[McAllister]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Ingenuity is nice, but others reading the thread might not be GMs or players whose GM is amenable to "These Extra Arms aren't really arms but merely a cheap way to buy Extra Attack!" ;) I think that a trait in the vein of Gunslinger and Heroic Archer is what's needed here. Let's call this Throwing Master [20] to underline that it's in the same family but isn't the same trait. I'd give it these benefits:

• You may learn the Throwing Art skill (which you'll generally use for all attacks with thrown weapons, though this isn't mandatory).
  
• You may ignore off-handedness penalties when throwing weapons. This has no effect when wielding those same weapons off-handed in melee combat.
  
• When you Attack or All-Out Attack with a thrown weapon, you may add its Accuracy bonus to skill without taking an Aim maneuver. If you do Aim, you get +1 after one second or +2 after two or more seconds, in addition to Acc.
  
• When you Attack or All-Out Attack in close combat, or Move and Attack anywhere, you don't add Acc but you may ignore Bulk.
  
• Halve all Fast-Draw penalties to ready throwing weapons. If you have the relevant Fast-Draw skill at 16+, you don't have to roll at all!
  
• When you Attack, All-Out Attack, or Move and Attack, you can throw multiple weapons, all of them at -3 per attack past the first; e.g., two attacks at -3, three at -6, four at -9, and so on. These can target different opponents.
  
• If you throw using two hands, all attacks start at a basic -2, but the above penalty accrues separately for each hand; e.g., three attacks with one hand at -8, two with the other at -5. One attack with each hand is at -2 instead of -3. Again, these attacks can target different opponents.
  
• You can combine Throwing Master with any Weapon Master specialty that covers thrown weapons. The damage bonus doesn't "stack" with that of Throwing Art, but you get all of the other benefits above – and the penalty for multiple attacks becomes just -1 per attack past the first and a basic -1 for using two hands (e.g., three attacks with one hand at -3, two with the other at -2).
  
• If for whatever reason you elect to use Rapid Fire with Thrown Weapons (Martial Arts, p. 120) instead of multiple attacks, you can ready whatever you're throwing instantly instead of taking a Ready, if you have a suitable Fast-Draw skill (this always requires a roll!), and you may ignore Bulk.

This is mostly of value for small throwing weapons you can carry by the score and use Fast-Draw on. I'd be very strict about what weapons do and don't work with Fast-Draw. That said, if you want to be generous, consider that carrying 20 throwing axes means lugging around 80 lbs. of weapons and throwing away up to $1,200 of gear. It's somewhat self-limiting. :)

Thanks for the write-up! I had wondered what Throwing Master would look like.

As far as the Extra Arms went, I thought this discussion was more or less over so I didn't post anything, but I did come to the conclusion that an Extra Arm is like a much cheaper Extra Attack, as long as you've got enough weapons to put in all your arms, so maybe that idea was looking exploitative. Extra Attack (Single Skill: Throwing Art) is 20 points, so if adding another arm is similar to that, then maybe "Only during my turn" is a +100% enhancement on Extra Arm that prevents me from walking around looking like some kind of Hindu god gone wrong.