"The inn was full. Cheerful conversations and loud laughter were accompanying the jolly tunes that the bard was playing. Beer and wine flowing, plenty for everyone. And back there, near the fireplace, an old dwarf with a long wet-from-the-beer beard. Entertaining those who cared to hear his stories and play a game of darts, the loser paying for the booze.

«And then, using just a fork I stabbed the hug in the eye. Freeing all those poor kids» said Dart’agnan of the Musketbeards.

The audience burst into laughing with the far fetched stories of Dart’agnan. Thinking just how much the dwarf master had to drink this night. But then the bell of the watchtower sounded the alarm. A GIANT! A giant was attacking the village. Who could defend the village in the dark. People running and screaming in every direction. Only Dart’agnan stood there, calmly, finishing his beer and gathering a handful of darts. The giant was now just outside of the inn, terrorizing the villagers. Dart’agnan approached him, aimed and launched 7 of his darts, all towards the vital spots of the giant’s body. The giant dropped dead and everyone stood there, not believing  in their eyes. The stories were true after all..."

Hey there! I am a firm believer that you can play a fun and unique character who doesn't lack in battle in dnd 5e. And today I am here with a fun build idea to proove it.

Imagine a mountain dwarf fighter who uses darts as his weapon of choice. 

"But why would he do that? Isn't a great weapon master build better? Or even a heavy crossbow sharpshooter build" I hear you say. 

And yes you are correct. But which story is more fun to tell, the one were you defeated a monster with a solid weapon or the one were you slayed the monster using big nails (aka darts)?

Generally I play from level 5 to level 10 and that's the lines this build will follow.

Stats (using point buy): STR 14, DEX 14, CON 10, INT 8, WIS 14, CHA 12. Those are just for reference, I do not like to min max and powerplay and love to have decent charisma even when I am not playing a bard. Just focus on Strength and having a high enough initiative.

Race: Mountain dwarf to boost STR (16) and CON (12) (I know there are better options but I am a sucker for dwarves in dnd)

Level 1 (Fighter 1): Choose Throwing weapon fighting to be able to throw multiple darts and gain that sweet +2 to compensate for the low damge 

Attack count: 1               Average Damage Per Attack: 2,5+2+3 (7,5-8)

Level 2 (Fighter 2): Get Action Surge! Now you can attack two times in a turn

Attack count: 2               Average Damage Per Attack: 2,5+2+3 (7,5-8)

Level 3 (Fighter 3): We are Battlemasters! We now know three maneuvers that we can use to deal extra damage. Precision Attack for more precision, Quick Toss for the extra attack and another one of our liking.

Attack count: 3               Average Damage Per Attack: 2,5+4,5+2+3 (12)

Level 4 (Fighter 4): Take the Sharpshooter feat to boost the damage of our darts even further. We can negate the -5 penalty with the Precision Attack maneuver

Attack count: 3               Average Damage Per Attack: 2,5+4,5+2+3+10 (22)

Level 5 (Fighter 5): Now we get to attack twice whenever we take the attack action now the damage we can deal sky rockets

Attack count: 5               Average Damage Per Attack: 2,5+4,5+2+3+10 (22)

Level 6 (Ranger 1): We do not get much with one level in ranger but with two more we are set for life

Attack count: 5               Average Damage Per Attack: 2,5+4,5+2+3+10 (22)

Level 7 (Ranger 2): Another Fighting style! Pick Archer to make our attacks easier to hit. Plus we now have the option to cast hunter's mark (I will not take hunter's mark bonus damage in mind when calculating damage per attack, only the superiority dice) to deal more damage after we use all of our Superiority Dice

Attack count: 5               Average Damage Per Attack: 2,5+4,5+2+3+10 (22) 

Level 8 (Ranger 3): Gloomstalker for the bonus in initiative BUT more importantly we make our darts hilariously deadly on our first turn

Attack count: 7               Average Damage Per Attack: 2,5+4,5+4,5+2+3+10 (26,5-27) 

Level 9 (Ranger 4): ASI buff STR

Attack count: 7               Average Damage Per Attack: 2,5+4,5+4,5+2+4+10 (27,5-28)

Level 10 (Fighter 6): ASI buff STR

Attack count: 7               Average Damage Per Attack: 2,5+4,5+4,5+2+5+10 (28,5-29)

And that's about it! If the campaign prooves to last longer I suggest to go only 3 levels in ranger and go fighter all the way down from there. That way you can upgrade the superiority dice from d8 to d10 at level 13.

This is not a powerhouse but it deals decent damage. It is much more affortable to buy darts than bows and quivers. You can always recollect your darts and have them ready for round two, unlike with bolts and arrows in a loooong dungeon run. And finally I believe it is much more fun to wreck enemies with darts. 

Let me know what do you think and in what ways this build can be improved.

This is great because I was just thinking about playing a fighter who mainly used ranged weapons but I was thinking about throwing axes not darts. Thanks for the inspirational fuel. I also was thinking about a human fighter or a tortle. 

One downside to axes is that Sharpshooter doesn't work. That feat is really key for the build, not just for the extra damage but also for increasing your effective range and ignoring cover.

Thrown weapons just really have not received much love in 5e. The fighting style is required just to allow you to draw enough weapons to throw, and if you get a magic weapon enjoy running across the battlefield to pick it up after you've thrown it. Darts only work because they also count as ranged weapons and thus can grab features for boosting ranged attacks.

Quote from Landrewc >>

This is great because I was just thinking about playing a fighter who mainly used ranged weapons but I was thinking about throwing axes not darts. Thanks for the inspirational fuel. I also was thinking about a human fighter or a tortle. 

 I’d built one of those for fun. They used a mix of axes and hammers, and took crusher and slasher feats for some battlefield control at range. 

Thank you for the valuable information. I clearly don't have as much knowledge as I need to correctly put this build together. But I feel like now I have a start so I can begin looking at the process. 

I am visualizing a human fighter who pulls out a couple of hand axes or darts as the fight starts and after he throws those he pulls out hand axes and cloak swirling he moves to engage at melee range. But I suppose I am going to have to dip into monk for sure at some point to make that work. 

I'm not sure what you're getting out of the monk dip, here.

And if you're going to go into melee, you should go battleaxe instead of a handaxe. At least for the actual melee part.

This build might be better with ASIs going into DEX.  Darts are finesse, so you can benefit from a DEX build.

That's true! I just don't feel comfortable with a dwarf that has higher DEX than STR. This build is not optimized, its purpose is to showcase a sleeper weapon in a fun way. Conceive it as a guide to what features are important to make it work. The rest elements, like race/stats/ASIs are up to the player.

Quote from Xalthu >>

I'm not sure what you're getting out of the monk dip, here.

And if you're going to go into melee, you should go battleaxe instead of a handaxe. At least for the actual melee part.

 I am having a hard time visualizing the character I am thinking of carrying a battle-axe. 

Tashas cauldron of everything offers advice on creating different types of battle master fighter builds, including archers.

Also, very nice build!

You don't need dex for this build.  Darts have the finesse property so you can use strength with them. I would recommend dumping dex for more constitution.