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[Witty]

So, I'm currently equipping my guards to make them as non-lethal as possible when they eventually beat up some random hauler. Now, last I heard the best way to do this was taking the weakest and scrawniest of the fort and giving them light crossbows. But, now I'm hearing that the weapon-beating bug was fixed some time ago. Is this true? Has that bug been fixed? And if it hasn't, would a wooden training weapon work just as well for (non-lethal) beatings? If the bug has been fixed, would these super weak dwarves still be capable of killing someone?

[Finn]

I don't know about a bug fix, but I believe the commonly accepted practice was to give them hammers made from the lightest material you have available.

[DarkArtemisFowl]

I don't believe it's been fixed, some of my dwarves ended up in the hospital for minor injuries when my captain gave them unarmed beatings.

Your best bet is to have crossbowmen with light wood crossbows, preferably made of candlenut or feather wood. Also, make sure they aren't too strong or trained in Hammerdwarf. If all is well you shouldn't have a problem in the beatings. Maybe a broken nail but that only kills with infection 
Joking, joking. But seriously, get dat candlenut and feather wood.

[Duuvian]

Funny story, I just now accidently assigned my Chief Medical Dwarf as captain of the guard while trying to make a new squad. He also was assigned the artifact bow he had created earlier, which is why I needed a new squad. Before I could stop him, he beat one of my dwarves to death.

EDIT: He then continued beating dwarves to death after I deleted the Captain of the guard squad and made a standard squad, which caused him to become a criminal and report his own crimes. I had to assign him to a burrow before he stopped his rampage.

[FrankMcFuzz]

I heard that using an adamantine hammer is suggested, if you have some of the amazing, amazing, totally non-wastable material to spare.

(Hint: You never do)

[Garath]

they ignore the hammer though, and use fists. The hammerer doesn't hammer anymore. It's so horribly lethal because at some point he'll punch someone in the head. If it isn't protected it's lethal because currently the skull bone is paper thin due to how the body is constructed in the game

[Duuvian]

Assigning the dwarf to a burrow will permanently snap them out of their murderous duties, even when the burrow is removed.

[Larix]

Afaik, the bug mentioned is the "guard performs beatings with combat weapons" one, which seems to be fixed for .34.x

So equipping your fortress guard with low-performance weapons shouldn't do anything, since they'll force-unequip their weapon to murder the victims with their fists. The other bug plaguing beatings is still alive and well unfortunately: a "beating" is performed as an attack with intent to kill, although a kill is emphatically not the purpose according to the justice system (deadly beatings count as murder). And, as has been mentioned, blunt attacks on the head currently have a near-100% fatality rate, no matter how weak the attack (weaker attacks even seem to be deadlier in some cases).

[Garath]

dwarfy solution to recidivism. All crimes warrant the death penalty.

"that'll teach them not to do it again."

[DarkArtemisFowl]

Hey, I don't want my legendary clothier dead because i forgot to assign him to make the countess some silk booties for her little wuvvy duvvy poonikins.

[WhimsyWink]

what crimes are there besides mandate 'nose-thumbing' and murder?  I've never even assigned sheriff or captain of the guard

[smjjames]

Theres also destruction of property, as during a tantrum.

Also, I believe they will only do the beatings if there are no (or no available) chains or cages set as jails.

At least the paper thin skulls will be fixed in the next version, according to Toady.

[Garath]

vandalism, throwing stuff maybe? assault as well and second to the mandates, violating an export ban. Can't think of anything else atm

[Simca]

In case you didn't know, there is a "Role" default setup in the latest Dwarf Therapist unofficial branch (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=122968.0) to find a good hammerer called "Lawdwarf (Weak)". It looks for Dwarves that are not agile, strong, hardy, or easy to anger.

[Sutremaine]

There are a couple of solutions. The problem is that the skull's default mass is small enough to be driven into the brain by the way DF simulates combat. When a strike is made, the game treats the tissue layers as a series of targets, and uses the relative size of each of them to determine whether one is jammed to the other. Since the skull is ten times smaller than the brain, it get driven into the brain like a nail.

I just experimented with changing the default relsize of the skull to 200, and a quick arena test shows that a Grand Master Everything dwarf can bruise the skull at best. Lethal whiplash is still a problem, however, with upper spinal tissue tearing being fairly common (I'd estimate somewhere between 10% and 25%, when attacking a naked unconscious dwarf).

Changing the body plans, to rename the brain to 'inner brain' and surround it with an 'outer brain' that doesn't have any thought tokens, is another option. But you can't do that mid-game.