Throwing Build?

[Foxman778]

Long time lurker here. Wondering what you guys thought was the best class for a throwing build? Thematically I would like to throw daggers or dagger-like objects. Would like to avoid shuriken or spears. First-Party only.

[thecrimsondawn]

I was just messing with a throwing concept last night. I dont know about best tho.

The thing I find about throwing is you are not doing your damage with the weapon itself, but rather more with either weapon enchants, or class feature damage (such as sneak attack).
Because of that, the builds vary rather greatly.

My build was focused on daggers, slight of hand, and stealth checks, (rogue archetype knife master and scout and assassin prc) mixed up with a bit of path of war. What I ended up ironically was not a highly focused throwing build, but rather someone who could kill from 30 feet away and not even be detected. Odds are this will not help you too much, but just sharing as it may give you some ideas yourself.

Looking at the game mechanics tho, I would be willing to bet that damage wise, Magus must have at least 1 or 2 archetypes about throwing weapons. Imbuing your weapon with enchants, or delivering touch spells with throwing weapons, something along any of those lines would cause quite a bit of damage. Barbarian and Fighter also come to mind, but you would be focusing on hitting with your weapons and your stat score rather then weapon enchants or class feature damage. I cant see those really taking any of the top spots. As a final note, I would take a really close look at the ranged classes. I am willing to bet you can find quite a few open ended feats and class features that work on things outside of bow's and X-bow's. If thats the case, then you end up with scary scouts as an option.

Depending on if you are allowed to use it, the Path of War has a couple of paths related to throwing/ranged weapons. Even if you dont want to take a class out of it, the feats can allow you access to one of them. Im not sure if your DM will consider that third party or not tho.

[The Random NPC]

There's also the Shield Champion; it gives you the capability to throw shields and have them return.

[Triskavanski]

The weapon Master's handbook has a Startoss stle, that increases a thrown weapon's damage by +2, then an additional +2 for the other two style feats.

This then allows you to make a standard action attack to throw a weapon and bounce it off the target. (With Vital strike being added.) and hit a second target. (without vital strike)

Then that standard attack, increases to being able to hit every target within 1 range increment.

[AvatarVecna]

The big problem Thrown Weapon Combatants face is that they are, ultimately, disarming themselves; at the lower levels, when replacements are dirt-cheap, this isn't a huge problem; tossing away 2 gp worth of dagger doesn't matter when you've got 20 more like just about every picture of a dagger tosser ever. At the higher levels, it becomes a problem: now you're tossing away a small fortune, and that's just on the one attack (and you've hopefully got more than one). Sure, you can retrieve your weapon(s) by hand, but that might be dangerous...and long-term, keeping a full attack's worth of weapons even-leveled with you is super-expensive. So what you need is something that allows you to throw your weapons without having to worry about retrieving them before throwing them again; that way, you only need to worry about having one weapon leveled with you.

In 3.5, this required ~6 class levels; in PF, this requires a Blinkback Belt, a relatively cheap item that teleports your weapons back to their sheathes immediately after they hit home. Sure, you need the Quick Draw feat to make it work, but that's a given anyway since you're probably dual-wielding: throwing a two-handed weapon requires your full turn, and your damage won't be very impressive, so you're better off throwing one-handed/light weapons...and since Thrown Weapon Combat is so feat-intensive, you're probably dedicated melee instead of a gish, so your other hand is just sitting there uselessly. May as well put that lazy bum to work! It's about as expensive as normal dual-wielding, but you can also take advantage of adding Rapid Shot to the mix.

Fighter 20 with a Blinkback Belt and the feats "Greater Two-Weapon Fighting", "Rapid Shot", "Hammer The Gap", and "Improved Critical: Kukri", and you've got a pretty deadly ranged combatant.

[Secret Wizard]

There's also returning weapons. You lose a +1 but grant all enhancements to your weapons.

REMEMBER: all thrown weapon builds are SWITCH-HITTERS. Mix it up depending on whether your party needs flanking, point-coverage or swift takedowns.

My personal recommendation is probably go with a Slayer, Fighter, Unchained Barbarian, or Divine Hunter Paladin.

The pros and cons:

- Slayer doesn't need high DEX to qualify for TWF and ranged feats, so you can have more STR and deal overall more damage than the alternatives.

- Fighter needs high DEX and STR, but comes with a ton of feats to distribute around. If you are using Combat Stamina rules, Fighter also gets a ton of extra tricks out of all the Combat Feats it wants. For archetypes, the only one that looks particularly promising is Sensate since it removes the otherwise meh Heavy Armor Proficiency for good class skills and such.

- Unchained Barbarian gets good damage while raging, the ability to tank well... but not enough feats to justify a TWF route. It's much better at throwing spears with two hands. Another cool thing is that you don't need high DEX -- with the Sharpened Accuracy rage power (from the very attractive Accurate Stance line) grants you the effect of Improved Precise Shot, saving you the need to get 19 DEX. Plus that rage power line has other goodies like more critical hit confirmation and higher critical hit multiplier. I'd say that two good archetypes are Hurler for the extra range, and PERHAPS Superstitious if you are not planning to do any tanking (I like the enhanced senses more if your GM is a bitch about visibility).

- Divine Hunter Paladin is great. It grants free Precise Shot, saving you some feats, has Smite to DESTROY any enemy that you pinpoint, can use a charge of smite to get Deadly Aim and Improved Precise Shot at level 11th, saving you the need to get 19 DEX for it, and it can grant any weapon Returning with Divine Bond. Pretty sweet deal. Best used with Spears though.

[AvatarVecna]

- Fighter needs high DEX and STR, but comes with a ton of feats to distribute around. If you are using Combat Stamina rules, Fighter also gets a ton of extra tricks out of all the Combat Feats it wants. For archetypes, the only one that looks particularly promising is Sensate since it removes the otherwise meh Heavy Armor Proficiency for good class skills and such.

Seconding the insane number of feats a Fighter gets. A while back, I built a Fighter 20 who had the TWF, Mounted Combat, and Weapon Specialist feat trees all taken to the top, and he was a dual-lancer with the dragoon archetype. That dude was a DPR machine if his mount got to charge...and survive.

[Kurald Galain]

Looking at the game mechanics tho, I would be willing to bet that damage wise, Magus must have at least 1 or 2 archetypes about throwing weapons. Imbuing your weapon with enchants, or delivering touch spells with throwing weapons, something along any of those lines would cause quite a bit of damage.

Yeah, I was about to suggest that. Landing a ranged Shocking Grasp via a keen dagger is going to be, well, shocking!

[AvatarVecna]

Yeah, I was about to suggest that. Landing a ranged Shocking Grasp via a keen dagger is going to be, well, shocking!

Card Caster (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/magus/archetypes/paizo---magus-archetypes/card-caster-magus-archetype) makes you Gambit from X-men, and you can archetype-stack it with Kensai for a leveling AC bonus up to your Int modifier (among other Kensai stuff).

EDIT: Myrmidarch (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/magus/archetypes/paizo---magus-archetypes/myrmidarch) is a more general "ranged magus", but I feel the archetype centered around throwing harrow cards is both closer to being on-topic and waaaaaaaay cooler.

[Psyren]

My thrown weapon of choice is the Rope Dart; you aren't tossing your wealth away that way and you can even flurry with it. Unchained Monks are proficient, giving them a strong ranged option.

[Kurald Galain]

Card Caster (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/magus/archetypes/paizo---magus-archetypes/card-caster-magus-archetype) makes you Gambit from X-men, and you can archetype-stack it with Kensai for a leveling AC bonus up to your Int modifier (among other Kensai stuff).

EDIT: Myrmidarch (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/magus/archetypes/paizo---magus-archetypes/myrmidarch) is a more general "ranged magus", but I feel the archetype centered around throwing harrow cards is both closer to being on-topic and waaaaaaaay cooler.

Card Caster is great. Myrmidarch doesn't really work as written. Plus Gambit is waaaaaaay cooler anyway :smallbiggrin:

[Tohsaka Rin]

Soulknife. Infinite throwing weapons.

Want a boost? Pick up the Pyrokinetic PrC (or whichever element you prefer/DM allows) and add extra dice to every attack from your element of choice. Want another boost? Take Aegis and pick up Powerful Build. Soulknife weapons size themselves to suit their wielder.

A Soulknife is NEVER disarmed. An Aegis is never unprotected. A Pyrokinetic is never left out in the cold.

[Triskavanski]

Something I'm currently looking at in this line of things is the new startoss style, which seems to be set up for Starknives, as I poste dup there earlier.

Chakrum and starknives seem to work the best for it due to them having a larger range, so the last feat for the ability is up higher. With Ricochet throw, the knife will come back to me at the end of the attack.

[PsyBomb]

Statistically speaking, Chakram are the strongest throwing weapon in PF (and have the advantage of being able to be used in melee in a pinch). You can TWF it with a Starknife offhand. Alternately, you can dual-Starknife so that your feats apply to both hands.

You benefit from nearly every Ranged feat (other than Multishot and the Rapid Reload line), plus nearly every TWF feat, plus quite a few others. Even in 1pp only, playing a Fighter 20, this is going to nearly max you out. Freaking shreds anything out there that doesn't have a ton of DR, and is Strength SAD once you have a Greater Blinkback Belt.

[Foxman778]

What's a Greater Blinkback Belt?

[PsyBomb]

What's a Greater Blinkback Belt?

Sorry, I misspoke. It's the Greater Belt of Mighty Hurling. Blinkback function, plus Str instead of Dex for thrown attack rolls.

[Chromascope3D]

No one going to suggest Flying Blade swashbucklers? I don't know much about the class so I personally can't recommend it, but seeing as how the archetype was built specifically for throwing daggers I'd think it'd be relevant. :P

Otherwise, rope darts are a good choice, as you can full attack with just one and can flurry, but I understand if it's too wushu for you.

[Captain Morgan]

Wushu darts can be used as melee weapons AND throwing weapons as well, and work with a flurry either way. The Brawler, Monk, and Unchained Monk can all be solid for this as they get those sweet free TWF shenanigans. In fact, they probably achieve more attacks than the throwing weapon fighter because there isn't an Improved TWF or Greater TWF equivalent for ranged weapons, especially with Multi Shot not being applicable. While they get less bonus feats, the feats they technically save via Flurry probably more than offset that. Your biggest loss is probably Weapons Training.

Brawler in particular can really emphasize the flexible skirmish nature via Martial Flexibility, or if you prefer it can be traded in for Mutagen. You can also pick up Pummeling Charge, and it never hurts to have Pounce as a Martial.

The Shield Champion is a rather solid option too, if it fits your style. With the ricochet shenanigans, long range combat maneuvers, and Shield Slam, you can basically turn any battle field into your own pool table.

[Mithril Leaf]

Sorry, I misspoke. It's the Greater Belt of Mighty Hurling. Blinkback function, plus Str instead of Dex for thrown attack rolls.

It's actually probably worse due to the whole fact that returning sucks pretty badly thing. Blinkback lets you full attack (if you have quickdraw) without of having to buy a bunch of weapons.

[The Random NPC]

It's actually probably worse due to the whole fact that returning sucks pretty badly thing. Blinkback lets you full attack (if you have quickdraw) without of having to buy a bunch of weapons.

I think you misunderstand, it's a Greater Belt of Mighty Hurling, with a Blinkback Belt combined with it.

[Mithril Leaf]

I think you misunderstand, it's a Greater Belt of Mighty Hurling, with a Blinkback Belt combined with it.

I agree that such a belt is indeed excellent, but the text I quoted pretty clearly implies that the Greater Blinkback Belt possesses the property of such a belt by default.

[The Random NPC]

I agree that such a belt is indeed excellent, but the text I quoted pretty clearly implies that the Greater Blinkback Belt possesses the property of such a belt by default.

Yup, I was wrong. I completely forgot that the Greater Belt of Mighty Hurling was anything other than bonus to your Str score. Mostly because, as you so rightly pointed out, Returning sucks.

[Triskavanski]

There is a feat in the new book that has the throwing weapon return immediately. Not at the beginning of your next turn, but as soon as the attack is resolved, the weapon comes back. Its the Ricochet Toss