Is the Spiked Chain Fighter really that Cheesy?

[wildstarsreach]

Let us look at situations. In Kill Bill #1, you have the chain fight who was effective until the hero penetrates her range and kills her. A chain fighter is unique and powerful. My Ninja with his Kusari-gama and combat reflexes effective but not necessarily great. There are limitations but there are advantages as well.

Some of the pictures of chains are more idealized than practical. The pictures of chains may influence people that they can't work. They can and do with they proper visualizations.

 

[wildstarsreach]

In the hands of a specialist, tripping is a highly efficient means of dealing with melee-oriented Medium humanoids. The downside of this route is you are investing 3 or more feats on a tactic that is suboptimal for almost everything else.

IME this is a balanced trade off -- Medium humanoids may be the most common style of opponent, but I see plenty of critters that laugh it off thrown into the mix. I can easily imagine campaigns where this is overpowered or underpowered, based on the opponent mix.

I do not see this as a fundamentally different problem than Favored Enemy -- whether it is awesome or crappy or somewhere in between depends on the style of campaign.

The tactic is very effective in a cooperative party that has their tactics down well.

 

[Plane Sailing]

In reference to your arguments, check out the two pictures in Heroes of Horror in regards to the Tainted Minion and Tainted Reaver. These illustrations show a reasonable (at least in terms of fantasy) depiction of a spiked chain in action. For those without access to the book, two large rings act as handhold with a regular chain between them. On the other end of each of these handholds is the spiked part of the chain.

The tainted reaver is quite an interesting picture actually - you can see that his left hand is actually gripping a spiked part of the chain (beyond the ring), and that there is blood coming off his hand!

 

[Moon-Lancer]

well he does look the crazy type does he not?

He is probably enjoying it.

 

[Stalker0]

Go with knight 3/fighter X for spiked chain love.

PC approached Cheeser, and gets tripped. Next round he stands up, provoking an AOO. Because of the knight ability, if he tries to move forward or back you get another AOO. Trip again, or just wail on him. If he gets closer to him, on your move take a 5 foot step back. Guess what? Your opponent CANNOT take a 5 foot step (as he is in difficult terrain due to the knight ability). So he moves toward you, taking another AOO, and only gets 1 attack because he had to move and not take a 5 foot step. Rinse and repeat.

Granted, most of this can be done with any reach weapon, but the Spiked Chain takes it up a notch.

If your going to use a spiked chain guy against your party, use one of them and a raging barb and watch the party sweat. Being prone is bad, being prone when the barb gets an extra +8 damage due to power attack (the +4 to attack = +8 damage with same to hit chance), and things get a hairy.


Oh...and I'm a Taki man myself

 

[hong]

Oh...and I'm a Taki man myself

It's the nipples, isn't it?

 

[Darklone]

Spiked chain dudes:
Well, some time ago I built a two man team, one spiked chain dude and a bloodsorcerer. The chainman was supposed to keep the enemies from the sorcerer who blasted everything away.

Read my sigged short story if you want to know how it ended.

 

[Stalker0]

It's the nipples, isn't it?

Came in for the nipples, stayed for the speed, the combos, and the look when you counterattack every move an opponent makes.

 

[UnsocialEntity]

If you want a chain fighter that's strong, ignore all the tripping nonsense. Tripping is useful in a group to control the battle, but I know you're looking for something to inspire true fear in your party, right..?

So we want a goliath (+1 LA) that's 6/1/2 fighter/barb/crusader. Take the dungeonscape "dungeoncrasher" fighter alternative, knockback feat, spiked chain feat (duh), combat reflexes, barbarian alternative feature for pounce, shock trooper. Maybe improved initiative so you can get a high initiative and ensure a charge. Not like you won't have a crapload of feats from fighter. Oh and feel free to take whirlwind frenzy rage variant from unearthed arcana for one extra attack.

With dungeoncrasher and knockback, you're bullrushing them into walls/trees/etc (direct the bullrush to a wall perfectly with shocktrooper), and causing weapon damage plus 8d6 + 3 x str. With pounce from barbarian and the ridiculous reach of a large spiked chain, you should be able to charge and slam a low str/AC character into the wall a few times... If you manage to slam them 3 times on the charge, just with dungeoncrasher alone you'd cause 24d6 + 9 x str. Don't forget to use heedless charge from shock trooper to keep your attack high even while power attacking for the full 10 BAB.

Anyways, on top of all this, you added crusader for a reason. You'll be able to grab thicket of blades stance at crusader 2, so if someone even tries to make a 5 foot step adjustment within your considerable threat range, you're slamming them in the face.

If you fear casters, feel free to add in the feat mage slayer, so that all the casters in your threat range can't cast defensively too.

Anyways, be careful with that build, because if you focus on one PC you're gonna drop them. If the goliath has a buddy like a cleric or wizard that can buff him up, it gets even more ridiculous.

Have fun with the goliath face hunter.

 

[Bagpuss]

Go with knight 3/fighter X for spiked chain love.

PC approached Cheeser, and gets tripped. Next round he stands up, provoking an AOO. Because of the knight ability, if he tries to move forward or back you get another AOO. Trip again, or just wail on him. If he gets closer to him, on your move take a 5 foot step back. Guess what? Your opponent CANNOT take a 5 foot step (as he is in difficult terrain due to the knight ability). So he moves toward you, taking another AOO, and only gets 1 attack because he had to move and not take a 5 foot step. Rinse and repeat.

Erm he used a move action to get up and another to move towards you so he doesn't even get the single attack.

He could however take a 5ft step back, or withdraw without problems since the difficult terrain penalties only apply for the square you are entering not leaving.

Granted, most of this can be done with any reach weapon, but the Spiked Chain takes it up a notch.

It can't with a normal reach weapon you don't threaten adjacent squares so they don't count as difficult terrain, so he can take a 5ft step towards you because you only suffer terrain penalties for squares you enter while moving.

The only problem with a Knight build as I've mentioned it to three GM's I play with, and they all think a knight taking an AoO on an opponent getting off the floor is sort of going against the Knight's Code, and taking a cheap shot at a guy when he isn't ready to fight.

If you are using the Knight build then you want that feat in PHB2 that lets you take an AoO against an opponent that doesn't move. So if they move you get an AoO because even a 5ft step is a 10ft move due to your Bullwark of Defense, and if they don't move you get and AoO from that feat.