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[Sutremaine]

Yes, but the curved structure of the skull helps to increase the effective cross section through which incoming force is directed through deflection and diffusion.

Pfft. Next you're going to tell me that you can't make a perpetual motion machine from seven logs of wood and some bucketfuls of water.

[wierd]

Only in DF!



Just sayin though, blunt is not a good way to ram the skull through the brain. Piercing on the other hand...... . That's why a Morning Star type mace does wonders in that dept.

But, again.... this is DF, so, realism takes the back seat to hilarious carnage!

[Utherix]

Tarn did say he is strengthening the skull in the next patch. He said that in the last audio podcast, I believe.

[PDF urist master]

that's good. may it'll take two punches to the face instead of one.

[KingBacon]

Man, if zombies are overpowered, weaponize them. I have a partial reanimating biome. Every goblin ambush gets caught up in the mess.

[Aslandus]

Actually shattering the skull and driving bits of bone through the cortex is surprisingly rare.

Not in dwarf fortress, that's how at least 2/3 of the battle logs end when the combatant is killed in my games, but I can see how that is true in real life

[CaptainArchmage]

This should be fixed in the next version, where undead can be pulped preventing re-animation, and where dwarf skulls are actually thicker.

[Necrisha]

I've got a dwarf husk fighting a yak cow husk 10 -20 tiles from my fortress walls. They make for excellent target practice since inactive marksdwarves won't close the distance to attack after emptying their quivers. I've had dorfs get as close as 5 tiles without getting attacked.

[Melting Sky]

yea pretty dumb, the undead punch and break bones through gauntlets and high boots as often as no-armor as well. Which is why i didnt send my marksdwarves squad. When i do try to send them it takes them forever to group up and at most i have about 6 dwarves there out of 8 that split up even further after i order an attack. This is usually enough to get at least 1 of them killled against the single undead since it moves so fast that it can close the distance after 1 bolt and it usually takes several to kill it.

but i dont think its solely df combat being normally deadly, as i fed un-armed goblins to rocs before and their punches and kicks only glanced away due to the rocs' bulk, and the rocs literally ripped the goblins apart.

In most of mythology the undead have super human strength, so it does make sense that unarmed undead would far outperform unarmed goblins. It is a bit silly that a zombie brain punched your roc to death in one hit but at the same time the undead should be fearful foes in any fantasy game. I don't mind the undead as they are now. They seem properly powerful to me with one exception which is the one hit brain pulping punches they can deliver to a mega beast sized creature but as somebody else mentioned this is an issue with skulls being overly weak rather than the punches being excessively strong. A punch is a blunt attack so it should be expected to damage through armor just like any other heavy blunt attack will.

One thing I hope that will help differentiate the mindless undead and other extremely low intelligence foes from smarter attackers in future updates is how their AI is handled. Right now all enemies basically act like zombies. They make a B line strait through whatever hall of death you have waiting for them regardless of how many of their comrades they have seen fall before them which is perfect behavior for a zombie but not a sentient creature. I hope in the future goblins and other "intelligent" races will set themselves apart from the undead hordes by avoiding these same pitfalls and employing more advanced tactics such as digging into forts, undermining defenses etc. This would greatly improve the depth of fortress mode while giving the zombies a fitting disadvantage compared to more cunning and currently less feared enemies such as goblins.

Edit: Actually come to think of it, there is one aspect of zombies that I do think is a bit ridiculous aside from the game's issue with egg shell thick skulls which is that they are extremely fire resistant. Classically one of the weakness of the undead is fire so it doesn't make much sense when you get zombies swimming in magma for like a week and then stepping out the other side still ready to fight.

[blapnk]

Man, if zombies are overpowered, weaponize them. I have a partial reanimating biome. Every goblin ambush gets caught up in the mess.

See that's what I once thought. I even fobade forgotten beast corpses with the plan to animate their skeletons and capture them on a GCS webbed cage and chain them up by my front entrance. In the end, the undead were a greater threat than the goblins. The goal then became how to weaponise goblins to defeat the undead.

[jcochran]

This should be fixed in the next version, where undead can be pulped preventing re-animation, and where dwarf skulls are actually thicker.

Given how dwarves act, I think their skulls are more than thick enough....

Oh, you mean stronger and less likely to break. Sorry 'bout that. 

[Dirac]

Edit: Actually come to think of it, there is one aspect of zombies that I do think is a bit ridiculous aside from the game's issue with egg shell thick skulls which is that they are extremely fire resistant. Classically one of the weakness of the undead is fire so it doesn't make much sense when you get zombies swimming in magma for like a week and then stepping out the other side still ready to fight.

I had to abandon my most successful fort recently because of this.  My pet dragon was stuck in a never-ending feud with a disembodied zombie head at the entrance of my fort, spitting fire at it ad nauseum for a good year or so.  None of my marksdwarves could fire at the head through the smoke, and all of my miners were scared off whenever they tried to drop a cave in on it.  Plus all of my dwarves were being spooked constantly, a few of them caught fire, and I couldn't train my dragon anymore because no one could get near it.  So I just abandoned it and reclaimed.  Very frustrating.

[Philii]

your war Roc's skull is egg shell.
I don't like to see that in next version.(egg skull)

[FrankMcFuzz]

And untrained, unarmed, unarmoured wrestler of mine 1-hit a GCS the other day. "Scratched it in the head, bruising the brain" It happens.

There's enough complaints for this to probably get fixed in the future.

I, honestly, believe that if it doesn't have a functioning brain it shouldn't get back up. "Remove the head or destroy the brain" Stick to true zombie lore, Toady! At least, without the presence of a necromancer, who can make skeletrons get up and do a dance.

[Dirac]

I, honestly, believe that if it doesn't have a functioning brain it shouldn't get back up. "Remove the head or destroy the brain" Stick to true zombie lore, Toady!

I don't mind the divergence from the "true zombie lore" (though the true meaning of that statement is debatable).  Mainly because I've gotten burned out on the whole zombie thing and find it rather refreshing when a new spin is put on it.  Though I must admit, I find it hard to believe that the same severed head can continue to attack my dwarves after it has been hit with a steel battle axe twelve times.  There should at least be a point where maximum mutilation is reached and the body part is simply in too many pieces to be a threat anymore.