Every campaign needs the equivalent of a CIA-backed coup gone wrong, but that doesn't mean you need to throw your players into the fantasy version of a Tom Clancy novel. It can be pretty fun, though. Especially when submarines are involved.
There are some layers to the theme for this one, but they're mostly obvious (I mean, who wouldn't catch on to the fact that these boomerangs are a roundabout reference to Roman sudes?) but I want to dive into the mechanics. These are hilariously large boomerangs that can be used as melee weapons, thrown in a straight line (that's what the 30/120 range is for), or thrown in an arc. There's a lot to unpack.
I decided to forgo the usual 'boomerangs are returning weapons without the enchantment' angle in favor of the angle-angle, as I found that players love weapons that let them do trick shots. I initially played with a distance-along-circumference mechanic for the range, but I found that the math slows things down too much. Basing the normal/far range thresholds on the angle makes it a lot easier to eyeball, especially when you have a few spell AOE templates on hand.
If you don't go out of your way to give your players trick shot opportunities, the mechanic will mostly be a source of flavor.
Unless one of your players is an engineer. Then they'll realize that, with a 90ft max diameter, they can hit someone standing 60ft away in the back of the head with a 270° arc, and promptly derail the session by drawing up a table of common range:angle relationships and/or designing the 'perfect range template' in FreeCAD. I've seen it happen. It's traumatizing.
May 18th: Template Update
