You are very skilled in the use of boomerangs, gaining the following benefits:
- When you throw a boomerang it always returns to your hand, even when it hits.
- You can hurl a boomerang in such a way that it ricochets off one target to strike a second target of your choice. When you take the Attack action and attack with a boomerang, if your attack hits, you can make a second attack as a bonus action against any target within 10 feet of the original target.
- Any target creature that takes damage from your boomerang attacks must succeed on a Constitution saving throw (DC 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Dexterity modifier) or be stunned for 1 round.
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Posted Oct 12, 2021I think this is a really great eat and I like it better than the other Boomerang Master feats I've seen around.
I definitely think that boomerangs need something like the first and second points to be more viable and reliable, but the 3rd bullet point may need a bit of balancing in my (very much not expert) opinion. Stunning is a very powerful ability to be able to impose without limits, especially in the early game.
If we look at other ways that a PC can stun an enemy obviously a Monk's Stunning Strike comes to mind first, but it has the inherent limitation of requiring Ki Points, which means that it has some innate self-balance as it doesn't come online until 5th Level and Ki points may also be used for other things.
Aside from that and rare/expensive magical items, you're looking at a minimum of a 5th level spell in Contagion to be able to stun something but that has the caveats of being touch distance, only affecting one target, and requiring the target the then fail 3 saving throws to subject them to Slime Doom which still doesn't actually even stun them until they take damage. There are also a few options in 7th level and higher spells, but at that point the party is clearly going to be quite high level and the balance shouldn't be an issue.
This feat would give a level 1 Variant Human the ability to Stun up to 2 enemies per turn from range every turn at no cost, which is obviously far too powerful.
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Posted Oct 12, 2021Agreed! I considered removing that third option, but I really like the idea of stunning with a boomerang. It adds flavor and strategy to the weapon. I don't want to put a limit like once per short rest, it makes no sense at all, but it needs more balance for sure. Since none of my players happened to take the feat, I didn't have to rework it, but I will eventually. If you have any thoughts on how to balance it, feel free to share.
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Posted Jan 19, 2022I think a good way to balance the third option is to make it conditional. For example, only when critically striking it will stun, or you throw it extra hard to stun, but it doesn't return to your hand on hit.