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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Banshee16" data-source="post: 3104558" data-attributes="member: 7883">Keep in  mind that there are many *types* of polearms.  Something like a pike really is intended for a particular use....like a hedge formation against cavalry, so I doubt anyone would dispute that it has limited use in melee.However, there are plenty of others, such as glaives, halberds, poleaxes, etc. and many of them can be used more close in.  On the documentary I saw, they showed that the poleaxe, for example, has a great degree of utility against a knight with a sword.  The haft or head can be used to block a sword blow, and the wedge shape of the axe, or the hammer head can be used to trip up an enemy.The example the guy hosting the documentary gave was a sample melee between him wielding the poleaxe, against a guy with a longsword.  Both were wearing full plate.  The guy with the longsword attacked, and he simply stepped back to avoid the blow, then took a swing with that long reach, and nailed the other guy with the axe.  Against plate armour, axe trumps sword.He then showed another example, where he used the poleaxe to parry the sword strike, then used the haft to lock up the guy's blade, and pull the sword out of his hands.In a final example, he parried the guy's sword, with the poleaxe, then stepped in, and using the back of the axe blade, hooked it behind the opponent's head on his armour and stepped back, which resulted in the swordsman being pulled off his feet.  Then, he stepped back, and using the spike, would have had a killing blow.A major point he made was that plate armour was *very* effective against swords.  But many polearms such as the poleaxe had the ability to punch through full plate armour.  So the guy with the sword could hack away, and the plate armour blocks a lot of the blow.....but then the guy with the poleaxe only needs one hit with the spike on his opponent's helm, and he's driving a few inches of metal into the guy's brain.  The sword, by contrast, is actually very unlikely to be able to cleave a helmet.  They did some experiments to measure the truth of paintings showing guy's helmets being cleaved by sword blows, and found that helmets were *very* effective at stopping a sword....though the defender might very well have a major headache, concussion, or sore neck, even if he survives.  Many polearms though?  They punch right through.I suspect it has to do with the amount of force from the blow, and how much space it's distributed over.  A strike with a sword distributes the kinetic force of the blow across the length of blade hitting the target, by the width of the blade.  That means much less force per inch than a spike, which is concentrating the same force into a 2 mm square area....giving the spike more penetrating power.  I remember by brother, who's an engineer, showing me something similar with hammers.  Use a regular hammer on a sheet of glass, and it won't necessarily break.  Do the same thing with a ball peen hammer, which is curved, and so only impacts the glass at the apex of the curve, and it shatters every time.  It was years ago that he showed me the example, so I might not be remembering the correct tools, but I do remember the principle of what he was trying to say.In the documentary, the host made the case that most knights actually fought with polearms against each other, as those were the weapons needed to get through armour.  Swords were used also, but they were more of a historical/prestige thing, because before the advent of plate, they'd been the main weapons of many European warriors for centuries.The D&D rules don't simulate this very well however, which was why I created the thread <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  However, some of the posters have pointed out some excellent ways in which the D&D rules either address this, or can be made to do so.Banshee</blockquote>

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