Wand of roots

Version 0.30: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Type	Wand
Name	Wand of roots
Icon

A magical device which fires a magical seed, entangling its target and adjacent foes in quick-growing tree roots. Those entangled will be immobilized and take increasing damage over time until they escape or the roots wither away. The roots will only sprout from solid ground.

The wand of roots constricts foes in a 3x3 radius, similar to the Grasping Roots monster spell. It does not affect the user or their allies.

For players:

• This wand deals 2d(4 + 3.5 * Evocations/10) damage (per 1.0 turn) initially. For each successive turn constricted, its damage will increase. Roughly, you'll deal an extra (+20% * turns_passed) damage for the first 5 turns, and a smaller bonus thereafter.
• Constriction lasts for 2.5 + 1d(3.5 * Evocations/10) turns, or until the monsters escapes. See Constriction for more details on escaping constriction.

It is mutually exclusive with the wand of iceblast. Only one may spawn in a given game. Artificers will always start with a wand of iceblast, regardless of which wand is generated in the Dungeon.

Tips & Tricks

• The wand has much of the same utility and power as Borgnjor's Vile Clutch. It lowers EV, never misses, deals guaranteed physical damage, and prevents targets from moving, which can help you avoid attacks of opportunity. Unlike BVC, the wand can't pass through multiple enemies. (The blast can hit those behind your target, though.)
• If you're in melee range of a monster, they generally won't try to escape constriction, allowing you to get more damage from the wand.

History

• The wand of roots was added in 0.29.