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Thrown weapons and short blades: are they useful?

Posted: February 26th, 2009, 3:09 am
by woem
The obvious answer of course is that they are not. Short blades have the lowest damage for melee weapons and thrown weapons are very expensive. But I wonder if they can be useful in very specific situations.

For instance you start of the game with an iron dagger. This is the first melee weapon you find as a non-fighter class. So having a good Short Blades skill can be a plus at the beginning.

As far as thrown weapons are concerned: The skill can be trained at Border Town so that's a big plus. And there's the Deadeye Pendant which grants +2 Dexterity and +4 Thrown Weapons. A +4 bonus is the single greatest bonus an item can give you to a weapon skill that's an extra 3 skill points saved!
Did someone else come up with other advantages for these weapons or are there really really no benefits to using them?

Re: Thrown weapons and short blades: are they useful?

Posted: February 26th, 2009, 8:23 am
by Turtle
Expensive and heavy. The only thrown weapon I find really useful is Demon Oil (Yay, Demon Oil!).

The thing is, it really doesn't matter if you "hit" the thing you're aiming at with Demon Oil. The extra damage is nice if you happen to be aiming at an enemy, but I use Demon Oil strategically as often as not, and even if you "miss", it still lands where you want it to and burns merrily. So buy the skill if you can afford it, by all means, but it's no big deal if you have other priorities.

Re: Thrown weapons and short blades: are they useful?

Posted: February 26th, 2009, 8:46 am
by woem
Wait, if you have enough points in the thrown weapons skill then you do additional "hit damage" at the person you thrown the demon oil at? Hah that just adds insult to injury! I didn't know that since I never put point in that skill before.

Re: Thrown weapons and short blades: are they useful?

Posted: February 26th, 2009, 9:09 am
by IJBall
Turtle wrote:Expensive and heavy. The only thrown weapon I find really useful is Demon Oil (Yay, Demon Oil!).
I haven't tested this extensively by any means, but the problem I found with Thrown Weapons like spears is that they're effectively 'one use only'. In other words, like arrows, they're unrecoverable after one use.

That's something I'd like to see changed in Book II (or Book III) - if you throw a spear, or even a dart or a stone, at an enemy, it should be possible to recover it (provided it (e.g. the spear or dart) didn't break during the combat throw) after the melee with the monster is over. I don't know if it would have to be recoverable via a 'loot sack' (my guess is that would be the only workable game mechanism), but there should be some mechanism to get thrown weapons back after use.

(Aside: Also, it seems like it should be possible to 'forage' for stone weapons using the new Foraging skill).

Anyway, I personally think Thrown Weapons is a skill that I'll never pursue, unless thrown weapons become recoverable.

(P.S. Someone has made the same request for arrows in another thread around here somewhere, and I somewhat tend to agree - I think a certain percentage of arrows should tend to be recoverable after each melee, likely via a dropped 'loot sack' at the end of combat. But it's even more important that Thrown Weapons be recoverable than arrows...)

P.P.S. My thoughts on Short Blades can be found here.

Re: Thrown weapons and short blades: are they useful?

Posted: February 26th, 2009, 6:44 pm
by Unclever title
There was only ever one situation where I considered short blades to be useful and that was when I made a character whose strength had to remain under 10, I was going for a healer whose HP never increased with level, and for this to work with a healer strength and endurance must be under 10.

Anyway short bladed weapons were pretty much the only weapons (especially by the end of the game) that were light enough for my character to cast spells while holding them.

Also an interesting glitch I came across but forgot about until now. At one point I found some +1 Demon Oil II which was cool, but not really that much better, so then inspired I tried enchanting some demon oil, and I got +3 Demon Oil III :twisted:.
Actually it's more like :(.

Because for some reason my demon oil no longer exploded. It simply acted like a throwing stone. Perhaps I "defused" it or the glass of the jar was so strengthened that it would no longer break when it hit something, but it was mostly useless as demon oil.

You can also enchant arrows, stones, spears, and darts, but you probably don't want to waste the resources doing so.

Anyway it's an odd glitch that hadn't been reported to the best of my knowledge.

Re: Thrown weapons and short blades: are they useful?

Posted: February 26th, 2009, 8:50 pm
by BasiliskWrangler
I agree, Short Blades and Thrown Weapons have little benefit over any other weapon in Book I. However, both these skills have received major overhauls for Book II:

The Short Blade skill is now called "Piercing Weapons" which incorporates Knives, Daggers, Spears and Picks. Now I know knives could be thought of as a "slashing weapon", but the majority of its damage comes from stabbing. So the thing about all Piercing Weapons is that they are generally lightweight and designed for use in fast and frantic combat, and although they don't do the same devastating damage of a Hammer or Long Sword, a skillful piercing weapons user can strike multiple times per round. So, at level 10 you get two strikes per round, and at level 20 you get three strikes per round. Yes, in Book II a very skilled character using Piercing Weapons can deliver serious damage when all the rolls go their way.

For Thrown Weapons, we've made them pound for pound some of the most dangerous weapons in the game. Throwing axes, Javelins and even Harpoons can be used inflicting a ton of damage (weight x inertia) but the trade-off remains: they are heavy and they are essentially disposable (although it is possible to recover some from dead opponents). Overall, the damage they deliver by the hands of a skilled Thrown Weapons master makes them very appealing if you can cope with the weight requirements and generally higher cost of usage. I've dropped some pretty big targets with thrown weapons when I've had 4-5 spaces between us, whereas with any other weapon I would have had to eventually resort to hand-to-hand combat.

I've enjoyed using both of these weapon types in Book II quite a bit.

Re: Thrown weapons and short blades: are they useful?

Posted: February 26th, 2009, 11:57 pm
by Randomizer
My complaint about thrown weapons was quantity in game. Arrows are easy to buy and get from goblin archers, but thrown weapons appear less than 10% as much in merchants or loot. Even demon oil is limited by ingredients.

I do like the improvements for Book II for Piercing Weapons as a class. I makes specializing in them worth while for extra attacks. How is that going to work with haste, since that would normally double the actions per round? Could a hasted specialist at level 20 get up to 6 strikes with a weapon?

Those pinpricks add up with items for bonus damage and finesse/power options to balance out chance to hit and extra damage for each fight.

Re: Thrown weapons and short blades: are they useful?

Posted: February 27th, 2009, 12:01 am
by IJBall
BasiliskWrangler wrote:I agree, Short Blades and Thrown Weapons have little benefit over any other weapon in Book I. However, both these skills have received major overhauls for Book II...
That's some excellent news, BW. :mrgreen:

Based on these developments, I may now think twice about having my Book II's Fighter character's back-up weapon be Bows - I may actually try out Thrown Weapons instead. 8)

On the Short Blade/Piercing Weapon thing - is the 'two attacks per melee turn' at Level 10 thing a "hard" cutoff? Or is is possible for, say, a Level 5 or Level 7 Piercing Weapon character to occasionally get two attacks per melee turn instead of one?

Re: Thrown weapons and short blades: are they useful?

Posted: February 27th, 2009, 2:47 am
by CrazyBernie
Lewis the Fighter is using Thrown Weapons as his backup skill. (in case you couldn't tell from reading Episode Three... ) At some point he's going to "remember" Alchemy... :twisted: Of course, that's assuming I ever get around to developing him. Damn that fan fiction!! :mrgreen:

Re: Thrown weapons and short blades: are they useful?

Posted: February 27th, 2009, 4:49 am
by woem
Thanks so much for the useful and exciting information BW, it's much appreciated!

Re: Thrown weapons and short blades: are they useful?

Posted: December 15th, 2009, 7:27 am
by charles1
for me thrown weapons are soo useful especially throwing knives, you can attack the enemy silently.

Re: Thrown weapons and short blades: are they useful?

Posted: July 25th, 2011, 7:48 am
by loveshaze
Awesome!! It’s just what I need!!