Handedness

Version 0.28: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Each weapon has a particular handedness, which determines how well you can wield it based on your size and whether or not you can use a shield.

Weapon Handedness

Weapon Type	One handed weapons	One handed weapons (Two handed for little species)	Two handed weapons	Two handed weapons for large species only
Short Blades	Dagger Quick blade Short sword Rapier
Long blades	Falchion Long sword Scimitar Demon blade/Eudemon blade	Double sword	Great sword Triple sword
Axes	Hand axe War axe	Broad axe	Battleaxe Executioner's axe
Maces and Flails	Club Mace Flail Morningstar Demon whip/Sacred scourge Eveningstar		Dire flail Great mace	Giant club Giant spiked club
Polearms	Spear	Trident Demon trident/Trishula	Halberd Scythe Glaive Bardiche
Staves		Magical staves	Quarterstaff* Lajatang*
Throwing	Dart Throwing net Stone Boomerang		Javelin	Large rock
Slings	Hunting sling Fustibalus
Bows			Shortbow* Longbow
Crossbows	Hand crossbow		Arbalest Triple crossbow
Entries with * can be wielded as two handed weapons by spriggans and kobolds.

• Felids are little species and cannot wield weapons, throw items or evoke magical staves because they lack opposable thumbs.
• Spriggans are little species, but they can wield quarterstaves, lajatangs, shortbows and crossbows as two handed weapons.
• Kobolds are small species, but they can wield quarterstaves, lajatangs, shortbows and crossbows as two handed weapons.
• Ogres and Trolls are large species.
• All other races are medium species.

Shields

Shields can be worn while wielding one handed weapons. There are penalties for wielding shields which include additional weapon delay. See shields for details on this additional penalty.

• Felids cannot wear shields
• Spriggans can wear bucklers but have a greatly increased shield penalty. They cannot wear kite shields nor tower shields.
• Kobolds can wear bucklers and kite shields with an increased shield penalty. They cannot wear tower shields.
• Ogres and Trolls can wear shields with reduced penalties. Neither of them can wear bucklers.
• With four hands Formicids can wield a two handed weapon and a shield. They have reduced shield penalties like ogres and trolls.
• Despite having eight arms, an Octopode cannot wield a two handed weapon at the same time as a shield.

History

• In 0.18 throwing delays followed the throwing skill dependency improvements like other weapons. Before this thrown missiles used the unarmed combat skill and were not impacted by wearing a shield.
• In the 0.14.2 bug fix release transformations no longer allow the character to wield too-large weapons.
• Prior to 0.12, there were two additional types of handedness: 1.5-handed (which could be used with a shield but suffered larger-than-normal penalties) and double-handed (which had even worse penalties, plus cut the weapon's base damage in half).