feels more appropriate (give them same rate as high elves). Allow shield use, but perhaps have fairly bad aptitudes in shields, then maybe -2 to dodging and -1 to armor; however you have the innate boost to help survival early on. Most of the other aptitudes make sense but lose the huge fighting (+1 would be fine) and huge throwing aptitudes.

+1 Str or Int for random stat up makes sense, let's say every 4 levels. Low base dex for species makes sense also.

Give a good stealth aptitude—even in your mobile form, it is easy for you to "blend in" with a bit of training. (+2 would fit, maybe even go as high as +3. Maybe you also get a special species trait so that an average of your three stats are used for stealth, rather than just dex (which is low), or some modifier to achieve similar effect?)

EDIT: You regain saturation naturally and very quickly if you rest while rooted, setting yourself to "Full." Gourmand has no effect. You do not use perma-food or chunks. Otherwise hunger is normal. You do not gain saturation if you are taking actions while rooted.

[Klown]

Update: Completely Revamped. Now much more accessible.

[b4rR31_r0l1]

Humm Homm, I think it's kinda akward that they need to eat more when they are rooted. Either slow their metabolism when rooted or let them grant nutrition while doing so.
And how about getting bigger with XL, at Xl 1 normal, at Xl 10 medium and at Xl 20 large or something.

[Lasty]

and_into's version seems much closer to playable, and also to present a much more interesting challenge. The special stealth rules aren't needed: just give them a flat bonus to stealth score in the form of a camouflage mutation that would be about equal to what a dextrous race would start with.

[Sandman25]

I am not sure Treants can eat anything, I think they could be hunger-less like mummies. This would allow them to be slow steady casters with excellent defense.

[johlstei]

Can we stop adding food effects except "slow metabolism" and "doesn't eat"? I don't think the flavor gain is worth the tedium of eating so can we just drop it?

[spudwalt]

You regain saturation naturally and very quickly if you rest while rooted, setting yourself to "Full." Gourmand has no effect. You do not use perma-food or chunks. Otherwise hunger is normal. You do not gain saturation if you are taking actions while rooted.

Now *THAT* is a cool idea! A race that doesn't eat food, but gains sustenance by resting? You might have problems with high-level spells/rods, but that wouldn't be unique to treants, since spriggans also have problems with that. Though, how would potions work for them? Can you drink them normally?

Would they get some sort of benefit from worshiping Fedhas? Would he give them rF+ and rC+ like he does for Tree Form?

I like the idea of a race that could sacrifice mobility for better survivability in battle. You'd have to be careful of when you use it, but that's hardly new for playing Crawl.

[b4rR31_r0l1]

(Information out of the LOTR books, don't know about the films)

Treants can drink potions and IIRC they "eat" somekind of growing potion. (Remember, Merry and Pippin grew a little when they drank it)

So we could either let them get no/reduced nutrition, the normal 50 nutrition, normal/more nutriotion at a potion of porridge or make a new potion(lets treants get nutrition fast, and maybe let not treants 2-6 extra hp or stat growth or something)

[Wise-Donkey]

I like it! Maybe you could make so that they eat and drink only when rooted, to be a bit more, 'plantish'?
The problem I see is that it's very Lord of the Rings(ish), and isn't that one of the reasons they removed the Mountain Dwarf?
Feel free to welcome me to the forums.

[Klown]

Welcome to the forums.
Well dwarves are in every fantasy game ever, whereas treants are less common. So I don't think that would be the issue holding this back.

[skyspire]

I like the idea of treant. To add, I like the concept of it taking 3-4 turns to root itself. But once rooted any monsters attacking you will stop attacking and not notice you anymore. Unless you have the orb of zot. Then even rooted would not stop monster attacks. I think it would be difficult for this guy to escape with the orb because of the slow speed. He would basically need to fight and win every battle down or root for the increased stealth whenever a dangerous mob is visible

[duvessa]

I like it! Maybe you could make so that they eat and drink only when rooted, to be a bit more, 'plantish'?
The problem I see is that it's very Lord of the Rings(ish), and isn't that one of the reasons they removed the Mountain Dwarf?
Feel free to welcome me to the forums.

Pretty much all of the Crawl universe is directly based on one or more of Tolkein, Dungeons & Dragons, or NetHack. Probably not a concern. Mountain dwarf removal had basically nothing to do with that, there was just one developer who was really vocal about it.

[skyspire]

Also, ability to call rain would be cool, creating a puddle where you are standing, to protect vs sticky flame, etc.

Another idea is that Treant root ability first removes all armour before activating the ability, adding additional delay. This gives it ability to wear armour in treant form, maybe only dragon armour is wearable due to their size. This would create another reason for steam dragon armor . To protect against steam from fire hitting your created puddle.