Initially I set my ability scores thusly (random roll, no point-buy): STR 18, DEX 13, CON 16, INT 13, WIS 7, CHA 9. I grabbed some Full Plate armor since my DEX was fairly low, but then I started working towards the Whirlwind Attack feat since I figured that would synergize well with the reach of the Spiked Chain. The only problem I'm facing now is that I feel like I'm missing out on the benefits of the feats needed to take Whirlwind Attack since my DEX is so low. After doing some soul searching I switched my stats around to have DEX at 18, STR at 16, and CON at 13 and switched to a medium armor.
While I think that was the right move, I'm now rethinking working towards Whirlwind Attack, as I feel like I won't utilize the feats leading up to it much, if at all. Dodge, of course, is nice, but Mobility and Spring Attack seem to lose their luster once you start gaining multiple attacks with a full attack action and stop roving around as much.
In summation: I am making a level 6 Human Fighter. We run fast feat progession, so we get a feat every 2 levels rather than every 3. This means I have 8 feats at level 6 to play around with. I have Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Spiked Chain), Weapon Focus (Spiked Chain), and Power Attack as definite Feats, but I need help picking what else I should take for my next 5 feats.
Thanks for any help you can offer guys, it's always appreciated.
A spiked chain is a great weapon, so good choice. The general builds for it focus on its reach, and taking attacks of opportunity as people move near you. I like combat reflexes, improved trip, and power attack. As your base feats. Tactics - Trip anyone who moves near you as often as possible. Take attacks as normal if they are already prone. Remeber you can make a trip attack as your attack of opportunity.
... so fighter might be the way to go though if that is the case.
No. Fighter is never, ever the correct move. Psychic Warrior, Crusader, hell, even Barbarian is a better option. Not fighter.
if your group bans TOB like I really doubt crusader is the way to go. I'd further guess that psionics is probably banned. Barbarian is 1 level long, and fighter is maybe 2. So you multiclass like every normal martial character. until you can prestige into something your group does allow.
Right now I am sitting with Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Spiked Chain), Weapon Focus (Spiked Chain), Power Attack, Combat Expertise, and Improved Trip. That leaves 3 more feats open for the taking. Since I already have Combat Expertise, should I take Improved Disarm or Sunder to go with Trip? Are there other feats out there to go with tripping people?
Lastly, thanks for turning me on to the Dastana and Chahar-aina, those are nice items, and fairly cheap for what they do. I did switch to the Chain Shirt to utilize my DEX bonus for AC and added those items to it, on top of the Animated Tower Shield I picked up for some added protection.
Disarm - Lots of foes are immune, EX: wolves. If it does work, say against a warrior, he pulls a backup weapon and continues. Plus, you could have just dealt damabe which brings you closer to ending the fight.
Sunder - You break your treasure. Your DM may or may not add more in to make it up. Assuming they do, you are in the same situation as disarm.
There are a lot of good feats built off of combat reflexes, or attacks of opportunity in general.
I like Defensive sweep at higher levels. Force your foes to move and if they forget trip them. Robilar's Gambit is nice if your DM plays tactically, and doesn't provoke many AoOs. Hold the line is nice if you want to wait for people to come to you. Improved init will let you hop into position first (especially with that dex) and keep people from moving anywhere. Gives your ranged guys some breathing room.
Your starting scores are good (better then I normally use but at least they are close so I'll stop here) and I think you should arrange them STR 18, DEX 16, CON 13, INT 13, WIS 9, CHA 7. I switched WIS and CHA because I doubt you'll use CHA that much yet only suffering -1 from WIS instead of -2 will pay big dividends when it comes to Spot checks and WILL saves over the course of a career. I also say you should leave your STR at 18 because you plan on wielding a two-handed melee weapon and thus gain benefits from that without needing to take other feats to keep your damage and attack up. I switched DEX and CON because you shouldn't let people get close enough to hit you and a higher DEX could give you more AoO and faster reaction times. With DEX 16 you can still use Mithral Full Plate armor (expensive, I know) to its full potential. Now the feats you are going to look at include:
Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Spiked Chain)
Combat Expertise -> Improved Trip (you can trip opponents and then get a free attack against them)
Combat Reflexes (make multiple AoO a round up to four with DEX 16)
Power Attack (good for melee types to convert an attack advantage into more damage)
High STR helps you trip and lets you do more damage. I'm sure there are other feats that can improve on this and because it is actually a feat intensive build levels of Fighter are actually good for it although I may throw in other things for variety. Although it may look nice an "synergistic" I'll say that Whirlwind attack is a big old trap; although a DM may throw a bone at you occassionally ask yourself how often you really expect to be able to attack three or more different opponents with that FULL ATTACK action? I think you'd be better off with Cleave and that really isn't a great feat as you become higher level.
Looking back I see you may have this concept already so: I mentioned Combat Reflexes so that is something you really should look at. You know something, I'd maybe look at adding some CHARGE potential to this character to go with the lockdown. This lets you get into position in a big way before the trip lock takes hold.
Holyplankton: Why in blazes would you even look at Exotic Weapon Master? I can understand Weapon Focus as a prerequisite, but only if you're getting a lot more bang than EWM can provide (the Eternal Blade comes to mind).
Most of what I'm seeing in this thread is overthinking the problem: Generally speaking, spiked chain users come down to Combat Reflexes and Power Attack (plus Exotic Weapon Proficiency). The other list of feats to consider (not all at once, mind - you usually consider a subset of these on any particular warrior) on a basic spiked chain user would include Improved Trip (the main reason people would have to not take this is its prerequisites, but 2 levels of Barbarian can solve that with benefits), Robilar's Gambit, Weapon Finesse (usually only on a single-ability-Dexterity type using Shadow Blade), and Martial Stance: Thicket of Blades (or levels in Crusader). Rarely, you also dip into the feats you'd consider on a generic two-handed weapon user as well, which usually come down to ways to enhance Power Attack (examples include Shock Trooper and Leap Attack - if you do the 2-level barbarian dip for improved trip, use level 1 with Complete Champion to add Pounce to the mix.).
I wrote a complete beginner's guide to this style of use here (in the spoiler block). It's still in progress (along with a bunch of other essays in similar veins), and it isn't a substitute for real expertise in the area, but it can help you avoid pitfalls like EWM and Spring Attack. (There's a very, very short list of things I've seen that would benefit from Spring Attack, and anything relying on full attacks is definitely not one of them.) There's also quite a few builds in my signature you can use as templates; very few actually use the spiked chain, but if you look at a build and see that it uses Combat Reflexes, chances are very good that the feats and tricks mentioned in the build are applicable. (Yes, I repeat: the spiked chain basically demands Combat Reflexes.)
CJ, you do know that the chahar-aina and dastana were only found in 3e books? And that enhancement stacking in 3e (i.e. bow + arrow) was removed in 3.5?
Reread the text of Chahar aina and Dastana. They explicitly stack.
And so did bows and arrows in 3e (i.e. a +5 longbow with a quiver of +5 arrows attacked at +10), but that was removed in 3.5. Can you show me a 3.5 source for your armor add-ons?
It clearly was not forgotten in 3.5 (Tattooed Monk, Void Disciple, Wu Jen, etc.) - including some of its equipment (i.e. CW did reprint the lajatang) - and yet the dastana or chahar-aina were not reprinted. Sticking to WotC material, there's something fishy here.
Now, if you want it straight from the horse's mouth, Dragon 318 contained a 3.5 update to Oriental Adventures. Yes, it's Dragon magazine, but it's the only 3.5 legs you'll have to stand on, and in its defense, it was written by James Wyatt, OA's original author. Take a peek, from page 42:
Magic Chahar-Ainas and Dastanas
Both dastanas and chahar-ainas provide special armor bonuses to AC that stack with other armor bonuses granted by certain forms of light armor. However, it is still the case that only one enhancement bonus can apply to a character's armor bonus at any time. [Emphasis mine.] Thus, if a character wears +2 dastanas, a +1 chahar-aina, and +1 cloth armor, only the +2 bonus from the dastanas increases his AC. A character can still gain the benefit of special abilities attached to multiple pieces of armor, however, so a character wearing +2 balance dastanas and a +1 displacement chahar-aina has a +2 enhancement bonus to AC and can use the balance and displacement special abilities.
Looks like your armor-of-the-gods has is a mere chain shirt with +2 additional armor, no matter how much enhancement magic you throw at the add-ons.
Let's look at the numbers. A suit of light armor with +6 armor, +4 max dex, -1 ACP (assuming all masterwork, natch), 30% spell failure, and 40 lbs weight stacks up pretty close to the classic mithral breastplate (+5 armor, +5 max dex, -1 ACP, 15% spell failure, 15 lbs weight) as far as nonmagical light armor goes. The mithral breastplate is dramatically lighter (matters if you've dumped Strength) and has a lower ASF to worry about if you're still working on reducing it instead of ignoring it. The chain shirt + dastana + chahar-aina is significantly cheaper (by a whole 3550gp - significant early on, meaningless at the levels you start throwing around multiple enhancements), and can be used to grab multiple armor enhancements without being as much of a money sink (beyond the initial +1s on the add-ons needed to qualify for most armor enhancements - assuming you can add armor enhancements at all. James Wyatt says you can in the above quote, but neither add-on is technically considered a suit of armor - they're listed as "shields and other additions", which may not count as armor), but that's not as huge a deal as you consistently make it out to be (particularly because you can do the same sort of thing with bucklers using core alone - the only real advantage here is the lack of an attack penalty.).
With that kind of comparison, I see it as only a slight improvement over the somewhat more established mithral breastplate.
Do I really need to explain the concept of grandfathering material to you?
No, you don't - but quite a few things changed between 3e and 3.5, of which you are certainly aware. Below, you questioned the relevance of this particular part of my argument: It's because grandfathering can have untintended consequences if the older element interacts with a part of the rules that was changed.
Also, no +30 bonuses? Care to site a source there, big guy?
I thought this was covered in a 3.5 revision preview article, in much the same way that they explained the changes to damage reduction, but (as near as I can tell from a cursory scan of the 3.5 archive) I was wrong about the "explicit".
I will, however, ask you for any non-epic magic item or class feature that provides a passive +30 bonus on skills. And I'm talking about a flat bonus of a single type here, not emulating a short-term spell (i.e. I'm looking for the +30 Cloak of Elvenkind or Circlet of Persuasion, not a scroll of Moment of Prescience) or something with six types of +5 bonus. You can find such items in 3e. To my knowledge you can't find them in 3.5.
And this is at all relevent, how, exactly?
I was simply pointing out that OA wasn't like, say, the Stronghold Builder's Guide. Many elements of it were actively used in 3.5's updates - including OA's equipment, which is the section that the chahar-aina and dastana are from. And yet, despite having the opportunity, WotC chose to not include those within the updates. See my point above re: grandfathering.
Huh. Never noticed that in Dragon. Meh. Okay, if Dragon is considered kosher, then Charar Aina plus Dastana plus chain shirt is just a superior, cheaper mithril breastplate. With access to cheaper enhancements. The horror of it all, I cannot believe how hiderously weak it is
You could just say you were wrong. It's not hard - I did it above with no shame. In many threads, you've (unconstructively, I might add) openly scoffed at anyone who considers any form of armor except the chain shirt + add-on combination because it was so uber and rendered all other forms of armor (particularly heavy armor) sad in the pants, largely because you could enhance each component separately and get a ridiculous AC. This is demonstrably not true.
It's also not uniformly superior. It's better in many regards (although the cost advantage is essentially meaningless - you know how easy it is to break the economy), identical in most of the others, and inferior in a couple (admittedly the least important unless you dumped Strength). I stated as much myself. There is, however, one other area where it's inferior that I didn't touch upon: number of books needed to pull it off. The mithral breastplate simply needs core. The combination armor requires core, plus a 3e setting-specific book that, by design and necessity, pushes the genre's boundaries. (Similar example: Forgotten Realms pistols.) While the latter's fine for theoretical work, it does make the armor harder to use with every DM. I think the marginal benefits the combination armor provides are sufficiently small relative to the effort needed to convince a stingy DM to allow it that, for most practical purposes, it drops to more or less on par with the mithral breastplate.
This latter point is not insignificant: take a quick peek around here for the number of threads that don't conform to CO's usual 'anything goes' assumptions. You'll frequently find setting-specific books banned (it's a reasonable assumption that if the game is in, say, Eberron, then the campaign guides to Forgotten Realms, Ghostwalk, and, yes, Oriental Adventures are not kosher), along with a host of other weird banning rules (usually alternate systems like psionics and the Tome of Battle - the same attitude that coined the term CoDzilla still runs rampant today).
All of this is, of course, assuming Dragon is sufficiently valid to create new rules unsupported by core in any respect(Which the author obvious thought, see "[i]t is still the case that only one enhancement bonus...). Which really is questionable at best. Further, at a strict reading, it could be argued quite easily that that particular passage actually carries no weight(It says it is "still" the case, when there is no support that(At the time of printing) it was the case.).
I'm not sure what you're saying here - if you continue Wyatt's quote, he goes on to discuss a single enhancement bonus applied to your armor bonus, not to your AC. Which is supported by core (cast Magic Vestment on a suit of magical armor and you have two enhancement bonuses applied to your armor bonus; only the larger will actually boost your AC, but it won't care what the enhancement bonus on your shield or natural armor are).
Incorrect. See, it really helps to, you know, read the book. If you did such an absurd and arcane act, you'd have noticed that both Chahar Aina and Dastana are very clearly in a list of "armor". Unless you're going to add "Table trumping text" to the list of bizarre claims you're making today.
So is the kappa shell, which is basically a tower shield, and the tessen, which is a shield. And in the PHB, all the shields are listed in the same section as armor in the text despite appearing in a different section in the table. I'm not saying the table trumps the text - I'm saying that the context in which those components are presented doesn't create a watertight case for them being separate suits of armor. They're something that doesn't exist elsewhere in the rules - armor additions, to use a nonmechanical term. You can't say that simply because they appear interspersed with the suits of armor that they are suits of armor, any more than you can say that plate mail is a shield and can thus be animated.
You have some rather odd definitions of "slight."
Armor category: Match (although technically the chahar-aina requires Medium armor proficiency, it technically doesn't change the armor type overall, so it will still work with light armor class features, and its check penalty is easily negated.).
AC bonus: +1 advantage to combo armor.
Max dex: +1 advantage to mithral breastplate.
Cost: 3550gp advantage to combo armor (functionally a 1550gp advantage after making both add-ons magical)
Check penalty: Match.
Speed: Match.
Weight: 25 pound advantage to mithral breastplate.
Spell failure: 15% advantage to mithral breastplate.
Customization: Hard to quantify, but definite advantage to the combo armor (although with a 2000gp sunk cost "hump" to cross before that shows up).
Complexity: As above, advantage to mithral breastplate (doesn't require a previous-edition setting-specific book or Dragon magazine to use).
I would say this is, in fact, a slight advantage to the combo-armor, unless you're looking at the high-level limit where the customization savings show up most dramatically and you are ignoring how easy it is for high-level characters to produce infinite wealth.
And infinite gold? Do you understand the line between high-power play and being an ****?
Thanks to your posts, we now have an accurate picture. Thank you.
@OP: I created a PrC specifically for chain fighters here. It might be worth looking at. There was very little feedback on it, though, so I really couldn't tell you for sure.
Plate mail isn't a shield. It's armor. Here's another gem, this time from the SRD:Each armor grants an armor bonus to AC, while shields grant a shield bonus to AC. The armor bonus from a suit of armor doesn’t stack with other effects or items that grant an armor bonus. Similarly, the shield bonus from a shield doesn’t stack with other effects that grant a shield bonus.
So, it grants an armor bonus, it's armor. Questions?
Bracers of Armor provide an armor bonus and are not armor. They require an additional rule (found in assorted books - first the A&EG, most recently in either the MIC or the RC, I forget which) to add armor enhancements to them; if it was as simple as armor-bonus-is-armor, that rule wouldn't need to exist.
The chahar-aina and dastana are not necessarily suits of armor. They are listed among the armor in the text, but so are some shields. They are listed in a different category from armor on the table itself.
I thought I included enough caveats when I raised this point earlier, but this is not actually an argument to which I subscribe (because the author's clear intent was to have them carry armor enhancements). I simply wanted to point this out as another possible point of contention.
Okay, weight and spell failure really don't mean anything, because anyone who will actually care won't actually bother spending a dime on armor. So, you have one catergory that actually matters where the breastplate wins, but, oh hey, you can make your chain shirt mithril if you really are that desparate for more DEX.
I did say that weight and spell failure were among the least important when I first raised this point, didn't I?
If you go ahead and make a mithral shirt, the numbers improve quite a bit, but the cost advantage all but disappears - a mithral chain shirt effectively adds +850gp over the basic masterwork, and there's a +2000gp sunk cost in getting the add-ons to be magical before you enhance them, putting the early-game price of the combination armor a mere 700gp (chump change at any level you'd consider either suit) ahead of the mithral breastplate. The price advantage will only show up at higher levels at this point.
You now have two suits of armor with very, very similar stats. One of them is available using core books alone, but is more expensive to enhance at the higher levels. The other requires grandfathering from a 3e setting book or using Dragon Magazine, but is significantly cheaper to enhance at the higher levels. I would, in fact, call these "similar" - because you aren't accounting for whichever books are allowed or disallowed in the gaming environment. (And you seem to think I'm calling your combination armor inferior. I'm not. If you have access to every book, it'll let you eke out a tiny numeric advantage at the low levels and a significant cost advantage (but not a significant numeric advantage) at the higher levels. If you've got limited book access, you can't use it at all. Recall the Seventh and Ninth Commandments of Practical Optimization?)
And infinite gold? Do you understand the line between high-power play and being an ****?
Thanks to your posts, we now have an accurate picture. Thank you.
@OP: I created a PrC specifically for chain fighters here. It might be worth looking at. There was very little feedback on it, though, so I really couldn't tell you for sure.
Thanks Draco, that PrC looks cool, but it appears to be based on starting as a Warblade or one of the other Tome of Battle classes. I've been fiarly hard set on making this character sctrictly a Fighter, but I do appreciate the on topic response.
I made it work "better" for a Warblade because the ToB mythos is that the Hobgoblins have the oldest Legacy weapon, were (arguably) the first martial practitioners, and specialized in the Iron Heart school - which is only available to Warblades. Along with the history of the Empire of Dhakaan, it seemed a thematic fit.
In the thread are also cited several optional build variants, with directions to them, including Warblades and Crusaders. I gave a LOT of feats and options in there, as well as gear to look for...go ahead and look.
==Aelryinth
And most splatter books too :p
We just find the spiked chain weapon ridiculous. We also stir away from many other things and the DMs are strict on casters too. No pun-pun type abuses and stuff. It all works out in the end somehow. RP tends to be more important than combat in the current campaign anyway so the Bard is the most active char.
I still find the spiked chain ridiculous. :p
I'd be more concerned with banning splatbooks. Three of the Big Five are in the Player's Handbook, and all five rely mostly on core spells and feats to be as powerful as they are. (There's a few stars in other books, perhaps most obviously Divine Metamagic / Persistent Spell or Celerity, but there's oodles of abuse present in the core books.) Although people pull the quote for other reasons, RadicalTaoist's original CoDzilla passage was reacting not to the power of the cleric or druid, but rather at the sentiment of DMs banning noncore material simply because it's noncore:
The CoDzilla quote in its entirety, including its seldom-quoted opening paragraph:
In context, he was replying to a person whose DM banned psionics simply because it was noncore (this was on the psi boards). That person ("Haunted") was asking for advice on what to do.
Haunted, the good answers (DMing your own game, ditching this fool for some sensible DMs in college) have been given. You wish to win an argument with a DM, however (try actually facing 3 groups of 4 goblins each in a day at level 1, with time to cast a CLW or two in between, and see if he still thinks you can't have more than 1 encounter a day at low levels) and for that you have chosen the correct tactic.
It bears saying: if up against a logic-impervious DM who thinks Core is balanced and Psionics (or Warlocks, or Fochlucan Lyrists, or anything balanced that's come out of splatbooks that aren't munchfests like Complete Divine) isn't, then the most powerful way to disprove that is to play a C.o.D. (Cleric or Druid). Noncore material will not be necessary unless you are going for pure overkill (Draconic Wildshape? Divine Metamagic?). So by all means, if you must win that argument, take you C.o.D. to town. Annihilate the opposition. Make the NPCs and other players scream "Oh no, it's C.o.D.zilla!!!!!" in badly dubbed English. Breathe radioactive fire. Knock down buildings. Then stomp out of the burning Tokyo that is the ruins of the game and swim off into the ocean, seeking a DM with some basic cognitive functions.
The spiked chain is just like using a guisarme/spiked gauntlet combo. It's not abusive, just effective. Also, as I noted in my custom PrC, there is a tradition of chain fighters among the goblinoids. It's mostly alluded to in the novels, but it is there - as evidenced by the feat Darguun Mauler.
Are you Rubik from this OotS thread?:
www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t...
It's one of the best exotic weapons out there, and is actually worth a feat. Thing is, though, it's actually not much better than a guisarm and a spiked gauntlet. A bit, but not much.
Gauntlet needs improved trip, can't drop it to avoid being triped. Low base damage. Lower enchantment (or higher costs, 2 items to enchant). Lower weapon focus or specialization. (also no +2 to disarms, or two handed bonuses in disarm or power attack or many other actions)
I agree more with Unusual Muse:
It's true... there's definitely a precedent in Chinese martial arts for using the chain as a weapon, to good effect (just YouTube "chain whip" and you'll see!)... but the *spiked* part of it is ridiculous. There would be no way to safely wield a spiked chain. This is another reason why my group banned it. It's mechanically devastating and conceptually stupid.
It's just too kung-fu movie for me. They are able to use plates as nukes too so I don't want that in my game either. Monk class is enough eastern flavor, we don't need an OP weapon too. Pathfinder chains sounds better though.
To be fair, there is a longer tradition of swords in fantasy than chains, and the chain is overrepresented among weapon selection in D&D (because it is two-handed, gives reach, covers your natural reach, can trip, and to a lesser extent is both finessable and a Shadow Hand weapon: in effect this is every quality anyone looks for in any weapon, except perhaps for its damage type and critical threat range, which are more situational).
I'd be more concerned with banning splatbooks. Three of the Big Five are in the Player's Handbook, and all five rely mostly on core spells and feats to be as powerful as they are. (There's a few stars in other books, perhaps most obviously Divine Metamagic / Persistent Spell or Celerity, but there's oodles of abuse present in the core books.) Although people pull the quote for other reasons, RadicalTaoist's original CoDzilla passage was reacting not to the power of the cleric or druid, but rather at the sentiment of DMs banning noncore material simply because it's noncore:The CoDzilla quote in its entirety, including its seldom-quoted opening paragraph:In context, he was replying to a person whose DM banned psionics simply because it was noncore (this was on the psi boards). That person ("Haunted") was asking for advice on what to do.Haunted, the good answers (DMing your own game, ditching this fool for some sensible DMs in college) have been given. You wish to win an argument with a DM, however (try actually facing 3 groups of 4 goblins each in a day at level 1, with time to cast a CLW or two in between, and see if he still thinks you can't have more than 1 encounter a day at low levels) and for that you have chosen the correct tactic.
It bears saying: if up against a logic-impervious DM who thinks Core is balanced and Psionics (or Warlocks, or Fochlucan Lyrists, or anything balanced that's come out of splatbooks that aren't munchfests like Complete Divine) isn't, then the most powerful way to disprove that is to play a C.o.D. (Cleric or Druid). Noncore material will not be necessary unless you are going for pure overkill (Draconic Wildshape? Divine Metamagic?). So by all means, if you must win that argument, take you C.o.D. to town. Annihilate the opposition. Make the NPCs and other players scream "Oh no, it's C.o.D.zilla!!!!!" in badly dubbed English. Breathe radioactive fire. Knock down buildings. Then stomp out of the burning Tokyo that is the ruins of the game and swim off into the ocean, seeking a DM with some basic cognitive functions.