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[MDFification]

I'd like to make elves actually something to be feared in DF without turning them into humans that mysterious hate it when you cut down trees. Any suggestions as to how to achieve this? I'm really not an experienced modder (I've mostly done pretty tame stuff, like optimizing or creating new civs without anything innovative like syndromes or interactions) and haven't actively modded for over a year, so some comments as to what's feasible (or if anyone wants to get in here and start making the mod themselves  ) would be appreciated.

Firstly, we need a harder, heavier wood. These woods exist IRL and have seen military use in non-metalworking societies. If we can ensure that all elven weapons and armor is made of this wood, we can boost effectiveness.
Secondly, Elves can be buffed based on innate skills without going against the current fluff. Based on the Elven lifestyle (they live in trees after all) I think that Elves should be naturally strong climbers, which I believe will make them more likely to path into the fort via climbing. This lifestyle also prompts natural athleticism, so I think that elves should have an innately high dodge skill and (if possible) high strength for their size in addition to a naturally high movement speed outside of combat (they run fast to make them more effective at harassing you). Similarly, they should have innate skill with kicking (strong legs, since you're always climbing) and biting (... I just want fearsome cannibal elves  ), especially provided that those attacks are rather rare anyway. Elves have good eyesight from their hunter-gatherer foraging lifestyle, so why not give them innate skill with ranged weapons?
Another suggestion (provided by Snail555) is an interaction elves can do that buffs nearby quadruped creatures, giving them an extreme boost to discipline (they'll never, ever run from a fight when an elf's around) and modest boosts to strength/speed to symbolize their increased motivation. This interaction will not be visible to the player, and works well with the Elves status as friends to all of nature. It's a neat vector to improve elf fighting capability since thematically and in worldgen war animals make up a singificant part of the elf military forces.

What I'm thinking of doing right now giving them new equipment that can, while maintaining the primitive theme DF elves seem to have right now, actually be effective against the dwarven military. Why not make weapons that are actually effective for them? It also would help to give them an extremely diverse armory, so the player would be continuously challenged by changing 'elven tactics'.

Conceptual Equipment is:

Weapons

• Macana: Essentially a wooden/obsidian/flint sword. Needs edited materials to give it more weight as historical examples often cored/tipped these club-liked weapons with heavy stone. Can hit effectively as a blunt weapon to break bones, and can cut like a chainsaw (with varying degrees of effectiveness depending on material) against unarmored targets, causing extreme pain and bleeding.
• Bolas: Essentially, some rocks attached by strong fibers. Doesn't sound like much, but when it was invented its primary purpose was to function as a short-ranged projectile that would snap the limbs of horses. It's equally good at snapping an unarmored man's spine, or bowling an armored one clean over and giving him serious internal bleeding..
• Spear-throwers: These weapons are short-ranged but deliver large, heavy piercing projectiles at frightful velocities. These have been around longer than civilization. Although they're not actually like this, the weapon itself should be a viable stabbing weapon made of hardwood/flint/obsidian/jade? to represent a warrior not emptying his entire stock of spears and leaving himself defenseless.
• Slings: They throw small rocks at high velocities. It's effectively a ranged delivery system for pulping mechanics; the stones are very heavy and can break bones and cause serious internal damage. This weapon was popular all over the world, and coexisted alongside the bow until late Classical Antiquity in civilized Eurasia. This is actually a weapon thats surprisingly effective against armor, which the elves desperately need. Incan slings were reportedly capable of killing a horse in a single blow or snapping a sword in half!

Munitions

• Barbed/Glass Arrows: These cause extreme pain in their targets, effectively knocking them out of the fight from shock. However, they're not effective at piercing armor due to their low weight and hardness.
• Poisoned arrows: I'm not entirely sure if this is possible to do. These arrows are slightly more effective at piercing armor due to being made purely of hardwood materials/being stone-tipped. Their potency however comes from them being tipped with a variety of toxins. To keep the player on their toes, these can range from annoying (cause dizziness, vomiting or annoying blisters/boils/rashes, and potentially communicable to other dwarves via contact if we assume that the 'toxin' is actually a viral infection due to the elves smearing feces or decaying organic matter on the arrow) to debilitating (cause extreme pain, extreme drowsiness, temporary loss of vision or even temporarily make the creature [CRAZED] if that won't cause tantrum spirals) to fatal (the dwarf sickens and, as a long/medium term effect, dies from whatever unpleasant method we dream up). OP, you say? Well, hopefully this makes up for dwarven legendaries being nigh-unkillable in melee.
• Stones/Bullets: Sling munition. To be made of the heaviest stone available if possible. Also if possible (I have no idea how one would implement it) a variant could start fires, as slings were frequently used for this purpose by the Romans and the Inca.

Other

• Unique Shields: Unique wooden shields (the heavier kind of wood) with improvements on contact area for the shield bash attack.
• Hardwood Armors: Basically wooden armor, but alongside improved material qualities to make it more resistant to metal weaponry (try cutting a tree against the grain, it's tough) it should have proportionally higher weight to make sure elves move slower as the armor must be thicker than metal armor to be effective.
• Hide Armors: Some hides can be surprisingly tough; basically its leather armor (apparently scavenged since elves don't hunt, but seeing as they eat the carcasses they kill I doubt they're unwilling to be pragmatic about using animal products they find that aren't something else's food). Since these are lightweight, the lesser protection is compensated for by giving the elves significantly higher movement speed; perfect for ambushers.
• Skull Helmets/Tribal Masks: These have no justification since they don't make elves tougher, but they're thematic and cool as heck. If only I could figure out how to decorate elven armor with carvings and feathers...

So anyway, thoughts? Anything I've posted here that isn't actually possible through modding without DFhack plugins I have no idea how to program? Anyone interested enough to attempt this? Anything I've missed?

EDIT: Removed clubs, added another potential anti-armor projectile to even the odds. [/list]

[UnicodingUnicorn]

Buffing Elves? What heresy is this?

Just kidding. Some thoughts on stuff.

> anyone wants to get in here and start making the mod t themselves
The weapons sound interesting. I might do them.

> Firstly, we need a harder, heavier wood.
Barring appearances, what makes trees different is their material. Making that harder, heavier wood is relatively easy. Using the example of glumprong, you can edit the density and hardness from the wood template to your liking.

> Elves can be buffed based on innate skills without going against the current fluff.
Yep, I may suggest improved skill rates for this, though, in addition to default skill levels.

>  I think that Elves should be naturally strong climbers, which I believe will make them more likely to path into the fort via climbing.
I am not too sure about the effect of skill level on pathing, but you could also give elves a climbing gait with a much higher speed than other creatures, which would make them faster and stuff when climbing.

> Elves have good eyesight from their hunter-gatherer foraging lifestyle, so why not give them innate skill with ranged weapons?
An innate skill with ranged weapons can be waved away as a product of their society. But I'll suggest increasing their VIEWRANGE to replicate good eyesight.

> It also would help to give them an extremely diverse armory, so the player would be continuously challenged by changing 'elven tactics'.
It would also help to reduce the amount of melee weapons they have, because, currently in terms of melee weaponry, wood < metal.

> causing extreme pain and bleeding.
Edge attacks cause less pain than blunt ones because they do not break bones. So I'm not too sure about how you are going to do the extreme pain bit.

> Clubs
Game-wise, I do not see the difference between macanas and clubs. Both break bones while macanas can cut unarmoured things too.

> the weapon itself should be a viable stabbing weapon made of hardwood/flint/obsidian/jade
If I remember correctly, you can't control what material a weapon is made of short of limiting the civilisation's access of weapons grade materials.

> Slings
Sounds nice. Not really much to comment on except that elves will be shooting wooden sling ammunition.

> cause extreme pain in their targets
Breaking bones I presume
> low weight and hardness.
The thing is, to have an effective blunt attack, you need weight.

> Poisoned arrows
Masterwork had this sort of thing, but I'm not sure if it was the DFHack-ed bit or not.

> Other stuff
All are feasible and interesting.

[MDFification]

> causing extreme pain and bleeding.
Edge attacks cause less pain than blunt ones because they do not break bones. So I'm not too sure about how you are going to do the extreme pain bit.

Huh. I thought that there was a way to affect how much pain a weapon inflicted. Guess I remembered wrong.

> Clubs
Game-wise, I do not see the difference between macanas and clubs. Both break bones while macanas can cut unarmoured things too.

Macanas often were used as blunt weapons historically, so I see your point here. I imagine the moveset for Macanas would be;
Slash (Slash damage.)
Strike (Instead of a stab, this is a blunt with a lower contact area as the tip of the weapon isn't pointed; historically macana-using cultures used this to knock people unconscious, but it can break bones too if the Macana is heavy stone. If we want more frequent use of blunt attacks since the RNG is biased in favour of slashing, duplicate attacks called bash or thrust.)

> the weapon itself should be a viable stabbing weapon made of hardwood/flint/obsidian/jade
If I remember correctly, you can't control what material a weapon is made of short of limiting the civilisation's access of weapons grade materials.

That's problematic. I suppose it'd be best to create custom stones/hardwoods that the elves can get via reactions (like how dwarf civs can acquire steel without iron in worldgen, somehow) and remove the wood weapons. Of course, then you occasionally get stone bows. Um...

[UnicodingUnicorn]

> That's problematic. I suppose it'd be best to create custom stones/hardwoods that the elves can get via reactions (like how dwarf civs can acquire steel without iron in worldgen, somehow) and remove the wood weapons. Of course, then you occasionally get stone bows. Um...
Or you could just give the attack a high velocity multiplier. I think.

[Meph]

Easiest way to buff elves is giving them natural skills, as well as introducing better woods. I made ironbark and steeloak for that purpose.

[MDFification]

Easiest way to buff elves is giving them natural skills, as well as introducing better woods. I made ironbark and steeloak for that purpose.

It would make a lot more sense not to incorporate stone into the elvish weapons, but I have no idea how to restrict their materials to specific woods, and I really like the idea of them using tools like pre-metallurgy humans (after all, they don't have a real reason not to pick up rocks).
And also because the obsidian macana is a near-monomolecular edged chainsword. It's hard not to try to justify that in my head.

[Mad-Saint]

This my give some ideas of non-metal weapons 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C6_pSEPbO8&list=UU3WIohkLkH4GFoMrrWVZZFA&index=76

[MDFification]

This my give some ideas of non-metal weapons 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C6_pSEPbO8&list=UU3WIohkLkH4GFoMrrWVZZFA&index=76

Non-metal weapons that can be crafted via adventure mode reactions from scrounged up materials (wood, stone, animal products etc) is something that's definitely worth existing. Out in the wilderness on your own? Make a primitive stone axe out of flint, make a wooden spear/club, etc!

[Meph]

You can control what type of metal they use, by giving them only a specific metal in a reaction. If you make a couple of metals that sound like wood (they are metals in the raws, but the player thinks that they are woods) then the elves will only bring those, as long as they have no access to other metals.

[MDFification]

You can control what type of metal they use, by giving them only a specific metal in a reaction. If you make a couple of metals that sound like wood (they are metals in the raws, but the player thinks that they are woods) then the elves will only bring those, as long as they have no access to other metals.

Ah, thanks. And of course since metals can be restricted to prevent them from being used for projectile weaponry as a category, this solves the 'obsidian bow' issue.

Much obliged Meph!

[Meph]

No worries.

The only change ingame is, that the weapons can be melted into bars. You can still keep them light, effective and flammeable, but people could make wood bars out of them.

[Ladygolem]

Just a thought, but wouldn't making the harder, weapons-grade lumber grow only in GOOD biomes effectively restrict it to elves? At least in worldgen. A player dwarf fortress in a GOOD biome would also get them, I suppose, but at that point you're making the conscious decision to embark there, so it's not something that would affect your fort unless you consciously chose for it to do so.

(Veering off topic, that gives me a great idea to make a dwarves tree city as a megaproject - the least dwarfy dwarf fortress ever built!)

[MDFification]

Just a thought, but wouldn't making the harder, weapons-grade lumber grow only in GOOD biomes effectively restrict it to elves? At least in worldgen. A player dwarf fortress in a GOOD biome would also get them, I suppose, but at that point you're making the conscious decision to embark there, so it's not something that would affect your fort unless you consciously chose for it to do so.

(Veering off topic, that gives me a great idea to make a dwarves tree city as a megaproject - the least dwarfy dwarf fortress ever built!)

The problem so far as I am aware is that theres no way to restrict the elves to using a single kind of wood within their domain.

[Ladygolem]

Ah, of course, my mistake. In that case, the faux-metal approach seems the best bet. If you want to stop dwarves from being able to melt the 'wood' down, would making the material sublimate instead of melting into liquid prevent this?

[MDFification]

Ah, of course, my mistake. In that case, the faux-metal approach seems the best bet. If you want to stop dwarves from being able to melt the 'wood' down, would making the material sublimate instead of melting into liquid prevent this?

I'm not entirely sure if the reaction for melting a metal object goes through the step of exposing the reagent to enough heat to melt it before it despawns it and spawns metal bars. If it does, yeah, we could just make the point where the wood boils and evaporates lower than the point it turns in to a liquid (because what has physics done to deserve your support, huh?).
It's worth trying, but I suspect the metal object is just arbitrarily replaced with metal bars without approximating the smelting process.