Eldritch Knight seems to really suit Thrown Weapon Fighting [optimization]

[whateew]

Thrown weapon fighting is a difficult style to understand, and I've been puzzling over what would make an effective use of it. To my eye, what stands out is that, by sacrificing the high range of a bow coupled with the archery style, a dex martial user can deal the same amount of damage per attack, have a shield equipped, and have a hand free, possibly to switch to a rapier if closed in on. Alternatively, the str martial user gets to fight at range and deal a mere 1 less damage than a swordnboard user, while also having a hand free, at the cost of being less effective at close range.

Immediately, this looks to particularly benefit spell casting fighters like rangers and eldritch knights. Having a hand free without sacrificing a shield will help avoid attacks, keeping concentration on a hunters mark or fey-touched hex, but without the cost of limiting reaction spells, or having to juggle your weapons. Further, fighting at range might make concentrating easier too.

The major issue with this plan, however, is that monsters will soon gain resistance to non magical damage, and when you throw your weapons away routinely you will struggle to deal with this. This, however, is why I think the eldritch knight is perfect subclass for this style - after 5th level, a 2 level dip in artificer is trivial (as you should have the intelligence to do so), and in return you get more cantrips (such as the stellar guidance), spell slots, but most importantly "returning weapon," for a reliable +1 thrown weapon. Problem solved!

After this, you can continue to progress in fighter. Since they get their bonus ASI, this multiclass doesn't set you back ability wise while giving you a huge amount of resources to play with.

You can take this many directions. Using strength, you get more range with javelins (and possibly bonus action attacks with handaxes?), good armour and grappling. However, a Dex based fighter works nicely with sharpshooter - 6 fighter 2 artificer rest fighter would make for a weird but effective dart using sharpshooter. While it hurts not to have +2 to hit, you get spells and a familiar to give you reliable advantage, so I think there are worse trades.

In my opinion, such a build would work best with that new Hexblood lineage - hex as a free spell, and that weird token gives you a fun use for your familiar to meaningfully break far away from your party as a scout. The fey touched feat works fine too, however.

What are your thoughts? Is the eldritch knight the perfect subclass for this fighting style, or is this not a meaningful difference in their game plan?

Fun throw away idea: maybe a champion with archery style and thrown weapon fighting would be a surprisingly good dart throwing sharpshooter? No crossbow expert, but with a shield in hand perhaps you can find another use for a bonus action

[whateew]

A fun bonus is that you can really make use of grappling with this build - while not really part of your main game plan, the artificers armour of magical strength will give you a reliable +3 to athletics checks. Coupled with expertise (easy enough to get - start with 17 str, take skill expert), you are ready to grapple. Further, unlike other fighters, you have access to mind sliver (or sword burst) which needs no hands free to cast, letting you grapple with a shield and Still Contribute to damage

- in fact, I believe the 7th level bonus action attack lets you knock someone prone too

[kingcheesepants]

Do you even need the artificer's returning weapon? Weapon Bond let's you summon your weapon back as a bonus action. I guess at that point it's not particularly effective since you can only attack once in that way since you don't have a bonus action for each attack. But it's still nice to be able to attack the enemies in melee range and then use your last attack to throw your weapon and bonus action summon it back to yourself.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

I think you make a good point about the magic weapon issue. It's one of the ways 5e doesn't quite 'keep up' with itself as it evolves. They add the fighting style, but the DMG treasure table remains the same; in older editions when thrown weapon fighting was common in the core rules it was possible to pick up (for example) and handful of +1 or +2 darts as an item. With that said, I don't think it would be OP or game breaking to be a friendly DM here and adjust the magic items to reflect the evolution in the game.

[HPisBS]

... in older editions when thrown weapon fighting was common in the core rules it was possible to pick up (for example) and handful of +1 or +2 darts as an item....

That should be more than a little immersion-breaking lol.

Everything in the game world should have a logic to it, a reason to exist. +1 darts kinda just don't, since darts' purpose is literally to be thrown away lol

-- Oh, unless +1 darts would be analogous to +1 arrows (which barely make sense), rather than +1 daggers.

[Hytheter]

That should be more than a little immersion-breaking lol.

Everything in the game world should have a logic to it, a reason to exist. +1 darts kinda just don't, since darts' purpose is literally to be thrown away lol

-- Oh, unless +1 darts would be analogous to +1 arrows (which barely make sense), rather than +1 daggers.

You can pick them up after, man. You don't throw them away for good.

[Chronic]

Magically enhanced thrown weapon makes perfect sense if you account for 3 things:
-ease of production, if it's easy to enchant a weapon, why not expandable one's.
-wealth of the end user, if you are rich, suddenly cost/effectiveness is less relevant.
-the need for effectiveness, it might be overkill in a brawl fight, but a set of +3 throwing daggers over simple ones might be the difference between life or death in a difficult fight.

[whateew]

Do you even need the artificer's returning weapon? Weapon Bond let's you summon your weapon back as a bonus action. I guess at that point it's not particularly effective since you can only attack once in that way since you don't have a bonus action for each attack. But it's still nice to be able to attack the enemies in melee range and then use your last attack to throw your weapon and bonus action summon it back to yourself.

You don't strictly need it, no. But that's a pretty sad use of the bonus action lmao

Also, the main reason for the returning weapon is that you need magical items (which, like the others have said, are often rare in campaigns) to deal damage effectively. At lower levels, you can just simply buy 20 javelins and litter the battlefield - quite a funny image

[whateew]

Magically enhanced thrown weapon makes perfect sense if you account for 3 things:
-ease of production, if it's easy to enchant a weapon, why not expandable one's.
-wealth of the end user, if you are rich, suddenly cost/effectiveness is less relevant.
-the need for effectiveness, it might be overkill in a brawl fight, but a set of +3 throwing daggers over simple ones might be the difference between life or death in a difficult fight.

I believe there is also flavour text about magic items not breaking - javelins, arrows, etc all have a 50% chance to break when used iirc, perhaps you can always recover your 5 magic darts

[whateew]

Out of interest, do you think the Dex based or the Str based ED thrown knight is better?

Str: 1 more damage, 1 more AC, you can use your enchanted weapon at close range, and you can grapple quite well if you want to (I think the magical strength + mind sliver + shield combo is quite nice!) I believe you can also bonus action attack with handaxes, but I'm not certain.

Dex: better initiative and general skills, and you can use sharpshooter to go to town - if you take sharpshooter, that also doubles your range compared to a javelin. While you can't use your +1 darts in melee (unless your DM likes improvised weapons!) I'm sure you can find a silvered rapier

[Hytheter]

I believe there is also flavour text about magic items not breaking - javelins, arrows, etc all have a 50% chance to break when used iirc, perhaps you can always recover your 5 magic darts

That rule is about ammunition, not thrown weapons. Javelins don't break when thrown.

[HPisBS]

You can pick them up after, man. You don't throw them away for good.

Assuming you know where they went lol

I guess Detect Magic could help with that, though.


But regardless, I still see no benefit to enchanting darts when you could enchant daggers at the same cost.

[Nagog]

Do you even need the artificer's returning weapon? Weapon Bond let's you summon your weapon back as a bonus action. I guess at that point it's not particularly effective since you can only attack once in that way since you don't have a bonus action for each attack. But it's still nice to be able to attack the enemies in melee range and then use your last attack to throw your weapon and bonus action summon it back to yourself.

You can have 2 bound weapons, but it does have the stipulation that you can only summon one per Bonus Action. I don't really see why that stipulation exists, as it's only real use would be a throwing weapon fighting style, and even then once you get a third attack at level 11, you're still wasting an attack. I'd be willing to handwave that stipulation if I were DMing this kind of build.

[whateew]

Assuming you know where they went lol

I guess Detect Magic could help with that, though.

Detect magic is actually an amazing suggestion! The artificer levels gives us 4 level 1 spells, but with shield and absorb elements accounted for (if you take them as artificer, you need tools in hand to cast! Not good for a reaction...) There isn't much attractive to take. However, as a ritual caster, detect magic can be meaningfully picked up - and now we have a reason to! Nice catch!
And it wouldn't be hard to get within 30ft of the darts - combats rarely last more than a minute, so remembering should be a trivial task in game, and you only need to stand next to the intended target of the attack to have a decent shot at just straight up seeing the stray dart / dart embedded in the shield of your enemy.

But regardless, I still no benefit to enchanting darts when you could enchant daggers at the same cost.

In the world? None whatsoever
In the system however, there is a massive difference - while you can't make melee attacks with a dart necessarily, you cannot use thrown daggers for sharpshooters power attack - despite being thrown, the feat stipulates that one must use a "ranged weapon," but the dagger is melee (unlike the dart!)

[whateew]

You can have 2 bound weapons, but it does have the stipulation that you can only summon one per Bonus Action. I don't really see why that stipulation exists, as it's only real use would be a throwing weapon fighting style, and even then once you get a third attack at level 11, you're still wasting an attack. I'd be willing to handwave that stipulation if I were DMing this kind of build.

This is a very charitable decision to make as a DM - it saves you having to buy absurd numbers of javelins / darts (rather than merely regaining a select few with bonus actions post-fight). It stops us needing to dip artificer too, assuming we can find a magic javelin/dart. However, without one, we still have the magic item issue - and artificer gives us other bonuses such as fantastic grapple buffs, other infusions, and cantrips such as guidance - so perhaps not necessary.

[Warlush]

But regardless, I still see no benefit to enchanting darts when you could enchant daggers at the same cost.

Well, if you're an EK who specialized in thrown weapons and wants to take advantage of the SS feat, I could think of a couple.

[jojosskul]

There is always the option to go Variant Human Fighter 1 to start, take sharpshooter as your feat, thrown fighting style, then do artificer for the rest of your career. In this scenario take either armorer or battle smith as your subclass, though I'd lean battlesmith. Then all your spells are artificer spells (with faster progression than Eldritch Knight) and your infused dart serves as your spell focus for everything.