Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[elpreda]

For some reason my world seems to be really badly infested with werecoyotes and werezebras. Now werecoyotes are pushoverers, but werezebras come in like terminators. They grab people by their toes and smash them to death into the ground, bite people's heads off, rip off limbs and punch through organs. Furthermore they seem to be utterly immune to anything I can throw at them, I have 10 marksdwarves with bone and wooden bolts which only bruise the skin at best and 4 axedwarves with iron axes who can bruise muscles at best.
I suppose having full steel armor sets would change the results, but I'm still years away from that.

These guys simply come in, murder 5-10 dwarves then just walk away in human form.

Any tips on how to better deal with them in the first years?

[Tacomagic]

Spamming ballista bolts through a narrow hallway tends to work pretty well.  Since werebeats don't wear armor, one solid strike is all it's really going to take.

Granted, because of how horrifying they are, werebeasts tend to scare from quite far away, so make sure you've got plenty of length for shooting.

Alternately, pit-traps lined with spikes also do a decent job on werebeasts.  Be mindful that you pretty much need an early warning system (dog) and enough spare labor so that you can set off the trap manually without worrying about the werebeast making it all the way across the bridge.  Manual bridge-pit traps have the benefit of being easy to construct early on and are very simple to execute manually.

[elpreda]

The bridge trap seems like a good idea, they can't scare the bridge away, but that still means my fisherdwarves and plant gatherers are going to become zebra snacks. My dogs also got slaughtered by the last werezebra so I guess it's the chicken alarm.

[Tacomagic]

The bridge trap seems like a good idea, they can't scare the bridge away, but that still means my fisherdwarves and plant gatherers are going to become zebra snacks. My dogs also got slaughtered by the last werezebra so I guess it's the chicken alarm.

There are ways to change things a bit to make both fisher dwarves and plant gatherers more secure.  If you create an aqueduct from the river down into the ground, then upwell it through a grate, depressureize it, then use a pump-stack to return it to the river, it'll create a safe water-course that can be fished without danger.

Alternately, if you have an aquifer on the map, channeling into an aquifer and putting a fishing zone there will let you catch aquifer phase-turtles.

Similarly, you can create underground areas for plant gathering by breaching the caverns.  Even if you re-seal the caverns, areas of underground dirt will grow harvestable plants in addition to moss.  Alternately, if you want above ground plants, you can channel out a large area then put a ceiling over it.  The area under the ceiling will grow surface plants (provided there is soil/mud there).

Not much you can do with hunters to keep them safe, but they're kinda bugged and inefficient to use right now anyway.  Typically they're best if drafted into marksdwarves groups.

[elpreda]

I've already dammed the river, dug a new underground course and channeled an opening inside the walls, but for some reason there are absolutely no fish in there. I even constructed a drowning chamber that links to the ocean and put cage traps in there, but I have yet to catch a single fish.

Plant gatherers I can live without, farming is already self sufficient, but wood haulers still need to go out there.
I've given up on hunters because of the work/militia uniform bug. They're more useful hunting goblins and their brainwashed elves.

Despite putting a lot of work in my defenses I still lose a lot of dwarves with every attack. Walls and fortifications aren't worth much when you're not staying behind them.

[pisskop]

Chains. Pasture or chain up detectors.

Offer up these animals to the zebras as a sacrifice in the hopes that they will let you live.  Or give you time to flee inside.  Low skilled dwarves arent going to be terribly effective at killing buffed opponents, and werebeasts are indeed buffed.  In size, strength, and most likely agility.  In addition to be learners, having frequent chances to train, and having regeneration.

[martinuzz]

I am still waiting on the lying and persuasion skill to be improved in functionality, just to see a dwarf convince a werewolf that it's not full moon yet, and revert it.
"Dude! It's not full moon yet! seriously, you're just having a bad hair day!"

[Aslandus]

I am still waiting on the lying and persuasion skill to be improved in functionality, just to see a dwarf convince a werewolf that it's not full moon yet, and revert it.
"Dude! It's not full moon yet! seriously, you're just having a bad hair day!"

So being a legendary liar becomes like rolling 20s on your bluff check?

[Tacomagic]

I am still waiting on the lying and persuasion skill to be improved in functionality, just to see a dwarf convince a werewolf that it's not full moon yet, and revert it.
"Dude! It's not full moon yet! seriously, you're just having a bad hair day!"

So being a legendary liar becomes like rolling 20s on your bluff check?

"That big castle looking thing behind me?  It's a tree.  I'm a tree, too."

"I find that entirely plausible.  Good day to you, sir."

[martinuzz]

So being a legendary liar becomes like rolling 20s on your bluff check?

Hey! It worked. Once. Mostly because the DM choked on his drink when I rolled the natural 20 for this

[gunpowdertea]

So being a legendary liar becomes like rolling 20s on your bluff check?

Hey! It worked. Once. Mostly because the DM choked on his drink when I rolled the natural 20 for this

To quote one of my players: "Bah! Who needs proficiency in "prophecy" if you can lie really well?" (also worked with knowledge based skills...)

[PDF urist master]

a weremongoose showed up during a siege and was obliterated by goblins before I could do anything.

it managed to infect a goblin recruit, but for some reason the recruit was not hostile to the rest of the siege.