Archery

Version 0.14: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

These improve your skills with ranged weaponry but interfere slightly with melee combat.

Archery is an ego found only on gloves that enhances your ability to fight with ranged weapons while slightly penalizing your melee capabilities: you receive a +5, +3 slaying bonus at range and a -1, -1 malus in melee.

Desirability

Slaying bonuses are always desirable, but not all characters wind up using ranged weapons. If ranged weapons are your primary form of attack, these can be an extremely welcome find. Spellcasters would likely prefer gloves of strength or dexterity (or a nice artefact), while melee fighters should avoid them entirely. Even if you occasionally dabble with a bow, penalizing the vast majority of your fights is a bad idea.

History

Prior to 0.14, archery was only found on the bracers of archery, a now-obsolete form of hand-slot armour.