Do you actually bother to throw weapons and potions ? Use special arrows ?

[Beast of War]

I have lobbed an explosive bottle here and there in desperation, especially early in game when spells were still limited. Hell i even lobbed explosive barrels in the Grove fight.

But in the ultimate fight leading up to the brain i summoned flaming fist reinforcements that were quite brutal...kicked casters off walls and i saw them throwing 3 spears ( i guess javelins ) in succession. I experimented with that but discovered you actually seem to spend them, not getting them back.

Why should you use that ( and special missiles/arrows ) when almost all characters have scores of spells and cantrips to lauch, and melee classes can use a variaety of bows with unlimited arrows ?

[jonnin]

yes. Thrown healing potions is a cheap heal/help up and sometimes you can aoe heal with them this way. Special arrows, most are junk but a number of them are beyond powerful. The one that teleports you to the impact location is extremely powerful. Others like fire that can set off kegs are situationally amazing. Darkness one has its uses too.

But I think what you are missing is a dedicated archer character. Imagine for a moment... a rogue level 4 (has 2 bonus attacks) and ranger/fighter/something level 5+ (has extra attack) with the archery fighting style (+2 to hit) and the +10 damage feat (also ignores elevation penalty!) hauling a pair of +1 or better hand crossbows. That is 2 mainhand and 2 offhand shots, all at a penalty of -3 (+2 from archery negates part of the feat penalty) so usually a 70-85% chance to hit most of the attacks from high ground. You can sneak attack sometimes for 2d6, +10 per shot, and you can toggle off the hit penalty and extra damage on ultra tanky targets as needed. This lets you do things like 1-shot trash X4 (as good as most aoe spells, but you can do it every round every fight without sleep), or focus fire 1 target hard, whatever. Its a niche build, but a strong one and that is before you add in using special arrows... you can shoot 4 of those each round too, and one of the hand crossbows... does more damage if the target is on fire (the most common special arrow type being fire!) ...
should a normal character be using them? Not frequently, but Shadowheart probably is running a crossbow as her default attack if you don't want to spend a big spell, and an aoe arrow may be just the thing for her sometimes, esp a utility one like can't heal or darkness or something just to mess with the enemy.

thrown weapons like javelins, spears, etc that don't return? Most are not useful, but as said above you can rig some magic ones to return to you after a throw for an interesting ranged weapon.

[Loot]

Originally posted by Jinkaru:

You can throw elixirs at your feet and buff your entire party with one potion. You can do the same with things like fly potions. There's also a trick you can do with alchemist fire, by spacing them out in turn-based mode where you place an acid file next to an alchemist fire and just shoot it when every you want.

Wait, that works with Elixirs? I tried it with a Hill Giant Elixir, sort of. I personally prefer to place them on the ground, between everyone, then attack with a bonus action to break it. However, it didn't work with the Hill Giant Elixir, so I'd presumed it didn't work that way.

Works fine with invisibility potions, speed potions, etc.

[Beast of War]

Originally posted by FuriousFool:

Believe it or not, thrown weapons are insanely strong. You can get a Returning Pike in act 1 .

That sounds interesting, missed that completely 2 playthoughs !

Where do i get it ?

And the throwing of healing potions....never came up with that !! I always used healing spells or magically sharing bags for that.

[Hobocop]

I use thrown weapons all the time. Better that than wasting your action dashing or doing nothing on a melee-focused character, tbh. And Larian had the good sense to mitigate what makes thrown weapons so garbage on TT by handwaving the item interactions you'd normally need to draw them.

[GetUrAssToMars]

OP you gotta setup mage hand with a bag of throwing items on the map during a fight.

Pretty much free buff/debuff/dmg artillery

[Loot]

I only recently start using special arrows after I stole a bunch with Astarion. In conjunction with the blast satchels, they do massive damage. I walked through the goblin camp and kill the hob, which resulted in the entire camp aggroing at once and homing in on our location, unexpectedly. Was out of spells and hadn't planned for this, so started pulling all the stops. Elemental arrows put in a massive amount of work. You can also place items on the ground without using a turn, then hit them with a cantrip or elemental arrow to set them off.

[Loot]

Originally posted by Beast of War:

Originally posted by FuriousFool:

Believe it or not, thrown weapons are insanely strong. You can get a Returning Pike in act 1 .

That sounds interesting, missed that completely 2 playthoughs !

Where do i get it ?

And the throwing of healing potions....never came up with that !! I always used healing spells or magically sharing bags for that.

Goblin merchant sells it, along with some other good items, like the archer gloves that add +2 damage.

[Twelves]

started throwing stuff with my second char, it is neat

[slamfu]

I did one playthrough, and then decided to go back to the start of Act 2 and be more thorough. This time I've been throwing a lot more stuff and it's been pretty fun. Save all the barrels you can and send them to camp.

[Chaotic Entropy]

When I'm accidentally juuust shy of melee range, sometimes Karlach throws a shovel and knocks people prone.

[Scheneighnay]

Arrows are for classes that don't have spells, so you don't have to burn someone else's turn and spell slot

[PocketYoda]

Yes Yeeting stuff at tough opponents is a god save.

[Illuminary]

I used to use the special arrows but not having big damage dealing ones turned into more of a waste of actions. I'd rather action surge and use maneuvers with Lae'Zel and get a quick kill than bother with the mediocre arrows. Throwing grease/fire or water/lightning I still do from time to time if there's nothing else going on. By act three you got elementals, dryads, undead, and if you go the distance with the Necronomicon can summon four ghouls, so I'd rather call them up if I can't really attack. Never really though of throwing barrels but I definitely shoot arrows and toss explosive at fire/oil barrels.

[Martin]

Mostly I use karlach to throw jugs of water to knock enemies prone/break concentration, sometimes I use fire bombs or acid bombs.. from time to time i use arrows.. I haven't ever thrown a spear or javelin..

[Agony_Aunt]

Throwing healing potions is very effective as they do an AoE on everyone caught in the splash. You can increase the AoE by dropping it and then attacking it instead.

So if everyone in your party is hurt, rather than wasting potions by drinking individually, throw it in the middle of your party.