How can I make this silly idea work - flurry of shirukens

[zioth]

I realized at some point that a monk with shirukens can get a huge number of attacks.

Level 21.
16+ BaB: 4 attacks
Monk 11: 2 attacks
Exotic Weapon Master: 1 attack (at -2)
TWF,iTWF,gTWF: 3 attacks (at -2)
Rapid Shot: 1 attack (at -2) -- this should work, because the feat just says "ranged weapon," not "arrow"

That's 11 attacks so far.

pTWF: At least 4 attacks, but let's say your DM takes the wording of this feat literally, and lets it double all attacks, not just BaB attacks.

That brings us up to 16 attacks, using nothing but the Player's Handbook and DMG.


Now the question is, can I do anything useful with this? I think there are feats or enchantments that make thrown weapons return to you, and let's say that you could make them out of adamantine to avoid the 50% break rate of ranged weapons. Now you can stick a bunch of useful enchantments on them.

Obvious disadvantages:

• Shiruken have a base damage of -2.
• You've spent at least 12 sub-optimal levels and six feets getting here.
• All of your attacks are at -6.

Any ideas for reasonable builds using this as a start? Any ideas of how to make the shiruken worthwhile?

One idea off the top of my head would be to make this a pixie, and put some levels into rogue. You get +8 DEX, which can offset most of the -6 to attacks. You'd also get sneak attack. Yeah, lots of level 21 creatures can see through your invisibility, but if they can't, that's 16 sneak attacks per round at +3d6. The size penalty doesn't hurt. In fact, it helps, since you don't have to bother rolling all those d2s. The biggest problem is the lack of 4 base attacks at level 20. It would be hard to make this work.

[Nunkuruji]

Somehow get reliable way to make Fire Shurikens...

[Flay Crimsonwind]

Have a lot of eternal wands of explosive runes, cast it on the shuriken, when the shuriken breaks, boom. My favorite way to begin combat is to have a ranged charrie shoot an arrow/shuriken at the foe, stun them with that, then begin the onslaught.

[fuinjutsu]

Somehow get reliable way to make Fire Shurikens...

Energy Admixture - Born of the Three Thunders - Fell Drain Fire Shurikens, with dissolving weapon cast on them.

3d6 fire damage, 3d6 half elec/half sonic, 4d6 acid, 1 negative level (no save), and save or be stunned.

Instantaneous effects.  gotta love them.

10d6 and a negative level each + lots of throws = ouch.

[weenog]

Take Leadership, have a dragonfire inspiration bard servant sing you a theme music powerup, add a wagonload of sonic damage to each shuriken.

Though that would work better if the bard was the character and the monk was the mook.

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Take levels of Serene Guardian.  Damage people multiple times per round with your shuriken.  Hit them with a no-save confusion.

[PhaedrusXY]

The psionic power Dissolving Weapon can be quite nasty too, but probably not as bad as a bunch of metamagic'd Fire Shuriken. It is also Instantaneous (until used), and since you can target 50 pieces of ammunition at once, you can hit 50 shurikens at once with it. Augmented, it can add quite a lot of acid damage per attack.

Of course adding Sneak Attack dice goes a long way, also. UMD, an Incantatrix friend, and a wand of Hunter's Eye, plus a dip into Swordsage (never a bad idea) could get you quite a few for minimal investment.

[Bastian]

You could use Iaijutsu Focus on your shurikens.

[Bozwevial]

You could use Iaijutsu Focus on your shurikens.

A shuriken can't be used as a melee weapon.

[bearsarebrown]

Master Thrower pretty much doubles everything said so far. And makes them touch attacks.

[Flay Crimsonwind]

I would try and compile everything in this thread, and paste them all together.

[Catty Nebulart]

Add returning to the shiruken, and have defect arrows and then grab the epic feats for infinite deflection and reflection, and each time the shuriken would return to you you can instead deflect them back upon your target, that is an additional doubeling of attacks (or adding your attacks each round depending on if the returning weapons try more than once to return) but won't stack well with the other methods suggested in this thread.

[Bastian]

You could use Iaijutsu Focus on your shurikens.

A shuriken can't be used as a melee weapon.

One level of Drunken Master should fix that.

[EjoThims]

I have a link in my sig that you might want to check out... 

As far as practical... Definitely go Master Thrower with something like this.

And switch out some of your Monk levels for Shou Disciple so that you can throw something not quite as garbage as shuriken...

Or if you really want to stick with them, you could see about converting one of the various quivers that generate magic arrows to create magic shurikens.

[Runestar]

Wasn't there some build which utilized shadow sun ninja and stormguard warrior?

[X-Codes]

There is a better way.

Oh... and this, too, plus Brutal Throw and Power Throw.

Pew Pew Lazor Beams!

[AndyJames]

Guys... Take a look at Drunken Master. Carry a bunch of copper coins as your improvised throwing weapons (which are arguably shurikens without the spikes). Have fun?

[JohnnyMayHymn]

warforged with 1 level in soul eater for a flurry of negative levels if they try to close on you

with drunken master, etc..., you are bender:
[spoiler]

[/spoiler]

[awaken DM golem]

What was the Halfling Skip-rock build?

[Slaughterhouserock]

Whenever I think of a shuriken build, I think of JJ's Shuriken Storm(it's in the spoiler).  I haven't looked at shuriken the same since.