So, a certain thread got massively off-topic recently by talking about a feat meant for throwing characters. This feat seems about on par with what you would expect for it's effect. At least, in my opinion and with the quick "math" I used as a baseline. Some people disagree. However, I would rather be constructive rather than destructive.
So, with that in mind, what would you give to throwing to make it better? Are there rules that still need clarifying? Does throwing styles need exuberantly good feats above curve to make it good enough? Or does it need more love period?
Or, do you like where throwing is now? Do you believe that throwing is legitimate? Or perhaps that the style is fine, but lacks the archetype support of something as exuberant as Zen Archer?
I have my own personal bias, as I am quite smitten with Startoss Style right now, but I would love to see other opinions and creations of feats to work with throwing.
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Throwing is fine as it is now. Ricochet Toss + Startoss Style make it very nice, and Two-Handed Thrower + a Belt of Mighty Hurling make STR-throwers competitive in damage.
There are several class-based options for further increasing performance, such as the far strike monk and the flying blade swashbuckler.
It's not as good as archery, but nothing is.
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How "viable" do you want?
Viable enough that we could create a few platoons of French dagger throwers and send them back in time to kill all those English longbowmen at Agincourt?
Is throwing supposed to be that "viable", so that it replaces using bows as the apex ranged weapon? Equals it?
For me, I'm fine with keeping thrown weapons at a level below mechanical projectile weapons. I'm also fine with having a few feats or magical properties that can equalize this, so that a thrower can match an archer but needs to invest MORE to achieve that match.
Which seems to be what we currently have now, right?
All we really need to reach the point described as
I'm also fine with having a few feats or magical properties that can equalize this, so that a thrower can match an archer but needs to invest MORE to achieve that match.
Is something similar to Amulet of Mighty fists, but for thrown weapons. An archer can have a +5 enhancement bonus bow then various situational arrows for specific enemies.
With (name is work in progress) Gloves of Thrown enhancement a throwing character can have +5 gloves then different thrown weapons for different situations. For balance purposes maybe the Gloves should only work with thrown weapons that count as ammunition.
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Personally I think the number of feats required as a tax for throwing to reach bow level damage/competency is too high, but I can concede that's up to individual tables. The need for "Gloves of Throwing" is something that would be required for there to even be a possibility of the two combat styles to be comparable.
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Just use Ascetic Style to let a normal Amulet of Mighty Fists apply to your shuriken.Is something similar to Amulet of Mighty fists, but for thrown weapons. An archer can have a +5 enhancement bonus bow then various situational arrows for specific enemies.
With (name is work in progress) Gloves of Thrown enhancement a throwing character can have +5 gloves then different thrown weapons for different situations. For balance purposes maybe the Gloves should only work with thrown weapons that count as ammunition.
Ascetic Style only works on melee monk weapons, even if you use the non-intended RAW that allows the AMoF to enhance the chosen weapon.
I'm a big fan of javelins and throwing axes.
You can still use a shield with a javelin, which is nice. I like to pair throwing axes with "one-and-a-half" handed weapons, and throw the axe and then two-hand melee with the other. It might not be optimal, but it's fun and versatile.
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I'm a big fan of javelins and throwing axes.
You can still use a shield with a javelin, which is nice. I like to pair throwing axes with "one-and-a-half" handed weapons, and throw the axe and then two-hand melee with the other. It might not be optimal, but it's fun and versatile.
A slightly better throwing axe (perhaps as a dwarven racial weapon?) would certainly be kind of cool.
Visually, I'm a huge fan of the Congo throwing knife/hunga-munga, but, statistically, it's junk, and far inferior to the sharpened Frisbee that is the chakram.
Yeah, chakrams are the boss! Basically flying swords.
Of death.
Throwing weapon are actually pretty decent right now if you're willing to invest in them.
And that's the real kicker. They require a ton of investment. The real question is whether or not requiring that much investment is a good thing or not.
You can still use a shield with a javelin, which is nice.
I like this too a lot. Though it's sort of a shame since javelin + shield can't take Startoss (and probably isn't going to TWF with shield throwing either).
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Throwing weapon are actually pretty decent right now if you're willing to invest in them.
And that's the real kicker. They require a ton of investment. The real question is whether or not requiring that much investment is a good thing or not.
I like this too a lot. Though it's sort of a shame since javelin + shield can't take Startoss (and probably isn't going to TWF with shield throwing either).
You can still use a shield with a javelin, which is nice.
You can use it with a buckler though, and a buckler is a shield for everything except bashing.
You can Quick Draw & Rapid Shot javelins & chakrams, right?
You can Quick Draw & Rapid Shot javelins & chakrams, right?
Yep.
Actually, one very interesting - if feat-intensive - fighting concept is to use Improved Snap Shot with thrown weapons out of one hand as if it was a combo reach/ranged weapon, and a melee weapon in the other hand. Eventually you can use Pin Down to completely screw with enemies in melee.
It's a pity that Ricochet Toss is about the dumbest-sounding thing out there conceptually. "I throw my knife 20' and hit a moving target and look, it's instantly back in my hand because it bounced right! It even bounces back if I miss and it goes off a cliff or something! I do this three times a round!" Good grief.
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Actually, one very interesting - if feat-intensive - fighting concept is to use Improved Snap Shot with thrown weapons out of one hand as if it was a combo reach/ranged weapon, and a melee weapon in the other hand. Eventually you can use Pin Down to completely screw with enemies in melee.
It's a pity that Ricochet Toss is about the dumbest-sounding thing out there conceptually. "I throw my knife 20' and hit a moving target and look, it's instantly back in my hand because it bounced right! It even bounces back if I miss and it goes off a cliff or something! I do this three times a round!" Good grief.
I still vote for many rage powers as being sillier.
I'm so angry I can see in the dark!
I'm so angry my weapon burst into flames!
I'm so angry I can swim much better!
I'm so angry I can punch ghosts!
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I still vote for many rage powers as being sillier.
I'm so angry I can see in the dark!
I'm so angry my weapon burst into flames!
I'm so angry I can swim much better!
I'm so angry I can punch ghosts!
You know, maybe it's just selective standards, but I'll take ghost-punching and pyrokinetics any day over "ah s^&t I just lobbed my axe into that lake instead of that orc. Oh no wait, here it is. AH S*#T I DID IT AGAIN! Oh no wait..."
How "viable" do you want?
Viable enough that we could create a few platoons of French dagger throwers and send them back in time to kill all those English longbowmen at Agincourt?
I won't claim to have read the whole thread but DM_B, I did want to reply to this. I think it's a false-dichotomy.
First and foremost, this is meant to be a fun game. There's no reason not to see new ways to make different into viable. Personally I like the idea that a knife-thrower could be much more effective in close-quarters than a bow-users. Your longbowmen should have a lot of trouble in 5-foot-wide corridors typical to a dungeon. But the game doesn't model that. Aside from an AoO, you're allowed to shoot someone right beside you without penalty.
How does that make sense?
Now, I get it that accurate knife-throwing, axe-throwing, or even shortspear-throwing requires a tremendous amount of skill. But the d20 system makes such builds prohibitively expensive.
The action economy alone defeats such builds. The magic item system paves over the grave. You've got all the same feat tax issues a bowman has, only you've got spread your wealth enhancing multiple weapons. For some reason bowmen get to draw arrows for free but you need an extra feat to pull knives out of sheaths.
There's no reason why a knife-fighter couldn't be a fun. But as the game is designed, there are a bunch of hurdles which block that fun.
I'm not suggesting letting knife-throwers hurl their daggers a thousand feet like a max-range-increment bowman could shoot. But up close and personal, the rule of cool begs that something be done.
Thrown weapons were pretty much always tactically useful secondary weapons. The biggest problem in the system with thrown weapons is that the system tends to favor specializing on one thing (and players often carry that to unnecessary extremes), and the second biggest problem is, tactically, why would a character bother?
There's one way to incorporate a throw into a charge as a bonus attack in the entire game, and it's on a class that could be using that resource to pounce instead. If there was a simple feat chain to add a thrown weapon attack into a charge or a move action, thrown weapons would suddenly be awesome for exactly the right reason.
I just saw a battle from near the end of Season 2 of "The Vikings" and they used a lot of thrown weapons before closing to melee. It was really neat. Mostly spears and axes.
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Frankly, it really Gauls me to tell you that I don't know where France's name came from.
I really like the Sharding special ability for thrown weapon builds.
An Eldritch Knight/ Inquisitor/ Whatever who puts "Named Bullet" on a spear and then attacks the marked target from within 30 feet gets to attack touch AC, auto-threaten a x3 crit, and add their caster level to the final damage total. They could also do this with a Spell Storing spear. Now that's an epic spear throw.
Frankly, it really Gauls me to tell you that I don't know where France's name came from.
I see what you did there...
Anyways onto the main point of the thread basically what it boils down to is weapons in this game aren't really meant to represent real world weapons in any way other than vaguely. No one wants his fighter to dual wield kragsmerlofs so they gave their collection of stats real world appropriate names. What they are is a collection of stats throwing weapons are less statistically awesome then melee and ranged weapons because if they weren't then there would be no point if having the other options... basically if the throwing axe were as good as the short bow, but could be used in melee or the hand axe, but could be used at range why would you ever take the less versatile weapons. Then you take it to the next logical step, if feats were in place to bring these weapon styles to parity with the others those feats would be more powerful then the feats for the other weapon styles so either way you're making one subset of things objectively more powerful the similar options in other categories.
Now there is an argument to be made for 'If I'm just being up to par with these other styles does that really matter ?' Well... *probably* not so long as you make it pay for the versatility in other areas like having greater investment costs. since money at high levels is so laughably easy to come by then feats and class features are the only way to actually do this. If that makes classes with more spesific feat selections not able to do itI think it's a small price to pay.
Now I'm curious. What would people think of a feat-chain ending with something like:
Opportunistic Throw.
Prerequisites: Combat Reflexes, obligatory feat taxes.
Benefit: Once per round when using a move action or making a charge, you may expend a use of an attack of opportunity to make a single attack with a thrown weapon against a target in range, and you may change your grip on a weapon previously held for the duration of this attack. This attack may never be used on the same turn as a full attack action.
Now I'm curious. What would people think of a feat-chain ending with something like:
Opportunistic Throw.
Prerequisites: Combat Reflexes, obligatory feat taxes.Benefit: Once per round when using a move action or making a charge, you may expend a use of an attack of opportunity to make a single attack with a thrown weapon against a target in range, and you may change your grip on a weapon previously held for the duration of this attack. This attack may never be used on the same turn as a full attack action.
I think I like it.
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They should have "Bracers of Mighty Throwing" or something that works like an "Amulet of Mighty Fists" that enhance thrown weapons for 1 round. So you can carry a couple dozen normal daggers, but still make magical attacks.