Master thrower and Whisperknife; the annoyance of BAB

[RolkFlameraven]

So I'm helping one of my players make a throwing PC for his birthday. This is a remake of an old AD&D PC of his from the last AD&D game we ever played and, as such, needs to do some things to stay within the flavor of that PC.

The two main things are that it needs to use daggers, and it needs to mostly throw those daggers in combat.

This brings up something that I noticed with two rather nice PrC's for dagger using halfings, the Master Thrower gives quick draw at first level but needs a BAB of 5 before one can enter, the Whisperknife on the other hand only needs a BAB of 4 but needs Quick Draw as one of its requisite feats.

The key is that Master Thrower's free Quick Draw doesn't have that all important 'if the PC already has this feat they can take a bonus feat instead' so, by RAW if you take the feats needed to get into Whisperknife at level 5 and then take your first level of Master Thrower at 6 you get nothing in place of the redundant Quick Draw.

As I don't like this idea very much I'm thinking of allowing him to pick up a feat in Quick Draw's place anyway, but the question now becomes what feat? The prerequisites for Both PrCs are Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Two-weapon Fighting, Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus (dagger) in this case and the aforementioned Quick Draw.

The first level of Whisperknife gives Rapid Shot on its own so that leaves what? Far shot? Besides the errataed Dead Eye from Dragon Compendium what other feats would make sense for a possible replacement feat for that 2nd quick draw?

[Extra Anchovies]

Sounds like you'll be throwing him a great birthday.
Not sorry.
Far Shot is actually pretty nice for throwers; when your range increment is only 20 feet, adding half again as much can be pretty big.

[RolkFlameraven]

I know, and he would be getting Far Shot at some point down the line, and getting it then wouldn't be bad, I'm just mostly looking for feats that I might have over looked that work well for a throwing PC, as well as kicking myself as I had forgotten about Whisperknife all together until a few days ago and his build is suddenly in flux as that opened up some new avenues.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Seems like the obvious bonus feat choices are TWF or Far Shot... If you want to be generous, since throwing is a weak combat style, early access Improved Precise Shot would be nice. The Quicker Than The Eye feat from 3.0 was a decent way to guarantee 1 sneak attack per round at the expense of full attacking. Shaped Splash is one of the best throwing feats, if you don't mind it being specific to splash weapons, and making it a bonus feat means the player doesn't need to be a halfling to take it (but if it's Whisperknife, I'm guessing he is one).

Outside of feats, swapping it for an effect similar to the Telekinetic Boomerang psionic power would be cool. Maybe as a spell-like, usable 3/day or something?


Sounds like you'll be throwing him a great birthday.
Not sorry.
Far Shot is actually pretty nice for throwers; when your range increment is only 20 feet, adding half again as much can be pretty big.

Far Shot is actually double range for throwing. And it's even nicer combined w/ gauntlets of extended range.

[daremetoidareyo]

Sounds like you'll be throwing him a great birthday.
Not sorry.
Far Shot is actually pretty nice for throwers; when your range increment is only 20 feet, adding half again as much can be pretty big.

great birthdays count as improvised weapons, so keep in mind the modifiers

[Endarire]

If you're the GM, you can change the rules.

[Hiro Quester]

You might also consider a warblade base, and the veer off into blood storm blade after dipping master thrower, if TOB is open to you. A friend had a build like that once. He had fun with it.

[TheIronGolem]

As I don't like this idea very much I'm thinking of allowing him to pick up a feat in Quick Draw's place anyway, but the question now becomes what feat? The prerequisites for Both PrCs are Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Two-weapon Fighting, Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus (dagger) in this case and the aforementioned Quick Draw.

Personally, I have a houserule where if you gain a bonus feat from your class and you already have that feat, you can select another bonus feat of the same type. So in this case the character could pick a bonus combat feat.

[Nifft]

If your campaign uses the Retraining rules, you can take Quickdraw an then retrain it when you get the (overlapping redundant) class feature which grants Quickdraw.

[RolkFlameraven]

Seems like the obvious bonus feat choices are TWF or Far Shot... If you want to be generous, since throwing is a weak combat style, early access Improved Precise Shot would be nice. The Quicker Than The Eye feat from 3.0 was a decent way to guarantee 1 sneak attack per round at the expense of full attacking.

Seeing as he has to have TWF for Whiperknife in the first place, as much as I would love to let him get that it would be the same thing as having quick draw twice :smalltongue:

What is Quicker then the Eye from? Song and Silence, or a different 3.0 splat?


Shaped Splash is one of the best throwing feats, if you don't mind it being specific to splash weapons, and making it a bonus feat means the player doesn't need to be a halfling to take it (but if it's Whisperknife, I'm guessing he is one).

Sadly it must be daggers for the flavor of the old PC from the days of yore.


Far Shot is actually double range for throwing. And it's even nicer combined w/ gauntlets of extended range.

Doh! I forgot about those gauntlets... man his gloves are going to be almost all his cash at this point with all of the ones that are going to be stacked on top of each other :smalleek:


If you're the GM, you can change the rules.

I'm well aware, this conversation is about me doing just that I'm just not sure what to change the rule TOO at this point and am looking for things I might have over looked that would work well for the flavor of this PC.


You might also consider a warblade base, and the veer off into blood storm blade after dipping master thrower, if TOB is open to you. A friend had a build like that once. He had fun with it.

One of the other PC's is a Warblade already, and as this PC is using daggers BsB seems iffy, though if he dies I can see him coming back with one and chucking grateswords at people just for the lols.


Personally, I have a houserule where if you gain a bonus feat from your class and you already have that feat, you can select another bonus feat of the same type. So in this case the character could pick a bonus combat feat.

This is pretty much what I'm doing here, the problem is what combat feat should I be looking at? He has most of the good ones already simply to get into the PrC's that are giving me this conflict and, as I've been playing pure Pathfinder for a while now, going back to 3.5 for this friend (who never made the leap as he moved) is making me book dive and I'm worried I'm missing something epic for him.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Power Throw (Complete Adventurer)-- power attack with thrown weapons.
Neraph Throw (Planar Handbook)-- deny an opponent his Dex to AC with a throwing attack, 1/foe
Ranged Pin (Complete Warrior)-- nail dudes to walls
Woodland Archer (Races of the Wild)-- Make repeated sniping attacks and ignore concealment after hitting once. (There's a third benefit that doesn't apply to throwers)
Greater Manyshot (Expanded Psionics Handbook)-- manyshot at different targets

[RolkFlameraven]

Power Throw (Complete Adventurer)-- power attack with thrown weapons.
Neraph Throw (Planar Handbook)-- deny an opponent his Dex to AC with a throwing attack, 1/foe
Ranged Pin (Complete Warrior)-- nail dudes to walls
Woodland Archer (Races of the Wild)-- Make repeated sniping attacks and ignore concealment after hitting once. (There's a third benefit that doesn't apply to throwers)
Greater Manyshot (Expanded Psionics Handbook)-- manyshot at different targets


Thanks! Now I just need to look those up and make sure he can take some of those so I can give him options and not just 'you take far shot' as that's no fun.

How did I forget Neraph throw? It and its charge brother when something I talked about a lot years ago, I seem to remember them not really being that good once you dig into them but it does trigger sneak attack.

Manyshot/greater manyshot apply to thrown as well as shot? The fluff text refers to nothing but 'arrows'. I seem to remember that a FAQ said they it does but I don't remember that ever being an official ruling.