Perhaps the mundane Weapon "Boomerang" should more closely mimic reality.
Yes, yes, The *idea* if a boomerang is a Toy Company thing, but consider that even then the RL boomerang won't come back after impact.
In D&D we have magic daggers come back.
But the lowly throwing stick?
Let's review the concept and maybe make a decent ranged weapon (100m w/proficiency) that can be naturally proficiently weilded by Druids and added as a general blunt trauma ranged weapon for certain backgrounds.
The Damage Roll doesn't need to be any higher than any other thrown mundane weapon, but just something with a reach that rivals a longbow.
(Note, anyone who has ever hunted RW ground fowl like Ptarmigan knows how effective a stick can be. But a Historical Combat Stick is much much more refined... Something a Druid could create wherever there is wood, and is only a one handed throwing weapon...)
There isn't even a small amount of realism about weapons in D&D. Shortswords only do piercing damage? Longswords only do slashing damage? You can't use a dagger and a rapier at the same time?
I'd rather stick with a fantasy boomerange - a thrown strength weapon that deals a small amount of damage, and that returns after use. If it doesn't do that then I'm not sure why someone would want to play with a "historical throwing stick."
It's a 20 minute long video, and contains a long advertisement. He went on and on, but never actually showed any real historical weapons, and only talked about using them. The items he showed were never used to hit anything, they were just tossed around. How far can you throw one and hit with it effectively, and how much damage will it do? We get nothing at all about that.
The Big Stick as a throwing weapon is essentially a Club shaped for throwing at a distance. People have been using them since the Stone Age. How far can you throw one, and how much damage will it do? Until I see any one kill a 50 pound animal with one hit by throwing it at them, I will continue to use the version D&D lists pretty much, or:
Boomerang - Simple weapon: 1d4 Bludgeoning, range 30/60 (may be enchanted to return to the throwers hand on a miss, counts as a magical weapon for the purposes of overcoming resistances.)
Big Throwing Stick - Martial weapon: 1d6 Bludgeoning, range 40/60 (may be enchanted to return to the throwers hand on a miss, counts as a magical weapon for the purposes of overcoming resistances.)
This belongs in the homebrew forum, not here, but ok.
That's basically a light hammer, which we already have - a throwable club, and at the same range as a dart (darts don't really make sense since they behave like atlatls, but don't need the actual atlatl). Remember, ranges have to be scaled down from our best guesses of historical to relative D&D ranges - i.e. a 100 meter weapon should be about 1/3 to 1/4 of a bow's range, at maximum. But there's a lot of room in 5E to homebrew the weapons table, because WOTC put in such little effort. Ammunition weapons are a bit funky, but putting them aside, you can basically make a balanced (note: this means you're doing a better job than WOTC, as the 5E weapons table is not balanced at all) weapon like this - just make a profile and name it hunting boomerang:
Base melee weapon: 1d4 (damage type, weight, and cost don't matter, despite what the weapons table leads you to believe, for balance - set them later to whatever you feel like).
Now add three properties for a simple weapon:
Light and Finesse are just addable properties.
Light and Versatile block each other - a weapon with both is illegal.
Core, Finesse and Versatile are the same way - but only because Monk Martial Arts adds Finesse without using the word Finesse. In reality, the game has Versatile melee weapons swung with Dexterity.
Thrown can be added twice, with diminishing returns, so you have Thrown 1 and Thrown 2. Thrown 1 is Thrown (20/60), and Thrown 2 is Thrown (30/120).
Damage can be added twice, with diminishing returns: Damage 1 is 1d6, Damage 2 is 1d6/Versatile 1d8.
"Focus" can be added, letting a weapon serve as an arcane focus (and under many DMs, a druidic focus, although this is less explicitly RAW).
That means the balanced simple melee weapons in the standard table are:
Dagger, Handaxe, Javelin, Quarterstaff, Spear
Simple melee weapons that are too weak are:
Club/Sickle (dagger but worse), Greatclub (spear but worse), Light Hammer (Dagger but worse), Mace (spear but worse).
Martial weapons get four properties, and have some only they can take:
Damage keeps going. Damage 3 is 1d8, Damage 4 is 1d8/Versatile 1d10, Damage 5 is 1d10, Damage 6 is 1d10/Versatile 1d12.
That's reconciled via negative keywords: you add two-handed and heavy to a versatile weapon to reduce the property count 2 steps.
This overrides Versatile, which is how you make a Greataxe: Damage 6 + two-handed/heavy = 1d12 two-handed, heavy.
Heavy blocks light and finesse.
If you want, you can allow two-handed as a -1 property simple weapons can take. That gets you an actually balanced version of the Greatclub: Damage 4 + Two-handed = 1d10 Two-handed, i.e. a warhammer but worse, perfect for a simple melee weapon.
Reach is worth 2 properties at once. The polearm weapons are Damage 4 + two-handed/heavy + reach, whips are Damage 1 + finesse + reach.
Special is too special to deal with, there's no way to handle it generically.
"There isn't even a small amount of realism about weapons in D&D. Shortswords only do piercing damage? Longswords only do slashing damage? You can't use a dagger and a rapier at the same time?"
For the sake of simplicity, they list only one of the types of damage a given weapon does. They look and see what it was primarily used for. A Shortsword can cut, a long cut is a slash, you and use it to piece, and if you just have to, you can bludgeon someone with bottom. What were they used for? Piercing armor. A Longsword is the same. You could use it to Pierce armor, but it was too long for that, it would be awkward. That's why Shortswords exist. So they slash with them. You can most certainly use a Rapier and a Dagger at the same time, but you need considerable training to do that well. How is that not realistic?
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Shad at Shadaversity just did a bit on weapon class actual boomerangs - which have a distinct difference from novelty class boomerangs.
https://youtu.be/lr2lTCIWOT8
Perhaps the mundane Weapon "Boomerang" should more closely mimic reality.
Yes, yes, The *idea* if a boomerang is a Toy Company thing, but consider that even then the RL boomerang won't come back after impact.
In D&D we have magic daggers come back.
But the lowly throwing stick?
Let's review the concept and maybe make a decent ranged weapon (100m w/proficiency) that can be naturally proficiently weilded by Druids and added as a general blunt trauma ranged weapon for certain backgrounds.
The Damage Roll doesn't need to be any higher than any other thrown mundane weapon, but just something with a reach that rivals a longbow.
(Note, anyone who has ever hunted RW ground fowl like Ptarmigan knows how effective a stick can be. But a Historical Combat Stick is much much more refined... Something a Druid could create wherever there is wood, and is only a one handed throwing weapon...)
Thoughts?
There isn't even a small amount of realism about weapons in D&D. Shortswords only do piercing damage? Longswords only do slashing damage? You can't use a dagger and a rapier at the same time?
I'd rather stick with a fantasy boomerange - a thrown strength weapon that deals a small amount of damage, and that returns after use. If it doesn't do that then I'm not sure why someone would want to play with a "historical throwing stick."
It's a 20 minute long video, and contains a long advertisement. He went on and on, but never actually showed any real historical weapons, and only talked about using them. The items he showed were never used to hit anything, they were just tossed around. How far can you throw one and hit with it effectively, and how much damage will it do? We get nothing at all about that.
The Big Stick as a throwing weapon is essentially a Club shaped for throwing at a distance. People have been using them since the Stone Age. How far can you throw one, and how much damage will it do? Until I see any one kill a 50 pound animal with one hit by throwing it at them, I will continue to use the version D&D lists pretty much, or:
<Insert clever signature here>
This belongs in the homebrew forum, not here, but ok.
That's basically a light hammer, which we already have - a throwable club, and at the same range as a dart (darts don't really make sense since they behave like atlatls, but don't need the actual atlatl). Remember, ranges have to be scaled down from our best guesses of historical to relative D&D ranges - i.e. a 100 meter weapon should be about 1/3 to 1/4 of a bow's range, at maximum. But there's a lot of room in 5E to homebrew the weapons table, because WOTC put in such little effort. Ammunition weapons are a bit funky, but putting them aside, you can basically make a balanced (note: this means you're doing a better job than WOTC, as the 5E weapons table is not balanced at all) weapon like this - just make a profile and name it hunting boomerang:
Base melee weapon: 1d4 (damage type, weight, and cost don't matter, despite what the weapons table leads you to believe, for balance - set them later to whatever you feel like).
Now add three properties for a simple weapon:
Martial weapons get four properties, and have some only they can take:
So, assuming you just want a throwing stick for hunting birds, here are some balanced loadouts:
You can also add your own properties using this framework. If you wanted to boop the boomerang meme, you could make this property:
returning (requires thrown 1): if thrown by a proficient person, on a miss, returns to the thrower.
That would let you replace finesse or light above with returning, or drop 1d6 to 1d4 for it.
"There isn't even a small amount of realism about weapons in D&D. Shortswords only do piercing damage? Longswords only do slashing damage? You can't use a dagger and a rapier at the same time?"
For the sake of simplicity, they list only one of the types of damage a given weapon does. They look and see what it was primarily used for. A Shortsword can cut, a long cut is a slash, you and use it to piece, and if you just have to, you can bludgeon someone with bottom. What were they used for? Piercing armor. A Longsword is the same. You could use it to Pierce armor, but it was too long for that, it would be awkward. That's why Shortswords exist. So they slash with them. You can most certainly use a Rapier and a Dagger at the same time, but you need considerable training to do that well. How is that not realistic?
<Insert clever signature here>