...for what purpose?
For just getting smacking people? Probably the Bardiche, since it has a 1d10 19-20/x2. The fauchard has 18-20/x2, but it is an exotic weapon... so yeah.
In terms of other metrics? Depends on what you want. There are a couple reach weapons that do bludgeoning, because skeletons are a concern. Some of them have special properties like trip. Lances are the default for mounted builds due to double damage on mounted charges. But past that... honestly, it is usually just a numbers game.
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Oh, they are FANTASTIC melee weapons. It is just that reach alone elevates them to a noticeable level. Even the simple longspear is a fine melee weapon- a blessing on the classes that lack martial weapons.
Reach weapons allow you to turn yourself into a circle of pain that is 25' wide. Enemies that try to get past you either have to eat attacks or go the long way around (which can waste turns). Grab the fortuitous weapon property, and you get both a full BAB attack and a BAB-5 attack against a single fool 1/round (so basically- a mini full attack). With that kind of damage, the GM has to view you not only as a martial character, but as a nice sized obstacle on the battlefield. And all this while still doing a 2 handed weapon build- the standard for damage in this game.
Generally, on this board, I find two different schools of thought of how to focus on reach weapons- area control and distance control.
Area control focuses on trip stuff. Typically, you would want to get enlarged so you cover the largest number of spaces as possible. This can have a flaw when doing regular full attacks, since the enemy can get in real close on an enlarged reach user and make it impossible to attack them without either using a move action or resorting to armor spikes (which are light weapons- far less damage). But for what it lacks in direct damage, it makes up for in AoOs on enemies that are trying to get back up.
Distance control, which I tend to advocate, is about controlling how far way an enemy is so you preserve more of your extra attacks. This is usually done with lunge as a base. Lunge doesn't add to threatened area for AoOs, but it lets you do regular melee without losing out on AoOS. You see, normally, when you attack an enemy first, you end up 10' away- that is close enough that they only need a 5' step to reach you- no AoO, and they can full attack. With lunge, you can attack from 15' away- most will have to mvoe 10' to reach you- ergo, they draw an AoO and lose their full attack. Lunge also has the nice advantage of letting you full attack anything in a 45' wide circle when you combine it with a reach weapon and your own 5' step.
One minor point in the bardiche's favor is its dual membership in both the polearm and axe weapon groups. Any Weapon Training-related goodies can trickle down to any of several backup weapons, too.
EDIT: @lemeres, you seem to have some organized thoughts on the matter, which, well it's more than I can say. Recently I found myself looking through the Weapon Master's Handbook and my attention was caught by the polearm tricks, specifically Close Sweep. Think that has any value in the polearm-wielder's arsenal? The area-control crowd might get mileage out of that one by shoving back folks that try to come inside on them.
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Fauchard
There are other responses, but those are largely due to other factors. Nodachi is a polearm without reach, and can be used with Shield Brace for 2hed damage while still wielding a shield. Longspear is the definitive simple weapon reach weapon. Most of the martial options aren't much better, though Bardiche is basically the best of them due to the 1d10 19-20/x2.
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Oh, and do note- I tend to talk about polearms when discussing reach.
There are various things like whips and dwarven dorn dergars in the exotic weapons with their own advantages. But generally, almost everyone but druids have access to polearms for free... so I tend to focus there.
So, just a list of some basic notable polearms
Bardiche- great numbers while being a normal martial weapon. It is a fairly standard item if you just want to up and grab a reach weapon without putting too much extra investment in.
Bec De Corbin/Lucerne Hammer- they do bludgeoning. Mostly if you are worried about DR and don't want to golf bag (or you could pick another reach weapon, and keep these to golf bag and still have reach). Both have pretty average polearm stats- a 6 of 1, half dozen of the other situation really.
Guisarme/horsechopper- they have the trip property. Great for Area control builds.
Ranseur/bill- they have disarm property. Mostly notable since they are reach weapons that let you disarm people- if the enemy can't reach you, they can't give you an AoO for using a maneuver that you aren't trained for. Probably not great numbers wise, but if you manage it, it can make a fight a lot easier.
lance- mounted build default weapon. Really, its nature as a reach weapon is secondary for that build. But hey- why not take advantage of it with just the extra investment of combat reflexes at the least?
Elven Branch spear- martial weapon for elves, and maybe half elves. Mostly notable as a 2 handed finesse weapon- the reach version of the elven curved blade. Meh stats though, but you often see it on unchained rogues.
longspear- the simple reach weapon. Available to pretty much every melee capable class... except druids. For reasons.
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longspear- the simple reach weapon. Available to pretty much every melee capable class... except druids. For reasons.
But druids do have a reach weapon: the allosaurus.
longspear- the simple reach weapon. Available to pretty much every melee capable class... except druids. For reasons.But druids do have a reach weapon: the allosaurus.
As I said- reasons.
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Haha, Gygax's babies. Glaive, glaive-guisarme, bill, bill-guisarme, guisarme, halberd, fauchard, ransuer, guisarme-guisarme…
Well, let's see. We have:
Boarding pike and longspear: Why are these different weapons anyways? 1d8 damage, ×3 crit, and brace and reach. Only does piercing damage. The baseline of the polearms, and the only simple ones. All of the following have the same stats as a longspear unless stated otherwise.
Bardiche: 1d10 damage, 19-20/×2, +2 bonus to resist sunder. Only does slashing damage.
Bec de corbin: 1d10 damage, does bludgeoning or piercing damage, +2 bonus to sunder medium or heavy armor.
Bill: 1d8 damage, only slashing. Disarm, bonus for fighting defensively or to unseat mounted foes.
Glaive: 1d10 slashing, doesn't have brace but no one uses that anyways.
Glaive-guisarme: 1d10 slashing, bonus to unseating riders, has brace. Might as well skip the glaive and get this instead, unless you desperately need the four gold. Better yet, forget the glaive part entirely and get a…
Guisarme: 2d4 slashing, no brace, but again, who uses that? Gets trip, which is ok, remember that trip just lets you drop the weapon to avoid a counter-trip. Doesn't get the bonus to unseat riders, but I doubt a -2 penalty would actually get anyone out of the saddle.
Halberd: 1d10 bludgeoning or slashing, also has trip, but not reach. Inferior to the guisarme arguably.
Lucerne hammer: 1d12 bludgeoning or piercing, crit is only ×2. Bonus for sundering medium or heavy armor.
Horsechopper: You know, the Swiss should be offended. According to Pathfinder, goblins make better weapons than them. It's a halberd that actually has reach! Can't brace, but still no one cares.
Ransuer: A guisarme that has disarm instead of trip and does piercing damage instead of slashing. Also doesn't give the unseat bonus.
Elven branched spear: An exotic longspear that has finesse and a bonus to movement AoOs. Probably just for elves really.
Fauchard: 1d10 slashing that gets trip and a big threat range. Exotic.
Flailpole: Garbage. Exotic guisarme with lower damage. Don't buy this thing, get a real guisarme and save the feat.
Dwarven longaxe and longhammer: Are you a dwarf who doesn't care about combat manuevers? These might be for you. 1d12/2d6 reach weapons, ×3 crits, nothing fancy. Anyone else, probably better off elsewhere.
Ripsaw glaive: A glaive with a gimmick. I'm not going to diss this thing, I think it's awesome. If you spend the feat for this, I love you.
Hooked lance: A spear with a ×4 crit and trip. Needs martial weapon proficiency though.
Naginata: A hooked lance that loses trip, costs ten times as much, and does slashing damage.
So best one varies a bit. Do you…
Trip or disarm? Get a guisarme or ranseur.
Sunder? Lucerne hammer.
Really want a halberd? Kill a goblin and take his horsechopper.
Play dwarves and not use combat manuevers? Longaxe/longhammer.
Want a critical build? Fauchard, or a bardiche if you can't spend the feat.
Want an eastern weapon? Hooked lance.
Want to be awesome? Ripsaw glaive.
Adding onto what Eon's summary but assuming "by polearm we mean any weapon with reach":
the Lucerne Hammer is the best damaging weapon for players who enlarge themselves. An Abyssal Bloodrager of mine went for Combat Patrol and was doling out 4d6+1+ 1 and 1/2Str with his +1 Impact Lucerne Hammer at absurd ranges. Especially once he got the ability to cast spells as he entered rage and could stack on Long Arms. Mmmm, reach.
The Elven Branch Spear is the only weapon other than the Flying Talon (and Whips but they take too many feats) that has a 10ft reach and finesse naturally and the EBS provides a completely random +2 to hit on AoOs provoked by movement making it pretty good.
The Flying Talon is one of the only reach weapons that doesn't take two hands and has the advantage over the whip in that it doesn't take a million feats to use well. An excellent Magus weapon.
The Lance is the best polearm for mounted people because it deals double damage on a charge and has 10ft reach.
Finally the Whip and Scorpian Whip allow you to do absurd amounts of combat maneuvers from a distance but take way too many feats to activate.
There are a still a few weapons with reach we haven't covered between the two of us, the Dwarven Chainflail (Neat), the Flying Blade (bad), the Mancatcher (pretty bad), That Kobold Tail thingie (eh), the Crook (bad), and the Orc Skull Ram (awesome).
But overall I second the Lucerne Hammer, the basic longspear, and the Ripsaw Glaive. If you are a maneuver based build ignore those and just get whatever weapon has the quality you want.
PS: The advantage to having a trip weapon is that in addition to dropping it on a failure you can add your enhancement bonus on trip attacks, even though you do not get any normal bonuses for using a trip weapon.
PS: The advantage to having a trip weapon is that in addition to dropping it on a failure you can add your enhancement bonus on trip attacks, even though you do not get any normal bonuses for using a trip weapon.
This is no longer true. Any weapon can apply enhancement bonuses now.
This is a revision of this FAQ entry based on a Paizo blog about combat maneuvers with weapons. The previous version of this FAQ stated that using a trip weapon was the only way you could apply weapon enhancement bonuses, Weapon Focus bonuses, and other such bonuses to the trip combat maneuver roll. The clarification in that blog means any weapon used to trip applies these bonuses when making a trip combat maneuver, so this FAQ was updated to omit the "only trip weapons let you apply these bonuses" limitation.
Geeze.
I don't actually like that very much. I prefer the old way trip worked, but w/e if thats the faq thats the faq.
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Longspear.
You can wield it with simple weapon proficiency and attach your banner of ancient kings to it.
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I'm a fan of the Lucerne Hammer, Glaive-Guisarme, Bardiche (for that weapon-training double-dip), and the longspear (for people with simple weapons.
But I suppose if you have to spend a feat to get proficiency with a reach weapon then you might as well go for Fauchard and if you want finesse, Elven Branch Spear is the way to go.
Hi Ricky, welcome to the forums.
If you twke a look above each post you'll see a date and time - that's when the post was made.
This thread was active about 3 years ago - right around the time Paths of the Righteous (which included Bladed Brush) came out. There's a good chance people here know about the feat, but they'd moved on from this thread by the time they saw it.
Generally if a thread is this old it's easier to start a new thread than to continue an old one.