New Magical Item, Gloves of Throwing

[Mike Sullivan]

This will probably break shuriken.

(The shuriken mechanic (from OA) is that you throw three shuriken per attack. Each shuriken does only 1 point of damage, and strength bonuses don't apply. Skill based bonuses only apply to the first shuriken thrown per attack, so if you have, say, sneak attack +3d6, you don't get +9d6 damage... But magic affects each shuriken so enchanted. So, the way to twink out shurikens existing is to get some +1, Returning, Flaming, Frost, Shock, blah-blah-blah, so that you're doing like 3d6 to 5d6 damage per shuriken, which translates to 9d6 to 15d6 damage per attack. But the magic item cost is prohibitive, since throwing weapons are charged on a per-weapon basis.)

So, with these gloves, you could do the full out deal, and get weapons that do, say, 1 + 1 + 4d6 damage per hit, and the first one also does, say, another +2 or so (specialization, if you bother). That means that with each attack slot, you're doing potentially 8 + 12d6 damage, which is obviously broken, and for a non-prohibitive gp or xp cost. You don't even need to get Returning on the gloves, since unlike most other thrown weapons, it's not unreasonable to carry a truly large number of mundane shuriken.

Of course, you could rule that in the case of shuriken, the gloves only enchant the first of the three thrown -- but that lacks a certain something, conceptually.

 

[Corlon]

except that just like sneak attack, rangers damage bonus, etc. it would only add it to one in the set.

Use some common sense here

Okay, so it shouldn't stack with the thrown weapons enhancement,

and I'm not sure if this was assumed, but the weapons don't get the enhancedments if they're wielded in melee, that should make it balanced, you can get a bunch of thrown weapons with enhancements if they're thrown, or a couple melee/thrown weapons if you don't use the gloves.

And another thing, this should be one glove, like the glove of holding, but the only other glove you can use on the other hand is another glove of throwing which applies to the other hand (for those two handed fighters out there)

sound good?

 

[Mike Sullivan]

except that just like sneak attack, rangers damage bonus, etc. it would only add it to one in the set.

Use some common sense here

I was. That works fine, rules-mechanically, but, as I said, it lacks something conceptually. The concept for why skill-based bonuses don't work for the 2nd and 3rd shuriken is that they're thrown a bit more haphazardly, and can't be aimed for vital spots at the same time that the first one is. That rationale (flimsy as it may be) doesn't work for your gloves.

You could say something like "there's a certain recharge time for the gloves as they discharge their magic into the shuriken," but that doesn't really hold up when you compare a first level character throwing three shuriken to a 20th level character throwing six hand-axes -- why does the recharge rate not affect the 20th level character?

Not that this is a big deal. You can always just say, "I know this doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's necessary for game balance." Or, heck, most people aren't dealing with shuriken at all. But it's something to specifically address.

 

[Corlon]

Not that this is a big deal. You can always just say, "I know this doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's necessary for game balance."

I like taht one

how about since shuriken are so small, it takes three of them to deal the damage, so instead of one shuriken with flame surrounding it, it would be a clump of three with flame surrounding them. This would mean you need three, but if you were going to invest in these, you'd probably invest the extra 2 gold to get some more shuriken.

 

[Mike Sullivan]

I like taht one

how about since shuriken are so small, it takes three of them to deal the damage, so instead of one shuriken with flame surrounding it, it would be a clump of three with flame surrounding them. This would mean you need three, but if you were going to invest in these, you'd probably invest the extra 2 gold to get some more shuriken.

Well, that works aesthetically. What does it mean in-game? What happens if I miss with one of 'em and hit with the other two (they are resolved as three seperate to-hit rolls). Do you get the full enhancement bonus if any one of the three hits?

That might be cool -- on the face of it, it would seem to be neither as overpowered as giving each shuriken a seperate bonus would be, nor as underpowered as shuriken usually are...