Any DM's not allowing Spiked Chains?

[NilesB]

The only problem I have with the spiked chain is that compared to other exotic weapons, it offers too much.

The problem is that most exotic weapons are worthless, not that some characters might want to wield a spiked chain.

Let's look at them:
Kama: oh look a sickle, I'm paying a feat to refer to my simple weapon by it's Japanese name.

nunchaku: it's a light version of the flail, except it can't trip.

Sai: a dagger with a worse crit range and a bonus to disarming that it's size make utterly pointless

Siangham: a shortsword, with no edge and a worse crit range.

Bastard sword: a slightly better longsword, worth maybe half a feat.

Waraxe, dwarven: see bastard sword, save that Dwarves get it free, because the designers realized what a small benefit it was.

Whip: it doesn't threaten an area, provokes an AoO to use, and can't damage 95+% of foes, still better than half the other exotic weapons.

Double Weapons: an average of +1 damage on your offhand attacks in return for a lot of flexibility, meh.

Bolas: hey look now you can trip people to far away to hit when they're down, at least it does something not easily replicated by better martial or simple weapons unlike many of the rest of the list.

Crossbow, hand: outperformed by pretty much all the simple ranged weapons, sad.

Crossbow, repeating heavy: if you can afford the encumbrance and cost of this you can do better with a mighty composite longbow.

Crossbow, repeating light: Like a regular longbow, but with less range, more weight, and you have to stop shooting every few rounds to put a new clip in.

Net: Basically a worse tanglefoot bag.

Shuriken: if they weren't exotic people might carry some as a backup backup ranged weapon, otherwise just buy quickdraw instead.

 

[Destil]

I've banned the spiked chain as well as the kukri for flavor reasons in my Eberron game. I want forward swept blades as drow exclusive weapons, thus they get the kukri, scythe chain (spiked chain), shotel and Xen'Drik boomerang.

Back in Khorvair I allow a ball and chain:

Ball and Chain: Large Exotic Weapon. 1d10 bludgon damage.

Ball and chain: A ball and chain has reach, so you can strike opponents 10 feet away with it. You can take a move action to 'choke up' on the chain, allowing you to strike adjecent opponents with it instead of using it as a reach weapon. It takes a second move action to bring the chain back to where you can strike again with reach.

You can make trip attacks with the ball and chain. If you are tripped during your own trip attempt, you can drop the chain to avoid being tripped.

You can use the Weapon Finesse feat to apply your Dexterity modifier instead of your Strength modifier to attack rolls with a ball and chain, even if it it isn’t a light weapon for you. You must have at least 15 strength to do so.

 

[molonel]

That's a good analysis of the Exotic Weapon Proficiencies, NilesB.

With a few exceptions - like the Spiked Chain - I give out Exotic Weapon Proficiency feats in my campaigns for free, and I _still_ can't get people to wield them.

Most of them just plain suck.

 

[hong]

Kama: oh look a sickle, I'm paying a feat to refer to my simple weapon by it's Japanese name.

Sai: a dagger with a worse crit range and a bonus to disarming that it's size make utterly pointless

Siangham: a shortsword, with no edge and a worse crit range.

These three are basically there for the monk to flurry with. For anyone else, they might as well not exist.

Bastard sword: a slightly better longsword, worth maybe half a feat.

It's a katana, mang! That alone is worth 10,000 feats. And a tank.

 

[Celebrim]

The problem is that most exotic weapons are worthless, not that some characters might want to wield a spiked chain.

There is alot of truth to that on multiple levels. Let me hit it from a couple of angles, to see how many ring true.

1) In the real world, often a weapon is 'exotic' (here meaning rare) precisely because it was hard to use, clumsy, and not very effective. If it hadn't been hard to use, clumsy, and not very effective, then more people would have used it and we wouldn't think of it as exotic.

2) The exotic weapon list wasn't chosen for any sort of good reason. It's poor inflexible design IMO. What's exotic in one culture is often ordinary in another. Often as not, the 'exotic' weapons are just some other cultures name for a variation on a weapon which isn't 'exotic'. The name is more 'exotic' (here meaning foreign) than the weapon is. It seems to me that either every culture should get a list of a couple 'exotic' weapons which are unique to that culture (a cultural weapon package), or else none of them should and we should just admit that besides minor differences in appearance they are basically the same weapon regardless of the language used.

3) The weapon list doesn't really reflect how much time a person must spend to acquire proficiency in the weapon. If it did, the longbow and the sling would certainly be on the 'exotic' (here meaning difficult) weapon list. Both weapons (if weapon stats were based on realism) would be either worth the feat, or else would appear in some of the most highly sought out/often taken 'cultural weapon packages'.

4) Alot of times the only reason the weapon is on the 'exotic' weapon list is because its mechanically superior to some other weapon. The problem here is that the 'exotic' (here meaning superior) weapon typically isn't so superior as to be worth a feat, since at best it tends to give you about a half to 3/4's of a feat worth of advantage (+1 damage or something).

 

[Moon-Lancer]

imho, the only weapons exotic weapon prof are the spiked chain, the fullblade, the large halbreds with reach (and other little nifty things like triping and doing slashing and pearceing) and possibly the elven line of weapons although they are a tad weak.

 

[Legildur]

The problem is that most exotic weapons are worthless, not that some characters might want to wield a spiked chain.

Let's look at them:
......

Don't forget that the crossbows can be used from the prone position - which provides a bonus to AC against ranged attacks.

The bolas is an odd one. I have a disarm/trip optimised spiked chain wielder in The World's Largest Dungeon. The funny thing is, the times I get to use the most AOOs and trip attempts is when fellow party members have failed a Will save and are attempting to flee! He also carries a bolas (no EWP feat) as an emergency, and he even used it successfully once to bring down our fleeing dwarf fighter (didn't want to have to chase him across the dungeon after the fight). Mind you, the -4 attack penalty for non-proficiency is moot when you look at the touch AC of a heavy-armor clad dwarf fighter....

And I'll second Hong's point about kama/siangham/nunchuka/shuriken available to monks and their Flurry of Misses (TM) ability.

PS Loved your analysis of the Kama!

 

[molonel]

Don't forget that the crossbows can be used from the prone position - which provides a bonus to AC against ranged attacks.

That, unfortunately, is pretty typical of the non-advantage advantages that he's talking about.

"Oh look! If I'm hopping on one foot and picking my nose at the same time while I swing the doohickey, I get a +1 AC bonus while fighting on the defensive! Yay!"

 

[NilesB]

These three are basically there for the monk to flurry with. For anyone else, they might as well not exist.

By that logic the quarterstaff should be super-duper exotic.

It's a katana, mang! That alone is worth 10,000 feats. And a tank.

Bah, katana are one handed not hand and a half swords. (compare the lengths and weights of katana and one handed/ hand and a half weapons from other regions museum catalogs if you don't believe me.) The Japanese just used them two handed because they had an irrational disregard for the value of shields.

 

[NilesB]

1) In the real world, often a weapon is 'exotic' (here meaning rare) precisely because it was hard to use, clumsy, and not very effective. If it hadn't been hard to use, clumsy, and not very effective, then more people would have used it and we wouldn't think of it as exotic.

I think you are confusing unsuitability for formation fighting with utter worthlessness here.