40d Talk:Sparring

Miners using Mining skill

I've noticed my miners tend to get legendary in Miner rather than Wrestler while sparring. So not only do they use their picks and Mining skill in combat, they gain XP in that as well. Can anyone confirm? Anydwarf 13:45, 5 May 2008 (EDT)

I read the Dwarf Fortress forums a while ago, and picks indeed use the mining skill for combat.
Seems like picks are counted as spears with 40% damage reduction ( or atleast I think it was damage ) but have an insane critical rate.
So a legendary miner will be able to hold of a horde of goblins all by himself, provided you can get a civilian to attack and dodge, since civilians are not inclined to attack enemies and do not use armor...
--Karp 04:34, 9 June 2008 (EDT)

Draft 'im, I guess. I've occasionally had the fortune of having a legendary miner happen to be in the area when a goblin ambush was sprung, and they've generally done quite well for "recruits" - goblins go flying everywhere. Bryan Derksen 16:32, 15 June 2008 (EDT)

While we're on the subject, do miners hit Hero status if drafted to fight with their pick? --GreyMaria 15:20, 19 December 2008 (EST)

I can confirm to you that they do not. --ThunderClaw 16:55, 19 December 2008 (EST)

Speed of training in combat and in sparring

One thing I've noticed is that my crossbow dwarves seem to gain experience quicker in combat than in target practice at the archery range. Whilst this might be down to availability of ammunition, maybe experience from sparring isn't worth as much as from the real thing, which would make sense. Extar 11:22, 15 June 2008 (EDT)

It could also be that in combat, the marksdwarves are getting armor/shield user skill on top of their marksdwarf skill, which target practice doesn't do anything for --LegacyCWAL 14:34, 15 June 2008 (EDT)

They get it faster in combat. Perhaps by an order of magnitude. --Savok 08:42, 16 June 2008 (EDT)

...yeah, that'd do it. --LegacyCWAL 16:57, 17 June 2008 (EDT)

I've witnessed something similar to this with recruits that are unarmed. What had happened was the recruits went into combat with some ambushers and jumped a few levels in wrestling fairly quickly. While Recruits who didn't fight but only spared took about a season to get the same skill in wrestling. Mission0 15:41, 14 August 2008 (EDT)

Training when and with who

Would it be better to train everyone at different times? People won't get as injured when sparring with someone with around equal attributes...I think. And to do that you'll need to deactivate or put on duty those with high strength in case thats something that you can do to prevent injury. Or put those who are strong defensively with those who need training. Also, what I thought, since every job might develop some attributes slower than sparring or pumping, is to put them through training when their skills and use are not as needed and when they are needed again, they would be more efficient. Is that painfully obvious to everyone else? Something for everyone to figure out for themselves? ...yeah.--Seaneat 08:25, 1 July 2008 (EDT)

Danger

I once had a dorf who arrived in a migrnat wave and was and Axedwarf. As soon as he started sparring he cut of some guys head. Is there a way to change this? Hoborobo 10:52, 1 July 2008 (EDT)

Undraft him. Give him a worse weapon. Give the other guys armour. Don't put him on sparring. --Juckto 02:36, 2 July 2008 (EDT)

Heh, same question but my dorf is a swordsdwarf... the only one in the place with a steel sword and steel armour... my poor conscripts don't stand a chance with their leather armour and wooden shields apparently. Oh well at least he didn't kill my overly fertile recruit mayor (it seems she must be popular, maybe that explains all the babies she keeps having)...

My thought had been to use my first real millitary dwarf as the squad leader but what kind of NCO goes around killing the troops during training!GarrieIrons 09:18, 3 July 2008 (EDT)

Haven't dealt with a PO'd SGM have ya? :P --Edward 18:19, 3 July 2008 (EDT)

Dwarven soldiers never intentionally kill one another during training. However, imagine if during the modern world, karate teachers taught their students sword technique by using steel weapons. You'd have a lot of dead students there, too. In this sense DF is quite realistic; the problem is that the game doesn't yet allow dwarves to use non-lethal practice weapons instead, short of making players jump through hoops. --JT 20:57, 31 July 2008 (EDT)

I always put my trainees into a separate squad from anyone that hasn't undergone my training and equipping regime. Typically eliminates accidents like these, and helps keep my troops uniform, both in skill and equipment. Infact, they tend to stay in my trainee squad until they hit Elite level. Those that come pre-trained/equipped are usually placed into a 2nd squad and used as active guards. My civilian populace is placed into a 3rd squad lead by my favored dwarf.

Squad 1 is almost always drafted and off duty, Squad Two is always on duty and either chasing down cretins or standing guard at my entrance for thieves and the like. Third Squad rarely is activated except in times of siege as an emergency retreat measure to force them to evacuate to behind the barracks. --Edward 18:19, 3 July 2008 (EDT)

Metal Bolts + Target Practice

"metal bolts will not be wasted on target practice."

I'm not sure if this is true in the latest version - I think target practice uses the least valuable of all bolts available. In my current fortress I witnessed marksdwarves using no-adjective iron bolts for target practice when masterpiece bone bolts (most of them with extra adornment) were the other available ones. --Felix the Cat 23:17, 6 July 2008 (EDT)

Sparring Injuries From Furniture

I noticed that my soldiers were receiving a lot of brain and spinal injuries when sparring in a bedroom barracks. They were all wrestling, and using full bronze plate and bronze shields. The room layout looked like this:

####+####
#.......#
#.B.B.B.#
#.......#
+.B.B.B.+
#.......#
#.B.B.B.#
#.......#
####+####

Once I moved them to an empty barracks defined from a weapon rack, there were no more brain/spine injuries until they became legendary wrestlers/shield users and I switched them to weapon training. A single dwarf received a spinal injury afterwards, but not before achieving "great macedwarf" status. The others (9 of them) trained up to legendary weapon user status without incident.

Can anyone else verify that the presence of furniture in barracks increases the rate of sparring injuries? If so, this should be added to the artcle. --Chris Acheson 12:37, 10 September 2008 (EDT)

I haven't witnessed this. My barracks is littered with beds, and only one of my dwarves got a brain injury (light gray) while training up to champion (first marksdwarf, then wrestling, then weapons). I didn't even have them in especially good armor at first. Perhaps you just got unlucky.--Maximus 22:16, 12 October 2008 (EDT)

Fortress guard

I know that the Fortress and Royal guards spar with great zeal, but will they use archery ranges if assigned crossbows? HeWhoIsPale 11:26, 16 September 2008 (EDT)

Turns out yes, but not consistently. HeWhoIsPale 12:12, 16 September 2008 (EDT)

Can anyone provide some additional experiences with guards being assigned crossbows? In fort A, they practiced until they ran out of bolts and then proceeded to spar with the crossbows in melee; in fort B, they practiced like once a month and never sparred in melee. HeWhoIsPale 08:35, 13 October 2008 (EDT)

As far as I can tell with my current batch of dwarves, the less skill they have the more often they will opt to use the archery targets rather than spar in the barracks. Not sure why, but some dwarves just do not like using archery targets it seems, even when they have bolts in their quivers. Here's a couple methods I've found work well in getting my dwarves back to the archery targets:

• Forbid all metal bolts
• Set weapon to unarmed, armor to clothes, and shield to none, then give crossbows back
• Dump/forbid all stacks of bolts smaller than 5 big
• Set them to carry no food/water (Make sure they drop waterskin/backpack)
• Ensure there are no sparring partners available (no Barracks or off duty Wrestlers/Hammerdwarves works)

--Elvang 16:19, 4 February 2009 (EST)

Speed of Training while Sparring

I have noticed something abnormal between dwarves that train.

I Drafted 8 or so dwarves at roughly the same time. I have them all off duty and in their own individual squads right now since all of them being in a squad didn't seem to make a difference.

What I'm noticing is that some Dwarves shoot up in wrestling skill tremendously fast, almost unrealistically. While some Dwarves train so slowly that while I have Dwarves at Champion level others are still only proficient wrestlers. Mission0 18:07, 16 September 2008 (EDT)

I noticed it as well --Jackrabbit 19:37, 17 October 2008 (EDT)

I had a super-legendary miner go from Dabbling to Great wrestler tussling with just a single zombie Giant Rat. Then again, the fight took what seemed like several in-game days, during which the miner got pretty badly injured before he finally finished the rat off. I had drafted him to ensure that he would fight back properly... and because he hit 'Great', he became a Hero and would never work again, despite being my best miner... and mayor. And manager. And broker. Heh.

Where sparring dwarves are concerned, I've found that sometimes while changing armor they fail to drop the items they're taking off, and extra stuff in the hands causes them to be unable to use their weapon or shield. They still spar, but apparently as wrestlers.--Maximus 21:39, 17 October 2008 (EDT)

Oh, it just occurred to me. If they get even a minor brain, neck, or spine injury, they'll never heal, and never spar again. Are the ones that aren't advancing injured?--Maximus 23:19, 17 October 2008 (EDT)

Happy Thoughts from Killing a Sparring Partner

One of my dwarves accidentally killed another in a sparring session, but received a happy thought. His profile says he took joy in slaughter lately, and this is his only kill. The other dwarf didn't die instantly, he suffocated. Is this something isolated? - Ducky 15:02, 30 November 2008 (EST)

I've experienced something similar. In my case the dwarf who killed his sparring partner (a friend) received a happy thought for taking joy in slaughter, but an unhappy thought from losing said friend to tragedy. --Elvang 16:26, 4 February 2009 (EST)

Changing wrestler occupation

It seems impossible to make a crossbow dwarf from elite/hero wrestler. They will pick up crossbows, but not bolts, and will not practice at shooting range. This is VERY sad. A bug? --Alpha 20:04, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

Its likely they are holding something they grabbed while wrestling. My champion wrestlers will practice at the shooting range, just very rarely, even when I have in excess of 2000 miscellaneous bolts. Most of the time after they fire a stack of bolts they get grabbed by another soldier/guard to go sparring before they get a chance to grab more bolts. Long term soldiers also get the life doesn't mean much to them anymore thought, which I'm assuming makes them less motivated. A couple of the other discussion topics on this page cover getting dwarves back to the archery targets. --Elvang 04:58, 10 March 2009 (EDT)

I can both confirm and deny Alpha's observation at the same time. ;) I have one dwarf I trained to legendary in wrestling, then gave him a bow and set him up an archery range, and he's a legendary marksdwarf now, no problem. I have two others I tried the same thing on, and they will neither pick up bolts nor use the range — hell, they continue to spar even, and are pretty much set to be changed into hammerdwarves, given how much they've been bashing their sparring partners with their ammo-less crossbows. (Good thing I use heavy armour on my marksdwarves, or they'd probably be paste by now from the unanticipated continued sparring.)

Interestingly, I also had two legendary wrestlers / novice axedwarves who refused to do much sparring at all; all their axedwarf skill came from manually taking them out into the desert and hunting the local wildlife. I just assigned them the exact same bows my no-shooting bow trainees were using, and they're now happily carrying steel bolts in their quiver and using bone ones at the archery range. Nobody has any injuries, so it's not unhealed spinal injuries or anything. Best guess is, this is just some sort of bug where they get stuck in "want to melee / spar" or "want to shoot / practice" mode and refuse to do the other one. — Wisq (talk) 21:12, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Wrasslin'

I had some instances of axedwarves and wrestlers sparring. After a few minutes, the axedwarves became wrestlers, even though they were using axes. How does this work?

The wrestlers grapple with the axedwarves, the axedwarves have to grapple back, they get wrestling experience. This tends to build experience in wrestling faster than hitting stuff with weapons trains weapon skills, so their wrestler skill outstrips their axe skill.

Spine, neck..

Since those are the most annoying wounds (and frankly, those they "prefer" to get from wrestling), what armor parts do protect those? helm? mail? --Confused 00:03, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, shields/bucklers are checked first to see if they block. Then I suppose helms would protect the brain/neck and plate/chain would protect the spine. --Elvang 09:50, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Armor User Helps Prevent sparring injuries?

The armor user skill page indicates armor user only deals with encumbrance. Is this the case? If so, the point that it reduces sparring injuries should be removed Greep 19:36, 14 July 2009 (UTC)