Throwing WS?

[AyinDygra]

There is a way to add Throwing Weapon skills that most people probably haven't thought about:

The basic idea behind thrown weaponskills is: When a player has 100+ TP, they have access to a command that uses the item in the "Range" or "ammo" slot to inflict HP damage and/or other effects on the target. Combine with other "weaponskills" to form skillchains that allow magic bursts.

So, to create this effect without adding "Thrown Weaponskills" in a traditional sense, there are several already in-game systems in place that make possible job abilities for this purpose:
Making a command available after a player has enough TP: Dancer's waltzes.
Job ability that enables skillchains: Dancer's Wild Flourish.
Job ability requiring an item in the Ammo slot (could just as well be the range slot): Dragoon's Angon, Warrior's Tomahawk, Ninja's Sange.

Combine these elements and you get "Thrown weaponskills" that function like weaponskills without the programming hurdles that have prevented this in the past.

They may need their own battle menu, if they can't be directly incorporated into the weaponskill listing system.

Thrown weapons also seem to be more "stylish" or unique to each job that has them. Since they're not directly limited by the existing weaponskill system, there are a few creative twists I'd take on them, to make them more job specific:
* Ninja: Throwing Arts (shuriken attacks with effects, perhaps enhancing ninjutsu with special scrolls)
* Thief: Cloak and Dagger (darts with status effects and enmity manipulation)
* Puppetmaster: Transmit (animator) (see: Pup forum thread)
* Beastmaster: Whiplash (whips - bonuses to pet, intimidation effects, etc)
* Corsair: Trick Dice (like Setzer in FF3/6j, and perhaps have the last 3 rolls' results produce another effect like slots)
* Dancer: Flamenco (could be dances with ranged damage/effects)
* Ranger: Aiming (like FFT's Aim Leg: don't move, Aim Arm: Don't act, Aim Head: don't cast, etc)
* Monk: Blitz (they could have similar techniques to Sabin in FF3/6j)
* Summoner: Subdue (whips - Rydia's whips had elemental and enfeebling properties - bind/paralyze)
* Samurai: Gil Toss (ok, didn't really think too hard about Samurai)

This idea needs some more refinement, but I think it would work great!