Spiked Chain - AKA "The Cheese Whip"

[Vegepygmy]

Lots of people have problems with the spiked chain, and there is a lot to consider.

Hmmm. I have never seen the spiked chain be any sort of "problem."

So, what would you do to fix this thing?

First, someone would have to convince me that it needs to be fixed.

 

[Dandu]

Hmmm. I have never seen the spiked chain be any sort of "problem."

Ok, to be fair, there are games where monks are considered overpowered.

 

[Drowbane]

The issue with the spiked chain is when you get very enlarged fighters wielding it with great cleave to take out the entirety of the enemy force in one round via the leap attack/pouncing feats.


This isn't the spiked chain's fault. The spiked chain is fine.

Eh, Fighters should be able to have nice things. What you describe above could have happened just as easily with the words "Empowered, Widened, Fireball". Fighters doing their thing is not an issue, and neither are the Spiked Chains stats, its that the spikes make the damn thing impossible to use without DR. With a flail weapon, when you hit a hard surface (shield, piece of cover like a tree or wall, or somebody's head) it rebounds... I suppose thats where the Exotic tag comes from.

 

[Greenfield]

A problem?

Enlarge Person on Fighter type with Improved Trip, a good strength, and Combat Reflexes.

There is a 50 foot wide circle on the battlefield where nothing moves without that guy's permission.

But the flaw there is with Improved Trip and size mods. To pull that combo off, you need Weapons Expertise, Improved Trip, Combat reflexes and Exotic Weapon Proficiency. It's a four feat chain/combo, and in my opinion it *should* be a powerful set. You paid for that power.

It makes the fighter a pain for unimaginative DMs to deal with, but that's an issue with DM's who can't think of having a monster switch to missile weapons, or using Tumble skill. Or using any of the fifty or so spells that will neutralize the combo.

Even so, lots of people won't allow the Spiked Chain in their game.

 

[Vegepygmy]

A problem?

Enlarge Person on Fighter type with Improved Trip, a good strength, and Combat Reflexes.

There is a 50 foot wide circle on the battlefield where nothing moves without that guy's permission.

Or cover.

And is that really a "problem?" A character with a very particular skill set, who finds himself in an extremely specific terrain condition unlikely to occur very often, who must be buffed by a spellcaster or have access to a particular magic item, and renders himself especially vulnerable to ranged attacks?

As Dandu suggests, there are campaigns where such things may be seen as a "problem," I suppose. I've just never seen it myself.

 

[Sekhmet]

[MENTION=23396]Drowbane[/MENTION] I'm cool with the stats on the chain. It hasn't really caused any issues for my groups.

Although, I'd really like it to be a polearm instead of a spiked chain. The thing just looks stupid and unusable, especially when we consider the whirlwind/multiple attacks per round idea.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

A problem?

Enlarge Person on Fighter type with Improved Trip, a good strength, and Combat Reflexes.

There is a 50 foot wide circle on the battlefield where nothing moves without that guy's permission.

And a spellcaster can easily make a 40 ft wide zone where nothing moves, except he can do it from FAR away and not actually put himself in harm's way, and comparing the # of spell slots to feat slots he has vs. the fighter, do so for a lower resource cost.

 

[Drowbane]

I'm cool with the stats on the chain. It hasn't really caused any issues for my groups.

Although, I'd really like it to be a polearm instead of a spiked chain. The thing just looks stupid and unusable, especially when we consider the whirlwind/multiple attacks per round idea.

Agreed. Fluffed as a polearm would be cool.

 

[Dandu]

A problem?

Enlarge Person on Fighter type with Improved Trip, a good strength, and Combat Reflexes.

There is a 50 foot wide circle on the battlefield where nothing moves without that guy's permission.

You get the same effect with Spiked Armor and a Guisarme. Does that both you?

 

[Greenfield]

Actually, I've seen that scene, and heard the DM gripe.

I was the one running the fighter/ranger/wiz with the chain.

I've had to educate a few DMs about the limits of the combo as well. It's powerful when the DM is running swarms of lower level critters, but many don't realize that, because the combo requires four feats and a class dip, it's expensive. One was particularly shocked to find the feats the character *didn't* have, things he expected any fighter type of his level to have. I explained the obvious: If I spend four feats for that combo, it's four feats he doesn't have to spend on things like Spring Attack, Whirlwind Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave, etc. etc.

You could see the light dawning in his eyes as things finally clicked: If you trade for a powerful thing, you have to trade *something* to get it.

So I don't personally think that the spiked chain is a broken weapon, but I've heard so many gripes about it that I thought I'd ask people how they might un-break it.

Hence this thread.