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Soranar
2010-08-09, 07:53 PM
Build idea

Basically, throw lots and lots of shurikens

Use feats and number of attacks instead of STATS to increase damage

so far my damage is 1d2 + 1 (point blank range)+ 4 (weapon specialization and mastery)

palm throw doubles all your attacks (negates str bonus which is why I don't use the stat)
weak spot makes them touch attack against most creatures (small or larger)
trip shot makes you useful for other things than simple dps

rapid shot+flurry of blows+BAB+ Two weapon fighting = maximum number of attacks per round... if I ever reach level 20

shurikens are ammo so they're cheap enough to enchant, obviously I'll be relying on magic weapon spells from a buddy to help

I'm still debating taking more fighter levels to get access to greater weapon specialization or stick with monk to eventually reach greater flurry

But all I'd get from more fighter levels are feats which I'm not sure what to use them on honestly

Race: Strongheart Halfling
Alignment: any Lawful

STATS (28 pts)

STR 6 (not used so ignored, with no armor and only ammo carrying capacity shouldn't be a consideration either)
DEX 20 (obviously it's the main stat)
CON 14
INT 8 (dump)
WIS 14
CHA 8 (dump)

1 Monk Point blank shot, Far shot, Bonus Feat: improved trip
2 Monk Bonus feat:Snatch Arrows
3 Fighter Weapon focus: shuriken, Rapid shot
4 Fighter Precise Shot
5 Fighter
6 Fighter Weapon specialization: shuriken, Two-weapon fighting
7 Master Thrower Bonus class feat: Palm Throw
8 Master Thrower
9 Master Thrower [Improved Two-Weapon Fighting/B], [B]Bonus class feat: Trip Shot
10 Master Thrower
11 Master Thrower Bonus class feat: Weak Spot
12 Monk Ranged weapon mastery: piercing

My "to hit" bonus should be significant (+1 halfling, +1 small, +5Dex bonus, hit on a touch attach) despite all the penalties (-2 rapid shot, -2 flurry, -2 two-weapon fighting)

So any advice?

ericgrau
2010-08-09, 07:55 PM
Flame arrow from a buddy for another free +1d6 bonus fire damage per shuriken. Halflings also get another +1 on thrown attacks. Bane shurikens for common enemies are an easy way to get +2 and +2d6. Likewise carry them in adamantine, cold iron and maybe silver flavors. Or get some silversheen to make silver shurikens on the fly.

Monks get deflect arrows at 2nd level not snatch arrows. What's more useful is the evasion and +1 to all saves you get, so ya level 2 was a good place to stop at. Monk 3 gives +2 to saves vs. enchants and +10 to your movement speed; not sure why you added that at level 12. By level 12 you could instead get boots of speed for a boost to your speed, AB and yet another attack at your highest attack bonus.

If you're allowed to take feats as crazy good as ranged weapon mastery, I'd also take improved rapid shot to effectively get another +2.

I don't think master thrower works well with precision damage; I'd go more for damage per shuriken.

the humanity
2010-08-09, 07:56 PM
Brutal throw
power attack
power throw

they might help.

Urpriest
2010-08-09, 07:58 PM
Lack of bonus damage is going to hurt...with just feat and magic weapon bonuses, I'm not sure this build will be able to keep up. Consider dipping swordsage for Assassin's stance to get +2d6 sneak attack dice per shuriken.

Furnok
2010-08-09, 08:57 PM
You could get the Use Poison feat and apply injury poison to all of your shurikens.

Krazddndfreek
2010-08-09, 09:03 PM
Iajutsu Focus? That's really the only way this build is going to work. Even though you get a bunch of attacks, it doesn't really help if they don't do anything.

FMArthur
2010-08-09, 09:23 PM
The Weapon Specialization tree is awful, especially if you are hoping to turn it into damage. You need higher bonus damage; enemies with DR x/- automatically win fights against you.

And since you're increasing the number of them you throw instead of how much each throw is worth, your weapon enhancements will be taking up a disgusting amount of gold since every little 1d2 + 6 or whatever is costing you over a hundred gp depending on what you get them as. See if you can swing Returning shuriken by your DM - it's technically illegal since they are supposed to break no matter what, but it's a logical enhancement and makes an already problematic strategy less problematic.

Yuki Akuma
2010-08-09, 09:45 PM
Hint: use daggers, fluff them as shuriken (or kunai, or whatever) and make them Returning.

>.>

Cheaper that way.

crazedloon
2010-08-09, 09:51 PM
bloodstorm blade from ToB this will get around the ammo problem as well as give you some nice options like manuevers for 1 shot damage and other thrown weapon tricks.

Also you are a halfling and should be using boomerangs and boomerang daze (races of Eberron) which will negate your low damage by volume of stunning attacks

Cespenar
2010-08-10, 01:16 AM
You can use Swift Hunter to get into Master Thrower as well. Mix with Travel Devotion, the usual.

Awnetu
2010-08-10, 01:29 AM
12 Monk Ranged weapon mastery: piercing

So any advice?

I don't think you can take a level of monk at that point?

I second the Iaijitsu Focus idea, also take a look at this, http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134276&highlight=Katana+Thrower

Good luck, and happy gaming.

ericgrau
2010-08-10, 01:43 AM
Hint: use daggers, fluff them as shuriken (or kunai, or whatever) and make them Returning.

>.>

Cheaper that way.
Actually way more expensive, because they return once per round not once per attack. So after 50 rounds or 10 combats you might break even... if you didn't have to pay more for returning too. With the number of attacks he is shooting for, that will get crazy expensive even for +1 returning daggers. In that situation you're looking at 40 combats. Or more likely you won't be able to afford returning, and we're looking at 50 combats to break even (pick up daggers every combat). By then you'll level up so many times your new stuff will make the cost of the old stuff look like nothing. Or in fact you'll be able to afford even better stuff at all levels if you go with shurikens. Also lets you pull nice tricks like always having the right bane or metal type later on.

I wouldn't even get magic shurikens (nor magic daggers) for a while. Beef them with spells until high levels when you start getting +1 bane shurikens.


The Weapon Specialization tree is awful, especially if you are hoping to turn it into damage. You need higher bonus damage; enemies with DR x/- automatically win fights against you.
Since he's relying on sheer numbers and isn't getting strength damage, that +2 is a big part of his damage. That + GMW and flame arrow is a decent amount. DR /- is very rare, and even then it rarely goes above 5. So in the absolute worst overly contrived corner case, he still does some damage. More likely it'll be DR / type, and he an easily get all 3 metal types since he is using ammo.

Biffoniacus_Furiou
2010-08-10, 04:41 AM
Take Leadership and get a Bard cohort who has DFI. Assuming he's at least 8th level, with Inspirational Boost, Song of the Heart, Words of Creation (you'll need to be LG), and a Badge of Valor, he'll be adding +9d6 fire damage to every shuriken you throw.

cd4
2010-08-10, 05:47 AM
I've been looking at this for a while myself and I found a feat which is a big help:

Sense Weakness: Draconomicon pg 106: Requires Combat Expertise, Int 13 and Weapon Focus. Allows you to ignore the first 5 points of Damage reduction or hardness.

JackMage666
2010-08-10, 06:09 AM
One thing you should note, is that, while Palm Throw negates a Str Bonus to damage, it says nothing about a Strength Penalty, so your low Str still means you take a -2 to damage. Its similar to a non-composite bow, in the a high Str means nothing, but a low Str still hurts your damage.

TheAzrael
2010-08-10, 06:11 AM
hm i dont know if this is what you are looking for but here is a linky for one built i know http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Machine_Gun_Assassin_%283.5e_Optimized_Character_B uild%29

WinWin
2010-08-10, 06:49 AM
Invest in a few hundered acid flasks and a Hewards Handy Haversack. The damage is energy based. Touch attacks instead of AC. Thrown weapon tricks and Sneak attacks still apply.

That way you have a decent option available for when your shuriken spam fails.

Morph Bark
2010-08-10, 12:46 PM
You can also always ask the DM to allow you to make use of the rule that you can throw three shuriken at once. Thought that was 3.0.

herrhauptmann
2010-08-10, 03:15 PM
What about the 1d2 crusader, or is that guy for melee only?

There's also bloodstorm blade, at later levels your daggers will come back to you before your next attack.
There's also a few spells and skill tricks you might want to look at, will let you negate regular armor (though probably not natural armor)

Human Paragon 3
2010-08-10, 03:59 PM
Ditch weapon specialization. You can do much better. Get sneak attack from some source and take the craven feat, which adds your character level to damage on sneak attacks (+20 damage per shurikan at level 20!).

Tokuhara
2010-08-10, 04:02 PM
I actually have a contraversial suggestion: Drop the Halfling.

Switch it to Thri-Kreen, and throw x4 the shuriken of other machine gun builds

Keld Denar
2010-08-10, 04:06 PM
BEHOLD! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5140212&postcount=11) Flick the Flaming DaggerShuriken Flinger.

Since Shuriken's are considered ammo when drawn, you'd just have to swap out Quickdraw with EWP: Shuriken. If there is a monk crossbreed in UA that gives TWF or any of the PBS/PS/RS line, you could probably afford to dip in there for 1-2 levels to pick up Flurry and EWP for very little loss.

Bonus damage is where its at, and this guy does bonus damage (and lots of attacks thanks to TWFing AND Rapid Shot AND Dancing/Raging Mongoose). Simultaneously boosts your whole team as well, although you are intentionally designed to exploit that boost.

ericgrau
2010-08-10, 04:11 PM
Ditch weapon specialization. You can do much better. Get sneak attack from some source and take the craven feat, which adds your character level to damage on sneak attacks (+20 damage per shurikan at level 20!).

SA only applies once per attack roll, not per shuriken. And unless you can get full BAB and a lot of reliability for hitting unusual monsters, you're often looking at less damage then someone with no bonus damage at all.

Urpriest
2010-08-10, 04:22 PM
SA only applies once per attack roll, not per shuriken. And unless you can get full BAB and a lot of reliability for hitting unusual monsters, you're often looking at less damage then someone with no bonus damage at all.

You make separate attack rolls for everything except the palm throw. You have reliability for hitting because you hit touch AC (granted, this is a problem against air elementals and the like). Unusual monsters will screw you over, granted, but this build is screwed by simple DR.

Kosjsjach
2010-08-10, 04:26 PM
I tried to make a Deep Halfling thrower once. I ended up using oodles of ACFs:
Sleeping Tiger variant Monk fighting style (Unearthed Arcana): trade regular Monk bonus feats for Weapon Finesse and Improved Initiative, but mostly used Monk for good saves and shuriken proficiency.
Halfling Monk Racial Substitution Level (Races of the Wild): trade flurry for skirmish: extra damage early on is pretty necessary.
Invisible Fist (Exemplars of Evil): trade Monk evasion for a 3-round-cooldown 1-round invisibility. Possibly not optimal, but it seemed like a good idea at the time; your foes need to be flat-footed for the extra damage, and you get evasion from Master Thrower 2 anyway.
Hit-and-Run Tactics (Drow of the Underdark): Fighter ACF that trades heavy armor proficiency for +Dex to damage against flat-footed foes, and a +2 to Initiative. Fighter is also great for extra feats.
Poison Use (Drow of the Underdark): trade a Rogue's trapfinding for the poison use ability. Drow ended up being a big part of this character's backstory.
Halfling Rogue Racial Substitution Level (Races of the Wild): +2d6 ranged sneak attack in exchange for melee sneak attack. For this character, a huge boon.

Some important feats for this build: Two-Weapon Fighting, Quick Draw (free with Master Thrower 1), Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Far Shot (shurikens don't actually have very good range), Weapon Focus: shuriken (so your Master Thrower abilities will work with them), and Rapid Shot (free with Whisperknife (Races of the Wild PrC) 1).

I also threw in a level of Swordsage focusing on Shadow Hand for versatility. It was not a clean build in any sense, but building a competent thrower is stupidly difficult and they only seem to come into their own at ECL 12.

Good luck with yours!

ericgrau
2010-08-10, 05:13 PM
You make separate attack rolls for everything except the palm throw...
I thought the OP was using palm throw.

Urpriest
2010-08-10, 05:17 PM
I thought the OP was using palm throw.

This is true, but with Flurry, TWF, and Rapid Shot, that's still quite a few instances of sneak attack dice. It's not doubled from palm throw, but everything else is fair game.

Myatar_Panwar
2010-08-10, 05:21 PM
Would sneak attack apply to each shuriken from palm throw?

Because with a quick rogue dip and craven.... you are looking at some pretty ridiculous stuff at the higher levels.

edit: Never mind, I see you guys already covered this.

ericgrau
2010-08-10, 05:50 PM
This is true, but with Flurry, TWF, and Rapid Shot, that's still quite a few instances of sneak attack dice. It's not doubled from palm throw, but everything else is fair game.
So SA does more damage but it's only on half the shurikens and it comes with medium BAB, but he's doing touch attacks, but he already has massive AB penalties from the above 3 things. My head's about to asplode. Someone needs to run the damage numbers both ways. Here's a link to average monster AC by CR: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7035533&postcount=5. Unfortunately, the average doesn't give you the distribution of touch AC. While it averages at 10 most levels, you'll want to check out the max and min too, as they do get higher/lower as CR increases.

Keld Denar
2010-08-10, 06:06 PM
Nobody's commented on my build :smallfrown: Dragonfire is not SA, so you DO get it on Palm Throws. Plus, it adds more to the party by boosting everyone's attacks. Also, the build has 19/20 BAB, so its only 1 to hit behind a full-BAB type with plenty of bonus damage to boot.

Myatar_Panwar
2010-08-10, 06:35 PM
I thought about Dragonfire too.

Any reason you can't drop the halfling and a couple levels (assuming la buyback), and put in thri-kreen?

You could even fluff the Shuriken's as Chatkcha's.

Soranar
2010-08-10, 06:40 PM
Alright, here's the revised version with your input

main problems pointed out and solutions taken

overcoming DR

solution:

1rst

feat: sense weakness (cut all DR by 5)
new requirements: INT 13 and combat expertise

(only available by level 12, might change a few feats around to overcome that)

2nd

carry the right ammo at all times (silver, adamantium or cold iron)

STR minus does affect me so I need 10 STR minimum

-true, I'll change my stats


shurikens are terrible weapons (but they are still dirt cheap) and I'll be wasting a lot of money on them when I could use daggers

solution:

The build is meant to use shurikens to get the extra attack from flurry of blows, nothing else will work with that so I won't change that part

Fortunately I have a reasonable DM: he accepted to give me access to a magic bag of shurikens (see quiver of plenty but for shurikens: it never runs out, I can enchant the bag to get the appropriate bonus, it'll be less of a hassle for both of us than to try and keep track of my ammo)

Once you stop taking monk levels thats it

-forgot that rule, thanks for reminding me

Not enough damage output

added sneak attack damage and Dex damage (both only work when the opponent is flat-footed but I can afford to sneak now with my better INT
I have more skillpoints)
added knowledge devotion damage (even with checks under 15 you get +1 to hit and damage to all attacks)

* My DM allowed me 2 flaws since the other players wanted them

Race: Strongheart Halfling
Alignment: any Lawful

STATS (28 pts)

STR 10
DEX 17 (obviously it's the main stat)
CON14
INT 16
WIS 8
CHA 8

1 Monk Kung-fu Genius, Point blank shot, TWF, Far shot Class Feat: Weapon Finesse (when I have to punch something, could be useful)
2 Fighter Knowledge Devotion, AFC hit-and-run tactics
3 Fighter Weapon focus: Shuriken, Combat Expert
4 Fighter
5 Fighter Weapon Specialization: Shuriken, Precise Shot
6 Fighter Martial Study
7 Master Thrower Class feat: Palm Throw
8 Master Thrower
9 Master Thrower Ranged Mastery: piercing Class feat: Trip Shot
10 Fighter Martial Stance: Assassin's stance
11 Master Thrower
12 Master Thrower Sense Weakness Class feat: Weak Spot

Had to delay the other TWF feats to later, getting more damage to present attacks (which are more likely to hit) seemed wiser


Rejected suggestions:

STR based feats, for obvious reasons (palm throw and weak spot don't work with STR so it's pointless with that build)

Iajutsu Focus (no one owns the book nor can we find it online so for now it's on hold)

returning shuriken are broken anyway (ammo breaks buy the rules) and it's fixed through the magic bag

bloodstorm blade is nice but doesn't work very well if at all with shurikens since they break on impact

swift hunter and travel devotion is meh so far (moving and shooting is nice but it wouldn't work often, swift hunter is for ranger no?)

leadership is banned in our campaign

weird bug people with 6 arms don't fit in our campaign at all (coming from a halfling monk, I know, but still just too weird)

Craven is also banned in our campaign

El Dorado
2010-08-10, 06:51 PM
Weapon Finesse requires Base attack bonus +1.

Soranar
2010-08-10, 06:54 PM
it's a monk variant , thus you don't need to meet the requirements

Cieyrin
2010-08-10, 06:55 PM
Tashalatora to the rescue!

Races of the Wild has the Telekinetic Boomerang power, which is like super Returning, as it explicitly has your weapons return quickly enough to do iteratives, which should cut back on the number of weapons you need to make this work well. TB is a Psychic Warrior power, so Tashalatora to get better flurry and power TB for lots of shuriken/daggers flying about.