Shuriken/Daggers: Rogue AOE Fail

[Ziana]

I asked this, due to a discussion I had regarding throwing weapons & rogue AOE powers (Blinding Barrage, Cloud of Steel, Steel Entrapment)

P217 indicates that for the purpose of powers with multiple targets, "the additional load time is accounted for in the power", which applies to crossbows and slings.

P289 indicates drawing a weapon is a minor action.

It appears that Light Thrown weapons (dagger, shuriken) don't have a specific exception that allows drawing as many as needed for powers such as Blinding Barrage, Cloud of Steel, Steel Entrapment.

However, it does state on P217 regarding Light Thrown weapons: "some powers let you hurl several of them at once or in rapid succession" which would seem to indicate that the intention is that crossbows, slings, and light thrown weapons are treated the same for powers such as Blinding Barrage.

1. Can Light Thrown weapons be used without penalty for multiple attack powers such as Blinding Barrage, so long as the player has sufficient numbers of them? Or is the Quick Draw feat necessary in order to use throwing daggers/shuriken in the same way as a crossbow or sling?

2. Is this an omission in the rules? (It appears to be a very minor one; but one that has "rules lawyers" saying thrown weapons have a penalty) Is this in need of an errata for clarification?

CSR Tony responded:

As currently written, it takes a minor action to draw each light thrown weapon unless you have the Quick Draw feat. This technically makes it very difficult to use light thrown weapons with some feats, but until an update or errata is issued, this is how it should be played, unless of course ruled otherwise by your DM. Thanks for the great feedback! We’ve passed this along to the good folks that make the games and hopefully we’ll see some errata covering this situation soon. Until then, it is up to your Dungeon Master to determine how he/she wants to handle this particular situation in their campaign.

Now, no disrespect meant to Tony, but I've got incorrect answers from him before which were later corrected by others. So I asked again. This time I got Joe, who in my (humble) opinion, is the best CSR I've seen.

Rogue area attack powers such as Blinding Barrage work with the crossbow, sling, or light thrown weapons. Sling and hand crossbow are "Load Free". Normal crossbow is not. p217 says "If a power allows you to hit multiple targets, the additional load time is accounted for in the power." This doesn't appear to apply to light throwing weapons. If shuriken or daggers are used with Blinding Barrage, are they limited by the requirement to use a minor action to draw each item, making Quick Draw a necessity to use these items with this type of power?

Joe says:

If you are using a Magic throwing weapon, it will hit all the targets and return to your hand (yeah Magic is that awesome). If you are using mundane throwing weapons, you will need one for each attack roll made and you will need three [sic] Quick draw feat to be able to draw and use them all.

So that's it. Mundane daggers and shuriken don't work for Blinding Barrage etc. unless you have Quick Draw or a magic weapon. I believe this is a minor omission in the rules that leads to a rules-lawyer interpretation: to me the intention is clear from the wording on PHB:217: "some powers let you hurl several of them at once or in rapid succession". That says to me that you should be able to use daggers/shuriken just as effectively as a crossbow/sling.

I hope to see errata on this, but until then, either go with RAW/CSR answers, or houserule it.

 

[cferejohn]

I will houserule it personally (I had already assumed it worked this way). If anything it makes more sense that someone might be able to pull out a bunch of daggers/shurikens at once and throw them than to load and fire a crossbow a bunch of times in 6 seconds.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Blinding Barrage is virtually impossible to visualize. But it's ever so slightly less impossible to visualize with the rogue throwing handfulls of shuriken than it is with him rapid-firing a mini-crossbow. That the rules support the latter over the former would be laughable if the exploit in question wasn't so out there, already.

 

[Stormtalon]

Blinding Barrage is virtually impossible to visualize. But it's ever so slightly less impossible to visualize with the rogue throwing handfulls of shuriken than it is with him rapid-firing a mini-crossbow. That the rules support the latter over the former would be laughable if the exploit in question wasn't so out there, already.

Eh, watch a few episodes of Naruto and then it'll be easy to visualize.

Uh-oh...

You know what this means....

(cue overused meme....)

ZOMG, 4e is anime!!!

 

[keterys]

Nah, magic thrown weapons work - it's so Xena.

 

[Cirex]

In my opinion, Blinding Barrage should be usable with mundane throwing weapons.

It's a very cinematic move and you should watch "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" to see it used, with Salma Hayek throwing multiple knives at some thugs.

EDIT : You can see the scene here :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8PtuTtiXjM
03.50 to see it.

 

[Ziana]

Thanks for posting that Cirex, that's *exactly* how I believe it *should* work. If 4E's design philosophy is all about the fun, then mysteriously making throwing weapons non-functional for these powers while you can fire a crossbow 9 times instead makes no sense.

 

[Talzar]

Under light thrown, it says, "but some powers let you hurl several of them at once or in rapid succession." (pp 217).

It seems to me that any power that lets you attack multiple targets (Cloud of steel) will allow you to draw and throw enough shirkens or daggers (you still need to have enough for your targets) of the mundane variety.

 

[Danceofmasks]

p217, under load.

If a power allows you to hit multiple targets, the additional load time is accounted for in the power.


Drawing a weapon is a minor. Loading a crossbow is a minor.
So ... if i blinding barrage with a crossbow, I get free load time .. but if I do it with shurikens, I get nothing?
It's unintuitive, that's what I say.

 

[Spatula]

And this is why you shouldn't bother with sending rules interpretation questions to customer service. They don't have access to any special information, and in a lot of cases they probably know less about the rules than some of the people here.