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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nyaricus" data-source="post: 3890799" data-attributes="member: 35678">Holy crap.I was doing some research today on polearms, and *@!%@*#%!~!!! is there a ton of stuff we D&D players are missing out on in 3.Xe! Some of the stuff doesn't even really make sense, either - like how the Glaive does a 1d10/x3 slashing damage when it was really just a single-bladed knife on a long pole. The voulge would be much more appropriate to fill that damage-slot, what with the design being a meat-cleaver (aka: small axe) on a pole.Furthermore, we are missing out on the awesome variety of weapons the guisarme/bill hook gave us. Basically, the guisarme/bill hook was a large hook mounted on the back-side of a polearm for dismounting riders. The basic weapon of either type was fairly distinct, but eventually they were just a simple "add-on" which made polearms an incredibly versatile weapon.Also, many different pole-arms had a spear-tip added to the top to give the weilder the ability to set it against a rider charging at him, or to keep a combatant at bay until he could use the REAL buisness-end of his polearm effectively.Now, this is again just from a brief once-over of a few decent (but not great) looking sites for polearm information, and yet I've come up with the following short list of weapons which fill interesting slots in D&D's PHB weapon area.Here's the basic two facts about polearms:1) they were primarily developed to counter mounted riders by either keeping them at bay with a wall of spear-tips (which were at the ends of many polearms) or by being able to rip mounted fighters off with the hooks featured on many polearms, or used in melee to fight infantry from afar for as long as possible, to keep them from closing in.2) Polearms were, almost to a weapon, initially common farm tools stuck on the end of a long pole with a fancy-smancy sounding name (usually French-sounding, I've noticed)Here are some main types of polearms I found today:Bill-guisarme - this was a catch-all name for a variety of weapons which developed all at once. It basically combines a chopping axe-blade, a spear-tip mounted at the top, and a tripping hook opposite the axe-blade. It also had a variety of spikes of various lenghts affixed to the weapon-head in order to get the most "bang for the buck". This weapon was primarily used for chopping at a foe, dismounting a rider and lastly stabbing out with the spear-tip.Fauchard-fork - the basic Fauchard polearm was essentially a sickle-blade affixed to a long haft, and it was noted for being rather in-effective as the edge of the blade was on the inside curve, and thus dismounting riders was not effective with this weapon. However, with the addition of a spear-tip to the back-side of the blade, it added a degree of versatility. This weapon was primarily used to slash at foes from afar with it's sickle-blade.Glaive-guisarme - the basic glaive is essentially a single-edged knife blade which tapers to a point which was used as a spear. It was useful for slashing and cutting enemies with the knife-edge, and stabbing at enemies with the knife/spear-tip. The guisarme hook was a useful addition to the back-side of the weapon to rip enemies mounted on horses off their steeds. This weapon was primarily used as a spear which could also slice-open enemies, with a nifty little hook at the back to rip riders off their horses.Guisarme-voulge - the voulge was a meat-cleaver on a long stick. The blade angled down, towards the user, for maximum chopping action, and a spear-tip was affixed to the top to keep enemies at bay. Again, the guisarme hook was a very useful addition to this weapon which it was on. This weapon was used to cleave enemies firstly, and stab and hook them secondly.Halberd - halberds are an iconic German polearm which saw much use all over Europe. Not necessarily a reach weapon, they still had a fairly long, two-handed haft which led to a downard-angeld chopping axe-blade, with a spike or hook at the back and a tapered spear point at the top. It was a handy "three-in-one" weapon, and it was likely the most wide-spread because it was long, but not too long like other polearms (cheaper to find the right lumber), and was fairly simply and straight-forward to use. Primarily a chopping weapon, it was also versatile in it's secondary functions as well.Lucern Hammer - as has been mentioned before, this was the can-opener of the polearms. As much of a pick as it was a hammer, this three-pronged bad boy could sunder a suit of plate mail with a blow. It generally featured a long spike or hook at the back and a long tapered spear-tip at the top. Primarily this was used to rip open heavy plate armour. The bec de Corbin was much like this weapon, except the hammer-head was generally a flat sledge-style, and the spear-tip and back-sike were less prominent.Ranseur - the ransuer was much like the spear in look and in use, save for a prominent hilt which took the form of two spikes or hooks which generally swept back towards the weilder. This weapon was purportedly useful for disarming and tripping foes, which is why this weapon is more polearm then spear (in the contemporary sense of the word, since spears *are* polearms, just a very basic class fo them). This weapon was primarily for tripped and disarming opponents and stabbing them as needed.---As you can see, I've found out quite a bit about quite a bit, and it seems that WotC should really look at what awesome additions they can add to their awesome list of 4e weapons <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />cheers,--N</blockquote>

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