Why are thrown weapons so underwhelming?

[Herschel]

The problem is the Rogue is the exception, not the rule. Warlords, Bards & Seekers have some great build concepts that fall almost completely flat because of these issues. It's the same for some hybrids.

I suppose it could have gone the other way with no d12 single-hand weapons or bows, but with all the d12 weapons and property/feat shenanigans available for them it's a tad frustrating. Maybe an expertise feat would fix them.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The problem is the Rogue is the exception, not the rule. Warlords, Bards & Seekers have some great build concepts that fall almost completely flat because of these issues. It's the same for some hybrids.

I suppose it could have gone the other way with no d12 single-hand weapons or bows, but with all the d12 weapons and property/feat shenanigans available for them it's a tad frustrating. Maybe an expertise feat would fix them.

The only d12 one-handed weapon I'm aware of is the war axe, which is otherwise a completely unremarkable weapon, being +2/d12 and having no other really useful properties. Compare to the +3/d10 triple-headed flail or the +2/d10 brutal 2 craghammer.

Remember, using a hand axe vs say a war axe, savings of a feat, gain of ranged capability, and is off-hand for characters who will want to dual wield. Going from d12 to d6 is a bit of a loss, but in the grand scheme of things not as much as it might seem (1.5 avg damage, but assume some is mitigated by the extra feat). Especially at higher levels the lower W isn't going to matter to most builds all that much.

Basically if carting around a hand axe instead of a war axe manages to get you one extra attack or one more significant attack than you would have gotten with the non-throwable weapon then it can make up for its slightly lower damage pretty quick.

The real enemy of thrown weapons is the plethora of feats and items that allow you to bypass the action costs associated with switching weapons around. Nowadays a ranger may have to spend a feat or two, but can easily switch from bow to melee weapon without using any actions.

 

[Herschel]

I agree, I was a bit tongue-in-cheek about the War Axe, but the Greatbow is a bit of a different matter, IMO. I love versatility and accuracy, which the bow doesn't give, but throughout heroic tier that d12 with feats and enchanments is pretty hard to overlook and by the time I hit paragaon, well, I don't want to have to wait until paragon for my basic character concept to really feel like it's working. Still needing the Superior Weapon feat to drop two damage dice sizes for a "dragonborn throwing spear" just really doesn't trip my trigger. The "dark elf sting-wannabe/ultra-dagger" just doesn't evoke any great thematic feelings of heroism either. If longbows were d8 and great bows d10 I don't think it would be an issue either. Bows have gotten a huge damage boost since 1E.

In the end it just feels like some really cool builds get short-changed is all. PArt of it may be the dragonborn and drow "flavor" of the weapon also, two of the three races I generally don't like the flavor of. Make a Tiefling weapon and the hat trick is complete.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I agree, I was a bit tongue-in-cheek about the War Axe, but the Greatbow is a bit of a different matter, IMO. I love versatility and accuracy, which the bow doesn't give, but throughout heroic tier that d12 with feats and enchanments is pretty hard to overlook and by the time I hit paragaon, well, I don't want to have to wait until paragon for my basic character concept to really feel like it's working. Still needing the Superior Weapon feat to drop two damage dice sizes for a "dragonborn throwing spear" just really doesn't trip my trigger. The "dark elf sting-wannabe/ultra-dagger" just doesn't evoke any great thematic feelings of heroism either. If longbows were d8 and great bows d10 I don't think it would be an issue either. Bows have gotten a huge damage boost since 1E.

In the end it just feels like some really cool builds get short-changed is all. PArt of it may be the dragonborn and drow "flavor" of the weapon also, two of the three races I generally don't like the flavor of. Make a Tiefling weapon and the hat trick is complete.

Yeah, fair enough. I think part of the issue is just that the weapons were originally balanced around the PHB1 selection. I think they went a bit wrong with the stuff they added in AV1. There WAS room for a few more superior weapons, but the original idea of them being the more unusual oddball choices that maybe give you a very slight edge was pretty solid. The AV1 move to just making them all super duper extra ridiculous anime sized versions of existing weapons was not real inspired. I mean if you added the tratnyr to the original PHB1 weapon array it actually makes pretty good sense as a superior weapon and would be a good option, mostly comparing to things like the bastard sword or the great sword.

Notice that Essentials jettisoned pretty much all the AV1 weapons. Obviously most games will still use them and they work with Essentials, but it has the more reasonable and balanced weapon selection. Just basically goes with my contention that most of the 4e stuff was rushed out a bit fast and wasn't all fully baked.

 

[mneme]

1.5 damage? 1d6 is 3.5 damage. 1d12 is 6.5 damage. Try 3 damage, not 1.5. Per W.

I think the real enemy of thrown weapons is the unexplained unwillingness to provide superior versions of most of them. "it's off-hand and thrown" is perfectly reasonably worth -1 die category. Maybe even 2, though that's dodgier. But superior weapons are the go-to location for weapon upgrades, and thrown weapons effectively don't exist in superior forms. The fact that bows are overpowered (huge range -and- huge damage?) is icing on the cake.

I guess there's the Cahulaks. d8 damage, heavy thrown, double weapon, reach -- except for being a flail, that's pretty perfect. Silly, but perfect. Same for the Gthka that gives up reach for Defensive (but is a spear) (hmm. Could you re-chrome the Gthka?). And of course that covers dual weapon builds that want to throw, not builds that want a single weapon and want to throw it (and not cheat with Throw Anything or a specific weapon property).

 

[Chzbro]

I think the attack powers themselves and not the thrown weapons are the culprit. For example, Ranger powers that could take advantage of a thrown weapon's versatility don't because they mandate that you use Dex for ranged attacks and Str for melee. If, on the other hand, it were simply Dex OR Str for both ranged and melee, such powers would encourage thrown weapons since they could be used for either type of attack equally well.

As it stands now, to get that kind of versatility, you'd have to build a character with equal Dex and Str. As many have noted, rogues don't have to do this and thus have good success with thrown daggers.

There's really no reason why rangers shouldn't work similarly, nor why fighters and warlords (and other classes) shouldn't have 1 or 2 power options that could be used either in melee or from range. If the powers allowed the versatility of the thrown weapons to shine, we wouldn't be complaining about how they stack up against other weapons. They'd be fine. But as it stands, most powers limit their effectiveness severely.

It wouldn't take a lot of "versatile" powers to make a big difference. They don't really even have to add new powers (thankfully), just errata a few that make sense to work both at melee and range. That would have the added benefit of opening up a lot of tactical possibilities as well.

 

[Herschel]

The Seeker has a number of versatile powers like that and most people really don't give the class or its powers much credit. I absolutely love the flavor of that build but it does fall short on overall control and damage.

Would the throwing seeker be better if they beefed it up and gave it a mark to be a defender?

 

[Chzbro]

The Seeker has a number of versatile powers like that and most people really don't give the class or its powers much credit. I absolutely love the flavor of that build but it does fall short on overall control and damage.

Would the throwing seeker be better if they beefed it up and gave it a mark to be a defender?

I don't know how to "fix" the Seeker.

I did build and play a handaxe throwing Seeker at last year's GenCon and thought it worked pretty well. However, in my opinion, it wasn't a very good controller and (for me) just isn't a very interesting or compelling class. I ended up trying to amp up his damage potential with ranged basic attacks (if I'm remembering correctly Seeker has an at-will that can be used as RBAs) and made him a half-elf so I could filch Twin Strike, but even that turned out to only sort of work. I'd play him again, but I had to work pretty hard to make him palatable.

So while I don't dispute that the Seeker does have versatile powers that could make thrown weapons shine as per my thesis, Seeker powers tend to be underwhelming at best anyway...and really, who wants to play a Seeker?

 

[Klaus]

...and really, who wants to play a Seeker?

<Raises hand.>

 

[Kerranin]

I think we're spending too much time saying how 'this works if you play rogue or ranger', lots of other classes still want to throw stuff.

I am certainly not suggesting that thrown weapons should suddenly do d12 damage or anything, but I do think their damage numbers are a little weak and I could certainly justify a few upgrades here and there. (some damage dice upgrades & the odd high crit maybe?)

I appreciate that any changes made have to not unbalance the existing classes, but so far all we have really said is that thrown weapons can work really well for some classes, we haven't said that upgrades would unbalance any classes.

So, let me speculate that we would upgrade damage for a few heavy thrown weapons. Can we demonstrate that this would cause significant balance problems? (I mean the balance between players and monsters)