[rant] Spiked Chains are for Power Gamer

[Elder-Basilisk]

It is simply not true that the chains' damage is substantially weaker, or lower. Several 2 handed weapons do 2d4.

Uh huh. Let's be precise: The falchion, the longspear (1d8 actually), the Ranseur, and the Guisarme do 2d4 damage. All of them have either x3 crits or, in the case of the falchion 18-20/x2.

Then again, they all deal pathetic dice damage for two handed weapons. They make up for it by being (in 3.5) the only simple reach weapon (longspear), by being martial weapons that can easily trip or disarm at range (Ranseur, Guisarme), or by having very good crit ranges (falchion).

Obviously having a lower crit range makes it potentially less powerful per blow than a bastard sword or a falchion, but critical hits happen only a few times per combat,

You've obviously never played with anyone wielding a keen (or imp crit--or, in 3.0 both) falchion. Such characters will usually crit every other round--and if they have both a keen weapon and improved crit, will often crit more than once per round.

whereas a weapon that threatens 24 squares (versus 16 or 8) will be dealing steady damage far more often than these other weapons with their mighty crits.

Nonsense. Generally a character will get just as many attacks and deal just as much "steady damage" with a guisarme or ranseur as with a spiked chain. (A character will deal more with a glaive. . ..) For most characters who use reach weapons, a five foot step is all it takes to get a full attack after taking the AoO on a closing foe.

Pound for pound, with or without Combat Reflexes, the Chain is at least as good but probably better than any other single weapon.

Not in my experience. IME, pound for pound, Greatsword, Longsword/battle axe/warhammer, Dwarven Waraxe/Bastard Sword, and Glaive (possibly Guisarme in 3.5) are the best weapons. Spiked chain ranks with the "nifty ideas that can be made to work if you put a lot of effort into it but suck otherwise" weapons.

Considering that the Chain is essentially a made-up weapon, its massive power relative to historical weapons appears to be the work of a power gamer. I'm glad to see that people's players view it for what it essentially is: the ultimate munchkin toy.

If you think the spiked chain is the ultimate munchkin toy, you've clearly never seen a well constructed greatsword or falchion wielding fighter/barbarian. If you think spiked chains deal damage, you ought to try a real weapon someday.

 

[Al]

Depends on the campaign, but I'd say that since I tend to run heavy humanoid opponent campaigns they are probably too powerful.

The base damage dice, at high level, is relatively trivial. Consider the difference between a spiked chain wielder and a greatsword wielder by 12th level. Both have +2 flaming weapons, 22 strength, and Greater Weapon Spec. The average damage for the spiked chain is 23.5, for the greatsword is 25.5. Even factoring in the crit multiplier differential, the greatsword scarcely does 3 or 4 more points, which at high level is relatively minimal. At high level, remember, the damage dice is clearly superseded by strength, magic and feats.

Trip is useful, particularly against spellcasters. It has some usage against archers, but they tend to have very high Dexterity scores. Against casters, however, it's magnificent. High-level casters can back off 30', suck up an AoO for 20 points or so, and then fire back a disintegrate for 100 or so. Not with trip! They fall in place, and risk either drawing an AoO followed by an extreme Concentration check or alternately casting on the defensive. Either way, you can launch into a full attack on a prone opponent.

Disarm, however, is of relatively small use due to the prevalence of locked gauntlets.

Reach is a wonderful tool, and the single reason why the spiked chain is overpowered is because of its unique threaten at 5' AND 10' ability. The spellcaster above could not back 5' away and cast since he would still be in a threatened zone- which against a traditional reach weapon is still possibly (since he moves from 10' away to 15' away). By moving to adjacent squares, the chain wielder negates the all-important 5' step. You can also really ruin an archer's day. They cannot hope to avoid an AoO if they wish to use their bow (by either 5' stepping or moving away), which may be another trip (rendering them unable to fire their bow) or a sunder (every archer's nightmare).

Spiked chains are too powerful because of the 5'/10' threatened area. The base damage dice is insignificant at high levels, and the expenditure of a single feat to the access of this ability is pheonemal. Ask yourself this- if there was a feat for the greatsword which allowed you to threaten at 10', trip and disarm, all at the cost of a -2 penalty to damage and halved threat range, would it be too powerful? Yes? Then so is the spiked chain.

 

[G.A. Donis]

My wife's character in Living Arcanis uses one. I haven't noticed it being all that powerful. Of course her fighter is quite weak (STR 9 if I remember correctly) so there's no add-on for strength. With combat reflexes and a high Dex she can attempt to trip (little weakling has a hard time following through with the trip) quite often. It usually doesn't take long for the bad guys to learn not to get to close to her when they are moving around.

edit: can't proof read to save my life.

 

[CrimsonTemplar]

In a home campaign, my DM asked me for a reasonable backstory as to why my character had one. I gave him 7 pages of backstory. I played that character for one whole game before we changed campaigns. I re-tooled him for LG where he'll get lost amongst the background noise of all the other spiked chain weilding PC's.

Can it be abused? Yeah. I've seen a Half-Orc Barb/Tribal Protector dish out obscene damage with one. Do I mind? No, because there are plenty of folks out there that are far more overpowering (e.g. - Half-Orc Barb with Rhino Hide Armor, Belt of Giant Strength +6, Keen Greataxe and Improved Crit, or a Hasted Elven Wizard/Fighter/Deepwood Sniper/Initiate of the Order of the Bow and a Holy Bow & mult pearls of power to refill his True Strikes). If someone wants to munchkin something, they will. Somethings are easier to do it with.

If you have problems with them & you're the DM, consider a few things:

1) Chains are metal. All manner of unpleasent things can be done to metal items.

2) Take your players good ideas and use them to their detriment. My old Shadowrun GM used to take our PC's after they dies or were retired and we'd later come across them as villians (sometimes with a new name & appearance, sometimes).

3) The Spiked Chain is a Piercing weapon. Skeletons and Zombies are fun low level monsters that have DR against piercing weapons. Templated variants of them are unpleasant at higher levels (e.g. - skeletal athach).

4) As was noted earlier, you can't disarm something with natural weapons & you can't trip something w/o legs.

5) Simply ban them. It's your game.

As a player if you can't stomach players who use them...don't play with them.

Just my $0.02

 

[Pielorinho]

One of my players uses one, and the weapon works well within her schtick. It's hardly overpowering.

The base damage dice, at high level, is relatively trivial. Consider the difference between a spiked chain wielder and a greatsword wielder by 12th level. Both have +2 flaming weapons, 22 strength, and Greater Weapon Spec. The average damage for the spiked chain is 23.5, for the greatsword is 25.5. Even factoring in the crit multiplier differential, the greatsword scarcely does 3 or 4 more points, which at high level is relatively minimal. At high level, remember, the damage dice is clearly superseded by strength, magic and feats.

They shouldn't both have Greater Weapon Spec: the spiked-chain wielder instead spent that feat on Exotic Weapon Prof. Or if they both have GWS, the greatsword fighter has another cool feat he can use.

And both the chain-wielder and the sword-wielder can trip the retreating wizard -- it's just that the chain wielder can use the chain to do it.

The worst fighter we've seen in any of our games was a seventh-level barbarian/fighter/tribal protector PC I made up to fill in for a session or two: that greatsword-wielder monster was insanely powerful, dishing out an average of 25-30 points of damage per hit when raging, and before any buff spells were cast on him.

Daniel

 

[Lord Ben]

I find the feat to be very powerful against certain things, and less powerful against other things. A nice balance IMHO. Against a hoarde of 12 goblins a spicked chain wielder in front will maul them very quickly. But that's cool, everyone should be good in certain situations. It's not overpowering, just good against hoardes of extras... So stick a Grey Render or some stone giants in and he'll be no better then anything else against it. Mass Charm from a high int, spell focus wizard against a hoard of Orc warriors is just as effective... no difference really.

 

[The Souljourner]

The only argument I've seen is that it screws up the "5' step back and do ranged attacks/spells" tactic, and if that's all the argument that people can come up with, that's fine by me. That's worth a feat, in my opinion. If you just wanted to do a lot of damage you'd use a greatsword, a falchion, or a scythe (depending on what you're looking for). The spiked chain is just a neat trick weapon.

Believe me, I played a high level rogue with combat reflexes and all that jazz, and couldn't really find a way to cheese out the spiked chain enough. I think people way over estimate its cheesiness.

-The Souljourner

 

[LokiDR]

The monofilament whip is balanced by being expensive, hideously difficult to acquire, and more blatantly illegal than most light machine guns. You can't use cyber, bio, or accessories to make the monowhip more effective (can't even make a weapon focus out of it), and it does static damage.

It is a lot cheaper than a tricked out deck or a combat wagon. Hard to aquire is a fighter jet. And everything a runner carries is illegal. The difference is that the monofiliment whip can be carried in the tip of your finger, so it is actually EASIER to get past scurity. As I recal, skill enhances work and you could specialize on the thing. The static damage works well if you have low strength.

And, there's that lovely mechanic that if you miss, you have to make a difficult Whips check if you don't want to suck down the impressive damage you tried to deal to your enemies.

Hmm, critical miss rules, static damage, blatant flag for security but concealable. Monofiliment whip == lightsaber

Like those other unique weapons, the spiked chain is another weapon with great style that can describe a character. I don't buy the 5'-10' threat is broken arguement. That would mean large monsters are overpowered, as is enlarge, rightous might and polymorph. You can build a great character around the weapon, but just adding the weapon to another character is not overwhelming in the least.

 

[TracerBullet42]

But what about those of us that chose a spiked chain as a weapon after seeing Kung Pow: Enter the Fist? I'm playing a fighter in a DL game who can't wait to get to the top of a waterfall and swing that chain, singing, "Swinging the chain....swinging the chain...swinging the chain."

Yeah, that'll be so sweet. Until someone comes along to kill him...with, like, a rock or something. A big stone....

 

[burnrate]

IN 3.5 the power level of the chain will certainly increase with the changes to being prone. Using improved trip backed by combat reflexes you can keep both 5' and 10' squares well covered. Add this in with the so many other points mentioned and I join the 'it's overpowered crowd'.