Statue Form (spell)

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

Statue Form (spell)

Statue Form is a level 6 Transmutations/Earth Magic spell which changes the caster into stone; strong and durable, but moves and acts slowly.

Useful Info

Casting this spell gives you Statue Form for a spellpower-dependent duration. You'll gain the following:

Combat Bonuses

• HP Bonus: 130% HP
• Innate AC: 20 + 12 * pow/100 AC (20-38 AC)
• Unarmed Combat: 12 base damage.
• All melee damage is increased by 50% (after AC is applied).

Resistances

• Poison immunity
• rElec
• rN+
• rTorment (50% damage from torment, stacks with rN)
• Non-living: Unbreathing, lacks blood, immune to sleep and petrification

Restrictions

• Melded Gear: Body armour, gloves, boots.
• All actions slowed by 50%. Stacks with the slow status.
  • Species movement delay is set to 1.0, but it is then slowed by 50% (1.5 with no other factors).
• If you are an amphibious species, you can stand in deep water, but you get all the normal penalties from both shallow and deep water (statues can't swim). Flight works as normal.

Gargoyles cannot use this spell, as they are already made out of stone. In addition, the undead (ghouls, mummies, bloodless vampires) cannot use any form-changing spell.

Strategy

Despite the scary sounding slowness, Statue Form is a strong spell, more durable than the stats suggest. Unlike most Transmutations, you get to keep your shield. And unlike heavy body armour, you'll get your full, unencumbered EV. So, with good values in HP, AC, EV, and possibly SH, your effective HP is very high. In a pinch, you can end the form or use a potion of haste to get back to normal speed.

It's best used for Unarmed fighters, especially those unable to use most/all body armours (namely Trolls, Felids, and Octopodes). It's also good for slow-moving characters (Nagas, Barachim, worshippers of Chei), as they won't mind the speed penalty as much. Statue Form also has great resistances - torment resistance is particularly helpful for extended.

Statue Form only boosts Unarmed Combat. Other methods of fighting are the same, or outright worse, than with normal characters:

• This form does not explicitly penalize spells... but all actions, including spellcasting, are slowed by 50%. Thus, direct damage spells become less effective. A Conjurations-focused caster can still appreciate Statue Form for its defenses, but bear in mind the slowness. Of course, spells are not useless, as support magic can be very helpful.
• Statue Form boosts melee weapon damage by 50%, but it also slows melee by 50% - there's no increase to damage. For strong, melee brutes, heavy armour is likely to be more effective. (At least, before extended.)

Tips & Tricks

• Translocations spells are great to have in this form. Lesser Beckoning and Vhi's Electric Charge help a slow-moving melee fighter approach enemies. Manifold Assault lets you swing your fists at full-screen range.
• Very useful for (15 rune) low turncount speedruns. Since you act at 1.5 delay, you'll regenerate 1.5 decaAut per move, while only taking 1 "turn".

Humanoid	Palentonga	Naga	Djinni	Octopode	Felid
	File:Statue form palentonga.png

History

• Prior to 0.30, Statue Form's +50% melee damage applied before AC reduction, resulting in slightly higher damage.
• Prior to 0.27, Statue Form had 39% guaranteed damage reduction and was forbidden by Yredelemnul.
• Prior to 0.26, Statue Form had an immunity to rot.
• Prior to 0.20, Statue Form scaled with strength, with UC = 6 + STR/3 before the 50% damage boost.
• Prior to 0.18, Statue Form's AC bonus was lower (17 + (spell power)/10), as Stoneskin was removed. Statue Form also gave a +2 STR bonus and a -2 DEX penalty.
• Prior to 0.17, Statue Form enhanced the AC bonus from Stoneskin.
• Prior to 0.16, Gargoyles could cast Statue Form; it gave them a lower AC bonus which still stacked with their natural AC and 50% GDR.
• Prior to 0.15, Statue Form also granted -10 EV, and gave gargoyles 62% GDR. It also used Earth Magic to determine AC instead of spell power and prevented scrambling.
• Prior to 0.14, merfolk could not use Statue Form in deep water (if they fell in while in Statue Form, they would revert to normal).
• Prior to 0.13, it only granted the player one rank of poison resistance.