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Skilled Animals & Megabeasts

Wildlife was one of my biggest “expectation vs reality” moments in Dwarf Fortress. All these giant predators sound scary, the wiki even builds them up as being scary, yet whenever you send your militia after them you’ll find that they have a major skill issue when it comes to combat against civilized beings. When I started testing creature vs Dwarf combat, I found that a naked Dwarf with an iron battle axe (no quality) and proficient skills wins the 1v1 against a grizzly bear 40 out of 40 times. They don’t even need armor or a shield: with the power of proficient dodger, the bear’s 0 skill attacks already have an abysmal chance to hit them, let alone deal enough damage. Not even 40,000,000 size giant elephants have a favorable matchup against this scenario, as the same Dwarf opposition won 27 out of 40 1v1s against them too (often without taking any injury). They’re so hamstrung from missing a core component of the combat system that they are losing to something 0.15% of their size more often than not.

This mod corrects this heinous lack of Dwarf suffering by giving animals natural combat skills, making dangerous animals truly dangerous and giant dangerous animals appropriately terrifying. These skill levels will range from 1-10 depending on the type of creature, with some creatures relying on powerful attacks and others focusing on evasion. With the current balance of the mod, the aforementioned Dwarf vs grizzly bear scenario is an even fight rather than a sweep. Semi-megabeasts have also gained natural skills and megabeasts have had their existing natural skills buffed so as to make them more legendary encounters.

Can be loaded after other mods affecting creatures without overwriting their changes. Even if the other mod also adds natural skills, the skill bonuses will just stack with each other.

Relevant Skills:
Biting - biting and attacks with horns and tusks
Kicker - kicking, tail, and talon attacks
Striker - punches, scratches, pincers
Wrestler - wrestling, shaking around after biting, defense against wrestling
Fighter - improves all attacks
Observer - detection range, less likely to be surprised by charges, less disadvantaged by attacks from the side
Dodger - dodging

Skill Groups:
- Skill groups have Fighter & Wrestler equal to their highest attack skill
- All skill groups have 2 dodger and 2 observer unless otherwise indicated

Benign Birds & Flying Insects:
5 dodger, 10 observer

Parasite/Pest:
2 biter

Birds of Prey, Ostriches, Emus, Dragonflies:
5 dodger, 10 observer, 5 biter, 5 kicker

Scorpions:
8 striker, 8 kicker, 1 dodger

Crabs:
10 striker, 1 dodger

Big Cats, Mantises, & Octopi:
7 biter, 7 striker, 7 kicker, 4 dodger, 6 observer

Small Cats, Squids, Cuttlefish:
4 biter, 5 striker, 5 kicker, 5 dodger, 6 observer

Rabbits, Squirrels, Frogs:
2 biter, 2 striker, 2 kicker, 5 dodger, 6 observer

Spiders, Venomous Snakes:
7 biter, 3 dodger

Constrictor Snakes:
8 biter, 3 dodger

Lizards, Salamanders:
6 biter, 4 dodger, 6 observer

Turtles, Tortoises, Beetles:
8 biter, 8 striker, 1 dodger

Bears:
10 biter, 10 striker, 10 kicker

Deer, Horses:
5 biter, 5 kicker, 4 dodger, 4 observer

Mooses, Oxen, & similar:
7 biter, 7 kicker, 4 observer

Pigs, Sheep, & Goats:
2 biter, 2 kicker

Canines, Hyenas:
6 biter, 3 kicker, 4 dodger, 8 observer

Standard Mammal:
5 biter, 5 striker, 5 kicker, 4 observer, 3 dodger

Fish, Small Seals, Penguins:
5 biter, 5 kicker, 4 dodger

Big Fish, Boars:
7 biter, 7 kicker, 3 dodger, 4 observer

Crocodilians:
10 biter, 6 observer

No-Grasp Megafauna:
10 biter, 10 kicker, 4 observer, 1 dodger

Grasp Megafauna:
10 biter, 10 striker, 10 kicker, 4 observer, 1 dodger

If you’re looking to provide balance feedback, be sure to provide specific examples with specific details. Just telling me “a group of something killed a group of something else” won’t be useful because there are too many unaccounted-for variables. Ideally there should be enough information to replicate the combat in arena mode, since there’s a lot of RNG involved in DF combat and the result of a single combat may not reflect what is most likely to happen in the given scenario.