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[Skullsploder]

This guy had no cave adaptation (regular topside patrols) and he was legendary in every combat skill (except armour user but whatevs). He hadn't seen all that much real combat himself but he'd taken part in the battles against three FBs and one goblin squad before, and his discipline was legendary - so he wasn't simply frozen with terror.

What the hell happened? I mean, I wouldn't have noticed this if he'd had the right damned helmet on (masterwork steel helms stacked to the ceiling and he managed to fish an exceptional leather helm out of the garbage heap somehow), but still, this is a serious issue. Barely any defensive action taken - an ordinary goblin managed to land a punch on his head ffs! - and he was killed without actually striking out once. With his stats he should have been able to kill all 20 goblins by himself, naked. Indeed, his was the only dwarf corpse in a very large goblin pile, and his lower-ranking, less skilled squad members managed to get through literally without a scratch. Searching the combat logs returns no instances of them even receiving a hit without dodging or blocking. None of the goblins were weaponlords.

Anyone else experienced this problem?

[SyrusLD]

I had the same happen with one goblin in a "bigger" siege in an older fortress (my previous fortress in 40.23). I had 5 (or so) legendary military dwarves just stand around a single goblin but not even try to hit her once. They'd follow her as if they were going to attack any second now, but even though she was happily smashing away at them - missing all hits at first - they did not do anything to kill her. Eventually, after passing out again and again from over-exhaustion, her skills were high enough that she just slaughtered my military on her own - still with absolutly no resistance...

No idea what was going on there or how that happened, she was the last goblin alive of that siege, all others had been killed just as expected.
Sadly I didn't try out whether traps would've captured or killed her.

[NW_Kohaku]

Got a save you can upload from just before or during this?

This might be Mantis material if you can upload a save to DFFD with the problem in progress.

[Shonai_Dweller]

I had the same happen with one goblin in a "bigger" siege in an older fortress (my previous fortress in 40.23). I had 5 (or so) legendary military dwarves just stand around a single goblin but not even try to hit her once. They'd follow her as if they were going to attack any second now, but even though she was happily smashing away at them - missing all hits at first - they did not do anything to kill her. Eventually, after passing out again and again from over-exhaustion, her skills were high enough that she just slaughtered my military on her own - still with absolutly no resistance...

No idea what was going on there or how that happened, she was the last goblin alive of that siege, all others had been killed just as expected.
Sadly I didn't try out whether traps would've captured or killed her.

This was fixed in 40.24 and doesn't seem to happen any more. But something seems to be up with the OP's battle. Or maybe the goblin was just lucky. What was the Dwarf's armor user skill? A goblin punch is pretty fast and he seems to have been busy blocking crossbow bolts at the time. Maybe he just didn't react in time. Unlucky, unlikely, but worldgen is full of stories of Dwarves besting bronze colossi in one-on-one duels so nothing's impossible.

[Skullsploder]

Got a save you can upload from just before or during this?

This might be Mantis material if you can upload a save to DFFD with the problem in progress.

I have an autosave from three days before. I loaded it up and now I can give you his exact stats.

He is legendary axedwarf, fighter, discipline, and observer, master shield user, professional armour user, accomplished wrestler, adept biter and kicker, expert striker, professional dodger, and adequate misc. object user (he also has a few other random weapon skills but those are irrelevant.

It seems I was wrong about the outside patrol route, that must have been in a different fort. They are all cave adapted and experienced nausea on the surface.

This time round "Lord Captain" Mebzuthroder murdered his way through half of the goblins pretty much solo in a fountain of limbs that resembled what would happen if a weapon trap filled with serrated steel disks was capable of locomotion. Afterwards he collapsed from exhaustion. But I noticed two fatalities fairly close to what happened the first time, the first being the militia commander - a hammergoblin got a lucky blow on the commander's hand before the commander even blocked a bolt and he passed out, and his skull was caved in by a scourge. The other one was an axe lord whose shin got crushed as part of a very lazy exchange of blows after he lopped the head off a goblin, and passed out to experience a fate similar to the commander.

I believe I understand what the issue was now. It's simply that cave adaptation is far more debilitating in combat than I had first thought. There were more examples of goblins parrying and dodging dwarf blows than of dwarf blows hitting, and tons of hits which the dwarves were only saved from by their armour, which seems to indicate that it really was just a case of cave adaptation reducing legendary fighters to levels just above those of an ordinary goblin soldier.

Only about a quarter of the melee dwarves were actually outside this time, and most of them are cave adapted, whereas those who sallied forth in the last save were mostly newer dwarves who were not yet cave adapted, which explains the lack of bruises first time around.

Sorry, I believe I've wasted your guys' time, but I think this can at least be taken as another cautionary tale warning you that you'd better organise that your dwarves patrol outside sometimes.

[NW_Kohaku]

Sorry, I believe I've wasted your guys' time, but I think this can at least be taken as another cautionary tale warning you that you'd better organise that your dwarves patrol outside sometimes.

No problem, and hey, Learning is Fun. 

As a preventative measure, I'd suggest trying a couple different techniques:
First, dwarves do not cave-adapt if they are in "indoor outside" tiles.  (That is, in a building on the surface.) They don't drop in cave adaptation, either, but you can safely keep dwarves in out of the rain in an above-ground house forever with burrows and never cave-adapt.  (Remember, if you dig a pit, then you can floor over it and still have it count as an "above ground house".) Spending just one month on patrol out of the year will quickly zero out whatever small cave adaptation you might have.

Since it's a good idea to build a training barracks out of light wood (to prevent wrestling damage), anyway, making your military station a wooden hut or pit near your killzone is a good idea. 

Second, try to set up a couple mostly-surface training areas.  I believe only the actual tile that holds the barracks-creating furniture needs to have a roof over it.  Just make sure that you have a method of locking it down in the event of zombie ravens or something. 

[SyrusLD]

This was fixed in 40.24 and doesn't seem to happen any more.

Oh, ok. That sounds like a good reason to finally consider updating my game then.


And yeah, cave adaptation can be deadly to even the most legendary military, I had to learn that the hard way as well. It's why I have at least 1 outside patrol every 3 months for my squads.
I put my training grounds right in the middle of my dining hall / meeting place though. If you don't care that much about dwarves having lots of contact with each others (and after a few years every dwarf became a legendary observer for example), the wooden-outdoor barracks sounds like a good plan to prevent cave adaptation. I'd just put a stockpile for food and alcohol in it as well, especially if your fort is deep below the earth.

[NW_Kohaku]

the wooden-outdoor barracks sounds like a good plan to prevent cave adaptation. I'd just put a stockpile for food and alcohol in it as well, especially if your fort is deep below the earth.

In my current fort, I have a large wooden "greenhouse" that rises 2zs above the surrounding landscape.  I'm carving fortifications in all the walls of the top layer, and I'm going to make it a marksdwarf nest with an archery range in the middle.  Because I have walls with cage traps (to catch wildlife - it's a savage biome, and I love taming things) where this is a big ovoid blockage in pathing flow, most invaders coming from the west would have to pass within sight range of this structure. 

[Skullsploder]

I think I'm gonna make some classic-style roofless castle towers for my marksdwarves. As to my melee guys... I'm not sure. My fortress defence is based on a really simple Durin's bridge -style marksdwarf gallery ending in the barracks, but this is tunneled directly into the side of a cliff without any existing fortifications on the outside. Maybe I should just repurpose the current barracks to be for civilian training...? Or maybe it can just be a weapon stockpile. Still, it means I have a lot of work to do in building topside defenses.