My character is already proficient with War Hammers , so is the best way to get around the -4 penalty to hit, if I throw my hammer, is to take the “Throw Anything” feat?
I was considering Quick Draw and a Blinkback Belt with War Hammers...
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Throw Anything lets you throw improvised weapons at range without penalty. When using your Warhammer as an improvised weapon, you cannot apply weapon-specific features such as Sacred Weapon damage and Weapon Focus.
The BEST way to throw melee weapons at range on a Str-based character is to make the weapon Sharding and buy a lesser (or greater) Belt of Mighty Hurling to be able to throw stuff using Str to hit.
If instead you want to use Quick Draw and the Blinkback Belt, you might simply want to enhance your Warhammer with the Throwing property. This gives it 10ft range increment and removes the -4 penalty for throwing it. I'm sure there are other ways to achieve the same result, but I think putting a +1 enhancement on your weapon is the most efficient one.
In both cases, if you also want to throw the Warhammer 2-handed to take advantage of the 1.5x Str bonus to damage, you might want to pick also Two-handed Thrower.
I was wanting to recreate the “Hammer of Moradin” style of character within the Pathfinder world... say a “Hammer of Torag”. Where any war hammer I pick up “gains” the throwing and returning abilities. I’d like to avoid any specific weapon enchants and instead use feats and other slotted magic items.
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Ok. First of all, Warpriests can already do this using the minor power of the Magic Blessing:
Hand of the Acolyte (minor): At 1st level, you can cause your melee weapon to fly from your grasp and strike an opponent, then instantly return to you. You can make a single attack using a melee weapon at a range of 30 feet. This attack is treated as a ranged attack with a thrown weapon, except that you add your Wisdom modifier to the attack roll instead of your Dexterity modifier (you still add your Strength modifier to the damage roll as normal). This ability cannot be used to perform a combat maneuver.
At 10th level, this can be performed as a swift action rather than a standard one using the feat Quicken Blessing.
If however you want a more martial approach, the returning is set thanks to the Blinckback Belt, so you just have to handle the throwing. At the top of my head, you have a few options:
1) Use Light hammers (20ft range increment). The base damage will be given by Sacred Weapon, so it will start from 1d6 and grow with levels.
PRO: easy and reliable. CON: not Warhammers
2) Go Arsenal Chaplain archetype and pick Advanced Weapon Training at 6th level as your bonus feat. Select Spirit Warrior from the list of Fighter's Advanced Weapon Training Options. Couple it with a pair of Gloves of Dueling and you can apply Throwing on the fly to whatever weapon you are using.
PRO: effective, flexible, very strong archetype. CON: locked to a specific archetype, requires a standard action to activate, relies on limited uses per day.
3) Same as 2) but pick the Ricochet Toss feat. This spares you the Blinkback Belt, and you can pick a lesser Belt of Mighty Hurling instead, which automatically gives weapons you throw 10ft range increment. This also spares you the Advanced Weapon Training feat (which however you should take anyway because it's too good to pass)
PRO: as above, but it does not rely on limited uses per day and uses only Strength as your main stat. CON: still locked to an archetype.
4) If you really don't like the Arsenal Chaplain, still use a lesser Belt of Mighty Hurling instead of the Blinkback Belt. You just said that you want to be able to fight with random hammers you happen to find, hence you don't want to invest too much on a single one. You might want then to just carry around a bunck of non-magical Warhammers (say, in a Handy Haversack), Quick-Draw and toss them around with 10ft range increment.
PRO: you get to focus exclusively on Strength. CON: costly, you can't afford many magical Warhammers and you've got to pick up your hammers afterwards.
5) Same as 4), but only carry around enough Warhammers to cover your full-round attack, and cast Returning Weapon.
PRO: you get to focus exclusively on Strength, you can afford few magical weapons CON: costly, relies on spells.
6) Same as 5), but use a greater Belt of Mighty Hurling, which automatically gives the Returning property to the weapons you toss.
PRO: you get to focus exclusively on Strength, you can afford few magical weapons, you can go on all day long CON: very costly.
Personally, I think 1) and 3) are your best options.
as a worshipper of Torag, would I have access to the Magic domain/blessing ?
Torah’s: Domains Artifice, Earth, Good, Law, Protection
FYI, you’re responses are awesome and I really appreciate your input!!!
I’m honestly not seeing many options other than enchanting the warhamner with the Thrown ability... returning is easy, lots of mechanics to get the hammer back to me, just very limited ways to get around the -4 to hit penalty without having the thrown enchant.
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as a worshipper of Torag, would I have access to the Magic domain (to qualify for hand of the alcolyte) ?
Unfortunately, as it is, not.
However, remember that Warpriests (as Clerics) are not required to worship a single deity: they can still follow one, the same way any other non-divine character does, but still get their powers from a more general ideal or philosophy. It is in fact stated in the Blessings section:
If a warpriest isn’t devoted to a particular deity, he still selects two blessings to represent his spiritual inclinations and abilities, subject to GM approval.
For example, say your character is the typical Dwarven battle-blacksmith who's as good at hitting his anvil as he is at hitting foes in the face with his Warhammer. You might see Torag as the point of reference of your faith and moral conduct, but be devoted to a more abstract sense of community, dignity through work, and respect towards the magic that with sweat and hard work you manage to infuse into your creations. In this case, your GM might allow you to pick any two between Artifice, Community, Fire and Law.
So yeah, you should be able to access the Magic Blessing anyway. Just ask your GM justifying your choice with in-game arguments. I'm sure they will have nothing to object.
I’m honestly not seeing many options other than enchanting the warhamner with the Thrown ability... returning is easy, lots of mechanics to get the hammer back to me, just very limited ways to get around the -4 to hit penalty without having the thrown enchant.
As I said, the lesser Belt of Mighty Hurling does that for you with any weapon you throw without you having to enhance them specifically. It is quite costly, but you might start with Light Hammers, put aside some money for the belt, and when you get it start chugging around actual Warhammers (possibly with the Ricochet Toss feat). After all, characters are supposed to grow throughout the game. If not Light Hammers, you can toss your work-hammer (say carpenter hammers, or smiting hammers) as improvised weapons using the Rough and Ready trait.
FYI, youre responses are awesome and I really appreciate your input!!!
Thanks! :)
I would suspect that my “forge” hammer would be considered an “improvised weapon” and could fall under the “throw anything” feat...
The dwarven sphinx hammer does look relatively good. Enchant it with returning, as a 2H weapon a blinkback belt won't bring it back.
It’s very frustrating that being able to throw a warhammer without the -4 penalty is damn near impossible (besides enchanting the hammer itself). So many feats that come close, but miss. ‘Throw Anything” only works on improvised weapons, “Throw Hammer” appears to only work on light hammers. I see several magic items (Hammer of Thunderbolts and Dwarven Thrower) that both have the returning ability, but don’t convey a way to throw it without the -4 Penalty. “Holy Ice Weapon” (spell) could create a warhammer, AND gain the returning ability, but not the ability to throw it !!!!
Could it be argued, that a standard warhammer, which is obviously not designed to be thrown, would be considered an improvised THROWING weapon, as is anything not designed to be thrown (i.e. no range increment listed in the book), and thus affected by the “Throw Anything” feat???
If there’s something I’m missing please enlighten me... My deity is Torag, so I’m not interested in other “similar” warhammer type/style weapons, just warhammers.
All the magic items that add bonuses to thrown weapons (mostly belts), don’t actually convey the ability to throw weapons that don’t have a range increment.
Just looking for a simple way to get around the -4 penalty on throwing my warhammer without having to enchant it with the throwing ability.