Editing 40d:Crossbowman

{{quality|Exceptional|15:59, 29 April 2011 (UTC)}}{{av}}
Dwarves or other creatures armed with [[crossbow]]s deal "[[Weapon#Damage calculation|pierce]]" damage from a long distance. A Dwarf Crossbowman, or '''marksdwarf''', will usually open fire at a distance of 20 tiles or so from their target, but a bolt may carry 30 or more*.  While also doing decent general [[Weapon#Weapon statistics|damage]], a [[bolt]] does a fine job of piercing the internal organs of a [[creature]], which can possibly cause organ failure and instant death, [[unconscious]]ness or crippling of any size target. This is of limited use against creatures without internal organs, such as [[Magma man|magma men]]. Occasionally a bolt will get stuck in a target; the only known use for this is that a [[wrestling]] dwarf may grab the bolt and twist it in the [[wound]].

: ''(* Note that increase in height (z-levels) ''hurts'' range, rather than helps it.)''

A '''marksdwarf''' who is forced into melee will use the [[hammerdwarf]] skill to bash enemies with their crossbow.

[[Immigrant|Immigrating]] marksdwarves bring their own crossbows and 30-40 bolts.  Immigrating [[ranger]]s often arrive with Novice Marksdwarf skill, though will only bring a crossbow and bolts if they also have [[ambusher]] skill.  (See [[Ambusher]] for more details.)

==Training==
Increasing Crossbowman skill requires firing upon a target (hitting is not required), with "live targets" granting much more experience than an [[archery target]]. The difference is huge, on the order of ~67 bolts fired (~7.5 [[experience]]/shot) in practice vs 17 bolts fired (30 [[experience]]/shot) against live enemies to achieve novice rank ''(verified by Jim Groovester)''. Higher skill grants better accuracy and higher rate of fire. An archery range is only used by [[military]] dwarves that are off duty, and they will only use [[wood]] or [[bone]] bolts during practice.

===Known issues===
Training marksdwarves can lead to a number of problems. Marksdwarves only train with bone or wood bolts.  They need individual [[Archery_target|archery range]]s of adequate size (3 tiles minimum) set up.  Any activated military will only practice if they are "standing down" (not "on duty"), which can be toggled only in the {{k|m}}ilitary screen, and then by {{k|v}}iewing any member within a squad and giving that squad orders - the entire squad will have the same orders, whether that squad has 1 dwarf or dozens.

Marksdwarves will not equip bolts and practice (or fight) with bolts if they are carrying items in hand (as checked via {{k|v}}iew {{k|i}}nventory). Items get in hand if the marksdwarf has been wrestling, a frequent [[Cross-training]] exercise. You can force the dwarf to drop them (or rather, have another dwarf snatch it from them) by selecting the items from their inventory using {{k|enter}}, then {{k|d}}umping them.

{{Skills}}
{{Category|Skills}}
{{Category|Military}}
{{Category|Combat Skills}}