Sling

Version 0.33: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Name	Sling
Skill	Ranged Weapons
Damage	7
Accuracy	+0
Base delay (%)	14
Min delay	7 at skill 14
Hands	1H
Size	Little
Ranged?	Yes

A piece of cloth and leather for launching stones, adequate for hunting small game like rabbits or goblins. "And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone, and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sank into his forehead; and he fell upon his face to the earth." -KJV Bible, 1 Samuel 17:49.

This weapon falls into the 'Ranged Weapons' category. It is a one-handed weapon.

Slings are one-handed Ranged Weapons. They are the lightest ranged weapon, and much more common than the sole other ranged one-hander, hand cannons.

Strategy

Generally, any D:1 character with a sling is stronger than the same character without one; slings can attack from range for 0 MP, and can deal enough damage to take out D:1 enemies. Even if you don't plan on going ranged weapons long-term, an early sling is useful for the first few floors.

Slings are stronger than stones, but boomerangs have better damage/turn and don't use the weapon slot. Shortbows offer +1 base damage and more accuracy, although you can't wield a shield with one.

	Image
Mundane
Magical
Artifact
	Unrandart
Punk

History

• In 0.29, hunting slings were renamed back into slings, with the removal of the Slings skill and fustibali. They now use Ranged Weapons skill. Also, prior to this version:
  • Hunting slings required use of stones or sling bullets, which added 2 or 4 damage to your shots.
  • They had an accuracy of +2 and a base delay of 12 (mindelay of 6).
  • Their damage did not scale with DEX and their attack speed wasn't slowed down by armour encumbrance, like all ranged weapons.
• In 0.15, slings were renamed into hunting slings, with the addition of greatslings (fustibali). Ranged combat also worked differently; they had 0 base damage, which was improved by their ammo.