Adventurer mode gameplay

v51.05 · v0.47.05 This article is about the current version of DF. Note that some content may still need to be updated. More Info · V

Common UI concepts

About key symbols

This wiki uses symbols that look like t or t to indicate what keys or interface buttons are used for an operation. Note that keys are case sensitive and to save space, Shift+t is shown as T. So t means "press the 't' key without the shift key" and T means "hold down shift and press the 't' key". Lowercase and uppercase keys will often perform different functions, so it is important to use the correct key. Sequences of keys will be in separate boxes, so abC means "press 'a', then press 'b', then hold shift and press 'c'"; while bT means "press 'b', then hold shift and press 'T'. A plus sign '+' between the boxes means to press them all together, so Shift+Enter means to hold shift and press 'Enter'. Other separators, such as ',' or '-', might be used but mean the same as no separator: to press the keys in sequence.

Keybindings can be seen and changed on the Keybindings tab in the Settings menu.

Menu navigation and selection

Esc or right mouse	Go back to the previous screen/menu
Mouse wheel	Scroll menu one line
Shift+mouse wheel	Scroll menu one page
Left mouse	Select menu option

Esc or right mouse will almost always return to the previous screen until you get to the top level of the UI, at which point Esc will display the options menu.

Moving around

Local movement

An image of normal travel mode. A list of the closest (but not necessarily close) sites is in the top-left corner. On the right side are minimaps of the next two levels down, relative to the player. Along the bottom is information about the player.

8 2 4 6 7 9 1 3	Move
↑ ↓ ← →	Move
Alt and a direction key	Move carefully / Deliberately enter dangerous terrain
Shift+< or Shift+5 (num lock off)	Ascend
Shift+> or Ctrl+5 (num lock off)	Descend
.	Wait for 10 instants
,	Wait for 1 instant
s	Stand or lie down
S	Open movement speed/sneak menu

Unless your character is an outsider, you will start out in a race-appropriate town or hamlet; in the standard tileset, the @ sign is your character. The directional keys allow movement. 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 latter case you will fall in, causing you to become stunned, which may lead to drowning. If you hit j, you can jump. This is mostly useful for crossing gorges and crevices, where you have to get to the other side. Occasionally, you can manage to jump onto an opponent and tackle them, which typically causes them to go flying a short distance. Hitting . allows you to stay in one place and wait for other things to move. , does the same but with a tenth of the time it takes for ..

Use s to sit/lie 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. Enemies will have sight cones indicating where they can detect a sneaking adventurer. The central zone of sight (red, violet, or cyan) is where they will see you immediately and begin chasing you; their peripheral vision (yellow) is where they might see you. Violet and cyan central zones indicate the enemy is on a different level than yours, while red means they are on the same level. Staying out of sight will allow you to silently assassinate your foes, as they rarely seem to notice a knife in their back in time. Note that sneak mode is also affected by a variety of other factors detailed on the Sneak screen, such as light level and weather.

If you hold onto a wall or tree, you can climb the wall or tree by using the movement keys. In towns and tamer parts of the countryside, this isn't particularly useful. However, in a combat situation, climbing a tree or wall can give you a height advantage, possibly allowing you to dive-tackle your opponents. Sometimes, mountains will be too steep to walk up the edge, or you will find a deep drop into a ravine. In these cases, you will have to climb up to reach the top, or perhaps jump or climb down one face, then climb up the other.

Fast travel

Fast Travel screen. The player is in a hamlet, between the houses to the right and the mead hall in the top-left area of the map. The asterisk represents a group of creatures (in this case unfriendly goblins). The world map (in sepia) is on the far right.

T	Fast Travel
d	Exit fast travel mode
K	Display detected tracks and odors
c	Toggle display of clouds on region map
s	Walk around in sneak mode. Exiting fast travel starts you in sneak mode.
m	Cycle through maps and significant structures
Q	View Quest Log
Z	Bring up sleep menu
h	Hide parts of the bottom bar
> and <	Enter/exit tunnel

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.

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, will risk getting attacked by bogeymen if in a darkness or nightmare-aspected area, and will be more vulnerable to attack in general. If you are not near any sites, the m key will toggle a world map, colored in sepia tone (matching the map you see in the quest log). If you are near a site, then m cycles between a list of significant structures where your player is, a regional map (matching what you travel on when away from any site), and the aforementioned world map. The c key will only show clouds on the region map (the one you travel on outside of sites). Some clouds will be visible regardless of the state of this option.

The h key will cycle through various amounts of the bottom bar of content hidden. The effects of each press are:

• 1 press: hide key reference. Allows you to see status effects on your character if obscured by the key list.
• 2 presses: hide most local name, reducing the bar to one line of text.
• 3 presses: hide less local name, eliminating the bar entirely.
• 4 presses: shows all information

Status and information

l	Look around
Space	Advance/Clear Messages
a	View Announcements
z	Status

Looking around

If you're not sure what a tile is, the look command will tell you. In addition to being useful for identifying tiles and creatures, you can also view creatures' equipment and what items are sitting on the ground in a given tile. If in doubt, try the look command.

Move the cursor to the tile you want to look at using direction keys and Shift+direction. It's possible to look up and down z-levels (assuming you have line of sight) using the < and > keys. This, for example, allows you to find out if any flying creatures are above you. Hit Esc to exit look mode and go back to movement mode.

Messages

The game makes frequent use of messages on the screen to tell you what is going on. If there are a lot of these you may need to use Space to display the rest of the messages that won't fit on the screen. You can always go back and view old messages by pressing a.

Status screen

This screen shows your skills, attributes, wounded body parts, health (along with more detailed descriptions of your wounds), lets you view your description, and change your nickname if you want.

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.

Searching and manipulating

u	Interact with building, furniture, or mechanism
L	Search the nearby area very carefully

The u key can be used to do stuff like pull levers in an abandoned fort. It is also used to lower and raise the bucket when standing right next to a well, so you can get water to refill your waterskin with.

L will perform a thorough search of the area that you're standing in, possibly revealing some small creatures.

Managing equipment

i	Show Inventory
d	Drop an item
g	Get (pickup) an item off the ground
p	Put an item into a container
r	Remove an item you are wearing or from a container
w	Wear an item
I	Interact with an object in an advanced way. (unstick a weapon, refill waterskin etc.)
q	Sheath your weapons and shield. (Frees your hands for tasks such as climbing or grabbing)

Inventory

Press i to display a list of what you are currently carrying. Press - + * / to scroll thru the list. This list will show you if items are being worn, held in hands, stuck on your body, or are inside a container. Detailed information about an object can be viewed by pressing the key associated with the item.

Getting/dropping things

You can drop items out of your inventory, as well as get items on the ground on the same tile that you are standing on. If there is more than one item a menu will be listed. Press - + * / to scroll the list if the list is too long to fit on the screen. Note that getting something makes your adventurer pick something up with his or her hands. This often means that you have to use q to sheathe whatever you have in your hands before you pick something up. If you do not have a backpack or some other way of storing the object, your adventurer will not pick the item up.

g will also allow you to ignite foliage/any flammable objects adjacent to you. Fires aren't as devastating as one might imagine, but they will cause (most) enemies to path around them, making your crowd control technique slightly more effective when taking on multiple enemies. As an added bonus, it will also surely piss off the elves.

Containers

Items can be placed into containers with p and removed with r.

Wearing

Items can be worn using w and removed using r (the same command used for removing from containers). If an item you want to wear does not show up as an option, then it means you are already wearing too many items in the location used by that item. Try removing items in that location and then wear them again in order of priority.

Note that "large" or "small" clothing items are too big / small for your race (e.g. a large giant cave spider silk sock). If you have that problem, try getting clothing from a different source. Looking at the article will reveal which race it has been fitted for.

After acquiring armor 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.

See Armor for more information on wearing things. One thing to note in particular, DF allows you to wear more than one item in the same location in many situations, for example a copper mail shirt and a copper breastplate.

Wielding

There is no command for wielding items such as weapons in specific hands. Instead, they are automatically equipped when you either get them from the ground or remove them from your backpack - provided the hand that would wield them is free. So in order to change weapons or shields you should drop items or place them into containers (such as your backpack) until your hands are free, then get items from the floor or remove them from containers which will place them in your hands. For example, put all items into backpack, remove sword from backpack, remove shield from backpack. The items will end up in the right and left hand. Simply remember the remove command and the put into container command.

While normally, one would only be able to equip one item in each hand, removing items from your inventory results in them being wielded regardless of whether one's hands are full.^Bug:9817 This is especially useful with shields, as every shield will contribute a block chance to each incoming attack.

Once equipped, weapons and shields can be quickly drawn and sheathed with q, instantly preparing for attack or freeing your hands. Any number of weapons can be strapped, but only one for each hand will be drawn. Others can be manually removed for use, and stowed again without occupying other inventory containers.

It should be noted that Dwarf Fortress does not enforce one particular hand as dominant for everyone (e.g. some characters may be left-handed), so do not be surprised if your character holds the weapon and shield in hands you yourself would not hold them in.

During advanced combat interactions, it's worth noting that the first item you picked up with empty hands shows up at the top of the interaction menu. This means picking up a shield first will mean pressing a will bash with the shield. Being consistent in the order you equip weapons will allow you to easily memorize attacks.

Advanced interaction

The I key allows "complex interaction" with objects in your inventory.

This is used for removing arrows and weapons stuck in wounds which will appear in your inventory when they become stuck in you. Removing stuck arrows can cause bleeding so it is not always a good idea mid combat, but stuck objects will slow you down as you are encumbered by their weight. It's best to remove them as soon as possible when it is safe and you are not in danger of bleeding to death.

Advanced interaction can also be used to steal enemy equipment. Use wrestling to grab hold of a piece of enemy equipment, such as their weapon, or a helmet protecting their squishy brain and it will appear in the advanced interaction menu. Simply grab the item with a free hand and pull away. If successful, you will now be holding that item in your hands.

This command is particularly useful for getting water. When standing next to a well you press the u key to lower, then raise the bucket, yielding 10 units of water in the bucket. Then you can press the I key to fill your waterskin from the full bucket (alternatively you can press the e key to drink directly from the bucket).

Advanced interactions can be used next to a campfire to heat things, such as any frozen liquids you have in your inventory (or snow lying on the ground) and need to drink. You can refill waterskins from a nearby liquid source as well

Sheathing

The q key lets you strap your weapons to your back. This is useful because you can't climb or wrestle with your hands while holding weapons or other objects. People will also be less likely to be scared of you on first sight if you don't appear to be ready to attack. Keep in mind that while strapping will put away everything you have in your hands, pressing it again will only cause you to put items into hands that are currently empty, meaning if you had multiple items in one hand you'll have to remove them manually to use them again.

Time and weather

D	Date
P	Temperature
W	Weather/Time

The game has a day/night cycle, with time passing as various actions take place. When using fast 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 local travel mode you'll have to use the W command to learn the position of the sun, when you're in a place where the sun is visible. At night you won't be able to see nearly as well, and you will be more vulnerable to ambush. The game also has weather and temperature. The most common weather you'll experience is rain, which is shown as blue moving dots on the local travel screen and will, unsurprisingly, cause everything outside to become wet. Temperature is important, because if it happens to drop below freezing while you're swimming through water, you'll instantly die from being encased in the ice. Therefore, you might want to keep an eye on the temperature while swimming, especially if it's getting cold. Also, unlike fortress mode, rivers/other bodies of water can be liquid during the day, and freeze at night. The cycles of freezing can also be erratic from day to day. Freezing weather can also freeze liquids in your inventory solid, making them undrinkable. If your water freezes and you are thirsty, make a campfire and Interact with your waterskin to heat it over the fire and melt the ice.

Sleep

Z

Sleep

Eventually, your character will become Drowsy, and this will get worse until you get sufficient sleep.

Sleep does not necessarily have to coincide with night, but 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 shelter before nightfall and sleep the night away inside a building or abandoned lair. Enter a building, use k to talk to one of the speaking-peoples, 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.) Sleeping on an ocean beach also prevents bogeymen from attacking. (If you'd rather not deal with bogeymen, you can disable them by generating a world using advanced world generation and setting "Number of Bogeymen" to 0)

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 safe habitation, and you have to make your way 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 bet is to keep traveling until dawn, even if that means running around in circles. You will eventually feel unwell from sleep deprivation, but this can take a considerable amount of time. You can make up for lost sleep once you've found your way to safety. Note that sleeping in lairs, shrines, and labyrinths makes you safe from ambush, assuming that you or someone else has killed whatever was living there. If you have sufficient shrines/lairs/etc between you and your goal and they are either uninhabited or inhabited by things you are capable of killing, then you can travel from lair to lair, using each as a safe lodging. This is much safer than sleeping out in the open, day or night, even with companions.

If no other options are available, completely surrounding yourself with campfires will keep night marauders at bay as they cannot pass through the fires; the fires will go out after several hours and enable you to move on (you may also be able to jump over the fires). The bogeymen or other enemies may be outside your line of sight, which will prevent you from firing arrows or throwing things at them. In this case, you will have to perform music, preferably playing guitar stand up and lie down s or wait 10 ticks . repeatedly until the enemies wander into your range, the fires go out and the enemies can path to you, or dawn breaks. It should be noted that, as of DF2014, climbing trees and sleeping on them will sometimes prevent bogeyman attacks, as well. This is especially useful if you prefer to play solo, and do not wish to have an army of followers in your employ. This is also useful if you prefer to engage enemies at your own pace (such as via stealth), rather than having your entire following party immediately charge at anything that is hostile to you. Be wary though, as bogeymen may still be able to reach you by climbing or flying.

Food and drink

e	Eat or drink something

To find water, you must find a river, stream, or well in a town and fill your waterskin (or any container) from it, or drink from it directly. Water that may be covering you or your items will not be able to satisfy your thirst. Note that drinking vampire blood will turn you into a vampire instantly. You can only eat and drink up to stomach capacity; after that you become increasingly nauseous and unable to retain your stomach contents (though if you needed a source for vomit, that's one way to acquire it.) You can reset stomach capacity by offloading the map (travel, rest, wait, etc,) which can only be done in safe locations and circumstances. Over time, food contents are converted to stored fat, even if you remain active, and this will increase your fat layer mass and potentially reduce your speed. Fast traveling also resets food contents (as of v: 43.03) though the hunger and thirst timers are still satisfied by consumption. If you find yourself in need of both food and hydration, make sure to take care of the most urgent problem first, as if you are moderately hungry but severely dehydrated and eat three times, you may die before you have another chance to drink. If the temperature is low enough that you might have trouble finding liquid water, snow and ice can be heated into water by first making a campfire with g and then performing an advanced interaction with I on the ice or snow in your inventory to heat it. Advanced interactions with your waterskin (or any container) can also be used to gather water from water sources, or snow from the ground.

Announcements when eating

When eating or drinking, the following announcements will be displayed:

• (nothing): You can eat or drink more, no problem.
• You are starting to feel full: You can eat or drink one more time, but any more than that will cause problems.
• You feel really full: Exactly what it says on the tin. This is as much as you can eat or drink at the moment.
• It's too much! You might not be able to keep it down: You've eaten/drunk too much, and will likely vomit.

Combat

8 2 4 6 7 9 1 3	Attack adjacent hostile creature
↑ ↓ ← →	Attack adjacent hostile creature
A	Attack an adjacent creature.
f	Fire a projectile
t	Throw an item
C	Open combat preferences interface

Combat is the fine art of using physical force to cause injury and death, and it is particularly fun in Dwarf Fortress.

Melee/ranged attacks

Hostile creatures can be attacked using a non-aimed attack by simply advancing towards your enemy using the arrow keys. Doing a non-aimed attack will also have a chance of freeing up any stuck weapon, though you are more likely to accomplish this by moving away from the enemy, or doing a complex interaction with the weapon.

Any creature can be attacked by standing next to it and pressing A. Attacking a friendly or unconscious creature (which includes wild animals for elves) will further require a confirmation, given using alt+y.

After selecting (and maybe confirming) which creature you want to attack, a 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 nearly impossible to land and Easier attacks will be very easy to land. The difficulty rating for an attack does not change depending on your weapon skill. Based on player experiences, a Grand Master weapon user can almost always land a "Tricky" strike, while a Novice generally cannot. Attacks on various locations will also have limits on how "squarely" they can land (due to being out of reach, for example). Square and very square attacks will deal more damage.^[Verify] Attacks which "can't land squarely" are generally still effective.

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. Aimed attacks are especially useful for dismembering opponents. Opponents who are missing a foot will fall over, thereby greatly lowering their speed, and giving you an immediate edge in the fight. Cutting off both hands is also highly recommended for obvious reasons. After all, a field full of armless, one-legged enemies can be a big experience booster for your character and your companions.

Aimed attacks are also especially helpful when fighting giant beasts. Some enemies like giant desert scorpions have lots of redundant body parts, and random attacks waste valuable time on low priority areas while the scorpion is busy injecting venom into the whole party. Lastly, aimed attacks allow you to grab trophies that are not available via butchering. For example, a minotaur's horns can be cut off during a fight, but since it's a humanoid, most adventurers will refuse to butcher its corpse after the fight. However, in DF2014, all butcherable corpses are able to be butchered, as long as the corpse isn't too mangled.

There are several options below the hitting menu. Quick attacks are faster than regular attacks but weaker. Heavy attacks are slower but hit harder. Wild attacks are faster and hit harder but are inaccurate. Precise attacks are very slow but are much more likely to hit. Multi-attacks allow you to attack several times in a row, at a great cost to the effectiveness of any one of the chosen attacks.

In addition to aimed attacks, pressing A also allows for the three defensive maneuvers: blocking, dodging and parrying. They do not have fixed keys, because their order changes if one or more is impossible (e.g. no blocking without a shield). When dodging you will be able to pick a direction, and your character will move one step in this direction, possibly avoiding any number of attacks. Note that you can dodge even if you are not being attacked. When blocking or parrying you can pick one attack and attempt to stop it, if several attacks are incoming, the remaining attacks will not be affected.

To attack with a ranged weapon press the f key with a ranged weapon (bow, crossbow, etc.) equipped on one hand and select the square where you want to attack. Note that you need to have some sort of ammo, corresponding to the type of ranged weapon you are using (for example, bows use arrows, crossbows use bolts). Otherwise, a message stating "You have nothing left to fire." is displayed in brown. Similarly use the t key to throw any random object in the same manner. Random objects appear to make a random attack if they happen to have more than one possible type.^[Verify] For example, if you throw a sword it may hit with a blunt impact, a stabbing impact, or a slicing impact. Throwing crossbow bolts with sufficient throwing skill and strength seems to have an effect similar to firing them, although less powerful. On the plus side, you will never lose ammo if you throw it.

It is not possible to aim for specific body parts with ranged or thrown attacks.