Does the quality of training weapons affect their chances of causing injury?--like, if I give those masterwork wooden training axes to my military, will they chop each others' heads off sparring with them?
Not at all.
When the militia spar, they always "lightly tap" - so you can actually go right ahead and use live weapons for sparring!
However, if they keep their training weapons and run into battle, a masterwork weapon will work slightly better.
Just don't bother too much with training weapons... I imagine Toady will re-enable their usefulness at some point, but not for now.
I've got very little metal currently, but a huge amount of wood from clear-cutting. All the woodcutters are using wooden training axes, etc. Lots of wood for cages, though, so I should get some metal with the first shipment of goblinite. Until then, wooden stuff for the militia to train with. What's better in real combat--masterwork training weapons, or wrestling? What about weapon traps--can you make good wooden trap weapons, spikes and things? Or should I just stick to stone?
In case you're wondering, I'm trying to figure out if I can run a fort without ever smelting any ore. All metal comes from traders and invaders... so naturally, for now, I'm short on metal.
Now, once I can get my glass industry going... *daydreams about goblins impaled on pointy green glass traps*