D&D 5E Fixing the polearm and taking back its seat as generally best nonprojectile weapon from the sword.

[Mistwell]

Commodore is better than Atari! Rawr!

Also, because we're well into silly-land, I felt this bit, direct from EnWorld, was worth posting here:

 

[dave2008]

Anyway, I suggest y'all watch this:

Very fun - thanks for sharing! Looks like with these guys the spear had about a 2/1 advantage. Though it really did look like they required a much grander hit for sword to count than thy did for the spear I know i would have run through some of those glancing blows and carved up the spear user. And the first double "no count" was clearly a hit by the sword way before the spear user (of course the 2nd one seemed to be the opposite). And they counted the spear as succeeding when the user was disarmed of his spear! I don't know how that counts when the "kill" wasn't made with the spear?! It probably wasn't biased, but it gave that impression t me a bit. Regardless, I do really like the spear uses techniques, much better than what I've seen in the local LARP circuit.

Interestingly, the most effective technique fro the sword user seemed to be to bull rush the spear user. This didn't work very often for the people in the video, but the rusher consistently got past the spear and had an open opportunity to finish of the spear user. it was just the sword user wasn't very good once the got past the spear. It also makes me think that wearing heavy armor would actually be a good thing, despite what @Son of the Serpent
suggests. Per that video plate would deflect about 90% of the "killing" blows in this video. That was something else I wasn't expecting.

 

[Quartz]

Which is of course why the Roman legions were equipped with swords.

They also had spears.

 

[Garthanos]

Except for the tables where feats aren't used I suppose. (Personally, I don't think they exist but rumors abound some groups don't like feats... shhh).

The bonus action attack with other end feature should just be part of TWF IMO and not part of a feat.

It generally took feats to make polearms and spears to shine in 4e as well... which is odd because they could have made them effective directly in the powers (and while I am sure there were a few I am equally sure that the spear/polearm fans like Tony will tell you even the feats were innadequate till high level) sounds like a pattern of keeping the spear user down.

 

[Krachek]

Realistic knowledge don’t matter in DnD.
Trend and traditional belief matters much.
It make me though about shot gun, the classic caliber 12 pump gun,
In most movie, even highly realistic, we see the target push in the wall, and even push trough the wall.
But this is totally non sense. Someone who receive a shot from a shut gun react the same as any bullet from any gun or rifle.
But people beilieve it now, and movie has to deliver the belief.

 

[Charlaquin]

It generally took feats to make polearms and spears to shine in 4e as well... which is odd because they could have made them effective directly in the powers (and while I am sure there were a few I am equally sure that the spear/polearm fans like Tony will tell you even the feats were innadequate till high level) sounds like a pattern of keeping the spear user down.

I think the issue is that a spear is unquestionably a simple weapon. Simple design, simple to make, simple to use, simple all around. And for game balance purposes, simple weapons generally need to be worse than martial weapons. If spears were better than swords at their baseline, it would significantly devalue martial weapon proficiency, because anyone with simple weapon proficiency can already be more effective with a spear.

The simplest solution to this problem is to take some of the features that should realistically be inherent to the spear and lock them behind feats. Now anybody can use a spear, but it takes specialized training to use it to maximum effect. Is it realistic? Not really, but it’s decently well-balanced, and it’s not overly complex.

The other solution would be to overhaul weapon design to account for different weapons being more or less useful in different contexts. But down that path lies the overly-complex weapon vs. weapon tables of Ye Olde D&D, and at the end of the day it probably still won’t be all that realistic.

 

[Garthanos]

I think the issue is that a spear is unquestionably a simple weapon. Simple design, simple to make, simple to use, simple all around. And for game balance purposes, simple weapons generally need to be worse than martial weapons. If spears were better than swords at their baseline, it would significantly devalue martial weapon proficiency, because anyone with simple weapon proficiency can already be more effective with a spear.

The simplest solution to this problem is to take some of the features that should realistically be inherent to the spear and lock them behind feats. Now anybody can use a spear, but it takes specialized training to use it to maximum effect. Is it realistic? Not really, but it’s decently well-balanced, and it’s not overly complex.

The other solution would be to overhaul weapon design to account for different weapons being more or less useful in different contexts. But down that path lies the overly-complex weapon vs. weapon tables of Ye Olde D&D, and at the end of the day it probably still won’t be all that realistic.

Maybe but if I make a fighter (lancer knockback/through or down and or polearm lock down) or monk (for pole vaulting and superb defensive reach) or barbarian (spear dervish) then those have class feature options for those special build fun they could be made to auto get what might otherwise be behind a feat.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Polearms are very diverse, including spear, pike, lance, halberd, poll-axe, quarterstaff, and obscure Gygaxian stuff like the man-catcher. These all have different uses and probably different rpg stats. You might be better off restricting it to a consideration of the spear as in your original post.

 

[Quartz]

I think the issue is that a spear is unquestionably a simple weapon. Simple design, simple to make, simple to use, simple all around.

I think a lot of people would disagree with you. At least in part. While a simple spear can be just a length of wood with a point, a forged tip can be just as complex as a dagger or short sword. Something like a boarspear might have significant quillons, for example.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You know why we know this? Because swords actually got used in the real world, a lot. The real world doesn't use game stats, and has no raise dead. If spears actually won 9 times out of 10 because of the weapon, and not the user's skill, then noboy'd use a sword.

Spears really did get used a whole lot more than swords. But, at certain periods in history, swords - being more elegant, more expensive, harder to make weapons - got a lot of notoriety, became status symbols, were even attributed magical powers, etc. (Also, swords made it into museums centuries later a lot more than spears, axes - or falchions, one of the most common weapons of the medieval period, yet few examples exist, today, at all.)
D&D making the sword, especially the iconic cruciform arming sword it calls a longsword, a solid weapon choice, and making a stunning majority of magical weapons found swords, and especially, longswords, thus fits fantasy tropes better than doing the same for spears or axes or Swiss Pikes & halberds or English bills, even though each of those has probably far outperformed the sword in many ways. Because it's a fantasy game first, and a simulation of pre-gunpowder warfare *n*th.

That said, nothing wrong with giving normal spears their due relative to normal swords.