D&D 5E Chucking daggers: how do we throw two?

[jayoungr]

Okay, so how about if we say throwing daggers are balanced specifically for throwing and can't be used effectively in melee without a feat?

Come to think of it, is that how throwing axes are treated?

Following up on my own thought: I finally got around to checking the PHB this morning and found that throwing axes, like daggers, are basically melee weapons with the "thrown" property.

The more I think of it, though, the more I like the solution of creating a new weapon: "throwing knife," which works like a dart and cannot be used effectively for melee attacks. (It would work about as well in melee as grabbing a dart and trying to use it in close quarters.) You could always keep another weapon--even a separate, conventional dagger--on you for melee fighting.

Or perhaps even just reskin a bow and arrows as a sheaf of throwing knives, and allow all feats (etc.) which apply to bows to also apply to the throwing knives? Yes, you'd have CRAZY range with them, but that would be part of the coolness factor. (Think Seso, the knife-thrower in Prince of Persia.) You could then be sure the mechanics were balanced--though if your goal is for something that feels mechanically different, I'd say your best bit is still to work with your DM to homebrew something.

 

[Cernor]

The more I think of it, though, the more I like the solution of creating a new weapon: "throwing knife," which works like a dart and cannot be used effectively for melee attacks. (It would work about as well in melee as grabbing a dart and trying to use it in close quarters.)

Darts don't lose any effectiveness by being used in melee to stab someone. The only difference between a dart and a dagger in melee is that darts don't have the light property... And count as ranged weapons so you can't take the Dual-Wielder feat to use two of them simultaneously in melee.

And reskinning a bow and arrows as throwing knives would push suspension of disbelief a little too far for my liking (YMMV, of course)... Making a throwing knife do approximately double (1d8 instead of 1d4) the damage of a dagger, and giving it a range of 600 feet? I guess it would be balanced by each throwing knife being 25 times more expensive than a normal dagger and having half of the knives you throw be irretrievable.

 

[aramis erak]

Darts don't lose any effectiveness by being used in melee to stab someone. The only difference between a dart and a dagger in melee is that darts don't have the light property... And count as ranged weapons so you can't take the Dual-Wielder feat to use two of them simultaneously in melee.

And reskinning a bow and arrows as throwing knives would push suspension of disbelief a little too far for my liking (YMMV, of course)... Making a throwing knife do approximately double (1d8 instead of 1d4) the damage of a dagger, and giving it a range of 600 feet? I guess it would be balanced by each throwing knife being 25 times more expensive than a normal dagger and having half of the knives you throw be irretrievable.

yes, they do, in that, as a ranged weapon, they take disadvantage to hit in melee.

 

[Cernor]

yes, they do, in that, as a ranged weapon, they take disadvantage to hit in melee.

No you don't, because the disadvantage only applies to ranged attacks, not melee attacks with ranged weapons.

 

[Thyrwyn]

No you don't, because the disadvantage only applies to ranged attacks, not melee attacks with ranged weapons.

True that, but would lose your proficiency bonus., since a ranged weapon used to make a melee attack., is an improvised weapon.

 

[aramis erak]

No you don't, because the disadvantage only applies to ranged attacks, not melee attacks with ranged weapons.

Ranged weapons don't make melee attacks.

 

[Cernor]

True that, but would lose your proficiency bonus., since a ranged weapon used to make a melee attack., is an improvised weapon.

A slight correction: A ranged weapon with the ammunition property used to make a melee attack is an improvised weapon. If we look at the ranged weapons, all of them have the ammunition property except for darts and nets. Darts already deal 1d4 damage, so making them an improvised weapon would only remove their finesse property: if that's such a big deal to you then go ahead and change it, but nothing in the rules supports that (and it's a relatively minor distinction anyway, only likely to come up in extremely rare circumstances). Nets don't do any damage, but their range is 5/15: without allowing for them to make melee attacks, you'll always have disadvantage when attacking with a net.

Ranged weapons don't make melee attacks.

So you're saying that even if I wanted to, I couldn't stab someone with a dart in melee? If you can give me a solid reason as to why I shouldn't be able to, I'm all ears.

 

[aramis erak]

A slight correction: A ranged weapon with the ammunition property used to make a melee attack is an improvised weapon. If we look at the ranged weapons, all of them have the ammunition property except for darts and nets. Darts already deal 1d4 damage, so making them an improvised weapon would only remove their finesse property: if that's such a big deal to you then go ahead and change it, but nothing in the rules supports that (and it's a relatively minor distinction anyway, only likely to come up in extremely rare circumstances). Nets don't do any damage, but their range is 5/15: without allowing for them to make melee attacks, you'll always have disadvantage when attacking with a net.



So you're saying that even if I wanted to, I couldn't stab someone with a dart in melee? If you can give me a solid reason as to why I shouldn't be able to, I'm all ears.

You can, at disadvantage. Or you use it as an improvised melee weapon. There's no label for "ranged weapons which can be used without disadvantage in melee", while there is for "Melee weapons which can be used as ranged weapons"...

 

[Cernor]

Erm... There are no rules saying you'd have to use it as an improvised weapon. In in case you didn't read my previous post, using a dart as an improvised weapon would only take away the finesse property, which seems to be a rather pointless nerf to make. Applying the same logic to nets (because they're the only other weapon that house rule would affect), then your net would always be used at disadvantage (because of its range of 5/15) unless you used it to make a melee attack, at which point it would become an improvised weapon, deal 1d4 damage, and lose its ability to restrain who it hits. So using it in melee would make your net effectively identical to a chair leg or a dead goblin, and lose all benefits of being a net.

Does that honestly seem like that makes any sense from a narrative standpoint? Perhaps I haven't impressed upon you enough that ranged weapons and ranged attacks aren't mutually inclusive? I'm tiring of repeating myself but let's try again.

When you make a ranged attack with a weapon, spell, or some other means [including but not limited to ranged attacks with ranged weapons, thrown melee weapons, thrown improvised weapons, and spell attacks], you have disadvantage on the attack roll if you are within 5 feet of a hostile creature who can see you and who isn't incapacitated.

Player's Handbook, page 195

So if you're to make a ranged attack, in this case by throwing a dart at an adjacent enemy, that attack is made with disadvantage. However, if the dart never leaves your hand there's no reasonable interpretation that would let you treat that attack as a ranged attack; instead, it would be treated as a melee attack with a ranged weapon. The rules dictating melee attacks are as follows:

Used in hand-to-hand combat, a melee attack allows you to attack a foe within your reach. A melee attack typically uses a handheld weapon such as a sword, a warhammer, or an axe.

Player's Handbook, page 195

Provided that the dart never leaves your hand when you try to stab your foe with it, that attack could certainly be construed as a melee attack, couldn't it? After all, you have a weapon in your hand (satisfying the condition for a "handheld weapon") and you're attacking a target within 5 feet of you. So this attack is treated as a melee attack rather than a ranged attack.

Addressing your comment that it would be used as an improvised weapon, the only relevant rule states:

If you use a weapon that has the ammunition property to make a melee attack, you treat the weapon as an improvised weapon.

Since darts lack the ammunition property, that rule doesn't apply; when used to make melee attacks, darts retain their finesse.

There's no label for "ranged weapons which can be used without disadvantage in melee", but that's because it's unnecessary; disadvantage is a result of the type of attack being made, not the type of weapon used.


QED.

 

[Thyrwyn]

You are correct on the disadvantage only applying to ammunition weapons. Meaning that, RAW, you could make a melee attack with dart (which is a ranged weapon)and use Archery Style to get a +2 to the attack, apply Sharpshooter to get the -5/+10.

Because that makes more sense than allowing Sharpshooter to apply to a thrown dagger...