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[CppThis]

And has somebody tested the wave motion gun siege weapon yet? My favourite is the trapdoor with the steel spikes at the bottom.

Siege weps seem to be horribly inaccurate and barely do more damage than a couple of hammer whacks.  From a game-mechanics standpoint it seems to be possible to kill anything by collapsing a constructed floor on it, but that isn't necessarily as fun.

[Pilsu]

The question remains how one is supposed to deal with steam based creatures

Can those even touch you?

[duckets]

I have an idea.

Make it so that if an undead creature suffers wounds to its bones that would put its normal self into unconsciousness, it would also become "unconscious" and then die if it fails a check.  Otherwise it can die the ordinary way of complete obliteration.  Maybe not the most realistic, but I think it would be the most fun.  It's kind of another way to simulate the extreme endurance of the mindless undead.  Of course for any of this to even work balance wise blunt weapons need to work as intended on materials.

[grufti]

Since I play many roleplaygames and also lead one as a DM I need to say here sth. about golems, undead and stuff. Most of my knowledge is about the universe of the Forgotten Realms, maybe in other fantasy universes things are being explained in another way. (The Forgotten Realms is imo a truly great designed universe (till the 2nd Edition at least) and its not wrong to copy from this universe)

First, all these creatures are magic driven. Many of them (especially golems) only exist because a magician has decided to create a monster out of stone, earth, adamantine, whatsoever. Some of them exist because of the nature of the place they are being created. Undead for example are mostly met in scenarios where many people died. May be a doomed fortress, a place where a big battle has been faught, a graveyard etc. Trolls have (lets say) genetical benefits, which allow them (and only the creature which lost the limbs) to regrow limbs and to recover wounds within seconds (they are not the only but most popular exemple).

To come to detail in killing these creatures.
Some here said skeletons cannot be killed, because they have no living part in RL. Well yes, but have you ever seen a walking skeleton with a sword and a shield hunting a dwarf with a battle axe in RL? Please, never compare non fantasy stuff with stuff only existing in fantasy worlds. You will just fail.

For golems its usually some kind of magical stone magicians use to enable a solid rock to live. destroying or departing this livemaker from the rest of the body will always lead to destroying the monster. Spears and blades won't do much (if any) harm to the golem, except for flesh golems. This is where damage resistance should come into play.
Skeletons easily lose body parts by attacking them with hammers. (Much easier than their human equivalent) Though it will not "hurt" them they will deal much less damage with no arms and hands on their body. Departing the upper body from the lower body, or the head from the body will lead to sudden death though.
Zombies are rather equivalent to skeletons, they are more vulnerable to swords than to hammers though. Spears won't do much harm either. I have never thought about if Zombies live after them being hacked to pieces, but they are rather harmless after being chipped to small pieces and therefore considered as dead. (lets not make it more complicated than it is anyway)
Well trolls can be only killed by acid or fire as many here will know. A troll has no vital point and it won't be killed if you chip of its head, putting acid or fire on current wounds will stop regeneration and therefor can kill a troll. As no acid or magic fire weapons are implemented in dwarf fortress yet I would simply add a vital point and let their wounds regenerate much faster than the ones of other humanoids. (e.g. the actually bugged invader type regeneration, as for me trolls are being killed much more easily than goblins atm)

long post, but at the end I hope I can add a few suggestions to the discussion.

[Atanamis]

If the game generates unkillable beasts, then clearly those beasts must be removed from the game, not the game altered so that they can be killed even if it makes no sense. Ever tried to destroy a granite boulder, let alone one that tries to kill you back?

No, I haven't ever tried to destroy a granite boulder that tried to kill me back. Never. If I ever were to encounter such a situation, I think I'd look for two alternatives. One would be how to reduce that boulder to powder, in the hope that whatever was empowering the boulder would not empower the powder that resulted. However, even that wouldn't necessarily stop it.

The second option is what I'd prefer to do, and that is to determine what force enables the boulder to attack me. Logic tells me that boulders don't just attack on their own. For the most part they just lie there stationary and don't do much other than erode slowly. If a boulder is moving, some kind of force is likely empowering it. The key to defeating it is therefore in breaking that power. As Grufti described, in many mythologies the power is stored in a stone, a rune, or other weak point. The destruction of this point is usually enough to end the mobility of the golem. In other cases, it can be as simple as a maximum amount of damage absorbed, a time limit, or killing the caster.

That said, I don't have a problem with the idea of "unkillable" creatures, so long as they can be rendered harmless. Hack the arms and legs off a golem, and who cares if it lies there twitching for decades? Making it possible for dwarves to recognize an immobile beast and treat it like a piece of furniture could definitely be fun.

[Neonivek]

Remember that the undead are not always magical, they have often been the natural result of improper burials or horrific deaths.

[Urist Imiknorris]

Departing the upper body from the lower body

I want my bifurcated skeletal tigermen to crawl along the ground trying to eat my dwarves' ankles off, thanks.

[Urist McOverlord]

I think we might be getting a bit too far into this. The root of the problem is a lack of cumulative damage; that is to say that once you are able to reduce boulders to powder through continued pummeling, this ought wwork itself out.

As for the zombies/shambling undead survival, I think the beheadding instadeath condition could be replaced with "it's magic foo is gone" supplying the instadeath.

Actually, how I'd do it would make it so that the head remains vital, but for zombies/skeletons you would need to either totally destroy it or generally render it inoperable (broken, at the very least) rather than just sever it. You could have Black Knight style skeletons literally biting Urist's legs off. Hell, you could have a zombified elephant head attacking dwarves. Of course, you would need to just flat-out kill anything that was severed, but this system would still work pretty well.

[Urist Imiknorris]

You could have Black Knight style skeletons literally biting Urist's legs off. Hell, you could have a zombified elephant head attacking dwarves.

I want my bifurcated skeletal tigermen to crawl along the ground trying to eat my dwarves' ankles off.

[Urist McOverlord]

You could have Black Knight style skeletons literally biting Urist's legs off. Hell, you could have a zombified elephant head attacking dwarves.

I want my bifurcated skeletal tigermen to crawl along the ground trying to eat my dwarves' ankles off.

I meant it as a good thing. That'd be awesome!

[grufti]

Departing the upper body from the lower body

I want my bifurcated skeletal tigermen to crawl along the ground trying to eat my dwarves' ankles off, thanks.

Haha great.

Toady can put it in the game just as he wants, as the you will find different explanations for undead creatures in different universes. But a skeleton should stay a skeleton (a typical enemy for lvl1 adventurers) and not get the uber nearly unkillable greater wolfwere kind of monster. same for goblins.

[SirHoneyBadger]

What we really need for dealing with skeletons is vinegar. Douse the biggest, toughest skeletal tyrannosaurus with enough high-potency vinegar, and you end up with a pile of goo.

Adds new meaning to the term "simple solution".

[Urist McOverlord]

What we really need for dealing with skeletons is vinegar. Douse the biggest, toughest skeletal tyrannosaurus with enough high-potency vinegar, and you end up with a pile of goo.

Adds new meaning to the term "simple solution".

I see what you did there.

[MercDraco]

Everything is killable and the only thing needed is in the signature block of McOverlord.

" Magma: The cause of, and solution to, all life's problems "

3 easy steps to killling ANYthing and EVERYthing.
1 Find Magma
2 Pump Magma to where it's needed (The Surface, magma spewing towers, Nobles Quarters, etc, etc.)
3 !Profit!

[Urist McOverlord]

That... just... I... but...

+1 Internets to you, good sir.

Although the sentient magma globs would still live. Water+magma+SCIENCE!!, perhaps?