Bow

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Name bow
Appearance 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

A bow is a type of weapon that appears in NetHack. It is a one-handed launcher that is designed for arrows, and is made of wood. There are also elven bows, orcish bows and Japanese-style bows known as yumi, and each have their own arrow projectiles that they are designed to use.

Generation

Human Rangers start the game with a +1 bow and two separate stacks of +0 and +2 arrows as ammunition:[1] other races of ranger will have the bow and arrows replaced with their own racial bow (or crossbow for gnomish Rangers) and accompanying ammo.[2][3][4]

Bows make up 3⁄125 (2.4%) 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.

The themed room containing the ghost of an adventurer and their "bones" pile has an independent 9⁄20 chance of including a bow and arrows in the pile, which may each be cursed or uncursed.[5]

One of the weapons in the item pile guarded by the ghost on the Rogue level is a +1 bow with an accompanying set of +0 arrows that each have a 3⁄4 chance of being cursed.[6]

Several monsters can be generated with bows accompanied by arrows as ammunition:

  • Chieftains, pages, roshi, and warriors each have a 1⁄3 chance of generating with a set of bow and arrows.[7]
  • Hunters are always generated with a set of bow and arrows.[8]
  • Forest centaurs have a roughly 1⁄2 chance of being generated with a bow and a stack of arrows.[9]
  • A humanoid monster with a weapon attack, the ability to wield weapons and no other ruleset governing its monster starting inventory has a chance of generating with a bow and a stack of arrows, unless they are created on the Rogue level:[10] the base odds are 1⁄14 for normal monsters, 1⁄12 for a monster that is a lord or nasty, 1⁄10 for a monster that is either an overlord or else is both a lord and nasty, and 1⁄8 for a monster that is both nasty and an overlord.

Bow skill

Bow
Max Role
Basic
Skilled
Expert

The bow skill is only exercised when firing arrows from a wielded bow.

The following launchers use the bow skill:

The following types of ammo use the bow skill:

Rangers will always start with knowledge of all bow and arrow weapons.[11] There is one artifact bow: The Longbow of Diana, the Ranger quest artifact.

Bow traits

A hero must use a bow 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.

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.[12] Elven heroes and Samurai that are not polymorphed gain a +1 to-hit bonus when firing arrows of any type from bow weapons.[13] Elven monsters gain +1 to-hit when firing any type of arrows from a bow weapon.[14]

Description

Main article: Arrow

Normal bows are designed to be used with standard arrows. When using the firing or quiver command while wielding a bow, the game will prioritize stacks of normal arrows if the autoquiver option is enabled[15]—similarly, if the hero attempts to shoot arrows with no bow wielded, the game will similarly attempt to find a bow that is not known to be cursed for the hero to automatically wield.[16]

Strategy

As bows are one-handed, a hero can switch to one without removing their shield, and wielding a cursed bow will still leave one hand free.

A bow's enchantment is generally not important compared to that of the arrows fired from it.

History

The bow first appears in Hack 1.21 and Hack for PDP-11, which are based on Jay Fenlason's Hack, and is included in the initial item list for Hack 1.0. From Hack 1.0 to NetHack 3.2.3, Cavemen start with a +1 bow and a stack of +0 arrows as their secondary weapon[17]—NetHack 3.3.0 replaces this with the modern sling and a stack each of flint stones and rocks.[18]

The defunct Elf role starts with a +1 bow and a stack of +0 arrows as their secondary weapon from NetHack 1.3d to NetHack 2.3e[19][20]—from NetHack 3.0.0 to NetHack 3.0.10, these are replaced with a +0 elven bow and +0 elven arrows if the TOLKIEN compile-time option is defined.[21]

The bow is also the subject of the following bugfixes and code adjustments:

  • In versions up to NetHack 3.6.7:
    • The intended +1 to-hit 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.
  • NetHack 5.0.0 adds the "adventurer's ghost" themed room and its items via commit 76381815.

Variants

SLASH'EM

SLASH'EM makes bows two-handed weapons and adds a new bow type in the 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.

Upgrading a bow successfully can produce an elven bow, a dark elven bow or a yumi with equal probability, and upgrading an orcish bow, elven bow, dark elven bow, or yumi successfully can produce a bow.

Several bows can be found in a 2x2 room at the north of the Yeoman quest locate level, each with one silver arrow on their square.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, 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.

dNetHack adds three artifact bows:

  • Plague is a chaotic-aligned bone bow that confers poison resistance and sickness resistance while wielded; it grants +1d5 to-hit and +1d7 poison damage to arrows fired from it, and those arrows are treated as poisoned (similar to dipping in a potion of sickness). When invoked, arrows fired from Plague are treated as filth-crusted instead for the next 13 turns, with the filth having a 1⁄5 chance of instantly killing non-resistant monsters: the instakill causes a virulent explosion that deals 6d6 damage to surrounding monsters, with its size loosely dependent on the killed monster's size.
  • Epoch's Curve is an unaligned wooden bow that appears as a "white ash longbow" when unidentified; it grants +5 to-hit and +1d6 to damage, and conveys teleport control while wielded. Invoking Epoch's Curve causes it to teleport: if not wielded, it teleports away on its own; if on a no-teleport level, it first tries to warp the character one level above, and warps them to the level below if that fails. Arrows fired from it that do not break return to the character after five turns.
  • The Bow of Skadi is a lawful bow that Valkyries receive as their crowning gift; it grants +1 to-hit and +1d24 cold damage to arrows fired from it, and the arrows cause a 6d6 freezing explosion centered on any target they hit, using up the arrow. The bow can also be read to learn the cone of cold spell.

notdNetHack

In notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, in addition to dNetHack details, Eve is generated with a bow and arrows when summoned by an Illithanachronounbinder.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, bows are two-handed similar to SLASH'EM.

Centaur Rangers start with the same bow and arrows as human Rangers. All centaur heroes start with knowledge of all bow-related weaponry, and gain a multishot bonus when firing with any type of bow.

Some monsters can generate with bows and arrows:

SlashTHEM

In addition to SLASH'EM changes, SlashTHEM adds Straightshot, an artifact bow with +10 to-hit and +3 damage bonuses that serves as the first sacrifice gift for Rangers.

Hack'EM

In Hack'EM, bows are two-handed as they are in SLASH'EM and EvilHack.

Upgrading a regular bow successfully will produce an elven bow, and upgrading an orcish bow successfully will produce a regular bow.

Encyclopaedia entry

"Stand to it, my hearts of gold," said the old bowman as he passed from knot to knot. "By my hilt! we are in luck this journey. Bear in mind the old saying of the Company."
"What is that, Aylward?" cried several, leaning on their bows and laughing at him.
"'Tis the master-bowyer's rede: 'Every bow well bent. Every shaft well sent. Every stave well nocked. Every string well locked.' There, with that jingle in his head, a bracer on his left hand, a shooting glove on his right, and a farthing's-worth of wax in his girdle, what more doth a bowman need?"
"It would not be amiss," said Hordle John, "if under his girdle he had four farthings'-worth of wine."

[ The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ]

References

  1. ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 123-L128
  2. ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 229-L230: racial replacements for elves
  3. ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 238-L239: racial replacements for orcs
  4. ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 252-L253: racial replacements for gnomes
  5. ↑ dat/themerms.lua in NetHack 5.0.0, line 233-L236
  6. ↑ src/extralev.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 322-L325
  7. ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 302-L305
  8. ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 312-L313
  9. ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 475-L478
  10. ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 548-L551: Case for bow and arrows in "default" monster weapon generation
  11. ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 616-L620
  12. ↑ src/dothrow.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 2059-L2064
  13. ↑ src/dothrow.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 2167-L2175
  14. ↑ src/mthrowu.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 727-L729
  15. ↑ src/dothrow.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 409-L411
  16. ↑ src/dothrow.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 454-L464
  17. ↑ u_init.c in NetHack 1.3d, line 53
  18. ↑ u_init.c in NetHack 3.3.0, line 50
  19. ↑ u_init.c in NetHack 1.3d, line 78
  20. ↑ u_init.c in NetHack 2.3e, line 83
  21. ↑ u_init.c in NetHack 3.0.0, line 65
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