Ranged Emergency Weapon: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
While most [[Emergency Weapon
The
This is fairly rare, mainly due to the story wanting to focus more on the melee action: If a guy is an awesome swordsman why make him use a gun or bow? Also, there's a tendency for good guys in fiction to be great shots whatever their melee skills. However, a handful of characters graduated from the [[Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy]] even as they kick ass at melee.
In movies, a character without such a weapon can always rely on [[Throwing Your Sword Always Works]]; unfortunately very few video games give you that option.
{{examples|Examples:}}▼
== [[Film]] ==
* Several such weapons appear in the ''[[Predator]] 2'' film. There's a disk gun which could cut through multiple sides of beef and still take someone out on the other side, an expandable spear, and a net that could be fired to pin a target to a wall.
== [[Literature]] ==
* In the [[Dragonlance]] novel ''Dragons of Winter Night'', when Sturm needs to buy time for Laurana to use the [[Ancient Artifact|Dragon Orb]], he decides that he needs to draw the attacking dragons toward him, and fires a bow at them to do so, even though he never otherwise uses a ranged attack.
== [[Video Games]] ==
* In [[Ryu ga Gotoku|Yakuza:Dead Souls]] the Pistol has infinite ammo, making it the
* The video game version of ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' gives Gimli throwing axes. They're by far the least effective of the characters ranged weapons (with the possible exception of the hobbits knives in the ''Return of the King'') and are slow to throw, but they're useful for dealing with archers or enemies who are a long way away.
* ''[[Dragon Age]] Origins'' uses Strength to determine whether a character can wield big melee weapons and Dexterity for bows. There are also Strength-based crossbows to provide Warriors with an [[Emergency Ranged Weapon]]. Crossbows are universally and unconditionally awful.
* ''[[Darksiders]]'' gives War a gun and a boomerang for long-range work, but there's no question that he's a melee-character - neither of them can do much of any damage, but there are a few situations where you're forced to use them on enemies you either can't reach, or don't want to be standing next to.
** Additionally, the boomerang can be upgraded to ricochet many times between several enemies, tying them up well enough for War to finish what he's doing and come beat them up.
* In the ''[[Dragonlance]]'' video game ''Heroes of the Lance'', Flint Fireforge, similarly to the Gimli example given above, has a single axe he can throw in addition to his melee axe.
* Throwing knives in ''[[Mount
** And there are rocks for people who are really short of money.
*** Don't underestimate [[Rock Beats Laser|rocks]], though. Many a new player has been undone by wild forest men with rocks and sticks.
* Hand axes and Javelins in ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' have the attack power of the most basic axes/lances with lower accuracy and much lower durability, but have a range of 1 or 2 tiles, opposed to every other melee weapons 1 (There are stronger versions with the strength of higher grade weapons, but they are rare and typically [[Too Awesome to Use|can not be bought]])
* Possible in ''[[Diablo]]'' for the warrior. The bow is hardly his most useful weapon but it can be handy if an enemy is behind a grate or if you need to exchange fire with something that won't let you close enough to engage in melee for a meaningful length of time.
* The ''[[
* Many melee specialists in ''[[Warhammer
* The pistol in ''[[Warhawk (1995 video game)]]'' is weak and can't damage vehicles, but has infinite ammo.
* In ''Rune: Halls Of Valhalla'' and possibly Rune itself too, any weapon can be thrown with the obvious backdraw of not having said weapon in your hands anymore. In player versus player duels, throwing your last remaining melee weapon is usually unexpected and can bring victory, but if it fails you're weaponless. You can pick up one of every kind, giving you quite an arsenal to throw with. You can also pick up chopped off pieces of enemies and throw those. Ineffective, but funny.
* ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'' features pistols with [[Bottomless Magazines|an endless supply of magazines]] as your sidearms and indeed Ranged Emergency Weapons.
** The sequel adds an oddly low-powered Desert Eagle("[[AKA
** The chainsaw in the sequel also becomes a single pistol when it runs out of fuel. Clearly, in the south they've run out of places to stash their guns.
* In [[City of Heroes]] when the custom mission creator was released it was possible to make custom enemies with no ranged attacks allowing a ranged character to fly up and fight them in perfect safety. Consequently all custom enemies with a melee attack set now get Throwing Knives or Shuriken as a ranged attack power.
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* Not a single weapon, but Lenneth's ability to equip bows is likely this in the first ''[[Valkyrie Profile]]'' game. While there's no enemies that can't ever be reached by melee, an early boss battle has a powerful mage protected by a pair of very durable henchmen, which you'd have to break through to reach the mage with melee, during which the mage will be pounding you with spells. It's possible to have recruited an archer prior to this, but just in case you haven't, the game advises you to switch Lenneth from her usual sword to a bow.
** The Valkyries are consummate warriors in the game's universe just like in [[Real Life]] (Real Myth?). There's a reason her [[Finishing Move]] has a bow version as well as a sword version.
* In ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' all ranged weapons are this for all classes except Hunters. They consist of guns, bows, crossbows and throwing knives for warriors and rogues and wands for mages, priests and warlocks. The most common use of them is ''initiating'' battle from a distance in order to lure mobs to a more favourable position.<ref>Technically that's the most common use that actually involves ''using'' said weapon. For most classes it's just another slot's worth of stat-bonus-granting gear.</ref>
** Most [[
* All of the melee weapon styles in ''[[DC Universe Online]]'' offer some manner of ranged attack capability, via some combination of [[Razor Wind]], [[Throwing Your Sword Always Works]], [[Shockwave Clap]], throwing rocks, shuriken, or a straight-up [[Elemental Attacks|elemental]] [[Charged Attack]].
* While not deliberate, many [[Modern Warfare 2]] players have been absolutely shocked when a knife rusher (commando-marathon-lightweight) actually shot at them, since they (usually) rely on [[One
* Back in the days of [[Quake]] 1, there were a lot of mods intended to provide a set of alternate classes and weapons to play with, usually including a melee fighter. As the game's maps used a lot of shoot-to-activate switches, the mods tended to include a key binding to throw a rock for minimal damage. (The "Hitscan sword" alternative was rare.)
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* This sort of thing used to be ridiculously common in ''[[Dungeons
== [[Real Life]] ==
* The [
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[[Category:Weapons and Wielding Tropes]]
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