ToME Wiki
Editorial
MrConceit: This skill is basically broken in my opinion. Or rather boomerangs themselves are. You can't do any kind of effective damage with boomerangs after the very start of the game. I would never pump this skill up, ever. You really just wield a boomerang (after the beginning), if it is an artifact (or more rarely ego) that has good pluses to stats/speed or resistances.
Derakon: Boomerangs do not use ammo and can have any ego ability that a basic melee weapon can, but they have a short range and no damage multipliers. All other missile weapons have higher range and give damage multipliers; however, they use ammo. Disregarding all issues of realism (the path in flight shouldn't be so linear; you should have to pick the boomerang up again if it hits something; etc), boomerangs really just don't fit with the normal concept of a missile weapon in ToME.
Some thoughts for fixing this:
- First, dump the broad range of ego abilities they can get. Sure, they're a mage's best friend, but they still don't make sense unless you want to also give those abilities to normal launchers (e.g. a Light Crossbow of Westernesse or a Freezing Sling).
- Second, up their base damage dice so they effectively have a built-in x1.5 or x2 multiplier; basically, the minimum you could get from using a different missile weapon untrained (e.g. an iron shot from a sling is a 2d4 weapon, but a small wooden boomerang is 1d4).
- Third, make the Boomerang-Mastery skill give you extra multipliers on your damage. I don't know if it does this already, though.
- Fourth, make all boomerangs unbreakable. Losing ammo for other launchers is fairly reasonable, largely because the ammo itself doesn't do much for you. But losing a launcher when you use it is bad, and because it's so bad, nobody's willing to risk using them. This would be mitigated slightly if boomerangs came in stacks (in which case they'd essentially be launcherless ammo), and if they had a more restricted set of ego types.
PatekShoggot: In 2.3.4, I've been using the same randart boomerang from clvl 5-48, with very heavy use - haven't been counting, but at least several thousand uses. It reports as having a 1% chance to break, but hasn't (as yet). There's either some modifier to the break chance that's unreported, or perhaps the breakability of randart boomerangs is misreported?
LordEstraven: I think boomerangs are gone in 3.0. And good riddance.