Ultimate Equipment Question

[Captain Emberwrath]

I was looking through my copy of Ultimate Equipment when I saw that the tetsubo is listed as an exotic weapon. Now my questions is why? Its a club, they don't come much simpler to use. Is it because of the damage and crit multiplier?

[Kudaku]

I'm guessing at least part of it is for balance.

Simple Proficiency: Club / Martial Proficiency: Greatclub / Exotic Proficiency: Tetsubo

Skimming Wikipedia's article on the Tetsubo, I found the following

Wikipedia wrote:

The art of using this cumbersome weapon, kanabō-jutsu or tetsubo-jutsu, consisted of a mastery of both balance and strength; it required great skill to recover from a miss with the heavy club, which could leave a wielder open to a counter-attack.

Then again, the Earthbreaker is martial. Personally I have a hard time seeing how it's easier to recover from a miss with the tetsubo compared to the earthbreaker.

So... Yeah, I'm going to go with balancing. If both the greatclub and the tetsubo were in the same group, I'd have a hard time justifying the greatclub.

[mplindustries]

There are two kinds of exotic weapons:

1) Weapons that are extremely unusual and, fluffwise, take extra training to learn how to use properly.

2) Weapons that people actually use and are willing spend a feat on because they're actually mechanically superior to similar martial weapons.

The Siangham is an example of category 1. The Tetsubo is #2.

It takes a feat because it's better than normal weapons and for no other reason.