Thrown rodent plus sneak attack?!

I'm DMing a Legacy of Fire game and one of my players is a goblin ninja. Recently he asked if he could acquire several mice and carry them along while adventuring. After looking at him oddly, I agreed. Then, at our next game, he successfully Stealthed near an enemy, then threw a mouse at the creature, saying that it was a sneak attack. I gave him the -4 to attack for an improvised weapon, but I couldn't come up with anything that explicitly said he could or could not do this. Granted, the base damage was minimal (1 point), but the sneak attack damage was what he was after.

1. Is there anything that rules for or against this?
2. If this is allowed to continue, at what point does the suspension of disbelief break down? "I throw a speck of sand at a guy." "You hit." (Player rolls sneak attack damage).

I'm not sure that a hurled mouse has sufficient mass to do a point of nonlethal damage, let alone lethal. They are also likely to eat their way out of any container and escape.

Rule zero allows you to tell him not to be an idiot - he could ruin the feel of the game for the other players. However, if this drew laughter and applause from the table as a whole, where's the harm?

Getting stuck with a piece of metal deals damage, getting hit with a rat from across the room does not. Is it funny? Yes. Should you continue to indulge the player? Depends on how much of it you want to put with. The same joke doesn't get funnier with repeated tellings.

As long as the prerequisites are met, he can sneak attack with just about any thing.

The attack must deal damage, and in the above example, a speck of sand deals none.

I would have ruled the mice did nonlethal by the way, and only if they were dead.
He wants to throw live mice, he has to grapple it first.

HIGHLY related. I've been wanting to make a joke character that uses this ki trick to carry around a bag of squirrels and throw them at enemies:

Ki Charge (Su): A ninja with this trick can invest a portion of her ki into a single thrown weapon, such as a shuriken, and throw it as a standard action. The thrown weapon explodes on impact in a 5-foot burst, dealing 1d6 points of fire damage plus 1d6 points of fire damage for every four levels of the ninja above 2nd, to a maximum 4d6 at 18th level. Creatures caught in the blast receive a Reflex save to halve the damage. The DC of this save is 10 + 1/2 the ninja’s level + the ninja’s Charisma modifier. If the thrown weapon hits a creature, that creature takes a –2 penalty on the saving throw. If the thrown weapon misses, treat it as a thrown splash weapon. Using this ability expends 1 ki point from her ki pool.

But yea, it should work I think, since it'd be an improvised weapon...

A speck of sand wouldn't count. A marble would. Throwing a caltrop probably would...butter knife, maybe...hm

Remember, if you want to throw any live animal, you need to grapple it first.
This eats into action economy, and is not worth it.

Dead animals on the hand, make better weapons than live ones.

This reminds me of the rat flail somehow...

Make him upgrade to rats. but yes, it works.

I would have let him do it once for the the funny.

But it won't work after that.

Rule-mongering aside...as the GM, there will be times when you need to interpret a rule that may reside in a grey area. In most cases, common sense will give you the right answer even if it does not follow the RAW. If your initial reaction to a situation is "I'm not sure that will work", you are probably on the right track. As long as the action does not skew the game too much, let the player do what they want with the caveat that you will want to think about it more after the game.

IRL throwing a soft and squishy 20 gram mouse would not hurt a normal sized person unless it hit them in the eye. If you are using called shots in your game, then you may wish to let him use a mouse as long as he successfully hits the target in the eye (-10 to hit). Otherwise, throwing a mouse is just not effective.

Like I said, he has to grapple the mouse first.

I wouldn't allow it. As the rules are written, you could throw a dead mouse/rat as an improvised weapon and do damage. I think in the spirit of the rule it doesn't count as an improvised weapon for the purposes of dealing damage. Funny, yes. A source of damage, no. Now if he was throwing a dead cow or deer I would allow for damage. How about using a dead cat as a ranged trip like a bola?

a mouse is smaller, lighter, and softer than a sap. I could see it doing 1 non-lethal point of damage by itself. (assuming dead mice to avoid the grapple). This would put all the sneak attack damage as non-lethal.

Anyway, what goblin would throw perfectly good food at someone. Pickle it and save it for a snack later.

With proper training, a mouse can fetch very small things for you, like toothpicks.

Mine do.

Related reading from Goblins of Golarion (HOW HANDY IS THAT?)

Tossglove: A tossglove is a hefty leather and metal

glove made for holding and throwing an insect, snake, or
other tiny creature that would otherwise bite the goblin.
Those who don’t use a tossglove when attempting to sling
such creatures provoke an attack of opportunity from
the animal they attempt to throw or stash. The glove
has overlapping plates that cover the goblin’s arm up to
the elbow. It’s a full-round action to put on or take off
a tossglove, and while it’s worn, that hand can’t be used
to perform acts of fine manipulation (such as making
a Disable Device check or firing an arrow). The gloved
hand can still wield a melee weapon.

Angry Snake: Using a tossglove (see page 13) a goblin can “safely” handle a venomous snake (use the stats for

a viper; Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 133) and either toss it at
an opponent or sneak it into a pocket or pack of those
passing—goblins who don’t use tossgloves provoke a
single attack of opportunity from the snake when they
throw it or plant it. Throwing a snake requires a ranged
touch attack with an improvised weapon. If the goblin
hits, the snake lands on the foe in such a way as to cause
the foe to become shaken until he takes a move action to
divest himself of the unwelcome guest. The snake won’t
bite its target on the round it lands (the snake is generally
too disoriented to do so), but if it’s not removed as a move
action, it makes a bite attack against the foe on which it is
climbing on its turn each round.

You can extrapolate your rules from there.

Related reading from Goblins of Golarion (HOW HANDY IS THAT?)

...
You can extrapolate your rules from there.

Thank you. This seems to me to point that the goblin would not get sneak attack damage, since it is not the goblin doing the end attack, but the snake (mouse, what ever). The goblin is just the delivery..

I'm DMing a Legacy of Fire game and one of my players is a goblin ninja. Recently he asked if he could acquire several mice and carry them along while adventuring. After looking at him oddly, I agreed. Then, at our next game, he successfully Stealthed near an enemy, then threw a mouse at the creature, saying that it was a sneak attack. I gave him the -4 to attack for an improvised weapon, but I couldn't come up with anything that explicitly said he could or could not do this. Granted, the base damage was minimal (1 point), but the sneak attack damage was what he was after.

1. Is there anything that rules for or against this?
2. If this is allowed to continue, at what point does the suspension of disbelief break down? "I throw a speck of sand at a guy." "You hit." (Player rolls sneak attack damage).

You are asking at what point does your Arabian themed adventure with mouse throwing goblin ninjas break down?

Typically as a rule I do not RAW away things that the players need a lot of work to do, take a lot of penlites to actual game play, that minimize the amount of gain they get from it, to try to do something they think is fun. That is just my personal opinion though. I would let him do it for a little while, and if he thinks its funny then great. At some point it will either just be rote and no one will be paying attention to it any more, or he will get tired of it.

If you do not want him to do it, then just tell him it is not going to work though. Or you could make him grapple the mouse first, and hope the action economy is enough to make him give up. Not sure why everyone is trying to add more penalties to something that is already terribly unbeneficial though. This might have the unintentional effect of showcasing the action though.

All in all I would just be happy he is not breaking the system with the rules that are allowed. I would much rather have silly/stupid then a 12th level gunslinger running around 1 hitting every encounter I have.

Edit: Also, you realize in the example that you gave about, if the goblin threw a dagger at the guy he would still have gotten sneak attack damage right? The post makes it seem like he is trying to cheat the system when he is actually doing much less damage then he could be doing.

My reaction:

"Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha! That's awesome! You do one point of non lethal damage."

Don't you need to have a barbarian archetype or something to start throwing creatures around as weapons?

This is all great advice. I never thought to include a grapple check, but if I introduce this, the player will just start carrying around dead mice. I also made it a move action to retrieve a mouse from its container, a la retrieving an item from a backpack. Of course, I also mentioned (in jest) that this could be a avoided if the character had a bandolier of mice or something similar.

As Timothy Hanson said, he's doing something that is less effective than a normal attack (both in attack and damage value). He could have thrown a dagger, surikan, etc and done more base damage with the same sneak attack dice to boot. So, despite my initial responce of "C'mon. Really?", I may just go with the flow and allow it to continue.

There is the Endless Bag of Dung. At 500gp, it's steal for endless ammo.

If you have ever seen a cow pie tossing contest, you know it makes a decent thrown weapon.

I can't resist the urge to cheekily take a bow for this.

In all honesty using the mouse for a sneak attack was actually improvisation on my part in the midst of the encounter. I had initially intended to use them as distractions for stealth checks.

FYI The target was a salamander surfacing from a pool of lava and the rodent did 20+ non-lethal damage.

There....there are so many stupid...stupid questions to ask here.

First: if he gets a improvised weapon penalty for this, could he avoid that by using the Rough and Ready Trait? I mean, take a rank in profession (rat trainer) and suddenly you could call them tools.

I guess the grapple ruling would be fair to the circumstances, but I can imagine ways to get around it. Handle animal to train the rat, get it used to being held, and then take advantage of that to have it on hand when you suddenly chuck it.

Would both target and ....ammo....get the sneak attack damage? I mean, if one takes damage from the hit, then Newton's laws (which admittedly get rather ignored by the system) dictate that an equal amount of force went into the other.

There....there are so many stupid...stupid questions to ask here.

First: if he gets a improvised weapon penalty for this, could he avoid that by using the Rough and Ready Trait? I mean, take a rank in profession (rat trainer) and suddenly you could call them tools.

I guess the grapple ruling would be fair to the circumstances, but I can imagine ways to get around it. Handle animal to train the rat, get it used to being held, and then take advantage of that to have it on hand when you suddenly chuck it.

Would both target and ....ammo....get the sneak attack damage? I mean, if one takes damage from the hit, then Newton's laws (which admittedly get rather ignored by the system) dictate that an equal amount of force went into the other.

Ammo is distroyed on a hit...eewww

Ammo is distroyed on a hit...eewww

well even if that wasn't in effect the rat would probably die from hitting a salamander anyway. A real no win situation for him I guess, since he either hangs onto the monster made of fire or swims in the lava.

And I was more thinking of it as some type of thrown weapon like a dagger, since it isn't drawn as a 'nonaction' or whatever they call it.

You do know that Sleight of Hand is useful. Not only can you Pick Pocket
but you can Put Pocket. I would rather like to see the reaction from a
NPC when you put a mouse on them and they find a small animal crawling
around in their clothes. I would say that would distract them for a couple
or rounds.

You are asking at what point does your Arabian themed adventure with mouse throwing goblin ninjas break down?

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