Throwing things further and dealing more damage

[SID]

I’m working in character that is going to fight using throwing knifes, how can I improve the range and the damage of such weapon?

[Farmer]

Originally Posted by SID

I’m working in character that is going to fight using throwing knifes, how can I improve the range and the damage of such weapon?

Throwing Art, Trained by a Master/Weapon Master, maybe a variation on Zen Archery to be Zen Knife Throwing (for range), striking strength, targeted attacks (chinks in armour, eyes, vitals in torso, vitals in neck), fine weapons for damage and balance, maybe something like Gunsligner redesigned for knives (lets you get the accuracy of the knife without aiming), some sort of variation on close quarter shooting letting you deal with negatives to shooting/throwing on the run in close quarters?

This should be an interesting thread! Above just some ideas off the top of my head.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by SID

I’m working in character that is going to fight using throwing knifes, how can I improve the range and the damage of such weapon?

• Buy a Throw! wildcard skill and use alternate benefits to add your skill bonus to your ST score. See GURPS Power-Ups 7: Wildcard Skills (p. 37).
• Buy Super Throw from GURPS Supers p. 30.
• Buy Striking ST with "Throwing Weapons only" (-40%).
• Buy Heroic Thrower from Pyramid #3/89: Alternate Dungeons II (p. 18)
• Buy more ST.
• Buy Weapon Master (Knives or Throwing Weapons) [20 or 35].
• Buy Throwing Art instead of Thrown Weapon Knives.
• Buy a high skill or Targeted Attack (Thrown Weapon Thrust/Eye, Neck, or Vitals) to target weak spots or armor chinks.

Those are basically most of the ways you can go. In GURPS (and realistically) throwing knives just don't do a lot of damage. They're not the fight enders that cinema likes to treat them as so you can't just out of the box do stuff. Preferably you do a couple of these, if not all of them to bump up your skill and damage output.

That said, I did a lot to amp up the trope in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Thieves (which I just submitted the final draft last night.)

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

Those are basically most of the ways you can go.

There's also imbuements (Power-Ups 1) and innate attack described as 'throwing knives'.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Anthony

There's also imbuements (Power-Ups 1) and innate attack described as 'throwing knives'.

Imbuements are a good point, but I ignored innate attack since that didn't seem to be the way the OP was going. Felt more like gear knives vs. gadget knives.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by SID

I’m working in character that is going to fight using throwing knifes, how can I improve the range and the damage of such weapon?

There’s a heavy throwing blade in Delvers to Grow: Fast Delvers that you might like.

Also consider throwing hatchets? Swing damage…

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

Those are basically most of the ways you can go. In GURPS (and realistically) throwing knives just don't do a lot of damage. They're not the fight enders that cinema likes to treat them as so you can't just out of the box do stuff.

That's an important point BTW - you need to go cinematic *somehow*, since small throwing weapons just aren't very effective in reality.
A couple other options include magic (the Winged Knife spell for example if your personal ST isn't that great, and of course weapon enchantments, Penetrating Blade helps offset one of the biggest drawbacks, that of armor making the low basic damage utterly useless, if you can get it) and cinematic poisons (realistic poisons are too slow to be worth much in combat).

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by malloyd

That's an important point BTW - you need to go cinematic *somehow*, since small throwing weapons just aren't very effective in reality.

I've had one launched at me when I was a bouncer and it barely went in that deep - maybe 1.5 to 1.75 inches at most. It's just not an effective fight ender. That's why you need to jooze it up a bit.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

I've had one launched at me when I was a bouncer and it barely went in that deep - maybe 1.5 to 1.75 inches at most. It's just not an effective fight ender.

I'll skip that playtest option, thank you.

[SID]

Thank you! My hat goes off to you all.