Editing 40d:Combat

This guide relates to soldier-level combat, whether applied to military units in Dwarf Fortress mode or the character in Adventurer mode.  For organizing your troops, and managing the warfare aspect of Dwarf Fortress, see [[Military]].

As an Adventurer, you can attack your opponent by running into him, or by pressing {{K|A}} and selecting your target.  If you're standing in the same square as your opponent or fighting him across a stairway, you can attack him by pressing 5 on the numpad.  In Dwarf Fortress mode, all combat is automatic, but see [[squads]] for controlling where your [[soldier]]s go.

If the attacker hits, a random location is struck.  It is unclear whether each individual part of a limb (say, upper arm, lower arm, and hand) each have the same chance of being struck as the head, but due to the greater number of limbs, it is more likely to hit a limb than the torso or head.  In this light, [[weapon]]s with critical boost are less effective, because a leg does not have any internal organs to injure.

The amount of damage done by a weapon is affected by nine factors: [[weapon]] type, weapon material, weapon [[quality]], weapon [[quality|wear]], attacker [[attributes|strength]] (presumably), the "degree of success" of the attack roll, the [[armor]] worn by the defender, and the [[attributes|toughness]] of the defender.

Weapon quality increases both damage and the user's effective skill level: each level of quality grants a 20% bonus to damage, plus one skill level.  It is unknown how large these increases are for [[artifact]] weapons, but it is presumed to be much higher than masterwork weaponry.

Damage to any particular body part is cumulative; if you attack with a badly worn, [[wood]]en [[mace]] with no skill for long enough (and your blows aren't simply "glancing off"), you will eventually break somebody's arm, even if the victim thinks it feels like being slowly whipped to death by scented shoelaces.  Unless, of course, it simply kills you first.

Each weapon causes the "lightly wounded" and "moderately wounded" levels using different messages.  For example, a blunt weapon causes bruises and sprains, respectively, while a [[sword]] causes cuts and bad gashes.  Although these indicators tell you the condition of the body parts, they don't tell you the exact amount of health they have. (ex: A body part can still stay "lightly wounded" sometimes if hit again, if the shot doesn't simply "glance away").

Broken or mangled limbs are useless.  Breaking an arm or hand will cause a creature to drop his weapon/[[shield]], or make it unable to attack with that limb.  Breaking a leg will cause a two-legged [[creature]] to fall, making his extinction much easier. (Oddly, cutting off both arms and both legs of a bipedal creature won't make them fully immobile. Maybe they crawl around with their jaws.) It also takes two broken limbs to make a 4 legged creature fall.

For further information, see [[Wound]].

A piercing or slashing weapon can become stuck in an opponent. There are two things you can do when this happens: twist the weapon in the wound, or try to retrieve your weapon.  Walking away, or pressing {{K|I}} and selecting your weapon (which is red) will attempt to pull the weapon from the wound.  Presumably, your strength is compared to your opponent, and grasping the weapon with additional hands/limbs will improve your odds of success. If you fail to [[wrestling|wrestle]] the weapon from your opponent, you will lose hold of it.  To try again, grab the weapon (via wrestling) with a hand, and you will again have the option to regain control on the {{K|I}} menu.

If you attack a creature while your weapon is stuck in them, you twist the weapon: it causes additional bleeding and pain, but has no other effect (even if stuck in the head!).  The advantage to twisting a weapon, on the other hand, is that you never miss.  This is often the fastest way to take down a large living creature; they often have great armor, and ignore the majority of your attacks, but twisting a weapon five times will knock them unconscious with heavy bleeding.  At this point, you can continue to twist your weapon to ensure death, or retrieve your weapon with no contest in order to attack other creatures. If your opponent has no [[blood]], and is immune to pain (e.g., [[undead]]), then twisting your weapon will have no effect.

Blunt weapons (maces and [[hammer]]s) are supreme at causing this effect. With enough strength and a good weapon it'll be common even during normal combat, and upon killing blow, the creature may fly up to 20 tiles away. Unless there is something in the way, of course.

Swords and [[axe]]s can also cause this if the weapon is of high enough quality, and the attacker is skilled enough. However, it never happens to the degree it does with blunt weaponry.

If a creature is hit hard and is slammed into an obstacle (like a [[wall]], tree, or any other stationary object), the creature may take additional bludgeoning damage as well.  Falling off a cliff also counts as slamming into an obstacle.

These weapons have a significant critical boost (single attacks have been seen to injure 3 different organs), but their main advantage is that they have range. Much as the common availability of rifles allowed every soldier to attack simultaneously in real life (as opposed to merely the front rank of a unit actually attacking the enemy), a legion of bowmen will all strike at once.  The poor performance of both [[crossbow]]s, and especially [[bow]]s, in close combat suggests that ranged soldiers are better with a "skirmish screen" of melee troops.

Crossbows are used by dwarves, [[human]]s, and [[goblin]]s; bows are used by [[elf|elves]], humans, and goblins.

The [[Other_weapon#maul|maul]], despite being a heavy two handed blunt weapon for humans, is the highest damaging weapon in the game.

Dwarves cannot build [[flail]]s, [[morningstar]]s, or mauls. The maul is a human weapon, and dwarves cannot wield it, as it is two-handed even for a human. Morningstars and flails can be wielded by dwarves. (Mauls can, however, be used in [[trap]]s).

Slashing damage causes more bleeding (presumably), but slashing weapons tend to deal less damage than blunt weapons. Slashing weapons are also more likely to cut off limbs, though the exact mechanics are unclear. Removing a limb means you can't hit it again, so if you are cutting off limbs, the odds of hitting the torso or head increase.  [[Axe]]s generally do slightly more damage, while swords have a slight critical boost, causing more internal damage on the head and torso.  Thus, swords are slightly geared more towards fighting large creatures, while axes are slightly better for small creatures.  Axes weigh more than swords, but it is unclear if this has any effect on the combat mechanics.

Only humans can wield [[Other_weapon#Two-handed_sword|two handed sword]]s or [[Other_weapon#Halberd|halberd]]s, and dwarves cannot create [[Other_weapon#Scimitar|scimitar]]s, even though they can wield them.

Piercing damage appears to remove limbs only rarely; it is better for torso and head hits.  Since torso and head hits are uncommon, due to the number of limbs that can be hit instead, a [[spear]] is somewhat of a luck-based weapon.  Piercing weapons get stuck on a fairly regular basis, (again, usually in a limb where it can't do as much), but when it hits a torso or head, the victim usually takes organ damage.  In this light, a spear is best when fighting large creatures, who are best killed via organectomies rather than cumulative damage.

Dwarves cannot wield a [[Other_weapon#Pike|pike]]; it is a two-handed weapon, even for a human.

Whips do "gore" type damage, which inflicts more bleeding and pain. Also, gore attacks have a higher chance of dealing damage to sub-bodyparts like fingers or eyes. This gives whips a strong tendency to break a victim's joints or poke out his throat or other vitals, thus rendering him unconscious quickly and eventually making him bleed to death, which makes them good against unarmored, living [[creatures]]. The downside of using whips is the low overall damage and chance to sever body parts, which makes them almost pointless against armored or [[undead]] enemies.

Some creatures, particularly [[giant cave spider|giant cave spiders]], shoot webbing. Webs will be left behind in the tiles the webbing passes over. If you are in a tile with webbing, you are completely immobilized until you can break free of the web. Currently, in the time you take to escape the web you can be attacked a few times, and possibly webbed again. This makes giant cave spiders the most dangerous critters in adventure mode at this time.

Some creatures have the ability to attack by breathing [[fire]] at their enemies.  Fire breath does damage to creatures that are in the fire and may ignite any equipment they're wearing.  Fire breathers normally have immunities to fire.

[[Dragon]]s breathe dragon fire, which is more powerful than regular fire breath.  Creatures with normal fire immunities can be affected by it.