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[sinister agent]

Almost by accident, I've found a very effective trap set up inside the secondary entrance to my current fortress.  A tunnel connects the farm to the heart of the fortress. This tunnel's floor is a retracting bridge over a deep shaft lined with spike traps (mostly wood, a couple of silver, but I've yet to have anything survive it without being horrendously maimed and unconscious).  There's a hatch from the farm leading one floor down, to a level under the bridge.  On this level, a narrow path runs parallel to the spike shaft (there's also a hatch down to my mining operation halfway across, so underground nasties who get that far have to come this way, too).  This path is lined with weapon traps.

It is pretty brutal.  Either the weapon traps take them out of the running, or they get a 'lucky' dodge in, and then plummet a dozen floors onto spikes. One troglodyte got hit by every weapon in one trap and would have just about survived, but he dodged out of the way of a wooden axe.  Next thing he knows, he's waking up just to yak up about nine times, and then quietly die in a corner.

The next upgrade will be to add a way for my marksdwarves to fire on them the whole time.

[Lord Darkstar]

But falling creatures aren't hurt by upright spikes. Or has that changed in 0.31.12?

[Mini]

Spike traps only do damage to creatures when they go from being lowered to being raised. So no extra damage from falling onto them.

[sinister agent]

This definitely isn't true.  The ones I'm using aren't even connected to a lever, and they've been puncturing everything that fell on the shaft.

[Mini]

Looks like I'm still living in the past.

In any case, the dozen levels would probably kill anything that fell down it anyway.

[sinister agent]

Looks like I'm still living in the past.

In any case, the dozen levels would probably kill anything that fell down it anyway.

I suspected as much, but it was the first such trap I'd tried, so thought it best to be sure.

Plus, spikes are more funny.

[That guy]

If you hit "r" for a report it will tell you exactly how a creature was killed by a trap ("the spinning *large serrated steel disc* hits the creature..."). If you see reports about creatures getting killed by spikes after a fall you'd definitely know that falling onto spikes causes damage.