two weapon fighting and thrown weapons

[riddles]

I'm trying to put together a halfling thrower build for one of my players. Most thrower builds use sneak attack to bolster damage. this is all fine and dandy, but getting multiple ranged sneak attacks is very difficult, even when you get to master thrower levels.
i just can't see a way to have this playable at a lower level.

Problems with rogue:
activating sneak attack at range is very tough without free feinting (invisible blade), party intervention (g.invisibility) or master thrower (sneaky shot, still only 1-3 daggers)

Problems with scout:
you need to move to activate skirmish damage and you can't take a move action and make more than one attack with two weapon fighting/rapid shot. strange that you can make a full ranged attack while mounted, but that doesn't work with scout. i know you can have travel devotion, but this guy just finished playing a cleric and doesn't want another.

Problems with bard:
somewhat feat intensive. needs DFI, needs song of the heart. that's level 1 and 3 feats right there if you don't take strongheart halfling. and if you do you have to slap on dragonborn or half draconic. won't get the multiple throwing feats til later (TWF, rapid shot).

No ToB for this campaign. DM doesn't like it.

[Veyr]

Hmm... You could dip Psy War for Hustle and some bonus feats. Still, at a minimum you need Psy War 4 for Hustle, and you still wouldn't have gotten any Skirmish yet to make that worthwhile...

Another idea would be the Throwing Scarab from Magic of Eberron; that gives you 1 shard to throw per round, but you could probably have at least two. The shards do like 1d6 damage + 1d6 acid damage, IIRC, which is respectable at level 1 even without damage-boosting class features. A Daelkyr Half-blood could start with 1, IIRC.

In terms of later items, if you have the Magic Item Compendium, there's a Glove of Endless Javelins that produces (as you might have guessed) endless javelins for you to throw -- they're +1 Javelins made of pure force, too, which makes them pretty solid weapons.

But really, I don't see this working out too nicely without some help from the DM, and it sounds like your DM is determined to not let have mundane characters have nice things.

[Darrin]

Problems with rogue:
activating sneak attack at range is very tough without free feinting (invisible blade), party intervention (g.invisibility) or master thrower (sneaky shot, still only 1-3 daggers)


Cheap ways to get sneak attack:

Eggshell Grenade, Dust
Price: 10 GP
Weight: --
(Oriental Adventures p. 78)
Thrown as a grenade-like weapon, so make a ranged touch attack with a range increment of 5'. A dust grenade that hits its target directly blinds the target for 1d4 rounds *NO SAVE*. Anyone else within the 5' radius splash must make a Fort save DC 10 or be blinded for 1 round.
Craft (Alchemy) DC: 20

Marbles
Price: 2 SP
Weight: 2#
(Arms & Equipment Guide p. 24)
These are deployed much like caltrops, so it takes a standard action to spread. Basically a 5' x 5' square of non-magical grease. Dump them under an opponent without 5 ranks of Balance to deny his Dex bonus. If you have an animal companion, familiar, wild cohort (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a), unseen servant (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8235936&postcount=8), wood wose, etc., you may be able to direct them to deploy these with a move action or a free action. Or buy a monkey and train it to spread the marbles.

UMD a wand of grease. Ice slick (Frostburn) = grease for healbots, path of frost (Dragon Magic) = grease for treehuggers.

Or buy some mules. They're cheap: 8 GP for a 3HD large-sized animal. Train them with the Attack trick twice (to attack non-humanoid opponents) and the Hold trick (Handle Animal DC 20, Complete Adventurer p. 100) or the Pin (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031125a) trick (Handle Animal, DC 15). A grappled target loses his Dex bonus to anyone outside the grapple.



Problems with scout:
you need to move to activate skirmish damage and you can't take a move action and make more than one attack with two weapon fighting/rapid shot. strange that you can make a full ranged attack while mounted, but that doesn't work with scout. i know you can have travel devotion, but this guy just finished playing a cleric and doesn't want another.


Travel Devotion can be taken by anyone, even non-clerics. (However, it helps to have Turn Undead to use it more than once/day.) Abrupt Jaunt ACF, a dip into Ardent for dimension hop, or some fairly affordable magic items can provide some additional movement options as a swift action.

The other solution for Scout is usually Greater Manyshot + Swift Hunter, but even with a decently optimized build, it's difficult to get Greater Manyshot working before ECL 9.



Problems with bard:
somewhat feat intensive. needs DFI, needs song of the heart. that's level 1 and 3 feats right there if you don't take strongheart halfling. and if you do you have to slap on dragonborn or half draconic. won't get the multiple throwing feats til later (TWF, rapid shot).


Silverbrow humans (Dragon Magic) get a bonus feat and the dragonblood subtype. Otherwise, dipping into Dragonfire Adept lets you pick up Dragontouched as a bonus feat (also, breath weapon + never pay for an identify spell again). There's an ACF in Eberron for swapping bardic music abilities for bardic feats, but I can't recall exactly how it works.

A 1-level dip into Cloistered Cleric can help solve a lot of ranged problems, particularly if you worship Sehanine Moonbow: Knowledge Devotion (free action damage buff), Travel Devotion (swift action movement + turn undead), Elf Domain (PB Shot as a bonus feat).

[Telonius]

There does exist a work-around for Scout. However, it requires a level of Monk and an expensive item from 3.0: the Sparring Dummy of the Master (Arms and Equipment Guide). For (I believe) around 30,000gp, it will grant anybody with at least one level of Monk the ability to increase your 5-foot step into a 10-foot step. Meaning, if you're a Monk/Scout, you can take a 10-foot adjustment and get a full attack with Skirmish.

[cfalcon]

I dunno why you would think the DM won't let them have nice things, it seems like they have most stuff available.

What about the ninja? They have the limited uses of invisibility, and the big cost is the loss of sneak attack for surprise attack. Since the thrower won't often be flanking, he'll basically have his rounds where he is invisible and gets his surprise attack. Did I miss something there?

[pilvento]

if you are playing a halfling then get the races of the wilds 3.5 book, and there is a prestige class there called "the wisperknife" full bab, feats, range increments, fast movement, and the ability to flank all foes in your ranged weapon range, get the able flanker feat and angles wont be a problem.

in our campaing a friend is playing so far a halfling rogue1/rogue2/thug3/master thrower1(palm shot)/wisperknife9 he have 15bab and 8d6 sneak dmg +1d6 from rogue vest.

3 attacks from bab + 2 from twf + 1 from rapid shot + 1 from haste = 7 attacks

attacks that are doubled using master thrower palm shot for a total of 14attacks, each one dealing 9d6 of sneak, and if your master allows it you can add craven to deal 1dmg X character lvl to each attack.

he is really happy using that build, and the greater improved catch feature from wisper knife allows u to use returning weapon TWICE each round, saving u a lot of money.

[Diarmuid]

Unfortunately, Palm Throw explicitly states that precision damage (like SA) is only applied to one of the daggers/shuriken/etc that is thrown.

That is certainly a viable way to get a decent amount of ranged damage, but the OP is talking about the path to getting there being pretty crappy. Sure once you are getting 14 attacks a round it's fun, but when you're Rog2/Thug1 you're not really doing much.

[pilvento]

Unfortunately, Palm Throw explicitly states that precision damage (like SA) is only applied to one of the daggers/shuriken/etc that is thrown.


omg shure about that?

[Diarmuid]

Well heck....looking in CWar I guess it doesnt, though I dont have access to errata at the moment.

As it reads, it does say that the two weapons are being thrown as a single attack.

Check the errata if you can.

[Keld Denar]

Its implicit, not explicit. Its a volley, similar to attacks like...Scorching Ray. Volleys never get SA dice unless you have a feat like Greater Multishot.

[Diarmuid]

KD, do you know where that rule is? My DM and I were having a hard time resolving how a scorching ray would impact SA. It certainly seemed too much when you applied SA to all rays hitting the same target, but then we considered if you spread them out to diff targets that were all flat footed.

It just got a bit mushy and we kinda moved on w/o a true ruling but having the rule handy would be a good reference for the next time.

[pilvento]

Palm Shot: When using little thrown weapons (dagger, shuriken, darts etc.), a master thrower may throw two of each weapon with a single attack roll. Damage for each weapon is resolved separately, but the master thrower does not applay her strength bonus to either damage roll.

nothing about presition dmg. also consither that a tiny weapon deals 1d2, and lots of d2 and no str dmg means that this is made to use presition dmg, at least thats my opinion.

[Diarmuid]

While I respect your opinion, I was pretty sure there was something (like what KD was alluding to) that makes this not work the way you want it to.

[Veyr]

What about the ninja? They have the limited uses of invisibility, and the big cost is the loss of sneak attack for surprise attack. Since the thrower won't often be flanking, he'll basically have his rounds where he is invisible and gets his surprise attack. Did I miss something there?
The ninja is a terrible, terrible class and should never be taken for any reason. They get insultingly little ki to power their class features, and their class features are all quite poor.

For a ranged combatant, Sudden Strike isn't really worse than Sneak Attack, I suppose, but a (very) few rounds of invisibility is not going to make for a viable build. He needs to be getting multiple applications of bonus damage every round to be competitive.


While I respect your opinion, I was pretty sure there was something (like what KD was alluding to) that makes this not work the way you want it to.
Manyshot and the like explicitly state that; Palm Throw (to my knowledge) does not. There might be something in the Rules Compendium about this, but IIRC that ruling is actually coming from the FAQ, which is less than helpful.

[Bakkan]

Rules Compedium to the rescue!


A form of attack that enables an attacker to make multiple attacks during an action other than a full-round action, such as the Manyshot feat (standard action) or a quickened scorching ray (swift action), allows precision damage to be applied only to the first attack in the group.

Now this would definitely apply to situations where the Master Thrower is using only a standard actio nto throw two weapons, but is technically ambiguous in the case of a full attack. However, the Complete Warrior Errata clears this up.


The master thrower’s palm throw ability counts as a volley attack, and only one instance of precision-based damage applies to the attack roll.

So RAW is clear that you only get sneak attack damage once with a successful palm throw attack

[Veyr]

For the record, I'd argue that this is a dumb rule anyway and can probably safely be ignored in many instances (though I'm also sure there'd be a way to break things in half with such a rule, but that's the case of basically all the rules anyway).

[ffone]

For the record, I'd argue that this is a dumb rule anyway and can probably safely be ignored in many instances (though I'm also sure there'd be a way to break things in half with such a rule, but that's the case of basically all the rules anyway).

It's not a dumb rule. Otherwise palm throw is flat out doubling your damage, which is too strong for one ability.

And before someone says "...why can't noncasters have nice things!?" - if you feel noncasting or sneak attacking in general is too weak and 'needs' a big boost, the solution is not to have one particular thing from one PrC be so much better than other sneak attacker options that everyone 'ought' to take it; that's just boring. The solution is to do whatever you feel is necessary to properly balance the archetypes generally.

[Darrin]

Oh, I forgot a couple other ways to get an extra ranged attack:

1-level Barbarian dip, take the Whirling Frenzy (http://srd.realmspire.com/unearthedClasses.html#whirling-frenzy) variant. Nothing in there says the extra attack has to be melee.

Planar Touchstone feat linked to Oxyrhynchus (Planar Handbook p. 172). If your opponent is flat-footed and you can make multiple attacks that round, you get an extra attack with a -5 penalty. Again, nothing in the description says it has to be melee. Works well with greater invisibility and/or massive Hide bonus/HiPS.

[Veyr]

It's not a dumb rule. Otherwise palm throw is flat out doubling your damage, which is too strong for one ability.

And before someone says "...why can't noncasters have nice things!?" - if you feel noncasting or sneak attacking in general is too weak and 'needs' a big boost, the solution is not to have one particular thing from one PrC be so much better than other sneak attacker options that everyone 'ought' to take it; that's just boring. The solution is to do whatever you feel is necessary to properly balance the archetypes generally.
I do agree with that in general, but it's a "dumb rule" because the entire "it's really difficult to move and get all your attacks at the same time" is a really dumb rule. Though I may have misunderstood the ability, if it literally doubles your attacks, but I was thinking of the rule as a whole: Manyshot doesn't need that limitation at all. Maybe Palm Throw does, maybe, but that's sort of besides the point.

That said, I absolutely agree with you about that second paragraph.

[Diarmuid]

Rules Compedium to the rescue!



Now this would definitely apply to situations where the Master Thrower is using only a standard actio nto throw two weapons, but is technically ambiguous in the case of a full attack. However, the Complete Warrior Errata clears this up.



So RAW is clear that you only get sneak attack damage once with a successful palm throw attack

Thanks Bakkan, I was pretty sure I had seen official rulings on it, but while posting at work I couldnt access the errata.

[Fitz10019]

I think you get at most one sneak attack for each d20 roll. Are there any exceptions to that?

[Keld Denar]

Well, Scorching Ray has up to 3 attack rolls, but still only gets SA once because it's a volley, so that rules isn't exactly correct.

Also, a Manyshot with the Greater Manyshot feat only has 1 attack roll, and gets SA on all arrows. Another exception to your thought.