D&D 5E Throwing Weapons is Cool! So why is it weak?

[Xeviat]

I'd tackle thrown weapons as part of my TWFing patch. If the longbow at 1d8 compares to the great sword of 2d6, then a 1d4 light thrown compares to a 1d6 light melee weapon. Dagger thrown two Weapon Fighting should be able to be balanced, especially in the hands of a rogue.

I do like the concept of allowing movement along with throwing weapons as a possible thing to give a style to make it worthwhile; I can imagine it being easier to line up a throw than a shot on the run.


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[Voi_D_ragon]

I'd tackle thrown weapons as part of my TWFing patch. If the longbow at 1d8 compares to the great sword of 2d6, then a 1d4 light thrown compares to a 1d6 light melee weapon. Dagger thrown two Weapon Fighting should be able to be balanced, especially in the hands of a rogue.

I do like the concept of allowing movement along with throwing weapons as a possible thing to give a style to make it worthwhile; I can imagine it being easier to line up a throw than a shot on the run.

I don't really see how it could be broken for Rogues since even if they dip in martial classes to get more attacks it's at most 3d4+ whatever sneak attack d6s they have, which would still only be on one attack, and they would lose 5 levels' worth of said d6s

 

[Brandegoris]

Well if we are actually being realistic here I would rather have someone throw a dagger at me than shoot an error or crossbow bolt at me.
Reason: I have a much better chance of surviving a thrown dagger
I guess what I'm saying is that throwing weapons is Purely a Roleplaying choice.
It doesn't make ANY sense that throwing a dagger should be as effective as as Shooting a Longbow...Because well... ITS NOT LOLOLOL

 

[Tony Vargas]

It is weak because of the direction that high level damage for warriors went.

At one point, in the play tests, they experimented with fighters (and by extension barbarians paladins and other warrior types, but I can't remember if they were in the playtest yet) rolling mulitple damage dice as they went up in level rather than making multiple attacks.

MDDs, yes, and at some point, just about every class got them. Typical, really, as far as development of the fighter class goes. Fighter gets nothin', developers come up with something to be defining for the fighter, either it sucks and fails as a defining feature or it's good enough that everyone else gets it and it's no longer a defining feature, so whether it's dumped or kept, the fighter's back to nuthin'.

We should be thankful Action Surge and CS dice have stayed in the fighter family, I suppose.

However, people like to make multiple attacks. It lets the split their damage; it lets them roll more dice.

Note how neither of those are a particularly good thing. The former salvages some 'overkill' damage, in theory, but mostly just tempts you to ignore the standard best tactic under D&D hps: focus fire. The latter is a placebo.

It lets them take more time on their turn so they aren't taking 30 seconds to finish their turns and then waiting 15 minutes while the DM adjudicates the effects of the wizards spell.

Heh. 90 seconds vs 15 minutes is /sooo/ much better than 30 seconds. Even if both are wild exaggerations.

That's great; multiple attacks are fun, and they are the traditional way for warrior types to appear superior to other classes at fighting in D&D--so tradition.

They're also problematic in the action economy and the effect they can have on DPR. FWIW.

However, this advantage becomes a negative when you can't either a) justify re-using the same weapon over and over again to make multiple attacks,

Xena's chackram.

or b) you can't justify pulling out ammo like it's a semiautomatic to fire, from a verisimilitude standpoint.

5e didn't let the latter stop it from doing just that.

You've got a couple options--scrap verisimilitude and let players carry javelins in 20 packs like arrows, drawing and throwing them as necessary.

Not horrid. Verisimilitude is pretty dilapidated and insignificant, as it is. OTOH, you could invoke verisimilitude and take away rapid-fire bows and Xbows...

Unless you beef up their dice (say 2 more dice at each threshold)

Supposedly, people can throw weapons harder than they can hit with one they hold onto. Something about instinctively avoiding self-injury? Sounds plausible, not sure if it's a real thing. But, want to give a single thrown weapon/round an extra damage die, there's a realistic excuse.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I would simply allow thrown weapons to be drawn and thrown without requiring object interaction. Face it, the "ammo" property for bows doesn't make any sense as an exception to the action economy. The rules should be consistent. Drawing arrows should require object interaction, or throwing weapons should be drawn for free.

You could generalize this and say:

"Any object interaction which you have prepared in advance and practiced extensively can be performed without an object interaction cost as part of whatever the associated action is."

This would apply to:

(1) Drawing an arrow from a quiver or (grabbing a fistful of arrows to shoot sequentially like Lars Andersen does) as part of your Attack action;
(2) Drawing several daggers from your bandolier to throw as part of your your Attack action;
(3) Pulling an eye of newt out of your spell component pouch as part of your Cast A Spell (Hex) action;
(4) Pulling out your shield, stowing your bow on your back, and unsheathing your longsword as part of your Don A Shield action (so it doesn't take multiple rounds to switch from ranged to melee configuration);

It also implies that e.g. if you run out of arrows and run over to where a kobold dumped a bunch of arrows on the floor, it is not faster to shoot all those arrows from your bow than it would be to pick them up. Rather, because you haven't practiced shooting arrows from off the floor, you're governed by normal object interaction rules: you can shoot one of them per turn.

I find this solution fairly elegant, if I do say so myself.

 

[Brandegoris]

Well if we are actually being realistic here I would rather have someone throw a dagger at me than shoot an arrow or crossbow bolt at me.
Reason: I have a much better chance of surviving a thrown dagger
I guess what I'm saying is that throwing weapons is Purely a Roleplaying choice.
It doesn't make ANY sense that throwing a dagger should be as effective as as Shooting a Longbow...Because well... ITS NOT LOLOLOL

 

[Brandegoris]

You could generalize this and say:

"Any object interaction which you have prepared in advance and practiced extensively can be performed without an object interaction cost as part of whatever the associated action is."

This would apply to:

(1) Drawing an arrow from a quiver or (grabbing a fistful of arrows to shoot sequentially like Lars Andersen does) as part of your Attack action;
(2) Drawing several daggers from your bandolier to throw as part of your your Attack action;
(3) Pulling an eye of newt out of your spell component pouch as part of your Cast A Spell (Hex) action;

It also implies that if you run out of arrows and run over to where a kobold dumped a bunch of arrows on the floor, it is not faster to shoot all those arrows from your bow than it would be to pick them up. Rather, because you haven't practiced shooting arrows from off the floor, you're governed by normal object interaction rules: you can shoot one of them per turn.

I find this solution fairly elegant, if I do say so myself.

This all makes good sense. Question answered.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

This all makes good sense. Question answered.

Note that this ruling would render part of the Dual Wielder feat redundant: anyone could draw two weapons on a turn even if they don't have the feat.

Some people might consider this an improvement. But you might want to give Dual Wielder some other benefit to compensate.

 

[Psikerlord#]

Alright, with a title like this, you may think I have the answer to this question: I do not, it is actually an honest to god question.
Why is there no feat or subclass that allows a player to consistently use thrown weapons? They are even more underpowered than TWF is (although many argue with the fact that TWF isn't underpowered in the first place, and I am neither a veteran player/DM or a number cruncher, so who am I to argue?)

What would a feat that helped weapon throwers look like?

What is so "broken" about thrown weapons that they had to be nerfed into (under) the ground and are so not in the meta nobody even mentions them most of the time? (Not saying nerfed respective to previous editions, just designed weakly)

Anyone that has answers to these questions will have my gratitude

Just make up a feat that suits what you want. We've done that in 5e a few times and it works well. In fact that was the inspiration for Low Fantasy Gaming RPG's Unique Features at level 3, 6, etc

 

[Blue]

(4) Pulling out your shield, stowing your bow on your back, and unsheathing your longsword as part of your Don A Shield action (so it doesn't take multiple rounds to switch from ranged to melee configuration);

As a side note, donning your shield is goverened under Getting Into and Out of Armor (PHB 146), not interacting with an object.

This isn't saying don't do it, just know what rules you are changing.

Question: Which of these do you want:

1. A game where characters can switch back and forth between completely different kits for melee and ranged (including stowing nicely instead of just dropping) every round without sacrificing any actions?

2. A game where a character draw as much as they want to throw, and can drop their current kit and draw their new kit (inc. shield), but if they move they are leaving their old stuff behind so there's some thought to it.

3. A game where some things can be drawn (single weapon or two weapons with the dual wielder feat) but some things cant (3+ thrown weapons on a turn, shields)

5e currently is #3, my preferred play style might be #2.