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[SlyStalker]

In combat, dorfs have skills such as Fighter, Dodger, Swordsdwarf and Armor User. These get higher through training and actual combat. But what simulates the familiarity of fighting and killing a particular species? I propose that once any living creature kills a certain number of a specific creature, they will gain veterancy against that species. This could be shown in the status/profile of the creature. It also has the added benefit of enabling people to say things like, "I have met many of your kind before, and I have dealt with them all", or something like that.

[Authority2]

"I have met many of your kind before, and I have dealt with them all"

That sounds kind of speciesist.

[SlyStalker]

Well, I find it hard to believe that a dwarf who has spent his whole life fighting troglodytes would be nearly as good as one who has spent his whole life fighting goblins at fighting goblins even if he was the same skill level or higher than Urist McGobbo.

[StagnantSoul]

Because swinging a sword at a human is completely different from swinging at a goblin. The only difference would be height, and the different speed between each individual. There's no reason for that skill.

Unless it's for megabeasts and semi-megabeasts. Dragon slayer. Hydra slayer. Giant toppler. Stuff like that. They instantly go into some trance when they face that beast, with the boost being dependant on level. They can level up the skill fighting similarly sized or shaped creatures. Only one slayer skill per dwarf. Say, at level fifteen, he'd have an extra 150% boost to agility, endurance, willpower strength, that only ends when either the beast or he is dead. This could stack with basic trances.

[SlyStalker]

But what about the nuances between how each species moves and where their vitals are?

[StagnantSoul]

You don't need to know something's biology to know how to hack off an arm or leg. Combat 98% of the time isn't targeting organs, so that'd be completely redundant.

[Chevaleresse]

actually, combat style can vary a lot between species that are extremely biologically similar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf-baiting

Louis XIII of France once acquired an old wolf and set his best dogs on it three at a time. The wolf managed to kill twelve of them without sustaining any serious injury.[3] The fighting styles of wolves and dogs differ significantly; while dogs typically limit themselves to attacking the head, neck and shoulder, wolves will make greater use of body blocks, and attack the extremities of their opponents.[4]

I'd imagine attacking an armored goblin wielding a weapon would be far different from attacking a troglodyte which basically just tries to flail at you. Plus, any person who has participated in a martial art of any variety should know that fighting style varies by a massive degree even between individuals; a swordsman from two towns over could have a very different style from yours, and the matchup might favor one or the other. Variation between species which presumably have very different psychology (judging by the morals of each society) would result in enormous differences in combat against one or the other.

[Knight Otu]

This is something Toady has been thinking about. It's on the old dev_single page, and has been talked about in a few DF Talks.

Bloat76, MONSTER FIGHTING SKILLS, (Future): Some skills for fighting unusual creatures, at least as a dwarf mode bonus from dungeon master, but possibly as general opponent knowledge system.

Rainseeker: ... Is there any plan to implement experiences with particular types of enemies.
Toady: The original Armok had this unimplemented knowledge system for creatures, and I was definitely thinking about doing that in dwarf mode, you could be an excellent dragon fighter, that kind of thing, and the knowledge could be about their behaviour, it could be about how to butcher them in particular, and so on. So your dwarf mode guy might be excellent at butchering all the deer and cows and things that your guys bring to him, but then you bring him some kind of giant spider and he's supposed to do something with that and he's like 'What is this? I don't even know where anything is' and would spoil the thing even if he's pretty good at butchering in general. So I'm for that kind of thing, I don't think it would be unnecessarily complicated. There are some questions about what it means to be a goblin fighter versus an elf fighter if they're humanoids or whatever; is that more learning about a culture or a species or whatever, if their anatomy is roughly the same. There are questions to answer there but in general I think the more knowledge types and things that there are for fighters and the more different skills and so on that they learn the more they could be differentiated, and that's always good. I think it's good to have particulars like that, and that one in particular is something that's planned. Not planned as in completely planned out, but something we definitely want to do.

Rainseeker: Let's talk about martial arts. So I see that you have specific skills for fighting monsters, you have a skill for hand-on-hand combat against a dragon ...
Toady: I'm not sure how specific it's going to be, but once we put in things like if you're fighting a giant who's way taller than you then it would make sense that if people have been doing that for centuries then they'd have strategies. I'm not sure what those are going to be specifically, if it just gives you a knowledge against a monster and a bonus then that would be the easiest way to do it, but it would be way more fun to have particular things that you can do, to jump up on them, or attack them when they're swinging down at you, people practicing strikes to hack a dragon in the head when it comes down to bite them or whatever. There might be stereotyped ways of doing that, although I don't think enough people fight dragons and survive to really learn that stuff ... it'd be kind of weird to see the training facilities with the giant cardboard dragons, people practicing against them ...
Rainseeker: Well you never know when a dragon's going to show up ...

[Sheb]

What about learning to fight armored vs. unarmored opponents, or fighting against specific weapons type?

[SlyStalker]

What about learning to fight armored vs. unarmored opponents, or fighting against specific weapons type?

Maybe, but I think Toady was talking more about the creatures themselves rather than what they're equipped with.

[StagnantSoul]

If a soldier can't adapt to swinging at a goblin's legs to swinging at an elf's legs, then he deserves to be magma bathed slowly.

[Leatra]

If a soldier can't adapt to swinging at a goblin's legs to swinging at an elf's legs, then he deserves to be magma bathed slowly.

I don't think sword-to-sword combat is that simple. Learning how to swing a sword is different than learning how to kill a particular species. Like, an Elf might try to move around, dodge and feint, making your attacks more likely to miss if you aren't familiar with Elvish fighting techniques.

Now it sometimes shows in adventure mode when a creature is about to attack you, so you can parry or dodge. Maybe having information about a species would increase the chance of learning what a creature intends to do. Like "seems careful, likely to attempt to dodge/parry next attack" or "will aim for your neck" if you are really good at that creature's skill.

I mean, I got attacked by dogs in real-life several times and I can usually predict what they will do next by reading their body language, and I know what kind of stances and movements to take to both protect myself in case they attack and to intimidate the pack into leaving me alone. Also a few tricks to divert the attention away from myself and seem less threatening.

Then again, having a skill for every species in the game sounds bloat-y. Maybe only for dragons, hydras, and such?

[StagnantSoul]

...That's exactly what I said. Only for [FANCIFUL] maybe?

[Leatra]

Yeah I agree with you about having this system only for megabeasts. That's what you were talking about when you said it's exactly what you said? Only the first paragrapgh was directed at you. I still think an elf would fight differently than a gob though.

Maybe it could be a hidden skill or something, if it's gonna have all species. I dunno. I don't want "cow-slaying skill" cluttering things up.

[StagnantSoul]

Yeah, only for megabeasts. While fighting an elf and goblin is different in many ways, the basic skills needed stay the same regardless. But it would be nice to have some boost or advantage against them. Read my statement above for my explenation.