Throwing a rock at someone’s gut isn’t going to do anything, you pretty much have to aim for the head. Even then, most people are going to have a decent chance of braining someone from across a room. A pretty good chance if they’ve been practising on and off for a few weeks. That doesn’t mean you need specialised training.
I doubt that’s as simple codewise as it sounds. Even then, it’s not like you can sling a rock in such a way that it has a chance to knock someone down or anything.
You might get lucky and be able to implement a martial art that makes slings more accurate, or throwing in general, but that seems awkward.
Indeed. Which is why it isn’t a good way to handle untrained sling use. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of ways to go about it.
As far as bows v slings is concerned, I doubt anyone could reach even basic proficiency with a sling in the time it takes to become combat competent with a bow. And a bow is still probably going to be overall more deadly. A bladed arrow piercing through your chest is going to do a lot more damage than a rock hitting your chest, same for headshots. Especially taking into account compound bows, which are amazingly powerful.
That’s one of the few things I could see reasonably needing training or a book, but I also think most people could work it out given enough time. I’m not sure what to think really. I don’t think specific weapon training really fits with everything else ingame.
Other than occasionally getting it stuck in an enemy or missing, pretty perfectly. And the accuracy improves through using the skill, no special books required. Techniques are just bonuses or special moves, they don’t actually grant the ability to use the weapon.
I think throwing weapons should be treated like any other weapon, make them reasonably accessible and improve with use, but balanced enough that they aren’t the obvious best choice. For now, that probably means making it so you can’t oneshot a brute with a throwing knife when you can’t do that with a .50 cal.
That’s not done anywhere else, and I don’t think it’s really necessary.
Putting all kinds of efforts into making it require training seems foolish, they aren’t swords that you can use in specific ways to achieve special goals, you throw something and it hits or it doesn’t. That’s handled perfectly by the throwing skill, it clearly just needs a bit more emphasis on having them do a reasonable amount of damage, or like I suggested earlier, being more of a strategic tool rather than an actual killing weapon.
Slings ARE different to throwing, so I’d say we should put those aside for now. If, later on, a book on ancient rock slinging gets added and it becomes the only recipe source for a sling, staff sling, and whatever else, that would be fine by me.
At the end of the day, slings and throwing weapons aren’t as practical as guns, melee or even bows, so it’s not really worth putting all that much effort into them. As long as we can make sure they have reasonable damage and accuracy, so they can be useful without being over-competitive, that should be enough.