Why does this only have a +1 bonus to attack rolls? Especially since the belt of giant strength and ogre gauntlets of power are probably superfluous with the Strength bonus. I guess total it would be a +3 bonus total, but still...

"The hammer also has 5 charges. While attuned to it, you can expend 1 charge and make a ranged weapon attack with the hammer, hurling it as if it had the thrown property with a normal range of 20 feet and a long range of 60 feet. If the attack hits, the hammer unleashes a thunderclap audible out to 300 feet. The target and every creature within 30 feet of it must succeed on a DC 17 Constitution saving throw or be stunned until the end of your next turn. The hammer regains 1d4 + 1 expended charges daily at dawn."

So, the regular range is 20 feet, but the thunderclap's range is 30 feet from the target... So, does the hammer's thunderclap hit YOU every time you throw it without taking disadvantage on the throw??? That's... odd. Also, Am I missing something here, because no one is talking about this point anywhere online... 

Quote from Tuvht >>

"The hammer also has 5 charges. While attuned to it, you can expend 1 charge and make a ranged weapon attack with the hammer, hurling it as if it had the thrown property with a normal range of 20 feet and a long range of 60 feet. If the attack hits, the hammer unleashes a thunderclap audible out to 300 feet. The target and every creature within 30 feet of it must succeed on a DC 17 Constitution saving throw or be stunned until the end of your next turn. The hammer regains 1d4 + 1 expended charges daily at dawn."

So, the regular range is 20 feet, but the thunderclap's range is 30 feet from the target... So, does the hammer's thunderclap hit YOU every time you throw it without taking disadvantage on the throw??? That's... odd. Also, Am I missing something here, because no one is talking about this point anywhere online... 

I think you're reading that right. So unless you take the disadvantage, there is a chance it will stun you as well. This makes it less reliable of an attack unless you can reliably get advantage to cancel that out. I like that tbh, I think it will encourage players to use it more sparingly rather than spam it and potentially stun teammates egregiously.

Quote from Abelhawk >>

Why does this only have a +1 bonus to attack rolls? Especially since the belt of giant strength and ogre gauntlets of power are probably superfluous with the Strength bonus. I guess total it would be a +3 bonus total, but still...

I feel like this would be a great item for the inheritor background, given that until you gather the belt and gauntlets, it's just a +1 maul. It's something that a character can potentially have from the outset of the campaign without unbalancing things dramatically, but gives them an overarching goal to track down the other items and unlock it's full power which keeps it relevant all the way till late game.

As written, you only need to wear the gauntlets, not attune.

Well, the gauntlets are pretty pointless, but if the belt put you at 27, and the hammer put you up to a 30 then that a whopping +5 more to hit and damage bonus than you could have without the items, and still +3 to hit and damage than what the belt alone would grant

Giant belts set your strength to a specific number, the only way that changes is if your base was higher. So the +4 is pretty useless or the giants belt is. IE if the belt gave you a 29 and your base was 20 youd have 29 still with a base of 24. It wouldnt give you a 33

Quote from Reaper94 >>

Giant belts set your strength to a specific number, the only way that changes is if your base was higher. So the +4 is pretty useless or the giants belt is. IE if the belt gave you a 29 and your base was 20 youd have 29 still with a base of 24. It wouldnt give you a 33

 Usually, I'd agree with you. Something that statically sets an ability score usually doesn't stack with something that adds to an ability score. However, this item is an exception to that rule. It does indeed stack with the bonus offered by Belt of Giant Strength, but is still capped at a 30 strength score. So if you attuned to the Belt of Frost Giant Strength and the Hammer of Thunderbolts , your Strength score would be 27 (23 from Belt + 4 from Hammer). Likewise, if you attuned attuned to the Belt of Cloud Giant Strength and the Hammer of Thunderbolts, your Strength score would be 30 (27 from Belt + 4 from Hammer, capped at 30, per Hammer text). This was cleared up in Sage Advice by Crawford. https://bit.ly/35lrDK8

Quote from Ahill57 >>

Just for anyone else that reads this..

you DO NEED to attune to the gauntlets. 

 From a thematic standpoint, I'd agree with you. It kind of makes since that you would need to attune to both The Belt of Giant Strength and Gauntlets of Ogre Power to wield the power of the Hammer of Thunderbolts; however, this is not the case. This was also cleared up by Crawford. https://bit.ly/2pz7Ozy

All you need to be doing is wearing both items in order to attune to the Hammer. So, in essence, this item only REQUIRES a single attunement slot to be consumed to fully use it.

Not true. Look up sage advice on this. It has been addressed and ruled against having to attune.

Does this item have to be attuned to use it in it's most basic vanilla form, a +1 maul?

I appears also that if you throw this then it will not come back to you (like Thor's hammer).  That seems like a pretty risky choice in battle...especially if you are within it's stun radius!

“The attunement ends if you take off either of those items.”

Hahaha, that means after you put your armour back on in the mornings, you have to re-attune to the Hammer... every single day.

Also

“The hammer also has 5 charges. While attuned to it, you can expend 1 charge and make a ranged weapon attack with the hammer, hurling it as if it had the thrown property with a normal range of 20 feet and a long range of 60 feet.”

Do you think, if I was happy to accept the chance of stunning myself, I could just throw it straight at the ground by my feet and stun all enemies within thirty feet?

"When you roll a 20 on an attack roll made with this weapon against a giant, the giant must succeed on a DC 17 Constitution saving throw or die."

can we talk about this??  like, I get that giants have beefy con scores but this is...hilarious.

Is this just me, or does the ranged attack not require an action? Take the text "While attuned to it, you can expend 1 charge and make a ranged weapon attack with the hammer," As opposed to the mace of terror's "This magic weapon has 3 charges. While holding it, you can use an action and expend 1 charge" As RAW, a wood elf, monk, barbarian, or another race/class with a movement bonus could just throw it at DA, stand just out of range, get to it w/o even dashing, pick it up, and melee the stunned opponent.

No, it doesn't list the action specifically, but in order to make an attack, you have to take the attack action, otherwhise, you can't make the attack

@Favilludo and @The_Bladewind

While I disagree that the attack action is required to make an attack in general (the cast a spell action also allows for attacks, even weapon attacks in some cases) I do agree it requires an action to enable a ranged weapon attack (attack action or otherwise)

I believe the key wording here is "you can expend 1 charge **and** make a ranged weapon attack..." as opposed to "you can expend 1 charge **to** make a ranged weapon attack.

The "and" to me implies the charge itself does not enable the attack to be made

Yeah depending on the belt you have, it is definitely feasible to get to 30 Str so you would get +10 to hit just from that, +1 for the magic item bonus, +5 or probably +6 from proficiency bonus gives you +17 to hit. That alone is wild as even below average rolls will be well into the 20s after mods

Don't you think that they should say something about the hammer returning to you? or does the wielder have to pick up the hammer after they throw it?