How many times in one round can you throw a weapon with the returning property. It says, "it returns to the thrower just before the creature's next turn (and is therefore ready to use again in that turn)." Does that mean that you can throw it once even if you have more than one attack or that you can throw it more than once.
Once.
You throw it, and you don't have it again until just before your turn again.
-S
So it is useful until your level 6 and then it sucks.
I have a switch hitter ranger and though how awesome would it be to just throw my earth breaker rather than swap my hammer and bow all the time.
Query, does anyone else just houserule them to allow full attacks while throwing like they ought to instead of being worthless filler properties? Because that's what we do at our table and while they're still not great they have the odd use here or there.
House ruled that if you add both Returning and Dancing to the same weapon, you can use it to hit multiple targets and the return back to you before your next turn.
I just remembered the Ricochet Hammer from the APG. You can house rule "Ricochet" as a special property that can be added to thrown weapons.
And remember to stand in place after you throw it, because it returns to the square from which it was thrown, not to you. This depresses me.
I guess you could run through the beginning of your iterative attacks as melee and throw the weapon on the last iterative. That would give you a little reach, but that last iterative attack is a weak thing.
If I wanted to houserule, I'd probably price out a 'greater returning' weapon that you could make come back to you as a swift action, on top of the regular returning text. So you could throw it 2 times a round, and also call it to you next round if you had to move, or whatever. more flexibility
I have a switch hitter ranger and though how awesome would it be to just throw my earth breaker rather than swap my hammer and bow all the time.
This would not work, even if you could throw the same weapon more than once in a round. The returning quality can only be added to a thrown weapon. So, even if you have the Trow Anything feat, and can throw your earthbreaker as if it were a thrown weapon, it does not change the actual properties of the weapon. Thus it is still not a thrown weapon, even though your character is quite able to throw it without penalty. Perhaps if the earthbreaker was first enchanted with the throwing quality you could after enchant it with the returning quality, but I would not fault a GM for ruling either way on that.
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The "returning" property, as written in RAW, is one of the many reasons that weapon throwing concepts in Pathfinder are so difficult and costly to play.
We have houseruled in our games that "returning" weapons combined with "quickdraw" will allow the player to multi-attack with multiple returning weapons round after round, so long as they don't move.
I think the weapon property is silly, it's a magical property, it shouldn't return to where it was thrown from, it should return to the thrower no matter where the thrower is. I had one GM who house-ruled the property that way and along with quickdraw was able to play a reasonably effective dagger-throwing concept.
But by RAW, the returning property is of very limited value.
This is one reason I pursued an enchanted bandolier that would impart an enchantment to thrown weapons as a bow or crossbow does to ammunition. I think that might be a better choice anyway since you can enchant one item and pass the effect on to any number of daggers. I don't think that's "broken" because it does for thrown daggers exactly what a bow or crossbow does for ammunition. But others will (and have) disagree.
If you can get your GM to approve an enchanted bandolier, that would probably be better, cheaper and more effective in the long run than even returning daggers.
Just so you know... in 4e every single magical thrown weapon automatically returns to the thrower's current location and can be thrown as many times per round as the character has attacks. Plus it can be thrown and return even out of turn for immediate interrupts or reactions.
You don't even need a "returning" enchantment. They all just do.
I like the bandolier. Might try to steal it some time.
The "returning" property, as written in RAW, is one of the many reasons that weapon throwing concepts in Pathfinder are so difficult and costly to play.
We have houseruled in our games that "returning" weapons combined with "quickdraw" will allow the player to multi-attack with multiple returning weapons round after round, so long as they don't move.
I think the weapon property is silly, it's a magical property, it shouldn't return to where it was thrown from, it should return to the thrower no matter where the thrower is. I had one GM who house-ruled the property that way and along with quickdraw was able to play a reasonably effective dagger-throwing concept.
But by RAW, the returning property is of very limited value.
This is one reason I pursued an enchanted bandolier that would impart an enchantment to thrown weapons as a bow or crossbow does to ammunition. I think that might be a better choice anyway since you can enchant one item and pass the effect on to any number of daggers. I don't think that's "broken" because it does for thrown daggers exactly what a bow or crossbow does for ammunition. But others will (and have) disagree.
If you can get your GM to approve an enchanted bandolier, that would probably be better, cheaper and more effective in the long run than even returning daggers.
I worked up such an item and posted it on the messageboard a few months ago. It is entirely legal by the custom magic item creation rules, as far as any custom magic item is (the whole section of the CRB states that it is an alternate rule to make custom magic items.).
It is called the Bladestorm Bandoleer, it is similar to an efficient quiver (has extra-dimensional spaces for specific weapon types), but it also casts a CL 1 Magic Weapon spell on any weapon drawn from it, can also cast Light on said weapon if the owner desires, and once-per-day the wearer can choose, as a standard action, to cast a CL 4 Bless Weapon spell on one weapon drawn from it. Item price (not creation cost) worked out to around 8500 GP.
I worked up such an item and posted it on the messageboard a few months ago. It is entirely legal by the custom magic item creation rules, as far as any custom magic item is (the whole section of the CRB states that it is an alternate rule to make custom magic items.).It is called the Bladestorm Bandoleer, it is similar to an efficient quiver (has extra-dimensional spaces for specific weapon types), but it also casts a CL 1 Magic Weapon spell on any weapon drawn from it, can also cast Light on said weapon if the owner desires, and once-per-day the wearer can choose, as a standard action, to cast a CL 4 Bless Weapon spell on one weapon drawn from it.
Yeah, I remember that Mabven. I think it's a cool concept, but I also think a much simpler bandoleer with the same enchantments as ranged weapons is possible as well. So a bandoleer which allows daggers to be thrown as a +1 flaming dagger should be available at about the same cost as a +1 flaming bow.
If I recall the objections from the last time this came up, some folks felt that this was unbalanced since thrown weapons gain strength bonuses to damage, but to me that's more than offset by the ridiculously limited range of thrown weapons in PF. It's hard to see how adding a str bonus to a weapon is going to break the game when you can't throw it more than 10 feet without penalties.
I like the idea, I totally allow it in my games.
It should be clear though that the bandolier only works when you throw a weapon, and it loses its magic upon being thrown where it reverts to being a normal dagger. Of cours if you use it to hold an already enchanted dagger, the not-stacking rules would apply just as they do for ammo and bows.
Yeah, well the character I made the item for actually fights melee with daggers just as often as he uses them as thrown weapons, so an item that would only enchant them if they were immediately thrown is sub-optimal for him, even if the item was also able to be enchanted beyond +1 and give the "ammunition" other weapon special abilities.