Throwing a rock

[Malapterus]

I'm always surprised that 'a rock' is never on the simple weapons list. I think an average handful-sized rock is sufficiently easy to use that it would be a simple weapon, and not improvised, and it's probably the oldest weapon of all time.

I did some math and determined that a 4 inch rock would weigh in at about 3 pounds.

Getting hit with a rock is unpleasant, but far from devastating - however, if it catches you in the head, or solar plexus, or eye, or septum, or somewhere like that, its impact is dramatically more pronounced.

Please review my rock stats:

Rock: An average rock that fits well in the hand of a creature your size.
Light
Simple
1d4 bludgeoning (medium)
20x3 critical
Melee or thrown
range: 10 feet
weight: 3 lbs
cost: free

It's about on par with a dagger, not as good as a club. The 'free' cost might make people want to stock up on them, but I the 3lb weight would eat into your carrying capacity pretty quickly.

I would presume that, when outside, a DM would rule a character scrambling around on the ground could use their standard action to find a rock at least once.

Brick is an improvised rock.

River rock is a masterwork rock no, that's stupid.

Why do I care about this? I forgot.

[Zaq]

The argument I can see for a rock being improvised is that a random rock picked up from the ground isn't likely to be the right size or shape for you to get a good grip on it or send it flying with any accuracy. You can find nice rocks with some searching and some luck, but it does tend to take searching and luck before you'd get something that's roughly on par with a manufactured dagger, at which point you're kind of drifting into something else.

The base rules do allow for random stones to be used with a sling in place of proper sling bullets, with a -1 penalty on attack rolls and a one-die-size penalty on damage rolls.

There's an exotic weapon in RotW called the "skiprock" that represents stones that are specifically weighted/shaped/balanced to be ideal for throwing or for slinging. They're very clear that you can't just pick up a random rock off the ground and call it a skiprock.

I disagree pretty strongly with a rock being a non-improvised melee weapon. I'm all for heroic fantasy characters doing heroic fantasy things (bring on the impractical fantasy swords!), but I don't see any way in which you can pick up a random 3 lb stone from the ground and beat someone with it nearly as easily as, like, a club or a dagger.

I mean, we've already even got clubs as no-cost simple proficiency bludgeoning melee/thrown weapons that already weigh 3 lbs. If you want to keep a cheap/free weapon that serves this exact niche on your person, get a club and stick it on your belt. Rocks still make sense as improvised weapons. They're, like, the iconic improvised thrown weapon. No need to reinvent the wheel.

(I concede that this won't hurt game balance at all, and 3.x is terrible for simulationism. If you find that this is a specific problem in your game and you really think that it'll make things more fun for you, then by all means, do what's fun for you. I personally don't view the problem being solved as a problem that needs solving, so I feel like this isn't terribly necessary.)

[InvisibleBison]

Mechanically, I don't see anything wrong with this idea. One could argue that since rocks weren't made for the purpose of being used as weapons they should be improvised weapons, but if you're reduced to throwing rocks at your enemies you're probably in pretty dire straits, so a bit of mercy in that regard seems reasonable.

I would like to know how you got 3 pounds for the weight of a 4-inch rock, though. My math shows them weighing about .6 pounds.

[The Viscount]

Consider the club.

The text mentions that a wooden club is free because of how easy to make, but there's nothing saying that all clubs have to be wooden. They're thrown weapons as well, albeit with a short range. There's even precedent with Justiciar for things functioning as clubs, so I'd just roll with that.

[Sian]

Contrast with Skiprock from Races of Faerun

Else, use the improvised weapon rules from the end of Complete Warrior

[Malapterus]

Mechanically, I don't see anything wrong with this idea. One could argue that since rocks weren't made for the purpose of being used as weapons they should be improvised weapons, but if you're reduced to throwing rocks at your enemies you're probably in pretty dire straits, so a bit of mercy in that regard seems reasonable.

I would like to know how you got 3 pounds for the weight of a 4-inch rock, though. My math shows them weighing about .6 pounds.

I based it off a 4-inch sandstone sphere, although my math may be off

[Nifft]

If you allow PCs to throw rocks up, then the rocks will come down, by the principle that what goes up must come down.

If the rocks come down, then rocks will be falling... and if rocks fall, then everybody dies.

That's why rock-throwing is forbidden.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

Just use the stats for a stone club if they just pick up a rock

[ericgrau]

It's an improvised weapon because it wasn't crafted specifically to be a weapon and so lacks the usefulness of one, simple as that. Even the 0 gp cost of a club relies on how easy it is to cut & clean up that stick you found on the ground. And how easy it is to adjust your grip to a balance point. If someone picked up a dead tree branch mid fight I'd totally give a -4.

[Crow_Nightfeath]

Honestly the only part if that I would disagree with is the x3 critical, but I can't think of a solid argument against it.