CMAN's are great, but the trouble is that we're all pretty much out of points. I think that's the main reason Tep is saying any new CMAN would have to be mind blowingly awesome, because he'd have to sacrifice something else he's using regularly. His comment about mfire is also spot on. No one is going to use a CMAN that costs points to implement and stamina to use, when they can get the job done more cost effectively without it.

As for the issue of parry DS vs thrown, I suspect Rathboner is focused on the weapons that are outliers in the realm of posibility, instead of the standard gear. I own a couple of those outliers and they're great, but high enchant returning weapons with an AS boosting string attached is not what we should be trying to balance any changes/additions to hurling with. That would be akin to balancing archery based on e-bows. Everyone that doesn't own one would be left out in the cold so-to-speak. High end gear is and always should be outside the bounds of what we use to balance combat. Instead of focusing on what you see during invasions and either admire or envy or go "huh, someone does hurl" lets focus instead on what should be normally possible: hunting with hurling a 4x weapon. This is the standard with melee weapons, and should be the standard with hurled weapons.

Kerl

My ideas to improve thrown:

Df increase across the board on true thrown weapons.
Adjust the entangle crit table to be more realistically attainable.
Add parry DS on a diminishing scale vs RT when a weapon is hurled.	10% decrease in applicable parry DS skill for each second of RT incurred from hurling as an example.
New thrown CMANs:
CMAN Mighty Hurl: Ability to throw a weapon through one creature and hit a 2nd (or more)
CMAN Boomerang Throw: Hurl a returner or bonded weapon and do a second hit when the weapon reverses course and returns to the weilder.
Hurl left/right/both	ability to toggle between hurling one or both weapons for TWC hurlers.
GRIP command for hurling weapons	Ability to toggle hammers/handaxes/daggers/spears between a thrown grip (giving parry DS from THROWN training and not from the blunt/ohe/polearm training) and a melee grip that works as these weapons currently do.

-Richard/Fjalar.

While I would certainly like to see a complete and total reworking of the thrown combat system, and see it be made super de duper awesome like I want it to be, I think that the single thing that could have the biggest effect would be to release thrown weapons that have comparable DFs to melee weapons of their rough size, and come in BUNDLES.

If I could go to the weapon shop and order a bundle of 100 throwing blades - NOT DAGGERS, like the little ninja throwing blades you see in bad movies - for a couple hundred silvers, toss an eblade on them, and roll out, I would be such a happy camper. If I can have a quiver that holds 200 full sized arrows for a giantman sized longbow, surely one could hold 100 thin 4 or 5 inch blades.

And, one last thing. While we're having this great and open conversation about thrown weapon combat, could a NIR chime in with what happened to the whole thrown weapon update that was being worked on, then not, then made HUGE ADVANCES!!11!, and then nothing has been said despite repeatedly being asked about in the thrown combat folder?

Alright. Here's the official word for you all:

I currently have the reigns on the Thrown Review/Updates, and I'm personally very excited about it. That being said, I'm not comfortable giving a status update on it right at the moment and promising any sort of time frame which I may or may not be able to live up to. All I can tell you is that I'm spending a lot of time with my spreadsheets and thinking about thrown weapons day and night. For now, I would LOVE if everyone kept this conversation going in the same manner that it has been. It's incredibly helpful to hear what you all think.

Gamemaster Konacon
Squares Team

Dear Gamemaster Konacon,

I am very happy to see that somebody has been passed this project yet again, but I implore you. I BEG YOU. Keep us updated. Looking back through this folder you will not see very many NIR posts, those few are veeeeery far between, and the topic is just completely ignored for huge chunks of time.

The last time this folder saw activity before this thread was a post by me over eight months ago about how we had not been updated on what was going on with the thrown combat update in over seven months, and that was not really an update at all. That update was hardly more than "Yeah, it's totally being worked on, for reals."

Thrown combat might be the touchiest subject there is (in Elanthia) for me after years of short bursts of implied but never displayed progress followed by complete and utter silence. I look forward to the discussion of it and will make every attempt to keep my unpleasant view of the past iterations of this process out of the way.

Sincerely,
Mike

P.S. - Also, please consider bards during this process. I know this is not your department, but sonic thrown weapons! Yes please!

>I BEG YOU. Keep us updated.

I'm going to do what I can to keep you updated. Even if it's just a "Hey guys, still here, still working" every couple of weeks. And as a request back to you, post stuff in here! As long as threads don't turn volatile, hearing what you all think about Thrown and seeing how many people love or want to love it motivates me even more to get this stuff out there for all of you. :)

>[I] will make every attempt to keep my unpleasant view of the past iterations of this process out of the way.

I'll do my best not to disappoint!

>The risk of losing a weapon is a major turn-off for me, with thrown.

Couldn't agree with you more. This is a huge concern for me and something that I would like to address.

Gamemaster Konacon
Squares Team

Alrighty, I'm going to put some thoughts down in a bit more detail here.

RT: Absolutely, positively, even indubitably, the worst combat RT mechanics in the game. It's harder to throw a dagger while encumbered than it is to have a sword fight! It needs very serious adjusting to be more in line with ranged weapons or it will always be for mutants (read: people who just want to throw things so bad they'll deal with the inferior mechanics). The problem with this being, of course, that unless encumbrance is removed from thrown weapon RT entirely, it will never match up. I can see theoretical higher DS from the ability to use a shield being a reason to not bring the RT down quite that far, but I don't think that gives a whole lot of wiggle room. My fear here is ending up with greatly improved thrown weapon combat that is still mechanically inferior to ranged combat, just not as much.

Weapons Issue:
A) Keep the current rarity value of returners and chain weapons, and implement bulk throwing weapons that can be gathered and bundles, just like a bundle of arrows but a bundle of whatever throwing weapon.

B)Create purchasable string that can be attached to a weapon, functioning like a chain spear but without additional flares or anything associated with the weapon returning. Just a simple hurl, RT, yank string kind of set up. It could add a small amount of RT, but I'd say no more than 1-2 seconds. Have the strings wear out after so many throws, preferably varying based on weapon size. You can get 100 throws out of a 2 pound or less dagger/small thrown based weapon, but if you wanna throw a 5 pound handaxe or a javelin you're only getting 50, etc. Once it breaks, get a new string, tie string to weapon, go back at it. It may be a bit of a band-aid, but I think that it's a very logical way to handle it. It would slightly lessen the value of returners and chain weapons, but the lack of the added step for returners and the additional flare/knockdown of a true chain weapon would still keep them a step up. I prefer this over just using cheap generic ammo in that it will allow players to still have their favorite weapons that they work on over years and cherish. As long as you take the correct steps, no chance of loss.

C) Both! Options are always good. A bundle of e-bladed throwing knives/shards/slivers/spikes/etc for the light work, break out the beefed up handaxe with the string for heavy duty creatures. Start with the handaxe for a big hit, finish with the disposable ammo. Variety, spice, you know.

I am sure that it doesn't need to be pointed out again that thrown base weapons are just horrid, but...I guess I just did. As you can see from my examples above, I don't even consider thrown weapons when I think of throwing weapons - I think of daggers and handaxes! Thrown base weapons need a serious overhaul. And as others have suggest, more variety in thrown weapons could do wonders. Having nets and bolas be opening weapons could be great fun and useful at the same time. Nets ensnare, causing a minor stance and RT effect - stance increased one or two steps on a good hit, maybe 3-10 seconds RT. Bolas just do a knockdown and minor RT - again, say 3-10 seconds. Give both a chance to cause rank 1 woulds to arms/legs, maybe up to rank two on an incredible hit - say a 200+ end roll. I also think that javelins being used for a shield sunder effect would be awesome. Fighting a super turtled creature with plate armor and a shield? Hurl that javelin to take his shield out, whip a bola out to put him on the ground, and have at it.

Abilities:
Seeing as CM is part of the thrown weapon formula (by the by, I don't particularly see any problems with the thrown AS formula - would like to hear if others do and why, though!), it would be great to have at least a couple of maneuvers related to it. The javelin shield throw is a good example of a way that the CM aspect could be utilized. A maneuver attack to throw a medium sized weapon with two hands for increased power could be another excellent thing to consider.

Recap:
Variety! Options! Options! Variety! While this has to be balanced against ranged weapon combat and bolt spells, thrown combat has many more options for how it can be used effectively, and I (just speaking for me!) would hate to see it become a mechanically better but still simple and basic style.

I'm sure there will be more to come.

You can hurl from the shadows, but the training regimen is not easy. Karly does it a lot, and quite frankly I think it's pretty cool. I wouldn't be opposed to downtweaking the requirements a little.

I'm down with being able to multi-hurl darts too, or perhaps specialized throwing daggers.

Also, what Tep said about bonding, "Make hurled weapons compatible with weapon bonding. The double strike effect would look clunky and probably should be left out, but effects 1-4 should be do-able."

Seriously though, the biggest thing in need of a fix in my mind is the DF's and weights of the pure thrown weapons. Redo those and we come a long way towards viable. Then make picking up/finding weapons on the ground easier and less time consuming and I think you've fixed two of the major issues holding back hurling.

I don't agree with the temporary string idea, as I'd rather see a solution that fixes hurling's core issues. The string idea seems more like a bandaid. And yes, I realize some may think that sounds disengenous (sp?) coming from me, but the strings I own were auction level items, not a fix for hurling's ills.

Kerl

It got so quiet in here! Where'd all my thrown buddies go?!

Gamemaster Konacon
Squares Team

>Pretty sure most of us have posted our suggestions.

Fair enough. As long as people feel like they've had their say, that's fantastic. I had thought that I'd commented on most of the things going around (Sorry, there were a good number of them), so if I missed anything, let me know!

Until then, I keep working!

Gamemaster Konacon
Squares Team

>My first complaint is that its ridiculously hard to find an enchanted hurled weapon, I couldn't find any place to buy one around Landing and had to wait til Ebon's gate to buy some from theammer.
Gargamish

Really, the reason you never see people sell them unless they're enhancive is because they're junk. Try the pawnshops since they're the only one that buys them. They're usually littered with (useless) thrown-based weapons.

-farmer

>Unfortunately, the darts hit for like 20 points if I'm lucky, so I bought some poison and it adds a bit to the style but not the effectiveness of the darts. I would like to echo the request for a wider variety of off the shelf poisons, paralysis, or just more immediately damaging poisons that corrode skin would be nice.

This makes me wonder, would it be considered too easily exploited at high levels for darts (or whatever the smallest, lowest damage thrown base may end up being after a possible update) to have a unique advantage of flares always landing where the dart lands? Is that even possible?

I posted a lot in the rogue folder about all those trap components as well. They could be used extensively for poisons, random bombs, tricks, or disablers (jaws) much more than they are now. Every trap that has a component could be updated and create a market for those pieces in the process. Could even have them sold in a new thrown "shop", etc.

>I'm going to do what I can to keep you updated. Even if it's just a "Hey guys, still here, still working" every couple of weeks.
>Gamemaster Konacon

It's been almost two months now.

Always good to hear. Thank you.