Crossbow (weapon type)

Template:Ranged weapon group Crossbows are weapons used in ranged combat that require a certain Ranged level to wield. They are different from bows in that they are horizontal and can be held with one hand, allowing a player to carry a shield, god book or defender with the other; another difference is that they use bolts instead of arrows. Non-members are recommended to stay with bows as the crossbows available to them (only the regular crossbow and the Phoenix crossbow) are weak, while members have much better crossbows to choose from. In addition to the various metallic crossbows, Hunter's crossbow, Dorgeshuun crossbow, Zanik's crossbow, Karil's crossbow and the Chaotic crossbow are available in pay-to-play. Crossbows require ammunition in the form of bolts (or racks for Karil's).

Crossbows are commonly used in P2P, mainly due to their ability to inflict substantial damage quickly and the ability to use a shield at the same time. Many people use them for PvP combat, and use enchanted bolts for even more power. Crossbows are also cheap on the Grand Exchange, and bolts are always in good supply. Crossbows can also fire mithril grapples for agility shortcuts. Despite being slower than Bows, crossbows are much more accurate, and bolts used with them are more powerful than arrows. Even Steel bolts are stronger than Rune arrows. Crossbows are almost never seen in F2P because the only kinds available are the phoenix and normal crossbow, while they could use up to maple bows, and the ability to use a shield but at the cost of accuracy and ranged strength and the slower speed makes crossbows rarely used unless doing dragon slayer where using a anti-dragon shield is needed to fight Elvarg.

File:Player fletching crossbow.gif

A player stringing a crossbow.

Metal crossbows

Metal crossbows can be created through the Fletching skill. The stocks must first be cut from logs; the limbs have to be made via the Smithing skill. The player then needs to add those two together and string it with a crossbow string. Most limbs and stocks can be purchased at the crossbow stall in the dwarven city of Keldagrim.

• Bronze crossbow
• Blurite crossbow
• Iron crossbow
• Steel crossbow
• Black crossbow
• Mithril crossbow
• Adamant crossbow
• Rune crossbow

A player using the Dorgeshuun crossbow's "Snipe" Special Attack.

Other crossbows

• Crossbow - weakest crossbow in the game.
• Phoenix crossbow - obtained from Phoenix Gang hideout in Varrock, used in Shield of Arrav quest.
• Dorgeshuun crossbow - can be bought from Nardok. Lost Tribe required to buy, Death to Dorgeshuun required for the special attack.
• Karil's crossbow - obtained via playing the Barrows minigame. Can only fire bolt racks.
• Hunter's crossbow - bought from Leon, it is similar to a steel crossbow in power and to a shortbow in speed.
• Zanik's crossbow - obtained as a reward from Chosen Commander.
• Chaotic crossbow - bought from Daemonheim for 200k Dungeoneering tokens and requires 80 Dungeoneering and 80 ranged.
• Coral crossbow - obtained as a reward from Songs from the Depths. Can only fire coral bolts.
• Royal crossbow - an upgraded version of the coral crossbow, the parts only obtainable through defeating the Queen Black Dragon, and could only fire royal bolts.
• Armadyl crossbow - Although this is an Armadyl-aligned item, it is in fact dropped by the four Saradomin bosses of the God Wars Dungeon.

Crossbows vs Bows

With the introduction of crossbows, use of a bow has decreased as crossbows are much more accurate and only require one hand to use, although a majority of people still prefer to use a bow such as the Magic Shortbow because it is much faster than a crossbow and it has a special attack, and simply because it's a bow. Metal crossbows offer a variety of ammunition of which can be enchanted to provide special effects during combat, although currently these enchanted bolts can be quite expensive. Enchanted bolts can hit much higher than arrows, for example ruby bolts (e), which can hit up to 1000 on the Corporeal Beast and even 1508 on a Steel titan.

During PvP, crossbows can be so slow that your opponent can hit you twice before you get your second shot in, so a shortbow might be preferable. Higher levelled players generally prefer crossbows because of their ability to inflict large amounts of damage, especially on high levelled bosses such as the Corporeal Beast.

Trivia

• If you look carefully at a crossbow before you fire it, you can see the bolt floating right above the crossbow. Once the bolt is fired, for a split-second, you can still see the floating bolt, even though you just fired it. This also happens occasionally with regular bows.
• According to a conversation with the Bow and Arrow salesman in the ranging guild, crossbows are made only by the dwarves(although cave goblins make crossbows too).
• Crossbows as they appear in Runescape are Pistol Crossbows, having a lower draw-weight and smaller bolt size than Combat Crossbows, which take longer and are far harder to reload.
• Crossbows are commonly used by rangers fighting dragons, as they allow players to wield an anti-dragon shield for protection.