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[Melting Sky]

I have seen a lot of puzzled remarks and misunderstandings about the pulping mechanic in this game. From what I understand when a body part "explodes into gore" or is "cloven asunder" etc. this is simply a descriptor that lets us know the affected body part is "pulped."

A pulped body part is simply a body part that has accumulated enough blunt trauma to lose its structural integrity which often doesn't match up particularly well with the descriptors in battle. A hand that "explodes into gore" hasn't actually exploded into a spray of bloody chunks that fly in every direction but rather has simply suffered massive blunt trauma. So when you actually look at the hand its still there and usually has a load of blunt injuries like shattered bones and split open flesh. The part that gets kind of strange is when a pulped body part heals itself. You would think when a body part is completely and utterly smashed to the degree that it has been pulped that the injury would be permanent but due to the nature of blunt damage this often is not the case.

This finally brings me to my suggestion and my point which is that in the case of the extremely severe blunt trauma injuries represented by pulping that there should be a high chance for the sort of permanent  injuries like those seen caused by edged weapons. When bones are completely shattered and flesh turned to pulp you would expect things like torn open arteries, shredded nerves and horribly mangled joints and ligaments etc. but you don't. This is why even the most horrific of blunt trauma can't cause a victim to bleed out even with a pulped throat etc. This is also why utterly mangled pulped hands, feet etc. can heal completely with time.

My suggestion is to add a significant chance for a pulped body part to suffer at least torn open arteries and some sort of permanent impairment due to the bones, joints and soft tissues being so badly damaged that they can never heal properly.

[Dorf and Dumb]

I think in general there's a real problem with a lack of coup de grace in the combat system.  I mean, you get something all covered in red, it can't fight, you leave your dorfs on the body until they're hungry/thirsty/tired and you're bored, you give up and send them to go do something, next thing you know a wagon is dead and the merchants have run away in terror that you'd been counting on to satisfy those hungry/thirsty dorfs.  It's just not what you expect for it to be easy to incapacitate something and damn near impossible to kill it.