A Simple House Rule for Recovering Thrown Weapons

[Gold Bearer]

I think I'm going to change those rules slightly.

A). Javlin, Spear, Hammer.
B). Knife, Great Spear, Great Hammer.
C). Hand Axe, Elvin Spear, Dwarven Hammer.

Roll two combat when thrown. + = A weapons are damaged, B and C weapons are weakened. + = A and B weapons are broken, C weapons are damaged.

Weakened weapons roll one combat dice. = damaged. = broken.

Am I the only one that doesn't like the recovering of the weapon? The rules say "you throw - you lose". That is what I do, I like to keep things simple

Well they would pick them up, not just leave them once they're thrown. It also makes the hand axe and even daggers in the US rules very overpriced weapons.

[The Road Warrior]

Am I the only one that doesn't like the recovering of the weapon? The rules say "you throw - you lose". That is what I do, I like to keep things simple

No. I feel the same way

But it is always interesting to read how others house rule weapon recovery

[Big Bene]

Am I the only one that doesn't like the recovering of the weapon? The rules say "you throw - you lose". That is what I do, I like to keep things simple

I like to think about house rules for all possible situations, but I don't use all of them all the time. In reality, keeping it simple and sticking to the original rules works best most of the time.

[Redav]

No. I feel the same way

And I'm in the middle. I don't care for retrieving spent ammunition (in my mind it's a consumable) but something like a spear I can understand that people should want / expect to get it back. But there's

That is what I do, I like to keep things simple

There's a lot to be said for the KISS principle. It's something I try to apply to my fleshed out rules so to not get too carried away.

[Gold Bearer]

How about this?

A). Javlin, Spear, Hammer.
B). Knife, Great Spear, Great Hammer.
C). Hand Axe, Elvin Spear, Dwarven Hammer.

Roll two combat when thrown. + = A weapons are damaged, B and C weapons are weakened. + = A and B weapons are broken, C weapons are damaged. + = The monster you threw the weapon at adds it to their inventory and can throw it back.

Weakened weapons roll two combat dice. + = damaged. + or + = broken. + = The monster you threw the weapon at adds it to their inventory and can throw it back.

That could be funny without being silly.

[Big Bene]

Too complicated for my opinion.
It's OK to have different stats for knives and hammers, but all this "weakened weapon" stuff is too much. I'd say a weapon is either in working order or broken, and that's that.

[TMU]

I say if the weapon is thrown, it breaks to the little goblins skull. You don't want to take a broken weapon, do you? If it is normally hitted, you can target the blow so that it does not break

[Gold Bearer]

Okay. How about this?

A). Javlin, Spear, Hammer.
B). Knife, Great Spear, Great Hammer.
C). Hand Axe, Elvin Spear, Dwarven Hammer.

Roll two combat when thrown. + = A weapons damaged. + = B weapons damaged. + = C weapons damaged. + = The monster you threw the weapon at adds it to their inventory and can throw it back. + = Weapon broken.

Damaged weapons can't be used but can be repeared by a blacksmith for half their full value.

[GimmeYerGold]

I was mulling this over myself recently, and came up with "Recover Lost Thrown Weapons" as an additional action that works identically to the mechanics of Search for Treasure, Search For Traps & Secret Doors.

The back of my character cards for reference:


Like how Malc suggested, once no monsters are visible to the Hero, on their turn, they may perform this action. I liked the idea of using tiles, but thought of instances where an instantaneous action of recovering any and all thrown weapons would save time, and fit in line with the way treasure and trap searches are performed.

Since this still requires an action to retrieve the weapon, and monsters must be killed before they may do so, and the heroes must remember to take the action to recoup the item(s), without the aid of handy-dandy tiles , I could see this being a balanced way to intro reusable thrown weapons.

After all, I see most heroes will sell off a throwable weapon and gain that gold to buy a higher tier weapon or crossbow, but the continued use of a throwable weapon means they stay at a certain level of advancement longer, rather than moving right past it.

I would most likely rule that a hero must have a weapon "equipped" in their hand before they can throw it, they can't throw it right out of pocket. I might allow them to hold another throwable weapon in their off hand, but they can normally only throw one weapon at a time; it would take two turns to throw both weapons.

Going with my rules here, a Hero with nothing equipped could equip an recovered thrown weapon instantly, so a Hero that recovers one or more lost thrown weapons can be holding one in each empty hand again right away, without spending an extra turn to equip them, unless they wanted to swap out that weapon for another in their inventory.

Also, I plan on introducing an Evil Wizard card that can be played when a Hero recovers thrown weapons, ruling that at least one of the weapons is now broken and useless (this creates the damaged weapon mechanic without complication, and would make sense to the players, that is, it won't seem like a "cheap move")

Alternatively, I gave my Ranger the special skill to recover lost thrown weapons while monsters are present.

Anyway, those are my thoughts! I also include simple flanking rules, retaliation, standing on furniture bonuses, and simple monster combat skills to make combat more strategic and fun, so I thought this idea introduced in this thread was a must to include

[Gold Bearer]

Nice. Have you made some parlay cards then? Are they different for different monsters? 'The zombie looks very confused.'

Here's what I went for in the end:

Anyone apart from mindless undead can pick up a weapon and throw it.

A). Javelin, Spear, Hammer.
B). Knife, Great Spear, Great Hammer.
C). Hand Axe, Elvin Spear, Dwarven Hammer.

Roll two combat when thrown. + = A weapons damaged. + = B weapons damaged. + = C weapons damaged. + = The target you threw the weapon at throws it straight back. + = Weapon broken.

Damaged weapons can't be used but can be repaired by a blacksmith for half their full value.

I don't think that's too complicated, and it can be really funny if it gets thrown straight back a couple of times.

For the changing of equipment I just ruled that it doesn't use an action but can't be done after attacking, got it from an old D&D computer game where attacking automatically ends your turn.