CROSSBOW

One tier above bow, at journeyman, the same Fletcher starts asking 3 emeralds for a crossbow. It is his most expensive plain weapon and the only one whose parts pull in a second profession, since nobody sells iron off a fletching table.

The recipe needs 3 stick, 1 iron ingot, 2 string, 1 tripwire hook, and two of those four ingredients are things this exact villager also buys off you at other tiers. A crossbow also sits in a handful of the game's own chest loot, so a raid or a shipwreck can hand you one for free before either the trade or the workbench comes into it.

One seller, one price: a Fletcher at journeyman asks 3 emeralds for a crossbow. There is no cheaper tier to find, since Journeyman is the only place the trade shows up.

Crossbow sells for as little as 3 emeralds, from the Fletcher at the Journeyman tier, and 2 of the other 4 cost less. The price is fixed rather than rolled, so a second Fletcher will quote you exactly the same.

The Fletcher at its journeyman tier asks 3 emeralds for a crossbow. 8 of the 72 villagers that pay emeralds, emptied out:

3 dark oak boats against 96 rotten flesh for the same 3 emeralds, 32 times the carrying, and the shortest wait is the Fisherman at 1.9 real minutes of shelf, gathering not counted.

The offer locks after 12 uses, capping one Fletcher at 24 crossbows a Minecraft day across his two restocks.

It sits at level 3 of 5, unlocked once a villager banks 70 trade experience, 2 tiers past where he starts. A villager still selling arrows at Novice has not come close to this row yet.

12 crossbows drain one slot, and the Fletcher needs 2 real minutes back at his table before it opens again. A Minecraft day, 20 real minutes, holds two of those refills.

A full day camped nets 24 crossbows for 72 emeralds, one crossbow roughly every 50 real seconds, 3.6 emeralds a real minute, the fastest emerald burn of any plain weapon this villager sells.

Where the emeralds come from: the same Fletcher buys string off you too, the same ingredient the crossbow recipe itself asks for, so one errand covers both sides of the counter.

The rest of his sheet, worth a look on the same trip: feather, enchanted bow, tripwire hook, enchanted crossbow, tipped arrow and stick.

A crossbow stays loaded once it is drawn, so it can be carried ready and fired the moment something appears, where a bow has to be pulled first. It also hits harder than a bow at full draw, which makes it the better opening shot and the worse follow up.

Three enchantments only exist here: Multishot fires three arrows at once, Piercing punches through several mobs in a line, and Quick Charge shortens the reload. A crossbow can also fire a firework rocket, which no bow will do.

The recipe is the fiddly part: three sticks, two string, one iron ingot and one tripwire hook, and the hook is the piece nobody has lying around. That is most of the reason a finished crossbow is worth buying.

Pillagers carry them and drop them, usually damaged and sometimes enchanted, which is the other common route to one.

Loaded with a firework rocket it becomes something else entirely: a weapon that damages everything around the point of impact, which is what makes a crossbow the sensible thing to hold when a raid starts.