Editing 40d:Combat

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.

 

Lopped off limbs are gone forever.  They do not grow back, even in Adventure Mode.

In a word, don't. A creature's speed will drop to 1/3 of normal while on the ground. Use {{K|s}} to stand up again in Adventure Mode.  If the creature has a broken or mangled leg(s), or a condition that disables the legs, it cannot stand back up.

Heavy bleeding has three effects: The first effect of constant heavy bleeding is that the creature will become faint; the second effect would be that the creature will become pale; lastly, if bleeding still continues, the creature will bleed to death.  

Pain causes three effects, in increasing amounts: less combat effective (damage? odds of hitting? slower?) and nausea (even less effective?).  If creature is under extreme pain they could also fall unconscious (give in to pain). The more toughness the creature has, the more damage they can take before giving in to pain.

====Getting Weapons Stuck====

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.

====Knock Away====

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.

Once in the air, the victim is surrounded by a blue background to signify that is flying. It will fly at a very rapid pace until it hits an object, a creature, or the ground. If a creature is hit by the flying victim, he'll be stunned and knocked prone, but otherwise uninjured.

This can even be done by throwing weapons. It is unknown whether the chances of this happening are different from that of a melee attack with the weapon, although it is possible it relies on the throwing skill.

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.

If the victim hits an obstacle with enough force, he will blow apart and disassemble into a pile of body parts, some of which might fly a couple tiles away from the impact zone.

In adventure mode, sometimes creatures smashing into obstacles will produce the "instantly fatal" death message more than once on the same major body part.

Paralysis is a condition where a creature cannot move for a long time.  It's about the same as being unconscious, but the creature is still awake, however can't feel anything (maybe).  In adventure mode, time passes quickly when your adventurer is paralyzed.

 

Paralysis can be caused by being poisoned or by severe brain damage (which may lead to permanent paralysis).

 

 

The combat skills are modified by dynamic events. The following algorithm seems to be used (please note that some creatures are unaffected by some modifiers):

 

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.

Considering that you're going to be hitting limbs most of the time, blunt weapons do the most damage and are most likely to break or mangle a limb, reducing the creature's ability to carve you a second mouth.  Blunt weapons don't hurt internal organs much, and are unlikely to remove limbs, so they're less ideal for getting a quick kill on large or heavily-armored enemies, but their high damage makes them perfect for killing weak or small enemies. Blunt weapons are also unmatched when it comes to sending enemies flying.

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.

BURN, HEAT, and COLD are possible damage tokens.  There are no weapons that do these kind of attacks, but can be modded in.  There are creatures that can do burning attacks.  It's unknown whether any creatures have heat or cold attacks.

 

 

 

Cold attacks are pretty much like burn attacks, but with different attack messages.  This attack does freezing damage, but nothing else special.  It's unknown whether cold-immune creatures are affected by this attack.

 

 

Some creatures have special attacks that can inject poison into other creatures.  There are two types of poison, one that stuns, and one that paralyzes (which is most common).

 

 

 

 

There are VERY few creatures that have the ability to suck blood.  Encountering them is rare.  These creatures have special biting attacks that latches and can suck blood.

 

When blood is drained from a creature, it causes heavy bleeding (depending on the attacking creature's ability to suck blood).  Blood suckers may feed or regain health while doing this. {{verify}}

Modding this ability to a playable creature of your choice won't do anything.  Only NPCs can use this special attack.

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.

{{Category|Military}}