#thrown weapons

[burningknucklecraftworks]

Got it done

[jaraxles]

So this last weekend was pretty big for me. I became the Sovereign's Champion of Thrown Weapons Saturday. I've put so much work into this i can not be more pleased with how the day turned out. The outgoing Champions put on a great tournament and i had a great time despite throwing through soup (97% humidity) for 2 days.

I started throwing more actively 2 years ago in preparation to win Thrown Weapons Champ for Dragonship Haven. After that i became more active with the community and they've always made me feel welcome. I want to thank Matteo for all his guidance and coaching these last several years. I couldn't have made it this far without you buddy.

When i made it to the finals and was up against the fantastic thrower Thrainn, I had a feeling how the tournament would turn out but i feel like i gave him a run for his money. We were CT Champions of our respective Baronies a few years ago together and I'm thrilled to be holding this position with him.

Thank you to his Majesty Brennan for selecting me as your Champion. I had to switch disciplines but I finally managed to collect the set!

[wearesorcerer]

Ioun Bloodline Arcana

Whenever you have an ioun stone orbiting you or implanted, you bond with that stone. You may telekinetically recall one bonded stone within 20 feet per Sorcerer level, causing it to orbit your head as a swift action. You may use ioun stones as thrown weapons that function as darts and deal bludgeoning damage, and you are considered proficient with them. The stones count as magic for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. You lose your bond with any stone out of your possession after 24 hours.

I need to unpack this a little. My evaluation is fairly mean, but this ability is a C+/B- - because of the Bloodline Powers.

First of all, the paragraph needs to be reorganized:

Whenever you have an ioun stone orbiting you (or implanted, for that matter), you bond with that stone. You lose your bond with any stone out of your possession after 24 hours. As a swift action, you may telekinetically recall into orbit one bonded stone within 20 feet per Sorcerer level. You treat ioun stones as thrown weapons with which you are proficient; they function as darts, but deal bludgeoning damage and count as magic for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

There we go: actions required before effects, passive abilities before active ones, generalities before specifics, normal rules before exceptions, and relevant tangents in parentheses.

Effectively, this gives you an ability slightly better than a cantrip, but in contradictory ways.

The first contradiction:

As a swift action, you may telekinetically recall into orbit one bonded stone within 20 feet per Sorcerer level.

Bonus Feats: Acrobatic, Craft Wondrous Item, Magical Aptitude, Quick Draw, Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Skill Focus (Knowledge [history]), Throw Anything.

You won’t want to use Quick Draw (iterative attacks [like you have any] for thrown weapons) because of the action restriction. Now, the recall ability exists both for the attacking and to combat kleptos from yoinking your stones, so maybe that’s for balance. However, given the capstone power, I suspect it’s because someone thought returning (a +1 enchantment that makes thrown weapons work like how they say boomerangs do) would be too powerful for first level characters to have.

(<3 Bowie-sama.)

The second way it’s contradictory is in range. Most attack cantrips work at Close range (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels, meaning 25 to 75 ft.). Darts have five range increments of 20 ft., with a cumulative -2 penalty on increments two through five. Yes, your maximum range with recall becomes available at 5th level. However, you will always take a penalty to match the maximum range of the cantrip (even though you can exceed it). Further, since most attack cantrips use ranged touch attacks¹ and you still have to roll against armor, you’re not going to hit shit.

You are still better off with a crossbow, given that to use either you need to be within closing range of, say, an enemy Fighter. (I will make a big stink about this point when I review Reserve feats.)

So, onto the second question: how exactly are these

(DMG 3.0 and 3.5, but art with similarly sized stones exists all over.)

comparable to something like this?

The dart used in D&D/Pathfinder (pictured above: late Roman plumbata) is most closest to today’s lawn dart, not the tiny things used in the game of the same name (though they do descend from the military ones). The comparison this Bloodline uses is a bit of a misnomer chosen for the sake of mechanics.

See, darts are mechanically nearly identical to sling bullets:

One dart weighs 1/2 pound (in D&D, at least). Sling bullets come in groups of 10 and such a group weighs 5 lbs. Math: it’s what’s for dinner. (Bum bum bum.)

Both the dart and the sling deal 1d3 (Small) or 1d4 (Medium) damage.

Both have a crit of x2 with a normal crit range.

Both are simple weapons.

They vary in three respects: price (pft, we’re using magic items, which are loads more expensive than either), damage type (already accounted for), and range. As I explained above, slings have a range increment of 50 ft. (nice!), whereas darts have one of 20 (sad face!). So, the comparison is more to this:

Still, this seems off; ioun stones are usually shown to be really small, like pea-sized. Does any source (3.x, Pathfinder, fifth edition, something else) provide sizes to corroborate or contradict the art? Not that I could find.

Thus, I tracked down the stones’ origins: Jack Vance’s short story “Morreion,” coincidentally also about finding the sources of ioun IOUN stones. The ones in D&D are lifted from that (with Vance’s permission; yes, they are copyright Vance, not TSR/WotC/Hasbro or Paizo). It took me a while to acquire the story (I had to use the regional interlibrary loan consortium), but right there at the beginning of chapter 2 (of 41 pages²) was what I sought:

“each approximately the size of a small plum.”

A brief Wiki Walk told me that plums are about 2 to 7 cm (3/4″ to almost 3″); Google confirmed about 1-3″ plums.

How big is a sling bullet? Well, Wiki claims about 1″ in diameter, though they’re oblong. The key is that they’re often made of lead. Ioun stones don’t get weights, but that’s easily waived (or else presumed to be irrelevant because of telekinetic force).

So yes, this ability is reasonable in principle.

In application, could/should this have been better? In all ways, yes. I will give my version of how this should have worked come the end of the week.

Is it a bad Arcana? Not really; I’d give it a C+/B-, but mainly because of its interactions with your Bloodline Powers.

¹ The main exception to this is telekinetic projectile, which launches an item out to close range as a thrown weapon attack. The trade-off is that it deals 1d6 non-magical bludgeoning (regardless of what you throw) rather than 1d3 magic of an energy type. However, it’s an abomination for one reason: it also deals damage to the object thrown.

² Bear in mind the 41-page count while I explain some things - or, rather, go on a rant.

Jack Vance’s Dying Earth series is one of the primary sources used to develop Dungeons & Dragons - hence “Vancian casting” (and Vecna, an anagram and homage). Had he not inspired the casting system, we likely would have had a spontaneous arcanist from the beginning. (Psionics have been spontaneous since Eldritch Wizardry [OD&D Supplement III, 1976]; had they not earned a reputation for being broken af, the would-be Sorcerer of 3rd edition would likely have been a Psion instead.)

I say all of this because neither H.P. Lovecraft nor Gary Gygax, both noted for their use of strange words, hold a candle to Vance. So horrendous is his diction that it took me several days to get through those 41 pages.

Mind you, I have a Master’s in English with foci in literature (specifically Shakespeare) and linguistics; I’m used to word choices people don’t like and trained not to get annoyed by them.

This did.

It’s like he sat down with a thesaurus and consulted it for the least-used words he could find for every word in dialogue and many words in narration. On top of that, the plot didn’t make a lot of sense (there were lots of weird jumps in logic, in part because of the diction, but also just bizarre behavior). In the end, I felt I had wasted an interlibrary loan (What if I had accidentally damaged the book? I’d have lost ILL privileges on this tripe!) and a lot of reading time I could have put towards The Starless Sea (which is due sooner and has a line waiting for it, but I wanted to get this post done).

I cannot speak fairly of the Dying Earth series because I haven’t read enough of it, but the diction is something that Vance is noted for. I don’t want to write off Gygax’s tastes, but so many of the things I detest about D&D go back to his personal preferences, in particular Jack Vance. I’m unsure if I will try again another time because I think I’m being highly unfair, but seriously, I hated this.

At least we have IOUN stones. (No idea why Vance insists on the capitalization, but he does.) And grues. And robes of eyes. And several other nifty things.

[sirblackaxe]

Weapon Throwing Expert

(A feat for 5E D&D)

You’ve mastered the ability to throw a variety of weapons quickly and accurately, gaining the following benefits:

You are proficient with improvised thrown weapons.

You may treat Javelins as if they have the finesse property.

You treat melee weapons with the light property as if they also have the thrown property with a normal range of 20 feet and a long range of 60 feet.

Increase the damage die of tridents to 1d8, or 1d10 when used with two hands.

Attacking at long range doesn't impose disadvantage on ranged weapon attack rolls you make with weapons that have the thrown property.

Ranged attacks you make with weapons that have the thrown property ignore half cover and three-quarters cover against targets within the weapon’s normal range.

After you make a ranged attack with a weapon that has the thrown property, you may immediately draw a weapon or item if you have a free hand.

When you make a ranged attack with a magic weapon that has the thrown property, it immediately returns to your hand.

What this does:

You add your proficiency bonus to ranged attack rolls you make to throw vials of Acid and similar items.

Dexterity users have access to a couple of 1d6 finesse thrown weapons, instead of being stuck with 1d4 daggers.

Strength users have access to a 1d8 versatile thrown weapon.

You get (most) of the benefits of Sharpshooter that applied to thrown weapons, so you don’t need to take that feat too.

You can throw something for each of your extra attacks without running into the item interaction limits.

You don’t need to get a ton of copies of the magic weapon you’re throwing.

What this does (tldr):

Martial melee characters can spend a feat to get a decent ranged option that doesn’t involve dropping their weapon to pull out a longbow.

Also you can do some wacky but probably suboptimal stuff involving throwing swords or carting around gallons of acid.

[randomitemdrop]

Item: Ring of Destruction (source)

[burningknucklecraftworks]

Picked this back up after a several month long time out. Stained the stand my usual cherry and painted the target boxes with my usual succulent purple. With a little more painting and clear coating, this project will basically be done.

[jaraxles]

Some fun before work. Someday I'll get my Royal Rounds in. Both sets thrown around the 10' mark

[jaraxles]

Slomo knife throwing today

I really like the sound.