Need help with non-standard fighter.

[Icestorm245]

Currently, I am playing an elven mustketeer (who pretends to be human because he's embarressed about his height) and I have both Improved Trip and Disarm. I recently came across a quaal's feather token (whip) and thought it was great when the Aboleth enslaved my fighter, activated the whip and tripped the most damage dealing person in the party with it for two rounds straight. We are playing in a steampunk campaign as well, but that's not important besides that I use both a thinblade and a gun.

I thought about it and I want to give my guy a whip to trip and disarm people. Besides acquiring the feat for it, can anyone give me a suggestion on how to do this well?

[Greenish]

You might want to tell us which system do you use, and post in the appropriate section of the forums (you can report your own post to be moved).

[Icestorm245]

Thanks, done.

[Greenish]

Thanks, done.Still no word on which system you use. Elf musketeer, Imp. Trip and Imp. Disarm, Thinblade…

It could be D&D 3.0 or 3.5 with musketeer being mere description, not a class, it could be be PF with mix of the former (I don't think PF has thinblade), it just might be D&D 4e (don't know much about that), or it could be some other game that just happens to have Improved Trip and Improved Disarm as perks.

[Icestorm245]

Bah, sorry. D&D 3.0/3.5 We use rules from both but its mostly 3.0. Also, musketeer is indeed description. He's a fighter with a dabbling in rogue at the moment.

[Icestorm245]

Anyone? I need the help lol.

[Keld Denar]

Trip and Disarm are similar, but different.

Tripping is a function of size, str, and other mods. Anything that increases your size, effective size, str, str checks, and gives you misc modifiers to trip and opposed checks. Things like Armbands of Might, Improved Trip, Enlarge Person/Expansion, Belt of Ogre Power +X, etc.

Disarming is a function of attack rolls, with a few conditional modifiers. If you are using a weapon 2handed, you get a big +4 on your roll. Whips are 1handed weapons, so you can wield them in both hands. Other than that, do things to increase your attack roll. Some of them overlap with the above, like +Str bonuses, but others are different. +Str check bonuses like the Armbands of Might won't help you, but +attack roll stuff will. Weapon Focus, +enhancement bonuses, Luckstone, Ioun Stones, etc, and some randoms stuff like Law Devotion or Smite that boost your attack roll.

So, yea...do the above and you should be fine.

[Icestorm245]

Okay, I'll see if I can get my hands on that stuff. Thanks!

[Darrin]

Whips are... strange. They were a bit oddball in 3.0, and the 3.5 update didn't exactly improve things. In 3.0, whips were exotic ranged weapons with a fixed 15' range. In 3.5, they are exotic melee weapons with a 15' reach but they don't threaten and can't be used for AoOs. Their most annoying feature, however:

"It deals no damage to any creature with an armor bonus of +1 or higher or a natural armor bonus of +3 or higher."

Now in 3.0, there were a couple weapons that got around this: the whip dagger/mighty whip-dagger (A&EG) and the nagaika/mighty nagaika (Master of the Wild, same price, but 3x crit multiplier and weighs 1 lb. more). Unfortunately, neither weapon was ever updated in a 3.5 book, so we're not entirely sure how to treat them in 3.5. The mighty versions are only necessary if you continue to treat them as ranged weapons. However, since all 3.0 materials are still valid for 3.5 games, so both the whip dagger and nagaika should still be available. Just ask your DM if he wants to treat them as ranged or melee weapons. If ranged, then use the 3.0 versions as-is. If melee, then ignore the "mighty" versions.

Quall's Feather Token: Whip is a wonderful life-saver item, particularly for levels 1-3! I love putting one of those as treature in low-level dungeons because it looks like a throw-away BDSM party favor, but it's a +1 magic weapon with a +10 BAB, does 1d6+1 damage (which bypasses DR/magic), and a free grapple debuff (you wanted to sneak attack, Mr. Rogue?). Unfortunately, by RAW the "no damage" clause still applies... which, for this item, I am inclined to ignore if anyone brings it up.

If you have enough ranks in UMD but aren't quite up to spending a feat on Exotic Weapon Proficiency (whip), then you might want to consider getting a whip-dagger or nagaika with a Wand Chamber (100 GP, Dungeonscape) and put a wand of master's touch (750 GP, Spell Compendium) in there: swift action to activate, and you're proficient with one handheld item for 10 rounds (long enough for most combats).

Tripping is one of the few easy-to-get "debuffs" that melee can use to make things interesting beyond "I hit him again", but as far as the feat chain goes, it kinda stops with "Improved Trip". Most trip-based builds use the spiked chain, since it threatens and can make AoOs, and you can turn this into "battlefield control" via Combat Reflexes, Stand Still (SRD, psionic feats) and the Thicket of Blades stance (Tome of Battle). This is generally referred to as a "Lockdown Tripper": if anyone moves into your threatened area, you smack them with your chain and they either stop moving or hit the dirt.

There's also the Knockdown feat in the Divine section of the SRD, but there's a rules/errata headache that you need to clear up with your DM. When this feat was first printed in Sword & Fist, the FAQ ruled you couldn't combine this feat with the free attack from Improved Trip (but the ruling was worded so poorly, it didn't make any sense). When the errata for Sword & Fist was released, a line of text was added to the feat that explicitly forbid getting a free attack via Improved Trip. However, when the feat was included in Deities & Demigods, and then also released as part of the Divine section of the SRD, the errata was not included. It's not clear if the Sword & Fist errata still applies to the Divine section of the SRD (which was published after the Sword & Fist errata, and thus supercedes it). If your DM allows the Divine version to work as-is, then you can:

1) Whip attack does 10+ points of damage
2) Free trip attempt
3) Free attack via Improved Trip

If your DM says "No", then you get to sulk in a corner and mumble "melee can't have nice things" to yourself.

Disarm I'm not so familiar with as most monsters don't have the common decency to carry around interesting things in their hands, but it's another feat chain that kinda ends with "Improved Disarm". However, there's another feat in Song & Silence that can make it interesting... Snatch Weapon. You need a free hand, but if so instead of letting your opponent's weapon drop to the ground, you can grab it and make a free off-hand attack with it. While this isn't particularly effective (very few opponents will be wielding something that you can successfully disarm *and* attack them with in your off-hand), it's particularly humiliating and extremely satisfying. If you've already made your primary attack without the -2 TWF penalty, it's not entirely clear how you apply "the usual penalties" for your off-hand attack, but I assume it means:

1) TWF + light weapon = -2 penalty
2) TWF + one-handed weapon = -4 penalty
3) no TWF + light weapon = -8 penalty
4) no TWF + one-handed weapon = -10 penalty

(just ignore the primary hand penalty on the attack you just used to disarm, but apply it to any subsequent primary attacks.)

You can improve the odds of getting this to work by picking up some Strongarm Bracers (6000 GP, MIC p. 139) to wield large-sized weapons without increasing the handedness and a Glove of the Master Strategist (3600 GP, Ghostwalk p. 71) to immediately empty one of your hands as a free action.

Or get yourself some extra arms (cut&pasted from an older thread):

1) Alter self or polymorph into a creature with 4 or more arms. Phylactery of Change (11200 GP, A&EG p. 135) offers all-day polymorph up to 7HD (check out the Ormyrr in MM2).

2) Girallon's blessing + permanency spells (see Savage Species p. 60). Assuming a 13th level caster, both spells would cost about 11140 GP. While the Savage Species version of girallon's blessing has a drawback where you have to make a Will save to do anything complex with your extra arms, the updated version in the Spell Compendium removes this drawback and makes them fully-functional arms. By RAW, the permanency rules on page 60 of Savage Species still applies to the Spell Compendium version.

3) 2-level Totemist dip to pick up the Girallon Arms soulmeld. Based on the fluff, it's not entirely clear if these arms are functional enough to wield weapons, but assuming your DM says they can, this is doable at low levels, although you still have to deal with the -4 TWF penalty.

4) Arms of the Naga (56000 GP, Savage Species p. 55) and/or Gloves of Man (42000 GP, Savage Species p. 57). Cheaper to buy grafts (see below), and the Arms of the Naga say they can't be used for extra attacks, but putting on the Gloves of Man may override that (check with your DM). If you have some other way to acquire a pair of tentacles/appendages/etc. (soulmeld or the Deepspawn feat from Lords of Madness), then adding Gloves of Man should allow you to attack with manufactured weapons.

5) Grafts. Check Fiend Folio, Magic of Eberron, Lords of Madness, Races of the Dragon, Serpent Kingdoms, or Libris Mortis for more details. A few require the removal of an existing arm, but most don't specify this. Restrictions/costs vary quite a bit. You'll need two... Zombie Arm (25000 GP, Libris Mortis p. 80) is one of the cheaper options, but it will cost at least 50000 GP and permanently reduces your Dex by 4 points.

6) There's an Aberrant Limbs unique ability thing in DMGII (LA +2, NPC only), and there's another template in Dungeon #136, Obah-Blessed... gives two extra arms (LA +2) or four extra arms (LA +3).

[Icestorm245]

Holy crap, thanks a lot man! I will be sure to try everything here, except maybe the extra arms =P The DM generally rules things as 3.0 but sometimes he gives us the option of taking 3.5 stuff instead. I guess in this case, however, 3.0 is better.