Throwing weapons, that are also melee weapons?


Rules Questions


Obvs the dagger is the fastest to recognize, but is there a rule out there about any other throwing weapons? What about a throwing axe? would it function as a handaxe in melee?


Short spears and tridents and throwing axes/shields all function the same when used as melee weapons, to my knowledge.


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Any melee weapon that has a range increment can be used as a thrown weapon. Melee weapons that do not have a range increment can be thrown as an improvised throwing weapon with a 10ft range increment.

Otherwise, there is no difference in terms of damage dice if you throw a weapon at someone or stab them with the same weapon in melee.

A cursory glance at simple light melee weapons tells me that the following weapons can be thrown without penalty.

Brass Knife, Dagger, Kunai, Spring Blade, Wooden Stake.


Pathfinder Maps Subscriber

Javelins are a thrown weapon that takes a -4 to attack when used in melee.
There are rules for throwing weapons that aren't intended to be thrown.

What else are you looking for ?


Depends on the weapon.

"Throwing weapons" that are in the melee weapon category are simple enough. This includes the throwing axe, which is technically a melee weapon but has a range increment.

Ranged weapons that are designed to be thrown either don't function as melee weapons (e.g., dart, pilum, boomerang) or have special rules for being used as such (e.g., javelin, chakram, hurlbat, hunga munga)


No star knife love?


Chakram too if you're heavy armour wearer. Small penalty to melee but usually heavy armour wearer don't lack BAB


Hm okay good information, toying with making a startoss style throwing character, probably a swashbuckler, and trying yo figure out my best options.


Startoss style has its own definition. You are limited to one weapon in the Fighter's thrown Weapon Training list of weapons unless you have Weapon Training in thrown. If you have weapon training in thrown, why would you ignore that bonus to hit/damage and go outside of the list?

Out of the list I personally like Halfling Sling Staff since it doubles as a club in melee and it launches ammo. The weakness of most throwing builds is weight. You carry a lot of stuff to throw and you sacrifice AC from dex. Or your thrown weapon leaves you vulnerable to melee. Getting returning weapons at higher levels will help, but its more of a question of what do you do before that point.

All in all, I think bow builds turn out better for ranged attacks, but the idea of a weapon bouncing around is fun too. Especially with vital strike to pump up the single target damage. Honestly, this could eat a lot of feats to get it working well.


If you combine startoss sty;le with the flying blade archtype swashbuckler, you can manage both ranged and melee, which is why i am looking for the optimized weapon in this case.


The Flying Blade swashbuckler can only use starknives or daggers. I prefer starknives for fun and daggers for criticals.

Dont forget River Rat.


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Starknife with Starry Grace.


Usually i ask only about PFS allowed builds, but this is not one. Our GM is letting us take flaws, and drawbacks for character flavors. So I already have quite a few feats even at level 1 (3). Just trying to see if there are any tweaks i can do to it, as we were informed he was 'going to be trying to kill us with every fight' I will start a bit weaker than the rest, but hopefully my versatility will allow me to overcome and eventually stand out. I already had the river rat trait, but good point out anyway, i never saw the starry grace feat, THAT could be helpful, though the dagger has the higher crit range...


for later on I'll just mention; Throwing, Returning, Sharding, and possibly Agile.


i was thinking returning, distance, and agile


There's a pretty neat option that I really like in the Exotic section called the "Knobkerrie". It's a 1d6 20x2 Club with 20ft range, and gets a +1 to to hit against targets using a shield.

Grand Lodge

Flying Blade? Don't forget Fortuitous. But I like to live dangerously and make ranged attacks in melee to provoke Disrupting Counters. Its a shame that Startoss Style does not give the damage bonus to melee attacks anymore in PFS

I also like to take 2 levels of Far Strike Monk for +3 to all saves, Evasion, Pseudo-Rapid Shot (flurry), 3 Bonus Feats that ignore prereqs that you can use (Quickdraw + Precise Shot/Combat Reflexes) and another you don't really need(Improved Unarmed Strike). Also, strongly recommend Martial Focus and Ricochet Toss over Returning enchant.

Sure you can't use armor if you want to flurry, but you get Wis to AC, at later levels increasing tertiary stats are not hard.

You do get Evasion eventually with Swashbuckler 11, so if you are planning ahead (or using retraining rules), you can stack Terra-Cotta Monk or Monk of the Sacred Mountain (Iron Mountain on d20) for Trap Spotter or Toughness(& +1 Nat Armor) respectively.


My plan was to start swashbuckler level 1 (for HD and bab), at level 2-4 go unchained rogue for evasion, snagging another feat towards my tree line, to go PBS, Precise shot, Weapon focus dagger, Startoss style. The levels in rogue would also be knife master for d8 sneak attack dice, so i can bounce knives around corner and still do precision damage/sneak attacks.


If you're going to dip into Unchained Rogue, you might as well take at least 4 levels for debilitating injury.

Also keep in mind that the rogue ability wont let you use your dex to damage for ranged attacks, it specifies melee.

Honestly what are you wanting from rogue besides sneak attack? Because ranged sneak attacks are hard to pull off, and generally not worth it.

Personally I would advise against going rogue, especially for this build. If you really want to dip, Warpriest makes for really strong thrown weapon users.


ranged sneak attacks work fine, when the opponent cant see you, because you are throwing daggers around corners...that and the early evasion, as well as wanting to fill the rogue aspect of the group, since DPS isn't going to be terribly high, its more for versatility.


You do realize that without some special ability you can't actually target someone you can't see, right? So if they're around a corner and you can't see them, you can't attack them either.

While the startoss line of feats will allow you to avoid some cover issues, it does nothing about concealment. You can't attack a target with total concealment relative to you. If you can't see a target (because they're around the corner) then they have total concealment from you, and you can't attack them.


it says you treat line of sight from the last target hit, not from you, is that not ignoring what you are talking about?


Yo may want to take a look to the blinkback belt once your magic weapon of choice starts to get expensive.


Evilserran wrote:
it says you treat line of sight from the last target hit, not from you, is that not ignoring what you are talking about?

Wouldn't there be a problem with trying to do precision damage to something you can't see? Even if you can target them, you still can't see around the corner so you can't do precision damage.

You would be able to get multiple sneak attacks from a single hidden throw, if you could see all the targets at the beginning of your attack. That gets around the usual bottleneck of being visible after the first hidden shot.


HM OKAY YES, I SEE NOW. STARTOSS STYLE FEATS ALLOW YOU TO TREAT THE COVER AS FROM THE PREVIOUS LOCATION, NOT Concealment. Still, might be something to explore.

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