Sling and club are default weapon choices for everyone except my wizards, who skip on the sling bit (not proficient :( ). Granted, that's mainly as backup weapons but everyone needs a blunt option for dealing with skeletons and a cheap, light-weight ranged option is very good at low levels.
So, slings ended up houseruled to an 80ft range increment, d6+Str damage, free action reload exotic weapon in my game. Slinging stones rather than bullets sends the range increment back down to 50.
I haven't decided what to do with sling staffs yet, which is inconvenient since that's the one my character actually uses. My thoughts at this point include some combination of 1.5Str (and +3 Deadly Aim), martial rather than exotic, and high damage die (d12? 2d6?), possibly preserving the slow reload as a balance.
This is what happened to slings, at least in my game.
The funny thing about Slings is that they were a commoner weapon. Culturally speaking they'd be a simple weapon, but it is an exotic culture to the typical Northern-Eurocentric-fantasy setting.
Commoner weapon =/= simple/martial/exotic. I think exotic fits - it was one of those weapons that required training from childhood to produce really good military slingers, according to historians of days past.
For what it's worth, it's not an issue in my home game because exotic proficiency is otherwise available, but I vaguely intend to make sling proficiency available via a background trait, when I get around to writing one. Shepherd Slinger, or something.
I suppose it isn't all that much of a task to be worth procrastinating. Shepherd Slinger. EWP Sling, and favored enemy +2 vs big bad wolves. Done.
Actually longbows are much easier to become proficient in than a sling, especially combat levels of proficiency. Crossbows soon after became a thing because they were even easier to train inSame for LongbowsThe funny thing about Slings is that they were a commoner weapon. Culturally speaking they'd be a simple weapon, but it is an exotic culture to the typical Northern-Eurocentric-fantasy setting.Commoner weapon =/= simple/martial/exotic. I think exotic fits - it's one of those weapons that required training from childhood to produce really good military slingers, according to historians of days past.
That depends on the longbow, to an extent. The English Longbow did require a lifetime of training, but that was mostly due to the substantial physical requirements of using bows with such a high draw weight that it deformed the archer's skeleton.
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Out of all the ranged weapons I have used/practice with over the years (Bows, Crossbows, Various Firearms, Slings) Slings are Oddities. It seems (to me) that trying to get accurate (consistent) shots off under 10 yards is next to impossible, but 20-30 yards away accuracy comes easy. That's the exact opposite of every other ranged weapon I have had experience with.
I wouldn't say that the sling is an Exotic Weapon, it's actually easy to learn but incredibly hard to master. It really deserves it's own Feat chain, with each feat up the chain providing significant bonuses over the last. After all, almost nothing about using a sling translates to any other weapon.
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I think taking exotic proficiency with a sling could allow it to be reloaded as a free action and can qualifies for bow specific feats and abilities. Its a bit of a feat tax but its just 1 feat and could allow for a halfling zen slinger.
Ehh I would rather see feats that build on the accuracy and damage it can cause a la david and goalith. Like say a feat that causes crits to increase its damage die size by 2 or 3 steps. Maybe even increasing it more based on how big a creature is so that say a small halfling criting a colossal spider increases the die size by say 5 sizes on a crit? I would totally be down for that.
I mean when I get the itch to sling rocks around, I just take a level of oracle and throw them!
Every character I have has a sling and a club.
I even carry a few around because there's always some character who turns up with precisely 0 ranged weapons. At the price they cost they are practically GIVING them away, take several!
The problem with slings is that paizo seems to have a policy to not give them any nice things. Most feats and magic items that make bows strong do not work with slings.
When the Halfling alternate racial warslinger came out people hoped that it would apply to all slings but that was shot down and using slings in combat was compared to throwing balloons at enemies.
In the end it can be said that slings only exist for the sake of having them but they get no love/support.