Big Stab

In this post we compared a longbow to a pistol.

What about a spear?

A thrown spear does thr+3 for damage.  A ST 17 character throwing a spear will do 1d+5 damage, or 2d+1 imp.  That's 3-13 rolled, 6-26 delivered on an unarmored opponent.  Averages of 8 and 16 respectively.

The huge advantage a bow has is much longer range!  17 vs 250 yards for 1/2D.

Using something like a woomera to launch your spear ups the range to 25 yards and changes the damage to swing+3 imp.  ST 17 swing damage is 3d-1!

3d+2 imp is 5-20 rolled and 10-40 delivered with 12 and 24 averaged.