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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Storm Raven" data-source="post: 2548892" data-attributes="member: 307">The disarm bonus is useless against anything with natural weapons, which make up a relatviely large proportion of the opponents most adventurers face. The trip capability is not particularly useful against a wide array of opponents: quadrupeds, flyers, Large or bigger opponents (who are usually also quite strong), and so on and so forth.Sure, the increased critical threat range is not useful against undead, constructs, and anything else immune to critical hits, but then the low base damage dice hurts the spiked chain. In any event, looking at the chart for martial two-handed weapons, the standard tradeoff is one step of damage die, critical threat range, or critical multiplier equals one special. The spiked chain works like this:Take a glaive (1d10/20 x3, reach).Reduce its damage die and add a disarm bonus (2d4, 20 x3, reach, +2 disarm).Reduce its criticial multiplier and add a trip ability (2d4, 20 x2, reach, +2 disarm, trip).Require that it take a feat to use, and give it the reach and close ability (2d4, 20 x2, reach and close, +2 disarm, trip).At this point you pretty much have a spiked chain, and the trade-offs have been standard down the line for other polearms. You can make this sort of evolution for any two-handed martial weapon and convert it to any other two handed martial weapon.I know I left off the finessability of the chain, but that's an almost trivial issue. In point of fact, you could make virtually any weapon finessable and not have it affect game balance at all, since finessing a weapon requires a feat to do to begin with. And in the case of the spiked chain, finessing it compounds its primary drawback (low damage) since you are likely not getting any significant additional Strength based damage, a serious drawback when you are using a two-handed weapon.</blockquote>

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