Chain Tripper

[Chalkarts]

I just got a new group after a few years away from the table.
Not sure how long it will last but I'll assume lvl5.
I don't have a book available to me but remembered something from many years ago when I gamed regularly.
I was wondering if anyone could tell me the proper feat progression for a Spiked Chain Trip Fighter? I wanted to bring it to the attention of our fighter, he's never played before.

[Greenish]

Combat Expertise, Imp. Trip, Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Spiked Chain), Combat Reflexes.

[Chalkarts]

Awesome, thanks. I've seen one built with some ind of giantkin race and related feats so he could use larger weapons and ended up with a trip range of 30(I think, it's been years)

I wanted to nudge our fighter down that path just to annoy the DM.

[Greenish]

Larger weapons do not increase reach, 30' reach would be Huge creature with a reach weapon, and wanting to annoy the DM is not a good approach to the game.

[Chalkarts]

It's all in good fun :)

Isn't that why people play Kender, to annoy everyone? lol

[eggynack]

You might also want to consider the feat knock-down (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm#knockDown). It's pretty sweet for a chain tripper.

[herrhauptmann]

Jotunbrud.
It's not powerful build. Doesn't change weapon damage at all.

New group? Advise against being annoying until you get the group dynamic.

[Firechanter]

Combat Expertise, Imp. Trip, Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Spiked Chain), Combat Reflexes.

Spice up with Improved Disarm to efficently lock down armed enemies. They approach, draw an AoO, you trip them. They get up, this draws an AoO, you disarm them. They try to pick up their weapon, draw an AoO, you trip them. Rinse and repeat.

However, be aware that you need a significant Strength advantage over the enemy to make Trip reliably work. I find this very difficult to accomplish with standard races. Enemy creatures often have absurd strength, are often Large and may have four or more legs. Also, if they are Large they will likely have enough Reach to never provoke AoOs from movement. Monsters often don't use any manufactured weapons that you could disarm.

I used to like Trippers, but at some point I decided it is just too unreliable. I prefer to use Stand Still instead. It's cheaper and much more reliable (as it ignores enemy size and strength); only drawback is you don't deal damage on the AoO.

[Chalkarts]

Stand Still?

[Greenish]

Stand Still. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicFeats.htm#standStill)

[Chalkarts]

I used to like Trippers, but at some point I decided it is just too unreliable.

I came to the same conclusion with grapplers. I tried. I wanted it to work. I had a great concept in mind, but no matter how much I crunched the numbers and tweaked the feats, I could never make a grappler that could often get a hold and not die horribly.

[eggynack]

I came to the same conclusion with grapplers. I tried. I wanted it to work. I had a great concept in mind, but no matter how much I crunched the numbers and tweaked the feats, I could never make a grappler that could often get a hold and not die horribly.
Yeah, grappling is pretty mediocre in general. The trick to grappling successfully is becoming a druid and sending an army of grappling creatures after your enemies. Instead of tying up all of your actions in grappling an enemy, you're only using the single action it takes to summon a giant crocodile. Instead of being on the wrong end of the casually massive size modifiers of many monsters, you summon the monsters and gain something ranging from parity to an advantage. Instead of investing build resources in a sub-par combat mechanic, you invest in summoning, which you'd probably want to do anyway. There's a solid pile of other reasons that druids make great use of grappling, but suffice to say that if you consider nearly any disadvantage that grappling has for a melee guy, the druid will either lack that disadvantage, or turn it into an advantage. At the very least, a druid who wants to grapple can always not grapple, which is a massive advantage.

[Icarusthefallen]

There are quite a few good Trip Lockdown builds, I will see if I can scrounge mine up when I get home. But the already mentioned feats are good, stand-still, knock-down, martial stance- thicket of blades is a good addition... That is about all I can remember off the top of my head. I will let you know when I get home

[Firechanter]

Keep in mind the OP expects this to stay a lowlevel game. The character probably won't even get to qualify for Thicket of Blades.

[Icarusthefallen]

Ahh, you are correct sir(/ma'am). My appologies, I was just getting excited over a character I always enjoyed.

[Chalkarts]

Keep in mind the OP expects this to stay a lowlevel game. The character probably won't even get to qualify for Thicket of Blades.

I'd like it to reach higher level but in my experience groups dissolve before high levels happen.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Spirit Lion Totem/Wolf Totem Barbarian with Whirling Frenzy is a pretty decent start. 2 attacks and pre-requisite less Improved trip with +4 Str/Dex is not too shabby.

[HalfQuart]

I used to like Trippers, but at some point I decided it is just too unreliable. I prefer to use Stand Still instead. It's cheaper and much more reliable (as it ignores enemy size and strength); only drawback is you don't deal damage on the AoO.
I generally agree with your statement about reliability... I'm currently playing a 9th level chain tripper that gets +17 to the opposed Strength checks when using Expansion, but I generally only end up using trip attacks against humanoids and only when I have the space to become Large. That amounts to maybe 20% of encounters in our campaign. It is pretty awesome in a field full of humanoids, but isn't reliable enough against things that are Large or larger, multi-legged, or super strong... and most things we fight fall into one or more of those categories.

[Certainly +17 isn't fully optimized for that level; you can do better, but there are a bazillion house rules that we play with that I had to work around.]