To my mind, the best way to play to the advantages of thrown weapons is to also play into mechanics that maximize the damage done with few attacks. While reasons could be thought of for each case, they would hardly make the character centered on throwing. However, the caster would have to want to throw the weapon more than to cast a spell, and etc.
Per this, a thrown weapon attack could be worked in while holding a two-handed weapon, before or after a grapple attempt, or as a way to leave a hand open for spellcasting. However, even within this limitation, thrown weapons have their own hidden benefit: they can be drawn and thrown using a single hand, and they leave that hand unoccupied after the attack. That thrown weapons cannot live up to a possible attack count is why strength-based characters prefer to make melee attacks and why ranged characters stick with ranged weapons.
For ranged weapons, this is the hidden benefit of the ammunition rule: while you have to draw an arrow, you also get to draw one. I think you're right about the major limitation on thrown weapons being their need to be drawn. and after all that we might be left wondering how often these kind of situations actually come up. Of course, they could always drop-and-draw, but then again they might want that crossbow back next round. For instance, a normally ranged character might wish they had specialized in daggers rather than hand crossbows when getting mobbed by a hostile crowd and facing all their attacks having disadvantage. To flip the "peripheral" benefit mentioned earlier, if the bias moves from melee to ranged attacks as the norm of a build, a thrown weapon has some nice utility as a melee weapon in situations where it might be less advantageous to make a ranged attack. Any such character might prefer a thrown weapon to a ranged weapon for their ranged attacks, but of course we're left with the question of why they might be making ranged attacks instead of melee attacks in the first place.Īnother advantage of melee thrown weapons is their attack flexibility. Dexterity is normally considered the more efficient stat, given its contribution to ubiquitous AC, but this is not necessarily the case for characters who have benefits to strength, who are built to emphasize strength-based tactics, or for whom the efficiency of dexterity is diminished (for instance, a barbarian, a grappler, or character wearing heavy armor). One advantage to melee thrown weapons is the ability to make a ranged attack with Strength rather than Dexterity.
So, let's see if there's something for throwing. Granted, all the same could be said of unarmed strikes, and yet there are still those one or two ways to make it your character's thing. After all, why would someone looking to focus on ranged attacks not use a weapon designed specifically for that rather than adapt one made for melee? I'll begin by saying that I've always thought of a ranged attack with a thrown weapon (hereafter called a "thrown weapon attack" with no mechanical import) as a peripheral option for melee characters who find themselves without a target in melee range (like a monk who draws and throws a dagger to keep their attack count up) or for any character looking to add some "cool" and efficiency to a weapon swap (like a barbarian who throws his two hand axes before going in with his greataxe the next round) - not at all as something to center a build around. Further, as thrown weapons can double as melee, require only a single hand, and leave that hand unburdened, thrown weapons give ranged Rogues several opportunities for a second delivery of Sneak Attack damage via an Opportunity Attack if they are built to allow for such complicated tactics. There is one character class in particular whose damage throughput is balanced around making relatively few attacks, but still with weapons, and that is the Rogue with its Sneak Attack ability. As a sort of in-between weapon, a thrown weapon has several advantages and disadvantages, but among them are the unique constraint on the number of attacks one can make and the unique feature of leaving the implementing hand unburdened.