Devastant's Avatar Archer Guide

>>---------> Introduction

I'm writing this in hopes of increasing understanding about how archers work, and the ways in which they are different from other classes. Hopefully, this will filter down to our lowest level players and make the class more accessable to new players.

Tips for Combat

1. Mob armor reduces archery damage. The most common cause of low archery damage is heavy mob armor. Armor piercing (or higher level alternatives) arrows ignore armor. Until these become available simply avoiding heavily armored mobs is probably the best bet.
2. Splinter arrows (or higher level alternatives) suffer extra damage reduction to enemy armor.
3. Many bows are awkward to use in close combat. When low level archers say they are missing a lot, it's usually because they're using a bow with a high melee penalty. See the chart in the "bow types" section.
4. Archery damage is not increased by the mob being prone (if anything, it'd make them harder to hit from any kind of distance) but it IS affected by the reduced defense that comes with being bashed.
5. Once an archer gets target leading, only monks and mobs with shields will be able to defend against them.

Gear Tips

1. Fletching "rare" arrow types (such as explosive) causes fatigue. A good idea is to fletch them 5 or 6 times, or until you get 2 or more failures in a row. Note that failures do not add to or refresh the fatigue.
2. The amount of bonus given by archery bonus items is based on the level of the item, and the hitroll of the wearer.
3. Arrows that never survive hitting a foe may survive and be found in the room if they miss. Archers should remember to check the ground after every fight.

Item values

Bows are items of type # 31. Occasionally you may come across standard weapon type items (type # 5) which are NAMED bows. A quick identify will tell the difference. Bows have 4 value fields like all other items, which signify:

value0-          bow type (see below)
value1-          minimum damage
value2-          maximum damage
value3-          draw strength or restring count

Min and max damage are randomly determined by the mud when the item is loaded.

If draw strength has not been specified in the area file, it is assigned when the item is loaded, based on bow type.

Bow Types

There are seven bow types, although only the first four are common.

#  name            ammo    damage  meleemod  SCAT  LONG  restring  DRAW
0  short bow       arrow   medium  moderate  y     n     full      12
1  long bow        arrow   high    extreme   y     y     full      16
2  light crossbow  bolt    low     none      n     n     limited   n/a
3  heavy crossbow  bolt    high    moderate  n     y     limited   n/a
4  compound bow    arrow   high    high      y     y     limited   10
5  sling           stone   low     low       y     n     none      n/a
6  gun (arbalest)  bullet  medium  none      n     y     none      n/a

NOTES: Heavy crossbows have a chance of failure to reload in time to fire. Compound bows are prone to breakage and have low hps. Short races get a bonus to using slings.

Ammo type determines the type of ammo required. See below.

Damage refers to the increase given to the randomly rolled min and max damage of the item. Those with "low" listed will have roughly the same min/max as a normal weapon of the same level. The damage mod helps scale archer power across the low mort levels, and should serve to builders as a general guide to what bow types to use at what levels. Anything listed "high" should never load lower than level 30.

Meleemod refers to the reduction in accuracy suffered when using that bow type in direct melee combat. The penalty isn't a reduction in hitroll, but rather a flat out % chance of missing.

SCAT tells whether or not that bow type can be used to fire scattershot.

LONG tells whether or not that bow type can be used to fire a longshot.

Restring refers to how much restringing the item can handle. Crossbow restrings are limited by the item's level. Compound bow restrings are limited because they are very prone to breakage.

DRAW refers to the default draw strength of an item of that type. This effects how often a bow can be restrung. If a builder wished to make a bow especially restringable or un-restringable, the draw strength for that item could be set higher or lower than the default.

Item values

Ammunition items are type # 32. They are required to fire bow type items for both players and mobs. If a mob lacks the right ammo, it will remove the bow item it is trying to use. Although they are single items, ammo items represent many actual arrows/bolts/etc and are subject to many unigue rules. They will merge with others of the same type whenever they are put in the same location, be it floor, inventory or container. Currently the only way to split them is to drop a specific number. Mobs don't use up ammo, so it isn't necessary to give them more than a handful of arrows.

value0-          warhead type (see below)
value1-          ammo type (see below)
value2-          poison type (see below)
value3-          quantity

Warhead type refers to exploding, piercing, etc. See the table below.

Ammo type refers to arrows or bolts. See the table below.

The poison field only matters if the arrow has the ability to poison.

Warhead Types

#   name        level     notes
0   standard       4
1   steel         13      nigh unbreakable
2   barbed        23      barb affect
3   splinter     101(51)  weak vs armor
4   flaming       42       
5   explosive    101(51)  rare
6   piercing      50      ignores armor
7   poison        33      carries poison
8   ice          125      
9   lightning    125      ignores shield, stuns
10  ebony        125      ignores armor and shield, rare, can shoot thru doors
11  mithril      125      nigh unbreakable
12  sableroix      4      quest prize arrow for low mortals
13  glass          1      quest prize arrow for higher players
14  cluster      250      weak vs armor
15  sunray       250      ignores armor and shield, rare
16  displacement 250      ignores armor
17  terror       250      barb affect, carries poison

Ammo types

#  name          used by
0  arrow         long bow, short bow, compound bow
1  bolt          light crossbow, heavy crossbow
2  stone         sling
3  bullet        gun

Poison types

#   name        level
0   poison         5
1   toxin         20
2   biotoxin      35
3   virus         50
4   venom         50
5   plague        50
6   necrotia     124
7   heartbane    124
8   doom toxin   124 (mob only)
9   psychotia    249
10  liquid pain  249
11  pyrovirus    249