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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Azlan" data-source="post: 3858465" data-attributes="member: 2340">As a DM, I've always loved throwing bands of humanoids (e.g. goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears) against the player characters. As the PC's gain in level, the humanoids in these bands get even more numerous. Sure, the PC's usually cut through them fairly easily, especially once the PC's get to be 6th level and above (i.e. those PC's with a BAB of +6 or greater start getting two attacks per round; three, if they're wielding two weapons or if they're hasted).However, recently a new player came into my latest campaign with a 6th level fighter who is equipped with a spiked chain and has the Great Cleave feat. This PC has proved to be a literal whirlwind of destruction when it comes to taking out bands of humanoids with 1-3 hit dice! To even get close enough to this PC to attack, a humanoid armed with, say, a scimitar or a battleaxe has to move within this PC's threatened area, which is a 10' radius all around her. This PC could already be surrounded by five humanoids, but when a sixth approaches her to attack, the PC gets an opportunity attack, and if that attack drops the approaching humanoid, the PC then gets a free attack against each of the five humanoids already engaged with her. (Is this correct?  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f615.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":confused:" title="Confused    :confused:"  data-smilie="5"data-shortname=":confused:" /> ) I once beheld this PC take out seven (!) humanoids, each with 12 hit points, in a single round, with her spiked chain and Great Cleave feat. (She took out four of those humanoids during her turn, and then another three due to an AoO, as another humanoid tried to move in, on her.) Only the group's wizard with a fireball spell can match this kind of slaughter of humanoids in a single round, but that PC is extremely limited by the number of times per day she can cast that spell.To make matters worse, last game session I heard the fighter-player mention that she wants to get the Combat Reflexes feat. If she does this, she will be able to get a number of additional AoO's equal to her Dex bonus (which I think is +2, giving her three AoO's per round). With this combination of feats and a spiked chain, her PC will totally discourage me from throwing bands of humanoids against the group. (Yes, I could simply increase the hit dice of the humanoids, thereby making it more difficult for the fighter PC to drop each of them and thus get Cleave attacks, but increasing the hit dice of the humanoids would be overwhelming and unfair to the rest of the PC's in the group.)I notice in the rules that a whip, which is a melee weapon with a 15' reach, has a limitation that a spiked chain does not, even though the two weapons are similar in form. I'm wondering if, a.) if we're playing out the rules for a spiked chain & Great Cleave, correctly (particularly when it comes to AoO's); and b.) if maybe I should "house" rule it, that a wielder of a spiked chain does not threaten his surrounding area, just as a wielder of a whip does not threaten his surrounding area (due to the fact that that the wielder of a spiked chain can't continuously swing it around, without interruption, just as a wielder of a whip can't continuously snap it).</blockquote>

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