I tend to avoid most attachment issues by having a couple squads rotate on/off duty when training up and taking off their gear when not on active-duty. Tends to shuffle the gear around every couple months between dwarves so attachment usually isn't an issue.
Reason I bring up bucklers is I think (unconfirmed) the order of prescedence for attacks on a dwarf is:
Shield Block > Weapon Parry > Dodge > Armor Check > Fleshy/Squishy Dwarf
From what I've seen, missing from dodge skill comes before any of that.
That wouldn't surprise me - I wrote that up pretty quick, but there definitely is an order of precedence regarding how hits are resolved. The point I was trying to get across is that bucklers are smaller and have a potential to block attacks during training less often, forcing checks further down the priority list. IE: Weapon Parry/Skill
I tend to like this for a couple reasons.
- A weapon parry raises the attack skill, meaning the dwarf becomes more skilled with his blade faster, and more effective quicker parrying with it.
- Bucklers I believe are smaller and weigh less than their larger shield counterparts. Weight plays into encumbrance, which will directly affect how quickly your dwarf moves and fights. A dwarf that's encumbered will fight and train slower.
Personally, I like dwarves that are quick, well skilled, and get in one or more devastating hits before they get attacked themselves. Training certain skills in a weighted fashion earlier increases their ability to get that important first-strike(s) in before an enemy can respond... and their ability to dodge and close quickly minimizes the time they spend getting picked off by ranged attacks (IE: Arrows). Otherwise using the traditional method they block with the shield alot(not so bad), they're much slower (BAD) and tend to get wailed on alot (Very Bad) more and respond with their own attacks less. I prefer not to give those pesky elves and goblins more opportunities to hit my dwarves. Even if they're armored up like a tank and 8 out of 10 attacks don't get through, all it takes is a bad roll for a dwarf to become skewered. I'd rather my dwarves be a bit more nimble and able to get their attacks in on the enemy quicker for more opportunities to disable them first. That's why I favor this method. This mirrors the mentality 'the best defense is a good offense.'. There are exceptions to this (titans, firebreathing, webs, etc) in which full armor/shields are preferable, but hopefully by that point your dwarves will be veterans and deserving of the better armor, and able to mitigate the consequences of the increased weight the same.
To put it into common RPG terms... I'm favoring better Initative and increased number of attacks over increased AC early on to get more effective rookie dwarves. This ties in well with NCommander's excellent guide, just refining it a bit to further weight certain skills being trained over others early on.
To further expand, I've been training my rookie dwarves with leather/bone armor... sometimes with a Mail shirt over the leather armor for a bit more resiliency. I don't give them a metal breastplate till they hit at least level 6 and they don't earn plate armor elsewhere till level 8 or 10 or so, usually starting with gauntlets and going from there. This is usually as an average for a squad (Dwarf Therapist glance at all squad members) so I don't have to micromanage each dwarf individually. They succeed and fail as a cohesive unit afterall. ... and as a side-benefit, your medics get a bit of training on your rookies as they train and handle small stuff (hunting, minor beasts from caverns, small goblin attacks, elven caravans, etc.) so that when real trouble shows up they're world-class surgeons... assuming they're not completely drunk off their asses again.
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Topic: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More! (Read 39446 times)