The Longbow of Diana

)   The Longbow of Diana
Base item	bow
Damage vs. small	1d2
Damage vs. large	1d2
To-hit bonus	+1d5
Bonus versus	(any)
Weapon skill	bow
Size	one-handed
Affiliation	chaotic Ranger intelligent
When carried	telepathy
When wielded	reflection
When invoked	creates arrows
Base price	4000 zm
Weight	30
Material	wood

The Longbow of Diana is the Ranger quest artifact. It is the prize for completing the Ranger quest, and is chaotic for wishing purposes. Its base item type is a bow.

Description

When carried, the Longbow of Diana confers telepathy; when wielded, it confers reflection and grants a +d5 to-hit bonus when firing arrows. Invoking the Bow creates arrows with the same beatitude as the bow and places them in your inventory, with a small chance of producing poisoned arrows; if you are fumbling or there is no open space, the arrows will drop to the floor on your square. Beatitude also influences the amount of arrows created each time: a blessed Bow creates more arrows, up to 21 per invoke, while a cursed Bow will create fewer, at most 11 per invoke.

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that it is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate this information.

Rangers get a multishot bonus when wielding the Longbow of Diana.

Arrow creation details

The enchantment range of the arrows is inclusive and depends on rne(3) and the current beatitude of the Longbow. A blessed Longbow will only produce arrows with enchantment from 0 to 10; a cursed Longbow will only produce arrows with enchantment from -10 to 0; and an uncursed Longbow will produce arrows in the range of -10 to 10. The probability distribution of the enchantments is not uniform.

Arrows generated from the blessed or cursed Longbow of Diana are more likely to be +0 than randomly generated blessed or cursed arrows. This is because mksobj, which arti_invoke calls to generate the arrows, can produce arrows of any BUC, regardless of the BUC of the longbow; arti_invoke changes the BUC status of the arrows after mksobj returns, bringing negative enchantments on blessed arrows and positive enchantments on cursed arrows to 0.

Strategy

See also: Invoke § Optimum invocation schedule

The Longbow of Diana is generally regarded as one of the more unimpressive chaotic artifacts, and one of the weakest in the game overall. Since the base type of the Longbow is an ordinary bow, it will not provide racial multishot bonuses like the starting bows of non-human Rangers; gnomish Rangers in particular use crossbows, an entirely different launcher with its own skill.

Furthermore, arrows are often plentiful in the dungeon, either from arrow traps or enemy archers, and blessed arrows are very unlikely to break with high Luck; this makes it unlikely that you will be invoking the artifact often, if at all. Finally, the Longbow must be wielded to convey reflection, and the presence of centaurs throughout the Ranger quest is likely to warrant having a source of reflection prior to entering.

With all the above said, the Longbow's reflection does allow the amulet and shield slots to be used for non-reflection purposes, although you will have to sacrifice either reflection or one of the slots if you want to switch to a melee weapon. The Longbow also provides telepathy while carried, allowing you to more reliably take out non-mindless targets.

History

The Longbow of Diana first appears in NetHack 3.3.0 alongside the Ranger role, under the name of The Longbow of Artemis. It was renamed in NetHack 3.3.1.

Variants

Many variants attempt to improve on the Longbow in some manner.

UnNetHack

In UnNetHack, as of version 5.1.0 the Longbow of Diana gives +1 to multishot and a +1 damage bonus when firing any type of arrow.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, the Longbow of Diana is a silvered bow that grants +1d5 to-hit and +1d6 damage bonuses, with +8 damage per fired arrow; it additionally grants an inherent +1 multishot bonus (+2 for Rangers), and arrows fired from it have no maximum range - this means they will continue flying until they hit a wall or another monster. The invoke effect remains unchanged.

Gnomish Rangers are instead given their own quest and artifact: they fight the Great High Shaman of Kurtulmak for The Rogue Gear-spirits, an artifact crossbow.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, The Longbow of Diana also adds a +d6 damage bonus to arrows fired with it. Bows are also two-handed weapons in EvilHack, meaning that it cannot be wielded while wearing a shield.

Gnomish Rangers share the same quest, but will instead receive The Crossbow of Carl as an 'alternate' quest artifact: its base item is a crossbow, ensuring that they retain their racial multishot bonus, and it otherwise possesses all the same properties as the Longbow of Diana in that game.

Encyclopedia entry

This legendary bow grants ESP when carried and can reflect magical attacks when wielded. When invoked it provides a supply of arrows.