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Is the meteor shield a thrown weapon or shield? Can I attaché the returning rune to like weapon or for that matter a plus 1 rune? What if I had a shield bash, can that have returning rune? Is there any answer other than no?
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I don't know why you can't put Returning in a Meteor Shield or any other shield with Shield Throw trait.
The trait says "When thrown, the shield is a martial thrown ranged weapon". I don't know why we cannont consider it valid for use Returning rune in it. For most exigent GMs you can add Shield Boss on it.
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Also, Shield Augmentation, which is the other way to get a shield with the thrown trait, explicitly says that it can be etched with weapon runes.
It may be a bit ambiguous considering that the Meteor Shield and the Shield Throw trait don't actually explicitly say that runes can be applied - but the intent is pretty clear.
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Yes, you can put runes on it, and the only relevant ones are such that work with martial thrown ranged weapons. Possible attached weapons or integrated weapons could have their own rune sets, and if you chose to attack with them, only their runes would work, so no Returning as it only goes on thrown weapons.
You can put a Returning rune on a dagger. Not because it is a throw weapon, but because it is a melee weapon with the thrown trait.
The same should apply to shields. If you have a shield with the thrown trait, you can put a Returning rune on it - which will be active and effective when you use the shield as a thrown weapon, same as a dagger.
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I just want my shield to return when I throw it.
I know the feeling. ;)
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You can...Did I post something to the contrary? I could be not very clear, but I don't see contradictions.
I read this:
no Returning as it only goes on thrown weapons.
as meaning that you were saying that melee weapon runes could be put on a shield, but it wouldn't work to put a Returning rune on them.
For me it's alaways been a bit unclear if by strict "RAW" if you could apply melee weapon runes to shields, but certainly it makes since from a practical and RAI way.
3 years and a name change later and I still stand by the idea that if you can't put a Returning Rune on your shield with the Thrown trait, then you can't put it on your Dagger with the Thrown trait either - which makes no sense to forbid.
For me it's alaways been a bit unclear if by strict "RAW" if you could apply melee weapon runes to shields, but certainly it makes since from a practical and RAI way.
The text for shield bash and the existence of shield runes implies that the shields themselves are never weapons and it's only the attachments that count as weapons, so I feel it's something that needs errata. Given that SF has been turning shield mechanics into traits, it's a sign things weren't future-proofed as well as we had hoped.
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Throwable shields are a mess.
I'll say up front that I believe Returning Shields should work and are probably intended to work in the way that people want, but Paizo's rules don't quite get us there.
Meteor Shield and Razor Disc use the Shield Throw trait. This treats the shield as a weapon, but only while it is being thrown. So we still need to put our weapon runes on an actual weapon. This is the Integrated weapon of the razor disc, or an attached weapon on the meteor shield. So far, so good, but neither of those weapons has the Thrown trait, and the Shield Throw trait doesn't have any rules to give it to them. So it isn't like a dagger which does have the Thrown Trait and the Returning rune can't go on there.
So, to let that work the way I think it should, I have to patch it with a table ruling as a GM, and I can't tell people to expect the same at a table I don't run.
Those aren't our only options, of course.
There's the Throwing Shield adjustment, but this one is in worse shape. It can't take weapon runes at all and can't have an Attached weapon. But it's still going to be important in a second.
There's the Shield Augmentation. This is incompatible with an attached weapon, but it can give the shield the Thrown trait (presumably attached to Shield Bash, but the text isn't complete enough for some of the most RAW-minded people I've run into) and it can take weapon runes. This has the smallest amount of glue logic we need to add to make it work.
The options that are a ranged weapon when thrown do open up another alternative, though. Fighter's Ricochet Stance will work in spite of any technicalities of where the runes go.
But all of these run into another, newer problem. The shield strapping rules that were added in the remaster create a problem, since unstrapping shields and strapping them back on to be able to Raise them again each require an Interact action, while needing your other hand free. The Throwing Shield Adjustment solves half of this, since it has quick-release straps with a defined mechanic that makes unstrapping it a free action as part of the throw. The meteor shield states that it has quick release straps, but doesn't define any mechanic. We can read generously that it will work the same, but it really should be explicit, and is currently only assumed.
None of these options have anything resembling an answer for strapping the shield back on for free, after you get it back, though. That's an issue whether your GM tweaks things to make Returning work, whether you use Ricochet Stance, or whether you walk over and pick the shield back up.