If possible, removing the Exotic Weapons proficiency requirement would be an improvement, as a whip does seem largely an RP prop.
I suspect that can't be changed.
if they cant...Rings that grant exotic weap prof can be made. Many servers do this to overcome that issue.
*nod* The ring might also have an imaginative penalty (cf. blacksmith's apron), if balance is a concern.
A ring like that obviously would be a balance issue. Adding penalty like the blacksmith's apron on the ring would be counter productive in this case as the issue being raised is the whip not being good enough. Also, even if we did at some point decide to add in a ring like that, it wouldn't be only for the whip as exotic weapon include more than just the whip.
That said, I don't think we're going to add a ring like this for obvious balance issue.
This is exactly what I'm saying and hence the comparison to the blacksmith's apron
The blacksmith's apron exists to make certain items that serve a different function usable even though they require the martial proficiency. It has maluses because Devs don't want it being used to achieve the feat in other circumstances.
Similarly, some item could grant exotic proficiency to allow the equipping and using of the whip
for RP purposes. (I was not arguing that it be made a better weapon.) As with the blacksmith's apron, it would need to have a malus so that using it to say, equip a gun, not be feasible.
Ideally, the whip could be made non-exotic. Since a smith's hammer can't be changed, however, I assume the same is true for a whip.
If we want to improve the whip
as a weapon, giving it improved disarm seems the obvious choice. But since that has been suggested several times in the past and never done, I assume that's for balance reasons as well.
(And after learning recently how disarm actually works versus discipline, can't say I support anything that further imbalances disarm/knockdown as feats.)
