A boomerang...?

[Tai Dollar sign]

How would you set the stats and use of a boomerang? I am thinking weight of a long bow..then there's damage, time of flight, how would one throw and catch said boomerang.

[Hrugner]

It's just a club you can throw, not much special about it. Stat it like a dart that does blunt damage 1d4 damage, 20/60 for range .25 weight. Since lofting it for a return and catch isn't going to produce balance issues, I'd just let it happen if boomerangs were part of the character's background. If not, I'd make it a slight of hand check(DC12) to avoid giving athletics more uses.

[RickAllison]

How would you set the stats and use of a boomerang? I am thinking weight of a long bow..then there's damage, time of flight, how would one throw and catch said boomerang.

Princes of the Apocalypse actually has a boomerang magic item, from which we can reasonably extrapolate a normal boomerang. The magic item has a range of 60/120 feet, deals 1d4 bludgeoning and 3d4 thunder, and the target must make a DC 10 Con save or be stunned until the end of its next turn. On a miss, the boomerang returns to its owner's hand. When the thunder damage is dealt, it loses its magical properties until recharged, which includes the thunder damage and the stun effect.

So from that, it appears that a regular boomerang is a 60/120 range weapon dealing 1d4 bludgeoning and that returns to hand if you miss. This seems very reasonable and kind of captures how the weapon return actually works. Oh, and the item says to base the proficiency for the boomerang off javelin proficiency.

[JackPhoenix]

War/hunting boomerangs do not return. For pretty obvious reasons: You don't want something designed to kill come back at you.

[RickAllison]

War/hunting boomerangs do not return. For pretty obvious reasons: You don't want something designed to kill come back at you.

For war/hunting boomerangs, javelins seem pretty on the nose.

[JackPhoenix]

For war/hunting boomerangs, javelins seem pretty on the nose.

Light (property) bludgeoning javelin sounds about right

[Regitnui]

Light (property) bludgeoning javelin sounds about right

Especially since boomerangs used for fighting aren't the returning kind. Though given the nature of most D&D Universes, the Gods probably like having a spinning, flying blunt weapon have an equal chance of injuring its owner.

[Arkhios]

Light Hammer. Boomerang is, after all, light thrown bludgeoning weapon. The part that it would return to you after a hit is only fantasy, though I guess it wouldn't break anything if it could return to you on a miss.

[RickAllison]

Light (property) bludgeoning javelin sounds about right

Looking at the hunting boomerangs, it actually looks like they were comparable to the heavy javelins (the ones that were twice as heavy as those in the PHB), and twice as heavy as the handaxe. Still, you can't really go wrong with choosing one of those two and switching the damage type to bludgeoning. You can either take the Light quality with a lower range and at 10X the price, or take the slightly longer range that is more cumbersome and cheaper.

[JackPhoenix]

Looking at the hunting boomerangs, it actually looks like they were comparable to the heavy javelins (the ones that were twice as heavy as those in the PHB), and twice as heavy as the handaxe. Still, you can't really go wrong with choosing one of those two and switching the damage type to bludgeoning. You can either take the Light quality with a lower range and at 10X the price, or take the slightly longer range that is more cumbersome and cheaper.

I'm thinking of light quality not because of the weight, but because its shape and size lends itself to TWF pretty well. You're right that hunting boomerang is heavier than javelin, but javelin is more awkvard to use.

My first thought was based on handaxe (I forgot about light hammer), but that doesn't seem quite right, because boomerangs have pretty good range for a throwing weapon, thanks to their aerodynamic properties. Even javelin's max range is only about half of the boomerang's max effective range, but putting all that on single weapon would make it king of thrown stuff.

[Tai Dollar sign]

This is a plethora of info.. My DM has picked the stats. I might have to get my hands dirty if i always want it to return. You guys are awesome.

[Desteplo]

Ranged weapon- D4 thrown, finesse
-bonus action to catch
-basically a blunt dart

[Tai Dollar sign]

After some head scrambling to finish our character sheets as well internet digging. I have some thoughts as well as questions. The actual weapon itself is gonna be a 8 lb. 6 ft. Giant "War"boomerang(heavy,versatile, returning, ranged) so i think 30/60 range is fair. Should the combonation of RETURNING homebrewed conflict with THROWN pnb and how does it work with RANGE pnb as well HEAVY? How so?
So there are many fantasy boomerangs, in practical use of any weighted thrown weapon the use of STR and DEX seems obvious ( javilins, axes) but with boomerangs there's a returning property that has to be addressed. Not many thrown weapons are intended to return, if contact is made the object usually changes direction or stops but the idea is to hit then have the chance to catch, right? So in the case of the boomerang the throw should like a normal ranged attack then the return catch later in your turn should be some of check maybe if you attack with a DEX modifer the difference in your STR modifer works against you on the event of a fail should you take damage and how much? Does that make sense? I think the use of two different modifers is a fair trade off for catching a returning thrown weapon, not to mention heavy.

P.S. ....? And there's more.

[Tai Dollar sign]

We were granted a feat for lvl 1🎈🎈🎈 ...anyway me and my buddies were poking around the PHB, we figured a combonation of homebrew modifications to a feat or two can wrinkle out the messy details of the fantasy boomerang weapon. The idea of Sharpshooter sounds good but we considered the chance of hitting a target out of my line of sight with the curved path the boomerang as a feat or maybe hitting 2 targets . So a boomerang or returning weapon master feat could add an additional 30 feet to your range before the first hit as well as the chance to hit another target within 30 feet of the orinigal target with no penalty but does not return until the end of your next turn or the bonus damage on an in range visible target with no return. So two attacks with tons of potential possibilities as well for the exchange of no bonus actions but the wait to throw again as well as the chance to hurt youself on the catch... Please throw some ideas around.