Spiked Chains: Pure cheese or sometimes OK?

[Andor]

Heh. We encountered an NPC with a spiked chain once. It was a vampire dwarven defender intent on stoping us from advancing further into the lair. However my only silver weapon happened to be a sai. Dvampire tried to disarm me, I put his magic spiked chain into my handy haversack. We never saw one again after that, oddly.

 

[Tetsubo]

The lack of versatility in no way changes the fact that we are talking about a 2nd level character taking down an ogre in one blow. There is also nothing preventing a said character from carrying a cold iron morningstar and a glaive as backup weapons.

And a goliath fighter could be proficient with both the greathammer and the spiked chain at 1st level, and carry both. At 2nd level he can take Quick Draw and use either one every round.

I could just be tired, but I'm failing to see your point here.

I thought we were comparing the Spiked Chain to the Goliath Greathammer...?

I think that the Greathammer is a far more balanced weapon than the Spiked Chain. The Greathammer is just a straight upgrade to a two-handed hammer. Not much of a stretch from reality. The Spiked Chain is a purely fantasy setting weapon that has no equal in the real world.

Yes, I know there are real world chain weapons. But none of them can do everything that a SC does. Nor are they Piercing. Or any thing else that cheesetastic weapon is...

The SC is designed to take advatntage of the games mechaics. It's an example of an item designed to meta-game. That is cheesy.

 

[Numion]

The weapons which people should be screaming blue murder about, are, IMO, the x4 crit weapons. Heavy Pick, Scythe, and Dire Pick. No players enjoy having them used aganst them, either.

I dunno. The criticals are rarer and larger than on 18-20/x2 weapons, but the expected value is the same. I'd choose 18-20/x2 over 20/x4 weapon any day. The rarer and larger criticals will end up wested more often than smaller criticals. By wasting I mean scoring a 100 point critical when the target only has 40 or 50 hps left. That's 60 to 50 points overkill. At least in my memory every time the dwarf in our group rolled some insane 80+ points critical the critter or whatever had a lot fewer hit points left.

 

[Stalker0]

I dunno. The criticals are rarer and larger than on 18-20/x2 weapons, but the expected value is the same. I'd choose 18-20/x2 over 20/x4 weapon any day. The rarer and larger criticals will end up wested more often than smaller criticals. By wasting I mean scoring a 100 point critical when the target only has 40 or 50 hps left. That's 60 to 50 points overkill. At least in my memory every time the dwarf in our group rolled some insane 80+ points critical the critter or whatever had a lot fewer hit points left.

Yep...this is why imo 19-20/x2 crit weapons are in fact slightly superior to 20/x3 weapons...although they appear to be equivalent on paper.

 

[pawsplay]

I think that the Greathammer is a far more balanced weapon than the Spiked Chain. The Greathammer is just a straight upgrade to a two-handed hammer. Not much of a stretch from reality. The Spiked Chain is a purely fantasy setting weapon that has no equal in the real world.

The thing is, it has an improved hammer damage, AND the crit multiplier of a pick. Comparing to the other exotics:

Dwarven waraxe and bastard sword: damage upgrade only
Two-bladed sword: Crit range downgrade, TWF upgrade
Warmace: Two damage upgrades, AC penalty
Stupid hammer-picks/rapier-chains etc: TWF upgrade

The goliath greathammer is the only one I can think of that gets two upgrades with no penalties. Then throw in that it's handy for a +1 LA race that can wield Large weapons...

For +1 LA and one feat, the character has managed to acquire two damage upgrades and a pick-like crit multiplier. The amount of damage is simply out of kilter for a less than ECL 6 or so character. Let's not even talk about frost burst greathammers, Improved Critical, and Power Critical.

The spiked chain may be bizarre in presentation, but at least you can picture how it might be wielded (as opposed to the dire flail or the- HA! - two-bladed scimitar). Certainly, you could substitute chain weapons out of OA if you disliked it intensely.

 

[Andor]

Actually I do think the spiked chain is stupid, because of the spikes. I could easily picture a chain weapon with a spiked mace-like head on the end, but the weapon portrayed is just retareded. So in this online Eberron game I auto-gimped myself by using the OA stats on my chain back-up weapon.

 

[ohGr]

The goliath greathammer is the only one I can think of that gets two upgrades with no penalties.

How do you figure? The goliath greathammer's damage is only one step better than the nearest equivelent weapon, the scythe. Acually, it's less than a full step; 1d8 upgrading to 2d6 gives an average increase of 2.5 points, whereas the goliath greathammer's (1d12) average damage is only 1.5 points higher than the scythe's (2d4).

 

[Nightfall]

Eh I'm not against spiked chain...but only if I can't use it for my Monk of the Sacred Chain. All hail Chardun!

 

[Moon-Lancer]

what’s wrong with a dire flail? don’t you just use it like a staff using a standard forward twirl. The spiked ball wouldn’t hit yourself in the head, like everyone things. its just like how you flurry a staff. a spiked chain is just ivys sword. for the double scimitar, just picture chrono cross. really most of the weapons people have problem picturing just need aids.

alternate view of dire flail

You don’t attack with a dire flail horizontally (phb picture), you do it vertically with a bit of a twist.


some spiked chains that dont have crappy art.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

whats wrong with a dire flail? dont you just use it like a staff using a standard foward twarl. The spiked ball wouldent hit yourself in the head, like everyone things.

First, a flail's head must be kept moving for maximum effectiveness & control. Doing that with 2 large masses on the ends of chains would be ridiculously difficult.

Second, as illustrated on a motion capture section of a show about martial arts (aired last night), you actually DO hit yourself with flexible weapons. For the record, the subjects of the show were all trained martial artists (some were inductees in the Martial Arts Hall of Fame)...and those demonstrating the nunchaku, three-section-staff, and other chain/rope weapons ALL struck themselves with various amounts of force. In fact, in certain cases, this was done on purpose in order to regain control of that section of the weapon.

Envision the dire flail as a modified 3 sectional staff...

You hit with one end of it, that end recoils from the force of the blow- towards you! Unlike the 3 sectional staff, however, you never have a grip on that striking section, so it is free to recoil fully- likely striking the arm or hand of the wielder...because the wielder still has to keep the rest of the weapon in motion to keep it from losing momentum or striking him.