Thrown weapons

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

Well, if it's powerful we can make it expensive. The effective range is multiplied by sqrt(7), so about 8/3. That's enough to be useful but not crushing, it arguably gets more effective for more powerful characters.

I have ambivalent feelings about talents like these: they tend to increase variety between characters within a party but decrease it between turns within a character. Instead of using a thrown spell here, a creation spell there, a missile spell over here, the wizard ends up casting the same thrown spells every fight.

Quite possibly, also because learning talents means fewer spells get learned.

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

I can see that's a problem, but the way to solve it is probably to add saving rolls, which people seem to like anyway.

I think some people like spell saving rolls (I do), but some don't. Yes if saving throws were added it would mitigate the power of thrown spells. If you don't, and we've nerfed missile spells, and thrown spells don't worry about figures blocking LOS, then thrown spells start to become the new way wizards easily take people out at medium range.

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

I think all these spells should work something like missile spells: wizard uses n ST, opponent makes a n dice vs. whatever roll, if he fails it he suffers the effects. And maybe there's some kind of limit on n.

I've never heard of missile spells working like that - what's that from?

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

You want to have thrown spells hit people you didn't aim at, like thrown and missile weapons? You have my vote.

That is another option I've toyed with, but not what I had in mind when I wrote that. I was talking about this thread's topic (the range penalty for thrown weapons).