Pistol start

The term pistol start is used among Doom players to refer to the initial status of the player after beginning a game, or after dying and restarting the current level. As the term implies, in this setup the player has only a pistol and fifty bullets in his possession, and is completely healthy - as if starting a new game.

Conditions
A pistol start ensues in several situations:


 * most obviously, after starting a new game in the main menu.
 * when a level is restarted after dying.
 * using the IDCLEV cheat code, or starting a game with the -warp launch parameter.


 * when a dying player presses the exit switch in the moment of final blow.
 * performing a suicide exit in the previous level - either by means of a death slide or dying whilst a Romero's head is being killed (e.g. Hell Revealed's MAP23 and Eternal Doom's MAP13).

Notability
Ensuring that the player is able to complete the level from a pistol start with a reasonable effort is generally considered important for a map. However, due to the fact that the player is able to keep his supplies when advancing to a new level, it can be tricky for the mapper to balance the difficulty levels between pistol start gameplay and the one with a preobtained ordnance. Naturally, it is a problem when multiple levels are chained together.

The maps in Doom and Doom II were typically created so that the player could finish them from a pistol start. When Sandy Petersen was asked about the things he found disappointing in Doom, he said he felt the episodes were too easy because id designers did not properly take account the player's ability to carry ordnance from earlier levels. The gameplay testing was based mainly on pistol starts, separately for each level.

Arguably, the most striking consequence is seen in E3M8: Dis where the spiderdemon is practically powerless if the player has found a BFG9000 somewhere in the episode. In case the player has managed to keep the weapon along with its ammunition and ultimately uses it against the boss monster, the battle will be dealt with ease which one may consider anticlimatic, given that it is the final endeavor of the game. The intended challenge of the level is experienced only when the player fights the spiderdemon with the weaponry that is provided in the map.

A reprise of the problem is avoided in Doom II as the destruction of the final boss was made more independent of damage and more dependent of accuracy. However, the solution has a similar threat of disappointment as the boss, technically, ended up being a mere static wall and not a moving thing. As the main opposition in the level is produced by the spawned monsters, the player could be given a considerable arsenal in the beginning of MAP30: Icon of Sin.

Many custom maps are specifically designed to be played from scratch (and sometimes intentionally killing off the player to achieve it), so that the players' initial defencelessness and vulnerability forces them to use discretion and evasion tactics while seeking weapons and powerups. This adds a new edge to the gameplay.

Other Doom engine games

 * Heretic has an equivalent of a pistol start. It uses the same numeric values for health and ammunition but replaces the pistol with the Elven Wand and the bullets with pieces of crystals.
 * The ACS scripting language of Hexen was extended for ZDoom. A new feature allowed level designers to abandon the pistol start status and give a desired amount of supplies to the player at the level startup. It was also made possible for a mapper to clear the present equipment. The relevant action specials are GiveInventory and ClearInventory.