Lily Pad

Plant file · Lower Waterfall

Lily Pad

A landing point on water and a prebuilt foundation on land.

Sun25
Recharge7.5s
Durability400

Lore

Lily Pad comes from the Distant Pond and travels to Maple Falls at Wall-nut's invitation. Packing and contacting other plants delay the arrival. Tired from the climb, Lily Pad nevertheless reports the zombies with orbiting cones before anything else. Much of this quiet companion's work happens before a battle begins.

When Peashooter's sweet bag breaks, Lily Pad has a spare. A notebook and matching quill are also prepared for the voyage's leader, giving the plants and zombies encountered along the way a place in the diary. The record of the journey begins, in part, with this thoughtful gift.

Homing Thistle finds Lily Pad comfortable enough to lie on, chat, and fall asleep. Lily Pad sometimes even dances with passengers, but hospitality has limits: Red Stinger recalls being tipped into the water for eating on board.

Mechanics

Role

Aquatic support · Terrain helper

  • Base data: 25 sun; 7.5s recharge; 400 HP.

  • Provides a carrier layer on water, letting non-aquatic plants be planted on top.

  • Can be planted on land; bare land Lily Pads are ignored by zombies.

  • When terrain turns into water or plants are moved onto water, an existing Lily Pad can serve as the legal landing surface.

  • With Lorus, provides an anchor for water-side target display and lotus repositioning.

Lily Pad is a separate carrier layer. The plant above keeps its own type, HP, and state. Water planting, terrain changes, movement destinations, and Lorus targeting use that support in different ways.

Water planting and the two layers

By default, water tiles do not allow non-aquatic plants to be planted directly. If the tile already has Lily Pad, it gains a carrier layer; the upper plant still runs its own HP, allegiance, attacks, click behavior, and special state. Lily Pad supplies planting legality, not a change to the upper plant's plant type.

The Lily Pad and the upper plant on the same tile should be read as two layers: the lower pad stores its own HP and state, while the upper plant stores its own HP and runtime state. If the upper plant is recovered, moved, or rewritten by an outside effect, Lily Pad does not merge or disappear for that reason; if the pad is destroyed, the support condition is lost with it.

At present, Lily Pad's base HP is 400. That value gives brief tolerance, but a bare Lily Pad has no attack, no shove, and no high-HP banding; compared with Wall-nut, it handles tile legality rather than front-line blocking.

CanPlant⁡non-aquatic(g)=¬Water⁡(g)∨HasLilyPad⁡(g)\operatorname{CanPlant}_{\text{non-aquatic}}(g)=\neg\operatorname{Water}(g)\lor\operatorname{HasLilyPad}(g)
Water-tile legality is decided by terrain plus carrier layer.

Land placement and terrain changes

When planted from the seed slot, Lily Pad can also be placed on land. A bare land Lily Pad is ignored by the zombie bite-target check; its HP still belongs to the pad, but it usually is not spent like a front-line plant.

When terrain is later rewritten into water, an existing land Lily Pad can act as the prior support condition, letting the non-aquatic plant above it remain legally supported. If the tile becomes water and did not have Lily Pad beforehand, the water-retention condition is not met.

In particular, land preplacement does not create water-tile behavior early. It only marks a tile that may later become water as already supported; whether zombies attack and whether the upper plant acts are still decided by the current upper plant and terrain state.

Retain⁡after water(g)=¬Water⁡after(g)∨HasLilyPad⁡before(g)\operatorname{Retain}_{\text{after water}}(g)=\neg\operatorname{Water}_{\text{after}}(g)\lor\operatorname{HasLilyPad}_{\text{before}}(g)

Movement destinations and mine paths

When movement or redeployment sends a non-aquatic plant toward a water tile, the target tile passes the position check if it already has Lily Pad; otherwise the water tile lacks support. The check reads support at the destination, not at the movement source.

When Potato Mine is planted on Lily Pad, the pad only opens water-side endpoint legality. The plant that gets linked, eaten, moved, and used to decide whether the line exists is still the upper Potato Mine; Lily Pad itself does not become a line endpoint.

Chained Lily Pads can split water into several legal landing surfaces, but they do not automatically create paths, attacks, or protection. Any path effect still comes from the corresponding upper plant, such as Potato Mine's endpoint line.

Lily Pad opens landing surfaces; paths are still maintained by upper plants.

A water anchor for Lorus

Lorus attacks through surrounding lotus flowers, and clicking the body can reposition those flowers. On water, target display and repositioning checks depend on a recognizable anchor; Lily Pad supplies that water-side anchor, not a damage bonus.

With Lily Pad support, Lorus on water regains more readable target display and lotus repositioning. The interaction solves target-layer and landing recognition; it does not rewrite the lotus attack formula.

Corchid and Lily Pad operate on separate layers: Corchid expands lotus repositioning range, while Lily Pad stabilizes water-tile recognition. Both can participate at once, but they are not the same kind of bonus.

Lily Pad stabilizes anchors; Corchid expands range.

Journey notes

Wall-nut announces Lily Pad’s arrival at Lower Waterfall before the water-planting tutorial. Lily Pad also organizes Field Guide notes and introduces Lorus from the pond.

Interactions & counters

  • Lorus

    Supplies water anchoring and target guidance without changing lotus damage.

  • Potato Mine

    Potato Mine can be planted on Lily Pad, extending mine paths onto water.

In-game tooltip

Aquatic plant that lets you plant non-aquatic plants on top. Ignored by zombies if planted on land.