Infinite Throwing Wpns (with suggestion as to how to do it)

[metaquad4]

I do think throwing builds (and perhaps even archery builds) need some addressing in terms of ammunition problems. They have what I think is essentially the equivalent of having a mage need to pay for reagents to cast every spell, or a melee character needing to pay to repair their weapon. If these systems are not reasonable for this server, then perhaps we should look at some way for them to replenish ammunition.

The idea of have an item that generates stacks is a good idea. Perhaps it could serve as a "band-aid", until crafting comes out. Or, perhaps emergency crafting of arrows could be implemented first. If anything, it would be a good way to test out crafting systems too!

[NegInfinity]

The idea of have an item that generates stacks is a good idea. Perhaps it could serve as a "band-aid", until crafting comes out. Or, perhaps emergency crafting of arrows could be implemented first. If anything, it would be a good way to test out crafting systems too!

I posted suggestion for ammo crafting system in another suggestion thread. That one could work as well.

[Khazrak]

The idea of have an item that generates stacks is a good idea. Perhaps it could serve as a "band-aid", until crafting comes out.

If done right, it'd allow us to have actual thrown weapon drops in dungeons that feel like actual rewards and not 10-round letdowns you squander until you need something with more punch than a mundane axe/dart. For ammo I could see this being interesting, too, perhaps at a lower stack count (generate 100 magical arrows of awesome per rest? yes please!).

[Diamore]

As mentioned in a previous thread, I am very fond of throwing builds but always delete them as they become tedious, or fail to make them as I get stuck in a perpetual loop of theory-crafting before making an archer instead.

The bundles idea struck me as simple enough some time ago, but probably does require someone to recreate all the existing weapons you would want to have "bundles" of. It may mean having only a small handful of options unless the random properties generator could be applied to it.

The 99 stacks Sun Wukong suggests is a simple stop gap solution for most that could be implemented easily, but still doesn't fix the issue of paying for your weapons over and over again.

I had always thought a feat gained with Weapon Focus would be a good solution. One that uses your Craft Weapon skill to determine the effectiveness of created ammunition's EB or AB bonus through a simple menu possibly.

[Sun Wukong]

To me buying stacks of special throwing weapons is really no different to buying stacks of elemental ammunition with other ranged weapons.

[Theodore01]

To me buying stacks of special throwing weapons is really no different to buying stacks of elemental ammunition with other ranged weapons.

Exactly, both i try to avoid as much as possible.

A bow/xbow/sling of unl. ammo is all one needs most of the time.
Only shurican, dart, axe user have to pay over and over again...........

[Khazrak]

To me buying stacks of special throwing weapons is really no different to buying stacks of elemental ammunition with other ranged weapons.

Except that for thrown weapons, your weapon is both the launcher AND your ammo.

Let's start with a discussion of P&P. In P&P, there are certain things the game expects every character to have, generally speaking, as they level up: magical armor, magical weapons, +saving throws, +deflection, +natural armor, etcetera. It is assumed that you're aiming for certain benchmarks in AC and in Attack Bonus, and monsters are scaled to match.

Likewise, NWN2 persistent worlds assume that you have the appropriate gear as well. For a ranged weapon user, you get a launcher (which influences AB) and ammo (which influences damage), and in many cases launchers with infinite magical ammo. That's great! You get a high +AB weapon, infinite ammo, and bring along a few specialty arrows when you need to (Fire for trolls, maybe something special to wallop bosses or PvP better, etc).

The throwing weapon user, at present, does not have the above luxury on this server. They either have to pay out of the nose for constant supplies of getting magical thrown weapons to get the same AB, or they have to simply use mundane axes most of the time (or all of the time), and only bring out magical throwing axes when it's necessary.

This may not seem very important, but consider that every +1 attack = +5% chance to hit. Ergo, assuming similar feats and base stats, ranged weapons can have a permanent +20% chance to hit over someone that's using a throwing axe (unless they're both fighting someone with either SUPER LOW or SUPER HIGH armor class, or we start factoring in concealment from spells or deflect arrows). This can have a huge impact.

To top it off, there are prestige classes available to slingers and archers only that improve damage or attack. Halfling Warslingers get +2 AB and a really solid alternative to Manyshot that lets them still get full AB against the main target while attacking up to 3 additional targets. Arcane Archer automatically turns every arrow they fire into +5 arrows (+5 damage) - so what was that about buying magical ammo again? And they also get neat tricks like Hail of Arrows and Arrow of Death (though Arrow of Death has a pretty low DC). Bows also get Order of the Bow Initiate for non-elves, which looks like it'll be pretty handy once whatever bugs it has are fixed.

The only PRC of this kind that a throwing build can make use of is Elemental Archer for +2 attack - but everyone else can get that, too. Moreover, throwing weapons only stand out from the crowd if they go, say, full Bard + 4 levels of another class, or they go hunting Epic Divine Might. The damage an EDM thrower can dish out is pretty damned impressive, but this limits options a lot. (You COULD go for a Full STR sneak attacking manyshot thrower, but I don't know that it would be worth doing over a bow or sling in the current state of things).

Ergo, between a lack of PRC support and the issue of not having a launcher, thrown weapon users are very much behind everyone else when it comes to attack bonus. In my experience, I've been fine so long as I've traveled with a bard on my Fighter/Barb/Cleric/Divine Champion thrower (my attack bonus/damage feats + their song = murderous damage), but when I look at slingers or bow users around my level their AB is often higher... because I'm using mundane axes. It feels great, even thrilling, to whip out my specialty axes and really crush difficult enemies, but it's very expensive, and I'm still juggling stacks of 50. (And on the flip side, I get some whispers of "wow, how do you do so much damage?" every now and then when I play, even if my AB is low. Doubly so when I pack the heat, such as Crypt axes vs. Undead.)

Basically: infinite throwing bags would level the playing field some, and I think they would put throwing weapon users about where archers and sling users are right now. No need for a PRC - they can do EDM really well, and they get the uniqueness of being STR-based, and they do have Elemental Archer available. Just let us enjoy magical weaponry without bleeding the bank dry. As Theodore said:

Only shurican, dart, axe user have to pay over and over again...........

[Khazrak]

Looking to hear if anyone has given this further consideration on the QC/DM/Developer team, or if anyone has new ideas.

[Rudolph]

I've planned out quite a few optimized throwers and played one to lvl 30 over the last year. My experience with the latter is that partly due to the cost problem, I used melee for low level grinding and enchanted throwing weapons only very rarely against bosses.

I say partly, because the distance penalty that is custom-made for this server seemed to me an even bigger problem than ammo cost. I think this penalty is closely related to the latter problem, though, since it forms a big component of making unenchanted weapons non-viable (at least for most builds). The way I see it, most throwing weapons appear attractive mainly due to Brutal Throw and in combination with high strength (and mostly to non-sneakers). However, any build that has high strength, will also do reasonably well in melee, which means that the big advantage of throwing stuff is the defense via distance it allows. That distance is so cripplingly AB penalized, though, that a) there is pretty much no chance of catching a decent opponent flat-footed with the first throw and b) there is very little time between the first successful throw and the opponent having closed in to melee and thus AoO distance. This shrinks the benefits of throwing stuff considerably, and certainly of throwing ammo that is cheap and low AB and damage.

Therefore, and pending more complex solutions, I would simply advocate for reducing the distance AB penalty for throwing builds while also making more 99 item ammo available to allow big stacks (also for Darts). This would a) make unenchanted ammo more viable and b) reduce the reloading problem.

PS:

You COULD go for a Full STR sneak attacking manyshot thrower, but I don't know that it would be worth doing over a bow or sling in the current state of things

I have designed a STR sneak throwing build with an eye to the best shop items available. Theoretically, it would be extremely powerful while still viably sneaky (70+) - sturdy, high AB, viable AC, and with better average damage from first flurry than any archer if not even any build that can be made - but it would also depend on many dispellable buffs and be extremely fiddly to play even apart from ammo issues. Thanks to sneaking and HiPS, though, it would at least not suffer from the distance penalty.