Tree Form

Version 0.31: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

You have been transformed into a tree and are rooted to the ground, unable to move or teleport. You have minimal evasion but increased health and natural armour, and are resistant to poison and immune to torment. Any equipped cloak, helmet, gloves, boots and body armour are melded.

Tree form is a bad form which prevents movement and teleportation, but offers high natural AC and some resistances. It can be forced on the player through a wand of polymorph or the Polymorph spell, but can be entered voluntarily with a potion of lignification.

Useful Info

While transformed into a tree, the player gains the following attributes:

Combat:

• HP Bonus: 150% HP.
• Innate AC: 20 + XL/2 AC (20 - 33).
• Unarmed Combat: 12 damage.
• EV is set to basically nil, 2 + size_factor/2.

Resistances:

• rPois
• Torment immunity
• Unbreathing and lacks blood

Restrictions

• Melded Gear: All armour except shield.
• Cannot move or be moved.
• Cannot teleport or blink (certain divine abilities, like Uskayaw's Grand Finale, still work).

Strategy

Tree Form is easily the most combat-capable bad form, with high HP, AC, and unarmed branches that are stronger than many weapons in the early game (even at 0 Unarmed skill!). However, it is also one of the most risky, as you are unable to move or even teleport away.

Tree Form is useful throughout many different parts of the game:

• Early on, Tree Form is great for fighting fast, poisonous enemies like killer bees and black mambas.
• Later in the game, it is useful for the immunity to torment. It is especially useful in the Tomb, as Tree Form prevents dispersal traps and many death curses from affecting you. Just watch out for miasma.
• Species with armour restrictions (Felids, Octopodes, oddly-sized species) will enjoy the increased AC throughout the entire game. Trolls in particular have a special use for Tree Form, as its high AC and boosted, non-chopping unarmed attacks are perfect for taking out hydras.

However, the big downside is you cannot move. If a situation becomes too much to handle, you'll be in dire straits. You can use a potion of cancellation to end the form early, but these potions are rare, and drinking the potion wastes a turn.

Also, if you don't have a reliable means of ranged combat, be wary of ranged and reaching attacks, which will strike you with impunity. Use terrain such as a kill hole to your advantage. A potion of attraction will force monsters closer, if need be.

Tips & Tricks

• The inability to move also gives immunity to enemies that shove you around (wind drakes, swamp worms, monsters with Force Lance, Roxanne...).
• Tree Form will negate the attack penalties of standing in shallow water.
• Keep in mind that transforming into Tree Form will suppress the innate abilities associated with your original species, leading to possibly unexpected results. For example, if you were a formicid, quaffing the potion to fight an invisible enemy might be counter-productive, since you will lose your Antennae which allowed you to see invisible.
• Against enemies that attack with clouds, such as ushabti, you can use a scroll of fog to counter them. Only one cloud can exist at a time, so placing fog clouds will prevent more deadly clouds from being placed on your tile.
• Tree Form doesn't have blood, so skysharks are unable to activate their bloodzerk attack flavour.

Tree Form

History

• Prior to 0.28, players in Tree Form were immune to negative energy (rN+++).
• Prior to 0.27, Tree Form gave fixed 48% GDR.
• Prior to 0.19, Tree Form greatly increased the player's Stealth modifier.
• Prior to 0.16, Tree Form also gave +10 strength.
• Prior to 0.15, players in Tree Form could not eat or drink, but did not hunger. Tree Form also greatly increased players' size.
• Prior to 0.14, the potion of lignification did not exist. Tree Form slowed the player by an amount based on your experience level ranging from 50% - 0%, prevented players from shouting, and followers of Fedhas Madash gained rF+ and rC+.
• Prior to 0.13, it made the player vulnerable to fire, and the AC bonus and the speed penalty didn't depend on XL.
• Like most bad forms, Tree Form was added in 0.12