v0.31:Adventurer mode

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

v50.14 · v0.47 · v0.34 · v0.31.25 · v0.28 · v0.23 This article is about an older version of DF. More Info · V

Placeholder list of relevant changes to/or greatly affect DF2010 adventure mode: (Feel free to merge with old adventure mode information or clean up)

Quick Start

The first step is to choose the race of your adventurer. All three races can complete the same quests. Elves are the most challenging since they start with very weak wooden weapons.

You can then choose to start either as a peasant, hero or demigod. Starting as demigod will increase your starting attribute and skill points greatly, making things much easier.

Read up on Template:L and Template:L to customize your character.

You will usually start your adventure near a peasant hut. You can ask nearby commoners, using the k key, if you may be of any Service. They will then inform you of any problems their locality is suffering from, giving you a Quest! This can be repeated several times in order to gain additional quests.

Using shift+t will open the fast-travel screen and enable you to roam the land very quickly. Notice the uppermost bar indicating the position of the sun. You might not want to be found alone in the wilderness at night.

When in the fast-travel screen, press m to bring up the map. Use shift+Q to bring up the quest screen. Using the + and - keys, you can scroll through the quests displayed on the right. Pressing z will zoom in on the current quest target, showing you the quickest path to reach it. The quest menu can also be used to pinpoint the location of many other useful sites and entities.

When your adventurer becomes tired, as indicated by the "drowsy" attribute, it's time for some sleep. Use the Z key to bring up the sleep menu. Beware of sleeping in the wilderness at night ! If you are in a private house, you must first ask the owner for permission before you can sleep. If a commoner is blocking you from entering his home, use the s key to crawl under his legs, and then the same key to stand back up.

Once you complete your first quest, you can talk to any hamlet, town or fortress dweller to spread the news of your success.

Once, your fame has risen enough, mighty warriors may want to join you on your way to glory. They can be recruited at fortresses (marked as O on the map) or among the common peasants. Your companions will greatly increase your chances of survival and adventurers who care about such things should drop by the nearest fortress as quickly as possible. When fast-traveling, make sure that all of your companions are near you or some may be left behind.

At any time, use the z key to display your status. This can be used to look for any scratches, bruises or missing limbs. When questing, use the g key to pick up any equipment or item lying on the ground. These will then be added to your inventory i. Items may be sold later on to a shop at a nearby town (not hamlet). To check on the status of one of your companions, use the l key to look at him. This can also be used to look at any other item or creature within your range of vision.

You may equip any items that you find or buy using the w key. Existing items must first be removed using the r key. Unfortunately, swapping equipment is somewhat broken in the current 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 attributes 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 will protect you from this.

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. 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.

Trading

In towns (not hamlets), you can find merchants inside some Template:L. These merchants have the Template:L profession and will trade only when they are in their respective shops. Talk to them to trade with them. After buying an item, you must pick it up manually from somewhere in the shop. look around for an item without $ signs around it. Due to these limitations, there are only "human town" Template:Ls in a pre-fab Adventure mode civilization.

Selling

You can also sell things to traders. Bones, corpses, body parts and rocks are not valuable, no matter how attached you are to a particularly aerodynamic kobold head. Small creatures discovered while Looking Carefully may be worth a small amount of money. You can also sell prepared animal parts produced by butchery (see below). In order to sell or buy items, stand adjacent to the shopkeeper in his store, and konverse with the shopkeeper. Select "Trade" and press enter to open the trade window.

Select each non-worthless item you wish to sell, 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. After the trade sessions, the balance of your coins will appear on a small table next to a chest.

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.

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 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.

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.

See also

• Adventure Mode quick reference