D&D 5E (2024) What is 5th editions Spiked chain?

[Willie the Duck]

Mike Mearls would talk about 3rd editions spiked chain, an exploit that wasn’t really leveraged by most until after the edition had been out. Something that could leverage a ton of rather cheesy optimizations and yet discovered by groups only after they’d been playing.

Does 5e have any of them? I tried to think of one but nothing really satisfies. I was thinking maybe the optional rule flanking.

Is it more dependent upon the group?

It depends on the thresholds. If the premise is simply an exploit* specific to the edition that people recognize after they've gotten to know the rules, then there are probably several.
*And the definition for this is going to be murky. Let's say that it is: something you do when you realize the rules make notably effective that gives you an at-least significant leg up on the person who just goes along with traditional patterns like sword&board fighter, picking feats and classes individually based on their appeal rather than specific synergy, etc.. Cheese is even harder to define, so let's leave that at a 'I know it when I see it' level.

• One one level (and most comparable to spiked chains), I think it took everyone a hot second in 2014 to look at quarterstaves being versatile, another to notice that Polearm Master included quarterstaves, maybe a third to add on a third component like Shillelagh or dueling fighting style or the like, and boom we had one-handed quarterstaff and shield little whirlwinds of attacks. Given the balance of melee weapon combatants compared to ranged and spells and turning into bears and the like, it's hard to call it overpowered (although still frustrating for the person who wanted two-weapon fighting or sword and shield to be good play options), it sure feels like an edition-specific-rules-confluence bit of cheese that people grokked a bit after the game came out.
• Wish-Simulacrum cheese also takes a brief moment for people to find, and then everyone knows about it. It's such an obvious thing that I half-expect it was the developers just wanting to make the neigh-infinite-wish-loop obvious and every DM to ban it and get the whole thing out of the way
• Cha-class synergy in general was a pretty obvious 'exploit' that got discovered quickly. Full-casters to rapidly increase paladin smite slots or warlock dips to enhance paladin/bard ranged at-wills showed up almost immediately. Coffeelocking obviously took until Xanathars to get going, but then everyone found it. Lore bard3 (sometimes with knowledge cleric 1) dips with anything to become a skill-monster as well.
• Combining the bonus-action-attack feats (PAM and CBE) with the -5/+10-attack feats (GWM and SS) also probably counts.

If the optional flanking rules are your example, maybe your threshold for how-far-after is higher. I certainly think that most groups (that ever crack their DMGs) will have found the rules, but it probably did take longer than the character build option components (if only because there's been a gamer-cultural trend to pour over these looking for combos). I don't know if I know of any that qualify in my mind, because I don't find most of them to be 'cheesy.' Flanking is a little too easy to do, making attacking without disadvantage something of a failure state at times. Maybe grappling or grapple shoves (and forced movement in general) -- it's a little too easy to make your success automatic or near-automatic (and the day-to-day benefits of the components required are enough to make people actually take them). Thus that one time the DM sets a combat on a cliffside (or 'don't step on the wrong square' chessboard of doom, or the like) with non-flying opponents, the warlock with repelling blast or the Strogue with athletics expertise will just casually murder the opposition (and those characters will exists, since again the benefits of the build choices actually occur outside of this unlikely scenario).

 

[James Gasik]

Here's my hot take. The spiked chain didn't break anything.

Consider the hoops you have to jump through to use it effectively:

*Exotic Weapon Proficiency Feat.
*Combat Reflexes Feat.
*Combat Expertise Feat (requires Int 13 don't forget!).
*Improved Trip Feat.
*Improved Disarm Feat.

Ok, so with this setup, you can attack people for attempting to move through your reach or base you. You can substitute attacks for disarms or trips, and tripped foes provoke free attacks as well. This is, however, fairly reliant on-

*Enemies who don't have reach.
*Enemies who don't use ranged attacks.
*Enemies who aren't very big, very strong, or have multiple legs.
*Enemies who don't use weapons.

And let's not forget, the spiked chain didn't do a lot of damage for a two handed weapon (2d4) to begin with.

It was an effective strategy in dealing with medium-sized or smaller two legged melee attackers, but it didn't murder them as fast as a Barbarian with a fullblade and power attack. It gave you some battlefield control, but it was far inferior to what a Wizard could do.

Unfortunately, with the amount of investment required, it was a strategy that could easily be flipped from super effective to useless.

Anyways, as to what the spiked chain of 5e is, it's obviously the Bladesinger.

 

[Gorck]

Polearm master and gwm combo.

I seem to see the Polearm Master and Sentinel combo come up pretty often.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

While my personal bugbear is one-handed Polearm Master spinners... that is just dumb, not busted.

Likely the correct answer is something like the Bard being a full caster.

 

[CleverNickName]

Probably the rapier.

 

[Laurefindel]

The Coffee-lock perhaps? Java Do’Urden was made possible right off the PHB in 2014 but didn’t heard of it much before 2018. Off couse now it’s made even easier with Tasha’s.

But it always was more of a white-room thought experiment; no DM will allow a PC to swap a long rest with four short rests, let alone eight…

 

[Gladius Legis]

Hand crossbow + Crossbow Expert + Sharpshooter.

 

[Charlaquin]

The Coffee-lock perhaps? Java Do’Urden was made possible right off the PHB in 2014 but didn’t heard of it much before 2018. Off couse now it’s made even easier with Tasha’s.

But it always was more of a white-room thought experiment; no DM will allow a PC to swap a long rest with four short rests, let alone eight…

It’ll be RAW if the changes to the wording of long rests in the 1D&D playtest packet make it to print (and if warlocks and sorcerers still work mostly the same as they do now). New long rest wording clearly states that any amount of combat interrupts a long rest and that if your long rest gets interrupted after an hour or more, you get the benefits of a short rest. So, if your DM allows it you could do the bag of stalls trick to start a round of combat and interrupt your own long rest by attacking a snail after an hour. That’s obviously a silly exploit few if any DMs will allow, but even without it, you can still get 4 short rests in while the rest of your party is taking their long rest. Just chill for an hour, then go jogging for an hour to interrupt your own long rest, giving you the benefits of a short rest. Repeat this process three more times.

 

[Charlaquin]

Oh, my vote is for coffeelock. Or any sorcerer/warlock multiclass, honestly.

 

[Zardnaar]

Here's my hot take. The spiked chain didn't break anything.

Consider the hoops you have to jump through to use it effectively:

*Exotic Weapon Proficiency Feat.
*Combat Reflexes Feat.
*Combat Expertise Feat (requires Int 13 don't forget!).
*Improved Trip Feat.
*Improved Disarm Feat.

Ok, so with this setup, you can attack people for attempting to move through your reach or base you. You can substitute attacks for disarms or trips, and tripped foes provoke free attacks as well. This is, however, fairly reliant on-

*Enemies who don't have reach.
*Enemies who don't use ranged attacks.
*Enemies who aren't very big, very strong, or have multiple legs.
*Enemies who don't use weapons.

And let's not forget, the spiked chain didn't do a lot of damage for a two handed weapon (2d4) to begin with.

It was an effective strategy in dealing with medium-sized or smaller two legged melee attackers, but it didn't murder them as fast as a Barbarian with a fullblade and power attack. It gave you some battlefield control, but it was far inferior to what a Wizard could do.

Unfortunately, with the amount of investment required, it was a strategy that could easily be flipped from super effective to useless.

Anyways, as to what the spiked chain of 5e is, it's obviously the Bladesinger.

That was the basic build the advanced one could trip giants etc.
Took a while to get going though. PAM probably worse right from the get go add sentinel/gwm.