User:PANGH/Ranged Critical Hits

This is a guide, tutorial, or gameplay strategy written by one or more players to better assist others with their gameplay enjoyment. The information presented here may be subject to the personal opinion of the contributor(s), and may additionally require periodic updates to keep current as the game environment changes.

Title: Status Effects and CMAN Quick Reference

Author: Darcimer

Date Published: 2026-07-15

This page covers how bows and crossbows kill with critical hits: what endroll each launcher needs for a fatal crit, how often an aimed shot lands where it is aimed, and the kill loops that tested best in live hunting logs.

For commands, roundtime, AS and DS formulas, fletching services, tips, items and sample builds, see The Art of the Bow. This page does not repeat that material.

It is the fourth page in a set:

• Status Effects and CMAN Quick Reference covers what prone, Vulnerable, Staggered and the other conditions do.
• Critical Effects Quick Reference lists the critical rank at which each damage type stuns, knocks down or kills at each hit location.
• Critical Kill Loops pairs melee setups with finishers.
• This page does the same for ranged weapons.

Ranged critical hits in one minute

Base rank = truncate( truncate( (endroll − 100) × damage factor ) ÷ armor critical divisor ), capped at 9 when applied.

The game then rolls the actual rank evenly between half the base rank (rounded up) and the full base rank.

• Use the endroll exactly as the game prints it. The total at the end of the AS line already includes AvD.
• Damage factor (DF) comes from the launcher and the tip (DF and AvD tables: The Art of the Bow). Arrow tips change DF and AvD; shaft wood does not.
• Divisors: cloth 5, leather 6, scale 7, chain 9, plate 11. Armor groups follow AsG: 5–8 leather, 9–12 scale, 13–16 chain, 17–20 plate. A leather breastplate (AsG 9) is in the scale group.
• Broadhead and bodkin arrows are 66% puncture and 33% slash. A slash to the eye is fatal from rank 5, a puncture from rank 4; both are fatal to the head from rank 6.
• Weighting. Ranged attacks get critical weighting from INT and WIS (reported as about (INT bonus + WIS bonus) ÷ 6, up to 16), and from sighting beyond the aim cap (see below). Firing from hiding does not add ambush weighting. The tables here leave weighting out, so treat them as a floor; logged kills below these thresholds are weighting at work.

Kill chance per hit by base rank

For a broadhead or bodkin hit that lands on the location, including the slash third:

Base rank	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11
Eye	22%	56%	67%	92%	93%	100%	100%	100%
Head	0%	0%	25%	50%	60%	80%	83%	100%

Endroll needed for a fatal hit

Broadhead against cloth, leather and scale; bodkin against chain and plate. The endroll is the printed total, AvD included. Weighting lowers these numbers.

Eye kill 92% (base 7)
Launcher	Cloth	Leather	Scale	Chain	Plate
Short bow	208	287	279	330	770
Composite bow	217	240	251	310	567
Long bow	188	230	240	294	506
Hand crossbow	228	287	296	394	614
Light crossbow	200	240	251	310	567
Heavy crossbow	183	230	231	304	506
Head kill 80% (base 9)
Launcher	Cloth	Leather	Scale	Chain	Plate
Short bow	239	340	330	395	961
Composite bow	250	280	294	370	700
Long bow	213	267	280	350	622
Hand crossbow	264	340	352	477	760
Light crossbow	229	280	294	370	700
Heavy crossbow	206	267	268	362	622

• The eye needs about 40–60 less endroll than the head for a likely kill, on every launcher.
• Plate is out of reach. Against plate, ranged kills come from damage, flares or poison, not from the arrow's critical.

Aiming success

An aimed shot first rolls whether it lands on the chosen location. A miss either hits another location or flies wide and does nothing. This formula was shared by players on Discord and is not official; the field results below fit it well.

• Aim skill, hidden = truncate( (Perception ranks + Ambush ranks) ÷ 2 ) + truncate( Ranged Weapons ranks ÷ 4 )
• Aim skill, open = truncate( Perception ranks ÷ 2 ) + truncate( Ranged Weapons ranks ÷ 4 )
• Location penalty = 3 × target level × location modifier ÷ aim skill. Location modifiers: eyes 20, neck 12, head 10, hands 5, limbs and torso 2.
• Aim total = aim skill − location penalty + d100 + modifiers. Above 100 lands on the location; 50–100 hits another location; below 50 flies wide.
• Modifiers: target prone or sitting −10; target size tiny −10, small −5, medium +5, large +15; crossbow +5 standing, +20 kneeling; sighting adds to the total.
• Cap. The formula as shared says a d100 of 25 or less always fails, capping every location at 75%. One logged run hit the eye on 11 of 11 connecting shots, so this cap is unconfirmed. The aim roll is a separate d100 from the attack roll and does not print.
• Sighting is the ranged counterpart of weighting. It adds to the aim total, and any sighting past the aim cap converts to critical weighting at half rate.

Modeled on-location chance

2x Ranged Weapons and Perception, plus 2x Ambush when hidden, against a target of the shooter's level, before sighting and status modifiers:

Shooter level	10	20	30	40	50	60	75
Hidden, eye	5%	29%	54%	75%	75%	75%	75%
Hidden, head	16%	40%	65%	75%	75%	75%	75%
Open, eye	0%	0%	7%	22%	37%	51%	75%
Open, head	0%	12%	26%	41%	56%	71%	75%

• Hiding is the big aim lever. It adds the Ambush ranks to the aim skill, which puts a hidden archer about 30 levels ahead of an open one.
• Higher-level targets are harder to aim at. The penalty grows with target level, so the same archer lands far fewer eye shots on a target 6–8 levels above them.
• Aim persists. AIM stays set between hunts until AIM CLEAR. Type AIM with no location to see the current setting.

Field results

Live Bigshot logs, solo except where noted, 13–37 shots per run.

Archer	Setup	Targets	Aim	On location	Wide	Kills per shot
Level 38 rogue, light crossbow	Hide, sweep, shoot open	10 levels below	Head	56–70%	0%	0.44–0.67
Same	Hide, sweep, shoot open	10 levels below	Eye	74%	0%	0.74
Same	Hide, sweep, shoot open	6–8 levels above, shields	Eye	32%	0% (16% shield blocks)	0.27
Same	Hide, sweep, kneel, hide, shoot	6–8 levels above, shields	Eye	69%	0% (no blocks)	0.77
Level 20 monk, long bow, open	Fire	Same level	Eye	0%	53%	0.18
Same	Fire	Same level	None (AIM CLEAR)	—	0%	0.25
Level 63 ranger, long bow, open, sighted	Fire	Same level, DS 316–377	Eye	1 nick in 10 shots	0%	0
Same	Moonbeam or Web, then fire	Same level, DS 174–221 once disabled	Eye	11 of 11 hits	0%	0.79

What the logs show:

• Eye beats head once the aim can land it. Eye hits killed 16 of 17 times against leather and scale targets at endrolls of 200–400; head hits at 215–270 often did not kill, and "saved by a thick skull" appeared at endrolls up to 389.
• Bad aim is worse than no aim. Below the skill where the eye penalty can be overcome, aimed shots fly wide, and aiming adds 1 second of roundtime unless the bow is at its 3-second floor. Unaimed shots never flew wide and still knocked targets down with random leg hits.
• A knockdown turns misses into kills. On swept targets, shots that missed the head still killed most of the time because the prone target's lower DS raised the endroll.
• Kneeling and re-hiding pay off on hard targets. On higher-level, shield-using targets, the crossbow's kneeling +20 aim and +30 AS and the hidden aim bonus more than doubled eye hits and lifted the endroll by about 40. No shot from hiding was blocked by a shield (13 shots; a small sample).
• Disabling is what makes crits possible against high DS. A same-level veteran's open eye aim was already good enough, but undisabled targets held the endroll near 100. Moonbeam or Web cut the targets' DS by 100–130, and every connecting shot then killed or nearly killed.

Kill loops

Each loop is a tested Bigshot hunting line. `prone` is Bigshot's inverted check: it passes when the target is NOT already disabled.

Hidden crossbow, easy targets

Targets at or below your level, little or no shield.

hide, force sweep until 101(!flying), kneel(flying), hide(flying !hidden), fire(x5)

• AIM set to the right eye.
• The sweep brings you out of hiding, so the shot is open, but the prone target's lower DS carries it. Hiding before the sweep did not change the sweep's SMR result.
• Fliers cannot be swept; `kneel(flying)` and the re-hide shoot them hidden and kneeling instead.

Hidden crossbow, hard targets

Higher-level, high-DS or shield-using targets.

hide, force sweep until 101(!flying), kneel, hide(!hidden), fire(x5)

• About 2.5 seconds more setup per target than the easy loop, repaid by much better aim and endroll.
• Kneeling lowers your DS; a defensive spell or sign covers it.

Young open archer

Open archers below the level where open eye aim can land (roughly level 40–50 against same-level targets, per the model above).

fire(x5)

• AIM CLEAR, and clear Bigshot's ranged aim list.
• No wides, 1 second faster per shot unless already at the 3-second floor, and random leg and back hits knock targets down for the next shot.

Veteran open archer

Open aim skill high enough to land the eye (about 90–100 against a same-level target), but targets with high DS.

611(prone m15), 118(prone m25), fire(!prone)(x5)

• AIM set to the right eye. Moonbeam (611) first, Web (118) as backup; set the mana reserves to your pool.
• `fire(!prone)` holds shots until the target is disabled, so a missed disabler is recast instead of wasting arrows.
• Any disabler that drops DS works the same way: a knockdown CMAN, a weapon technique such as Pin Down, or a blunt arrow.

Field checks

• Bigshot's ranged aim list. Before each fire, Bigshot checks the target's wounds against its own aim list in the profile and sends AIM itself. With only "right eye" listed, a blinded right eye leaves the list empty and it sends a bare AIM. List right eye, left eye, head so it moves on.
• Flee count. A flee count of 1 makes Bigshot walk away from a downed target whenever a second creature arrives. Use 2 or more.
• Gate the fire. An ungated fire shoots standing targets whenever the disabler misses. Gate it on the disable.
• Crossbow encumbrance. Light crossbows fire in 4 seconds and heavy in 5, but encumbrance adds time to the cock step built into FIRE. If a light crossbow shows 5 seconds, check ENCUMBRANCE.
• Watch for stale statuses. Bigshot's status feed can show a target as immobilized while its DS is unchanged. If shots at a "disabled" target show its standing DS, gate on a more specific state.

Add-ons

Flaring fletchings, poisons, blessing and elemental blade are outside this page's model. Flares are separate criticals and do not raise the arrow's base rank; flare charges are limited (12 per flaring material). The one flare that works as a setup is the unbalance flare from dreadnought raptor fletchings, which can knock a target down.

Arrow setups

Role	Tip	Fletching	Shaft
Knockdown	Blunt	Dreadnought raptor (unbalance flares)	Ironwood; faewood against creatures that need magical ammo
Kill, cloth, leather or scale	Broadhead	Storm griffin (lightning), or snowy cockatrice (cold) early	Faewood
Kill, chain or plate	Bodkin	Storm griffin	Faewood

• Bodkin gains DF and AvD only against chain and plate and loses against everything lighter.
• Blunt costs about one rank against broadhead but deals unbalance criticals, which knock targets down.
• Crescent has broadhead's DF and AvD but is mostly slash, so it is never better for kills.
• Ammo properties override the launcher's, so a bundle can carry its own flares or blessing. Fletching ranks needed for each service: The Art of the Bow.

See also

• The Art of the Bow
• Critical Kill Loops
• Critical Effects Quick Reference
• Status Effects and CMAN Quick Reference
• Critical
• Critical weighting
• Ambush