Classic Review by Crothian
One of my favorite characters in the d20 era was Tag Trister. He was a Bard and for fun I thought I’d have him use a whip. Soon I found how hard it was to make the whip not just useful, but actually just worthwhile. I eventually had to take a few levels of prestige class so I wouldn’t have to abandon the whip all together. It has been a few years since I played Tag, but the lessons learned about the whip remain. It is a visually cool, but nearly worthless weapon rules wise.
Arsenal is a series of books by EN Publishing. The take a single weapon and expand on it. They have new feats, new classes, and new variants for the weapon. It would have been nice to have some of these options available back when I played Tag. I really like the idea and so far have been pleased with the few books so far in the series. It is a simple yet very useful line of books that makes it easy for people to use.
The Whip version of the Arsenal book is written by Ryan Nock. The book is twenty six pages long though it really could be better laid out. There is only one version of the file and it might be a bit much printing out. Also, there are some really good pictures under the text and that can make a it a bit tough to read at times. The art though is really good and I like action pictures like many of them presented here. It gives some good visuals of the whip in action.
The book starts with the many different sizes of the whip. So, if someone needs a tiny whip or even a gargantuan one the stats are all right here. There are two optional rules on reach and weapon groups. The one on reach limits the reach of the whip so very big creatures cannot whirlwind everything in 60 feet for instance. The weapon group is nice since these are exotic weapons and similar enough to allow for one feat to cover all weapons, but weapon focus and similar feats still only apply to a single type of whip.
There area few new variants on the whip. The bladed whip is a whip that basically has a dagger on the end. There is also the whip sword. It is a sword that can extend out and have many whip qualities like the reach. One interesting and creative part of the new whips are ways to crafty them differently. There are some good rules for creating whips that are harder to destroy with a higher harness or more hit points. One can also make them lighter. Then there are the special materials that one might want to make them out of like Moonhair to effect lycanthropes and Feyhart Leather that can harm fey creatures.
There are many options the whip has and the book discusses all sort of interesting things one can do with the whip using the basic rules. There is also one complex maneuver that a high level character with the right feats can really take advantage of called the Calamity Symphony. There are many new feats even a couple of epic ones presented here. There are feats that help with disarm and with trip. The prestige classes are interesting with one that deals with thunder and the cracking of the whip and another that is an interesting take with the dullest style character.
Overall there are some good options for a character that wants to make the most out of the whip weapon. There is a lot of style behind this product and it really highlights the positives of the weapon while fully admitting the limitations.
