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Throwing Weapon question

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Ryo

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« on: <01-29-11/0730:56> »
Quote from: Shadowrun 4th 20th Anniversary Edition
A character can ready a number of small throwing weapons, such as throwing knives or shuriken, equal to one half his Agility (round down) per Ready Weapon action.

Quote from: Shadowrun 4th 20th Anniversary Edition
A character may throw a ready throwing weapon by taking a Simple Action.

Does this mean you throw multiple weapons with the same action? If so, how is the damage calculated? Each knife individually, or applying something like the Burst Fire rules?

And if you can't throw multiple weapons with the same action, what's the point of being able to ready more than one?

Chaemera

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« Reply #1 on: <01-29-11/0848:00> »
IF you assume that you can throw multiple weapons with a single throwing action, I would treat it as firing two guns, or attacking with two melee weapons. Split your die pool by the number of weapons you're throwing and resolve each as a separate attack.

IF you assume that you can throw only one weapon per throw action, then the advantage of readying multiple throwing weapons is that you don't have to take another ready action until you run out.

For example:
AGI 6, 3 IPs

1st IP:
FREE: Taunt your soon-to-be pincushion target.
SIMPLE: Ready 3 throwing knives.
SIMPLE: Throw 1 throwing knife.

2nd IP:
FREE: Laugh at your enemy's pain as he grasps at your throwing knife.
SIMPLE: Throw 2nd throwing knife.
SIMPLE: Throw 3rd throwing knife.

3rd IP:
FREE: Call out your next target.
SIMPLE: Ready 3 throwing knives.
SIMPLE: Throw 1 throwing knife.

I think it's pretty clear how advantageous it is, compared with having to draw, and throw, each initiative pass. You're rate of fire at AGI 6 is 1.5 throwing knives per IP vice 1.
SR20A Limited Edition # 124
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Mäx

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« Reply #2 on: <01-29-11/0906:39> »
Or you can take martial art: krav maga quality for the benefit that makes ready weapon a free action.
With that you only need agility 4 for 2 knives per IP RoF, or agility 8 if you want to be able to taunt your opponent every other IP ;)
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Morg

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« Reply #3 on: <01-29-11/1145:55> »
Another train of thought is that you could treat it as burst fire. It is cinematic to load up 4 shuriken one between each finger and toss the batch. Although there is no recoil you can still use the same penalty to describe the additional difficulty of doing this type of burst throw you can also use it say when a PC has an armload of armed grenades the inherent minus makes scatter interesting.

It is not a bad house rule if you like Cinematic Vs Realism in your game

Ryo

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« Reply #4 on: <01-29-11/1541:18> »
Aha, so it is slightly faster being able to ready more than one. But yeah, I've seen a lot of shows and movies and such where the lead badass chucks a fist full of blades at some unlucky sucker, so I was curious if that was the intention or not.

Kontact

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« Reply #5 on: <01-29-11/1633:25> »
There's also the Martial Arts maneuver Iajutsu which allows you to quickdraw any weapon.
Then, provided you have such skills as to pay thine bills, you can throw 2 projectiles a pass and keep up a steady stream of insults ala Deadpool (or call a shot for increased damage each pass.)

Really, you'd optimally want to take Wildcat for +1 dice to called shots for damage and get the Iajutsu maneuver for only 2 more BP.

Bradd

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« Reply #6 on: <01-29-11/2023:30> »
Quick Draw allows you to throw and "fire" any pistol-sized weapons, so I've always figured you can use it for throwing knives and grenades without requiring iaijutsu. Of course, you use Throwing Weapons + Reaction instead of Pistols.

Kontact

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« Reply #7 on: <01-31-11/1440:32> »
Would you suppose "pistol-sized" was 0 to -4 concealability or 0 to -2, or even +2 to -4?

Bradd

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« Reply #8 on: <01-31-11/1447:53> »
Oh, that's a good way of looking at it. If you're literal about it, I suppose that's -4 to +2 (holdout pistol to machine pistol). If a GM said that +0 (heavy pistol) was the limit, I wouldn't argue.

Tagz

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« Reply #9 on: <01-31-11/2106:18> »
I've also allowed a player in my group (who was playing a throwing Adept) to throw a fistful of small objects (such as pebbles or marbles) as buckshot similar to a shotgun attack, using similar rules.