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[branmuffincat]

My dwarves seem to have this habit of getting themselves on top of trees then starving to death unless I chop the tree down in time does this have something to do with stepladders and dwarves needing them to get out of trees?

[mgotthard]

Possibly. Have seen reports that it happens when dwarves take stepladders from each other.

It's to do also with dwarves climbing away from things that startle them, and then being unable to path downwards again.  Basically, it's a bug.

Either build stairs or a ramp or floors to them, or cut down the tree.  Cutting down the tree might be a bit riskier, since the falling logs might hit the dwarf.

[greycat]

Bug 9252.

Stepladders are not related, in my experience.  Plant gatherers who use stepladders to pick fruits/nuts are not the ones getting stuck, and dwarves will not use the stepladders to rescue the people in the trees.  (Dwarves don't even seem to acknowledge the people in the trees.)

It's not clear how they get up there, but dodging or climbing to escape from a scary animal or invader is a likely reason.  Then they never climb back down.

You can rescue them by building a walkable path (using stairwells and floors) to any branch on the Z-level of the trapped person.  They will walk across the branches, to the floor/stairwell, and then all is fine.  Or, you can cut down the tree, but that has a higher chance of Fun.

[HiddenEyes056]

Do dwarves actually climb up on the stepladders, or do they just use them as a tool, i.e. swinging the ladder at the tree until things fall off?

[Shonai_Dweller]

I'm constantly finding myself in a tree in adventure mode just by wandering around uneven terrain. I imagine the dorfs are having the same issues.

[gentgeen]

Do dwarves actually climb up on the stepladders, or do they just use them as a tool, i.e. swinging the ladder at the tree until things fall off?

If you go to your plant gathering zone you'll see dorfs every-so-often show up to gather the fruits/nuts in your trees carrying a stepladder. They'll put the ladder down under a tree and disappear; if you go up to +1z, you'll see them standing on top of the ladder while gathering all the sand pears (or whatever) in your trees.

All this assumes you've got fruit or nut producing trees, and have the gathering zone set to harvest from trees.

[greycat]

If you go to your plant gathering zone you'll see dorfs every-so-often show up to gather the fruits/nuts in your trees carrying a stepladder. They'll put the ladder down under a tree and disappear; if you go up to +1z, you'll see them standing on top of the ladder while gathering all the sand pears (or whatever) in your trees.

All this assumes you've got fruit or nut producing trees, and have the gathering zone set to harvest from trees.

All of that matches what I see.  Also, when the dwarves are done, they leave the ladders sitting there, in the gathering zone.  Later, the keas come and try to steal them.  (Assuming of course you don't have a tool stockpile.  Tool stockpiles are evil.  You don't want tool stockpiles.)

[martinuzz]

If you go to your plant gathering zone you'll see dorfs every-so-often show up to gather the fruits/nuts in your trees carrying a stepladder. They'll put the ladder down under a tree and disappear; if you go up to +1z, you'll see them standing on top of the ladder while gathering all the sand pears (or whatever) in your trees.

All this assumes you've got fruit or nut producing trees, and have the gathering zone set to harvest from trees.

All of that matches what I see.  Also, when the dwarves are done, they leave the ladders sitting there, in the gathering zone.  Later, the keas come and try to steal them.  (Assuming of course you don't have a tool stockpile.  Tool stockpiles are evil.  You don't want tool stockpiles.)

You mean large tool stockpiles?

[Valkyrie]

For my arboreal dwarves, I defined a burrow that was the surface z-level and everything below (basically, it excludes the everything above ground level - ie the trees - but doesn't limit anything else; I use such a huge burrow to minimize how much else it disrupts).  When I find dwarves in trees, activating that as the Civilian Alert tends to make them climb down as soon as they desire to do *anything*.  For some reason they're willing to climb to obey a burrow restriction, but not for basic survival (food/booze/etc) - though it does mean that periodically checking the z-Health screen for hungry&thirsty dwarves can be a (relatively) easy way to spot the stuck dwarves in the first place.

As for why they get into the trees to start with, it always seems to be wildlife - either running away from wildlife, or chasing after wildlife.  The plant-gatherers generally haven't been the ones winding up in the trees for me (except when standing on a stepladder put them higher than my fort's walls, so the army outside started lobbing arrows at them - then they sometimes ran upward :p ).