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[Lagslayer]

Can I force a dwarf to carry multiple shields?

If so...

Does this prevent the dwarf from carrying a weapon?
Can the dwarf still use wrestling/striking?
Will the dwarf simply bash with the shields every time?
Does it offer a double layer of blocking or will the dwarf only use one shield at a time depending on the highest block roll?

[Girlinhat]

Dual shields - yes, you assign two shields to the uniform like you would assign two mail shirts.
Weapon and dual shields - no, you only have two hands.
Wrestling with dual shields - Unknown, but they have no empty grasping hands, so it's unlikely that they'll wrestle, punch, etc.  They can still bite and kick.
Shield bashing - Very yes.  Copper is the best vanilla material for its weight, as it's a blunt move.  Modded silver armor makes for good shields, but no other good protection.
Double blocking - Unknown, but I suspect yes, they will gain additional deflection checks.  If DF combat follows traditional formats, then the attacker strikes, and the defender rolls to shield block, rolls to parry, rolls to dodge, and then rolls for armor penetration and damage.  It would make sense that it would roll a shield twice, but you never know.  Best method of testing would be to drop dwarves with dual shields and dwarves with one shield in separate pits, and use Runesmith of DFusion to make them enemies, and then fire bolts at them.  If they die at relatively similar times, they don't gain defense.  If the one survives significantly longer, then they gain defense.  Scumsave as needed to compare random dice roll results.

[Agent_86]

Wrestling with dual shields - Unknown, but they have no empty grasping hands, so it's unlikely that they'll wrestle, punch, etc.  They can still bite and kick.

From what I've seen, dwarves with both hands occupied can still punch.

[FluidDynamite]

Wrestling with dual shields - Unknown, but they have no empty grasping hands, so it's unlikely that they'll wrestle, punch, etc.  They can still bite and kick.

From what I've seen, dwarves with both hands occupied can still punch.

Yes, they can punch as usual. But they can't wrestle with the occupied hands, meaning no tearing off ears and all the fun stuff. It's possible in adventurer mode to stuff all the shields and weapons onto one hand while leaving the other empty for wrestling by messing around with your inventory though.

[Ipwnurmom221]

Yes, you can have a free hand in adventure mode while wielding more shields than you have hairs, but is it necessary? You can still wrestle by grabbing people with your arms.

[Girlinhat]

You need a grasping hand to perform certain locks and joint breaks.

[kotekzot]

Really? I've been breaking joints just fine with my adventurer's left thigh. Stealing weapons, gouging eyes and such requires a free grasp, but I think that's pretty much it.

[Girlinhat]

Really?  Hmm, I need to play more adventure then...

[Maklak]

Weapon and dual shields - yes.
My military has 2 picks and 2 shields. They still sever limbs from emenies.

[Lagslayer]

I've set up an area for testing but I am having trouble getting the goblins to shoot at the dwarves. How do I do this? I set the goblins as invaders with the civilization -1 (which was default). I set the dwarves to civilization 1.

[Deon]

The bug causes it. You can carry infinite amount of items in your hands if you 'r'emove them from your backpack. But it's not a supposed behavior, so I rarely abuse it.

[Lagslayer]

Nevermind. Seems the goblins can't attack the dwarves from that position for some reason. Redesigning the arena.

[Lagslayer]

Ok, preliminary test.

There are 42 pairs of combatants, each pair being completely isolated from the others. In all pairings, the goblin had a 1x1 tile, separated from the dwarf by a single tile wide pit with 7/7 water. The dwarf was placed in the back of a 3x1 room with a clear line of fire to the goblin.


Every goblin was a grand master marksman and grand master crossbow user, and was equipped with an adamantine crossbow and 100 steel bolts. Every dwarf was a grand master shield user, half of which had a single iron shield and the other half with 2 iron shields. None of the combatants had any other equipment besides what was specified, including clothing. Every combatant had average racial attributes, but random traits.



When all the goblins ran out of ammo/killed their dwarf, I tallied the results:

All but 1 single shield user died to goblin fire. The remaining one was wounded.
Of the dual shield users, 3 died from weapon fire, 2 fell in the water and drowned, and the rest were unharmed.



The single shield users are on the left, and the dual shield users on the right.

[Stromko]

The blood splatters alone seem very conclusive as to whether dual shields provide dual defense.

[Girlinhat]

Well played, dear friend.  The drowning deaths shouldn't factor in, if done right you should have included wall grates, but then again you can't do that in arena so we'll cut some slack.  I approve of this science.