Welcome to Guidance, Private Sanctuary’s source for tips and techniques for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, written by Everyman Gamer Alexander Augunas. Today, we’re going to be talking about slings.

There are a lot of weapons in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, but none seem to have a wackier array of rules than ranged weapons. Don’t believe me? Well, let’s start by looking at melee weapons.

Melee weapons are split into three categories (simple, martial, exotic) and have three levels of handedness (light, one-handed, two-handed). All melee weapons have a special rule where if you wield the weapon in two hands, you get to use 1-1/2 times your Strength bonus on damage rolls.

Pretty easy, right? Now, let’s compare that to ranged weapons.

Ranged weapons are split into three categories (simple, martial, exotic) and have three levels of handedness (light, one-handed, two-handed). Ranged weapons also have two distinct categories, which determines how the weapon actually strikes at range (ammunition and thrown). Now, each of those two categories has its own special rules; specifically, ammunition weapons typically can be drawn as a free action but usually gain no damage bonuses from ability scores while thrown weapons are drawn like any other weapon, but they get a Strength bonus on their damage rolls. And then, of course, we have special rules for loading ammunition weapons, which differ from weapon group to weapon group (i.e. the rules for loading bow aren’t the same as the rules for loading a sling, which aren’t the same as the rules for loading a crossbow despite both weapons being simple weapons). And this, of course, is before we start talking about magic ranged weapons versus magical ammunition, or composite longbows (which the typical Strength bonus rule), and oh my glob, there’s so much to remember!

I’ve already done an article talking about firearms because they’re relatively new and people love to attack that category of weapon from a design perspective. Today, I want to talk about a category of weapon that no one ever talks about. A category of weapon that gets almost no support despite being one of the most important weapons of the prehistoric era, plus the favored weapon of one of the game’s core races. That’s right, folks. Today we’re looking at the sling!

Basic Statistics

Let’s talk about the basics in regards to slings. Here we go:

• There are two basic categories of sling: the sling itself, plus the sling staff (sometimes called the halfling sling staff, where it functions as a racial weapon for halflings). Other supplements have added a few other types of sling over the years, but these two are the core slings.
• Slings are simple weapons, meaning just about every class in the game is proficient with them. Sling staves, on the other hand, are exotic weapons that require the Exotic Weapon Proficiency: sling staves feat in order to use. If you’re a halfling, however, you treat the sling staff as a martial weapon instead of an exotic weapon.
• Slings and sling staves are considered thrown weapons despite requiring ammunition. As a result, you get to add your Strength bonus on damage rolls with slings by default.
• Loading a sling or a sling staff requires two hands. Firing it requires one hand. Loading a sling or a sling staff is a move action that provokes attacks of opportunity.
• A sling staff can be used as a club.

Arrows to Bolts to (Stone) Bullets

Let’s do some comparisons.

• Shortbow Damage: 1d6/x3
• Longbow Damage: 1d8/x3
• Light Crossbow Damage: 1d8/19-20×2
• Heavy Crossbow Damage: 1d10/19-20×2
• Sling Damage: 1d4/x2
• Sling Staff Damage: 1d8/x2

So in a nutshell

• Slings have the worse damage and critical threat range of any of the ammunition weapons listed here, but they get an ability score added to their damage roll by default. In order to get this with a bow, you need to pay extra for a composite longbow and tolerate the plethora of additional rules that goes along with drawing the weapon and whatnot.
• Sling Staves deal damage that is comparable to a longbow with the range increment of a crossbow. Their critical threat range is the worse of any weapon listed, however. Sling staves get their Strength bonus on damage rolls for free and don’t need to fiddle around with the strength of the bow or whatnot. Sling Staves also count as a melee weapon, so you technically threaten while wielding one, which is cool. As a downside, you need a feat to gain proficiency with a slingstaff unless you’re a halfling.
• All slings require an action to load, and unlike crossbows they can’t be selected with the Rapid Reload feat. This aspect of using the sling isn’t easily mitigated, as a matter of fact. Halflings of Golarion provides a feat called Juggle Load that is essentially a two-feat progression to give you what Rapid Reload does while a racial trait from the Advanced Player’s Guide called warslinger that allows a halfling to reload a sling as a free action. This is all well and good, but neither of these feats interacts with the halfling sling staff at all. You know, that weapon that you’re expected to pay a feat to use.

So overall, slings suffer hard from being simple weapons. Additionally, their exotic form doesn’t really have much extra “oomph” to it save acting as a club in melee, allowing you to threaten squares with the sling staff.

A Bleak Outlook

When I reviewed firearms, I had the pleasure of referring to a specific class that made all of firearms’ problems go away in a snap. Well folks, I’m sorry to say that this won’t happen for the sling. To date, the sling doesn’t have anything that lessens any of these monumental penalties to bring it a bit up to snuff. You’re stuck with an exotic weapon that you can’t make full attacks with and a simple weapon that has 1d4 damage with nothing truly extraordinary to make it worth using. I dug through all my supplements and I wasn’t able to find very much sling support; in terms of feats, here’s what I’ve got:

• Ammo Drop (HoG): Load one bullet into a sling or double sling as a swift action. Prerequisite for Juggle Load.
• Arc Slinger (UC): Reduce penalties on ranged attack rolls due to range increments by 2. Point Blank Shot’s damage bonus applies within the sling or sling staff’s first range increments (50 or 80 feet) instead of just 30 feet.
• Juggle Load (HoG): Can reload a sling or double sling as a free action, essentially allowing you to full attack with a sling.
• Sling Flail (UC): Can make attacks with a loaded sling as if it were a flail instead of a ranged weapon.
• Whip Slinger (HoG): Threaten adjacent squares with a sling, double sling, or sling staff , but damage dealt is nonlethal instead of lethal. Plus, –4 penalty on attack rolls if the sling isn’t loaded.

So what we ultimately end up seeing are feats that allow you to do okay stuff with slings that typically don’t have many prerequisites (a positive). With a significant feat investment, you can reload a sling and shoot it as fast as a bow, but you can’t do the same with the sling staff, which is a weapon that requires a feat in and of itself. Arc Slinger is probably the best feat listed, as it is the only one that allows the sling to do something no other range weapon can do, even if its only doubling a +1 bonus on damage rolls to +2.

So, what’s my final verdict? Slings are a very thematic choice, but ultimately they don’t hold up. Like many simple weapons with overbearing restrictions, they simply don’t have the support to make them viable. Which, of course, isn’t going to stop me from trying in one of the 2015’s Iconic Designs! But until then, I have nothing else to say about slings. What do you think? Did I miss something here, or is the outlook for slings as grim and dour as I’ve implied. Have you ever tried to optimize the sling? How’d it go for you? Leave your answers and comments below, and I’ll see you next week for another random article!

Alexander “Alex” Augunas has been playing roleplaying games since 2007, which isn’t nearly as long as 90% of his colleagues. Alexander is an active freelancer for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and is best known as the author of the Pact Magic Unbound series by Radiance House. Alex is the owner of Everyman Gaming, LLC and is often stylized as the Everyman Gamer in honor of Guidance’s original home. Alex’s favorite color is blue, his favorite Pathfinder Race/Class combination is kitsune stoneslinger, which is a gunslinger archetype that I’ve always wanted to write, but never got around to.