PDA

View Full Version : Best way to use a spiked chain?



Thomix
2007-12-10, 12:22 PM
What is the best tactic, feat, class, and all to make the best use of a spiked chain?

shaggz076
2007-12-10, 12:36 PM
Read the Duskblade thread. I posted a good use of the spiked chain and the Duskblades abilty to channel into a full attack paired with Whirlwind attack

Amiria
2007-12-10, 12:48 PM
Fighter/Psychic Warrior with oodles of feats.

Adaptable Flanker
Combat Expertise
Combat Reflexes
Deft Opportunist
Dodge
Elusive Target
Improved Bullrush
Improved Trip
Karmic Strike
Knockback
Knock-Down
Leap Attack
Mobility
Power Attack
Robilar's Gambit
Shock Trooper
Stand Still
Vexing Flanker

BardicDuelist
2007-12-10, 01:12 PM
Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, Combat Reflexes are all pretty much necessities.

Yakk
2007-12-10, 02:14 PM
Stand Still. It is less effective than Imp. Trip on humanoids, but works on anything, and only needs 1 feat instead of 2.

Chronos
2007-12-10, 06:17 PM
Impressive list, Amira, but you might also want to consider adding Exotic Weapon Proficiency (spiked chain) to your build. Er, if you can fit it in, that is.

Amiria
2007-12-10, 06:20 PM
Impressive list, Amira, but you might also want to consider adding Exotic Weapon Proficiency (spiked chain) to your build. Er, if you can fit it in, that is.

Nah, then it would be overpowered ... :smalltongue:

Magnor Criol
2007-12-10, 06:21 PM
Hitting enemies with it is always a good use.

JaxGaret
2007-12-10, 06:30 PM
Hitting enemies with it is always a good use.

Ninja'd.

Yar.

Jade_Tarem
2007-12-10, 06:33 PM
Melt it down to make a different weapon; your party will enjoy getting to act in combat before you waste everything with your infinite AOOs.

martyboy74
2007-12-10, 06:35 PM
Spiked Chains are best used to take advantage of your reach. Trip/disarm builds are very common, as are standstill/hold the line/knockdown builds. PsyWar works very well for this, because you can use expasion to increase your reach. Fighter is also a common dip; the chains can be rather feat intensive.

Zenos
2007-12-11, 10:12 AM
Check out this (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0216.html):

Triaxx
2007-12-11, 10:29 AM
Rather than go for Cheese, I go for fun.

Half-Orc, Barbarian.

Take EWP, Power Attack, Cleave, and so on. Play it nice and anything without reach can't touch you when you charge them.

Ganurath
2007-12-11, 11:38 AM
Rather than go for Cheese, I go for fun.

Half-Orc, Barbarian.

Take EWP, Power Attack, Cleave, and so on. Play it nice and anything without reach can't touch you when you charge them.You sir, are win. GO with the charge build, perhaps with Combat Reflexes to greet the survivors. It isn't abusive, but as written you're essentially getting to charge everyone TWICE. Much more fun than slowing the game down to eat your cheese.

Arakune
2007-12-11, 12:35 PM
First trick her, then strip her clothes, then take the spiked chain and...

Woops, wrong equipment :smallamused:

Dreyden
2007-12-11, 01:12 PM
I have a player, a level 6 human spiked-chain fighter, with:

-Combat Expertise, Dodge, Mobility, and Spring Attack (though he should use these a lot more, they're really just prerequisites for...)
-Whirlwind Attack
-Improved Trip
-Weapon Finesse
-Greatreach Bracers from the Magic Item Compendium: 3/day +10' to reach for 1 round.
-Potions of Enlarge Person and a friend with a wand of same.

He's pretty effective. When enlarged and activating his bracers he has a 30' reach, which lets him whirlwind attack a lot of people - usually with trips, making things easier on the rest of the party. He mentioned how he'd like to be able to do more damage with his chain, so I pointed out a feat in ToB that gives him dex to damage with certain finessable weapons. He's dipping swordsage next.

shaggz076
2007-12-11, 02:05 PM
Umm... both trip attack and Whirlwind attack require a full attack action so unless your somehow granting said character to full attack actions a round he shouldn't be able to do both.

Lord Lorac Silvanos
2007-12-11, 02:13 PM
Umm... both trip attack and Whirlwind attack require a full attack action so unless your somehow granting said character to full attack actions a round he shouldn't be able to do both.

I am afraid you have misunderstood something. A trip attack can be made in place of any regular attack and does not require a separate action.

ColdBrew
2007-12-11, 02:15 PM
Umm... both trip attack and Whirlwind attack require a full attack action so unless your somehow granting said character to full attack actions a round he shouldn't be able to do both.
Any generic attack can be replaced with a trip attempt, which will let you make an attack if successful. So you can certainly trip and damage multiple opponents with a single full attack.

edit: More specifically, you take a full-round action to use Whirlwind Attack, then replace the attack you're granted against each opponent with a trip attempt. For every successful trip, you get to attack that opponent.

Triaxx
2007-12-11, 02:18 PM
You sir, are win. GO with the charge build, perhaps with Combat Reflexes to greet the survivors. It isn't abusive, but as written you're essentially getting to charge everyone TWICE. Much more fun than slowing the game down to eat your cheese.

The thing is that since it's light on feats, I don't often take Great Cleave, unless I know I'm going to need it. When getting flooded with Kobolds, or Goblins, you will need it.

Amiria
2007-12-11, 02:52 PM
edit: More specifically, you take a full-round action to use Whirlwind Attack, then replace the attack you're granted against each opponent with a trip attempt. For every successful trip, you get to attack that opponent.

Partly wrong. You can make trip attempts (with the +4 from Improved Trip) with Whirlwind Attack, but not the free follow up attacks that Improved Trip usually grants after a successful trip attempt.


When you use the Whirlwind Attack feat, you also forfeit any bonus or extra attacks granted by other feats, spells, or abilities. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#whirlwindAttack)

Person_Man
2007-12-11, 03:37 PM
I prefer a one level dip into Pyrokineticist or one of its variants instead of using a spiked chain. Touch attacks solve a lot of problems.

Even then, just using any reach weapon (lance, guisarme, etc) are usually sufficient, as few enemies should get anywhere near you if you have the right combo in place. Even then, you can take a 5' step back and/or use armor spikes or use the Withdraw action.

But if you do want a spiked chain build, its pretty much mandatory that you get a ton of reach. The easiest way to do this is to manifest the augmented version of Expansion (http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/psionicPowersDtoF.html#expansion). That usually means taking 9ish levels of Psychic Warrior or Warmind. But there are other possibilities, such as using Inhuman Reach, Deformity (Tall), Enlarge Person, etc.

Second, you need some good combos. These almost always involve the following feats:

EWP Spiked Chain
Combat Reflexes->Hold the Line
Power Attack->Leap Attack and/or Headlong Rush and/or Battle Jump
Power Attack->Improved Bull Rush->Shock Trooper
Martial Study->Martial Stance:Thicket of Blades (or appropriate ToB class levels)
Power Attack ->Improved Bull Rush->Knockback OR
Combat Expertise->Improved Trip->Knock-Down OR
Standstill


I would suggest avoiding certain common/popular feats. Here's why:

Vexing Flanker->Adaptable Flanker: There are much more efficient ways for your party Rogue to count as flanking, you don't need to waste two feats on it.
Dodge, Mobility, Deft Opportunist: Minor static bonuses are a waste of a feat.
Elusive Target, Karmic Strike, Robilar's Gambit, : If you have plenty of reach, Hold the Line, and Knockback or Knockdown or Standstill, it should be extremely difficult for anyone to get remotely near you in melee.
Cleave, Great Cleave, Whirlwind Attack: Most DMs tend not to use large mobs of enemies on a regular basis. And if they do, you should be able to kill a bunch of them just by using AoO as they try to get close to you.
Weapon Finesse: You should be able to get Int 13, dump Wis, dump Cha. So your Str, Dex, and Con should all be reasonably high, without the need to take any X to Y feats.

ColdBrew
2007-12-11, 04:07 PM
When you use the Whirlwind Attack feat, you also forfeit any bonus or extra attacks granted by other feats, spells, or abilities.
That's clearly meant to refer to TWF, etc.


If you trip an opponent in melee combat, you immediately get a melee attack against that opponent as if you hadn’t used your attack for the trip attempt.
So it's not an extra attack; it's the same attack you used to trip the opponent.

cupkeyk
2007-12-11, 04:53 PM
Might as well go changeling and take three levels in warshaper

Person_Man
2007-12-11, 05:10 PM
Might as well go changeling and take three levels in warshaper

Some of the Warshaper bonuses (reach, damage increase) only apply to your natural weapons. So its not such a great idea for a Spiked Chain build.

Chronos
2007-12-11, 05:21 PM
That's clearly meant to refer to TWF, etc.Actually, it's clearly meant to refer to Great Cleave. It fixes the infamous Bag of Puppies exploit: When you're fighting the BBEG, you dump out a bag of puppies at your feet, and then Whirlwind Attack all of the puppies (plus the BBEG, of course). Every time you kill a puppy, you get a bonus Cleave attack, which you use versus your real target. So you end up getting a few dozen attacks off in one round, all at your full BAB.

Now, a similar exploit does not exist for Improved Trip. But the mechanics of Improved Trip and (Great) Cleave are similar enough that a rule which prevents Cleave extra attacks presumably also prevents Improved Trip extra attacks.

Also note that Two Weapon Fighting (your example) doesn't actually grant any extra attacks at all, it just decreases the penalty for the extra attacks. And even without that sentence in the rules, you still couldn't use off-hand-weapon attacks with Whirlwind Attack, since they only work for full attacks, and Whirlwind uses up the full round by itself.

EndgamerAzari
2007-12-11, 06:17 PM
It fixes the infamous Bag of Puppies exploit: When you're fighting the BBEG, you dump out a bag of puppies at your feet, and then Whirlwind Attack all of the puppies (plus the BBEG, of course). Every time you kill a puppy, you get a bonus Cleave attack, which you use versus your real target. So you end up getting a few dozen attacks off in one round, all at your full BAB.

That made me laugh and sob horribly at the same time.

daggaz
2007-12-11, 07:11 PM
Now, a similar exploit does not exist for Improved Trip. But the mechanics of Improved Trip and (Great) Cleave are similar enough that a rule which prevents Cleave extra attacks presumably also prevents Improved Trip extra attacks.

.

Wha? You go from saying they arent the same thing, to saying they are pretty much the same thing so you can probably assume that the rule applies to both.

Cleave etc give an extra attack on a seperate target... Improved trip demands you make the extra attack on the same target you tripped. Improved doesnt share the same exploit, the mechanic is obviously different, and there is therefor no similiarity reason (as outlined by you) to assume that it effects both rules.

That said, if somebody honestly need rules errata to fix an exploit like the bag of puppies trick, I recommend finding a new DM. One who isnt a 12 yr old powergaming WoW addict.

EDIT: falty logic aside, the SRD is pretty clear on this one. You get to trip them, but no follow up attacks after a successful trip.

When you use the Whirlwind Attack feat, you also forfeit any bonus or extra attacks granted by other feats, spells, or abilities

Any bonus or extra attacks = you get a free attack as if you hadnt used your attack to attempt a trip

granted by other feats = improved trip

So yeah, seems more than obvious that you cant whirlwind/improved trip everything. Which makes sense, considering you would get to use your special feats on everything in range, at full BaB, which normally you couldn't do.

Hawriel
2007-12-11, 07:31 PM
hmm how are you suposed to use a spiked chain if it is coverd in spikes? All of the menuvers that are used with fighting with a spiked chain requiers the user to slide the chain through their hands. It also invalves the user to rap the slack round their body and arms. This is not possable to do with spikes. You cant slide a chain with spikes through your hands becouse the chain would stop when the spikes hit your hands. Then your hands would be cut to shreds if you can slide the chain along the spikes. So you wear gloves well the chain would snag on the gloves. The spikes would also snag on a cloak or cape if worn, it would snag on armor and clothing though out a fight or do to some of the menuvers. Now the problem with momentem, The chain is only use full when its in constant motion. Any time the chain losess momentum the user would have to strugle to get it back up to speed. That would be all the time an attecker would need to get the advantage. The D&D spiked chain is one of the hokiest peaces of crap I have ever seen in an RPG, oh and the orc double to bit axe.

Nowhere Girl
2007-12-11, 08:02 PM
First trick her, then strip her clothes, then take the spiked chain and...

Woops, wrong equipment :smallamused:

Just when it was starting to sound interesting. :smallfrown:

Kompera
2007-12-12, 12:21 AM
Rather than go for Cheese, I go for fun.

Half-Orc, Barbarian.

Take EWP, Power Attack, Cleave, and so on. Play it nice and anything without reach can't touch you when you charge them.Your reach is 10' with the spiked chain. So the things you think "can't touch you" take a 5' step and touch you just fine. It takes at least a 15' reach to be able to ensure that you'll always get an AoO against anything without reach which wants to close to take a swing at you. So dip a level in Cleric for Enlarge Person and your reach with the spiked chain is 20' and then it's all good.

Triaxx
2007-12-12, 09:36 AM
I'm only looking for the initial charge not to have a counter. As a Barbarian, my entire objective is to keep the squishier characters from getting overwhelmed. So anyone who I can force to 5-foot step in on me, is one less that's hitting the Fighter, Cleric, Wizard and Sorceror. No one worries about the Rogue. She takes one level of Barbarian, and then uses the rage to up damage on her sneak attacks. So no one worries about her.