Why are thrown weapons so underwhelming?

[Destil]

There needs to be a military heavy thrown weapon that is a raw upgrade over the javelin. Effectively a trident that has 10/20 range. That means that the superior version would be a +2/1d10 10/20 one-handed thrown weapon. That means that for the benefit of one-handedness and the ability to attack in melee, you lose a die size and range compared with a superior bow. Basically I think the trident was a flavour-inspired mistake.

Until they make a two-handed superior heavy thrown weapon it won't matter. Everyone will take farbond fullblades and dwarven throwing craighammers.

My problem with existing thrown weapons is very simple. Is the baseline for a thrown weapon build like the seeker a Tantalyr (which is really just a trident anyway) or is it a dwarven throwing executioner's axe? Uncommon weapon enhancements make way to big a difference.

The trident is mostly fine in my opinion. If I were in charge of the weapon charts I'd:

Add a hurling sledge: 2d6 +2 heavy thrown 6/12 superior two-handed hammer.
Add a winged spear: 1d10 +3 heavy thrown 10/15 superior one-handed spear.
Add a wing-edge boomerang: 1d12 +3 light thrown 10/20 superior two-handed heavy blade.
Increase the range on the trident to 10/15.
Make a feat to add heavy thrown 5/10 to the warhammer and battleaxe.

 

[Herschel]

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.

This is a very good point. I don't see a reasonable "fix" for it either outside of making some better, heavy thrown weapons.