23a:Weapon

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Weapons are items that increase the damage dealt by creatures in combat. In fortress mode, after accessing the military screen with m, pressing w gives a list of which weapons you desire your dwarves to use. Dwarves only carry a weapon if their profession requires one: that is, if they are a miner, wood cutter, hunter, or soldier. Dwarves working in other trades will only collect a weapon upon being drafted, which may cause a long walk to collect equipment depending on weapon availability and settings.

Availability

Some types of weapons cannot be used by dwarves in Fortress mode, such as bows, and only 7 can be manufactured. Some can however be used if recovered from enemies or gained by trade, and all can be used in weapon traps just fine.

In Adventure mode, all weapons are usable; an adventurer can become a bowdwarf, or use a human great axe or longsword in one hand despite the fact that he is smaller than the minimum size required to use the axe at all, with both hands or one. It is not clear if there are any penalties associated with using over-sized weapons.

Manufacture

Dwarves with relevant skills can create weapons using an appropriate workshop and raw material. Wooden and bone crossbow bolts and Obsidian short swords can be created at the craftsdwarf's workshop. (Metal) bolts and melee weapons can be created at a metalsmith's forge (or the magma equivalent). Crossbows can be made at a bowyer's workshop. Dwarves can only create weapons they themselves can wield, with the occasional exception of artifacts.

Most weapons can be made of a single bar of silver, copper, bronze, iron, or steel (or several adamantine wafers). (Short swords can also be made from obsidian, with a wooden handle.) The rare exception is a strange mood, which can produce a weapon from almost anything.

The material of crossbows does not affect the damage of fired bolts, although it does affect the damage of the crossbow when it is used as a bludgeon (when striking the opponent with the weapon itself - bolts determine the damage when fired at range).

There are a few enormous weapons that no race can wield, these are only usable when mounted into weapon traps. These are the large, serrated disc, spiked ball, enormous corkscrew, and giant axe blade.

Use in Fortress mode

Upon being drafted, dwarves will get a "pick up equipment" job and go and pick up the assigned weapon and armor. However, there are three labors, when enabled, allow the dwarf to be fully equipped (but not in the military). This can be very useful to quickly defend against an ambush or attack.

• A wood cutter carries a battle axe even as a civilian. If a woodcutter is assigned to use an axe as a weapon he or she will only need get the assigned armor. The caveat is that woodcutters need to be cross-trained as axedwarfs (as wielding an axe requires the axe skill) and if you designate a section of trees for wood-cutting, all your dwarves will rush out to cut them down.
• A miner carries a pick at all times. The drawback is that picks are mediocre weapons (see below) and a miner will still need to equip the desired armor. Because wielding the pick is based on the civilian "mining" skill, miners don't have to train as soldiers to be semi-effective fighters. Picks will only be used as weapons by miners who are holding picks and instructed to fight unarmed.
• A hunter will equip the armor and weapon assigned to hunt with (Note: this needn't be a crossbow with leather armor). Military dwarves that are deactivated while fully equipped with a weapon and armor and have the hunting labor enabled will keep their weapon and armor equipped. This case is only practical when the surrounding wild animals have been depleted and armor and weapons are plentiful.

Effectiveness

Weapons vary in the amount and type of damage inflicted, according to raw/objects/item_weapon.txt. Blunt weapons like hammers and maces tend to deal large amounts of damage to external body parts, and never get stuck in targets. Slashing or cutting weapons such as axes or swords have a tendency to sever limbs on good hits, but sometimes get stuck in their victims. Piercing weapons such as spears or crossbow bolts have a high chance to deal damage to internal organs, possibly resulting in instant kills, but have the highest chance to get stuck in victims. Weapons that get stuck in their victims cannot be reused until pulled free, which can leave the attacker vulnerable. While stuck, the weapon can be twisted in the wound, possibly causing the victim to pass out from pain.

High "Crit. Boost" is a better chance of causing internal injuries, rather than simply wounding body parts. This is useful against big, hard-to-damage enemies -- piercing weapons like spears will tend to damage their organs, which is usually a faster way to take them out.

Weapon statistics

These have been taken from /raw/objects/item_weapon.txt:

Melee Weapons

Dwarf weapons

(Main article: Dwarf weapon)

In Fortress mode, these are the only weapons dwarves can manufacture themselves.

Name	Damage	Damage Type	Skill Used	Crit. Boost
Battle axe	110	Slash	Axe	None
Crossbow(melee only)†	70	Bludgeon	Hammer	None
Mace	120	Bludgeon	Mace	None
Pick†	70	Pierce	Mining	2
Short sword	100	Slash	Sword	1
Spear	100	Pierce	Spear	2
War hammer	120	Bludgeon	Hammer	None

Other weapons

(Main article: Other weapon)

(Note - dwarves can not use these in fortress mode unless marked with an *)

Name	Damage	Damage Type	Skill Used	Crit. Boost
Blowgun† (melee)	20	Bludgeon	Sword	None
Bow† (melee)	40	Bludgeon	Sword	None
Large dagger	70	Slash	Dagger	1
Flail	130	Bludgeon	Mace	None
Greate axe‡	150	Slash	Axe	None
Halberd‡	140	Slash	Axe	None
Long sword* †	120	Slash	Sword	1
Maul‡	160	Bludgeon	Hammer	None
Morningstar*	120	Bludgeon	Mace	None
Pike‡	120	Pierce	Pike	2
Scimitar*	100	Slash	Sword	1
Scourge	30	Gore	Whip/Lasher	None
Two-handed sword‡	140	Slash	Sword	1
Whip†	20	Gore	Whip/Lasher	None

† Dwarves wield weapon two-handed (set number of weapons to 2 in fort mode (v-p-s-m))
‡ Dwarves cannot wield weapon (too large)
* Can be worn in fortress mode

Missile ammunition statistics

These have been taken from /raw/objects/item_ammo.txt:

Name	Damage	Damage Type	Notes
Arrow	100	Pierce	Invaders' weapon
Blowdart	10	Pierce	Invaders' weapon
Bolt	100	Pierce	Dwarf & Invaders' weapon

Trap weapon statistics

(See Trap Weapon for more information.)

Name	Damage	Damage type	Number of hits	Critical boost	Wood?
Giant axe blade	220	Slash	1	None	No
Enormous corkscrew†	150	Pierce	1	2	Yes
Spiked ball	100	Pierce	3	1	Yes
Large, serrated disc	120	Slash	3	None	No
† This trap component is a screw and can also be used in screw pumps. ‡ This trap component is a spike and can also be used in upright spike traps.

(This data has been compiled from raw/objects/item_trapcomp.txt)

Damage calculation

Weapons and traps do one of four types of damage, the type of damage influences what type of critical hits it can inflict. Damage is reduced by the targets armor and toughness.

Type	Criticals	Weapons and Traps
Slash	Sever Limbs	axe, sword, dagger, giant axe blade, serrated disc
Pierce	Organ damage	pike, pick, spear, bolt, arrow, blowdart, enormous corkscrew, spiked ball
Bludgeon	Break bones	war hammer, mace, unloaded crossbow or bow or blowdart, maul, flail, morningstar, fist, stone-fall trap
Gore	Heavy Bleeding and Pain(?)	whip, Scourge
Burn	Extreme Pain	Special Creature Tokens(Attack)
Heat	Ignition of target	Special Creature Tokens(Attack)
Cold	Freezing/Frostbite	Special Creature Tokens(Attack)

Material damage modifiers

Dwarves can only make metal weapons out of silver, copper, bronze, iron, steel, or adamantine, the only so-called "weapons-grade" metals in the game. (Short swords can also be made from one obsidian plus one log for a wooden handle.) The exceptions are from elves, who commonly wield wooden weapons, and a strange mood from a weaponsmith, which can produce a weapon from almost anything (which would then fall into the "other" category*).

(* but with a huge quality bonus. Artifact weapons consistently appear to be superiorly lethal, regardless of their material. Once you're reliably cutting a goblin in twain, there's not much room to measure improvement.)

Actual weapon damage depends partially on the material from which the weapon was forged, then multiplied by quality (see next section). For example, a copper battle axe does a base 73 damage (110 x 66%), while a steel axe does 146 damage (110 x 133%), etc.

Material	Damage %
Adamantine	500
Steel and Obsidian	133
Iron and Chitin†	100
Bronze	75
Copper	66
All other materials (wood, silver, etc.)	50
† Theoretically - it's not possible to make weapons out of chitin

Item quality

Toady has stated that quality increases an item's damage (in the case of weapons, or protection in the case of armour), namely,

"Quality has a huge effect on damage and damage reduction... 'Exceptional' is almost double damage/damage block."

• x1.0 damage: no-quality weapon
• x1.2 damage: - Well Crafted weapon -
• x1.4 damage: + Finely Crafted weapon +
• x1.6 damage: * Superior Quality weapon *
• x1.8 damage: ≡ Exceptional weapon ≡
• x2.0 damage: ☼ Masterful weapon ☼

Quality/Material equivalence

This table shows the (rough) equivalent multiplier for a given material and quality combination. The exact values have been rounded to the nearest 1/10th to save space on the chart.

Material \ Multiplier	.5	.6	.7	.8	.9	1.0	1.1	1.2	1.3	1.4	1.5	1.6	1.7	1.8	1.9	2.0	2.1	2.2	2.3	2.4	2.5	2.6	2.7
Other1	Ø	-	+	*	≡	☼
Copper			Ø	-	+		*	≡	☼
Bronze				Ø	-		+	*		≡	☼
Iron						Ø		-		+		*		≡		☼
Steel3									Ø			-			+		*			≡			☼

Notes:

1) includes bone, silver, wood, glass, and any other material not listed (except obsidian³). The net effect of non-standard "other" materials on artifact weapons is not known.

3) Obsidian has the same modifiers as steel.

So at a glance we can see that even a no-quality steel item is the equivalent to the best copper item possible, and that no copper item will ever be as good as a +fine iron+ one. (It is not known whether artifact quality items have additional modifiers above and beyond "masterpiece" level.)

Adamantine items start at a multiplier of 5.00 for no-quality items, and sky-rocket from there.

(Note that for crossbows and bows, the quality and material of the ammo affect ranged damage. As with any melee weapon, both quality and material combined affect melee combat and melee damage with these weapons.)

Damage Formula

Toady One revealed the actual damage formula for normal hits.

[prone]{standing} 2*( RND(DMG*QLT*MAT/10) + RND(STR) + {berserk} RND(4) + {charging} RND(5) -RND(DMBL*2) + {bigger} RND(DIFFSIZE) - {smaller} DIFFSIZE - RND(TOU*2) - [berserk] RND(4) )

• RND(X) = random number from 0 to X
• DMG = weapon damage
• QLT = weapon quality modifier
• MAT = material modifier
• STR = strength level of attacker
• DMBL = damblock of defender
• DIFFSIZE = size difference between attack and defender
• TOU = toughness level of defender
• {xxx} = if attacker is xxx, then apply the following
• [xxx] = if defender is xxx, then apply the following

Skill modifiers and armor values also apply into the formula. Criticals are not included in the formula.

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See Also:

• Soldier