Can Forgotten Beasts be killed by Waves of Reclaiming Dwarves

dwarf-fortress

I had a nice fortress going,
when a forgotten beast turned up.
I ignored it, safely walled up out of the caverns.
Then I decided I wanted to go into the cavern.

So I prepped my fledgeling military, and opened the drawbridge.
Unfortunately they were not up to the task.
It slaughtered them, and in a 30 more seconds, the rest of the fortress.

So I thought, "No worries, I'll reclaim with some guys with actual military skill."
They did not go so well,
nor did the next lot.
nor did the 60 war dogs after them.
Rinse and repeat that several more times.

I notice it is showing dents and scars being preserved between "Reclaiming Waves".

  • Does this mean I am slowly wearing down its health?
  • Or is it in fact
    getting tougher and "levelling up", as it kills all the dwarves.
  • Is
    scar tissue tougher than normal body parts?

Best Answer

Forgotten Beasts are quite a varied bunch, there are some that take a single hit and immediately shatter into tiny bits (think steam beasts) there are also some that are very hard to kill (beasts made of stone or other hard materials).

If it's one of those the best thing to do might be to "simply" trap it somewhere, if it's a fleshy beast it can usually be worn down, the fact that it is scarring sounds to me like you are wounding it.

So the good news is that in between waves the beast shouldn't be healed, so you could eventually whittle it down to size. The bad news is that it can take a very long time.

I can't find any reference to forgotten beasts having skills they could improve during battle so that sounds like it should be okay.

Scar tissue isn't any tougher than normal body parts, and can in fact impair use of that body part (Forgotten Beasts should work the same as dwarves in that aspect).