Master Shuriken Thrower

[StrykerMontgomery]

21 ranger sniper path (or archer just so ican have a shop to fund me)
5 fighter

4 monk

(Switch nunbers for fighter and monk around)

Lvl 20 ranger without favored ebemies and bane of enemy bonuses gives 6 dsmage to range (unless this is bows only)

Epic weapon specialization means plus 12 damage per shuriken, 8 shurikens per round

The only question is how obtainable are good shurikens and how expensive ot will be to rhow temporary essences on all of them. This build would probably go through ammo simply too fast. If money wasnt and object though (could do wealthy background and i dont play too much) damask essence shurikens plus 12 damage plus favored enemy plus bane of enemies 8-9 (haste) attacks per round can be a lot.

Just seems to cost WAY too much.

[msterswrdsmn]

At work right now, so I can't give a detailed answer. Short answer; if you're going to use shuriken as a primary weapon, you are almost required to be heavy rogue or assassin. Shuriken damage is the absolute worst in NWN (1d3 with no STR modifiers; even whips get STR bonuses), and since thrown weapons use DEX to modify the AB, you're almost guarenteed to be locked into a dex build of some sort.

Bane of Enemies just doesn't make up for the horrible, HORRIBLE damage shuriken do. Your damage per strike will be terrible, even against favorite enemies. And as you mentioned, you can easily blow through a stack of 50 shuriken per mob.

[StrykerMontgomery]

I am aware of all these facts. I don't think you considered all the details I mentioned. The biggest problem with my build is the viability of shurikens as ammo, because the module never took shurikens seriously as ever being a viable option.

The build I suggested actually has an average of 30 damage per shuriken.

6 from fighter
6 from archer path
5 from favored enemies
2d6 from bane of enermies (average of 7)
3.5 avg temp essence (not going to bother with perm) 1d6
2 av shuriken itself


*EDIT*

And we have not even gotten into if masterly shurikens were actually a thing for damage (they aren't) that's just plain shurikens.

= 29.5 damage average 8 - 9 attacks per round

IF we really wanted to debate the mechanics ot the max
Elf + gift of grace starting dex 22 (since str is useless)

all stats into dex plus a greater dex feat =

30 base dex + 12 magic = 42 dex = 16 bonus

pre epic bab will be 19 or 20 (you could go pure ranger and be using a bow up to this point depending fi you want to monk melee thing up to this point)

25 + 16 + EWF + 3/Baneofenmies + 2/favoured +5

= 49 + 1 maybe for prowess and 50

If decent shurikens actaully existed.. your ab could be in the 50s allowing you to actaully hit with your first few attack and fish for 20's in the remainer of attacks (or just hit with everything against lower ac) and crits still double.

have a bard sing beside you and your ab and damage is going up for all those attacks.

The biggest problem is availability of good ammunition.

[GoboJenkins]

Does the Elf have a better bonus for thrown than the Hin?

[Cerk Evermoore]

Arcane Archers are restricted to bows.

[Baron Saturday]

Arcane Archers are restricted to bows.

He's talking about archer-path ranger, not AA.

[Duchess_Says]

I would suggest that it is not difficult to make a well rounded character who is very good with shuriken as one of the tools in their toolbox. A dex based monk/rogue/fighter could take a few feats towards shuriken use (especially called shot) but still know how to fight with their fists or kamas.

I'd do that rather than make a gimmick who is a little better at shurkien tossing but not enough to throw away everything else.

[StrykerMontgomery]

Does the Elf have a better bonus for thrown than the Hin?

I was thinking the other day how hin woukd make even better since str doesnt matter and they get throwing bonus and they are small.

But alas, unless super bundles, when we don't even have bundlea, of shurikens are introduced, the damage is way too limited/expensive till epic lvls. I supose with really high dex you could also just fight with a kama and lots of attacks per round till you have more lvls undee your belt. But this is one of those "only cool at max level" and its only "sort of cool".

I guess a lvl 8 character could be be do 4 shurikens per round with plus 4 damage. But that's just simply not enough without some kind of shuriken bundle system.

[Durvayas]

You'll have to be a smith, otherwise you'll find ammo procurement to be an absolute nightmare.

[msterswrdsmn]

^It would still be a nightmare.

Sorry. Forgot all about this topic.
Short version: Damage dealt is tied to ammo conservation.

The aforementioned point I made about terrible damage is very much tied to how viable ammo is going to be. If you're barely scratching things with shuriken, its going to take a LOT of the suckers to bring a single creature down. If you're blowing through 20-30 some shuriken to deal half-decent damage to an enemy, its going to make things horribly unviable, even if thrown weapon quivers were a thing.

The less damage you deal, the higher your ammo consumption will be. I wouldn't factor in favorite enemies or Bane of Enemies into the damage equation right away either. The first will run into the issue of "hey, thats not a favorite enemy i'm attacking", whereas the second will take a very long time to obtain, especially with all the multiclassing you've got in your build (BoE needs 21 ranger levels I think, not a level 21 character), meaning you'll be blowing through TONS of ammo getting to that point.

If you're really dead-set on making a shuriken build, something like monk/assassin comes to mind, relying on a higher DC death attack to paralyze something on the first round of combat and pummelling it with 7-8 poisoned shuriken death attacks while its paralyzed, then using darkness/cornersneaking to deal with the next enemy. Liberal spamming of called shot: leg when dealing with things chasing you.