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Message: <blockquote data-quote="shurai" data-source="post: 373727">*looks around at all the people who've never handled a real melee weapon*It's not about balance, people, it's about realism.If you hold a medeival-style longsword or hand-and-a-half sword in your hands, and it's made of steel, and swing it around a few times, you'll see why Strength makes perfect sense instead of Dexterity.  This is one of the things that D&D does right that a lot of other RPGs get wrong.  The stronger you are, the faster you can whirl the heavy sword around, the more likely you are to hit your target effectively.Lighter weapons are more about precision and, yes, finesse.  It's less about your body's ability to heft a weight and more about your body's natural speed and fluency.  Some larger weapons, like the rapier, are specially designed to be more about being adroit and nimble than powerful, hence the possibility of Weapon Finesse even though they are 'medium'.If you're curious, the Spiked Chain fit this description perfectly because it seems to be based on a Chinese weapon called the Meteor Hammer.  This is a fascinating weapon, actually:  A couple of meters of rope or chain, and a heavy weighted ball on either end, sometimes with spikes, though the Hammers I've seen had round balls at the ends.Maybe this weapon made its way into OA, I don't have the book so I don't know.  But this weapon is very complicated to use in that it involves whirling a heavy weight on a flexible cord and allowing it to wrap and unwrap around your body.  As you're doing so, it gains tremendous speed with little need for brute strength.  However, this speed is dependent on the user being very agile and having excellent coordination.  Hence, the Finesse feat.-S</blockquote>

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