Bay 12 Games Forum

Something I really like is that dwarves will haul more than one object. This is most often seen with herbalism, but if you have a bunch of gems that need hauling, it'll happen as well.

At request, reposting something from another thread...

So, in the raws, Bucklers have BLOCKCHANCE of 10, while Shields have BLOCKCHANCE of 20.
Therefore, a shield is approximately two bucklers, and two bucklers are approximately one shield.
So, in terms of full shields, my adventurer has ~21.5 shield's worth of protection.
Given that each shield's utility decreases by approximately the same factor as your first shield's (most practical way for the math to function - at or above two-thirds, the utility reaches and exceeds 100%). Assuming my adventurer has an approximate chance of blocking of 50% (due to being Legendary+Whatever, this is probably closer to 99.9999...%, but this makes the math easiest), the approximate overall utility of my 14 shields and 15 bucklers is very, very close to 1.
The utility exceeds 99.9% upon 10 shield's worth.
Therefore, the minimum number of shields to get near-complete protection is 10; near-complete, in this case, is defined as "99.9% PoB or higher".

EDIT: However, going by Platinum shields and bucklers, one buckler weighs approximately 81.5% that of a shield; therefore, while two bucklers are approximately equal to a shield in terms of raw blocking power, their weight is approximately 1.63 times that of a single shield. Bucklers are the lighter option, but only when one instrument of blocking is held - otherwise, shields are the most efficient, by far.

Well, with 14 shields and 15 bucklers, my speed (at extreme amounts of agility and strength), dropped down near 1/4 normal speed.
This would be a problem, but 0.40.01 had the movement/action split; there is no significant drop in attack speed no matter your movement speed. So, a cheetah attacks about as fast as a tortoise.
Therefore, it is perfectly safe to be completely encumbered; however, once battle is close (unless you're a shieldball), I advise waiting (using , or .).

I was told this was quite interesting.

So, in the raws, Bucklers have BLOCKCHANCE of 10, while Shields have BLOCKCHANCE of 20.
Therefore, a shield is approximately two bucklers, and two bucklers are approximately one shield.
So, in terms of full shields, my adventurer has ~21.5 shield's worth of protection.
Given that each shield's utility decreases by approximately the same factor as your first shield's (most practical way for the math to function - at or above two-thirds, the utility reaches and exceeds 100%). Assuming my adventurer has an approximate chance of blocking of 50% (due to being Legendary+Whatever, this is probably closer to 99.9999...%, but this makes the math easiest), the approximate overall utility of my 14 shields and 15 bucklers is very, very close to 1.
The utility exceeds 99.9% upon 10 shield's worth.
Therefore, the minimum number of shields to get near-complete protection is 10; near-complete, in this case, is defined as "99.9% PoB or higher".

EDIT: However, going by Platinum shields and bucklers, one buckler weighs approximately 81.5% that of a shield; therefore, while two bucklers are approximately equal to a shield in terms of raw blocking power, their weight is approximately 1.63 times that of a single shield. Bucklers are the lighter option, but only when one instrument of blocking is held - otherwise, shields are the most efficient, by far.

Hamsters found in dwarven fortresses aren't fluffy, cute, and lovable.
They are fluffy beasts prone to gorging themselves on your food en masse.
Of course, clean fortresses have fluffier and cuter ones than unclean ones, but how often do you find spotless forts?
Even if a fort's hamsters become cuter, the dwarves that learned to hate them can never recover...
Oh, and roaches are hardy sons-a-swordsmen, making many dwarves admire their prowess, overlooking their severe lack of physical appearance.

Why are wagons 9 times larger than dragons?

I advise starting with the latest version; it's best to not rely on third-party programs until you've already learned a lot.
Wait to mod your game until you know a ton about the vanilla game - as was said, it's easiest to learn without a bunch of extra stuff.

In 34.11 a nice test for shieldball would be a bandit camp that had weaponmasters, for growth purposes mainly.

Here in 40.xx, the dragon? If you strike it once and properly, it will pass out due to pain. If you just nick it, maybe it becomes interesting and a short fight begins. But yeah, you're too strong for all the creatures available.  Depending on where shieldball's wrestling is at a night troll can be fun.

I tend to think of the scale like this:

random civ peasant (no skill) —> NPC adv/soldier (competent weapon skill) —> Other semi-megabeast/megabeast (giant, cyclops, roc, ettin) —> NPC weapon master —> minotaur (because of grab/being in the maze) ---> hydra (speed) —-> bronze colossus (slow, but made out of metal) ---> night troll (because of grab/no pain/big speed)

The scale is based on how many mistakes you can make. I've left out anything that has a fire/web attack since that's random. I've also left out titans because they can range from ridiculously weak and made of a nice powder to a medium more durable than ettin-strength creature or maybe procedurally crazy fast (I'd hope) killer made out of metal.

Still, once you have stats in the thousands I think you're now at "the let's be creative and bizarre territory" where you fill a bag with skulls and club everyone you meet and then begin howling.

I might as well. When you're Legendary+A bunch shield user and fighter, I could definitely fill a sack with skulls/teeth/stolen socks and use it to kill everything.
Still wearing all the shields, though.

Founded a new fort.
Soon after piercing the stone layer, I discovered the fort has access to all three iron ores - magnetite, limonite, and hematite abound.

Quote from: FallenAngel on January 15, 2015, 05:42:52 pm

Since the standard bandits are giving absolutely zero challenge to a shieldball, I've been trying to find anything stronger.
I'd settle for an Ettin or Minotaur; something harder like a dragon or hydra would be preferred.
But no; absolutely nobody knows the exact location of any megabeast or semimegabeast, and I'm not searching every map tile of each area to try to find any of them.
I've been trying to use legends to locate them to no avail; all I've found is an ettin in a fortress.

Sleep outside.  The idea is to find a night critter or get ambushed by a titan.

I'll tell the two guys adventuring with me to leave.
Maybe bogeymen will be a greater challenge...

EDIT: Bogeymen are tough. Not as strong as a shieldball, since every bit of damage my adventurer absorbed was from when he was Stunned. Took down all of them with nothing worse than light bruising and a broken ear. Also, they proved enough of a challenge to send me from x/2700 Shield User and x/2800 fighter to somewhere in the 5000s of needed experience.
I'm also Superhuman in everything I was High in.