Elven bow
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| |
|---|---|
| Name | elven bow |
| Appearance | runed bow |
| Damage vs. small | 1d2 |
| Damage vs. large | 1d2 |
| To-hit bonus | +0 |
| Weapon skill | bow |
| Size | one-handed |
| Base price | 60 zm (+10/positive enchant) |
| Weight | 30 |
| Material | wood |
An elven bow is a type of weapon that appears in NetHack. The elven bow is a one-handed launcher designed for elven arrows that is made of wood, and uses the bow skill. It appears as a runed bow when unidentified.
Generation
Elven Rangers that are not paupers start each game with a +1 elven bow.[1][2][3] Barbarians, Knights, Rangers, Samurai, Valkyries, and all elven heroes that are not paupers start the game with knowledge of the elven bow.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]
Elven bows make up 3⁄250 (1.2%) of all weapons that are randomly generated on the ground, in general shops or as death drops. Used armor dealerships and antique weapon outlets can also stock bows.
An elven monster that is not undead has a 1⁄3 chance of being generated with an elven bow accompanied by 3–14 elven arrows.[13]
Description
An elven hero that wields an elven bow, and neither has the role of a Cleric or Wizard nor a dexterity of 6 or less, gains a +1 multishot bonus when firing elven arrows from it.[14][15] Additionally, if they are not polymorphed, they also gain a +2 to-hit bonus when firing any type of arrows from an elven bow, with +1 for general bow usage and +1 for using their racial bow.[16] Furthermore, an elven hero shooting elven arrows from an elven bow gains a +1 damage bonus.[17]
A monster that wields a non-cursed elven bow gains a +1 multishot bonus for shooting arrows of any type from that bow.[18] Elven monsters also gain a +1 multishot bonus for shooting elven arrows from an elven bow[19]—they also gain two separate +1 to-hit bonuses for using any type of bow and for specifically using elven bows, as the hero does, and they gain an additional +1 damage bonus when shooting elven arrows from an elven bow.[20]
Strategy
Elven bows with the proper ammunition are especially deadly in the hands of a skilled elven Ranger hero, with the amount of projectiles fired allowing damage to rack up very quickly. Similarly, hostile elves with bows can be quite deadly to the hero, especially if they are elf-nobles or elven monarchs that are likely to have enchanted arrows and can gain further multishot bonuses from their lordly (or "overlord-ly") status.
History
The elven bow first appears 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[21][22]—otherwise, they start with a +0 bow and a stack of +0 arrows as they do in previous versions.[23][24][25]
The multishot bonuses for monsters shooting elven arrows from elven bows and elves shooting from elven bows (or bows in general) are added in NetHack 3.6.1 via commit 8c0810f6, and is attributed to SLASH'EM. One such bonus for elven monsters firing arrows from bows of any kind is not applied due to a typo in the check for the ammunition's skill type—this is resolved in NetHack 5.0.0 via commit aae7778d.
Variants
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, upgrading an elven bow will produce a standard bow, and upgrading a standard bow has a 1⁄3 chance of producing elven arrows.
A non-cursed elven bow has a 1⁄3 chance of adding an additional shot to the multishot roll: a hero shooting 1 arrow from an elven bow will shoot d2 arrows 1⁄3 of the time, a hero shooting d2 arrows will shoot d3 arrows 1⁄3 of the time, and so on.[26] This bonus does not apply to dark elven bows.
UnNetHack
In UnNetHack, two elven bows are generated in the second alternate layout for the Castle in the narrower wing at level creation, where they are placed on the center squares of the barracks overlooking the drawbridge—one of the bows is always blessed.
dNetHack
In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, a wielded elven bow gives projectiles fired from one +2 to-hit, and its weight is reduced to 20 aum.
Belthronding is an artifact elven bow that creates elven arrows when invoked.
Hack'EM
In Hack'EM, upgrading a standard bow will produce an elven bow, and upgrading an elven bow will produce an orcish bow.
References
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 126
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 229
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1308-L1309: pauper has no starting inventory
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 577-L578: pauper knowledge of items
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 591-L592: pauper knowledge of item classes
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 616-L620
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 673
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 688
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 726
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 742
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 771
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 818
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 242-L243
- ↑ src/dothrow.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 169-L174: cases for weak multishot
- ↑ src/dothrow.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 193-L199: multishot for elven heroes
- ↑ src/dothrow.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 2172-L2176: to-hit bonus for archery prowess
- ↑ src/uhitm.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1056-L1058: damage bonus for elven archery
- ↑ src/mthrowu.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 228-L233
- ↑ src/mthrowu.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 243-L250
- ↑ src/mthrowu.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 726-L733
- ↑ u_init.c in NetHack 3.0.0, line 65
- ↑ u_init.c in NetHack 3.0.0, line 67
- ↑ u_init.c in NetHack 1.3d, line 78
- ↑ u_init.c in NetHack 2.3e, line 83
- ↑ u_init.c in NetHack 3.0.0, line 73
- ↑ dothrow.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 174
