new weapon : Repetition crossbow

[Roderic]

I do not know if indeed there's an effect of shooting more than one projectile for a turn with conventional bows or crossbows (as it happens in Nethack ). If it is already implemented you probably want to skip the rest of the post.

The repetition xbow is also called chu ko nu in China were it was invented.

Basically is a crossbow that permits to fire a certain number of bolts on a single turn (probably depending on your skills, maybe deciding how many you want); that's it, you are faster shooting than any monster moving. This is useful to prevent some buddies to came closer to you at the expense of run out of ammo faster.

EDIT: As far as I know the xbow is quite powerful so I don't know if a "über xbow" is necessary. As a favorable argument there are the different kinds of blades and bludgeon weapons available, so I can admit another bolt-thrower, if scarce. If you complain, nerfing the effect of the individual projectiles but getting still a slighter more damage capacity for the rep xbow is a possibility: in fact the rep xbow bolts are less accurate individually, but if a certain number is shoot, the damage is higher.

[coolio]

As long as were throwing OP weapon ideas out there, I liked the one someone proposed of a 'ballista', i.e. a crossbow that uses javelins (or spears, even) as ammo.

It would be very powerful, but as a downside it would be slow to fire and reload, limited in its ammo capacity and could only be used by trolls and ogres.

[Roderic]

That one can be fashioned like the gastraphetes or "belly-releaser", a cross-bow that "it was cocked by resting the stomach in a concavity at the rear of the stock and pressing down with all strength. In this way considerably more energy can be summoned up than by using only one arm of the archer as in the hand-bow" (from Wikipedia).

I can imagine a troll or an ogre pulling the arch against their big bellies and releasing a very powerful shot.

[mageykun]

The problem is right now we don't have different kinds of crossbows the way we have varying types of maces, swords, axes, etc. And if we were going to introduce a variety of crossbows (uh, I dunno. French, English, Lego? :p) I think we'd want to start with something more mundane than a quick[s]blade[/s]bow of double shooting.

It might work better as a unrandart, if we decide to go with it then, although double shots might be too powerful for balance even at that rarity.

...I'm perfectly fine with a new, crossbow wielding unique with the special ability to shoot twice a turn though. That's the kind of nastiness I expect from crawl.

[Curio]

I remember there was hand xbow that used darts as ammo.
I dont know why it have been removed. Can someone explain? I liked it - darts was actually useful after early game.

[KoboldLord]

I do not know if indeed there's an effect of shooting more than one projectile for a turn with conventional bows or crossbows (as it happens in Nethack ). If it is already implemented you probably want to skip the rest of the post.

At high crossbow skill, you can indeed shoot more than one crossbow bolt per time unit. It's just that from player perspective, each one requires a button-press to accomplish, so each shot will take the same amount of real time even though they're taking less and less in-game time. It would probably be a bad idea to force the player to vent multiple crossbow bolts at an empty space like you do in Nethack if you kill the target on the first shot, because for most Crawl characters ammunition is a scarcer resource. There is no equivalent in Crawl for maxing out your luck stat, which in Nethack basically drops the mulch rate to negligibility.

[Grimm]

It would be nice to have a second, ideally early-appearing, weapon in the crossbow family, as with the bow/longbow pair. How about a stonebow?

http://www.adrax.com/watsons/stonebow.htm
http://www.thebeckoning.com/medieval/st ... -sbow.html

It would shoot stones and possibly sling ammo but train crossbow skill.

[galehar]

I think ranged combat has some balance issue that need to be sorted out before we add more ranged weapons. Crossbow is the strongest ranged weapon but also the slowest. A faster version would need to be balanced by being less damaging or accurate. Also, it needs a much better name before we even consider it.

[Curio]

what about hand cross bow? Why it have been removed in a first place?

[Grimm]

it needs a much better name

arbalest

(didn't mean to thank you but I don't regret doing it, not for a minute)

[Roderic]

I think ranged combat has some balance issue that need to be sorted out before we add more ranged weapons. Crossbow is the strongest ranged weapon but also the slowest. A faster version would need to be balanced by being less damaging or accurate. Also, it needs a much better name before we even consider it.

It's what I was saying. The chu ko nu bolts were less accurate individually but the faster rate gave more damage in average, depending on how many bolts were shoot. Example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo13R_fSvnI

And a strongest, slower version for large characters (ogre, troll) it's also fine, like the arbalest or the stone bow. A large gastraphetes can be seen in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlxU6FUlNZU&feature=related

[Roderic]

what about hand cross bow? Why it have been removed in a first place?

It disappeared together with the thief class, whose primary weapon was that. Probably because throwing darts by hand is good enough for all characters. It would be nice to have it again because you can shoot using a shield.

[barasia]

how about having the Chu Ko Nu (repetition xbow) have "charges" just like a rod?
the repetition xbow will have to be "loaded" up with bolts like a rifle clip, and you can fire it after you spend time/turns loading it.

i suggest a limit of 10 bolt charges, which when depleted, the xbow cannot fire anymore until the player spend turns loading the ammo reserve.
of course, the fire rate will be much higher using this Chu Ko Nu, with comparable damage to normal xbow, but a little less accurate.
its only drawback is that it can only be fired a certain number of times, until it runs out of ammo in its ammo box(10 maybe). thats why it shuold play like a very fast attack wand/rod, only that it uses the Xbow skill and uses bolts as ammunition.

i like the gastraphetes idea. especially the shooting spears part. it looks more like a medieval support weapon, like a long range sniper, which can't be very mobile, but fires extra hard and far. having ogres and trolls use these like a HAND weapon will be quite the sight...

[wwebb]

i like the gastraphetes idea. especially the shooting spears part. it looks more like a medieval support weapon, like a long range sniper, which can't be very mobile, but fires extra hard and far. having ogres and trolls use these like a HAND weapon will be quite the sight...

I agree with you. It resembles like the medieval period war of the chinese and other countries.
Its more likely to be alike with the big wheeled spears of the medieval warlords..