[3.5]Telekinetic Thrust and arrows.

[gomipile]

I was reading the Telekinetic Thrust (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/telekineticThrust.htm) power because of another thread.

My question is: what is to stop someone from carrying around bundles of many, many arrows and firing all of them at an enemy at once? At level 5, 250 pounds of medium arrows is 1666 arrows, all doing 1d4 damage.

Even just one quiver of arrows (of a type chosen to overcome the target's DR, of course) would do 20d4 if they all hit, which is pretty potent at level 5.

I know that an attack roll has to be made for each arrow, but the power's text doesn't put any limit on the number of attacks that I can see.

Am I missing something?

[Gavinfoxx]

Yes, you are missing that you are limited to one object per caster level or manifester level. Thus you want items that do not count as ammunition, that have high damage per their weight.

[Jeraa]

You can hurl one object or creature per manifester level (maximum fifteen separate targets), as long as all are within the power’s range and each is no more than 10 feet away from another one. Each object or creature can be hurled a maximum distance of 10 feet per level.

At 5th level, you could only throw 5 arrows at once, for a total of 5d4 if they all hit. Or you could just use Fireball, and do 5d6 damage to everything in a 20' radius.

The spell maxes out at 1d6 damage per 25 pounds weight, and can move a maximum of 250 pounds. Thats only 10d6 damage, same as fireballs maximum, or the maximum of other 3rd level spells.

The real damage comes from throwing things like large greatswords (16 pounds each, 15 of them weigh 240 pounds) . 3d6 damage each, and at 15th level you can throw 15 of them. At 5th level, you can throw 5, for a total of 15d6 if they all hit. Colossal arrows also do 3d6 damage, but are lighter.

[gomipile]

Whoops, not sure how I missed that. Thanks for the clarification.

[Gavinfoxx]

Here's a thing for your perusal...


A ghost has TK at caster level 12, at will, every 1d4 rounds.

A Violent Thrust from a ghost can move 300 pounds of items -- but they can only hurl up to 12 items! The to hit is your base attack bonus plus intelligence modifier or charisma modifier -- so int based or cha based classes with full BAB are great.

(Remember you might have had aging penalties/bonuses before you died, or be an intelligence or charisma focused class, or have 'bought' bad constitution from your point buy, cause it is negated when you become undead. There are also ways to get Charisma to your hit points, but we won't talk about those here.)

Per Telekenesis, the Ghost uses the base damage of weapons without a strength modifier. Thus, the ghost should get the most base damage per weight of the weapon. The ghost does not take any penalty from non proficiency or size categories of the weapon, since it isnt actually wielding the weapon in question.

Per Savage Species, there are damage modifiers beyond 'colossal', such as colossal+, colossal++ and so on.

The best weapon to use would be one that can be 100% made out of Mithral (so you can make them lighter for the same amount of damage, and you can -- for example -- use the mithral full plate and mithral breastplate armor in the armory for material to make them), and be of a simple shape to make, and (ideally), is VERY light for the D6's of damage, made to be thrown, and not count as ammunition (so it is not destroyed when it is used). Alternately, other mithral-like materials that can be used, such as Duskwood (which specifically can be made into weapons that require iron) from the book Magic of Faerun. This is good, because trees are massive, even if the wood itself is light, and produce lots of material to make stuff out of!

Look at the Annulat from Planar Handbook. It is basically a throwing chakram, and is 1d6 for the Medium version... which weighs 1/2 lb for an iron one. I think you can see where this is going...

A Colossal++ Mithral version would be 8d6 damage for 16 pounds, and a Colossal+++ Mithral version would be 12d6 damage for 32 pounds. These are the sort of thing you throw from outside, or from the parapets of the castle, or into the courtyard -- these versions might be too big for rooms or hallways. However, MANY castles are made to have rooms that you can ride through on horseback, for defense, so throwing these things might be viable in some of the big huge castle rooms. Besides, Ghosts can redecorate with TK fairly readily...

The best formula, to stay under 300 pounds of weapons and 12 items or under, is to get 6 colossal+++ and 6 colossal++ annulats. For a Ghost, that gets you 120d6 damage if all of them hit on a single Violent Thrust. These also would qualify as siege weapons, due to their size, and Wind Wall would not stop them...

The amount of damage is like this:

6 colossal+++ 72d6
6 colossal++ 48d6
12 items
120d6 damage if all hit, which is an average 420 points of slashing damage if all hit... Every 1d4 rounds. Per Ghost. And there are ways to IMPROVE your base TK damage, like Knowledge Devotion!

Of course, if the items aren't enchanted, you can't affect some creatures. There are things in D&D that don't care how many D6 of damage you sling with a nonmagical weapon, since you can't affect them at all... but mostly, adventurers do not have easy access to that sort of thing.

Ghost: One of the best classes in the game!

[DarkestKnight]

the damage listed for weapons is for striking with them in combat. It could be argued that you wouldn't roll weapon damage but instead roll improvised weapon damage, as the swords may be flying in a crazy manner and hit in an optimal manner (such as handle first). I guess it may come down to how much control you have over the thrown objects.

[Jeraa]

the damage listed for weapons is for striking with them in combat. It could be argued that you wouldn't roll weapon damage but instead roll improvised weapon damage, as the swords may be flying in a crazy manner and hit in an optimal manner (such as handle first). I guess it may come down to how much control you have over the thrown objects.

THe damage a weapon does is the same as if you strike with it in melee (except no Strength bonus).


Hurled weapons deal their standard damage (your Strength bonus does not apply; arrows or bolts deal damage as daggers of their size when used in this manner).

[Varil]

From it describing arrows, I assume that aerodynamic weapons, at least, can be thrown optimally. Maybe require the weapon has a range increment? Javelins, daggers, etc, but not clubs or battle axes or swords?

[Rejusu]

Ghost: One of the best classes in the game!

Pretty sure I read something somewhere about a ghost psion/dungeoncrasher fighter that can perform ranged telekinetic bullrushes. Maybe it was in the king of pong thread.