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

[Son of the Serpent]

Wow, there’s a lot of weapon vs. weapon trash talking going on here. Couple things:

First of all, no weapon beats any other weapon 100% of the time, even assuming one-on-one combat between “equally skilled” opponents (and “equally skilled” is pretty difficult to define when talking about two different kinds of weapons.) Context is always king.

If we put swords and polearms both in their proper context, it is clear that they would very rarely be used against each other, with the possible exception of big two-handed swords like the montante, though that is debated among scholars.

Swords were really not primary battlefield weapons, again, save maybe two-handers. One-handed swords and longswords were used as sidearms on the battlefield, as civilian self-defense weapons, and as dueling and tournament weapons. This is because their primary advantages are being easy to carry around, and highly versatile.

Polearms were primarily formation weapons, used on the battlefield effectively as area denial. Line up a bunch of guys with long pointy sticks and tell them to move as a unit, and it’s going to be very difficult for anyone to get past their line without intimidating them into breaking formation. Put some guys with bows or guns behind them, and you’ve got a solid attack and defense force. Give those guys swords, and they can defend themselves in close-quarters if the pike line gets broken. Polearms were almost never used in civilian self-defense because they’re big and hard to carry around. They did see use in dueling and tournaments, but usually paired up against other polearm users.

The two-handed sword is a bit of an odd duck. It has the silhouette of a sword, but the length of a (very short) polearm. It is therefore unlikely to have been used in the same contexts as other swords, but there isn’t really evidence of it being used in formation like a polearm. There is some suggestion that it could have been used specifically to break up polearm formations, but there really isn’t a lot of surviving material describing how to use it. What we do see in montante manuals is a fighting style that employs huge sweeping movements and keeping up momentum, so it was probably its own beast altogether. Some scholars have suggested that it may have been made to be used by one well-trained man at arms to defend against many less-skilled conscripts. A montante user swinging his giant sword around becomes a one-man zone of denial, but he’s better at holding a choke point than advancing on a group of pikemen.

So, to reiterate, there is very little historical context in which sword-vs-spear would have even happened. In the events that it did, the primary advantage of the spear is its reach, which a skilled spear user would be able to exploit to its fullest. Reach is one of the most valuable attributes for a medieval weapon to have. The primary advantage of the sword is really in its portability, though a secondary advantage is its versatility. Where a spear is deadliest at its tip and can be grappled along most of its length, you can threaten with pretty much any part of a sword. Still, to use it effectively against someone with a spear you need to close the distance, and that can be very difficult to do safely.

For folks who have LARP experience and have found sword users consistently able to press spear users, keep in mind you are in a low-stakes simulacrum of medieval combat. Try it with live steel instead of padded boffers and I expect the sword-user will be much less bold in advancing. Especially if he thinks the spear-user is actually trying to kill him.

I agree with this post and second it. Furthermore i'd like to reiterate i never said polearms win out 100% of the time. Thankyou for the quality post @Charlaquin

 

[Garthanos]

It could even be the exact same weapon, just simple training vs martial

I thought superior weapons in 4e were ummm yeah. Made each form of superiority its own feat and move on.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

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.

i think people wind up falsely concluding that polearms are comparatively simple to swords for the same reason people mistakenly believe that dragon force with its hundreds or even thousands of notes would be more musically complex than a "simple" chopin piece when the chopin piece is factually more complex. Even a trained musician is likely to make this mistake. Spears and other well developed polearms can be very simple but often have subtle complexity that puts them right up there with the sword. For instance, even the shaft, often the simplest part, in a decent polearm often involves a fair degree of subtle math and physics.

 

[Garthanos]

For instance, even the shaft, often the simplest part, in a decent polearm often involves a fair degree of subtle math and physics.

Whipping effect for lateral unexpected movement....

 

[jasper]

Whipping effect for lateral unexpected movement....

I think some of us could use a good whipping on the subject.

 

[Garthanos]

I am thinking maybe the perception that real battlefield spear use is simple may be a product of the same kind of white washing that happened when renaissance fencing schools started dissing the earlier martial arts calling them brutish (of course we did find documentation that pretty much has refuted that) but since the shift was so much further back well it may just be more modern ignorance LOL.

 

[Coroc]

Up till 19th century or so in Germany Nightwatchmen (who would patrol alone on their own) was equipped with a horn for raising alarm, a lantern and a halberd!
The latter was especially useful to pull down façade climbers, mounted do-no-goods, had a blunt end for less deadly maneuvers, and would even the odds against a group of opponents.

The 1 shot firearms which could get wet only had 1 shot etc. just could not compete in usefulness.

here you go, that is an archetype as you can see!

 

[Son of the Serpent]

I am thinking maybe the perception that real battlefield spear use is simple may be a product of the same kind of white washing that happened when renaissance fencing schools started dissing the earlier martial arts calling them brutish (of course we did find documentation that pretty much has refuted that) but since the shift was so much further back well it may just be more modern ignorance LOL.

Agreed. Also my statement on the deceptive complexity of weapon construction also doesnt apply to a lot of cheap basic versions of weapons. If it wasnt already clear im talking about developed forms of weapons. They are the ones im saying people underestimate the complexity thereof. To be sure this applies to swords too. But the gap between comprehended complexity and actual complexity of weapons is especially large in weapons like polearms whos basic shaoewis especially simple, as its not much more than a simple line. It really affects perception.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

Up till 19th century or so in Germany Nightwatchmen (who would patrol alone on their own) was equipped with a horn for raising alarm, a lantern and a halberd!
The latter was especially useful to pull down façade climbers, mounted do-no-goods, had a blunt end for less deadly maneuvers, and would even the odds against a group of opponents.

The 1 shot firearms which could get wet only had 1 shot etc. just could not compete in usefulness.View attachment 114858

here you go, that is an archetype as you can see!

This is an interesting little bit of history. Thankyou.

 

[Garthanos]

Agreed. Also my statement on the deceptive complexity of weapon construction also doesnt apply to a lot of cheap basic versions of weapons. If it wasnt already clear im talking about developed forms of weapons.

My father was trained in a martial art where the primary effect was pressure points and exploiting deadly vulnerabilities he said the staff while handy was just a way to get more reach it was the art form that made it significant and effective.