Elven arrow

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) Elven arrow.png
Name elven arrow
Appearance runed arrow
Damage vs. small 1d7
Damage vs. large 1d6
To-hit bonus +0
Weapon skill bow
Size one-handed
Base price 2 zm
(+10/positive
enchant)
Weight 1
Material wood

An elven arrow is a type of projectile that appears in NetHack. It is made of wood, and appears as a runed arrow when unidentified.

Generation

Elven heroes, Barbarians, Knights, Monks, Samurai, and Valkyries start the game with knowledge of the elven arrow. Elven Rangers start each game with +0 and +2 stacks of elven arrows in place of the role's standard arrows.[1][2]

Elven arrows make up 150 (2%) of all randomly-generated weapons. General stores, used armor dealerships and antique weapon outlets can sell elven arrows.

13 of live elven monsters are generated with an elven bow and 3–14 elven arrows.[3]

Description

Elven arrows are made for use with a bow, and gain +1 multishot, +1 to-hit and +1 damage bonuses when fired by an elven hero (but not a hero polymorphed into an elf) from an elven bow.[4][5] Monsters gain a +1 multishot bonus each for shooting non-cursed elven arrows and for shooting them from a non-cursed elven bow[6][7]—non-player elves gain +1 multishot, +1 to-hit and +1 damage when firing elven arrows from elven bows.[8][9]

Strategy

Elven arrows are marginally stronger than standard arrows, and are generally the most preferable type to use with a bow for heroes not aiming to maximize multishot bonuses. One of their primary advantages is immunity to erosion from rusting effects, which are generally more common than burning and rotting - in return, a character should switch to another set of projectiles when dealing with monsters with fiery passive attacks such as fire elementals, as well as monsters like gelatinous cubes that can engulf and eat them.

History

The elven arrow is introduced in NetHack 3.0.0. From this version to NetHack 3.0.10, the defunct Elf role starts with a +0 elven bow and a stack of +0 elven arrows as their secondary weapon if the TOLKIEN option is defined at compile-time[10][11]—otherwise, they start with a +0 bow and a stack of +0 arrows as they do in previous versions.[12][13][14]

The multishot bonuses for monsters shooting elven arrows and shooting them from elven bows is added in NetHack 3.6.1 via commit 8c0810f6, and is attributed to SLASH'EM.

Variants

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, upgrading elven arrows will produce standard arrows, and upgrading standard arrows has a 13 chance of producing elven arrows.

Shooting non-cursed elven arrows from any bow has a 13 chance of an additional +1 multishot bonus.[15]

UnNetHack

In UnNetHack, the second alternate layout of the Castle has a chance of generating blessed and enchanted elven arrows in the barracks overlooking the drawbridge.

UnNetHack

In UnNetHack, two stacks of elven arrows each have a 15 chance of being generated in the second alternate layout for the Castle in the narrower wing at level creation: both stacks are blessed, with one having an enchantment of +2 and the other having an enchantment of +3, and they are placed along with an elven bow on each of the center squares in the barracks overlooking the drawbridge.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, elven arrows deal 1d7 damage to small monsters and 1d5 damage to large monsters, with a +2 to-hit bonus.

Belthronding is an artifact elven bow that creates elven arrows when invoked.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, elven Rangers that invoke The Longbow of Diana will generate elven arrows instead of standard ones.

Elven arrows can be used at a forge to create a couple of items:

  • 2 elven arrows can be combined with a knife to create an elven dagger.
  • 2 elven arrows can be combined with an elven dagger to create an elven spear.

Hack'EM

In Hack'EM, upgrading standard arrows will produce elven arrows, and upgrading elven arrows will produce orcish arrows.

In addition to EvilHack forge recipes, 2 darts can be combined with 2 elven arrows to create a knife.

References