I've just had a great idea! Climbing!
Creatures with the [CAN_CLIMB] tag are able to move up Z-levels by climbing walls.
Very handy for adventurers, very useful for stuck dwarves.
In Fortress Mode, the skill is trained by creating a Climbing Net in the barracks from some ropes.
In Adventure Mode, the skill is trained by attempting to climb.
- Skill dictates the chance that you will fall off during climbing, so dabbling skill would see you often falling flat on your back, whereas legendary would have you only fall off if your limbs were shot by crossbows.
- Skill dictates how many Z-levels you can climb before you cannot go further and/or fall: dabbling skill wouldn't allow even one Z-level: whereas novice allows you to climb up just one z-level, and legendary... who knows how far up you'll get!
- Skill dictates the chance that you will find handholds and be able to grip. Dabbling skill would hardly be able to find grip anywhere (but you would still get the experience for trying) whereas Legendary would allow you to grab anything, anywhere.
- Smooth walls drastically reduce the ability to find grip, and increase the chance of falling off drastically too. Even legendaries will fall off eventually.
Falling from one Z-level is of course not severe, so anyone falling off from the first try is only going to be stunned.
Scaling a huge cliff however... likely to result in mushy death.
Combining this with Jumping... Dwarven Parkour?