improvised weapon damage

[xyamius]

okay attempting to figure out damage on improvised weapons a bit more.

There are a few tables out there but they don't give what i was looking for.

We have a fighter that is wielding a 20' chain. not a spiked chain but a chain chain. That was modified to have a bunch of barbed hooks all over it. The player is wearing spiked full plate to ensure they have armor coverage from their own chain.

They use it to wrap up monster and other opponents and lock them into it after they grapple and pin them or just use the corpse of one on the field as a end weight to beat other things to death with.

For determining if they can be used we have been doing 1/2 light load for a one handed or light load for 2 handed when whipping the corpse or screaming body around the field. -4 to attack for improvised weapon and they did spend a proficiency slot on chain weapon exotic to just use the chain.

Some of the other things are like grapple check on the mages familiar and then beating the mage to death with the familiar.

For the chain it was given 1d6 as a medium weapon and consider it a bludgeoning/piercing weapon with reach.

For damage every 50 lbs of weight doing 1d6 instead of weapon damage.

Do these look okay or is everything to high?

[Allanimal]

Considering that the Drunken Master PrC in complete warrior has a class feature called “improvised weapons”, which allows it to do unarmed strike damage+1d4, I’d say your numbers are too high... Improvised weapons just don’t do much damage - the drunken master had to take levels in a PrC to get a +1d4!

Also, there are no real rules for what you are trying to do with the chaining them up using someone as a weapon... The grapple rules have very specific things you can do while grappling, and that isn’t amongst them. So I would think a feat or class feature would be needed, and not something that is possible at early levels. This is strictly in DM making stuff up territory.

Any living creature used as a weapon that is capable of taking actions should be able to try to break free, and possibly also make any attacks less effective by their struggling against the captor and also trying to avoid hurting themselves and their friend (the target).

Using this once in a “rule of cool” moment could be interesting, and i would probably just wing it, but if it is going to be a regular occurrence, you really need to consider the potential for abuse and lock down the things that would be overpowered. Think about: what kind of action it takes to get something secured in the chain? I’d say at least a full round action for a corpse or other non-living object. For a living, resisting creature, maybe require going through the grapple motions until the creature is pinned, then the next action can be securing the chain. (So like 3 rounds minimum if BAB<6) Maybe a feat or two could reduce this a bit. The creature used as a weapon should take damage too, be allowed to try to escape, and at some point, the weapon “breaks”, like the drunken master’s class feature.

[xyamius]

The closest thing it resembled to class feat was dungeon crasher damage from smashing someone into an object for 4d6 or 8d6 damage. Instead of the improved weapon fighting from drunken master which is using broken bottles and chairs.

This is one of those times you have a player wanting to do something not in the book but it's a cool fighting format.

For combat doing it the weapon base for medium was 1d4 with reach then barbs where added so we called it 1d6 damage with reach the weapon does bludgeoning/piercing. Instead of trip with the spiked chain it allows to start a grapple. Once in the grapple the weapon is tied up so it can't be used for attacks of opportunity on targets outside the grapple.

The player then made it so once they improved the grapple to a pin they could grab a lock down on the chain by using an action and a locking pin they carry 3 of.

The target in the chain has always been using escape artist or grapple to break out which ever is higher. Not to mention if the player where to roll a 1 with a living being wrapped up it could wind up in a run away chained and the enemy has attempted to catch and strength pull the chain out of his hands before.

Beyond a feat for the chain being exotic and skill tricks+improved grapple i kind of was in hope for some help of what suggestions are out there for damage and such.

[Necroticplague]

There's explicit rules in Complete Warrior about improvised weapons that covers this.

[Jay R]

Historically, people don't go into battle with an improvised weapon if they can get a real one.

If improvised weapons did more damage than real ones, you would expect to see armies of chain-wielding knights.

So a one-handed improvised weapon should do less damage that a mace, and a two-handed improvised weapon should do less damage than a quarterstaff.