40d:Armor

In Dwarf Fortress, the term armor can mean one of four related but distinct things:

1. Generally, any protection for your dwarf from being injured: "Any one item of armor protects a dwarf in one body location."
2. A specific, single main piece of armor that protects the chest/torso area of a dwarf - leather armor, chain armor, or plate armor, as distinct from leggings or helmets.
3. Informally, a set of armor items based off of that one central piece to create a more or less complete suit of armor - (a suit of) leather armor, (a suit of) chain armor, or (a suit of) plate armor - but these are informal and non-specific combinations of items. The phrase "I like to have my marksdwarfs wear chain armor" can imply a piece of chain armor over the torso, with miscellaneous other pieces for the other body parts.
4. An overall level of armor, as defined by the game, using those same terms, in reference to the maximum protection a dwarf will seek to wear when activated into the military. This is designated by viewing a dwarf and selecting the soldier menu - Clothes, Leather, Chain or Plate. (In the military weapons menu, these are abreviated as " - " (none), Lth, Chn or Plt, and also whether or not to use a Shd or Bkl - shield or buckler). This defines the maximum class of protection they will seek to wear for each body part.

Be aware that there is not always a 1:1 relationship between every piece of armor and a single type of suit - a suit of leather armor can include a metal cap, and metal gauntlets and helmet are included in both a suit of chain and a suit of plate armor. In some cases it's also possible to layer armor, wearing a metal cap under a metal helmet, and so on. It can be very much a "mix and match" situation.

Generally, armor is a class of clothing items that your dwarves can wear for protection to keep them alive longer. In this sense, armor can range from simple clothing (including socks and loincloths), to light weight shell, bone and leather armor, to heavy chain and plate items. Giving your dwarves protective garments will help to keep them alive in combat, as well as safe from the elements. It will also protect them against sparring injuries and will, over time, develop their Armor user skill.

Most civilians will not wear armor other than clothing, Hunters being the only exception.

Making armor

Depending on the type and material, different specific labors and workshops are needed to make similar items of armor, and different skills will apply. While items of clothing made by a clothier aren't technically "armor", they do offer limited protection. Shell and bone armors are made by a bone carving at a craftsdwarf's workshop. Chain mail and plate mail are made with the armoring labor at a metalsmith's forge. Leather armors are made at a leather works by a dwarf with the leatherworking labor enabled. The type of metal used affects the effectiveness of the armor, but all leather, bones and shells are all equal in their protection multiplier (see table below). Higher skilled craftdwarves, leather workers and armorers will, on average, produce items of higher quality, that increases the effectiveness of the armor.

Quality

Toady has stated that item quality increases its protection (or damage, in the case of weapons), namely, "Quality has a huge effect on damage and damage reduction... Exceptional is almost double damage/damage block."

Symbol	Name	Damage reduction multiplier
Item	Basic armor	x1.0
-Item-	Well-crafted armor	x1.2
+Item+	Finely Crafted armor	x1.4
*Item*	Superior Quality armor	x1.6
≡Item≡	Exceptional armor	x1.8
☼Item☼	Masterful armor	x2.0

Material

Better materials provide better protection, according to the following table:

Material	Modifier %
Adamantine	500
Steel	133
Iron	100
Bronze or Bismuth bronze	75
Copper	66
Other metals/materials (leather, cloth, bone, shell, wood, etc.)	50

Using Armor

To tell a dwarf to wear armor in Fortress Mode, view the dwarf, go to preferences, then soldiering. There you can select the highest level of armor he should wear: clothes, leather, chain, or plate. Shield level is selected separately. You can also set the armor level for many dwarves at once on the military screen, under weapons.

Upgrading a civilian dwarf's armor level will not take effect unless they are activated as soldiers. Civilians will not wear armor other than clothing, except for those given the Hunting labor (provided their armor level is set above "clothing"). This will, however, cause them to go out into the wilderness and hunt any wild animal they encounter. If you set dwarves' armor level above their current set of armor (for instance, 'plate' when they are wearing chain armor), they will replace their current armor level and use armor of the better armor level when it is available. Unfortunately, dwarves do not make a distinction between different materials or item qualities, so if they are already wearing a helm (of, say, copper), they will not pick up a steel helm, as they are of the same armor level.

The solution is to set the dwarf's armor level to 'clothes', so that they drop their armor altogether, then station them standing on top of the pieces of armor you want them to wear (typically located on an armor stockpile or still in the forge) and set their armor to the desired level again. Hopefully you can get them to complete the operation without wandering off to find a set of civilian clothes to wear first. A similar technique can be used to get dwarves to change weapons as well (from an iron short sword to an obsidian one, for instance). This can be effectively managed by using the [q] tool to edit stockpiles to store only certain kinds of item materials. You could for instance keep a Stockpile of bone and wood bolts as well as silver weapons behind a door near the barracks, so you can lock up the crappy stuff when the goblins are at the door. In older versions of the game, armor would be stored on an Armor stand -- a piece of furniture which could also be used to define a room as a barracks. However, both armor stands and weapon racks proved to be buggy, and their "container" status has currently been disabled. For now, store your armor in a stockpile dedicated for the purpose.

Sometimes dwarves will ignore the armor they are standing on top of, and go put on the armor they had just removed. The best way to avoid this is to forbid it or get rid of the inferior armor -- either by chasming it, melting it (if metal), or trading it away. This may take some time to carry out, meaning you must leave some of your soldiers at "clothing" armor level for a while until the unwanted pieces are disposed of. Keep in mind when melting armor pieces that only about 30% of the metal is recovered, so you should avoid making excess quantities with your most precious metal (steel, generally) unless you have a legendary armorsmith.

Heavy armor can reduce dwarves' speed, especially when they wear several pieces. Being Strong will reduce this problem, as will Armor user skill (gained by fighting or sparring in armor). Extremely Strong dwarves can generally wear a complete suit of plate armor without being burdened. Armor User at "Expert" level is also generally enough to eliminate the burden of a full suit of plate, even for a dwarf without any Strength attribute. Experiment in adventure mode in order to find out more how this system works.

As an emergency measure, a dwarf who is about to be hammered can be turned into a military recruit and set to "Plate" armor level; if they manage to don the suit before being captured, it will reduce the damage they take.

Armor Levels

Slot	Leather	Chain	Plate
Head	leather cap or helm, metal cap	metal cap and/or helm	helm
Upper Body	leather armor	chain mail	plate mail
Lower Body	leather leggings	metal/bone/shell leggings	greaves
Foot	leather low/high boot	metal low/high boot	metal low/high boot
Hand	nothing	gauntlet	gauntlet

Types of Protection

Garments fit on different body parts depending on the item in question, and require different orders based on material sometimes. They may additionally protect upper and lower arms and legs, depending on the garment. Dwarves do not seem to make a distinction between genders when selecting clothing to wear, so don't be startled when you see males running around in dresses. There is no real difference between armor and clothing, except that maybe only non-clothing garments may increase the armor user skill.

This list only lists equipment Dwarves should be able to manufacture, from the file \raw\objects\entity_default.txt

Body Part	Clothing	Weight	Block	Fiber/Silk	Leather	Bone	Shell	Metal	Wood	Size	Permit	Layer
Head	Cap	10	20	Clothes	Clothes			Leather		10	15	Over
	Helm[S]	20	60		Leather	Leather	Leather	Chain		30	20	Armor
	Hood	10	20	Clothes	Clothes					10	100	Cover
Upper Body	Dress	10	3/3	Clothes	Clothes					10	50	Under
	Shirt	10	3/3	Clothes	Clothes					10	50	Under
	Tunic	10	5/5	Clothes	Clothes					10	50	Under
	Vest	10	2/2	Clothes	Clothes					10	50	Over
	Robe	10	5/5	Clothes	Clothes					20	100	Over
	Coat	50	15/15	Clothes	Clothes					20	50	Over
	Leather Armor[S]	50	20/20		Leather					20	50	Armor
	Chainmail	75	50/30					Chain		15	50	Armor
	Platemail[S]	150	70/50					Plate		20	50	Armor
	Cloak	10	5/5	Clothes	Clothes					15	150	Cover
Hands	Gloves	10	60	Clothes	Clothes					10	10	Under
	Gauntlets[S]	25	60			Chain	Chain	Chain		20	15	Armor
	Mittens	10	60	Clothes	Clothes					15	20	Cover
Lower Body	Trousers	20	20	Clothes	Clothes					15	30	Over
	Leggings[S]	40	50		Leather	Leather	Leather	Chain		15	30	Armor
	Greaves[S]	60	70			Plate		Plate		15	30	Armor
Feet	Socks	10	60	Clothes	Clothes					10	15	Under
	Shoes	10	60	Clothes	Clothes					20	15	Over
	Low Boots	15	60		Leather			Chain		25	15	Armor
	High Boots	20	60		Leather			Chain		25	15	Armor
Shield	Buckler	15	60(10%)		Buckler			Buckler	Buckler	NA	NA	NA
	Shield	50	60(20%)		Shield			Shield	Shield	NA	NA	NA

Some clothing articles may not be crafted in fortresses of a given civilization - only those items marked as 'common' for that civilization may be crafted^{v0.28.181.40d}.

[S] = Max one [S] per body slot (e.g. only one plate mail, and no greaves and leggings on top)

For the columns with material types, your dwarf must be set to at least the listed armor level before he or she will put on a piece of armor made from that material. For instance, dwarves will wear cloth or leather caps at "Clothing" armor level, but must be at "Leather" armor level or better before they will put on a metal cap.

Weight

The Weight figure is not meaningful by itself; items made with different materials can have vastly different weights. For instance, steel items weigh 7.85 times the listed weight (a steel helm weighs 20 * 7.85 = 157Γ).

Some selected weight multipliers:

Steel and iron	7.85
Bronze and bismuth bronze	8.25
Copper	8.93
Silver	10.49
Adamantine	0.2
Most stone	2.67
Leather	1.9
Plant cloth	1.52
Silk cloth	1.34
Bone and shell	1.1
Glumprong wood (the heaviest)	1.2
Feather tree wood (the lightest)	0.1
Tower-cap wood	0.6
Most other wood	~0.5

More weight multipliers can be found in the raws; the weight multiplier of any given material is its [SOLID_DENSITY] divided by 1000.

Size and Permit

The Size and Permit values govern how much clothing or armor can be worn: for each body part, less than permit worth of size garments can be worn under the final garment. (The last garment itself can go over the limit.)

In adventurer mode, the permit of each garment is checked at the time it is put on, which allows you to put on several cloaks (permit 150) on top of several layers of armor. In fortress mode, the lowest "permit" value for any given body part is used: for instance, if a dwarf is wearing a dress (permit 50) and a total of 50 or more size worth of clothing on the upper body, it cannot put any more clothing on the upper body. (This explains why dungeon masters tend to wear several cloaks: they arrive at the fortress wearing only a cloak on the upper body (permit 150), and can put on a total of 10 of them, at 15 size each.)

Other Restrictions

"Under" layers cannot be put on over "over" layers, so, for instance, a dwarf cannot put on socks unless it first removes its shoes. They can wear over layers without putting an under layer on first, which explains their fondness for "going commando" (trousers without loincloth).

Dwarves will only put on the specific level of armor they are told to put on -- unless it is unavailable, in which case they will put on the next-best available armor level. For instance, if set to "plate", a dwarf will put on chainmail if no plate is available, or leather armor if neither chain nor plate is available.

Dwarves will also not remove lesser-level armor when moving to heavier armor level (notwithstanding the "permit" restrictions detailed above). If you step them through each armor level, you can get them to wear a metal cap plus helm, and chain mail plus plate mail.

In adventurer mode, you have direct control over what armor you put on, and are only limited by permit and "one only" restrictions. This means you can wear three suits of chain mail (total size 45) plus another suit of chain or plate on top of them. On top of this, you can add six cloaks.

For some reason, dwarves will never put on cloth/leather caps or gloves (except those they arrive in). There are no "under" layer headwear or "over" layer handwear in the game; it is possible this omission is causing the clothes-wearing algorithm to be non-functional at this time.

Other Sizes

Beware! Dwarves can not wear any armor that is named 'large', 'narrow' or 'small' (elves', goblins'...) (except large rat leather armor :-) ). The smug traders will not warn you of this. Human and goblin metal armor can be melted down and made into dwarf-scale gear, however.

Requirements

Creating plate mail requires three bars of metal to forge. Chain mail and greaves require two bars. All other metal armor requires one bar per piece. Note that making gauntlets or boots will always produce a pair (a left and right gauntlet, or two boots) from one bar of metal. A full suit of leather armor requires four leather pieces to manufacture, a full suit of chain armor requires six metal bars, and a full suit of plate armor requires eight metal bars. This does not include shields.

Bone greaves require three stacks of bone to make (the stacks can be of any size), and bone leggings require two stacks; all other bone and shell items (including shell leggings) require one stack of bone/one shell to make.

Shields and Bucklers

Shields and bucklers come in all the same material flavours as armor, but offer a slightly different form of protection. While armor absorbs some of the damage from all successful attacks, a shield provides complete protection from some attacks. In Adventure Mode, a successful block may also grant the defender an immediate free counterattack. Bucklers weigh less than shields, making them useful for more mobile Marksdwarves, but provide less protection.

Shields offer a unique bonus, a chance for an instantaneous deflection. Shields provide a 20% chance of total deflection, while bucklers provide a 10% chance of deflection. This chance of deflection is then altered by the wielder's Shield user skill, although the exact mechanics are unknown.

Oddities

• Dwarves will not switch to metal gauntlets or greaves by themselves if they are already wearing bone gauntlets or greaves. They will, however, switch to a "better" material if it changes the level (such as metal helms being chain while bone helms are leather) whether you like it or not.
• Dwarves will not take off chain mail when switched to "plate" armor level, and will not take off any kind of cap (including metal) when putting on a helm. They can also wear socks, gloves, trousers, a dress, and one or more robes under armor. They cannot, however, wear leggings and greaves at the same time, or shoes and boots.
• Dwarves feel it's perfectly normal to wear one leather low boot and one steel high boot. If it fits, it fits, right?
• If told to wield a weapon and a shield, a dwarf will sometimes carry both in the same hand. This can cause them to be unable to use either; switch their shield level and weapon to "unarmed" and make sure they drop both items before assigning them a shield and weapon again.
• You may also find them with other stray items in one or both hands, such as an extra gauntlet or a pair of leggings. This will make them unable to use their shield or weapon. Switch them to "clothes" armor level until they drop everything, then back to plate to force them to dress themselves properly. You can also try designating the excess items for dumping, provided you have a dump and an unoccupied dwarf with Refuse Hauling enabled.