[4E] New Ranged Weapons for your game

Out of the box, the 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons Players Handbook provides PCs with a somewhat limited set of options for ranged weapons. They are limited to (mostly) using melee weapons that you can throw at things (hammers, daggers, etc), or your usual choices of bow or crossbow.

Oh, and there were slings for the halflings among us and shurikens for the manga fans...

Then the Adventurer's Vault came along. Two more thrown melee weapons were added: Tridents and a new Dragonborn doodad called a Tratnyr™. The AV also included three additional ranged weapons: the Repeating Crossbow, the Greatbow, and the Superior Crossbow. I'll refrain from being critical of these imaginative choices, just say that it was a good thing they included a few more options for people looking to shoot at things.

Then Stargazer introduced a couple of nice firearms into the mix: the Blunderbuss, Dragon Pistol (which rox), and the Musket Rifle. And along came a new weapon group as well: Firearms.

This is all well and good, but I was still thinking there were some things missing. So, with a little bit of research and thought, I'd put together the stats for five additional ranged weapons that you might include into your 4E weapon mix: the Harpoon, Dart, Atlatl, Blowgun, and Barbed Bolas. Introducing these new weapons creates two additional weapon groups (Dart, Net) and two additional new weapon properties (Stealth, Entangling).

Stealth: These weapons allow the attacker to remain hidden even after the attack provided they make a successful Stealth check, with a -5 penalty, against the defender's Passive Perception skill.

Entangling: These weapons are capable of tripping and immobilizing their targets. On a successful hit with an entangling weapon, the attacker is granted a secondary attack versus the defender's Reflex defense. If the secondary attack succeeds, the defender is entangled by the weapon and immobilized (save ends). For entangling, heavy thrown weapons, the defender is also knocked prone if the secondary attack succeeded by 5 or more.

Here are the details for the new ranged weapons...

Weapon	Type	Prof	Hnd	Dmg	Rng	Price	Wght	Group	Properties
Atlatl	Military	+3	2H	1d6	15/30	10 gp	2 lb.	Spear	Load minor, high crit
Barbed bolas	Superior	+2	2H	1d3	3/6	10 gp	3 lb.	Net	Entangling, heavy thrown
Blowgun	Superior	+2	2H	1	4/8	20 gp	2 lb.	Dart	Load minor, small, stealth
Dart (10)	Simple	+2	1H	1d2	3/6	5 gp	1 lb.	Dart	Light thrown
Harpoon	Simple	+2	2H	2d4	5/10	5 gp	5 lb.	Spear	Heavy thrown, high crit

I've also included them in my 4E Core Weapons list - so if you download the new version (2) of that PDF, you'll get them from there as well.

4E Core Weapons List-V2.pdf

BTW - The "research" I mentioned simply meant that I went back to 1E and dug around in various texts looking for interesting ranged weapons, then walked forward through the editions. So, basically, the above weapons are conversions of the same weapons for compatibility with the 4E ruleset. There are numerous weapons I could have included that have previously been in past editions (thong clubs anyone?), but I left them out for now. The Atlatl, Blowgun and Harpoon are from the 1E Unearthed Arcana. The Barbed Bolas were drawn from 3E Complete Warrior. The Darts... well, that's from OD&D. Come on... my magic-users always had a whole bag of darts to throw when they used up their one spell for the day!

Enjoy the weapons, and let me know what you think!

Art Credits: The inset artwork was taken from the 1st Edition Dungeoneer's Survival Guide (1986). The illustrations were done by Jeff Easley [1] and Jim Roslof [2].

---

Nominate your favorite blog post from any RPG blog to
The 2008 Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs!
Also, if you fill out our survey - you may win a free copy of the Anthology! For more information, please visit the
Open Game Table working group.