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[Pirate Bob]

I realized that since you can now give people things via the conversation menu, it is now possible to train by giving people training weapons and "sparring" with them.  It is also possible to give your companions training weapons.  The most reliable way to do this is to first trade them useless stuff (gems, socks, etc - anything works so long as it's not a container) for their weapon and pouch (and any other containers they might have).  Then give them a training weapon.  Having no where to put it, they will hold it in their hand, and will use it. 

You can also take away the weapons and containers via wrestling, but then you have to get them to agree to end combat before giving them a training weapon.  I think you may be able to get around this by starting a conversation, and then wrestling them, and then continuing to the "exchange items" option, but this might be a bug in the conversation interface.

I verified that this works a few different ways.  I found a camp of wrestlers, stole their pouches, and then gave them training weapons and let them hit me for a long time.  I also traded with all my companions to give them training weapons and then attacked a dwarf fortress I created, also all armed with training weapons.  Everyone happily (and mostly harmlessly) beat on one another for quite some time.  You do have to watch out for occasional injuries if people decide to punch/bite/scratch instead of using their weapons.  You can prevent all injury to yourself (except maybe facial features?) by wearing armor, but I don't believe there is a way to equip armor on your companions and sparring partners without using dfhack (and the adv-bodyswap command doesn't seem to be working in 40.08-r2, but I might not have used it right).  The biggest problem was my companions kept running off - possibly chasing after one of the dwarves who decided to run away after he was injured?  You also have to watch that you (and your partners) don't get too tired, and take breaks when this happens (i.e. run away and come back later).  The first guy I tried this on literally beat on me until he fell over from exhaustion, and then I left and came back and he did it again.

Not that there aren't enough ways to train your adventurer, but this one seems slightly less exploity than some. 

[Deadeye238]

If they got enough skill with training weapons couldn't they still seriously injure anyone they spar with?

[Pirate Bob]

If they got enough skill with training weapons couldn't they still seriously injure anyone they spar with?

Short answer - no.  Training weapons only do blunt attacks, which are weak to begin with, and then they have very large contact areas and are made out of wood.  These factors combine to mean that they cannot penetrate ordinary clothing.  If an opponent was not wearing clothing over a small body part (i.e. fingers) then this part could possibly be broken, as an attack uses the smaller of the weapon contact area and the body part size.  However, based both on the properties of training weapons and my observations of actual combat, I expect there will be many more injuries due to combatants choosing to punch/kick/bite/shield bash rather than actually scoring a damaging hit with a training weapon.

In other words, there will be minor injuries, but probably not from the training weapons.  If you wear full plate armor and a chain mail shirt, the only injuries you will sustain will be minor bruises to the upper arms and facial features.  While wearing armor I let several opponents hit me with training axes until they fell over from exhaustion, and suffered only said minor bruises.

[Yourmaster]

Training is for the weak! Claim your skill from hydra blood, weaklings!

[Pirate Bob]

Training is for the weak! Claim your skill from hydra blood, weaklings!

I prefer bogeymen personally.  Much easier to find...

[a smiling bearded cretin]

This seems similar to engaging a random traveling adventurer, except without the trading of items. It's far less dangerous and has a different growth factor.

I believe in 40.05-07 I mucked around to see what would happen when turtling up with 3 shields (my combat preference set to close combat/stand ground/stand ground) against a human axeman. In around 5 minutes I reached 20,000 shield from 2k (base legendary), but only 3.5k dodge from 2k, no weapon skill gain and he reached axelord. Not sure if the stat gain should have been so high --- he had a copper great axe.

With the trading method you gain differently (only 10k shield from zero, 1900 dodge from zero, 2300 to spear from proficient with combat preferences set to according to opponent/move around/dodge away), but it's much safer since in the untraded version you can definitely die.

YMMV for how exploity this is. It's likely the better/best choice for powerlevelers than *any other opponent* at the beginning/middle, etc. The trading is similar to "prepping/smashing" opponents with teeth/claws/horns. Not sure if animals improve in skill, but it's clear you can train up NPC soldiers and yourself very well.

So yes. This is a nifty method and rather monstrous in scope.