reach weapon and CA

[AbdulAlhazred]

DS, I think you'd have to agree though that the AV double weapons generally are pretty silly. Double axe and double flail in my experience would be unwieldable at all. The urgrosh not so much, but historically a lot of the weapon forms D&D doesn't designate as double weapons commonly had butt spikes and its hard to justify from a simulationist perspective singling out one such weapon as being worthy of being a double weapon and not the others. Double sword is maybe an increment less wholly unrealistic than double axe/flail but still seems like at best it overstates the advantages of something like that and even then isn't exactly all that realistic.

As far as reach flanking for polearms in 4e I'm not real sure it would be a good idea. DS has a point, Polearm Gamble does sort of fill that niche. And its not like you can't flank with a polearm, you just can't do it unless you're adjacent, so its not like its a disadvantage of polearms. The only time it gets a little that way is when you charge and thus always end non-adjacent.

 

[Stuntman]

DS, I think you'd have to agree though that the AV double weapons generally are pretty silly. Double axe and double flail in my experience would be unwieldable at all. The urgrosh not so much, but historically a lot of the weapon forms D&D doesn't designate as double weapons commonly had butt spikes and its hard to justify from a simulationist perspective singling out one such weapon as being worthy of being a double weapon and not the others. Double sword is maybe an increment less wholly unrealistic than double axe/flail but still seems like at best it overstates the advantages of something like that and even then isn't exactly all that realistic.

I just don't get the purpose of double weapons. I wonder if the existence of double weapons is simply a result of the Darth Maul character in Phantom Menance. I may not be an expert in melee combat, but that double light sabre (or any double weapon I see in AV) seems to do more to hinder your attacks than help. You can't do an overhead swing at your opponent without nailing yourself in the "NADs". It just seems that he's better off using two single light sabres than two that are firmly attached to each other.

 

[Markn]

Yeah, I think double weapons come from the Rule of Cool. I'm not a big fan of them either.

 

[Destil]

I don't have a problem with double weapons flavor wise if they're done right. All too often you see them with grips that are way too short, Draco's examples look a lot better than most. In the end double weapons end up a lot more like fighting with a staff than two weapons, and that's a good enough mental image for me that I can deal with some silliness. Claudio also has some great illustrations for double weapons with a bit more more verisimilitude on his website, including a double flail that don't look entirely idiotic.

 

[RickVigorous]

A three-section staff seems like a double flail to me; look at this video, for instance, in which the wielder strikes with both ends (it's a demonstration, not a sparring match or a real fight, but it's a good illustration nonetheless). Something like a monk's spade could work as a double axe. The AV illustrations might not be workable weapons, but I think that there are a number of historical weapons that are best represented using the double weapon stats.

 

[lukelightning]

A three-section staff seems like a double flail to me; look at this video, for instance, in which the wielder strikes with both ends (it's a demonstration, not a sparring match or a real fight, but it's a good illustration nonetheless).

I'm skeptical of any wushu-style martial art. They seem to be basically displays of acrobatics and twirling. Based on displays like this, you'd think that baton twirlers are deadly assassins.

 

[DracoSuave]

I'm skeptical of any wushu-style martial art. They seem to be basically displays of acrobatics and twirling. Based on displays like this, you'd think that baton twirlers are deadly assassins.

I'm not about to think that... except of course in the realm of fiction where such things -are- possible. Like it or not, D&D is informed by what is cool and impressive in action movies, not by what works in period battles.

So the question is, can you flank random joe-blow mook with two spears? Yes. And D&D covers that by making him a minion and you just took him down in one hit anyways. Maybe that's narrated by being stuck in that situation.

But can you flank Jet Li in this situation? Hell no. This is when he starts leaping and using your spears against you and then kicking you in your face. The man has -exploits- yo. Exploits. This is more accurate to what D&D combat is like.

But then, what if it's Takeshi Kaneshiro and Chow Yun Fat surrounding Jet Li? Yes. Because this is now Paragon level, and they have Polearm Gamble in their favored trained weapons.

The rules are fine at representing what it is they're supposed to represent; high superheroic fantasy action.



More accurately, however, the long weapon was not the ultimate weapon on the battlefield. It was designed to be used against armor, yes, but it wasn't the reach that was important so much as the versitility. A halbard wasn't good because it was long and had reach, it was good because it had -leverage-. It had a spear for jabbing into armor, the axe was designed not for hacking so much, but for digging into armor plates, and the butt end of the halbard was -also- a weapon.

However, such a weapon needed to keep moving. If you held it out, joust style, a shield user would simply deflect the weapon to your right leaving you open and defenseless. Someone using a twohanded sword could disarm you as well, from range. It's top-heaviness tended to be a liability, which is why it was used by militia rather than by higher order fighters. It was meant to be a weapon that 'gets lucky' in mass quantity rather than one that requires skill. A peasantry with halbards will take down more knights than a peasantry with swords, but a knight with a halbard is less capable than a knight with a sword.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Maybe, although I would note that moderate length halbards are actually pretty effective weapons in individual combat, on a par with a great sword from what I've seen and very limited handling of one. I suspect they were generally not weapons carried by the upper class more for social reasons than anything else. Plus the fact that they were really awkward to carry around. Nobody carried around zweihanders all the time either.

Long weapons, pikes and all their various permutations and longer hafted halbard/glaive/hammer type weapons really were pretty useless outside of an ordered infantry formation. As melee weapons for man-to-man combat, useless. I'm not even really convinced that reach weapons realistically would be all that viable. Anything long enough to be a significant threat to someone 10 feet away is going to be horribly unwieldy.

Anyway, yeah, double weapons are strictly a "this looks cool" thing. Mechanically they were added to the game I suspect to address the problem two-weapon wielding characters have with needing 2 magic weapons. Its expensive and cuts into their effectiveness. So it was probably a matter of they had some mechanical reason and it sounded cool. Personally I don't think any realistic weapon exists which warrants as much of an advantage as double weapons have vs normal weapons. As DS pointed out, a halbard has a butt spike, so why isn't it a double weapon? ANY spear can be used with either end, so why isn't that a double weapon? Same for any polearm even if it lacked a butt spike. The whole notion simply isn't logical, but it makes players happy so what the heck, right?

 

[DracoSuave]

As DS pointed out, a halbard has a butt spike, so why isn't it a double weapon? ANY spear can be used with either end, so why isn't that a double weapon? Same for any polearm even if it lacked a butt spike. The whole notion simply isn't logical, but it makes players happy so what the heck, right?

To be fair, I don't think there needs to be stats on braining someone with a hiltguard on a rapier either. I just figure such shinanegans are all part of your good-ol-fashioned attack.

Double weapons don't really get to do much anyways unless you have a power that can utilize both sides of the weapon. And as well, they tend to do less damage than two seperate weapons, and you can't double up on properties or powers either with them.

The -real- benefits of double weapons are the defensive property, the off-hand trait on both sides, and being able to doubledip on weapon classes.