Dwarves automatically attempt to resist all spells whether they are beneficial or harmful. Dwarven mages who attempt to cast spells against opponents will find that difficult. Opponents of dwarven mages always resist magic as if their characteristic were the Active One on the resistance table. Even the study of magic is hard for dwarves. The spell multiplier given in magical tomes' statistics will not help them, for dwarven students of sorcery may only use their own INT score unmodified when attempting to learn a spell, meaning they must roll INT x1 to do so.
Dwarves make better fighters than mages, and have a long history of fighting.
There are a number of races that they hate the way that dogs hate cats. Dwarves hate orcs, goblins, half-orcs, and hobgoblins. Dwarves may subtract 5 from the result of any attack directed at one of these races. His player rolls 75, a miss. But his player deducts 5 from the result of that roll, for his dwarf character is battling one of the dwarven race s traditional foes.