Longspear strategy (or lack thereof)

[NorthSaber]

If you could make a push 2+ attack at-will, it would make a rather devastating combo with polearm gamble & combat superiority. Push target 2+ squares (and mark it); target has to use a normal move action to close; if it enters any of your squares you get an OA and stop its movement if you hit. Next round, push the target back again - it would be like a free attack every round if you can block a 3 square-wide passage.

Is there a way to get push to your at-will attack with a longspear? That would be very valuable...

I think the longspear is a better wepeon for a warlord or a cleric(leaders), than a defender.

This much is true, but there are so many sweet exploits for spear-use in the fighter lists... *drool*

One major advantage of the longspear is being an eladrin with the Eladrin Soldier feat gives me +2 damage. A glaive or halberd would not.

You could take Weapon Focus, though, which is just as good once you hit paragon, and actually better when you hit epic. It does give a slight advantage at heroic levels, though, but a longsword & shield is still more attractive to most defenders.

As for Fighters, you can do some good stuff with the maneuvers. Cleave-- hit an enemy in the back rank and the one in the front rank takes damage. Passing Attack-- you can hit two enemies who are 3 squares apart. Reaping Strike-- Any two handed weapon is nice for this, but you can do it to someone 2 squares away & mark him. That is really fun if you have a rank of allies between you!

These are all good points! I did actually use all of these in our last few games but didn't appreciate how much harder it might've been (for example) to find cleavable enemies without reach.

It's just frustrating that in your cleave example you wouldn't get CCs vs either enemy, as the one you marked isn't adjacent to you, which potentially costs you one free attack. Using a reach weapon is "anti-synergetic" for a fighter...

But that doesn't mean I'm gonna abandon my longspear!

 

[Sennet]

Spear tactics

One of the things I'm going to try to do is make a Fighter/Ranger multiclass with spear/polearm proficiency. My theory is that the mobility exploits you can pick up out of ranger will make for a character that can indefinitely maintain reach, especially when you finally get Hit and Run at 11th level. Whether this will work in practice, I've no idea, but it should be fun to try. And yes, I know that most ranger profs have ranged/DW requirements, but most of the relevant ones don't.

I really like making characters that are totally functional in ways that the developers never intended. Back in Shadowrun, I had a cybered-out street samurai that never touched guns, and instead used a bow modified for his insane strength -- the rules for this were clearly described in the main book (2nd/3rd ed) and the item itself was inexpensive, readily available, and practically street legal. Then one day, the group was ambushed by a military helicopter. As everyone else scattered for cover, my character shot through the bulletproof windshield and killed the pilot. With a bow he bought at a sporting goods store.

That's the sort of idiocy I build characters for, and I think I can pull it off here. We'll see.