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[Gergination]

I really want to make a danger room for my military in order to get them to some degree of competency in less than 20 years.  Problem is, I've tried it, and it didn't end well.

Using no quality training spears, 1 per spike, against full steel plated dwarves resulted in dwarves getting skewered the first pull.  They passed out from the pain and immediately got a bunch of holes poked in them.

So I ask you, oh wise Dwarf Fortress community, what in Armok's Beard am I doing wrong?

[Urist McTaverish]

Thinking that anything suggested by the community will work like they say it should in YOUR particular copy of the game, in THAT particular world, and in THAT particular fortress.

You may have angered the random number god somehow.

[Maulrus]

So I ask you, oh wise Dwarf Fortress community, what in Armok's Beard am I doing wrong?

I really want to make a danger room for my military in order to get them to some degree of competency in less than 20 years.  Problem is, I've tried it, and it didn't end well. Using no quality training spears, 1 per spike, against full steel plated dwarves resulted in dwarves getting skewered the first pull.  They passed out from the pain and immediately got a bunch of holes poked in them.

Using no quality training spears, 1 per spike, against full steel plated dwarves resulted in dwarves getting skewered the first pull.  They passed out from the pain and immediately got a bunch of holes poked in them.

passed out from the pain and immediately got a bunch of holes poked in them

From the looks of that I'd say you're doing nothing wrong.

[BackgroundGuy]

I think I know what's wrong.  Were the skewered dwarves active in the military at the time of death?  I've noticed that if I lock a dwarf in a danger room while they're on civvie mode, they'll sit there and eat spears until they take damage and die, but if they're in militia mode they'll block and parry and stuff.  Second question: Did they have shields?  Third question: did they have cloaks and other secondary coverings?  If you did all those right, then I have no idea what went wrong.

[Comrade]

Are they wooden spears?

[Urist Imiknorris]

Are they menacing wooden spikes?

[Marthnn]

Did they have time to equip ALL their armor parts?

In the battle reports, was it written, say, "spinning wooden training spear bruises left hand muscle through steel gauntlet" ? Any evidence of the presence of armor and clothes?

Try adding clothes to their equipment list (a cloak, a dress/robe...) and changing "Partial match" to "Exact match".

I never activate a danger room without monitoring it. I check soldier inventories, wounds, and stand ready to cancel the lever pulling.

[Gergination]

Wooden spears, training ones no less.

It might have been an issue of not being active.  To do this I simply select the squad through the Squads menu and make sure it is set to Active/Training, right?

I'll have to try the clothing idea, though I dislike clothes because they cause clutter that is quite difficult to get rid of.

[Sutremaine]

I've noticed that if I lock a dwarf in a danger room while they're on civvie mode, they'll sit there and eat spears until they take damage and die

Weird. I set up a danger area to push deactivated militia into water, and they'd spend a lot of time blocking spears before dodging into the water. They were pretty high-levelled at that point though.

OP, do you have an earlier save you can use to try and replicate the problem? What do you consider to be full steel plate?

[Gergination]

Full steel plate is full steel plate, they were high quality too.

Greaves
High Boots
Gauntlets
Shield
Breastplate
Helm

I'm going to try again making sure they have cloak/robes equipped and see if they don't get perforated by wood this time.

[Hans Lemurson]

You could probably throw in a mail shirt while you're at it.

Danger rooms aren't truly dangerous until you get stunned and stop blocking/dodging.

[DaneAxe]

Are they menacing wooden spikes?

This I suspect. I did this first time I built a danger room and annhilated my population. First the army, then everyone else comming to claim their bodies socks. Greedy buggers.

Are they recieving a specific trend of injuries? E.g: to neck etc... If so it may be because you're lacking some kit such as cloaks.

[Ieb]

Are you sure you haven't had some metal-weapon sneak in there by accident?

Active/Inactive doesn't seem to matter, all that they need is to wear armor when they enter the room and it does all the work(assuming the dwarf doesn't dodge). Even civilians who go there have had the training spears bounce off from their xsilk clothingx. Then there's that guy who decided to take a nap there. Didn't take any damage during his sleep, spears kept bouncing off.

[Buttery_Mess]

You want to set the spears as a burrow and set the military to defend burrows. This puts them in angry mode, ready for anything. If they're set to train, they'll stand around and listen to their squad leader blather on about something he knows nothing about.

[katana]

You're missing a cloak.