v0.31:Adventurer mode

xTATTEREDx  · +FINE+  · *SUPERIOR*  · ≡EXCEPTIONAL≡  · ☼MASTERWORK☼

v50.13 · v0.47 · v0.34 · v0.31.25 · v0.28 · v0.23 This article is about an older version of DF. More Info · V

This is a detailed reference guide for Adventurer Mode. For a tutorial see the Template:L.

See Template:L to quickly look up key commands.

In adventurer mode, you pick a race (Template:L, Template:L, or Template:L) and start out in a Template:L of your race. You can receive Template:Ls, venture into the wilderness to find Template:Ls, abandoned towers and other Template:L. You can even visit your old Template:Les and find whatever riches were left to be guarded by the Template:Ls that sealed their fate.

The user interface differs somewhat from Template:L; you may want to refer to the Template:L guide.

World Selection

You can play Adventurer mode in any world that has a civilization with the Template:L token (which are elf, dwarf, and human in unmodded raws) but as of the current version 0.31.25 only human civilizations have towns, NPC fortresses, or shops. As a result you need at least one human civilization if you want quests or anything but basic wilderness survival.

If you have previously built a fort in the world that you select, your adventurer will be able to go visit it. However, the fort must be abandoned because you will not be able to start an adventure mode game in the same world with an active fortress mode game. Note, though, that you can always save your fortress mode game, duplicate the save folder (copy regionX to regionX-copy or something), abandon the fortress in the copy of the world, then start adventure mode in the new clone world.

Character Creation

Race and Civilization

Any race with the Template:L token is playable in adventure mode. In an unmodded game this means Template:L, Template:L, and Template:L. All three races can complete the same quests.

• Civilized Humans begin with bronze or iron weapons and can use any of the items sold by shopkeepers (who, for the time being, are only found in human towns and only sell human-sized clothing/armor). They also start with the widest variety of weapon skills.

• Human Outsiders can only start with Spear User and Knife User as weapon skills, and they cannot start with Armor User or Shield User. They also start out literally naked with no clothing, but can wear any human-sized armor that they trade for, steal, or loot.

• Dwarves Have the advantage of being able to go into a Template:L when fighting multiple foes at once. They are the only race which can start with steel weapons, but they wear "small" sized clothing (like goblins and elves) which means that they're unable to wear human clothing and armor found in shops. They can start with almost all of the same weapon skills as civilized humans. Most human weapons must be wielded two-handed by dwarves, due to their size.

• Elves start with very weak wooden weapons and have a more limited list of weapon skills during character creation. If they have any advantages over other races then it certainly isn't very obvious. Like dwarves they wear small sized clothing so will have the same problem finding suitable armor in shops.

If no civilization for the given race exists in a world, you won't be able to play as that race except perhaps as a human outsider.^[Verify]

Status

Determines the number of starting skill and attribute points:

• Peasant: 15 attribute, 35 skill
• Hero: 35 attribute, 95 skill
• Demigod: 105 attribute, 161 skill

This doesn't seem to differ at all based on race or civilization.

Starting Attributes

Template:L are divided into Body and Soul attributes. This section provides some guidance for allocating attributes as it relates to adventurer mode.

Body

• Strength - Alters the damage done in melee, increases muscle mass (thicker muscle layer also resists damage more), and increases how much a creature can carry. Increasing strength, at least in adventurers, increases movement speed (albeit not as much as agility) due to better carrying capacity.
• Agility - This attribute is directly related to a character's Speed and is also used in combat skills.
• Toughness - Reduces physical damage. Also relates to defensive combat skills.
• Endurance - Reduces the rate at which the adventurer becomes exhausted. Used in Wrestling.
• Recuperation - Increases the rate of wound healing. Not as important as Toughness. Recuperation isn't that useful in adventurer mode since you usually have as much time to rest as you need assuming you can escape a situation alive.
• Disease Resistance - Reduces the risk of disease. It isn't clear how useful this currently is in adventurer mode.

Strength, Agility, and Toughness are the Body attributes that most impact combat skills, and Endurance to a lesser extent.

Soul

Some of these are useful for adventure-mode-applicable skills, but some are totally useless.

• Analytical Ability - Useful for certain crafting skills, the only one currently being Knapping.
• Focus - Affects Archer, Ambusher, Observer.
• Willpower - Fighter, Crutch Walker, Swimmer, and helps resist pain effects such as those caused by chipped bones.
• Creativity - Currently completely useless in adventure mode. Normally it impacts crafting skills.
• Intuition - Only helps with Observer.
• Patience - Currently useless.
• Memory - Appears to be useless.
• Linguistic Ability - Currently useless because adventurers don't have social skills.
• Spatial Sense - Important. Effects combat skills, Ambusher, Crutch Walker, Swimmer, Observer, Knapping.
• Musicality - Completely useless as of yet.
• Kinesthetic Sense - Important. Combat skills, Crutch Walker, Swimming, Knapping,
• Empathy - Might increase chance of persuading people to Join you.^[Verify]
• Social Awareness - Increases the number of followers you can have at a given "fame" level. Normally you start with a limit of two. Increasing this stat by one level raises that to three.

Starting Skills

Not all races have the same sets of skills available at character creation time, but keep in mind that all starting Template:Ls, as well as ones not available at character creation, can be improved through use in game.

This section will specifically address starting skills as they relate to adventure mode. For a full description of combat skills see Template:L. Other skills that you can't start with, but which can be increased in game (such as Butchery) are described elsewhere.

Weapon

The weapon you start out with will be based on which of these, plus the unarmed combat skills, is the highest. In other words, even if Swordsman is your highest weapon skill, you won't start with a sword if your Wrestler or Striker skills are better. Usually the best choice anyway is to specialize in just one of these.

Because these tend to take a bit longer to increase in game, it makes sense to put some points into one at the beginning.

Not all races/civilizations can start with all of these skills. (For example, Dwarves can't start with Bowman or Lasher).

• Swordsman - Using swords.
• Maceman - Using maces (not hammers).
• Axeman - Using axes.
• Hammerman - Using hammers/mauls.
• Pikeman - Using pikes (not spears).
• Bowman - Using bows (not crossbows).
• Crossbowman - Using crossbows.
• Spearman - Using spears.
• Lasher - Using whips.

General Combat

These two skills can be raised rather quickly in game and so you probably want to skip spending any points on them at the start.

• Fighter - This increases with, and contributes to, melee combat whether armed or unarmed. It appears that the purpose of it is to allow melee experience to contribute to melee combat in general regardless of weapon. Repeatedly wrestling (grabbing and releasing) even a small creature will raise this skill.
• Archer - This increases with, and contributes to, ranged combat including throwing. It works similarly to Fighter except for ranged attacks. It can be easily raised by repeatedly throwing rocks, making it advisable for archers to practice their marksmanship with rock throwing before using up the more finite and expensive forms of ammunition.

Defensive

These skills are critical for survival. Starting out with good ability in one if not all is strongly advised.

• Shield User - Ability to block things with shields.
• Armor User - Affects the ability of armor to block attacks. How this is supposed to work exactly is unknown, but armor is much less effective when worn by someone with a low Armor User skill.
• Dodger - Ability to dodge out of the way of attacks.

Unarmed or Ad-Hoc Combat

While some of them come in handy at times, they can generally be raised fairly easily in game, especially Wrestler and Thrower.

• Wrestler - Ability to grapple, restrain, "takedown", throw opponents, etc. Can be raised very easily in game.
• Striker - Punching ability.
• Kicker - Kicking ability.
• Biter - Biting ability.
• Thrower - Throwing any miscellaneous object including rocks, knives, axes, swords, heads, etc.
• Misc. Object User - Ability to beat things to death with their own severed body parts, basically. Also somewhat more commonly used for shield bashing.

Movement and Awareness

• Template:L - Helps one to notice things like ambushes and enemies who are "sneaking" (stealth movement). Detection range increases with skill. Hard to train. Adding some points here is advisable.
• Template:L - Allows movement through water without drowning. A Novice swimmer can swim but will revert to being unable to swim if stunned, which happens when falling even 1 z-level into the water. An Adequate swimmer can swim normally (not drown) while stunned. For this reason, starting out as an Adequate swimmer is advisable. If you don't, at least start as Novice and go get some swimming practice right away.
• Template:L - The skill of Sneaking around unobserved. This can be raised fairly easily by sneaking around while traveling from place to place when speed is not important. At lower skill levels, speed is greatly reduced, but the penalty gradually reduces until negated at Legendary skill and it's possible to sneak at full movement rate. Chance of detection is also reduced at higher skill levels; a more skilled ambusher can remain in close combat for longer without being detected.

Crafting

These allow your character to create things. There is only one skill currently available in an unmodified game.

• Knapper - The fine art of sharpening rocks by banging them together in a clever manner. The resulting rocks become sharp rocks which do more damage when thrown and can be used for things requiring a sharp edge like butchering. Easy to raise in game and doing so helps with Kinesthetic and Spatial Sense.

There is also Butchering, but you can't allocate points to that at creation time.

Gameplay

Saving the Game

Hit the Esc key at any time and select Save Game to save your game. You can then come back to it later by using the Continue Playing option in the main menu.

Moving Around

Local Movement

The local travel screen. The lower left shows a small overview map of the area. The upper right shows a small area 1 z-level above the adventurer in the middle. The adventurer is standing in front of the door to a house full of humans, and visibility behind the house is obscured. In the upper left is a small box showing the direction to various sites (which may be quite far away).

8 2 4 6 7 9 1 3	Move
↑ ↓ ← →	Move
Alt and a direction key	Move carefully / Deliberately enter dangerous terrain
< or Shift+5 (num lock off)	Ascend
> or Ctrl+5 (num lock off)	Descend
.	Wait for a step
s	Stand or lie down
S	Sneak

Diagonal movement is particularly important especially when chasing or running away from things.

Use Alt+direction to enter water, jump off of cliffs, or otherwise attempt to enter anything that you can't enter using normal movement commands. Note that when entering water it's best to enter the actual water and not the open space over the water as, in the later case, you will fall in causing you to become stunned which may lead to drowning.

Hitting . allows you to stay in one place and wait for other things to move.

Use s to sit/lay down. Moving while laying down (crawling) will let you move past NPCs which are standing in your way. Also note that you will frequently get knocked to the ground in combat, and if you don't hit s to stand back up then you will crawl slowly along the ground, giving your opponent a lot of opportunity to attack you.

Sneak will allow you to move around invisibly, limited by your Ambusher skill and the Observer skill of nearby creatures. The closer you get to a creature, the more likely you are to be detected. Your movement rate will also be very slow at low Ambusher skill levels while sneaking. If you are within observation range of anything then you will be unable to go into stealth mode. Hiding somewhere you can't be seen (such as the inside edge of a murky pool, if you can swim) will allow you to go into stealth mode when creatures are around.

Fast Travel

Fast Travel screen. A fort is on the west side, and a hamlet is on the east side of the map. The regional map is displayed on the far right.

T	Fast Travel
>	Exit fast travel mode

Entering Fast Travel mode will allow you to move large distances in a single keypress. Of course, the same amount of time will go by and you can also be interrupted (ambushed) while moving in fast travel mode.

See the Template:L for information on what the map symbols mean. Settlements are indicated by ■ tiles and you can find houses by exiting fast travel while standing on one of these tiles. Yellow tiles of the same shape ■ indicate the presence of shops rather than houses.

Pressing m will put a fully zoomed-out map on the right side of the screen, with your current location marked by a blinking "X". When seeking out a quest, move in the direction of the quest site until the blinking "X" is on top of the symbols indicated in the Adventure Log (you can press Q at any time to look at it again).

Along the top of the map is a line showing the sky, and the position of the sun and/or moon from west to east. This primarily helps you determine how long you have before it gets dark at which point you won't be able to see very far and will be more vulnerable to attack.

While in the fast travel screen you can:

• c - Display/hide clouds/weather
• m - Display/hide the regional map on the right
• Q - Display the Quest log
• Z - Display the sleep menu

Other commands are not available until you exit fast travel with >.

Quests

You will start out in a human town or hamlet; the @ sign is your character. In the lower left-hand corner of the screen is a mini-map, with the @ sign showing your relative location to other things in the town/hamlet. The ▐ symbols are small collections of buildings. The buildings can be spaced rather far apart, so even when you get your @ on top of a ▐ it might take some wandering about to find a building. Once you find a building, step through the door. It should have multiple Ü's, each of which is a human. Press k to talk to one, then select "Service" to get a quest. You can do this multiple times to get several quests.

Now that you have some quests, press Q to look at them (this screen is called the Adventure Log). The world map is on the left, with your current location highlighted by a blinking "O", while on the right is the list of your quests. You can select a quest and press z to find the location of the quest site: the blinking "O" will move to the quest site, with a green line drawing the path you need to take. Pressing m will tell you the species of the monster you're supposed to kill. You can also use the arrow keys to move the "O" around to examine the surrounding terrain and sites.

Note that once you complete a quest that you can report your success to any human. Once you tell one human, everyone in the same civilization will know about it. The Adventure Log will tell you to report back to a particular hamlet/town/castle, but you can safely ignore that.

Getting to the quest sites and back would be extremely tedious if you had to move as you're moving now. Fortunately, there's a "quick travel" mode which can be activated by pressing T. This will put you in a somewhat zoomed-out map, with the hamlet/town you're in represented by a cluster of ▐s, with your current location marked by a "@".

At this point the quest site might not be visible, or its symbol might be the same color as the surrounding terrain and thus hard to see. If this is the case, then exit quick travel mode by pressing >. In the upper left-hand corner of the screen will be a box with symbols running down the left-hand side. At the top of the box will be the symbol of your quest site, with the compass direction to the site at to its right, and "TSK" to the right of the direction indicating an unfinished quest at that site. Press T again to re-enter quick travel mode, and repeat the process until you get to the quest site.

Once you get to the quest site, you'll be unable to enter it when using quick travel mode. Attempting to do so will give the message "You cannot travel through the [site]". You must exit quick travel mode by pressing > and move the rest of the way using the normal movement mode. The box in the upper left-hand corner will tell you the direction to go. When you complete the quest the "TSK" will be gone from the site's line in the box, and looking at the Adventure Log (Q) will show "Report Death of ..." instead of "Kill ...". You then have to move off the site using the slow travel method before entering quick travel mode again with T (trying to do so on the site will tell you "You cannot travel until you leave this site".)

Nighttime: survival and sleeping

When using quick travel mode the top line of the screen will indicate the position of the sun in the sky with a yellow "☼"; further to the right of the screen is earlier in the day and further to the left is later in the day. If you're traveling alone when night comes you'll be in danger of being attacked by bogeymen. To avoid this while traveling solo you need to make it to a human habitation before nightfall and sleep the night away inside a building. Enter a building, use k to talk to a human, and ask for permission to stay the night. Next press Z to sleep, d to sleep until dawn, then Enter to confirm. (NOTE: If you stay the night in a castle, you have to sleep in the keep which houses the lord/lady of the castle. Sleeping inside the castle but outside the keep still leaves you vulnerable to attack.)

Though sleeping inside can be safe, it's also limiting: any quest site you want to go to has to be within a daytime's round-trip time of a human habitation, and you have to make your way to there by hopping from one habitation to the next, sleeping at each along the way. A way to avoid this is to travel with companions. If you have any companions with you then bogeymen won't attack you. You'll still have to sleep at night, though, both to avoid sleep deprivation and because there's no visibility at night. You can still be ambushed at night by wildlife, but that's much less likely than being ambushed by bogeymen when traveling alone. If you find yourself alone at night with nowhere safe to sleep, the safest best is to keep travelling until dawn, even if that means running around in circles. You will eventually feel unwell from sleep deprivation, but this can take a considerable time. You can make up for lost sleep once you've found your way to safety.

Food and Drink

The easiest way to stay hydrated and full when starting out is by finding and fighting something weak (a vulture, say, or a racoon, or a fox). You will almost certainly end up covered in blood. You can drink any liquid covering you using 'e' and then simply selecting the fluid - perhaps a little salty in real life, but in Dwarf Fortress it works. The corpse can then be butchered for edible parts, to cure your hunger - the first two problems are solved.

As of 31.17, the need to eat and drink has been removed pending further changes.

Civilization?

Elves live out in the forest, literally. Although defined to specific regions on the map, they have no structural wealth whatsoever. Some trees are named.

Humans live in towns comprised of buildings and often a paved road. Human villages are highly modular. The small 5x5 buildings are citizen houses and are marked with an "H" on the town auto-map. Medium buildings are stores, marked with a symbol that indicates what they sell - weapons, armor, food, clothing, trinkets. As of the current version, you start in the mead hall which is marked with an "M" on the automap. There are one or two apartment buildings which are two stories, with six rooms a story; they are also marked with an "H." There are two really large buildings - the "T"emple and the a fort-like building that is marked with "K." Temples tend to have two or three levels, and a pool of water, while the "K" buildings are three or four floors high and are almost entirely empty (they will occationally contain random smatterings of clothing though, if you're looking for things to sell.)

Dwarves live underground. Their entrances are large square pits with stairs around the perimeter, and a row of leading down into the fortress halls at the bottom. The main halls are wide and have pillars near the walls, long and occasionally turn corners. Different levels in the fortress are marked by a row of ramps with two pillars on the side (walk towards the side of the ramp that has the pillars) and, although the number of floors in a fortress can vary, they are usually little and only become deep if the lay of the land above is variable. There are two-tile-wide hallways, empty 5x5 rooms, and scant Dwarves in these pre-fab fortresses. It's obvious the computer is playing a completely different game than you are in Template:L!

Goblins live in Template:L towers, usually found built in twos, though they both don't necessarily have to be built up. One could be a "tower," one could be an over-glorified "basement." There is probably a temple nearby, completely similar to human temples. Goblin towers have tight 1-wide hallways, spacious and empty rooms, and strange hall extensions that end in remote cross-like dead-ends. Like dwarf fortresses, there is rarely anything in a Goblin tower asides from Goblins, and they have a strange tendency not to attack non-Goblin visitors. They seem to have lots of children.

You may come across what the map defines as a "Goblin" city that is actually populated by Humans or Dwarves living in or around the towers.

Shops

Trading (barter)

In human towns (not hamlets or castles), you can find Template:L. Once you're inside of a shop and right next to any of the NPCs, you can use k to talk to him/her, then select trade. Use Enter to select which items to trade, left/right arrow keys to switch between the list of shop items and your items, and up/down arrow keys to scroll through the lists. Once done, press t to trade. The shopkeeper won't get angry if you're not offering enough in trade, so you can start offering just a few items, keep trying again with a little more until the trade is accepted. Once the trade is accepted all of the items you offered will be on the floor underneath you.

After buying an item, you must pick it up manually from somewhere in the shop. look around for an item without $ signs around it. If NPCs are standing directly over the items you just bought, go prone with the s key so you can move onto the same space as them and pick them up.

Due to some limitations, there are only "human town" shopkeepers in a pre-fab Adventure mode civilization.

Theft

You may also pick up the item before buying it, but you should never walk out of a shop carrying an unbought item, as that is theft. It is punishable by death if you are caught, and excommunication if you are not. On any occasion when you have stolen goods from a store, ie goods bounded by the $$ signs, the game requires you to exit the site and move a considerable distance before allowing you to quick travel. This may make a getaway more difficult if your adventurer is not already faster than anyone else. This only applies to goods in stores; killing townsfolk and taking their personal things, including those of the shopkeep still only requires exiting the site. The moment you are out of sight, you will be able to warp out as usual. Theft and murder remain within entities; even depopulating one country and stealing all its things will not generate ill response in another country.

In recent versions, you may find towns that are entirely deserted. In this case, you can steal from their shops with no consequences.

Note that if you steal anything, then nobody in that civilization will talk to you anymore, making it impossible for you to get new quests, use the shops, or get new companions.

Selling and buying with money

In addition to bartering, you can sell items to a shop for coins, then use the coins to buy stuff at another shop. Just select the items you want to sell or buy, and then set a price using the following format^[Verify]:

• a asking for 9000☼
• s +100☼
• d +10☼
• f +1☼
• g reset to 0☼
• h -1☼ (offering)
• j -10☼
• k -100☼
• l offer 9000☼

The use of these keys may seem non-intuitive, and this is further complicated by the limit on your available offers by your current financial health.

Shopkeepers are used to adventurers with inflated ideas about the value of their goods, so it may be simplest to ask for 9000☼ for your goods, or offer 1☼ for theirs and suggest a trade. The shopkeeper will counteroffer with the actual value of the goods, and will be quite delighted to accept a trade at the price they've just quoted to you. You can then purchase things with your store credit. One turn after the trade session ends, the balance of your coins will appear on a small table next to a chest.

Managing coins

Coins can and will encumber your adventurer, eventually reducing your speed. To reduce that effect you can try to exchange your copper and silver coins for gold ones. To do that you can purchase goods from a merchant to the sum of your copper coins, then sell them back. Check the merchant's chest to see how much gold and silver coins they have. You can delay the problem by selling your loot to many merchants, as they will try to pay you in higher denomination currency first.

A few goods are strictly superior to all forms of coinage as a store of value, most commonly giant cave spider silk items. A suitably sneaky (or powerful) adventurer can murder a few dwarves or goblins for such items for trade and sale for human goods. Giant cave spider silk is a non-renewable resource in a given world - please harvest responsibly.

Where to get items to sell

The best place to get items to sell is at bandit camps, after you've slaughtered all the bandits. You can loot the clothes and equipment off of the corpses of the bandits (and off your fallen companions, too), plus at the very center of camp there'll be a few scattered weapons and a few bags/chests containing various goods.

The next best way to get items to sell is to kill non-talking monsters, butcher their corpses (see below for how), and pick up the edible bits.

At the bottom of the list comes Looking Carefully and selling any small creatures you might find.

Equipping your adventurer

After acquiring Template:L from one source or another, you'll most likely want to equip it. To do this, first make sure it is in your possession--not on the ground. You can then wear it, granted you don't already have too much on that equipment slot already. You can remove or drop inferior equipment as necessary.

Template:Ls and Template:Ls are handled differently. There is no explicit equipment command. Instead, they are automatically equipped when you either get them from the ground or remove them from your Template:L - provided the hand that would wield them is free. So in order to change Template:Ls or Template:Ls you would need to put your equipped weapon into your Template:L and then removing your new desired weapon. You do not need to drop weapons and equip new ones etc. Simply remember the remove command and the put into container command.

It should be noted that the world of DF seems to have a lot of left handers, so do not be surprised if your character holds the weapon with the left hand and the Template:L with the right hand. (actually, it's common for right-handers to hold shields in their right hand as shields tend to be rather heavy and also need to absorb a lot of force when struck)^[Verify]

Adventure Mode Skills

Physical attributes are influenced by the skills selected in character generation, in the beginning and in maximum potential. Starting with fewer skill points spent will leave you a significantly weaker charater; choosing the "Play Now" option generates a character with no skills and the poorest attributes, for the most challenging playthrough.

Adventurers can now perform buildingless reactions. To access the reaction menu, press x. Worlds generated before Template:L cannot perform knapping in Adventure Mode, and new worlds must be generated if custom adventurer reactions are added.

Knapping allows an adventurer to sharpen a rock. Knapping does not work with stones in containers, only ones on the ground or in your hand.
Stones can only be dropped if the stone type does not naturally exist in the biome you are in, so to use ground stones it is worthwhile to Travel far from the area you got the stones. Otherwise, you can place both stones into your hands. This can be achieved by dropping whatever is held in your left and right hands, then getting small stones from the ground. Next, press x to open the action menu, and press create and then → to select "Make sharp stone". You will be prompted to choose a rock to sharpen ("tool stone"), and then the hammerstone. The tool stone will be replaced in your hand by a sharp version.

Butchering acts similarly to Fortress Mode's Template:L by converting a corpse into edible products, bones, and skin. A corpse must be dropped onto the ground to be butchered, or held in one hand. With a sharp object (such as a dagger or knapped stone) in your hand or on the same tile of the corpse, press x, b, and → to select the corpse, and then the sharp tool. The corpse will be replaced by its butchering returns.

Combat

Any creature can be attacked by standing next to it and pressing shift+A. Attacking a friendly or unconscious creature (which includes wild animals for elves) will further require a confirmation, given using alt+y. Attacking a creature using this method, will allow you to make an aimed attack. You must first select the body part that you want to attack. Look at the difficulty rating for various possible attacks. Impossible attacks will be... impossible to land and Easier attacks will be very easy to land. Don't be afraid to try Trickier attacks, especially against easier enemies. Attacks will also land more or less squarely. Square and very square attacks will deal more damage ^[Verify]. Attacks which "can't land squarely" are generally still effective.

Hostile creatures can also be attacked using a non-aimed attack. To make a non-aimed attacked, simply advance towards your enemy using the arrow keys. Doing a non-aimed attack will also free up any stuck weapon.

To attack with a ranged weapon press the f key and select the square where you want to attack.

Attacks aimed at the head are the most effective, a single attack to the cranium with a weapon will usually put an end to the fight. Depending on the situation, it may be worth trying to take even a "Difficult" shot at the head.

The Weapons

Weapons are basically divided into axe, sword, spear, pike, mace, whip, bow and hammer, with various versions of these taking up the gray area.

Non-weapon

Besides your weapons you have two other major forms of attack: Wrestling and throwing.

Wrestling: Wrestling can be performed by standing next to an enemy and pressing shift+A and then enter to switch to wrestling. You can wrestle any enemy.

Throwing: Throwing is the skill of... well, basically throwing stuff. And vomit. And bugs and spears and rocks so on. Just about anything can be thrown, sometimes with devastating results.

Wounds

If you get wounded during combat, there's not much that you can do. Your wounds will heal over time, so just travel around or sleep in a safe place. Some wounds however may never heal, leaving you permanently crippled.

If you have some bolts or arrow stuck in your body, they can be removed by using the complex interaction menu I. Select the stuck bolt or arrow from the list and then pull it out with a

FAQ

How do I get past NPCs which are in my way?

Press s to sit, then move to crawl between their legs. Once you're done press s to stand again.

How do I find an entrance to the underworld?

As of version 0.31.17, quest monsters no longer live in caves, so you can't find caves by asking for quests. Instead, repeatedly ask NPCs about the surroundings, and they might tell you about the location of a cave. If this doesn't show any caves, travel to a hamlet/town/castle some distance away and try again.

I keep getting maimed and killed! How can I fight without getting seriously hurt?

The best defense is a good offense. If you let your enemies attack you, you're (unsurprisingly) likely to get hurt eventually.

• Try to avoid fighting difficult enemies until you get some armor. Don't fight enemies at all unless you're sure you can beat them. If you're unsure, you're probably going to get hurt.
• If you have good speed, try to fight enemies one-by-one - keep moving backwards and only attack when you're within range of just one enemy.
• If you have a slashing weapon, try to chop parts off of your enemy - it makes them stop fighting for a turn, allowing you to keep attacking them without being attacked in exchange. Chopping off limbs will also weaken your enemies - taking their arms can prevent them from using weapons, taking their legs can make them slow and knock them down.
• Remember that it's better to let your enemy come to you, than to go to your enemy. You have to either move or attack. If you move, you can't attack, so if you move within range to attack your enemy, you allow them to have the first strike (unless you're much faster than them). On the other hand, if you let them move within range of you, then you get to have the first strike.

Version Changes

Changes from 40d

Fast-travel, shift+t to enter, and shift+. (Pretend you are making the '>' downstairs symbol) to exit, no longer heals all of your wounds instantly, nor can fast-travel be used when bleeding out. Some wounds do heal over time.

Cave systems are accessible to adventurers but you are virtually guaranteed to get lost exploring them. - But if you can return to the general area where you entered the cave, you can fast Travel, even if you can't find the exit. You can navigate. Tested 15 levels below the cave entrance - Need to be confirmed if it works regardless of how many z-levels under the entrance you are.

Material changes are extremely noticeable in adventure mode. Elves with wood are noticeably weaker, and throwing/ranged weapons somewhat reduced in effectiveness.

As of the current release, adventurers start out more powerful than they had in 40d, with certain builds(use all skill points) granting super-----ly tough/strong/agile at start.

"Stuck-in" weapons no longer are endlessly twisted in the wound until the creature bleeds to death, or the weapon is yanked out. There is now a roll to see who controls the stuck-in weapon on the turn following the "stuck-in" attack.

Human towns have only bronze weapons and armor, and large clothing.

Swimming, sneaking, fighting, etc. seem to improve the associated skills only. Attributes (strength, etc.) remain the same even after a long and active period of adventuring.

Combat is much more forgiving than in 40d. Bolts and arrows are less deadly, because they can be blocked with a shield. Armor protects you much better versus bolts and arrows -- when wearing plate, it's rare for one to get through. Don't assume you're arrow proof, but you can take a bit more punishment now. ^[Verify] Also, no metal armor can protect one's throat. ^[Verify]

Based on what civilizations are allied with humans you may be able to play Kobolds or Goblins, but only random names can be used.

Changes in 0.31.17

When generating an adventurer you now have points to assign to Template:Ls as well as to skills. You can reduce unwanted attributes down to 1 to get more points for other attributes.

The travel-mode map is now more zoomed-in than before. To see a fully zoomed-out map during travel mode, press m, and one will appear at the right.

The bar at the top of the travel-mode screen shows the position of the sun, giving you an easy indication of how much daylight is left.

You become sleepy during travel mode. You can choose to sleep or wait for a specific time using (by default) shift+Z. If you sleep outside during the night you can be ambushed by bogeymen or a myriad of other night monsters. Sleeping inside a building (including the temples and lairs of vanquished monsters) will protect you from this. Ambushes will also not be initiated when you are staying on a beach or mountain, but ones that have already started will continue even if you enter such an area.

There are now hamlets (Æ and æ) and castles (○) in addition to towns (+) (NOTE: those symbols are how they appear in the world map (fully zoomed-out)). When in a town or hamlet clusters of buildings will be marked as ▐ in the mini-map in the lower-left hand corner. Only towns have shops, which appear as yellow ▐ in both the travel map and the mini-map.

You can get quests from any person in a town/hamlet, and from any soldier in a castle after you've gained enough reputation from completing a few quests. Quests to kill titans, dragons and hydras you can only get from leaders found in castles, and only after you've gained a lot of reputation.

The ability to recruit soldiers now depends on reputation from completing quests, rather than how skilled you are compared to them. At hero or demigod level, you start off with a maximum of two companions, with the max increasing by one for each quest you complete, topping off at 19 companions.

See Also

• Adventure Mode quick reference
• quick start guide