I feel like these weapons are both able to be used as either reach or melee weapons and allow you to threaten in both 5' and 10' increments, like the old spiked chain in 3.x D&D but the descriptions dont entirely support that and add some minor confusion.
First off both weapons say the non-reach portions are wielded in the "off hand" does that impart any specific penalties to those ends of the weapons?
Both have the reach quality which means you can't use it against an adjacent foe though the Kyoketsu Shoge states it can be used that way. The Kusarigama lacks this in its description which kind of means the sickle cant be used in melee, can you hold the weight and swing the sickle at reach?
The Kyoketsu Shoge can also be thrown as a dagger. the 20' range increment would seem to be self explainitory but can you hold the ring and swing the dagger end as a reach weapon?
The Kusarigama says the sickle is used for tripping in its description, does that mean the ball aspect lacks this quality?
Its not spelled out but i assume the weighted ball of the Kusarigama is 1D3 and the sickle is 1D6.
It seems the simplest solution to these weapons is that they deal their damage at 0-10" and all attacks share the same qualities. The only problem to that is the Kusarigama and if it has to be 1D3 B damage at reach which is what made me wonder about the rest.
|
1 person marked this as a favorite.
|
Off-hand penalties: only if you're using TWF to get extra attacks. If you just hold the non-reach end in your off-hand and make one attack, or make all your iterative attacks, but you don't use both ends to get extra attacks then there is no penalty.
As for the rest, it's a very poorly written weapon.
I've used a kusarigama, briefly, then abandoned it for fear I would kill myself (I had a black-belt weapons master teaching me how to use it correctly). I know what it can do. Nobody every uses the kama end (the sickle) at reach. You hold that. Or maybe use it like a short grappling hook, but not as a weapon at reach. As such, it ALWAYS only threatens adjacent enemies.
The Kusari (chain) on mine was not 10' long. I don't think the entire weapon was 10' long. Closer to 8' total. As such, even the chain would barely be a reach weapon since it's not really longer than, say, a halberd which is not a reach weapon. But let's give it the benefit of the doubt.
Which means that a real person with a real kusarigama can always strike an adjacent foe with the kama end and can always strike someone a little farther away with the kursari. But in fact, since you hold the kusari at about mid point, the part you really swing is only about 4' long, clearly not "reach", so you should ALSO be able to use the kusari against adjacent enemies too.
Also, the kama is far deadlier than the "ball" (mine was more like a rounded cone) at the end of the kusari, though I wouldn't want to get hit by either one, so I'm sure the d6 applies to the kama and the d3 applies to the kusari.
Also, the "ball" can and definitely is used to trip opponents, and disarm them, by wrapping around an extremity and then jerking back quickly. This is not something limited only to the kama end.
All of the above has no bearing on the kusarigama in Pathfinder. As written, both ends are reach-only (ludicrous) and you have to decide how much damage each end does.
As for trips and disarms, EVERY weapon can be used to do trips and disarms. You can do them with daggers if you want. But weapons with the Trip of Disarm properties have benefits. As written, the kusarigama has the Trip property but the description limits it to he Kama end (silly) and does not have the Disarm property at all (which might be reasonable, actually, though I would argue for it).
But, since both ends are reach, it doesn't matter which end has the Trip property - either way, you simply trip at reach.
All the above Pathfinder ruling applies to the kyoketsu shoge (I've never used one) the same way except it is not a double weapon and it has Disarm instead of Trip. Also, you can throw the ENTIRE weapon (not just the dagger end) with a range increment of 20 (which means a full range of 100' which I think is extremely generous but as I said, I've never seen one used, maybe some masters out there can throw it that far and still hit point first).
I think the kyoketsu shoge should be a double weapon (two light weapons, one in each hand, yeah, that's what double weapons are for) but it's not. Both ends are Reach for some reason (they shouldn't be; the blade end is a non-reach melee weapon that can also be thrown). I'm fairly sure the d4 should be the blade (it's like a big dagger, it should not be less damage than a dagger) but that's up to the GM to decide.
I hope some of this helps.
DM_Blake wrote: Off-hand penalties: only if you're using TWF to get extra attacks. If you just hold the non-reach end in your off-hand and make one attack, or make all your iterative attacks, but you don't use both ends to get extra attacks then there is no penalty.
As for the rest, it's a very poorly written weapon.
I've used a kusarigama, briefly, then abandoned it for fear I would kill myself (I had a black-belt weapons master teaching me how to use it correctly). I know what it can do. Nobody every uses the kama end (the sickle) at reach. You hold that. Or maybe use it like a short grappling hook, but not as a weapon at reach. As such, it ALWAYS only threatens adjacent enemies.
The Kusari (chain) on mine was not 10' long. I don't think the entire weapon was 10' long. Closer to 8' total. As such, even the chain would barely be a reach weapon since it's not really longer than, say, a halberd which is not a reach weapon. But let's give it the benefit of the doubt.
Which means that a real person with a real kusarigama can always strike an adjacent foe with the kama end and can always strike someone a little farther away with the kursari. But in fact, since you hold the kusari at about mid point, the part you really swing is only about 4' long, clearly not "reach", so you should ALSO be able to use the kusari against adjacent enemies too.
Also, the kama is far deadlier than the "ball" (mine was more like a rounded cone) at the end of the kusari, though I wouldn't want to get hit by either one, so I'm sure the d6 applies to the kama and the d3 applies to the kusari.
Also, the "ball" can and definitely is used to trip opponents, and disarm them, by wrapping around an extremity and then jerking back quickly. This is not something limited only to the kama end.
All of the above has no bearing on the kusarigama in Pathfinder. As written, both ends are reach-only (ludicrous) and you have to decide how much damage each end does.
As for trips and disarms, EVERY weapon can be used to do trips and disarms....
Thank you for the input. That makes a lot of sense. I havent seen either of these things used before and trying to fit in the official rules with what little i know of the real world weapons has been confusing.
I could see some interesting options using the Ascetic Style with a martial tradition human Slayer or the like. If the weapons work at all close to how i think they do.
A few things to note:
Weapon length has nothing, really, to do with how far it can reach (within the Pathfinder system). Remember, a person isn't a 5' cube; a 5' square on the map is your tactical area, but you move around both within and outside of it; it merely serves as an "anchor point" for your character. So, whether the chain is 8' or 10' or even 6', it can attack out to reach the same way that a foot long dagger can attack out 5'; because it is a reach weapon.
Next, the stat blocks for each weapon:
PRD wrote: Kusarigama: This weapon has a single sickle held in the off-hand attached by 10 feet of fine chain to a weighted metal ball. The sickle is used to make trips, jabs, and blocks while the ball is whipped around at high speeds and then smashed into the opponent.
...
Kyoketsu Shoge: This weapon consists of a foot-long double-edged blade, with another smaller, curved hook-blade sticking out the side like a rooster's spur. The blade is strung to a large iron hoop with 10-foot length of rope. The blade can be used as an off-hand melee weapon or thrown like a dagger, while the rope and circlet can be whipped around and swung at opponents as a bludgeoning reach weapon.
The Kusarigama states that the sickle is "held in the off-hand". This doesn't mean it can only be used as an off-hand weapon because that's not how TWF works. What it means is that, when wielding the weapon, the sickle is held (not thrown or swung around) while the chain end is actually doing the swinging. This means that you don't reach with the Kama part, only with the chain (this fits real-life usage of the weapon). 1d6 matches the damage of a Kama so it fits that this is the dice applied to the Kama end, leaving 1d3 to be the damage of the weighted chain. It is a Double weapon, but this serves less for actual TWF, since you'd need one foe at reach and the other adjacent (or utilize 5' step), but more so that you can use the weapon at reach but still threaten adjacent with the Kama end. Any weapon can make a trip or disarm, but those specific properties on a weapon provide specific benefits; the trip property allows you to drop the weapon in lieu of falling prone if you botch your trip attempt, for instance. Now, arguably, both ends ought to have trip since a Kama has the trip property (easily drop it if you fumble your trip), but the weapon explicitly states that the Kama end is the one designed for tripping while the chain end is designed solely as a reach weapon. This would imply that only the Kama end counts as having trip; this doesn't mean you can't trip with the chain end at reach, only that you can't drop the weapon in lieu of falling prone if you fumble the attempt. Ultimate Equipment adds a line to the Kusarigama stating that the chain is also used as the disarming end. So the Kama end counts as having the trip property, but not disarm (matches stats for a Kama) while the chain end has reach and disarm. Altogether, it is a mess of a weapon, but still somewhat understandable.
Now, the Kyoketsu Shoge is a total mess. The Kusarigama is a mess, but you can puzzle out most of the rules elements, at least. The shoge is an absolute cluster!$*&. To start with, it doesn't even have the double weapon property. This means that you cannot use it for TWF like you can the Kusarigama or a double-chain Kama. But you can still use it as a single-handed weapon because the dagger portion of it can be used just as a plain old dagger with the rope and hoop not used. The dagger wouldn't be "swung" at reach, but the hoop can be. But you can throw the dagger, though, if you keep hold of the rope, its range would be limited to about 10'. If you let go of the rope, of course, it can travel further. Since it isn't a double weapon, all parts of it do the same 1d4 damage, with explicit exception for the hoop dealing bludgeoning damage rather than S or P. It also wouldn't be magically enchanted separately as a double weapon would be; rather it has one set of enchantments that apply to the weapon as a whole.
Honestly, until weapons like this are streamlined and more consistently codified, I'd personally avoid using any except for the double-chain Kama since that, really, is the most directly straightforward of the whole lot.
Dave Justus wrote: The 'real world' often has little to do with Pathfinder weapons. Agreed, which is why I said my real-world info had no bearing on a Pathfinder kusarigama.
Dave Justus wrote: Often that is probably by design. Maybe.
Or it could just be by bad design. Many bad designs have been carried forward since the 70s because one game designer at the start of it all had some misinformation about weights, bulkiness, size, even handedness.
But some choices are probably made for balance - no game designer wants one weapon to become the only weapon everybody uses because it's out of balance and overpowered compared to all the more balanced choices.
Dave Justus wrote: We aren't really trying to simulate a historical time period after all, we are trying to simulate a fantasy world with magic and weapons that work like those in movies and other popular forms of entertainment. Well, that may be true.
But then why isn't a longsword a reach weapon, or why does a javelin have more range than a spear, or why is a rapier piercing instead of bludgeoning, or why does a crossbow take more time to load than a bow, or why is a flail good at tripping? Etc.
Obviously, the game designers tried to make Pathfinder weapons at least resemble their real world counterparts. If not, why did they even say "The sickle is used to make trips, jabs, and blocks while the ball is whipped around at high speeds and then smashed into the opponent"? Why didn't they say "The wielder whips both ends around at reach, tipping and slicing and bashing the opponent as he pleases"?
The latter more accurately represents the kusarigama's stat block, while the former is what they actually wrote.
No, it's obvious that the developers made some attempt for ALL the Pathfinder weapons to match real world counterparts (except for the obvious exceptions that are game-only and never existed in the real world), so it's unreasonable to say the opposite is true just because a particular weapon is badly designed in the game.
It's also probable that the made some balance decisions too, so maybe the bad design is just an attempt at balance.
Even so, at the very least it's poorly worded, leaving the players to guess at the damage (or extrapolate from other weapons) and leaving lots of room for discussion about why a hand-held kama cannot be used against an adjacent foe.
Recent threads in Rules Questions
|
