Knife-thrower concept feasibility

[Moonstone Spider]

I'm not even entirely sure a dagger-thrower with that many attacks is particularly physics-defying (Much less, having built one myself, game-breaking.)

A turn is six seconds long. Throwing, say, 8 daggers per turn (4 normal, 3 TWF, 1 Rapid Shot) means only one dagger per hand every 1.5 seconds. That's really not such an awesome throwing rate, I've seen professional magicians triple that rate throwing cards (albeit not two-handed). It doesn't seem unreasonable to let a level 20 fantasy character do what an extraordinary human in real life can exceed from a "realism" perspective.

I personally would also allow returning to help with more than two attacks, if all daggers return at the same second this implies that either A) When many Daggers are thrown, the first daggers sit around waiting for the later daggers to catch up before returing or B) The last thrown daggers move faster than earlier ones to get back at the same time. This seems unreasonable, much more rational to say the daggers return about six seconds after being thrown and "At the start of your turn" is just an abstraction. Again, since the dagger-thrower is already weaker than other ranged fighters, there's no particular reason to punish them even more and every reason to give them the benefit of the doubt where they would be strengthened.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Returning doesn't help you above two attacks, as you can only catch the first two to return and the other two end up on the floor. Since even Quick Draw doesn't let you put the caught daggers away as a free action.

Good point, and the reason my thrower rogue never bothered to get more than two. The way to make a thrower effective, as someone else said, is to not really care about damage from the weapon itself, and merely use it as a method of delivery. The person who posted the Master Thrower tricks forgot the most important one -- Trip Shot. If you hit with your thrown attack, you get to make a free ranged trip with a +4 bonus (and using dex instead of strength, which is just awesome). This, besides from being ridiculously useful, gives you something to contribute to a battle when facing sneak attack immune enemies.

As far as race/class go, human's always nice for the bonus feat. I like the smaller races for the bonus to hit and AC (remember, method of delivery). I think you should go for halfling if you plan on taking the Whisperknife PrC from Races of the Wild. It has amusing fluff text and some unique abilities, such as eventually getting to flank with thrown weapons from a range. Otherwise, go Whisper Gnome from Races of Stone. They're just well built for this sort of stuff. Mixing some full BAB class levels in is helpful. Fighter gives you BADLY needed extra feats, while the new Daring Outlaw feat and the golden oldie Insightful Strike make a strong case for Swashbuckler 3. Throwing classes work well, but are extremely feat intensive, and don't reach any payout at all until ~ level 8, at the earliest, IMHO.

Of course, I'd still like to see a str-based thrower. With brutal throw alone, I think it's quite viable.

Edit - I forgot to mention the Imp. and Superior Catch abilities of Whisperknife would also help alleviate some of the problems with throwing more than two magical returning weapons.

 

[Pivotal]

I'm working on a daggerthrowing build myself. At the Moment I have this:

Race: Whisper Gnome


Rogue Point Blank shot
Rogue -Evasion
Rogue Presice Shot
Fighter Far Shot
Swashbuckler Weapon Finesse
Swordsage Weapon Focus(Daggers) Rapid Shot
Invisible Blade
Master Thrower -PalmThrow (two daggers each attack, no strength to damage)
Master Thrower TWF -Imp Evasion
Master Thrower -(Dont remember)
Master Thrower Snatch Arrows
Master Thrower ITWF Improved Critical Daggers -All attacks at touch ac (no strength to damage)
Fighter GTWF
- I start here, lvl 13.
Swordsage (lots of naaasty stuff, includding assasins stance for more sneak attack and to qualify for shadow blade)
Swashbuckler Shadow Blade
Swashbuckler -Insightful Strike

Thats 16 levels. After that another level of rogue, another level of swordsage and some such might be interesting. Perhaps try and stretch MT over epic when there.

At 16th level I have Dex and Int to damage in addition to sneak attack. I do 7 attacks with 2 daggers each. And palm throw says each daggers damage is resolved by itself, so even if only the first gets a sneak attack I still have int and dex to damage on both. lets say a pretty maxed out 26 in int and dex. (what my character has). +8 in both. Thats a total of +208 damage on a full round attack. Then add in the base damage from small daggers of 14 and a sneak attack of 5d6 giving 122,5 damage more. also every fifth damage is a critical hit

With this build you barley need any magic weapons or such. However, having different types of daggers is good cause of getting trough damage resistance.

Other stuff:

Stances that could be good in this build is for example Assasins stance(best shadow stance for shadow blade), giant killing style and flames blessing.

Good manouvers: Zephyr Dance (desert 3), Cloak of Deception (Shadow 2) Shadow Jaunt (shadow 2), Flashing sun (desert 2), Burning Blade (desert 1), Mighty throw, Fire Repostee

Fitting skill tricks:

Mosquitos Bite
Clarity of Vision
Back on your feet
corner perch
easy escape
Sudden Draw

Also if you go into the underdark (like me) or can fight a lot in the night, get a hold of The Darkhidden. 6,5gp ring that makes you invisible to darkvision


Btw: My dm allowed to me buy gloves that work like bows for my daggers, just having an identical weapon called throwing daggers that dont work well (-4 penalty) in melee.

And then I make both the gloves +1 wounding yay for 14 con damage in addition to everything else.

 

[green slime]

I think it's one wondrous item away from being a perfectly viable and decidedly dangerous build. Of course, it relies on combining the features of the master thrower with the damage payload of a rogue or improved skirmish scout, but that works for me.

Yep. And the reason, IMO, that its ok, is because it is still very feat intensive, and so really requires a careful balancing act between Fighter/Rogue (or Scout if so inclined) and any PrC's you are interested in.

 

[Bagpuss]

I would have thought Flick of the Wrist was almost required feat for a Rogue Knife thrower.

 

[Darklone]

Flick of the Wrist is stylish but not too useful... and IIRC restricted to melee attacks (silly IMHO).

There's a skill trick in Comp Scoundrel that does nearly the same.

 

[green slime]

Flick of the Wrist is stylish but not too useful... and IIRC restricted to melee attacks (silly IMHO).

There's a skill trick in Comp Scoundrel that does nearly the same.

Yes, we all like those skill tricks...