D&D 5E Spear houserule

[Stalker0]

You could also just downgrade sword damage. The typical side-arm type sword of the time was similar to a D&D shortsword. Just get rid of, or limit, longswords, greatsword and the like. Make 1d8 2-handed swords the norm and 1d6 sword the norm.

Absolutely true, I also wanted things to be a little deadly for this game hence the damage boost rather than nerf, but both work in terms of highlighting the spear

 

[dave2008]

This is tangential to Spears in particular, but I'd suggest against this. Every time we limit one form or another of martial ability because of 1) allusions to realism, or 2) balance concerns between the various weapons, one has to consider whether weapon-based combat on a whole needs more limitations. I say this because both monks (who don't need weapons) and casters (who engage the game in means other than weapons) still exist as alternate player options and the later (casters) certainly already threaten to run away with the game. I say that even as someone who is really, really annoyed that the best options seem to be gimmicks --sharpshooting, XBE-ing people with ahistoric/barely historic hand crossbows; using the but end of halberds (definitely something that showed up in the treatises, but certainly not a primary combat type); PAM one-handed quarterstaves and shields; etc. Those shouldn't have such oversized capacity amongst the weapons, but IMO the solution is to bring the other options up to their level, not dilute all martial ability (which will only make the latest HexbladelockCoffeeTwilightSimalacrumMinionMasterCheezelikeproduct build all that more powerful compared to martials in general.

Good point. Personally I think upgrade most melee weapon damage would help.

 

[CleverNickName]

I like the house-rule, @Sword of Spirit...I think it makes a lot of sense. Personally I would have left the Thrown property in there and just added the Reach property, but that's just my opinion.

 

[embee]

Except that 5 feet is way too short for spear that isn't an iklwa, and unless there are a lot of Zulu themed Fighters being played that I'm not aware of, I don't think that's what people want from their spears. For reference, a standard competition wushu qiang starts at 200 cm, or about 6'6".

And if you want to talk about being cinematic, then compare this scene from Hero (2004):


Or The Legend of the Condor Heroes (2017), starting around 5:00

Rewatching, at least to my eyes, just illustrates my point. Can you point to any particular point where the spear, even in the hands of epic-level fighters, reach through the adjoining 5' spot and into the 5' spot beyond it?

The spear, as used in an infantry scenario is held about 2/5 up the shaft. So 2' is behind the hand, bolstered by the forearm, and the remaining 3' feet goes forward. This is comparable to the length of a longsword. This is the one handed spear-and-shield method demonstrated in "300."

PAM+shield+spear is already one of the uber martial builds of the game and boosting that doesn't seem necessary to me.

No. It's not necessary. And in fact, if you boost it, you will break the game. Because adding reach means that you can stop pretty much any attack from pretty much any Medium creature.

Let's take the spear and give it Reach without making any other changes to it.

It's 1H so you can use a shield. Now take that and put it in the hands of a Human (Variant) Battle Master. In plate mail. With a shield. And the PAM/Sentinel combo. With the PAM/Sentinel benefits plus Brace (which is "within reach" not within 5 feet and doesn't have to be willing) and Lunging Attack (also based on reach, not just within 5 feet) maneuvers.

There is now an AC20 character who can attack anything in a 10' radius and who can extend that to 15'.

To quote a certain genius billionaire playboy philanthropist, "We have a hulk."

Giving spears (wielded in two hands) reach

Doesn't work. Used two-handed, a 5' spear is held like a quarterstaff. Here, the hands are placed one third down from the point and one third from the base of the shaft. So now you have a weapon that can be wielded like a quarterstaff as a double-ended blunt weapon with the added benefit of also being able to pierce. However, because of how the spear is held, you still don't have a reach weapon.

The wuxia scenario involves the spear being held by the base in one hand and swung wide. But even with this exceptional attack method, the reach is limited to less than 10'.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

Rewatching, at least to my eyes, just illustrates my point. Can you point to any particular point where the spear, even in the hands of epic-level fighters, reach through the adjoining 5' spot and into the 5' spot beyond it?

If that's your argument, then wouldn't the same apply to glaives and halberds? They also tended to be around 6-7 feet long, and I'd argue would have less effective range than a spear due to being used primarily for slashing and hooking rather than stabbing, as well as having a heavier blade. And yet they have the Reach property in 5e, while spears don't despite being of similar length.

Compare the choreography of this scene where it's glaive vs greatsword:


EDIT: okay, I think I might have gotten confused, so let me restate my point and see if I'm on base with everybody else:

The point I was trying to make is that a spear that is 5 feet long is a spear that is too short outside of a few specific contexts. Most types of spears I know of, even spears intended to be used in one hand and paired with a shield like the Greek dory, were at least 6 feet in length. The weapon may have a normal 5 foot reach under 5e rules when used in one hand, or even two outside of desperation lunges, but the weapon itself shouldn't be as short as 5 feet.

 

[embee]

If that's your argument, then wouldn't the same apply to glaives and halberds? They also tended to be around 6-7 feet long, and I'd argue would have less effective range than a spear due to being used primarily for slashing and hooking rather than stabbing, as well as having a heavier blade. And yet they have the Reach property in 5e, while spears don't despite being of similar length.

RAW, they are also Heavy, 2H, and Martial.

If you add Reach to a Spear and change nothing else, as the OP suggests, you now have a weapon that is Light, 1H, Simple, and Reach. Which means that, except for druids and wizards, everyone could have a reach weapon.

If you look at what weapons have Reach, it is pretty clear that they were meant to be kept only in the hands of martials.

 

[Umbran]

Here, the hands are placed one third down from the point and one third from the base of the shaft.

There are several traditional grips for spears, and that is only one. More common is to have one hand near or at the butt of the weapon - this takes advantage of the weapon's length. Also, unlike with quarterstaff, you point the end of the weapon at the other guy (remember, the pointy end goes in the other man). So, like this...

(The spear that guy is holding is 9' long, by the way. The man in blue on the right is holding one that's more like 6', just a little taller than himself, but the same techniques can be used.)

You see this basic stance repeated time and again in various martial traditions from around the globe. You see it in the martial arts videos above, you see it in Kali/Escrima/Arnis, and in European fighting as well.

From here, there are three basic ways to strike with the spear - which we might call push, slide, and lunge.

In the push, you keep your hands gripped as above, you just shove them both forwards. It isn't the most powerful shot, doesn't have the longest range, but it keeps you under guard.

In the slide, you bring the hand at the butt of the weapon pushes forward forward, extending the spear, while the front hand guides the spear to its target, which gets you a few feet of range.

Finally, there's the lunge, which is a slide, but at the end of the maneuver you let go with the forward hand. You may step forward with the back foot to get even more range.

Standing behind a row of folks with shields, a 2-handed spear wielder can generally still hit the front row of opponents in a formation - while formations are generally tighter than D&D's 5' squares, this is effectively using reach in a D&D sense.

 

[Quartz]

So here is the spear houserule: Remove the Thrown property; add the Reach property. Everything else stays the same.

Just give the spear reach when held two-handed.

Personally, I’d set the spear (pun intended) to have the Thrown property when used one-handed, but when used two-handed, it has the Reach property. It then becomes a half-step between javelin and pike and really versatile (pun intended again).

Or this.

 

[MattW]

This "experiment" may provide some inspiration
Spear vs Sword

 

[ECMO3]

While doing research for the mass combat rules I may or may not end up successfully creating, I kept running into something that has always bugged me about the 5e weapons: the spear.

To start, we have a javelin, a spear, and a pike in the rules to represent the three real-world categories of spear-like weapons. So far, so good.

The spear is a cheap simple weapon, as it should be. The problem is that, more than most other simple weapons, it is a weapon that is also used as a primary weapon by more skilled warriors and trained armies. Mechanically, it isn't on par with martial weapons, and it's a bad choice you probably aren't going to take for a PC. And when I look at the guard NPC statblock with its pitiful spear, I just feel bad.

In addition, there are conceptual issues because an essential part of the historical spear was its reach. Based on my cursory research, real spears were of similar length to glaives and halberds, which do have reach in 5e. But the spear doesn't, for some weird reason. While this is just an annoyance at the normal D&D scale, when you start messing with mass combat considerations, spears don't work. They need to both be usable in one-hand and have reach so they can be used for the actual spear and shield tactics that people used spears for.

But I found something interesting in my research. Apparently there are supposed to be two types of (sub-pike) spears. Thrusting and throwing. Javelins are for throwing, and thrusting spears aren't.

. . .

That was the revelation. What's holding back the spear is that it's being given the Thrown property unnecessarily. Sure, if you throw it it might fly better than if you throw a flail or scimitar, but so would a shortsword and that doesn't have the Thrown property. The thing is that you don't throw your thrusting spear except in extreme situations, because then you don't have it anymore. If you want to throw spears, that's what javelins are for. Carry 7 of them like the Romans.

So here is the spear houserule: Remove the Thrown property; add the Reach property. Everything else stays the same.

Conceptually this puts spears in their correct place on the javelin-spear-pike continuum.

Javelins can be used in melee, but are designed for throwing. (1d6 damage, ranged or melee)

Spears are designed for thrusting, have reach, and can be used either one-handed with a shield or two-handed. (1d6 damage melee reach with shield, or 1d8 damage melee reach two-handed)

Pikes are too big for one-handed use (and obviously have reach). (1d10 damage melee reach two-handed)

Mechanically, they now have a meaningful niche and are still balanced properly with other weapons. PCs and NPCs alike have a reason to choose a spear either at the personal or mass combat scale. This does put them on par with martial weapons, but I'm probably okay with that. Spears have been one of the most popular weapons in history, and this rule makes that hold up.

I'm hoping it works out the way I like. If everyone gives up on longswords and battleaxes and converts to spears, then I've screwed up. Otherwise, I think this should fix it.

"Spear" covers a lot of ground to include metal-tipped spears used by professionals like a soldier, but also the sharpened sticks used by barbarians and colonial-era native Americans.

Like "shortbow" a wide variety of weapons from very primitive to very modern.

As far as thrown, I think a spear can be thrown a lot easier than a dagger can be (assuming we are talking about an actual dagger and not a knife).

A lot of that is flavor I think and not really intended to be realistic.