Spiked Chain Fighter Rogue advice needed please

[Crothian]

3 foes approach you, a "boss" monster (#1) and two lackeys (#2 and #3). Fortunatly, you have Great Cleave, Combat Reflexes, Dex 14, and a spiked chain. When #1 comes within 10 feet, your readied attack kicks in. When they continue move into melee range, you take an AoO, but miss. Darn. #2 comes up, provoking an AoO, a solid hit. #3 comes up, provoking an AoO. you crit, killing the foe. You cleave into #2, killing it; you Great Cleave into #1, taking it down further. You then take your full attack, severely wounding #1. #1 turns to flee, triggering a killing AoO.

You suffer 2 hits, killing 3 monsters handily. Granted, it's an idealized situation, but it's so cool...

Who cares if it's ideal. If I go this character route, I'd mention this to my DM just so he'll put it in for me. Sure, it's contribed, but it is cool. And the other PCs wouldn't realize it was set up, so they would see the power of my guy.

Now, all I need is a game to play him in. The current one isn't ending anytime soon.

 

[Malin Genie]

Why not go for the Master of Chains PrC? The spiked-chain fighter in our campaign (also, strangely enough, a female) will be Ftr4/Rog2 when she qualifies. Current (Ftr2/Rog1) Feats Combat Reflexes, Weapon Focus (SC), Expertise, Improved Trip, Exotic Prof (SC.) With Str16 she is a threshing machine (and gets up to 3 AoOs/round.) The Master of Chains class abilities are very cool, and they get good skill points, too, unlike the fighter or weaponmaster.

 

[Grendel]

From a min/maxing point of view I would level differntly.

Rogue 1 is good for skill boost and a quick damage bonus (sneak attack)

But then I would concnetrate on Fighter to 4th, getting your feats early will be more beneficial than a few points of sneak attack. Those early rogue levels will hinder you spiked chain progression and offer only moderate gains in rogue skills. which you can quickly make up later.

 

[Kwyn]

Thanks for the replies folks.

As to the Master of Chains, I don't have ready access to that at home, but I'm not sure if it would provide the rogue skills necessary for me to continue to fill my role in the party. The party needs a rogue. Trying to tweak it with some decent melee ability is just my efforts to keep myself alive in a campaign where rogues die. Often. This might work for Greathouse though.

Same thing goes with Dwarven Defender. If a Prestige Class doesn't allow me to continue to hide, move silently, open locks and disable device, then it won't be a solution that is viable for my particular situation.

Thanks again for the advice!

I'll be starting at 5, so I'm not particularly worried about how I advance from 1-5 as long as it follows the rules. Perhaps going 2/3 rogue/fighter or 1/4 might be better than 3/2 though. I'll look into it.

 

[StealthyMark]

A Fighter/rogue is always fun to play, no matter, what's your main weapon choice. Dish out massive amounts of damage, trap handling, recon missions, social interaction...

Can't you count on your fellow mage to provide you with Darkvision?

 

[Cullain]

Here were the feats I had in mind

1 - Rogue 1 - Base feat - Spiked Chain
2 - Fighter 1 - Bonus feat - Weapon Focus Sp.Chain
3 - Rogue 2 - Base feat for lv 3 - Combat Reflexes
4 - Fighter 2 - Bonus Feat - Dodge - +1 Strength
5 - Rogue 3 - No feat
6 - Fighter 3 - Base Feat - Mobility
7 - Rogue 4 - No feat
8 - Fighter 4 - Bonus Feat - Spec.Spiked Chain - +1 Strength
9 - Rogue 5 - Base Feat - Spring Attack
10 - Rogue 6 - No feat
11 - Rogue 7 - No feat
12 - Rogue 8 - Base Feat - Expertise

Thanks!

If your're increasing your strength, and using a spiked chain, I'd definitely go for improved trip as a feat. Actually, I'd probably go for the expertise-improved trip before I went for dodge -mobility - spring attack.

And when deciding which race to use, don't forget: elves have low-light vision, not darkvision. So if seeing in total darkness is important to you(which it seems to be), and given that their favored class is wizard(which will screw up your fighter-4 rogue -12 in terms of XP). I'd forget about elves entirely for this char.

Cullain

 

[Shallown]

Cool. A thread I know something about.

I currently play a 9th level character a 4th fighter/5th rogue spiked chain wielding monkey. It frickin' Rocks. I am the single most dangerous person in my group.

I went the Expertise/ Improved trip route.

Coupled with Wpn focus/ Wpn specialization (Spiked chain does stink for damage) I didn't do Finesse since my str and dex were equal to start with. I have been boosting dex since but only becuase of my thief skills.

I also have Expert Tactician and a hide/move silent at a 22 with magic items. I move ahead in silence and ambush things quite a bit.

I also have combat reflexes. That with Improved Trip can lay out people before they can reach you with your 10 foot reach.

Last night my character was swarmed by 6 rast. I was trying to get past them to save a friend so I moved up to them. Tumbled around and kept moving. When they approached me I managed to kill 2 and severly wound the rest as they closed on me. I then Tumbled away again continueing on (my party member was a round a corncer and 4 move Equivalents away so I had no attacks to use) and as they swarmed me again I killed the rest.

Of course I had a Cat's garce and Bull strength potions going with +4 to both those stats so I was dealing out great damage and had lot's of AofO.

Spiked chain is also a Large weapon giving that 1.5 starngth damage so that helps to.

I developed a Spiked chain Prestige class that melded Fighter/rogue together so I could get even better at the chain. (but sacrificing a lot of thief things)

The only reason I am waiting to tenth level is to develop the Thief skills I will be losing as Class skills.

I would focus on the Expertise, Improved trip, Combat reflexes aspect boosting dex and using magic to boost str. Expert tactician also helps since with the reach the chain gives I have been able to hit things that have lost dex when otherwise I would not have been able to get to them. . Another chain benefit is no 5 foot step and shoot a bow or cast a spell without me being there to wack them with my combat reflexes.

Hopefully this is helpful if not I still had fun being an overly proud player.

Later

 

[Kwyn]

Yeah, elf is definitely out. I need the character to be able to take a little bit of punishment and fulfill a role that allows him to contribute to damage or combat effectiveness (trips, disarms, confusion, etc) even in situations where he might not be able to sneak attack. Our group is very old school so to speak. We have relatively low magic, deadly, mapped out combats with clever, intelligent enemies who adapt and learn as the campaign progresses. A situational, one trick pony who needs a bunch of buffs or can only fight effectively for a small window of 2 or 3 combats a day will not survive long. Darkvision, for instance is a spell that neither of our mages have. The costs/availability of spells is brutal in 3rd edition and we don't have a house rule to make it any easier. We could have easily spent every penny we've gotten on spells for these guys and still come up short. 100 gp a page is a steep price to pay. So no, having a buff spell always memorized for the thief is not something that can be relied on. In fact, I almost feel bad trying to force them to waste their precious spell slots on a buff spell that is the result of my decision to play a night blind race. It's as if I'm almost saying to them "Ok, you don't get 4 2nd level spells cause one of them is belongs to me."

So, I'm down to Human, which would help with a much needed feet, more skills and a precious 10' extra movement or a dwarf, which will give me darkvision and some nice resists as well as more HP due to increased con. Both I think would be viable and I'm torn. The powergamer in me says go human, take the feat and the movement and worry about resists and blindness later. The practical side of me says play the dwarf and bank on the resists, darkvision and hit points being a more "money in hand" sort of safe bet.

I'm leaning toward making dex my primary stat over the career of the character. I can finesse the chain and in that way, dex becomes a more efficient state point for point than strength. I'm hoping with the reach of the chain, combat reflexes and tumble, I'll have lots and lots of sneak attack opportunity so the extra one point of melee damage per 2 points of strength doesn't seem to be such a big deal. As to the trip feats, I may have to settle for disarms instead as they don't rely on strength. Any input on these stat assesments or advice is also appreciated.

Kwyn

I'm open to discussion of course.

 

[Cullain]

Sorry for the double post.

 

[Cullain]

1) Disarming is cool, if you fight opponents with weapons. But it really loses a lot of effectiveness when fighting creatures with claws, or spells. It's usefulness depends a lot on your campaign(so you know the answer better than I do of usefull a tactic it would be)

2) How often are you in the dark?!?

3) 'The powergamer in me says go human'? I love third edition.

Cullain