D&D 5E (2014) Unintended consequences from knife-throwing feature?

[TheCosmicKid]

I'm writing a fighter subclass to update a player's master thrower character from 3E to 5E. I came up with this feature:

When throwing a dagger at a creature within 20 feet, you exercise enough control over the blade to treat the throw as a melee attack instead of a ranged attack if it would be more beneficial to do so.

This simultaneously does a lot of things that I like for the subclass. It lets them ignore disadvantage from close combat, attack prone targets with advantage instead of disadvantage, and use the shove and grab actions to emulate master thrower tricks. But obviously, it's kind of weird and very open-ended. So what are the rules consequences from this that I'm overlooking?

 

[Mistwell]

One of the first builds I worked on for 5e was a dagger thrower. It didn't end up working in Rules as Written, but I seem to recall your change would make it work. Which should show most of the things you could do with it.

D&D 5E - Dagger Thrower

I am working on making a Dagger Thrower, and would like any helpful commentary, advice, changes, etc. that folks can think of. This is the build so far, up to level 5. I chose human for the extra feat, though Halfling could work to use sneak behind a medium size ally instead of Skulker (I like...

www.enworld.org

 

[MarkB]

Of note would be that it could count as a Monk weapon for a multiclassed character, allowing a Fighter / Monk to make effectively ranged attacks and apply their class features to them - so you'd be able to substitute your Martial Arts damage die for the dagger's, and could Stunning Strike an opponent from 20 feet away.

I don't think such a build is likely to be particularly synergistic in more general terms, so it's probably not a balance issue.

 

[Salthorae]

I'm writing a fighter subclass to update a player's master thrower character from 3E to 5E. I came up with this feature:

When throwing a dagger at a creature within 20 feet, you exercise enough control over the blade to treat the throw as a melee attack instead of a ranged attack if it would be more beneficial to do so.

This simultaneously does a lot of things that I like for the subclass. It lets them ignore disadvantage from close combat, attack prone targets with advantage instead of disadvantage, and use the shove and grab actions to emulate master thrower tricks. But obviously, it's kind of weird and very open-ended. So what are the rules consequences from this that I'm overlooking?

My first thought was to look at Fighter(Battlemaster), but then I remembered you were building this as a fighter subclass, not a rogue subclass.

If you built this as rogue you'd have to know how you wanted Lunging and Sweeping Strikes to work with it, but as a fighter... I think mostly any issues are going to come from mutliclassing or feats.

If you took Martial Adept to grab Combat Maneuvers, then my note above applies. on lunging strike and sweeping strike. not that they can't/shouldn't mesh with this, you just need to think about them.

• Barbarian: All the base class abilties would trigger with this ability if you used Str and not Dex:
  • Rage would add the rage bonus to the damage (normally it's not supposed to)
  • Reckless attack would function even though it's normally only for melee attacks
  • Brutal Critical 1/2/3 would all work to add extra crit damage dice even at range
  • Subclasses:
    • Berzerker's Frenzy would work, though you should just be doin TWF instead
• Monk
  • Stunning strikes out to 20' with a dagger throw since it triggers on melee weapon attacks
• Paladin
  • Divine smites at range
• Rogue
  • Subclass
    • Swashbuckler
      • Fancy Footwork: you could throw daggers at someone and THEN run by them and they wouldn't be able to make Opp. Attacks
        • I mean you could always run up to someone attack and then keep running RAW, but maayyybe there's a situation where this would apply.
• Spells:
  • Blinding, Searing, Staggering, Thunderous, Wrathful Smite would all work to 20' with this ability as they are "melee weapon attack" and Range Self
  • Booming Blade/GFB - shouldn't probably work, but you might be asked because of Multiclassing or Magic Initiate or something.

Basically anywhere a rule specifies a melee weapon attack or a melee attack, this ability would allow it to trigger. I can't think of them or find them all, above is just some examples I thought of quickly.

I also don't know that any of these are a "problem", just things that would work that wouldn't otherwise.

Of note would be that it could count as a Monk weapon for a multiclassed character, allowing a Fighter / Monk to make effectively ranged attacks and apply their class features to them - so you'd be able to substitute your Martial Arts damage die for the dagger's, and could Stunning Strike an opponent from 20 feet away.

Dagger is already a simple weapon so it is already a monk weapon and qualifies for all the martial arts die ext. I think Stunning Strike is the only real shift I could find in the class.

 

[MarkB]

Dagger is already a simple weapon so it is already a monk weapon and qualifies for all the martial arts die ext. I think Stunning Strike is the only real shift I could find in the class.

True. For some reason I was thinking it would only count as a Monk weapon for melee attacks, but of course that's not the case.

 

[aco175]

The shove and grab part is a bit weird, but most likely not come up in my game much to parse the overall rules. I like the idea and feel that it fits with the idea of a dagger master. I would like to see this as a thief subclass as well.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

The shove and grab part is a bit weird, but most likely not come up in my game much to parse the overall rules. I like the idea and feel that it fits with the idea of a dagger master. I would like to see this as a thief subclass as well.

Shoving is pretty central to the concept. The 3E master thrower was notorious for tripping opponents with thrown weapons.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Wait, can you grab someone with a polearm?

If not, this wouldn’t allow grabbing with a thrown dagger.

Edit to clarify: the fact that it’s a melee [weapon] Attack doesn’t mean you can grapple. The wording of the grapple section does specify that you attempt to grapple with “at least one free hand”. It doesn’t just say you must have a hand free, it says “Using at least one free hand, you try to seize the target by making a grapple check”.

Shoving is fine, and is only really weird because they decided to call it “shove” even though there are ways to do it that don’t really involve shoving.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

What about opportunity attacks at range? Like, give an ability to threaten out to 20ft, and attack as a Reaction if someone moves into your threatened space?

Less powerful than it would be on a rogue, but still very cool.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

What about opportunity attacks at range? Like, give an ability to threaten out to 20ft, and attack as a Reaction if someone moves into your threatened space?

Less powerful than it would be on a rogue, but still very cool.

Thought about it. Decided keeping track of that magic 20-foot line whenever I'm moving a bad guy on the map would be more trouble than it's worth in practice. My current draft has something else to do with reactions instead: an expanded Defensive Duelist feature. Much more obvious trigger.