old forest tree -- what are we supposed to do with these?

[PowerWyrm]

- depth 550ft
- 800 hps
- crush for 1d20
- 1/12 chance to confuse
- come in groups

I suppose a HT warrior could have a chance with an early artifact and lots of cure potions, but for others? This pretty means leaving the area where they are at once no?

[Bill Peterson]

- depth 550ft
- 800 hps
- crush for 1d20
- 1/12 chance to confuse
- come in groups

I suppose a HT warrior could have a chance with an early artifact and lots of cure potions, but for others? This pretty means leaving the area where they are at once no?

Don't know what the devs were thinking but I see them as a device for blocking a route. Sort of an uber rubble. Sometimes you can find another corridor or you can dig around them.

[Sphara]

Decorative and go-the-other-way monsters by the time they start to appear. Serves no other purpose. Why would I waste consumables against a stationary thing that has more HP than a mature dragon and periodically confuses me? Maybe I might kite them for EXP if I had Narthanc. Just maybe..
I think I have fought these just once and that was right after the 4.2.0. release.

By far the worst monster addition in 4.2.0. Should be removed or reworked. I have no ideas how to make it work.

[Nick]

Early lesson in avoiding stuff

[archolewa]

I actually like the old forest trees. Like Nick said, these monsters exist to teach you that not every monster is worth fighting, or even getting close to (a *very* valuable lesson to learn, and one that you can have a hard time learning if you come from a standard RPG background).

They also teach you that trees are *scary* before you encounter the ones that move.

Plus, they impose a constraint on my exploration, much like pits do.

"Welp, there's a bunch of trees over there, let's stay far away from *there*. Oh crap, there's a pit of rogues in the *other* direction, guess I'm gonna hug the wall and slither past the trees."

This kind of thing is my favorite part of Angband, and I'm glad we have the trees showing up early, so that you have to chart a safe exploration path through the dungeon earlier.

[quarague]

I think the first time I saw some I thought there were some kind of fruit fly (same letter in 3.xx version iirc) and after punching a few times and being punched back I looked at the text and thought 'oh probably shouldn't fight these'. Have been avoiding all (angband) trees ever since.

[Pete Mack]

It is an intro to tree monsters. It'sgood to have one that is dangerous (or costly) to fight but harmless to ignore.

Decorative and go-the-other-way monsters by the time they start to appear. Serves no other purpose. Why would I waste consumables against a stationary thing that has more HP than a mature dragon and periodically confuses me? Maybe I might kite them for EXP if I had Narthanc. Just maybe..
I think I have fought these just once and that was right after the 4.2.0. release.

By far the worst monster addition in 4.2.0. Should be removed or reworked. I have no ideas how to make it work.

[Sphara]

It is an intro to tree monsters. It's good to have one that is dangerous (or costly) to fight but harmless to ignore.

I don't think a stationary monster that you are supposed to always ignore, serves as a good introductory for huorns and hasty ent. For Old Man Willow, it does.

Subjectively, old trees don't bother me as much as fighting a wolf pack twice on every level does. Having them in the game has extremely low effect on the game flow but that doesn't necessarily make their design good.

[PowerWyrm]

Early lesson in avoiding stuff

Understood

[wobbly]

I don't mind them. I'm not convinced a monster you avoid is worse then chaff monsters you murder with ease or filling the level with all killers. At the very least they are better then jellies & molds (both in flavour & design). They are a bit like a druj except you don't die from walking into los.

[Hounded]

I like 'em for the atmosphere. Learned quickly that it really isn't worth the effort to exterminate them and it's refreshing that they can serve that purpose without being some variety of Jelly.

I also think that Ents should be able to somehow transform them into Huorns in levels where both occur. It would be an interesting dynamic- "Ignore the trees and DON'T wake the Ent!"

Honestly this is the first version that has forced me to evaluate whether it's worthwhile to do a clean sweep of every single dungeon level.