With the release of Tasha's Cauldron of everything's optional features throwing stuff just became a whole lot more viable, but how to best use these options? Enter the Throwing Champion.
For this build I mainly want to use 2 feats, and because I still want my ASI increase I chose variant human for that level 1 feat. You could use a different race, but then you'd delay the level 5 optimal damage output to level 8. The feats I'm relying on are:
Sharpshooter
Piercer
Sharpshooter Because throwing weapons have a pretty short throwing range by default, taking sharpshooter becomes a necessity. If you don't take sharpshooter staying within 20 feat or having disadvantage on everything defeats the purpose of being a throwing champion. Ignoring half and three-quarters cover is a nice bonus. On top of that the -5 to hit +10 to damage is a big damage increase.
Piercer Between the 3 new damage type feats Piercer is the only one that increases your damage. Though both Crusher and Slasher have their uses, re-rolling a die cast to 1 and dealing an extra die of damage on a critical hit is what I'm going for.
Class For the class I'm going fighter with the Champion archetype. I'm doing this because of a couple of reasons.
The optional features fighting style "Thrown Weapon Fighting" is only available to the Fighter and the Ranger
However the Fighter gets a fighting style at level 1 while the Ranger gets it at level 2
The Fighter also gets Action Surge which is preferable over the spell casting feature of rangers because most spells are for boosting melee attacks or ammunition attacks
The archetypes rangers get access to are worded in such a way that they require you to be melee range or use ammunition (look up the Hunter for an example)
Champion I'm going for the champion Archetype for 2 reasons.
The improved critical and superior critical at level 3 and level 15 respectively.
The additional fighting style at level 10.
The improved critical hit chance increases the chance to critically strike from 5% to 10% early on and up to 15%. This increased chance to critical strike also increases the effect you're getting from the Piercer feat. The additional fighting style allows you to have 2 fighting styles. Since I took "Thrown Weapon Fighting" as the fighter feature, there's a couple of options for what fighting style to take. This may vary between DM's so be sure to discuss which one applies, but logically 1 of these should work.
Archery (Shouldn't be applicable because they are ranged weapons. If your DM tells you this take Dueling)
Dueling (Throwing weapons are melee so this should apply. If your DM tells you they classify as ranged take Archery)
If your DM insists that something like a dagger isn't a ranged weapon but isn't a melee weapon either, then your DM isn't following RAW or RAI and I don't know what to tell you.
You could try to take Two-Weapon fighting as Thrown Weapon Fighting states "You can draw a weapon that has the thrown property as part of the attack you make with the weapon" so you are technically holding 2 weapons when you dual wield and throw a weapon. If all else fails then you could take Defense but +1 AC while wearing armor is kinda meh.
Weapons For weapons you have some options when it comes to piercing damage:
Daggers (For a DEX based build, would use two-weapon fighting to make extra attacks with bonus action)
Darts (Same as the Daggers, since Two Weapon Fighting doesn't state the weapons should be melee)
Javelin (Higher damage then daggers and darts, uses strength, should use Dueling fighting style)
Spear/Trident (Just use javelins, they're cheaper and have higher range)
Yklwa (higher damage then Javelins, far lower range)
As a bonus option you can grab a couple of nets, since the build is based on throwing things it's nice to have this as an option. This is also pretty much mandatory with Yklwa's. Also some style points if you go for the Trident & Net dual wield, especially as a Triton.
Armor When going for a DEX based build stick to light armor. Studded Leather gives 12AC + DEX modifier, so with maxed out DEX it gives nearly as much AC as the highest tier heavy armor. When going for a STR based build stick to medium armor. Getting the capped +2 DEX modifier shouldn't be hard, the reason you wouldn't want Heavy armor is the constant disadvantage on stealth. You're not the meat of your party anyway so you don't need high AC.
Conclusion Throwing stuff is fun. Here's an example DEX build https://ddb.ac/characters/42273656/HGzMsi Is there anything I missed that could be used to make this build better? Let me know.
You're going to run into a great deal of hate for utilizing Champion. Improved Critical is...not good. But in this case you're at least doing so from the standpoint of attempting to maximize Piercer, so there's some logic behind it. Let's analyze the rest.
Thrown Weapon Fighting states that one can draw a thrown weapon as part of the attack, provided one is throwing it. If the attack hits, it deals an additional 2 points of flat damage. All thrown weapons that are not darts classify as melee weapons. This means two things: that the Archery fighting style does not apply, and that you cannot make a -5+10 Power Shot with thrown weapons using Sharpshooter. That bullet is restricted to ranged weapons, and cannot be used with thrown melee weapons. This chops off most of your expected flat damage, which may be beneficial as you don't get much in the way of attack bonus with this sort of build.
Piercer wants the largest possible damage die - the feat works explicitly better the bigger your piercing damage die is, both for rerolls and for crits. This mandates either yklwas or spears/javelins. I would posit that javelins are the best choice simply for purposes of practicality - the extra die step from yklwas does not offset their abysmal throwing range, expense, or exotic and difficult to find nature. 1d6 is just about the lowest possible damage die for which Piercer is still readily applicable; a dagger 1d4 die is not really worth bothering using the feat with. Frankly I don't care for it much even with the d6, but you're specifically wanting to use the feat so here we go.
You go for monoclass Champion explicitly to gain a second fighting style. I would posit that you'd gain much better (and earlier) benefit from a two-level dip into Ranger, to acquire a very large number of benefits for Tasha's-compliant characters. To break it down:
>You gain Hunter's Mark, which is an extra 1d6 damage on every attack you make, not just on your occasional crits. Since you're focusing primarily on fighter, Hunter's Mark doesn't usually conflict with anything else you'd hold concentration on either. >Deft Explorer grants you Expertise in one of your skills, which will be Athletics for hoplite reasons (remembering this was a thing made me rewrite over half this post. God damn it. -_-) >You gain your second fighting style much earlier, which lets you get your maybe combination of ThWF+Duelist online sooner.
SPEAKING OF! There is a valid argument to be made that a weapon which is flying through the air to impact your enemy's faceregion is not a weapon you are currently "wielding", and as such the Dueling bonus does not apply to thrown weapon attacks. DMs who dislike edge case jank such as stacking fighting styles are likely to so rule, so make sure your DM is okay with this combination before you base your entire character build around this notion. I actually think the idea of a shield-and-shortspear javelin-hucking hoplite is a cool , versatile martial build (and one that doesn't hold up to the damage/bustedness of Crossbow Expert builds anyways so who cares), but many DMs will Fry Meme this sort of flat-boost-stacking approach so proceed with caution.
Regardless. A two-level dip in Ranger grants you Hunter's Mark for important fights, Expertise in Athletics without needing Skill Expert, your second key fighting style much earlier, the option of a third fighting style later, as well as not necessarily precluding Superior Critical at Fighter 18. Personally, I believe taking Ranger to 3 or 4 is better for the majority of the character's progression, but I understand not wanting to invalidate high-level capstone features.
Your gameplan remains huckin' javelins with a very high flat damage bonus, which means a high Strength build. This furthermore means you're far from helpless in a melee scrap, which would be this build's strength over the more traditional longbow/crossbow Piercer archers. You may want to consider using one of your fighter bonus feats to acquire Shield Master, to allow you to more easily muscle enemies around in close-quarters combat. With a Ranger dip to gain Expertise in Athletics, your shield pushery becomes very difficult for enemies to resist. At this point you're a proper hoplite, whose shield is every bit as dangerous as your spear. Shield Expert also lets you get a sort of pseudo-Evasion, provided your reaction is available, and lets you gain even more AC against incoming single-target spells. Snagging Resilient: Dexterity later to improve your Dex saves and trigger Shield Master's no-sell Dex save feature more reliably would be a big note for later as well, if your stats can stand it.
Last thing I'll note is that a number of Ranger subclass options grant you the ability to roll an extra damage die for your weapon. Dread Ambusher grants an extra d8 of weapon damage on your first turn, the Colossus Slayer feature of the Hunter gives you one bonus d8 against wounded targets every turn, and the Monster Slayer gives you a bonus d6 once per turn. All of these are just as valid for Piercer rerolls as the base javelin damage die is, since they are attack damage rolls that deal piercing damage. With Hunter's Mark up, you could be throwing two or three damage die for each javelin attack and using Piercer on any of those that suck, not just your base javelin 1d6.
Theoretical progression for a Yurei D&D Hoplite Spear-Chucker Person as follows:
V-Human start, +1 Strength/Dex Wis (somebody forgot that multiclassing stat requirements are an extremely frustrating and annoying thing that severely complicates this build's stat progression T_T), 15(16), 13, 14, 8, 12 (13), 10. Sharpshooter.
L1: Fighter. ThWF fighting style, Athletics proficiency L2: Fighter. L3: Fighter, gain Champion (euuugh...) subclass. L4: Fighter, gain Piercer, +1 STR. L5: Fighter, gain Extra Attack L6: Ranger, gain whatever fits the character L7: Ranger, gain Hunter's Mark, Goodberry/Cure Wounds, gain Dueling fighting style. L8: Fighter, gain Shield Master L9: Fighter. L10: Fighter, gain +1STR/+1WIS ASI L11: Ranger, gain Monster Slayer subclass, additional spell slot, additional spell. L12: Ranger, gain Resilient: Dex All further levels: Fighter
Stat spread at L12: 18, 14, 14, 9, 14, 10. +12 to Athletics rolls to Shield Bash targets, and also do athletic things. Strong progression from Fighter for all further levels. Rolls 3d6+8 on first javelin strike of the turn (assuming both Hunter's Mark and Slayer's Prey are up), 2d6+8 on all subsequent hits. Just as dangerous in close as from afar. Absolutely sassy with a Javelin of Lightning. That'd be how I'd build it, at least. Unless the campaign suggested a different method, as they often do.
Might want to look at Battlemaster for your subclass. The Quick Toss maneuver gives you a bonus action attack, and of course there's a lot of versatility in the other maneuvers as well.
Agreed with everyone that Battlemaster is a lot stronger for this concept. Quick Toss is a huge boost to damage and other maneuvers let you accomplish more than just damage. The champion is just not a good subclass.
Also, unless your DM is willing to work with you on finding a returning weapon, you're going to end up with a serious magic weapon problem. The best mechanical solution is a two level dip into artificer to grab the returning infusion.
I made a thread on battlemaster throwers a bit ago. It died down and got lost in the shuffle but I think it has some good information for you if you're interested:
With the release of Tasha's Cauldron of everything's optional features throwing stuff just became a whole lot more viable, but how to best use these options? Enter the Throwing Champion.
For this build I mainly want to use 2 feats, and because I still want my ASI increase I chose variant human for that level 1 feat. You could use a different race, but then you'd delay the level 5 optimal damage output to level 8. The feats I'm relying on are:
Sharpshooter
Because throwing weapons have a pretty short throwing range by default, taking sharpshooter becomes a necessity. If you don't take sharpshooter staying within 20 feat or having disadvantage on everything defeats the purpose of being a throwing champion. Ignoring half and three-quarters cover is a nice bonus. On top of that the -5 to hit +10 to damage is a big damage increase.
Piercer
Between the 3 new damage type feats Piercer is the only one that increases your damage. Though both Crusher and Slasher have their uses, re-rolling a die cast to 1 and dealing an extra die of damage on a critical hit is what I'm going for.
Class
For the class I'm going fighter with the Champion archetype. I'm doing this because of a couple of reasons.
Champion
I'm going for the champion Archetype for 2 reasons.
The improved critical hit chance increases the chance to critically strike from 5% to 10% early on and up to 15%. This increased chance to critical strike also increases the effect you're getting from the Piercer feat.
The additional fighting style allows you to have 2 fighting styles. Since I took "Thrown Weapon Fighting" as the fighter feature, there's a couple of options for what fighting style to take. This may vary between DM's so be sure to discuss which one applies, but logically 1 of these should work.
If your DM insists that something like a dagger isn't a ranged weapon but isn't a melee weapon either, then your DM isn't following RAW or RAI and I don't know what to tell you.
You could try to take Two-Weapon fighting as Thrown Weapon Fighting states "You can draw a weapon that has the thrown property as part of the attack you make with the weapon" so you are technically holding 2 weapons when you dual wield and throw a weapon.
If all else fails then you could take Defense but +1 AC while wearing armor is kinda meh.
Weapons
For weapons you have some options when it comes to piercing damage:
As a bonus option you can grab a couple of nets, since the build is based on throwing things it's nice to have this as an option. This is also pretty much mandatory with Yklwa's. Also some style points if you go for the Trident & Net dual wield, especially as a Triton.
Armor
When going for a DEX based build stick to light armor. Studded Leather gives 12AC + DEX modifier, so with maxed out DEX it gives nearly as much AC as the highest tier heavy armor.
When going for a STR based build stick to medium armor. Getting the capped +2 DEX modifier shouldn't be hard, the reason you wouldn't want Heavy armor is the constant disadvantage on stealth. You're not the meat of your party anyway so you don't need high AC.
Conclusion
Throwing stuff is fun.
Here's an example DEX build https://ddb.ac/characters/42273656/HGzMsi
Is there anything I missed that could be used to make this build better? Let me know.
You're going to run into a great deal of hate for utilizing Champion. Improved Critical is...not good. But in this case you're at least doing so from the standpoint of attempting to maximize Piercer, so there's some logic behind it. Let's analyze the rest.
Thrown Weapon Fighting states that one can draw a thrown weapon as part of the attack, provided one is throwing it. If the attack hits, it deals an additional 2 points of flat damage. All thrown weapons that are not darts classify as melee weapons. This means two things: that the Archery fighting style does not apply, and that you cannot make a -5+10 Power Shot with thrown weapons using Sharpshooter. That bullet is restricted to ranged weapons, and cannot be used with thrown melee weapons. This chops off most of your expected flat damage, which may be beneficial as you don't get much in the way of attack bonus with this sort of build.
Piercer wants the largest possible damage die - the feat works explicitly better the bigger your piercing damage die is, both for rerolls and for crits. This mandates either yklwas or spears/javelins. I would posit that javelins are the best choice simply for purposes of practicality - the extra die step from yklwas does not offset their abysmal throwing range, expense, or exotic and difficult to find nature. 1d6 is just about the lowest possible damage die for which Piercer is still readily applicable; a dagger 1d4 die is not really worth bothering using the feat with. Frankly I don't care for it much even with the d6, but you're specifically wanting to use the feat so here we go.
You go for monoclass Champion explicitly to gain a second fighting style. I would posit that you'd gain much better (and earlier) benefit from a two-level dip into Ranger, to acquire a very large number of benefits for Tasha's-compliant characters. To break it down:
>You gain Hunter's Mark, which is an extra 1d6 damage on every attack you make, not just on your occasional crits. Since you're focusing primarily on fighter, Hunter's Mark doesn't usually conflict with anything else you'd hold concentration on either.
>Deft Explorer grants you Expertise in one of your skills, which will be Athletics for hoplite reasons (remembering this was a thing made me rewrite over half this post. God damn it. -_-)
>You gain your second fighting style much earlier, which lets you get your maybe combination of ThWF+Duelist online sooner.
SPEAKING OF! There is a valid argument to be made that a weapon which is flying through the air to impact your enemy's faceregion is not a weapon you are currently "wielding", and as such the Dueling bonus does not apply to thrown weapon attacks. DMs who dislike edge case jank such as stacking fighting styles are likely to so rule, so make sure your DM is okay with this combination before you base your entire character build around this notion. I actually think the idea of a shield-and-shortspear javelin-hucking hoplite is a cool , versatile martial build (and one that doesn't hold up to the damage/bustedness of Crossbow Expert builds anyways so who cares), but many DMs will Fry Meme this sort of flat-boost-stacking approach so proceed with caution.
Regardless. A two-level dip in Ranger grants you Hunter's Mark for important fights, Expertise in Athletics without needing Skill Expert, your second key fighting style much earlier, the option of a third fighting style later, as well as not necessarily precluding Superior Critical at Fighter 18. Personally, I believe taking Ranger to 3 or 4 is better for the majority of the character's progression, but I understand not wanting to invalidate high-level capstone features.
Your gameplan remains huckin' javelins with a very high flat damage bonus, which means a high Strength build. This furthermore means you're far from helpless in a melee scrap, which would be this build's strength over the more traditional longbow/crossbow Piercer archers. You may want to consider using one of your fighter bonus feats to acquire Shield Master, to allow you to more easily muscle enemies around in close-quarters combat. With a Ranger dip to gain Expertise in Athletics, your shield pushery becomes very difficult for enemies to resist. At this point you're a proper hoplite, whose shield is every bit as dangerous as your spear. Shield Expert also lets you get a sort of pseudo-Evasion, provided your reaction is available, and lets you gain even more AC against incoming single-target spells. Snagging Resilient: Dexterity later to improve your Dex saves and trigger Shield Master's no-sell Dex save feature more reliably would be a big note for later as well, if your stats can stand it.
Last thing I'll note is that a number of Ranger subclass options grant you the ability to roll an extra damage die for your weapon. Dread Ambusher grants an extra d8 of weapon damage on your first turn, the Colossus Slayer feature of the Hunter gives you one bonus d8 against wounded targets every turn, and the Monster Slayer gives you a bonus d6 once per turn. All of these are just as valid for Piercer rerolls as the base javelin damage die is, since they are attack damage rolls that deal piercing damage. With Hunter's Mark up, you could be throwing two or three damage die for each javelin attack and using Piercer on any of those that suck, not just your base javelin 1d6.
Theoretical progression for a Yurei D&D Hoplite Spear-Chucker Person as follows:
V-Human start, +1 Strength/
DexWis (somebody forgot that multiclassing stat requirements are an extremely frustrating and annoying thing that severely complicates this build's stat progression T_T), 15(16), 13, 14, 8, 12 (13), 10. Sharpshooter.L1: Fighter. ThWF fighting style, Athletics proficiency
L2: Fighter.
L3: Fighter, gain Champion (euuugh...) subclass.
L4: Fighter, gain Piercer, +1 STR.
L5: Fighter, gain Extra Attack
L6: Ranger, gain whatever fits the character
L7: Ranger, gain Hunter's Mark, Goodberry/Cure Wounds, gain Dueling fighting style.
L8: Fighter, gain Shield Master
L9: Fighter.
L10: Fighter, gain +1STR/+1WIS ASI
L11: Ranger, gain Monster Slayer subclass, additional spell slot, additional spell.
L12: Ranger, gain Resilient: Dex
All further levels: Fighter
Stat spread at L12: 18, 14, 14, 9, 14, 10. +12 to Athletics rolls to Shield Bash targets, and also do athletic things. Strong progression from Fighter for all further levels. Rolls 3d6+8 on first javelin strike of the turn (assuming both Hunter's Mark and Slayer's Prey are up), 2d6+8 on all subsequent hits. Just as dangerous in close as from afar. Absolutely sassy with a Javelin of Lightning. That'd be how I'd build it, at least. Unless the campaign suggested a different method, as they often do.
Please do not contact or message me.
2 Things to be aware of :)
Two weapon fighting does specify that the weapons need to be melee weapons. Because of this, ranged thrown weapons such as darts do not apply.
On the other hand, you wont be able to take advantage of the -5 +10 option with daggers becaue they are melee weapons and not ranged weapons.
I'm also wondering how effective rerolling one die is when you're using such a low damage die weapon.
Might want to look at Battlemaster for your subclass. The Quick Toss maneuver gives you a bonus action attack, and of course there's a lot of versatility in the other maneuvers as well.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Agreed with everyone that Battlemaster is a lot stronger for this concept. Quick Toss is a huge boost to damage and other maneuvers let you accomplish more than just damage. The champion is just not a good subclass.
Also, unless your DM is willing to work with you on finding a returning weapon, you're going to end up with a serious magic weapon problem. The best mechanical solution is a two level dip into artificer to grab the returning infusion.
I made a thread on battlemaster throwers a bit ago. It died down and got lost in the shuffle but I think it has some good information for you if you're interested:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/class-forums/fighter/90180-thrown-weapon-battle-master