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according to rules shurikens are treated as ammo in that they are destroyed when they hit & a 50% recovery if they miss
if I am wrong please correct me here
my main question is - if you make a magical version which has the returning ability (which is allowed since it is a thrown weapon) would the shuriken still be destroyed if it hits ?
I know this would be expensive but this would allow a monk to keep a small supply & be able to attack at range regularly without having to replace them - especially since they are 2x more expensive than x-bow bolts & 4x more expensive than arrows
I would also think since they are composed of metal entirely they shouldnt be destroyed as easily or at all unlike bolts or arrows which have a wooden shaft which can be easily broken
according to rules shurikens are treated as ammo in that they are destroyed when they hit & a 50% recovery if they miss
if I am wrong please correct me heremy main question is - if you make a magical version which has the returning ability (which is allowed since it is a thrown weapon) would the shuriken still be destroyed if it hits ?
I know this would be expensive but this would allow a monk to keep a small supply & be able to attack at range regularly without having to replace them - especially since they are 2x more expensive than x-bow bolts & 4x more expensive than arrows
I would also think since they are composed of metal entirely they shouldnt be destroyed as easily or at all unlike bolts or arrows which have a wooden shaft which can be easily broken
From my understanding the issue with shuriken as ammunition is they they are usually lost instead of broken after they miss, but I've never had a DM say they weren't recoverable after a successful strike.
And like a dagger, I don't see any problem with the returning enhancement being placed upon them, it gives the monk a reliable ranged attack after being used, and being a monk weapon with five enchanted in this way ensures that even when flurried they can get all the attacks in in a given round.
It also sort of depends on how the DM interprets this portion of the Returning description: "Catching a returning weapon when it comes back is a free action. If the character can't catch it, or if the character has moved since throwing it, the weapon drops to the ground in the square from which it was thrown."
3.5 specified that you needed a free hand to catch something, meaning that you could (usually) only catch up to two returning items in a round. Pathfinder seems to have removed that restriction, replacing it with something more nebulous.
You do still run into the problem of shuriken breaking on impact though. Nothing in the returning property says that the weapon is safe from destruction, so your shuriken are still vulnerable to breaking.
Shuriken are weird in that they are part weapon and part ammunition. This leads to odd complications on their usefulness.
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Well this is one of those cases where your just kind of wasting your gold. Sure if you miss you've got a 50% chance of your shuriken coming back to you, but that's hardly worth the gold.
The main advantage they have in being like ammunition is that they're also drawn out like ammunition, aka it's a free action to draw a shuriken.
That makes them very useful for classes and characters that don't take the quick draw feat since they can get a full attack off with them. They are especially useful for monks as they count as a monk weapon and can be flurry-thrown easily.
Enchanting them has always been kind of "meh" though.
At 8000 gold apiece, that's one expensive full attack @ 1d2+1+str. mod. each!
Magnetic Bracers
Not only does it cause thrown shuriken to return, it also holds them stylishly at the ready. Anybody remember Jasmine from that old Conan cartoon from the early '90s?
Interesting. I could see that. Thrown weapons don't get much love. Realistically, they're not as good as bows and such, but they're so COOL!
I have a player in my PFRPG campaing wanting to do the same thing.
I have considered allowing said player to get enchanted shuriken but if he wants returning, he has to enchant an individual shuriken, not a bundle as per the rules about enchanting ammutition.
A differant option to this is to just make it a small sized Starknife. (The character in question is a rogue) This would still require a feat to use propperly (I think... need to check rules on Med players using small weapons, don't have book here right now)
Hope this helps, and if anyone has that clarification about small weapons handy i would appreciate it.
-B
why not do it as a bracer that holds them and makes more as you throw them... and enchants them like a +1 flaming bow might. it would be more like a quiver then ... no so much worry about the ammo issue
Speaking of... does anyone know if (as it was in older versions) a player can throw three shuriken at a time or is it just down to one now?
1 at a time.
Multiples were in 3.0, I think, but at that point I believe shuriken were treated as regular thrown weapons.
Handling shuriken as ammunition is a brilliant way of making them stand out and allowing high rate of fire. Heck, consider you can TWF with them.
I'm not sure I'd want to, but a rogue with TWF could take EWP: shuriken (or suck up the -4 to hit, I suppose), rapid shot, and just fling a half dozen of these suckers...
1 at a time.
Multiples were in 3.0, I think, but at that point I believe shuriken were treated as regular thrown weapons.
Handling shuriken as ammunition is a brilliant way of making them stand out and allowing high rate of fire. Heck, consider you can TWF with them.
I'm not sure I'd want to, but a rogue with TWF could take EWP: shuriken (or suck up the -4 to hit, I suppose), rapid shot, and just fling a half dozen of these suckers...
Shuriken are cheap, and per the write up in PRD they are lost or destroyed after thrown in combat just like arrows or crossbow bolts. The big fun part of Shuriken is that they a.) are still treated as thrown weapons, so you get to add Str bonus to damage, if any. And the best part, b.) they are treated as Monk weapons. This means that although they are generally inferior to a dagger or starknife to another character class, in the hands of a Monk they are much more useful... you now have a thrown weapon that you can use with Flurry of Blows.
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That part tells me that they count as ammunition for enchanting them as well, meaning that you cannot put the returning property on them any more than you could on arrows. Returning must be placed on the firing weapon. Now, maybe a custom item:
actually the returning enhancement can only be added to thrown weapons which shurikens qualify for
I was thinking of using the returning trait so I could carry a small supply on my monk & they would not get destroyed each time they hit - returning after a miss is just a bonus
if this was allowed then the cost while still expensive would reduce my costs in having to replace them all the time & more importantly I could carry less since each round they return to me
I have used shurikens in RL & they are so solid they dont break or even blunten very easily so I dont see why they do in D&D/PF especially if they were MW or magical. even if they do blunten then they could easily be sharpened again just like a sword which I have never been in a campaign that a DM required this to happen
maybe the APG could change the rule that shurikens are not destroyed but take a round each to find on a miss & a round per body to "extract" multiple shuriken??
I would totally let someone do that, but only if you pay full enchantment price for each shuriken.
Because essentially you want to turn what functions like ammunition into functioning just like regular thrown weapons. So, um. Yeah.
Like I said earlier, at 8000 apiece, that's mighty expensive for a low-damage weapon. All the same, the idea of a monk who brings the awesome with a set of magical shurikens is just too fun to ignore.
The rules kinda fall apart, here, IMHO. Shuriken, as Ceefood said, aren't particularly fragile at all. I don't see them shattering on impact.
I'd suggest maybe looking at the Robe of Stars for a minute. It generates +5 shuriken (that can only be used once per month). Maybe a similar, less-powerful magic item could do that, but more times per day, so it would be useful to a monk. Just a thought.
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Well remember that ammunition is allowed to be bought at a variable rate. The costs are for 50 arrows/bolts/shurikens but that doesn't mean you have to buy all 50. You can easily buy just a few, and making them break on successful use helps balance that fact.
That and the game is about way more then how much damage you can deal to something.
I'm not sure I'd want to, but a rogue with TWF could take EWP: shuriken (or suck up the -4 to hit, I suppose), rapid shot, and just fling a half dozen of these suckers...
He could take Quickdraw instead of EWP and do it with daggers instead. (Or some other light weapon with a range increment.) And he could enchant them and not worry about them breaking or what not.
Big benefit of shuriken really is a Monk being able to use them in a flurry of blows. No other class gets proficiency with them, so any other class would be better off taking Quickdraw if going the thrown weapon route, since QD would work with any weapon and the other thrown weapons have better damage, crit, or range (or combination of such).
If you have a reliable source of greater magic weapon and/or flame arrow, the shuriken might be worth it.
Well this is one of those cases where your just kind of wasting your gold. Sure if you miss you've got a 50% chance of your shuriken coming back to you, but that's hardly worth the gold.
That is the weirdest interpretation of the rules I have heard of in a while...
Sense the shurikens are ammunition, if they hit they do break, but if they miss they don't hit anything else I would say you get them back. If
I felt like complicating things, and being more precise, I would see how close they got to hitting, to see if they hit the armor or hide of the target, then do the 50% if they hit the armor. This is because the 50% for missing is assuming you hit something else and in doing so destroyed the ammo, but sense you don't actually hit anything the ammo would be fine and reusable.
If you have a reliable source of greater magic weapon and/or flame arrow, the shuriken might be worth it.
We crunched this over at the DPR thread. Assuming both Greater Magic Weapon and Flame Arrow and a full build dedicated to Shuriken shucking, your damage on a full attack will almost equal that of a (completely self buffed) melee monk (37.4 versus 38.67). Overall though I wouldn't consider it a worthwhile build, not without some house-ruling help (or supplements).
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Well this is one of those cases where your just kind of wasting your gold. Sure if you miss you've got a 50% chance of your shuriken coming back to you, but that's hardly worth the gold.
That is the weirdest interpretation of the rules I have heard of in a while...
Sense the shurikens are ammunition, if they hit they do break, but if they miss they don't hit anything else I would say you get them back.
How is this a weird interpretation as its on page 141 of the rulebook
Generally speaking, ammunition that hits its target is destroyed or rendered useless, while ammunition that misses has a 50% chance of being destroyed or lost
although I do agree that shurikens should not be lost or destroyed if they miss
Well this is one of those cases where your just kind of wasting your gold. Sure if you miss you've got a 50% chance of your shuriken coming back to you, but that's hardly worth the gold.
That is the weirdest interpretation of the rules I have heard of in a while...
Sense the shurikens are ammunition, if they hit they do break, but if they miss they don't hit anything else I would say you get them back.
How is this a weird interpretation as its on page 141 of the rulebook
Generally speaking, ammunition that hits its target is destroyed or rendered useless, while ammunition that misses has a 50% chance of being destroyed or lostalthough I do agree that shurikens should not be lost or destroyed if they miss
Special conditions alter the rules all the time. They just missed this one, and it is logical that this would work the way I think it should.
Look, sling stones are ammunition and they are also governed by the same rules.
Shuriken should, too.
Just skimmed the last posts of this thread, and realized that Rapid Shot could be used with shuriken. Does that mean a monk could throw one additional shuriken during his flurry?
I don't see any reason not to allow it. Now if only manyshot worked with shuriken, we might get somewhere.
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The other fun with flurry of shuriken is the fun of throwing poisons.
a LE monk would have no problems chucking a handful of cheap poisoned scraps of metal. Hit someone with 5 doses of, say, Greenblood oil, and they have to make a DC 21 fort save, once a round, for 4 rounds, or loose 5 con.
Say, make a magic item who's whole job is to apply poison to any shuriken stored in it.
The true strength behind a monk flurrying a volley of shuriken is in the poison rules, especially once said monk acquires poison immunity and sufficient Craft (alchemy). Or preferably, a sorcerer/wizard with access to fabricate and full ranks of Craft (alchemy).
Multiple-dose poisoned shuriken, anyone?
If Mike the Monk at higher level acquires sufficient supplies of deathblade the Fortitude DCs shoots from 20 to 30 delivering 1d3 Con over a staggering 21 round period that requires two successful saving throws to shrug it off. Granted, that much deathblade has a cost of 10,800 gp. Howewver, the aforementioned spell caster - taking 10 with a reasonable +10 Craft (alchemy) bonus - only requires 3,600 gp of raw materials to produce those 6 doses.
50 +3 adamantine shuriken cost 21,000 gp and change - but they ignore all material-based forms of damage reduction and regeneration. A simple align weapon should suffice for the alignment component necessary for the remainder. At lower levels alchemical silver and cold iron shuriken are dirt cheap as well, even if enchanted/magical.
EDIT: Ninja'd by Happler. :)
Why is this 2 year old thread necro'd?
3 years, actually. Well, a few weeks shy of 3. Its January of 2013 now.
And because some people don't bother to check when the last post was made.
Or perhaps because somebody wanted to talk about the same subject but decided to search for a thread that talked about it instead of just creating a new one to clutter the boards??? couldn't be something like that....
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Or perhaps because somebody wanted to talk about the same subject but decided to search for a thread that talked about it instead of just creating a new one to clutter the boards??? couldn't be something like that....
Weird that you are irked. Huh? Strange peeves?
Anyways, when responding to an old thread, you are responding to statements that may be irrelevant, and outdated. Those who were originally involved are likely not to respond, and if you are trying to get a FAQ, it will be ignored.
In general, it is a bad idea.
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Or perhaps because somebody wanted to talk about the same subject but decided to search for a thread that talked about it instead of just creating a new one to clutter the boards??? couldn't be something like that....Weird that you are irked. Huh? Strange peeves?
Anyways, when responding to an old thread, you are responding to statements that may be irrelevant, and outdated. Those who were originally involved are likely not to respond, and if you are trying to get a FAQ, it will be ignored.
In general, it is a bad idea.
Nuh uh.
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We're not sure that even we can approve this Necro...
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We're not sure that even we can approve this Necro...
Still as relevant today as when it was initially posted, I think, at least for Pathfinder1e players. I just read through it and didn't realize it was a necro-thread until I got much lower.
Just because a discussion is old doesn't invalidate it, as I'm sure you know.
I never thought about poisoned shuriken before, and never really gave much thought to using them with two-weapon fighting.
Also, the first time I've heard of an ability to make ammunition "durable" so that's something I'm going to have to look up. If that's a thing, that changes my perception of some ammunition as well.
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I suspect TNG's objection was to the minimalist argument presented by Ardencroft rather than to the subject of shuriken. Have some pride in your work - no one wants undead threads raised and then immediately abandoned by their reanimator, surely?