Is throwing a ball improvised?

Question

My character bought a toy wooden ball for it to be thrown. The ball cannot bounce nor can it be kicked, its purpose is to be thrown. In game my character threw the ball with the intent of dealing nonlethal damage. I took a -4 penalty for throwing the ball because I didn't have the feat "Throw anything" and it was considered an improvised thrown weapon.

I argued that it is a ball meant to be thrown, like a baseball, and is not an improvised thrown weapon because that is its function. What are the rules for this?

Answer 1

It's an improvised weapon.

It's not improvised in the sense that it's not designed to be thrown, but it IS improvised in the sense that a wooden toy ball is not a weapon. You take a penalty when trying to use things that are not designed to be weapons as weapons, even when you're only trying to do nonlethal damage, unless you've got a special ability (like the Throw Anything feat) which says otherwise. A baseball would be an improvised thrown weapon too, if you were trying to deal damage with it.

This has no bearing on how proficient you are with the item in its intended use. You could earn a living by taking the skill Profession (baseball player) and be very good at throwing a ball in that context, even though such a skill is no help in throwing a ball in combat. In much the same way, the Profession (lumberjack) skill makes you great at cutting down trees with an axe, but does not help you when it comes to fighting monsters with an axe (not even tree monsters).

As a final note, even if you had a ball which was designed to be used as a weapon, it would not be improvised, but you would still have to be proficient with it as a weapon to avoid the -4 nonproficiency penalty. If your GM ruled it an exotic or martial weapon, getting that proficiency is probably not worth it.

Answer 2

ruled by the spirit of the game, rather than rules as written, an NPC that is proficient with an object or weapon in the narrative, is defacto proficient in game. Sticklers would vote the opposite. To them I simply remind them of the World of Darkness Pope that was declared an Antediluvian because he was fluent in too many languages for a human by core rules.

In other words, core rules be damned. Play Ball!