D&D 3E/3.5 Is the spiked chain too good? (3.5)

[Darklone]

How many of the guys who think the Spiked Chain is overpowered allow feats such as "Haft Strike" for polearms? With that feat, you can use most of the PHB polearms even more effectively than the Chain, except for the Weapon Finesse (and most really bad Chain twinks don't need the Finesse since they have high strength for trips and damage).

Btw: The last Chain twink I saw in a PBeM died because two ftr/rog or bbn/rog dudes tumbled into flanking position and sneak attacked him to death... pretty fast. He tripped one of them with his attacks, but the damage was too low to take them out... (the greatsword dude next to him survived because he killed one of his opponents and then some nice level 4 Bard nicely cast a Blur on him, so no sneak attacks in the next rounds... who said bards are useless???).

He rolled well at the trip check but bad at the Impr. trip extra attack. More luck might have saved him... but well.

The chain is nice, sneak attack is nice, scorching ray is nice... But none of them is unbalanced if your DM holds his sacred hands over the game. IMHO.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I would certainly concede that if the DM likes to throw up troublesome numbers of dangerous Medium humanoids, a spiked chain looks like the optimal choice.

It is still ambiguous to me whether that means that the spiked chain is overpowered. I can see evidence both ways.

My own POV may be skewed because I have played more with larger parties, which makes it easier for the PCs to carve a good tactical position on the battlefield.