Bow (skill)
The bow is a weapon skill that appears in NetHack.[1]
Available roles
The following roles can reach the listed skill levels in bows:
| Bow | |
|---|---|
| Max | Role |
| Basic | |
| Skilled | |
| Expert | |
List of weapons
The following weapons use the bow skill, with corresponding arrows that they are 'best' designed to use:
Rangers will always start with knowledge of all bow and arrow weapons.[2] There is one artifact bow: The Longbow of Diana, a bow that acts as the Ranger quest artifact.
Description
A hero must use a bow weapon by wielding it and then using t or f to shoot arrows, which is the only way to train the skill: attempting to use the bow in melee will simply deal a minimal 1d2 damage. The enchantment of a bow weapon contributes to the to-hit value that determines the accuracy of arrows fired from that bow, but does not impact the damage they inflict, while the arrows' own enchantments contributes to both their accuracy and damage.
When using the firing or quiver command while wielding a bow weapon, the game will prioritize a stack of matching arrow weapons if the autoquiver option is enabled[3]—similarly, if the hero attempts to shoot arrows of a given type with no bow wielded, the game will similarly attempt to find a bow that matches those arrows and is not identified as cursed for the hero to automatically wield.[4]
Worn gauntlets of power apply a -2 to-hit penalty for a hero firing from a bow weapon, while worn gauntlets of fumbling apply a -3 to-hit penalty.[5] Elven heroes and Samurai that are not polymorphed gain a +1 to-hit bonus when firing arrows of any type from bow weapons.[6] Elven monsters gain +1 to-hit when firing any type of arrows from a bow weapon.[7] Heroes using racial bows that match their starting race to fire the arrows designed for use with them (i.e., any bow and arrow pairing other than the normal bow and normal/silver arrows) will also gain multishot bonuses.
History
The bow skill is introduced with many other weapon skills in NetHack 3.2.0.
Variants
SLASH'EM
SLASH'EM adds the dark elven bow and dark elven arrows as weapons that uses the bow skill. Plague is an artifact dark elven bow.
The missile flurry technique only works with bow weapons, and grants a bonus shot with them for several turns depending on the technique's level.
dNetHack
dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack add the golden arrow, ancient arrow and bladed bow as items that use the bow skill.
The Fire Crystal increases a hero's skill cap for bows by 1 while carried.
Eve is a spirit that grants skill in bows while bound.
There are several artifacts that use the bow skill:
- The Black Arrow (unaligned ancient arrow)
- Yoichi no Yumi (lawful yumi)
- Plague (chaotic bone bow)
- Epoch's Curve (unaligned wooden bow)
- The Bow of Skadi (lawful bow)
- Sunbeam (lawful golden arrows)
- Moonbeam (chaotic silver arrows)
- The Moonbow of Sehanine (chaotic silver elven bow)
- Belthronding (chaotic elven bow)
- Arrow of Slaying (lawful silver arrow)
EvilHack
In EvilHack, bow weapons are two-handed similar to SLASH'EM.
Centaur heroes start with knowledge of all bow-related weaponry, and gain a multishot bonus when firing with any type of bow.
SlashTHEM
In addition to SLASH'EM changes, SlashTHEM adds another artifact that uses the bow skill in Straightshot, a bow that is the first sacrifice gift for Rangers.
Hack'EM
In Hack'EM, bows are two-handed as they are in SLASH'EM and EvilHack.
References
- ↑ include/skills.h in NetHack 5.0.0, line 43
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 616-L620
- ↑ src/dothrow.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 409-L411
- ↑ src/dothrow.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 454-L464: game avoids "handing" the hero a known-cursed item to shoot with
- ↑ src/dothrow.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 2059-L2064
- ↑ src/dothrow.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 2167-L2175
- ↑ src/mthrowu.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 727-L729
