Why are thrown weapons so underwhelming?

[Destil]

Thrown weapons (and the world of difference magic makes) are just a rules oversight. Really wish they'd fix it, but what are you going to do.

 

[Kerranin]

Have to agree, it really doesn't make sense to me that a Javelin only does d6 damage.

I guess that what has really changed is that many other weapon types gained damage and/or properties (like brutal or high crit), but thrown weapons pretty much got left behind.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Eh, there can be a pretty decent benefit for some characters like rangers in using heavy thrown weapons. It really depends on your build. If you want to be good at both ranged and melee combat then thrown weapons can be a big help by reducing the number of enchantments you need. You've got a lot of characters running around with some pretty inferior ranged options simply because they are not willing to drop a die of damage. A Twin Striking STR/DEX ranger using hand axes? Perfectly nice option. The things that really give you good damage aren't going to be lost by using hand axes vs war axes. Superior weapons are nice, but with the number of feats floating around these days you can find other equally good ways to use those slots.

 

[Herschel]

Great, so Twin Strike Rangers hose everyone else once again.

A +3/d8 range 5/10 simple or military would even be fine by me. That's what I think a Trident should be.

Of course I love tridents and if I had my wish they'd be the best weapon in the game.

 

[aurance]

I don't know why. I agree with you. It is kind of frustrating and underwhelming. I would love to play with a rogue/assassin that throws knives/darts/stars.

Rogue with daggers, thrown or otherwise, is still quite good. You just have to be a bit more resourceful about getting combat advantage if you're going thrown only; Distant Advantage plus a selection of powers that give you CA.

 

[drothgery]

Real answer? Thrown weapons are underwhelming because the only 'cool' traditional thrown weapons (knives and shuriken) are small.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Great, so Twin Strike Rangers hose everyone else once again.

A +3/d8 range 5/10 simple or military would even be fine by me. That's what I think a Trident should be.

Of course I love tridents and if I had my wish they'd be the best weapon in the game.

I don't think thrown weapons are weak because of rangers. I just mean they are a viable option for that type of build (there are others, it was only an example). Heck, it isn't the optimal build even for a mixed melee/ranged ranger build, so they COULD have boosted up thrown weapons. The thing is it is a complex thing to do, they are often used as off-hand secondary weapons by various classes, so making those particular ones better undermines the advantages of things like the TBF ranger feature.

OTOH the non-offhand heavy thrown weapons generally could be a bit stronger without any problems. Making tratnyr d10 for instance would be fine. A TBF ranger could dual wield them, but no more effectively than bastard swords, the ability to throw them would make it a bit better, but swords have plenty of other advantages.

 

[frankthedm]

Thrown weapons (and the world of difference magic makes) are just a rules oversight. Really wish they'd fix it, but what are you going to do.

Oversight? Looked intentional to me since 4e classes are supposed to "know their place" and have their powers carefully rigged to enforce their party role.

 

[fba827]

in my own experiences, thrown weapons often end up as bckup weapons to the melee builds (so as a backup option they don't need to be as strong as the primary melee option) and also some thrown weapons get the benefit of being one handed (i'm looking mostly as those daggers and hand axes) so you can get in some two-weapon fighting and two-thrown in the same round type thing which shores up the difference between that and a single weapon attack if done that way.
is it perfect? na. but the way i've seen it in play tends to balance out some good and bad points to them.

 

[Saracenus]

Last season of D&D Encounters (DDE) we had a Elven Thief with Ambush and Tactical Trick and it wasn't until she got a +1 distance dagger (range 10/20) that she started to be the most versatile attacker at the table.

Sure a bow ranger could do more damage, but being able to alternate between melee and ranged without having to swap weapons was beyond awesome. And pumping out 1d4 + 5 + 2d6 damage a round was nothing to sneeze at.