3.5 Can a medium creature used a large spiked chain

[Ryulin18]

Title pretty much says it all. But can it be used without the feat monkey grip?

Want to know for a trip fighter my friend wants. He wants a whopping great chain to swing around.

[Siosilvar]

Nope, not without Monkey Grip. A Large spiked chain goes up one category of use from "two-handed" to "unusable".

You could use a Large kusari-gama (or even a Huge one, IIRC they're light weapons), but you don't get any extra reach and it's not really worth the penalty to hit for the tiny damage boost.

[Ryulin18]

Nope

Well damn. Is monkey grip useful on it as one of the fighter feats?

Lovely to have 15ft reach IIRC

[Hiro Protagonest]

Well damn. Is monkey grip useful on it as one of the fighter feats?

Lovely to have 15ft reach IIRC

Large sized weapons don't give mediums extra reach! That was even said in the post you quoted!

[Ryulin18]

Large sized weapons don't give mediums extra reach! That was even said in the post you quoted!

God damn it all. I'm going to bed. I've forgotten how to read.

[Thurbane]

As others have said, wielding a large weapon does not give a medium character any extra reach.

However, you can wield a large weapon (if you want to for reasons other than reach) using Strongarm Bracers (Magic Item Compendium).

[Rejusu]

Title pretty much says it all. But can it be used without the feat monkey grip?

Want to know for a trip fighter my friend wants. He wants a whopping great chain to swing around.

Powerful Build is a racial trait that not only lets you use weapons of one size category larger than yourself but also allows you to count as being one size category larger whenever it would be advantageous to do so, like when doing a trip check for example. Goliath and Half-Giant are both medium creatures and both have this ability but they come with a +1 LA.

Take Goliath over Half-Giant if you want to go fighter, HG is only worthwhile if you're going psychic warrior or some other psionic class. Goliath trades the psionic capabilities of the HG for an extra +2 strength so they have +4 strength, +2 Con and -2 Dex.

For a tripper these races are very awesome as powerful build gives you +4 on trips and allows you to trip creatures you'd normally be unable to (huge creatures for example) as well as increasing your base damage by allowing you to use large weapons. You also get another +2 to trip checks from the extra strength you gain.

Word of warning though, that -2 Dex means 1 less AoO per round if you're going for combat reflexes in your build. So you have to consider if one less trip you can make per round is worth being able to trip with a higher degree of success.

Also as already noted using a large weapon doesn't increase your reach. Reach is determined by character size, not weapon size. But your friends concept can still work. If he's going to be tripping though make sure he picks up feats like Knock-down:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm

This combined with improved trip allows you to attack, trip and then attack again. All with one standard action, with all your attacks at full BAB and the second attack against an opponent with -4 AC. You can't do this combo during an AoO though as you can only take free actions during your turn and the trip from Knock-Down is a free action. You can still trip and use the attack from Imp. Trip as an AoO though.

Knock-Down does require you being able to reliably do 10 or more damage with a single attack though. However with a large spiked chain and enough strength this isn't much of an issue. My level 2 Half-Giant Psychic Warrior has an average damage of 13. He has +4 Str (from a 19 in Strength) and since you use a chain two handed the damage bonus is 1.5x strength so +6, I made my chain +1 so my total modifier is +7. As a large spiked chain is 2d6 my damage is 2d6+7 so the only time I won't do 10 damage is if the opponent has damage reduction or I roll snake eyes.

If your friend plays a goliath even without the +1 on the spiked chain he should easily be able to get a 20 in strength for a +5 bonus which translates into a +7 bonus when using the chain two handed. So it's a pretty solid combination.