Thrown Weapon Seeker with nothing to throw...

[AbdulAlhazred]

Logically, if a race has a preference for heavy blades and wishes to use a heavy blade as a thrown weapon they would develop such a weapon.

There are two "real world" thrown weapons that I can think of that fit within the heavy blade group, but are not yet described in any 4E book I have seen; The mambele (African throwing iron) and the chakram (razor edged iron or bronze discus).

As military weapons: Prof: +2, Dam: 1d6, Rng: 6/12, Price: 10gp, W: 3lbs, Group: Heavy Blade, Prop: Heavy Thrown. (similar to the Xen'drik boomerang but no automatic return with proficiency)
As superior weapons: Ditto except Prof: +3.

In all fairness, if a membele isn't an axe, what is? It may be a single piece of metal but you're going to use it like an axe and it really should be in the axe group (and in fact really might as well be statted up as a hand axe).

I'd be somewhat skeptical of calling a chakram a HEAVY blade either. Doesn't really seem at all close functionally to other blades and is more of a specialist unique weapon.

I think the whole point with heavy blades is their design is rather mutually exclusive with being effective throwing weapons since their advantages are speed and reach more than anything. Long thin relatively straight blades of a heft beyond comfortable throwing weight just don't ever make good ranged weapons.

 

[Grimgrin]

What about a Hybrid Ranger/Seeker that's using two thrown weapons with Twin Strike? Granted you would be giving up the chance to use one of your controller-type At-Will attacks to use Twin Strike, but for me it would be a fair compromise for the dps versus controller argument.

If I read it right, you gain only the associated power, Spirit's Rebuke, of the Spiritbond and not the other abilities, so your thrown weapons would not return after each throw which is the main advantage of taking a thrown weapon seeker rather than a bow/sling seeker.

 

[chorolus]

If I am read it right, you gain only the associated power, Spirit's Rebuke, of the Spiritbond and not the other abilities, so your thrown weapons would not return after each throw which is the main advantage of taking a thrown weapon seeker rather than a bow/sling seeker.

I'm reading straight from the Character Builder, so the book answer may be slightly different, but the wording of the Spirit Bond weapon-returning quality states that it works on ANY weapon you are proficient with, and doesn't mention anything along the lines of only working with Seeker Powers only, or anything along those lines...

 

[Herschel]

It's not necessarily about a big damage boost. Lets face it, a throwing seeker's damage will be about like a ranged seeker with permanent weakened but a bit better accuracy while needing to be closer to the fray, but having more viable options would be better, in my mind. In most cases, it would appear a Dwarf is just a better option that a Githzerai (and Dwarves are simply a great race for a melee character). I'm not even saying it's necessarily a problem, just an issue.

 

[mneme]

Lets face it, a throwing seeker's damage will be about like a ranged seeker with permanent weakened but a bit better accuracy while needing to be closer to the fray,

Eh -- not really. The fact that a seeker's damage scales with extra dice, not extra W's (eg, 1W + 3d8 and so on) means that a throwing seeker's damage isn't going to be that much worse than a ranged seeker (and will scale upwards in comparison, as the extra dice drown out the W damage).

 

[Herschel]

Yeah, the damage difference does, more or less, 'go away' after some levels (which is good) but early heroic can be tough as that's where PCs already feel most vulnerable. That said, generally a Dwarf is just an awesome option.

 

[mysticknight232]

Not everybody starts a character at lvl 5 or 11 or beyond. I think the decrease in dmg dice from d10 (minimum w/ a longbow or d12 w/ a greatbow) down to a d6 will be significant during the entire heroic tier. with the lack of weapons available, i'd rather just play a psion or another controller the will do more dmg and have less restrictions when it comes to weapon choices or powers. as it stands now, if you want to be a thrown weapon seeker and plan on using powers for melee attacks, you're pretty limited to what you can choose.

 

[chorolus]

Well, I guess I forgot to state it above, but one solution to the limited Thrown Weapon selection that Seekers start with is to simply hybrid-class with something else that comes with more Weapon Proficiencies...

I listed Ranger as an example because it could help with some of the damage-dealing complaints in this thread as well. You could just as easily Hybridize with a Rogue or any other melee class, and basically come trained in every throwing weapon available. You could pick up pretty much all non-superior weapons that way too, and gain a bit more utility as a hybrid class character.

Stat-wise, those throwing weapons aren't exactly golden...but if you want more flexibility, just skin an existing weapon, and use its stats...but then call the weapon something else as 'fluff'. You could use the stats for a Drow Long Dagger, but have a character portrait of you flinging Dwarven Handaxes around then explain in your character bio that your daggers are viciously curved, and resemble axes more then anything else... Or like was said above, you could negotiate with your GM, perhaps perform/pay someone to perform an enchantment-swap ritual, and pick up any Heavy Blade weapon you're proficient with that has the Farbond enchantment and fling that around instead.

 

[bganon]

Twin Strike with thrown weapons would be Dex-based, which doesn't really mesh well with the Spiritbond Seeker build. Throwing-based Seekers are probably better off with Throw and Stab. In general the Marauder style Ranger options synergize better.

But really, I think the issue with Seekers is that IMO despite what you might think looking at the class, it's the Dex-secondary build that leans striker, while the Str-secondary build is if anything more pure "controller", but with some weird melee-range options (that are all about moving enemies around).

In the end, though, I'd probably give a Spiritbond Seeker free handaxe/throwing hammer proficiencies anyway, and probably trident too. The first two have hardly any advantage over javelin anyway (and shorter range), so it's mostly fluff.

 

[chorolus]

...nevermind...