Can a Cairn Wight channel its energy drain special attack with a ranged weapon?

Question

From the Bestiary, Cairn Wight (CR 4):

Some societies deliberately create these specialized wights to serve as guardians for barrows or other burial sites. A cairn wight is an advanced wight that fights with a weapon, typically a sword, that channels its energy drain attack and affects creatures damaged by the weapon as if they had been struck by the wight’s slam attack.

The variant monster description says it typically fights with a sword, but does not specify that it must use a melee weapon to channel its energy drain special attack. I am not aware of anything published by Paizo that prohibits a Cairn Wight from channeling its energy drain with a ranged weapons, so can it do so?

Answer 1

It will work on ranged or melee attacks. Your quoted description doesn't prohibit a ranged attack, and the energy drain ability itself says:

This attack saps a living opponent’s vital energy and happens automatically when a melee or ranged attack hits.

With no specific rule for the cairn wight beyond being able to use Energy Drain with a weapon, the general rule applies. Fire away.

Answer 2

RAW, yes, it appears to work with any weapon, melee or ranged. I'd be surprised if that was the intent, though. As another example of a similar creature, the Ragewight has Energy Drain on both it's sword and bite attacks, but not it's thrown Javelin attack.

Answer 3

Yes, it works with ranged weapons, too. 'Weapon' refers to any sort of weapon, the books specify 'melee weapon', 'ranged weapon', 'projectile weapon', 'manufactured weapon', etc. as they need to.