Monks with Shurikens/ Monk Weapons

[Kaleon Moonshae]

Actually throwing stars (or throwing blades as we call them in my game since there aren't any oriental weapons) are pretty handy for a fighter/master thrower build. Daggers cost a *huge* ammount to enchant and there are times when you are going to lose them still. You can enchant 50 shuriken at one time, giving you at least 50 attacks with whatever weapon properties you add. Master throwers can get some ludicrous attakcs at higher levels, and they are *all* ranged touch attacks if you take the ability. Maybe the weapon only does 1d2 damage, but that's only cutting the throwing blade in half and you still get all the same bonuses... so you are only losing 2 *possible* points of damage to gain multiple ranged flaming, pbs, weapon specialization attacks. It's actually a fair trade off. Watch my master thrower get off 9 ranged touch attacks, each dealing 1d2+2+1d6, in a single round and tell me it's a worthless weapon. (that's with a 16 Str, +15 base attack bonus, twf, itwf, pbs, rapid shot, ws, palm throw, and the ranged touch class ability). That's a total of 9d2+18+9d6, or a possible total if rolling maxes of 90 pts of damage *per round*.

Note that I am at work and can't looka t the srd or my complete warrior so some of those figures may be wrong, but on the whole I think it's correct.

 

[Scion]

Considering everything that has to go into that build (piles of feats, prc, class levels, all the way up and a bunch of resources) no, that isnt very much damage at all. (especially since you might have to have too many levels of other things to get those abilities and suddenly lose 2 of the attacks)

I am not sure why your shurikens are flaming there.. but whatever you like I suppose, must be some other spell cast on them.

There are other much more abusive builds which require much less investment in order to come to fruitation.. that one is highly notabusive for what is listed here. It only really becomes abusive with poison But then, that is what the old shurikens in 3.0 were made for.. tons and tons of attacks = lots of poison checks. Incredibly expensive.

The dagger way is cheaper in the long run by far.

 

[Junkheap]

monk = 5
twf, itwf, gtwf = +3
rapid shot = +1

palm throw = x2

= 18

Probably some other tricks I missed somewhere.. but that is 18.. of course I believe that there are some pretty hefty restrictions.. such as no str bonus, limited/no precission damage, etc.. along with a list of feats, required classes and prc and all only with a shuriken..

Somehow I doubt it is overpowered, but who knows?

Also forgot haste so thats another 2.

Kaleon: How did you manage to get flaming at range. Also its not bad damage, but what happens when you fight golems, or creatures that require you to have good weapons. Its a pain just to over come the damage reduction as the damage potential is way too low.

One of the players i play with stated that there is a feat or item? that lets you transfer your ki strikes to your weapons. If thats the case, then i think it would be a very powerfull build with taking holy ki strike(i think thats what its called) from exalted.

 

[Kaleon Moonshae]

Also forgot haste so thats another 2.

Kaleon: How did you manage to get flaming at range. Also its not bad damage, but what happens when you fight golems, or creatures that require you to have good weapons. Its a pain just to over come the damage reduction as the damage potential is way too low.

One of the players i play with stated that there is a feat or item? that lets you transfer your ki strikes to your weapons. If thats the case, then i think it would be a very powerfull build with taking holy ki strike(i think thats what its called) from exalted.

Well, that's one fo the problems I can see. Some people say that you have to use a standard action to activate each and every flaming arrow if you enchant your 50 arrows to be flaming. My dm and I both agree that you have to take a stadard action to light them all (it says specifically you can do that) and that as long as they are on your person you are the wielder. The reason for that is that we still have a lot of those flaming and freezing arrows found in treasure piles like you did in 2nd ed.

If you use them like arrows, then you can enchant 50 of them to be +1 flaming. That adds +1d6+1 to your damage with them. I agree that it isn't abusive build, only that it is not underpowered which is the problem some are saying with shuriken. You say there are a lot of feats put into it but that's what a fighter is all about and a lot of those feats are useful with other weapons. The master thrower is only a 5 level Prc, not that big of an investment for what you get if you want to throw things.

TWF & ITWF = good for any melee weapon.
PBS & Rapid Shot = good for any ranged weapon.
weapon specialization = ok, a useless feat choice if you get it for shuriken and don't use them, but the master thrower requires weapon focus (throwing weapon of some sort) and so why not get that extra +1 damage with that weapon you took WF in?

against golems: That is where your specialized weapon comes in handy, and since you have ITWF you can wield two fo thema nd get two extra attacks.

add in farshot or the master thrower range ability and you now have a 20-30 range increment for the stars.

 

[Kaleon Moonshae]

snip

There are other much more abusive builds which require much less investment in order to come to fruitation.. that one is highly notabusive for what is listed here. It only really becomes abusive with poison But then, that is what the old shurikens in 3.0 were made for.. tons and tons of attacks = lots of poison checks. Incredibly expensive.

The dagger way is cheaper in the long run by far.

I wasn't going for abusive, was going for non abusive but playable. Also, daggers are not nearly as cheap in the long for any character I have ever played.

let's say you buy two +1 flaming daggers. You throw them at monster A while in a huge melee. They hit and stick in his body but his budies are too tough for your group and you have to flee... well there goes 8000gp+ investment as you are running away looking bakc at your daggers stuck in bob the giant.

or let's say you are on a cliff and you throw a dagger at joe yeti and it misses...sailing off into the air past the cliff to fall 4000' into snow.

Both of those things have happened to throwers of mine before.

With enchanted shuriken you may lose a couple but you still have a couple. For me that 50 shot renewing investment is a heck of a lot cheaper than having that one dagger that I put all my stock in.

 

[Scion]

that is why you make them returning. Or get the pair of gloves that makes every weapon you throw throwing and returning.

Beginning of each day enchant your +1 daggers of whatever to be +5. You only need as many as you have attacks in a round, but having double that is fine.

Over time having to buy more and more of the +1 ammunition of whatever will add up quickly (especially at 18 throws a round!) vs the one time only cost of the daggers.

For any dedicated thrower you 'always' get returning weapons or the gloves.

That way you can have a pile of +X weapons (+5 from the spell, and then a bunch of goodies) that happen all of the time. Overall damage? much higher. Long term cost? much lower.

Again though, someone asked why the feat would be worth it. So far your arguements are saying that it wouldnt be. It is good for a monk sure, but that is because they can flurry and dont have to buy the feat. Big difference there!

 

[Kaleon Moonshae]

that is why you make them returning. Or get the pair of gloves that makes every weapon you throw throwing and returning.

Beginning of each day enchant your +1 daggers of whatever to be +5. You only need as many as you have attacks in a round, but having double that is fine.

Over time having to buy more and more of the +1 ammunition of whatever will add up quickly (especially at 18 throws a round!) vs the one time only cost of the daggers.

For any dedicated thrower you 'always' get returning weapons or the gloves.

That way you can have a pile of +X weapons (+5 from the spell, and then a bunch of goodies) that happen all of the time. Overall damage? much higher. Long term cost? much lower.

Again though, someone asked why the feat would be worth it. So far your arguements are saying that it wouldnt be. It is good for a monk sure, but that is because they can flurry and dont have to buy the feat. Big difference there!

I don't know. I have been in too many campaigns over the past ten years where my *returning* weapons didn't quite work right. I just have no problem in the renewing cost personally, specially with a friendly caster in the party. You are right that, in theory, those returning weapons of fire are nice but I have just found that my system works better for me. I still have the wizard cast gmw (you can hit up to 50 ammunition). Also when something breaks my dagger I'm not sol. Maybe my gms have just been more difficult than some. We come up against things that sunder a lot. I just prefer to pay a little bit more for not having all my eggs in one basket. I also like having *lots of options* I can carry a lot of throwing blades and have some with poison, some flaming, some frost, some bane, whatever. I handle my character more like an archer. Also, if there are ways of making ranged daggers or whatnot ki compatible (and I know there have been) then it is only logical that you should be able to make a gauntlet or gloves that let you transfer flaming ability to shuriken in the same way.

I agree that YMMV but mine has made me one of the most successfull characters in a couple games. One game we went down to one of the hells, we knew we were going there so I made sure I had a lot of holy throwing blades. You want to see evil beasties squirm, I used them as intimidation. They were in the open on my person and during our 'discussion' with the outsider big bad guy I kept flicking them into his concubines to make my points. Ranged touch attacks are also really nice I find.

Also the gloves that make them returning...works just fine here too. 50% of all the ones you miss with are going to come back to you. Also, I must admit that I just like the look from the movie Desperado and Onion where the knife thrower was *covered* in blades. It's definitely a style build, but I have never found myself at a disadvantage and we went pretty high levels. Maybe it is because I didn't depend on it, with twf and itwf I could do quite nice damage with my two katars as well.

 

[sledged]

monk = 5
twf, itwf, gtwf = +3
rapid shot = +1

palm throw = x2

= 18

Probably some other tricks I missed somewhere.

Yes, 4 levels of fighter/ranger/paladin/some martial PrC/etc and 16 levels of monk puts your BAB at +16 for 4 attacks. Plus 2 for flurry, +3 for TWF chain, +1 for rapid shot, x2 for palm throw.

Or...

if you wanna get really ridiculous, start with a thri-kreen, apply the multiheaded template from Savage Species which grants Superior Multiweapon Fighting, add 16 levels of monk:

BAB +16 = 4
Superior Multiweapon Fighting with four arms +12
Flurry = 2
Rapid Shot = 1
Palm throw x2

(4 + 12 + 2 + 1) x 2 = 38

Of course this build has a combined +4 LA bringing the total ECL to 24.

 

[DM-Rocco]

Okay, I can't believe that now one looked up the smack down threads before you mouthed off that you can not do any good damage with shurikens.

Granted, I think this was back in 3.0, but it should all still apply today, and you can make it better by applying colossal scorpion poison from the book of vile darkness, which does 2d8 primary and secondary STR damage if they fail a dc 54 save. Other than that, you should be able to apply this to just about any built, but consider doing a monk/master thrower (and if you go with the combo below) some paladin type.


Shuriken Smackdown
Originally posted by reapersaurus

Classes: Fighter 9/Divine Champion 5/Tribal Protector 2

Attributes: Anything, just an 18 CHA, increased to 20 by the mythical +2 CHA +0 ECL race

Feats: Point-Blank Shot, Rapid Shot, Quick Draw, Exotic WP: Shuriken, Weapon Focus: Shuriken, Weapon Spec: Shuriken, Power Attack, Divine Might

Magic Items:
+1 Chain Shirt of Command (DotF, +4 competence bonus to CHA), 9k
Boots of Speed 8k gp
Bracers of Throwing (same as Bracers of Archery, except for thrown items : +1 competence bonus to damage), 5k gp
21 +1 Returning, Flaming Shurikens (18k a piece)

Damage:
Shuriken: 1 point, can throw 3 in a attack (at same target).
Point-Blank Shot (+1)
Weapon Spec (+2)
Divine Favor spell (+6 luck) 1 minute duration
Divine Wrath (Divine Champion level 5 ability, +3 attack and damage)
Emotion spell (+2 morale)
Bracers of Throwing (+1 competence)
Divine Might (+ CHA bonus to damage: 18 base CHA + 2 race bonus + 2 from aging + 4 levelups, + 5 inherent from Tome of Charisma + 4 from Charm domain ability (1 min), + 4 from Command armor, + 4 from Greater Aspect of the Deity, + 15 average from Incantrix Septuple-Empowered Eagle’s Splendor = 58 CHA = +24 bonus to damage)
+ 1d6 flaming damage on each shuriken = 3.5 avg

= 43.5 damage per shuriken (weapon spec and point blank only good for one shuriken per attack)
so 40.5 damage for 2nd and 3rd shuriken in volley

# of attacks:
4 from BAB @ 16th level of +16/+11/+6/+1
1 from Rapid Shot
1 from Boots of Speed
1 from 2nd level Tribal Protector
= 7 attacks
Totals:
43.5 damage (1st attack in volley) + 40.5 damage for the other 2 shurikens in the volley = 124.5 damage each attack
124.5 damage per attack x 7 attacks = 871 damage per round.
There are 21 shurikens thrown, BTW...
Coat those 21 puppies in Sassone leaf residue (DMG page 80) and do 2d12 hp initial damage and 1d6 CON secondary damage PER SHURIKEN. (DC 16)
So….. (13 (2d12) x 3 shuriken) x 7 attacks = 273 hp damage from poison.

Grand total : 871 normal damage, 273 poison damage = 1147 damage per round!

That’s not including any extra damage from criticals, BTW.

This damage could also be increased by adding multiple arms for the character. A way I remember someone doing that was by polymorphing into a 4-armed Sahaugin mutant? (Damage=1467!)

Ways of stopping accidental poisoning? Resist Poison feat (+4 to saves), the Greater Aspect of the Deity grants +4 to saves. He already has +13 Fort save from classes not including CON bonuses.

 

[Scion]

First off, did anyone say you cant do good damage with shuriken? nope.

Secondly, that is definately 3.0 and a good portion of it doesnt work usefully anymore.

Thirdly, yet again, would a build in 3.5 actually be better simply useing daggers or something else instead of shurikens? probably.

So, as to the question, why would anyone want to take the shuriken feat? flavor really, not for power as there tend to be better choices.

Unless your dm doesnt allow returning to work properly or some other randomness

if you want really expensive then poison up those suckers.. 2k gp each just for poison, but you will kill anything not immune to poison. Without the need for a smackdown.