Ethereal crossbow

Ethereal crossbow held and on the floor in Heretic E1M2.

The ethereal crossbow is a weapon from Heretic. It is a stringless wooden crossbow that fires glowing green bolts (ethereal arrows) for ammunition. When fired, it launches a spread of three bolts, the central one dealing 10-80 damage and the other two dealing 2-16, for a total of 14-112 damage. The bolt in the centre can damage ghost monsters, but the ones on the sides cannot. These small side bolts are also affected by wind. All three bolts auto-aim separately, making the weapon more accurate when pointed at an enemy at midrange than when firing at a wall or at long range.

Under the influence of a Tome of Power, its rate of fire is slightly faster, and it fires a spread of five bolts, the central three of which are capable of damaging ghosts. The center three deal 6-48 damage each, and the ones at the sides do 2-16 damage, for a total of 22-176 damage.

By default the crossbow's maximum ammo capacity is 50 shots or 100 with the Bag of Holding. In Heretic + Hexen, when enhanced weapons are enabled, the crossbow's maximum capacity is 30 shots, or 60 with the Bag of Holding, but its damage is increased.

The crossbow can be found in the first level of the game, E1M1: The Docks, although it is hidden in a secret room there. The crossbow can then be found in non-secret areas on each subsequent level of the episode.

Description of the ethereal crossbow from the manual: The crossbow shoots 3 magical arrows at once, delivering heavy damage at short range or hitting multiple targets at a distance. Powered-up, this baby blasts 5 slammin' magic arrows for a good, strong head-pounding punishment!

Strategy[edit]

The crossbow delivers medium to high damage against all non-ghost enemies at medium-close combat. It is also effective at longer ranges, but not as much as other weapons such as the dragon claw and the hellstaff. A full impact from the ethereal crossbow also deals some knockback momentum, which allows the player to throw enemies back out of melee range, especially when dealing with creatures who have low mass such as gargoyles, golems and sabreclaws.

Because the side bolts pass through ghosts and are pushed by wind, the unpowered crossbow is noticeably less effective in these situations. When powered up, these effects are mitigated, though not altogether eliminated, making the weapon reasonably effective even under those conditions. Unlike many of Heretic's weapons, the crossbow does not take on a niche use when powered, instead merely improving on its normal function. This makes it a suitable all-purpose fallback when a Tome is active.

Data[edit]

Heretic + Hexen changes[edit]

In Heretic + Hexen re-release when using the "Enhanced Weapons" modifier the following changes (defined in the EX_IAMMO and EX_WEAP3 lumps) are applied to the ethereal crossbow:

• the number of projectiles launched with a regular attack is now the same as with a powered one, i.e. five instead of three (one central and two additional on each side);
• its maximum ammo was decreased from 50 to 30 (from 100 to 60 with Bag of Holding);
• amount of ammo included with the weapon was decreased from 10 to 6 (from 15 to 9 on skill levels 1 and 5);
• its powered ranged attack damage was increased from 6-48 to 7-56 while ranged attack damage was also increased from 2-16 to 4-32.

Appearance statistics[edit]

In the IWADs the ethereal crossbow is first encountered on these maps per skill level:

The IWADs contain the following numbers of ethereal crossbows per skill level: