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[Lyrax]

Bear in mind when reading that I am a scholar of medieval arms, armor and (especially) martial arts.  Not a novice scholar, not a skilled scholar, and far from legendary or even great.  But I am a scholar.

Suggestion #1 - Altering current weapon damages.

Problem: Piercing weapons are extremely overpowered, and at the same time somewhat underpowered.  Instakills when the get a critical hit and piddling damage when they don't.  The criticals need to be less.. critical as any single arrow can pierce up to five organs that have no business lining up in any sort of row, and that's rather broken.

Solution: Tone down piercing criticals.  A lot.  Boost a spear's regular damage, and reduce that of bolts and arrows slightly.  Should be good.

Suggestion #2 - Altering treatment of armor to be even more realistic.

Problem: All weapons treat armor exactly the same, which is acceptable for this type of simulation, but not ideal.

Solution: Add an [ARMORPIERCING] or [MASSWEAPON] tag to weapons that are extra effective against armor.  This includes all the mass weapons: picks, hammers, maces, and axes.  Ideally, this tag would allow a weapon to bypass some of the armor's block percentage (either a percentage or a flat rate would be fine).  For reasons I won't get into here, these weapons are extra effective against armor, and once they are granted this ability, their damage can be toned down a little.  Thus, an axe might do an average of 10 damage less than a sword (even factoring in critical hits), but it negates 20 points of damblock from armor.  This makes it evenly effective against armored and unarmored foes.

Suggestion #3 - Dwarves carry daggers.

Problem: There is no middle ground between 'armed for war' and 'armed for emergencies.' Simultaneously, there's no weapon that wrestlers can carry to make them more effective against armored opponents.

Solution: Introduce a new tool/weapon, the knife.  You could also call it a dagger, and it would function as such.  The knife would be an emergency weapon, and while dwarves might not start out with them, all dwarves would carry one, even civilians.  Knives ought to do more than a punch, but less than any real weapon; perhaps 1-4 or 1-6 piercing would do the trick.  They might be best used as a wrestling maneuver, as they are a 'really close combat' kind of weapon.  This addition would allow dwarves to occasionally survive a carp attack, and make civilians less helpless in general.  Perhaps only a wealthy fort could afford to equip every dwarf in this fashion, but it would increase their survivability rate.  The knife could also be an eating utensil, giving dwarves minor unhappy thoughts from eating without one, or modifying the thoughts gained from eating.  Wrestlers could carry knives, making them slightly more effective/viable, but they probably would not use them with every attack.  In all cases, the knife could be given its own slot, called a 'pouch' or a 'tool' slot or something.

I don't know whether dwarves are smart enough to handle having several attack options including 'choke' and 'stab with knife', nor do I know if they are smart enough to take a weapon out and wield it.  But it would definitely, definitely be a welcome addition that serves multiple purposes.

[Capntastic]

Dwarves carrying small weapons and waering armor around the fort is in the devnotes; and there is currently an active thread about it.

[Dasleah]

I just wish there was a way to train your Dwarves in more than the standard weapons in Fortress mode without having to replace a few of them.

*sigh*

Also: knife-fighting Dwarves?

Hell.

Yes.

[Jetman123]

"Urist" means "dagger" in Dwarven. I guess if this is implemented the name will become even more common and taken litterally.  

Urist Uristurist the urist-urist of urist stabs the kobold in the left foot with his +Iron Dagger+!
Urist Uristurist the urist-urist of urist stabs the kobold in the left arm with his +Iron Dagger+!
Urist Uristurist the urist-urist of urist stabs the kobold in the neck with his +Iron Dagger+!
Urist Uristurist the urist-urist of urist slashes the kobold in the chest with his +Iron Dagger+!
...
...
...
Kobold Thief has been struck down.

But yes. Dwarves need to learn how to use bloody knives. I mean, what if I don't want my axedwarf to carry around two massive axes? What if I want him to carry an axe and a bloody knife for if he loses the axe?!

Make sure it's stabbing and slashing, too. Untrained dwarves prefer stabbing, but trained dwarves in knife-fighting/wrestling (depending on how the skills are managed) do both. A knife has two ways to attack and is almost equally effective in the hands of a professional - stabs and cuts provide quick attacks and ripostes. Untrained users just try to stab, stab, stab assuming that's the only thing a knife can actually do, when slashing works just as well. Treat it like a less-powerful shortsword!

Yes, spear damage needs to be toned up and crit boosting needs to be toned down. Spears should still be good against big enemies and effective on a critical, just piercing ONE lung at a bloody time.

Better idea for armor piercing - in addition to that, have the "armor user" skill contribute to getting through armor. A dwarf who wears full plate should know where to stab the enemy to get through all that iron.  

Dwarven alternatives to the knife (they can still use knives, but just for some variety) might be the light hammer (basically a regular home-hardware sized hammer designed to be used easily in one hand) or the handaxe or small hatchet.

One last thing - make sure dwarves armed for war have an option to set "thrower" tags on them, and get more than one knife, so they can lob knives at the opponent while they charge.  

[Dasleah]

Knife + Chain + Knife = Knifechucks?

Do want.

And yeah, a [THROWER] tag would be nice. Combine it with making poisons at an Alchemist's Lab, glass globes at a Furnace, and you have a Dwarven Poison Grenadier.

I dare you to find that not awesome.

[Duke 2.0]

If we do get more small-arms, then the larger weapons might need to get a slight increase in cost. You know, so that people don't just outright ignore smaller weapons except for those who can't use heavier weapons.

Also, when dealing with the DF universe there are many things that can be made into chucks.

Swordchucks, Hammerchucks, axechucks, spearchucks, crossbowchucks and blowgunchucks.

[Lyrax]

quote:A knife has two ways to attack and is almost equally effective in the hands of a professional - stabs and cuts provide quick attacks and ripostes. Untrained users just try to stab, stab, stab assuming that's the only thing a knife can actually do, when slashing works just as well. Treat it like a less-powerful shortsword![/QB]

Article 1) Swords are capable of powerful thrusts as well as cuts, but for the purposes of the game, they are slashing weapons.  They cannot deal piercing damage.  I do not find this to be a game-breaker, and apply the same rule to knives.

Article 2) Making dual-use code for knives would be lots of work for little gain.

Article 3) If knives are slashing, then their criticals will cut off arms and legs.  I find it much more real-seeming if they deal damage to organs on a critical.  Somehow, hacking somebody's forearm off with a knife and sending it ten tiles flying does not sound like a real knife-fight.

Article 4) Knives can be effective at both cutting and piercing.  But if your opponent has a sword, you're much better off going with a stab.  If you can't see why, I encourage you to simulate a little swordplay on your own.  You'll probably come to the same conclusion.

Article 5) Knives cutting against any armor - useless.  Like using a rapier to cut.

All the above considered, it's probably best to leave daggers/knives as implements of stabbity death only, and not also slashers of throats.  Much fun though that sounds.