• Spoilers
• Races
• Ent

Intrinsic Attributes

Level 1

• Slow Digestion
• -5 Speed
• Sensitivity to Fire
• Immune to stunning

Level 5

• See Invisible

Level 7??

• Grow Trees

Level 20

• Orc ESP
• Troll ESP
• Evil ESP

The racial peculiarities - not so good!

The tree-walking ability is nice, and growing trees is quite useful when you want to mark things like invisible walls in special levels or make an anti-summoning corridor. But it takes about 8 skill levels to get those abilities without being an Ent...

The boulder-throwing ability is good for a laugh and not bringing a tool, and the hand-to-hand combat skill learning bonus of 0.200 is not very useful; hand-to-hand is nowhere as powerful as weapons in mid- and endgame.

Ents get double damage from fire, this doubling occurs before all resists are taken into account. Think of it: maximum breath attack is around 600, but with twice as much damage you need 1200 HP to survive a fire breath without resists when you're an Ent!!! So overall you'll get instakilled by fire breath often until you get fire immunity or constantly go for double fire resist. Therefore an Ent should buy a Ring of Fire Resistance or a Ring of Flames as soon as possible and collect Potions of Resist Heat.

The permanent -5 speed is quite annoying. In late game it results in double fire breath attacks by leveled monsters, which is near suicide if you don't have fire immunity.

Overall, Ents despite their bonuses are an average race - sort of like humans. (and they don't get infravision either)

Ents as mages

Ents are the only race able to get a base hit dice of 14 and no mana penalties except for Deathmolds(but deathmolds are rather annoying to play unless you play them as possessors, who have a huge mana problem in version 2.3.0 and earlier).

The lack of mana penalties and the hit dice of 14 and great CON/WIS might make you choose an Ent sorcerer/mage/priest or Ent hermit sorcerer/mage; however the speed penalty will hit you HARD in early game and annoy you mid-game. In the end-game when you have boots of speed and two speed rings it doesn't matter all that much unless you want to be an ultimate winner where EVERYTHING might be a tiny bit faster than you - extremely annoying!

Ents as alchemists with a magic attack skill

Ents can compensate for their speed problem by being alchemists; with artifact creation you can have as much speed as you're willing to spend time improving(i.e. no limits) with a side order of fire immunity. They make ideal alchemists in mid- to end- game if you're into using your non-penalized mana for a distance attack - usually based on thaumaturgy (this is one of the tactics of ultimate winners); otherwise just pick a zombie-warrior race instead.

Ents as melee warriors

The -5 speed makes this race weaker than it needs to be to compensate for hit dice and STR and CON bonuses; zombie warrior races are better because lack of speed penalties. And Ents can't be zombies!

The tree-growing ability will save your life a few times by obstructing view(this is more useful to melee-based characters than any other combo); but then you can get nature 6 and temporal 1 to grow trees with another race anyhow, something a Yavanna worshipper or many not-pure-warrior type can do.

Chatter

FeathinSilyar: Are there any trolls or orcs who are NOT evil? Gaining orc and troll ESP with evil ESP seems rather redundant.

RedNaga: in standard ToME, no. But supposedly they could show up in modules.

Malek: Grow Trees is level 2 (just made an Ent and checked )

ElIott: I have to disagree with some of the points in this spoiler. Throw Boulders at level 50 can actually do serious damage (~500 damage/round IIRC), and Barehand Combat is arguably weaker than weapon use at the end of the game, but mostly because while Barehand Combat provides some nice side abilities, by the endgame you can get weapons like Ringil that give even better extra abilities, stat bonuses, and resists. From a purely damage standpoint, Barehand combat holds up quite nicely, IMO. The points on fire damage are correct, but the first example is strange. Anyone in a position to get hit by a max damage fire breath and doesn't even have regular rFire is asking to die, whether or not they are an Ent.

FeathinSilyar: Yeah I give them more credit than most of this spoiler does too. With warrior ents, I always max Throw Boulders and find it *very* useful for Nazgul, hounds, quylthulgs, druj, and most generic mages and priests. Immunity to stunning is a bonus you never really realize until you go toe-to-toe with a grand master mystic and he doesn't stun you in the slightest, but it helps all classes and makes water hounds into puppies. The fire sensitivity is annoying...but not much more. I've only lost like one ent to fire (and I've played a LOT of them) and that was because I did an equipment switch and didn't realize I'd scrapped my only source of fire resistance JUST before I went and fought Durin's Bane...one breath. -5 to speed is just -1 with running, and then Thalketoth brings you up pretty soon. Angband and speed problems...*shrug* I usually do fine there, but lose them in the last couple levels due to extremely stupid mistakes, not speed issues. The Tree-Growing ability will save an ent's life more than a few times, and it makes Master Quylthulg quests a walk in the park. Actually, it'll make pretty much any princess quest a walk in the park, except for tunnellers or fliers with heavy melee.

Wanderer: This spoiler also forgets one combination that is quite potent - the possessing Ent monk. You don't gain as much benefit out of the hit dice, and you lose the grow trees, but you still have the tree-walking, the statlines, and the bump to unarmed combat skill, and you escape the fire sensitivity and the speed hit. You even keep thrown boulders. Thrown boulders can be mighty at higher levels, but even a single point gives you a dig effect (as long as you're willing to drop the boulderpile every once in a while) and a decent low-level ranged attack for occasional use. The only real annoyance is the lack of stealth.