Yeah, petrifying gaze is kinda cheating
I'm going to see how one fares against a lava dragon, then run through the list and see which other subspecies sound threatening.
EDIT: Okay, lava dragon = mutual annihilation. The blekk ripped the dragon's wrist off and caused the dragon to bleed out a few steps before it was burned to a crisp. Too close to accurately call, more tests doing.
EDIT2: Science has been conducted.
In total, fifteen trials were conducted where the first male entry in the list of Adder's Magma Dragon was pitted against a male panserblekk. Distance between the combatants at start was held constant at four (4) tiles. All tests were conducted on level ground with several z-levels of open air above, and at the end of each trial not resulting in the deaths of both combatants, the victor was euthanized via obsidian encasement or, in one case, isolated by being sealed in a tunnel after managing to flee, and in another case via death by Giant Squid. Environmental hazards such as water and magma were kept away from combatant pairs to avoid giving the flight-capable dragons an unfair advantage.
The results recorded were as follows:
- Out of fifteen (15) trials, the Panserblekk outright won only a single (1) trial, victory being defined as "not bleeding out within ten seconds of the opponent".
- Out of fifteen trials, Adder's Magma Dragon outright won six (6) matches, although one was very close (Victor condition summarized thus: "His head is smashed open. His skull is broken.").
- Out of fifteen trials, a draw resulted in eight (8.) matches, with both combatants dying within ten seconds of each other.
- Out of those eight trials, all eight saw the dragon dying first, and could conceivably be counted as Panserblekk wins.
The dragon won 40% of the matches, the Panserblekk 6.7%, and a draw favorable to the blekk resulted 53.3% of the time.
Based on this data, I would conclude that a magma dragon can mostly hold its own against a panserblekk, winning outright 40% of the time. However, if the draws are counted as Panserblekk victories, the Panserblekk would appear to be more than a match for Adder's Magma Dragon, winning 60% of all battles fought. Terrain would have an impact, of course - blekks might win more in the tunnels, or at least force mutual death - and if the dragon was canny and simply flew out of the blekk's range, its fireballs would make short work of the beast. Under arena conditions though, they're pretty evenly matched.
So yeah, science supports that Panserblekks are like flightless dragons that come in herds. That one Panserblekk victory, by the way? It was because the dragon missed its opening fireball and the blekk eviscerated it before it could lob a second
Pleasant creatures!
EDIT3: And whoever made the Wailing Maid creature, or the creature that's a caste of, that thing seems to be very effective at killing Panserblekks in large groups. The blekk literally froze to death just trying to kill them all - its lungs went to ice and it suffocated. Impressive.
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Topic: DF from scratch: The entirely player-made universe succession. (Read 524613 times)