Shield and Spear


Advice


I have virtually zero experience in Pathfinder, so I may very well be missing a ruling in the corebook on this.

The warrior with a far reaching spear in tandem with the shield is a tried and true historical one. I'd like to make one for the game. Can it be done? My hope was to give him a shield to bash adjacent foes and the spear for the further ones. However, I don't see any rule on using a reach weapon with one hand. This is a weird case of real physics being more permissible than game physics.

Is there a way to build this concept, even if it takes a few levels to get it there?


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it depends on the type of spear you want to use.

A Shortspear is 1-handed so can always be combined with a shield.

Any other type of spears: Spear, boar spear, longspear, weighted spear are 2-handed so the only way to combine them with a shield would be the 3rd level ability of the fighter's Phalanx Soldier archetype.

Although I,m pretty sure there was a feat that allows it too.


There is a feat in the Armor masters guide that will let you use a shield and a 2handed spear/polearm. Down side is you take a penalty to your att equal to the check penalty of the shield. So depending on the shield and qualities, this could be useful to you


Thanks, guys. I'll be looking into those options.


Yeah, the feat is probably the best way to handle it.

Even though you take a penalty, a masterwork light shield has 0 ACP which is effectively no penalty.

Liberty's Edge

The Armor Master's Handbook feat in question is Shield Brace.

However, note that it isn't entirely clear how it works (e.g. do you use the spear one handed and thus only get 1x strength bonus to damage or is it still two handed and thus you can't attack with it and the shield at the same time?).

PFS resolved this by treating it as a one-handed weapon, but tables outside society play may vary.

Scarab Sages

There is also a fighter archetpye called the phalanx soldier that is build on using polearm and shield.


CBDunkerson wrote:

The Armor Master's Handbook feat in question is Shield Brace.

However, note that it isn't entirely clear how it works (e.g. do you use the spear one handed and thus only get 1x strength bonus to damage or is it still two handed and thus you can't attack with it and the shield at the same time?).

PFS resolved this by treating it as a one-handed weapon, but tables outside society play may vary.

It isn't unclear, it's just that some people don't know how to read something without cramming in extrapolations that aren't needed.

AMH wrote:
Benefit: You can use a two-handed weapon sized appropriately for you from the polearm or spears weapon group while also using a light, heavy, or tower shield with which you are proficient. The shield's armour check penalty (if any) applies to attacks made with the weapon.

It states that you can use a two-handed weapon (appropriately sized) from the polearm or spears group while also using a light/heavy/tower shield (which which you are proficient). It says nothing about treating it as a one-handed weapon nor about wielding it in one hand; therefore, you do neither. You wield it in two hands, gaining all benefits thereof and also all limitations thereof, save for the singular exception of the limitation of no hand available to handle a shield. It's people throwing in "treat it one-handed" just because they think it ought to be there that generates confusion. PFS's houserule to treat it as one-handed is just that; their houserule. It is divergent from RAW. Now, whether they came up with that due to their own ignorance of how it works, pandering to the ignorance of others, or simply out of pursuit of a different sense of balance is anyone's guess. But it doesn't make that actual rules at hand unclear or inconsistent.


Yeah, now that I've seen the rule text for the feat (I knew it existed before but hadn't actually seen the wording) there is no way I would ever interpret it as causing the polearm or spear to count as one handed. There's nothing to remotely indicate that to me, and I'm usually very much on the RAI. If it even hinted at it I would support that interpretation, but there's nothing there to support it.


Wow, there are a lot of books! I picked up the Armor Master's Handbook and a few others that seemed to be good to have, as well as the Hero Lab equivalents. Sixty bucks later I think I have a character statted from 1st to 5th level.

I went with a human fighter (shielded fighter archtype). Starting feats of Improved Shield Bash, Shield focus, and Shield Brace. By 5th level he has also has Cleave, Combat Reflexes, Improved Initiative, and Power Attack.

My idea is to run into the heart of the fight and force enemies to focus attacks on him and AoO those who don't. Between the longspear and shield bash I think he threatens everything within two squares from him.

Here is a silly question maybe after the fact: does Shield Bash incur the off-hand penalty? I don't think so cause the off-hand penalty is only for doing two weapon attacks, right?


You don't suffer from any Two-Weapon Fighting penalties unless you're actually using Two-Weapon Fighting to gain more attacks.

Alternating between two weapons with a full attack has been ruled to be perfectly legal, so that part of the Shielded Fighter Archetype is generally irrelevant. Shielded Fighter is actually rather weak, since the defensive bonus only applies when you're using a defensive kind of fighting (which generally isn't useful), and you lose Weapon Training bonuses with multiple weapons in exchange for only getting them with shield.

The Siegebreaker or Viking Archetypes are from more obscure sources, but they have some pretty cool abilities for a shield-fighter. Siegebreaker combined with using the Shield Slam feat is pretty crazy.

Paizo Employee Pathfinder Society Lead Developer

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If you want a one-handed spear with more punch, also take a look at the doru in Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Distant Shores. I included it in there to provide a heavy, one-handed spear representative of those used in classical Greek hoplite warfare.


Another option is to go trident and shield. As long as you are using the proper stats for your weapon many gms won't care of you call your trident a "war spear" or something, if the image of a trident bugs you.


Good stuff all around. I'm trying to build the character to be effective without sacrificing concept and I'm impressed with how the system so far supports that. Shield Brace was the perfect feat. He is an Ulfen, so the viking archetype is right on the money. I didn't want to go the heavy armor route and jumping into the thick of it then raging is a great image. While the trident doesn't fit the concept (I need it to have range) the idea of reskinning the glaive sounds good. The doru sounds like another good route; I appreciate that their are many ways to getting the concept done.


As a side benefit to Rage, Furious is an awesome weapon property.

If you're looking at Viking, you can do some very strange and cool things with a single level of Oracle and a character with Rage. Basically, you can leverage certain Oracle mysteries to use charisma for DEX AC, and you can use the Lame curse to become completely immune to fatigue. It's easy to stack really great stats when you don't need DEX, and fatigue immunity means turning Rage on and off at will, which means things like Reckless Abandon have no downside, and once-per-rage powers can be used relentlessly (like Lesser Elemental Rage?).

You do have to deal with a 'lame' and maybe low DEX theme, but there's some cool ways to represent that, like a shambling Viking struggling to control surging spirits in his body that grant him strange powers...

Liberty's Edge

Kazaan wrote:
It isn't unclear, it's just that some people don't know how to read something without cramming in extrapolations that aren't needed.

Both needlessly rude and obviously false.

Quote:
You wield it in two hands, gaining all benefits thereof and also all limitations thereof, save for the singular exception of the limitation of no hand available to handle a shield.

Great.

So what is the TWF penalty for a two-handed weapon?

If, as you say, the feat removes the hands limitation to allow both a two-handed weapon and a shield, then someone could TWF with them... yet there are no rules for TWF with a two-handed weapon. Only one-handed, light, and double weapons.

You could avoid this problem by saying that they can't attack/TWF with the shield... but the feat doesn't say that. Making the feat... unclear.

Quote:
It's people throwing in "treat it one-handed" just because they think it ought to be there that generates confusion. PFS's houserule to treat it as one-handed is just that; their houserule. It is divergent from RAW. Now, whether they came up with that due to their own ignorance of how it works, pandering to the ignorance of others, or simply out of pursuit of a different sense of balance is anyone's guess. But it doesn't make that actual rules at hand unclear or inconsistent.

Or maybe the PFS team didn't want to invent new TWF penalties for two-handed weapons or come up with convoluted explanations of what you can and cannot 'use' a shield for with this feat. Instead... a nice simple ruling that fits within existing standards and allows clarity and consistency. No nefarious purposes, "ignorance", or "divergence from RAW" required.


@BadBird: Where is "Furious"? I don't see it in the core book or d20pfsrd.


furious weapon enhancement


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BeZurKur wrote:

I have virtually zero experience in Pathfinder, so I may very well be missing a ruling in the corebook on this.

The warrior with a far reaching spear in tandem with the shield is a tried and true historical one. I'd like to make one for the game. Can it be done? My hope was to give him a shield to bash adjacent foes and the spear for the further ones. However, I don't see any rule on using a reach weapon with one hand. This is a weird case of real physics being more permissible than game physics.

Is there a way to build this concept, even if it takes a few levels to get it there?

It is tried and true, but only in a formation with a few hundred other guys. Out of that size of formation, long spear and shield was so bad that they dropped the spear and pulled their sword.

The Zulu did really well with a short stabbing spear and shield, but of course that's fine in PF. Altho I'd make the assegai a martial 1D8 19-20 weapon.


John Compton wrote:
If you want a one-handed spear with more punch, also take a look at the doru in Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Distant Shores. I included it in there to provide a heavy, one-handed spear representative of those used in classical Greek hoplite warfare.

What are the stats?

The Greeks used a long spear, they had indeed, Phalanx training.


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Heroic Age, Classical age, Viking and other warriors could use spear/shield outside of formation, but it's not really a longspear style weapon in concept as Pathfinder does it. It's a 'normal' range stabbing weapon with considerable heft; basically a regular spear, or a halbard to represent a heavy broad-bladed spear that can slash. Once you go 'reach spear', it's a whole different concept; more like Macedonian or Hellenic phalanx formation.

For a Greek hero or a Viking Ulfsarkr, I'd probably use Shield Brace with a halbard to represent a strong shield and heavy bladed spear.


CBDunkerson wrote:
Kazaan wrote:
It isn't unclear, it's just that some people don't know how to read something without cramming in extrapolations that aren't needed.
Both needlessly rude and obviously false.

Neither. It's objective and quite true. You're applying a personal bias to perceive it as "rude". Just as people cram in a presumption on how the rules element in question work, you crammed in a rude intention to what I said where none existed in the first place. Now if you feel insulted by it, that's entirely different. I can't control that. But my original writing was, frankly, devoid of any emotional burden, positive or negative, so if you experienced a negative emotion from it, it comes entirely from your side of the table.

CBDunkerson wrote:
Quote:
You wield it in two hands, gaining all benefits thereof and also all limitations thereof, save for the singular exception of the limitation of no hand available to handle a shield.

Great.

So what is the TWF penalty for a two-handed weapon?

If, as you say, the feat removes the hands limitation to allow both a two-handed weapon and a shield, then someone could TWF with them... yet there are no rules for TWF with a two-handed weapon. Only one-handed, light, and double weapons.

Incorrect. The fact that you can use a shield doesn't overcome the fact that attacking with a 2-h weapon subsumes your off-hand attack economy. You couldn't TWF with both the spear/polearm and the shield any more than you could attack with a 2-h weapon and armor spikes. Shield Brace doesn't free up attack economy; it just frees up the physical grasping appendage in such a way that it can pull double-duty, both holding the shield and grasping the weapon.

CBDunkerson wrote:
You could avoid this problem by saying that they can't attack/TWF with the shield... but the feat doesn't say that. Making the feat... unclear.

No need for this because, as stated, you can't TWF with them anyway; stating it is a waste of space. You could fight with both if you're not using TWF rules, but no penalties apply to using them in such a manner so, again, it's a non-issue.

CBDunkerson wrote:
Quote:
It's people throwing in "treat it one-handed" just because they think it ought to be there that generates confusion. PFS's houserule to treat it as one-handed is just that; their houserule. It is divergent from RAW. Now, whether they came up with that due to their own ignorance of how it works, pandering to the ignorance of others, or simply out of pursuit of a different sense of balance is anyone's guess. But it doesn't make that actual rules at hand unclear or inconsistent.
Or maybe the PFS team didn't want to invent new TWF penalties for two-handed weapons or come up with convoluted explanations of what you can and cannot 'use' a shield for with this feat. Instead... a nice simple ruling that fits within existing standards and allows clarity and consistency. No nefarious purposes, "ignorance", or "divergence from RAW" required.

Again, no need to invent TWF penalties for a situation that can't happen. And who said anything about "nefarious" purposes; I simply offered logical possibilities of what could prompt them to create such a houserule. And, while PFS is entirely within their rights to impose houserules that they feel appropriate (eg. banning certain archetypes, feats, items, etc.; disregarding FAQs, etc.), I'm also entirely within my rights to criticize their reasons for doing so.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
CBDunkerson wrote:


So what is the TWF penalty for a two-handed weapon?

Don't we already have an FAQ that says you can't TWF with a two handed weapon? Because it already uses up all your metaphorical hands?

Liberty's Edge

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Kazaan wrote:
CBDunkerson wrote:
Kazaan wrote:
It isn't unclear, it's just that some people don't know how to read something without cramming in extrapolations that aren't needed.
Both needlessly rude and obviously false.
Neither. It's objective and quite true. You're applying a personal bias to perceive it as "rude". Just as people cram in a presumption on how the rules element in question work, you crammed in a rude intention to what I said where none existed in the first place. Now if you feel insulted by it, that's entirely different. I can't control that. But my original writing was, frankly, devoid of any emotional burden, positive or negative, so if you experienced a negative emotion from it, it comes entirely from your side of the table.

Your contention that you did not mean to be rude does not change the fact that you were. There is no element of 'intent' required for rudeness.

Further, there is nothing 'objective' about your claim that the reason some people disagree with you on this is that they don't know how to read properly. There are any number of more plausible, and less insulting, explanations.

Quote:
The fact that you can use a shield doesn't overcome the fact that attacking with a 2-h weapon subsumes your off-hand attack economy.

That is a reasonable interpretation (indeed, the one I suggested the first time the uncertainty around the feat came up). It is not however clearly stated in the feat. The feat says that you are capable of "using" a shield along with a spear or polearm. It would thus also be reasonable to take that to mean that you can TWF with the two... as that is a common form of using two weapons in Pathfinder.

Quote:
I simply offered logical possibilities of what could prompt them to create such a houserule.

Your suggestions that it was "ignorance" or "pandering" and "divergent from RAW" seem more like a personal bias than anything approaching logic.

The Exchange

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take a "small" long spear (sized for a Halfling).

with a Medium PC (say a human), when using an undersized weapon, you would suffer a -2 to hit and it would become a 1 handed weapon.

So you would use a Halfling Long Spear - which would have reach (damage is only 1d6 though), and you would use it one handed.


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CBDunkerson wrote:
Your contention that you did not mean to be rude does not change the fact that you were. There is no element of 'intent' required for rudeness.

Oh, well if that's the rules of the game here, then I say you're being rude; for no other reason than I say so. So you're not allowed to say anything else on the subject because that would be rude. Checkmate.

Sovereign Court Organized Play Coordinator

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I have not removed any posts in this thread. I will caution that the language is getting heated and ask those involved to take a step back, remember that the internet is an imperfect medium of communication, and request posters to look for words that don't incite such visceral emotions. Cheers!

Liberty's Edge

Thank you Tonya.

The Exchange

i may be a little late to the party, but you could take the lunge feat:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/lunge-combat---final
it does require +6 bab, but it could be useful, especially since you can attack both adjacent and faraway foes with your 1d8+str short-spear
as opposed to your 1d4(i think?)+1/2str sheild

The Exchange

DrDeth wrote:
John Compton wrote:
If you want a one-handed spear with more punch, also take a look at the doru in Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Distant Shores. I included it in there to provide a heavy, one-handed spear representative of those used in classical Greek hoplite warfare.

What are the stats?

The Greeks used a long spear, they had indeed, Phalanx training.

Really quite sub-par considering it was added specifically to represent Hoplite warfare. It's basically a normal spear (no reach) with a little extra dmg (1d8). It's normally a simple Two Handed Weapon, but can be wielded as a martial one handed weapon which reduces is Crit Mod to x2, down from x3.


I played the fighter with shield brace and spear earlier this week. It was a lot of fun to play. It was a "tutorial" level adventure since there were a few of us (me included) who had little experience with the system. Overall, Ulfar of the Linnorm Lands did well. It was satisfying to have the opponents scramble to get out of reach range. The couple of times they made to adjacent squares, they got a shield bash while Ulfer kept the formation and gave little ground.


One thing you could do that I really like (although it takes a bit to get into) is the shield gauntlet style.
With it you could (by level 4 or so) be able to take a long spear and still threaten people close to you with attacks. You'd enjoy a large shield bonus, no penalties and some great things like stealing items and disarming opponents without them attacking back. Plus your damage will be pretty decent with the gauntlet as its quite boosted in damage.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/shielded-gauntlet-master-combat

The end feat and work backwards to the other links to see the lead up. No penalties to your spear is cool too.

Scarab Sages

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Shield Gauntlet style is cool, but for Spear and Shield it's too many feats for less AC than Shield Brace and Shield Master. You get a better AC and no Penalty to hit with a Darkwood or Mithral Shield.

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