"Shield and Pike Style" feat question

[bificommander]

Hello everyone

I'm considering using a spear on my character for my next game. The Shield and Pike Style feat (When wielding a Piercing Two-Handed Polearm with Reach with which you have proficiency, you receive the full Shield bonus to AC of a Light Shield you are wearing.) might be interesting, but I have a question about it. I cannot find if a Spear used this way counts as a one-handed or two-handed weapon, for the purpose of calculating bonus damage from strength and power attacks. If I think of a traditional pikeman with a shield, I think it should be one-handed, but in none of the feat descriptions that I found is this actually mentioned (and it would certainly be an advantage to me if it counted as two handed). Does anyone happen to know if there is an official rule about this?

 

[Dragonwriter]

I don't have that Feat, and know of no official thing about it, but here's what I'd say.

You use the longspear/polearm as a two-handed weapon, since that is how it is written. You really can't control a Reach weapon (in-game or in life) with one arm. The traditional pikemen you're probably thinking of didn't actually use shields, at least when they were hanging onto their pikes... The exception would be the Greeks and their Hoplites (like in the movie Troy), but they used shortspears.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Two-handed. Otherwise, this feat would be just plain worse than Improved Buckler Defense, in any circumstance.

 

[bificommander]

Ah, very good, thank you. Actually, when going through the list of polearm feats, a second question struck me. The feat Short Haft (As a Swift Action, you may reduce the Reach of any reach weapon (other than Spiked Chain & Whip) by 5’. This changed the squares that you ‘threaten’. Returning the weapon to its normal reach is also a Swift Action.) allows me to use a reach polearm as a non-reach weapon. Would it still be possible to get the benefit from the Shield and Pike Style feat (which states that the polearm must be one with reach)?