The Unnecessary Nerfing of Spiked Chain

Not that I'm running at game at the moment, but spiked chain will still be a reach weapon in both my campaigns.

That's all you really need to know. If you want the sordid history, keep reading.

Back in 3.5 and Pathfinder Beta, it was possible to pimp the system using spiked chain, Combat Reflexes, Improved Trip, and Spring Attack. It was even worse if you could somehow finagle a character that had reach. It went down like this:

Wait for target to pass thru your threatened area. Ding! AoE! On your turn, 5 ft step to the right, Spring Attack 15 feet away. Lather, rinse, repeat. Double the AoE if you have reach of your own, which means 2 free attacks every turn with Combat Reflexes.
OR
Using the Trip Monkey build, use a trip attack for your AoE, opponent falls. Ding! Another AoE. Standing up in your threatened area? Ding! AoE!

This exploit isnt valid anymore. Combat Reflexes (may only AoE an opponent once, no matter how many of your threatened squares he runs thru) and Spring Attack (must move more than 5ft before and after to use) have been slightly nerfed to stop it. Trip has been significantly nerfed (split into 2 feats) to stop it.

So, no reason to nerf spiked chain, but here we are. The special qualities for spiked chain now are Trip and Disarm. If all you want is a weapon that does Trip and Disarm, get a heavy flail and it wont cost you an exotic weapon feat, plus it will average more damage.

So; my game. Spiked chains keep their reach.

Looks like it is Christian and Keith running on Sunday

Dave is out as GM for this month so I will be running the other game. If there are no objections, I would like to run the early session.

I will continue with the Falcon's Hollow Pathfinder game. It is the same characters but we will be starting something new as you finished the adventure last session. Your characters should now be 7th level. I do not remember if I told you that last time (back in August).

Besides raising a level, please make sure that your characters have been converted to the new Pathfinder RPG rules. Some things have changed. Some changes a subtle and others are major. If there is something that requires a respec to do the conversion and you have questions please let me know.

Christian will we running Hero/Champions for the other session.

I am expecting Bruce, Dave, Christian, Jon and myself. Brian is a maybe for the first session. I am not sure of Randy's status and Russ will not be attending as it is the last week of Festival.

Who is running on October 4th?

I just wanted to check to see who is running on the next Sunday Game scheduled for 10/4/09?

Christian - Champions?
Dave - Pathfinder?
Keith - Pathfinder?
(Jon mentioned to possibility of running again but I am confident that he is not yet ready to take the plunge this month.)

As this is less than 2 weeks away, I need to know if I am running and which characters I need to create and/or update.

BTW can someone post recaps of what has happened last month in the games?