Melee weapon

Version 0.15: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Melee weapons refer to any weapons which are only capable of attacking opponents adjacent to you (with the exception of polearms; see below). While they lack the obvious range advantage of ranged weapons, they do not require ammunition, and they tend to be more powerful overall. Melee weapons are divided into several categories, each of which has its own associated skill and its own particular advantages.

Weapon attributes

The following is a table of all melee weapons in Crawl. Below is a short explanation of each field:

Name	The name of the item as it appears in Crawl.
Damage	The base amount of damage the weapon does, before various bonuses and adjustments.
Hit	To hit modifier for the weapon, before any other adjustments.
Speed	This is actually the attack delay, which is multiplied by 10 to get the "percentages" you see in-game. (That is, attack delay 10 shows as 100%.) Every 2 levels of weapon skill lowers the delay by 1 unit. A weapon's minimum delay is half of its base delay (rounded down) or 7 (5 for cutlass, 10 for hand crossbows, arbalests and triple crossbows), whichever is lower. Speed brand and haste cut delay by one third (round randomly up or down). These effects stack, after the base cap, but there's an absolute cap of 2 for attack delay.
Mass	How heavy a weapon is, for the purpose of strength weighting calculations.
Str weight	A bigger strength weighting is better for strong characters, while a low strength weighting is better for dexterous characters.
Skill	Which skill is required to effectively use this weapon.
One-handed min. size	Minimum size required to be able to use the weapon with one hand. The order is little, small, medium, large, big.
Two-handed min. size	Minimum size required to be able to use the weapon with two hands. When the player's size is equal or greater than 'Two-handed min. size', but less than 'One-handed min. size', the weapon cannot be used with a shield.
Dam Type	What category of damage does the weapon deal?
Prob	A larger number indicates higher probability of acquiring through scrolls of acquirement.

Short Blades

Attacks with short blades tend to deal less damage than larger weapons do, but are significantly faster. They also deal very high damage when used to make stab attacks.

Name	Dmg	Hit	Speed	Mass	Str weight	One-handed min. size	Two-handed min. size	Dam Type	Prob	Notes
Dagger	4	+6	10	20	10%	Little	Little	Piercing	10
Quick blade	5	+6	7	50	0%	Little	Little	Piercing	2	Cannot receive speed brand
Short sword	6	+4	11	80	20%	Little	Little	Piercing	10
Rapier	7	+4	12	90	20%	Little	Little	Piercing	10	Min delay is 5

Long Blades

Long blades have the highest base stats of all weapon types, and deal moderate damage when used to make stab attacks. Wielders can riposte with them.

Name	Dam	Hit	Speed	Mass	Str weight	One-handed min. size	Two-hande min. size	Dam Type	Prob	Notes
Falchion	7	+2	13	170	30%	Little	Little	Slicing	10
Long sword	9	+1	14	160	30%	Small	Little	Slicing	10
Scimitar	12	-2	14	170	30%	Small	Little	Slicing	10
Demon blade	12	-1	13	200	30%	Small	Little	Slicing	2
Eudemon blade	13	-2	12	200	30%	Small	Little	Slicing	-	A demon blade blessed by The Shining One
Double sword	14	-1	15	220	30%	Medium	Little	Slicing	2
Great sword	15	-3	16	250	50%	-	Medium	Slicing	10
Triple sword	17	-4	19	260	50%	-	Medium	Slicing	2

Axes

Axes are unique among weapons in that they can perform cleaving attacks, striking multiple foes in a single strike.

Name	Dam	Hit	Speed	Mass	Str weight	One-handed min. size	Two-handed min. size	Dam Type	Prob	Notes
Hand axe	7	+3	13	80	60%	Little	Little	Chopping	10
War axe	11	+0	15	180	70%	Small	Little	Chopping	10
Broad axe	13	-2	16	230	80%	Medium	Little	Chopping	10
Battleaxe	15	-4	17	250	80%	-	Medium	Chopping	10
Executioner's axe	18	-6	20	280	90%	-	Medium	Chopping	2

Maces & Flails

Like long blades, maces & flails have no particular unique traits, though ogres and trolls have access to giant clubs and giant spiked clubs, the two most powerful weapon types in the game.

Name	Dam	Hit	Speed	Mass	Str weight	One-handed min. size	Two-handed min. size	Dam Type	Prob	Notes
Whip	6	+2	11	30	20%	Little	Little	Slashing	0
Club	5	+3	13	50	70%	Little	Little	Crushing	0	Inflicts confusion when used for stabs
Hammer	7	+3	13	90	70%	Little	Little	Crushing	0	Only generates in vaults
Mace	8	+3	14	120	80%	Little	Little	Crushing	10
Flail	10	0	14	130	80%	Little	Little	Crushing	10
Morningstar	13	-2	15	140	80%	Small	Little	Piercing (Bludgeoning)	10
Demon whip	11	+1	11	30	20%	Little	Little	Slashing	2
Sacred scourge	12	+0	11	30	20%	Little	Little	Slashing	-	A blessed demon whip
Dire flail	13	-3	13	240	90%	Big	Medium	Piercing (Bludgeoning)	10
Eveningstar	15	-1	15	180	80%	Small	Little	Piercing (Bludgeoning)	2
Great mace	17	-4	17	270	90%	Big	Medium	Crushing	10
Giant club	20	-6	17	330	100%	-	Large	Crushing	10
Giant spiked club	22	-7	18	350	100%	-	Large	Piercing (Bludgeoning)	10

Rods

Rods are magical devices which are wielded like one-handed weapons. They can be evoked to produce powerful magical effects, but (usually) serve poorly when used in melee combat. They have stats identical to those of a club, but are not technically considered "weapons". See the rod page for more details.

Polearms

Polearms are unique among melee weapons in that they can make reaching attacks, striking foes up to two tiles away.

Name	Dam	Hit	Speed	Mass	Str weight	One-handed min. size	Two-handed min. size	Dam Type	Prob	Notes
Spear	6	4	11	50	30%	Small	Little	Piercing	10
Trident	9	1	13	160	40%	Medium	Little	Piercing	10
Halberd	13	-3	15	200	50%	-	Medium	Chopping (Piercing)	10
Scythe	14	-4	20	220	70%	-	Medium	Slicing	10
Demon trident	12	1	13	160	40%	Medium	Little	Piercing	2
Trishula	13	0	13	160	40%	Medium	Little	Piercing	-	A blessed demon trident
Glaive	15	-3	17	200	60%	-	Medium	Chopping	10
Bardiche	18	-6	20	200	80%	-	Medium	Chopping	2

Staves

The Staves skill is used both to fight with physical combat staves (quarterstaves and lajatangs) and magical staves. Physical combat staves are powerful two-handed weapons that require surprisingly little skill to use effectively, but unlike other weapon classes, there is no ultra-powerful, high-skill option available.

Note that magical staves fight like +0 staves, though some offer extra damage or other effects.

Name	Dam	Hit	Speed	Mass	Str weight	One-handed min. size	Two-handed min. size	Dam Type	Prob	Notes
Staff	5	5	12	130	30%	Medium	Little	Crushing	-	Not available in game. Used only as a base type for magical staves.
Quarterstaff	10	3	13	180	30%	-	Medium	Crushing	10
Lajatang	16	-3	14	200	30%	-	Medium	Slicing	2

Magical Staves

Magical staves are magical devices which are wielded like one-handed weapons. While a spellcaster wields one, it grants a variety of useful benefits, such as enhancing the spellpower of certain schools of magic or negating the hunger costs associated with powerful spells. Although normally very weak when used as melee weapons (they use the staff as a template for their stats), some magical staves inflict additional elemental effects when used by a skilled practitioner. See the magical staff page for more details.

Retired Weapons

Over the years, several weapons have been removed from the Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup arsenal, either due to redundancy with existing weapons or simply due to flavor issues.

• Knife
• Sabre
• Cutlass
• Katana
• Bastard sword
• Claymore
• Ankus
• Spiked flail
• Staff
• The blessed versions of several long blades.