Are you playing a Master Thrower?

[Kaleon Moonshae]

We looked at the Master Thrower and throwing weapons in general and came to two conclusions. That 1) daggers in dnd are *not* throwing daggers and 2) Throwing Daggers in straight dnd are way too expensive.

Let's take a look at real world throwing daggers:

1) They are not used in melee because they are too small (I have a quiver of five that fits on my wrist without being that visible if I wear the right stuff).

2) If trained right you can carry an unbelieavable number of throwing daggers on your personand not be overly encumbered (we figured at one time looking at specialty sheaths and weights that you could theoretically carry close to 50 throwing dagger on your person without being *weighted* down.

3) real world throwing daggers are *very* weak and break easy. They are thin, small and made for one hit, much like higher grade shuriken. You might retrieve them and use them again, but each use deteriorates their effectiveness.

Now, in dnd this causes a lot of problems with daggers as stated. Throwing daggers are closer to bolts and arrows than fighting daggers when all of these considerations are taken into account. We looked at it and decided to make an exotic weapon specifically called throwing dagger. This is how we statted it out, ymmv.

Throwing Dagger: Exotic Thrown Weapon.
Damage: 1d3
Size: Dimunitive
Range: 15'
Weight: .2 lb
Cost: 10 for 2gp
Special: Treated like arrows or bolts for purposes of reuse, breakage, and enchantment.

This means that it is actually plausable to play a thrown master, it gives you the ability to buy magic daggers a lot cheaper and more in line witht he archer next to you. It still makes daggers weaker than arrows, both in damage and range, but it makes the race closer and makes it playable.

We also allow the use of a couple Feats found in Dragon (#?) that lets you add your dex to damage with thrown weapons due to the finnese of throwing and the physics of embedding them if you know how to hit right.


Also remember that in 3.0 (is it true in 3.5? or am I just remembering wrong all together) that far shot *doubles* the range for thrown weapons instead of increasing it by 1/2.

Let me know what you think.

 

[Sejs]

Char 1 : Exotic Weapon Proficiency (shuriken)

Monks are automatically proficient with shuriken - no need to spend the feat.

 

[thorian]

Monks are automatically proficient with shuriken - no need to spend the feat.

I took the feat to qualify for the level of exotic weapon master, but I don't think I should have. Thanks for pointing that out; I'll have to rearrange and add Far Shot to the mix.

 

[Jondor_Battlehammer]

We looked at the Master Thrower and throwing weapons in general and came to two conclusions. That 1) daggers in dnd are *not* throwing daggers and 2) Throwing Daggers in straight dnd are way too expensive.

Let's take a look at real world throwing daggers:

1) They are not used in melee because they are too small (I have a quiver of five that fits on my wrist without being that visible if I wear the right stuff).

2) If trained right you can carry an unbelieavable number of throwing daggers on your personand not be overly encumbered (we figured at one time looking at specialty sheaths and weights that you could theoretically carry close to 50 throwing dagger on your person without being *weighted* down.

3) real world throwing daggers are *very* weak and break easy. They are thin, small and made for one hit, much like higher grade shuriken. You might retrieve them and use them again, but each use deteriorates their effectiveness.

Now, in dnd this causes a lot of problems with daggers as stated. Throwing daggers are closer to bolts and arrows than fighting daggers when all of these considerations are taken into account. We looked at it and decided to make an exotic weapon specifically called throwing dagger. This is how we statted it out, ymmv.

Throwing Dagger: Exotic Thrown Weapon.
Damage: 1d3
Size: Dimunitive
Range: 15'
Weight: .2 lb
Cost: 10 for 2gp
Special: Treated like arrows or bolts for purposes of reuse, breakage, and enchantment.

This means that it is actually plausable to play a thrown master, it gives you the ability to buy magic daggers a lot cheaper and more in line witht he archer next to you. It still makes daggers weaker than arrows, both in damage and range, but it makes the race closer and makes it playable.

We also allow the use of a couple Feats found in Dragon (#?) that lets you add your dex to damage with thrown weapons due to the finnese of throwing and the physics of embedding them if you know how to hit right.


Also remember that in 3.0 (is it true in 3.5? or am I just remembering wrong all together) that far shot *doubles* the range for thrown weapons instead of increasing it by 1/2.

Let me know what you think.

While I would never turn down another weapon option, and an intersting one, this is already done to an extent with darts and shuriken. I also have numerous throwing daggers, and some are quite small. Others are "dagger" size, and simply ballanced properly, without a wrapped handle or hilt to catch on your fingers. It is all in the description. This is, after all, the same game that calls a katana a MW bastard sword.

Your idea does conjur up images of "Desparado", and I did like that guy.

One idea I had for the MT, was far more Fighter than Rogue, and focused on spears. Get Quick Draw and some Javalins, or a couple of +1 returning spears to max the feat to weapon ratio. Then have one main spear with big bonuses/abilities. You have reach, AoO, and the ability to set vs charge. You can also throw one with Quick Draw, or lose the one you have. You could even go a little Weapon Master to double dip the bonuses, since a spear can be thrown OR melee. The idea is that a spear is equal to an axe statistically, but has other abilities, and it is only a martial weapon. The one down side is it would be weaker than most weapons, so you would need to keep its' bonus maxed out.

 

[Kaleon Moonshae]

While I would never turn down another weapon option, and an intersting one, this is already done to an extent with darts and shuriken. I also have numerous throwing daggers, and some are quite small. Others are "dagger" size, and simply ballanced properly, without a wrapped handle or hilt to catch on your fingers. It is all in the description. This is, after all, the same game that calls a katana a MW bastard sword.

Your idea does conjur up images of "Desparado", and I did like that guy.

One idea I had for the MT, was far more Fighter than Rogue, and focused on spears. Get Quick Draw and some Javalins, or a couple of +1 returning spears to max the feat to weapon ratio. Then have one main spear with big bonuses/abilities. You have reach, AoO, and the ability to set vs charge. You can also throw one with Quick Draw, or lose the one you have. You could even go a little Weapon Master to double dip the bonuses, since a spear can be thrown OR melee. The idea is that a spear is equal to an axe statistically, but has other abilities, and it is only a martial weapon. The one down side is it would be weaker than most weapons, so you would need to keep its' bonus maxed out.

I should have been a bit more specific, yeah, daggers can be varying size and any well balanced one can be thrown. I was thinking more along the lines of throwing *blades* I guess. While it has been done with shuriken and darts I have a couple problems. In most games I have been in shuriken have been banned unless you are a monk. They just don't fit in the style of most of the games I have been in. The other one is darts, in my opinion, are one of the stupidest dnd weapons I have ever thought about. Most of the drawings I see of them make them look like lawn darts and that is the image I always get. They look bulky and even if they are more like the darts one uses with a dart board to me they are still hard to wear "stackable" and you still have the problem with magic enhancement (or do you buy darts in bunches too? I hate them so I rarely read them)? I came up with this weapon specifically for three reasons

1) To emulate a knife thrower from multiple movies (yeah desperado is one fo them as is Onion). Even in some cowboy movies (Magnificent Seven) some carries a lot more than dnd makes it seem is plausable.

2) Make a throwing blade that mimicks what I have at home, very thin, no pommel really and made to lie flat stacked on top of each other. They are light and low profile. I have yet to see something in dnd to mimick them (and shuriken again just screams *kungfu* or *ninja*).

3) Make magical enhancement of throwing blades an option, which to be honest, it isn't now. There are many times my halfling has thrown a dagger and it has either a) missed and been lost in the darkness or b) hit but then we had to retreat. Daggers are awful perrishable in normal campaigns for them to cost sooo much. A single +1 throwing dagger right now costs 2301 gp, while even a masterwork throwing dagger costs more than a horse. I just can't see that.

I refuse to utter the dreaded k***** word, it just causes too much sidetracking whenever it is said.

 

[Eltern]

If your DM will allow the Ninja base class in AEG's oriental setting, available for free on their website here: http://l5r.alderac.com/rpg/rokugan_ninja.pdf then you're good. The key points are that you need to hit all the time (high BAB) and get SA damage. This class does both, and gives you proficiency with shuriken. Completely tripping out, I went Fighter 2/Ninja ?/Master Thrower 5, using shuriken with Improved Rapid Shot and the TWF line to get way too many attacks each round, each of which doing SA. (Note, you MUST GO FIRST, but your dex is going to be big anyway, or be INVISIBLE, or use the Sleight of Hand trick, which is not as good because you cannot then full attack) Very easy to just crank out metal shardy death, ala Bullseye, so you may want to look for some sort of gloves/gaunlets of shuriken generation (like an everful quiver, but for shuriken).

You probably noted that the this kind of hinges on the Ninja. Yup The throwing man just isn't as good as the swording or the fireballing man in core + CW D&D, so you need extra sources

My thoughts, anyway.
Eltern

P.S. Halfling. All the way

Edit: P.P.S Yes, there's big Asian flavor. Change it to whatever you want. Replace Ninja with "Hitman" and shuriken to "throwing blade"

 

[Will]

For the record, 'darts' in D&D are basically mini-javelins or very large arrows. And what's interesting is that historically, these were actually used... primarily with an atl-atl (Google for details, fascinating little thing).

Personally, I've always considered 'shuriken' to cover the gamut of very light throwing blades, of whatever design. There are shuriken described as shuriken which have the same silhouette as a throwing knife, after all, so it's just a matter of description.

 

[Darklone]

Something strange would be a mix of Eldritch Knight with a prestigeclass or feat that allows you to turn undead.

Cons: BAB loss of at least 3 (4 with a cleric level) to qualify for EK, unless you want to go Clr1/Brd7 (which causes a loss of 2 points BAB but has a nice CHA synergy for Divine Might). Not that bard is sooo bad... lotsa skillpoints and you still have some extra damage to your attacks.

Use shuriken and get wands (or cast the spells yourself) of Keen Edge, GMW, Flame Arrow, Heroism and all that other crap. Bard song as well.

In the end, you'll have less attacks than the shuriken thrower up there, but more buff spells on your weapons and more extra damage. And everyone will think you're crazy

Edit: Don't forget to get the halfling racial levels in UA...
Perhaps really crazy: Ex-bard going paladin.

 

[Kaleon Moonshae]

For the record, 'darts' in D&D are basically mini-javelins or very large arrows. And what's interesting is that historically, these were actually used... primarily with an atl-atl (Google for details, fascinating little thing).

Personally, I've always considered 'shuriken' to cover the gamut of very light throwing blades, of whatever design. There are shuriken described as shuriken which have the same silhouette as a throwing knife, after all, so it's just a matter of description.

I'm glad I am not the only person who got that impression bout darts. I agree that shuriken would work (and you can enchant three shuriken at once can't you? wasn't there a magic item like that?) but it still comes in a little short I feel and a lot of dms running strictly western campaigns refuse to let shuriken in.

 

[Will]

In my campaign, which has little asian influence, shuriken are available but are specifically small throwing daggers, not stars of any sort. Monks are also theurgists, mages of the body, again with little asian character.

Shuriken are now ammunition in 3.5, which means, among other things, that you can throw them as often as you have attacks. It also means that the enchantment cost of one shuriken is 1/50 that of a regular weapon... but the shuriken is expendable.