Knife Throwing Build

[theForce017]

I am curious if anyone has any tricks or suggestions for building a knife thrower.

Also a little confused as to the returning property. This is hypothetical but for example a 6th level fighter going the two weapon fighting build gets two attacks with both arms. If he is using four returning daggers, after he throws all the daggers the first round, how would the next round go?

Feats: Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Quick Draw, Weapon Focus Dagger, Point Black Shot
Items: Four Returning Daggers

Any suggestions with references to books if possible would be great, thanks!

[MeeposFire]

I like using the bloodstorm blade prc from Tome of Battle for four levels. At level 4 you can make full attacks with a thrown weapon and it always comes back to your hand right after the attack. The result is that you only need one magic dagger instead of a bunch which is a lot better. you also have a choice on counting your ranged attacks as melee attacks.

Add in some master thrower from complete warrior and you have a solid build.

Warblade3/thug fighter2/bloodstorm blade4/master thrower5

That is a good start to your character. Making constant touch attacks

[Rickshaw]

you might note that master thrower and invisible blade have only 1 feat difference in pre-reqs, and being able to make touch attacks against flatfooted opponents is one of my favorite situations.

[Diarmuid]

To answer the original question, on the following round the character could catch two of the weapons as free actions but then wouldnt be able to catch the others.

Quick Draw while allowing you to draw weapons as a free action, does not allow you to sheathe then as a free action.

[Keld Denar]

Flick the Flaming Dagger Flinger (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=5140212#post5140212), a Bardblade thrower.

[RaginChangeling]

Flick the Flaming Dagger Flinger (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=5140212#post5140212), a Bardblade thrower.

It is an illegal build though, lacking Weapon focus in a throwing weapon.

[Keld Denar]

Huh, you know, I never noticed that, and in all the years I've linked that build, nobody ever called me out. Blah...I can't figure out how to fix it either, even if I could edit the post (which is now locked due to age). Also, Master Thrower already grants Quickdraw. The Quickdraw class feature of Master Thrower doesn't have the usual "if you already have Quickdraw, take something else instead", which is wierd. If it did, you could swap a level of Warblade first and take Weapon Focus instead of Rapid Shot, then when you get Quickdraw from Master Thrower, take Rapid Shot there...

Wierd.

[Ason]

I know there was a lengthy discussion of this awhile back, so this old thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=174073) might have more advice too. Just don't commit thread necromancy. :smallwink:

Personally, here are some tips of mine for your build:

Strongheart Halfling (a Forgotten Realms racial variant) is a great race for throwing builds, as you get an extra feat like humans do but also receive bonuses to thrown weapons. Regular Halflings are useful too, of course, but the bonus feat helps you meet the PrC prerequisites faster.
3 levels of Swashbuckler let you apply your Int to damage, which might help you improve the low levels of damage that daggers normally do. I am fairly sure that bonus applies to thrown weapons.
Whisperknife (from Races of the Wild?) is a Halfling-specific PrC that gives throwing builds many new and unique toys. I recommend checking it out.
Invisible Blade is an awesome PrC (my knife-thrower build was going to use it initially), but upon closer inspection, I think you might want to avoid it. It'll help your melee combat abilities, but I remember being sadly informed that feint only applies to your next melee attack and that the Complete Warrior errata changed the PrC's feint ability to only once per round (no more unlimited feints!). It's still a good class, but be careful about it. Also, it was originally supposed to be combined with Master Thrower for a 10 level PrC. Fun fact!
Master Thrower is a good class for this build, obviously.
Considering the low damage that a knife typically does, I recommend focusing on precision damage. Perhaps using rogue sneak attacks and the proper related feats (i.e. Craven, Daring Outlaw, etc.) to give your knives the extra oomph they need.


As for your items, you have the right idea with returning daggers, but I have some more suggestions if you want to really get crazy. I posted this in the other thread, but the information needed no revision. As an aside, I believe I had well over 50 daggers distributed across my character's body by the time I was done, and that's not even counting the ones in his Handy Haversack. The advantage of being able to carry tons of knives is that you can specialize to target specific weaknesses (ex. cold iron, flaming, frost burst, etc) Here's the gear to make you a knife-throwing machine:

Hollow Boot Heel (Complete Scoundrel): for hiding poisons, etc. It's not exactly knife-specific, but poisoning your 1d4 or 1d3 daggers never hurts.
Masterwork Bandoleer (FRCS): holds 12 daggers [wear two of these like old-school ammo belts around your torso]
Knife Vest (Arms & Equipment Guide): holds 10 daggers
Boot Sheath (Arms & Equipment Guide): 1 hidden dagger per ankle
Wrist Sheath (Arms & Equipment Guide): 1 hidden dagger per wrist
Smuggler's Boots (Arms & Equipment Guide): 1 dagger in each boot lining


I have no experience with the Tome of Battle classes, as my DM wouldn't let me touch that book, but I hear good things, so perhaps the other suggestions will really put you over the edge. Good luck!

[Halae]

I've got one for ya (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=146.0) ;D

In all seriousness though, Ason has some awesome points. You should listen to Ason

[KiyHatarimaru]

i know im severly late to this, but just my random thought.

Be human or strong hear halfling
Fighter 4 Levels (get all the feats point blank, precise shot, rapid shot, far shot, two-weapon fighting, and imp. two-weapon fighting)

Then take two levels in Scout (complete Adventurer) So that you get skirmish which adds another D6 to all your thrown weapons after you move at least 10 feet (which with the feats you already have means you move 10 feet and get an extra 3D6). (also at lvl 6 get your weapon focous on your thrown weapon)

level 7 go and prestige into Master Thrower and take palm throw as your first trick (now making you get 6D6 skirmish damage added) ride that for all its worth then after that it is all prefrence.

I know that that seems very weak but at the same time you hopefully should have some amazing weapons and armor to offset this. Also another rout would be to skip the Master thrower and go 10 levels in scout which makes your 3 thrown daggers get 9D6 added to them and you get a +2 AC bonus...

[Hylas]

I once played a level 6 dwarf hammer thrower named Hammerbeard in a 3.P game, who came from a thought experiment of "how many hammers can one person throw?" It probably won't work in pure 3.5 game due to skill requirements, and it's far from optimized, but was very fun to throw d20s around, also the character started at level 6 and had a slightly homebrew magic item (though you can get around this). Sadly I don't have the character sheet with me anymore since the DM kept it and hasn't run a game in a few months. Here's the idea from memory though:

Fighter 5/Master Thrower 1
STR 10 (don't need it really)
Dex 18

Feats:
1)Point Blank Shot
1)Weapon Focus: Light Hammer
2)Precise Shot
3)Rapid Shot
4)Two-Weapon Fighting
5)Weapon Specialization: Light Hammer
Fighter Weapon Group: Hammers (+1 attack and damage)
(From Master Thrower) Quick Draw

7)Improved Two-Weapon Fighting (if you start at level 6 and can talk the DM into it, take this as your 5th level feat instead of weapon specialization, because THROW MORE THINGS!)

Thrown Weapon Trick: Palm Throw - Throw two weapons on a single attack roll, but don't get your STR bonus.

At 7th level you get 5 attacks and throw 10 hammers as a full attack action, each hammer does 1d4+4 damage with no STR investment, and in practice I usually scored 3 successful attack rolls for a total of 6d4+24 damage. I believe the modifiers were +9/+9/+9/+4/+4 within 20 feet.

Of course, this is relying on rapid shot and TWF stacking, which may or may not be legal. I'm sure someone in this thread will correct me if I'm wrong. If rapid shot isn't allowed then take Far Shot instead because those ranged penalties stack up really fast and you don't always want to be within spitting distances of bad guys.

For ammo, I used a houseruled Abundant Ammunition (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/a/abundant-ammunition) spell to include thrown weapons, and enchanted a chest slot item to use it. Then I stocked up on 20 masterwork hammers of various types including cold iron, steel, stone, bronze, gold plated, and alchemical silver. The problem with returning weapons is that you only have two hands to catch weapons with.

After this is all done, you start each battle with "IT'S HAMMER TIME!"

[Garwain]

You might get inspired by the dagger thrower I made here. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12959706&postcount=15)

The point of throwing daggers is not to make a lot of damage on one dagger, but to throw lots of them. Therefore the returning property is not suited for this type of build. It would cost way to much to enchant that many daggers.

And the drawback for returning daggers is that you cannot move or else you won't be able to catch the daggers. Sure, there is a way around that by using ToB warblade/bloodstom blade build. In fact, if ToB is allowed, this build fits perfectly, hard to do anything wrong with it.

[Rapidghoul]

I ran a knife-thrower once. I also recommend Strongheart Halfling (bonus points if you can convince the DM to let you be a Water Strongheart Halfling) taking the 1st level Halfling Rogue sub level (2d6 sneak attack, but only ranged).

It was a while back, but I'm pretty sure my build was something like this:
Strongheart Halfling Rogue 3 / Wizard 1 / Fighter 1 / Unseen Seer 4 / Master Thrower 5 / Invisible Blade 5
{table=head]Level|Class|BAB|Features|Feat|0|1|2|3
1|Halfling Rogue 1|+0|Ranged Sneak Attack +2d6, Melee Sneak Attack +0, Mimic (Trapfinding ACF from EoE)|Point Blank Shot, Two Weapon Fighting|-|-|-|-
2|Rogue 2|+1|Invisible Fist* (Evasion ACF from EoE)|-|-|-|-|-
3|Wizard 1|+1|Battle Domain Wizard / Focused Diviner, Familiar, Bonus Feat (Precise Shot) (Scribe Scroll ACF from UA)|Weapon Focus (Dagger)|3|1|-|-|-
4|Fighter 1|+2|Armored Mage (Wizard) (Armor Proficiency ACF from CM), Bonus Feat (Far Shot)|-|3|1|-|-|-
5|Rogue 3|+3|Sneak Attack +3d6, Penetrating Strike (Trap Sense ACF from DS)|-|3|1|-|-
6|Unseen Seer 1|+3|Damage Bonus +1d6 (+4d6), Spellcasting (Wizard)|Practiced Spellcasting (Wizard)|4|2|-|-
7|Unseen Seer 2|+4|Advanced Learning (Hunter's Eye), Silent Spell, Spellcasting|-|4|2|1|-
8|Unseen Seer 3|+5|Divination Spell Power +1, Spellcasting|-|4|3|2|-
9|Master Thrower 1|+6/+1|Quick Draw, Thrown Weapon Trick (Palm Throw)|Improved Two-Weapon Fighting|4|3|2|-
10|Unseen Seer 4|+7/+2|Damage Bonus +2d6 (+5d6), Spellcasting|-|4|3|2|1
11|Spellthief 1|+7/+2|Sneak Attack +1d6 (+6d6), Steal Spell, Trapfinding|-|4|3|2|1
12|Invisible Blade 1|+8/+3|Dagger Sneak Attack +1d6 (+7d6), Unfettered Defense|Master Spellthief|4|3|2|1
13|Invisible Blade 2|+9/+4|Bleeding Wound|-|4|3|2|1
14|Invisible Blade 3|+10/+5|Dagger Sneak Attack +2d6 (+8d6), Uncanny Feint (move action)|-|4|3|2|1
15|Invisible Blade 4|+11/+6/+1|Feint Mastery|Greater Two-Weapon Fighting|4|3|2|1
16|Invisible Blade 5|+12/+7/+2|Dagger Sneak Attack +3d6 (+9d6), Uncanny Feint (free action)|-|4|3|2|1
17|Master Thrower 2|+13/+8/+3|Evasion|-|4|3|2|1
18|Master Thrower 3|+14/+9/+4|Thrown Weapon Trick (Sneaky Shot)|Rapid Shot|4|3|2|1
19|Master Thrower 4|+15/+10/+5|Snatch Arrows|-|4|3|2|1
20|Master Thrower 5|+16/+11/+6/+1|Critical Throw, Thrown Weapon Trick (Weak Spot)|-|4|3|2|1
[/table]

He was a lot of fun to play. Hunter's Eye adds 1d6/3 CL (so 3d6 with Wizard 1 Unseen Seer 4 and Practiced Spellcaster (Wizard)), so with 9d6 through class abilities he gets 12d6 SA damage per hit (and half even to immune creatures) with 8 attacks as a full round action (and possibly even 8 more depending on how the DM interprets Palm Throw), meaning 96d6 (or 192d6). He had a lot of ways to keep your sneak attack damage active (Uncanny Feint, Distract Assailant spell, Invisible Fist (if allowed*), Sneaky Shot, etc.). I saw the potential of stealing spells as a 10th level Spellthief more to fuel his own spells and possibly get something fun, but if not you could grab a level of something else (Assassin, Daggerspell Mage, Whisperknife, etc.) and trade out Master Spellthief for Improved Rapidshot or Improved Familiar (to get a flanker/mount).

*Invisible Fist is technically a Monk ACF, but it only replaces Evasion at level 2, which Rogue gets as well. Depending on how the DM allows ACF's, it might slide.

[Cirrylius]

Is it just me or is the Returning enchantment overpriced? Unless I miss something, about the only advantage a thrower has over, say, an archer, is they're able to use their other hand if they want to. Considering that even starting the build requires quick draw, and they'll have to apply an additional +1 bonus equivalent for every weapon, and they'll want as many weapons as they have attacks, and you can't change up your thrown weapons' enchantments like you can with comparatively cheap specialty magic ammunition, it seems like that gets really borked really fast.

[White_Drake]

Here's what I got, after viewing the above and modding an old build I made.
Race:
Strongheart Halfling
Classes:
Warblade 1
Fighter 2
Ranger 2
Prestige Classes:
Bloodstorm Blade 2
Invisible Blade 5
Master Thrower 5
Whisperknife 3
Feats:
Martial Stance
Far Shot
Precise Shot
Two-Weapon Fighting
Weapon Finesse
Shadow Blade

I only wish I'd found room for the halfling racial paragon, at second level they get +2 damage with thrown weapons, and at level 3 they get +2 Dex.
On the plus side, Bloodstorm blade will allow you to use all those groovy benefits from Invisible Blade, and in conjunction with the Martial Stance feat (to get a shadow hand stance) and the Shadow Blade feat you can get your Dex to damage with thrown daggers. On the downside, if you treat it as a melee attack to get that I don't know what it will do to the use of all the other benefits exclusive to thrown weapons... I would hope the DM doesn't ask.

[Curmudgeon]

On the plus side, Bloodstorm blade will allow you to use all those groovy benefits from Invisible Blade, and in conjunction with the Martial Stance feat (to get a shadow hand stance) and the Shadow Blade feat you can get your Dex to damage with thrown daggers. On the downside, if you treat it as a melee attack to get that I don't know what it will do to the use of all the other benefits exclusive to thrown weapons... I would hope the DM doesn't ask.
I think that's really bad advice ─ the kind that can lead to rocks falling out of a clear sky onto your character when the DM catches you on your skullduggery. :smalltongue:

As a swift action, you can choose to treat your ranged attack rolls with thrown weapons as melee attacks for the rest of your turn. You use your melee attack bonus, including Strength bonus, feats, and so forth, to determine your attack bonus for each attack as normal, but you apply the standard modifiers for range penalties. It you're treating your thrown daggers as melee attacks, you don't get to benefit from ranged attack feats and abilities for the rest of that turn.

[nedz]

i know im severly late to this, but just my random thought.

And random Necromancy :smallsmile:


Then take two levels in Scout (complete Adventurer) So that you get skirmish which adds another D6 to all your thrown weapons after you move at least 10 feet (which with the feats you already have means you move 10 feet and get an extra 3D6). (also at lvl 6 get your weapon focous on your thrown weapon

You need 3 levels of Scout to qualify for Improved Skirmish and the 3d6, but then you have to move 20' and how are you getting the Full Attack ?