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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Blow Leprechaun" data-source="post: 3576179" data-attributes="member: 52540">No, my answer was if you mindlessly walk towards the spiked chain wielder, knowing he'll mow you down when you try, that's dumb.You have to remember, the PC most likely to be able to do this is a Fighter (I suppose a wizard build to do this might be interesting to keep people away from you, but good luck winning those trip attempts with much regularity).But this isn't your only job as a Fighter - you've got a lot of responsibility to take attention away from the monsters and keep them from eating your less melee-able companions. What do I do as a spiked chain wielder if they ignore me and destroy my companions? If they spread out, I can't keep them all busy, and with my reduced damage capacity (sure you get an extra attack, but that initial trip attack doesn't do any damage now, does it?) I'm less able to crunch those enemies and keep them away from my wizard, or my rogue, or my cleric.The synergy with Combat Reflexes is great, but every reach weapon achieves the exact same effect when combined with this. That's one of the major uses of the feat. Without a reach weapon, it's a pretty silly feat to take - not useless, but not all that useful, either.I just had a fight last session where a monster was able to close with me because of my responsibilities to keep the rest of the party alive. I could have 5' adjusted back after my attack to make the skulk provoke an AOO again, but doing so would have almost definitely gotten the rogue killed.My point is that monsters need tactics, too. If a sorcerer has just nailed a group of monsters with a fireball, they sure as heck shouldn't all stand together in a mob anymore - they should spread out and take that tactic away from the sorcerer, just like infantry facing cannon don't cluster together. DMs need to stop being lazy and tactically deny the spiked chain wielder their benefits.I could almost exactly emulate the abilities of a spiked chain by having armor spikes and wielding a guisarme (all I'd lose is a +2 to disarm) - and I wouldn't even need to spend a feat on an Exotic Weapon Proficiency. I'd even have a better crit multiplier! Would that be cheesy, or just powergaming?</blockquote>

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