I'm making a dedicated, from-the-beginning melee character for the first time and I was wondering about how thrown weapons fit into the game. I mean this in an extremely holistic sense; throwing weapons in Fallout straight-up confuse me. What're they affected by? Melee and/or unarmed skill? Can they be used as solid, reliable source of damage at level 50? I mean, I have doubts about this, seeing as how they're both much harder to find than grenades, and have a much more difficult time actually hitting targets.

In every playthrough I've completed thus far, I've used the first 10 spears that I get in the Tribal pack in the beginning (I think that that's where they come from) and never pick up or buy another throwing weapon. I don't know, have any of you used throwing weapons from start to finish?

Nope. They're much more a novelty toy than an actual weapon. Their scarcity makes it unideal to rely on them. I mostly collect throwing knives and leave them in the Lucky 38.

The only real reason to use them is to poison targets from a distance. But even that is impractical.