Darts and Daggers

Long story short: I'm making a kensai monk that uses daggers and darts (flavored as throwing knives) as his kensai weapons. I know what I'm doing, it is partially a joke (that is it amuses me quite a bit) but mostly its the most interesting way I found to make the daggers only fighter character I wanted that wasn't a rogue.

Now other than cost and weight, darts are apparently strictly worse than daggers as far as I can tell, darts are not light and the are not melee weapons, otherwise the game statistics are the same. However darts are ranged weapons.

The question is this: Does the fact that dart are ranged weapons mean that they can be drawn as part of the attack (like how an arrow can be drawn for a bow multiple times a round, but crossbows can't because they have a particular property)?

With daggers you need an "object interaction" to draw, so if you're throwing two daggers using your extra attack feature with your main hand you need one in your hand to throw, object interaction to draw the second, then 2nd attack. then your next turn you can't make both attacks a thrown weapon, because you don't have enough object interactions to draw two daggers (The two weapon feat lets you draw two weapons, I know this, but it doesn't help me make two thrown attack with my main hand, it would only let me throw one with my main had and one as a bonus action with my off hand and also I'm not using that feat because reasons)

Does the fact that darts are ranged weapons mean that I can have my hands empty and draw a dart for each attack, which I feel is an actual property of ranged weapons, or am I misremembering how ranged weapons work?

Larrin said:

Does the fact that darts are ranged weapons mean that I can have my hands empty and draw a dart for each attack, which I feel is an actual property of ranged weapons, or am I misremembering how ranged weapons work?

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You’re misremembering. Being able to draw and attack as part of the same action without using your one interaction per turn is a feature of the Ammunition property, not ranged weapons in general.

That said, I’d allow it if I was your DM. You want to use a type of weapon that never sees any use because it’s strictly worse than daggers, who am I to tell you no? It’s a cool concept and it seems perfectly fair.

Charlaquin said:

You’re misremembering. Being able to draw and attack as part of the same action without using your one interaction per turn is a feature of the Ammunition property, not ranged weapons in general.
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Ahh, that's it. Thanks.

I'd allow it too. In fact one of my first optimization posts for 5e was about a dagger thrower, and it doesn't work by the rules as written but I think it would be fine if it did.

In addition to what others have said, remember that as a ranged weapon darts qualify for sharpshooter. Whether or not the -5/+10 is balanced or the worst thing to ever happen to D&D, is open to opinion but it is useful for increasing effective range and ignoring cover.

The only advantage darts have over daggers is cost and weight. I thought they had a farther range (which would make sense, balance wise), but they do not. This also means that the dart is inferior to the sling as well.

Throwing knives, and shirikens, are thin and usually found in a sheath or pouch containing 2 or 3 together. As such, drawing the 2 or 3 at once could be done with a single interaction. In fact, with some sheaths I have seen, it is more difficult to draw just one than to grab all at once.

Oofta said:

In addition to what others have said, remember that as a ranged weapon darts qualify for sharpshooter. Whether or not the -5/+10 is balanced or the worst thing to ever happen to D&D, is open to opinion but it is useful for increasing effective range and ignoring cover.

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This.
It's why my rogue uses darts reskinned as "throwing knives" rather than daggers.