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[Leonidas]

I'm trying to learn the nuances of the adventure mode combat system. I'm mystified by these little plusses, minuses, and exclamation marks on the right side of the screen that selects the target body part:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Loam]

The plus and minus symbols don't mean much: it's just the game's suggestion of what would be a good (plus) or bad (minus) attack. It's based on the combined strike difficulty and solidity, which you can see for yourself.

The exclamation point indicates an opportunity attack on that body part. These opportunity attacks will have a much higher chance to land a more solid blow, usually in the "simple strike, very square" range. They're worth checking out, as they can give you the chance to do some critical damage, but more often than not it's just, like, a better chance to bite your enemy's little finger or something.

[Superdorf]

more often than not it's just, like, a better chance to bite your enemy's little finger or something.

Hey now, I've won some good fights with those "or somethings"! Force applied to a digit transfers to the rest of the limb-- sometimes all it takes to disarm or cripple an enemy is a good stiff whack to the relevant finger or toe.

[Leonidas]

sometimes all it takes to disarm or cripple an enemy is a good stiff whack to the relevant finger or toe.

That seems realistic.

[Urist9876]

When auto-attacking, dwarves often use their opportunity strikes. Resulting in things like shield bashes to the third toe, right foot. Not a target I would envision to attack with a shield, but hey, if it brings down your opponent it works.

Seeing opportunity strikes depends on observation skill. Observation skill is easily trained in fortress mode during military service. It also trains fairly easy during combat.

At high skill the plus and minus system isn't helpful anymore. Very hard to hit for the head or neck is still most of the time lethal for normal creatures. This doesn't apply when fighting when creatures of similar skill though, as I noticed when that adventure ended.