Hand to Hand

Hand to Hand is a creature spell and the standard mêlée attack in Dungeon Keeper.

General Information[]

The simplest attack, Hand-to-Hand allows the creature to whack the enemy with whatever claws, sword or other means it has available. All creatures can use hand-to-hand (apart from the Dragon, who uses Flame Breath instead).

Melee strength varies greatly between creatures. Some creatures, such as Bile Demons, have strong hand-to-hand skill and use it as their primary form of attack. Other creatures, such as Warlocks, are hopelessly weak and rely on their spell-casting abilities to hurt the enemy instead. Hand to Hand is also faster on some creatures than others.

Hand-to-Hand is not 100% accurate. Each creature has a chance to hit the enemy, and a chance to dodge incoming hits. Hand-to-hand strength, accuracy and dodge ability increase with experience.

In Dungeon Keeper, while there are multiple types of hand to hand attack, they are grouped into two sections: fist and sword. The main difference is the sound made on contact with things like doors and Dungeon Hearts. In general, weaker or less physically skilled creatures, or those without actual weapons have the fist type, while more able creatures, or those with a sharp weapon or a beetle, have the sword type. There are exceptions and inconsistencies, however: the Troll (who's weak) has the sword type and the Giant (who has the second strongest mêlée attack) has the fist type, despite both wielding clubs; the Mountain Dwarf has the sword type whereas the Tunneller has the fist type, even though both creatures wield axes (this is made consistent in KeeperFX: the latter was changed to the sword type); the Imp, despite having the weakest mêlée attack, has the sword type.

Fist	Sword
Archer Beetle Demon Spawn Fairy Fly Ghost Giant Hound Monk Warlock Spider Tentacle Tunneller Vampire Priestess Wizard Druid^FX Time Mage^FX	Avatar Barbarian Bile Demon Dark Mistress Mountain Dwarf Horned Reaper Imp Knight Orc Samurai Skeleton Thief Troll Tunneller^FX

Trivia[]

It is possible to edit the cfg data of the Dragon to give him this ability. He would then have the 3rd highest attack rate and would use the fist symbol and sound.
The "swipe" graphics will be different for different creatures, for example claws, a sword slash, fists etc. for creatures who use those methods of attack.
There exists a fist-only icon in the game's assets (see above), but all creatures who have this attack use the fist-with-sword icon, regardless of whether they have the fist or the sword variant. This was fixed in KeeperFX 0.4.9.

Dungeon Keeper 2[]

In Dungeon Keeper 2, all creatures have Hand to Hand by default, but the icon is not present as a usable spell, and works differently. The icon for Hand to Hand is unique for nearly every creature and represents their means of attacking, for example, a Warlock's image is of his staff. Like the first game, the "swipe" graphic is different for each creature. Each creature's Hand to Hand icon is as follows:

Icon	Creature
	Imp
	Dwarf
	Goblin
	Black Knight
	Bile Demon
	Dark Angel
	Skeleton
	Dark Elf
	Salamander Maiden
	Mistress
	Firefly
	Rogue
	Troll
	Vampire
	Warlock
	Wizard
	Knight Stone Knight Lord of the Land Prince
	King Reginald
	Guard Royal Guard
	Giant
	Monk
	Fairy
	Thief
	Elven Archer

Dungeon Keeper Online[]

Hand-to-Hand is not a specific spell as such, but rather a range of mêlée attacks whose icon depends on the creature:

Icon	Creature
Bite	Magic Eye,^[1] Hound,^[2]
Bite	Salamander^[3]
Spike	Spearman^[4]
Tap	Craftsman,^[5] Engineer^[6]
Slap	Giant,^[7] Bile Demon^[8]
Fencing	Ninja,^[9] Rogue^[10]
Fencing	Skeleton^[11]^[12]
Sprinkle	Fairy^[13]
Vertex	Unicorn^[14]
Swing	Goblin^[15]
Tekken	Magic Colossus^[16]
Light Sword	Holy Angel^[17]
Chop	Paladin,^[18] Black Knight^[19]
Dark Sword	Dark Angel^[20]
Whip	Mistress^[21]
Fire Scythe	Horned Reaper^[22]
Ghost Claw	Vampire^[23]