Let's face it, Whips suck. There are only three reasons to use a whip:

1. Role-playing. 2. Looks. 3. To disarm opponents.

The first two, while nice and good, normally ends with a PC switching to a useful weapon when in real combat. Disarming opponents... ha.

To even get the ability to use a whip, you have to take the Exotic Weapon's feat. If you wanted to disarm opponents, you could have just taken the disarm feat, and disarmed them with -any- weapon.

Did I mention whips also can't be wielded in the off-hand and their damage is 1d2?

Yeah, they suck bad.

However, I do have a useful suggestion. Give whips the ability to stun people for one round a percentage amount of the time if they fail their save (reflex save preferably). It makes sense and makes them useful.

This meshes well with their mechanical and role-play usefulness. By allowing a whip to stun people, it symbolizes a few things: 1. A whips blows, while not deadly, HURT. Being struck by a whip is going to leave you stunned for a few seconds in pain.

2. The sight of a whip being used against you, if you were a former slave, is bound to bring back painful memories.

3. A whip wrapped around a leg makes it difficult to escape, to run away.

4. A whip around the wrist makes it difficult to swing a sword.

5. A whip striking you is certainly enough to interrupt your concentration while casting a spell.

Some of this is simulated with the disarm feat, allowing you to wrap the whip around someones weapon and disarm them. The stunning effect is the logical extension of that idea. Being a colony of former slaves, who were most likely whipped, it would be nice to see the weapon being used more often and the in character reactions to seeing it.

Most weapons hurt when they slash you. Not everyone's an ex-slave. A whip wrapped around my leg wouldn't stop me from moving entirely. Sorry, I just don't really agree that whips need all that much changing; they're narrow strips of leather, so they're not going to be as powerful as other weapons.

There are overrides supported by EfU that let you wield a whip in the off-hand, even wield two of them.

Disarming with a whip is a joke discounting the fact that you don't need the feat to do it. Its a small weapon and takes a massive penalty towards removing most weapons carried in combat.

I'm not sure about stunning though. That sounds like a Sneak Attacking exploit. Hit once- stun them, Hit again- Sneak damage +Stun, hit again Sneak damage plus stun. Ahem. I made my point. I vote against stunning.

I don't really care about making changes to the whip- since its designed to do exactly what it does. Its not all that dangerous of a weapon, and is mostly used because you can whip someone a couple hundred times and they'll still be awake to feel it. If you have on full plate- a whip shouldn't be able to do anything but trip you up. Its not going to do any damage.

A whip is used to cause pain on unarmored subjects. It is a tool of punishment. It is not designed to be combat effective.

AE bonus to some whip might be cool. For those ranger's that force commands into their AE'd friends.

There are a bunch of whips that have bonuses on them to make up for that. Despite the low hit die on them, most of your damage comes from your strength and weapon bonus damage, not the hit die.

I don't think this is going to happen at all. There are plenty of weapons that are 'non-optimal' as far as damage per second goes -- the whip just happens to be at the lower end of the chain. I don't see why a whip would have a better chance of 'stunning' somebody as compared to a heavy flail, greataxe, etc.

There's a balance on this already. There are a lot of REALLY neat whips available as non-DM loot. While they may still be non-optimal... well, what Exile said.

I'd like to see whips being improved disarm(instead of regular disarm) personally. Since that seems to be their main advantage. At least helps remove the fact that their utterly useless at disarming people most of the time

How to Improve Whips by PlayaCharacter

"In ten easy steps!"

1. Take exotic weapon feat 2. Buy a whip 3. Obtain a minor healing rod 4. Find another PC 5. Beat them down to the point of subdual 6. Equip the whip in your character's main hand 7. Alternate between lashing the other player with the whip and curing them with a minor healing rod 8. Relish in their screams of agony and terror 9. Repeat steps 5 - 8 as desired 10. Profit

I think they should -at least- get Improved Disarm, or failing that become a Simple Weapon. Having to take the Exotic Weapon Feat is just ridiculous for such a crappy weapon.

You also get Katana, bastard sword, kukri, scythe, double-weapons, etc.

lovethesuit You also get Katana, bastard sword, kukri, scythe, double-weapons, etc.

"Yup, I spent two years torturing people with a wip in Waterdeep, so now I can use the Katana like a samuri. *kungfu noices*"

Imho, the exotic wep feat generally represents training in *one* exotic wep, not all.

lovethesuit You also get Katana, bastard sword, kukri, scythe, double-weapons, etc.

dwarven war axe as well( with any dwarf should be able to use from go IMO)

Go stand around in 300 pounds of steel and let me whip you endlessly. I'll do this until I can't move my arm anymore and then ask you how badly it hurt.

Chances are, you'll have fallen asleep from boredom.

The simple fact is, whips -don't- do a lot of damage. Sure, they'll shred cloth and quickly make a mess of bare flesh, but anything more than that is going to quickly nullify the pain you feel from a whip.

But, as has been mentioned, there are a number of very cool non DM loot whips that can be had. If you really want to make a whip character, seek one of those out... And maybe take a few rogue levels. Just don't ever expect to be able to dish out the damage you could with a longsword or similarly damaging weapon. It just doesn't make sense.

Really, don't change it. It's a weapon suitable for roleplay, if everyone used them because they were mechanically useful it would take the roleplay value away for me. It's one of those weapons nearly nobody uses, which can make me feel special and cool if I have one.

I like that there are some less effective weapons out there. Just shows how much in the way of cojones people have when they use them instead of bastard swords / greatswords / shortswords.

I got my ass kicked by a dual-wielding whip kobold :(

My current character is an avid whip user with quite some investment of feats in the whip. It is still kinda hard for me to resist switching to a better weapon when I think things might get a little sticky. I guess this is natural though.

I think that the whip is fine in most regards. And abilities like the stunning and so forth can be found on magic whips which are not that uncommon to find. Its just not an everyday weapon, but at least it gets more play than a spear which historically was incredibly widely used but just sucks in nwn.

If there could be one change to whips, what I would like to see is a better ability to disarm. Before I started using whips I thought I'd be trying to disarm people all of the time with them. Then I tried it and usually its at a -10 penalty. The problem is that whips are a small weapon, so you get a huge size difference penalty. Maybe if there were even a few magic whips around that could somehow reduce that drawback it would be nice.

It does make some sense that it should be hard for me to pull a battleaxe from an ogres hands with my whip, but when I'm struggling to pull a flail from a goblin its a bit sad.

All whips should get:

OnHit: SexyMoan

Whips' already have some of the sickest +magical scores on them in EFU by random drop. If you don't want to use a whip in combat, don't use a whip in combat. I like how not every weapon is as strong as one another. In the end its all about originality, and a whip certainly constitutes to that!

Leave it as it is. :( If you make it stronger my next roll-up will seem less cool.

I might make a whipper now, to see how cool they are.

Might be interesting to make a dual whipper. The override on NWN vault?

Where's the "whip Overide". Whips are cools "as is". I never use them, but would never rule it out. ;)

I think one neat addition might be to have some whips around with the "knockdown" feat to simulate being tripped with a whip. Hey it worked on AT-AT's, why not a Half-Orc in full plate....

-Kalos

I lol'd...

Orcs only have two legs, and don't seem to shoot laser beams.

But... I see the similarity. :lol:

If you are on the vault already, could as well get the PRC and play a random module as a Lasher, which is a prestige class built around and for usage of the whip, I hear they get quite decent.

The lasher prestige class uses the whip as an extension of herself. A whip in the hands of a lasher is like unto a live thing, obeying the character's every command. Lasher training goes far beyond simple exotic weapon proficiency, and not all who take up the discipline survive to its end. Their ability with the whip makes them deadly warriors to be reckoned with.

- Hit Die: d10. - Proficiencies: A lasher does not gain any additional weapon or armor proficiencies. - Skill Points: 2 + Int Modifier.

REQUIREMENTS:

Base Attack Bonus: +5 Feats: Weapon Proficiency (Exotic), Weapon Focus (Whip). Skills: Craft Weapon 2 ranks.

ABILITIES:

Level 1: Whip Sneak Attack +1d6 2: Improved Knockdown (Whip), Third Hand 3: Crack of Fate 4: Lashing Whip 5: Whip Sneak Attack +2d6 6: Improved Disarm (Whip) 7: Stunning Snap 8: Crack of Doom 9: Whip Sneak Attack +3d6 10: Death Spiral

Whips are already good as they are. Plenty of lovely roleplay opportunities! ;)

Lots of great whips are already in the module, and are given to PC's that rock out.