I thought about building a fighter specialized in polearms, and started to wonder wether this is feasible. I see several problems with it:
1. When wielding a polearm, you can only attack enemies at 10 feet. But you can't keep an enemy from closing the distance, not even with "Shall not pass" because it works only on adjacent squares. When your enemy has "Advance", you don't even get an AoO.
2. When an enemy has closed the distance and is adjacent to you, you have to increase the distance again to be effective. This works as long as you still have any room behind you and your enemy hasn't "Step Up", in which case you can't do anything but move + standard attack.
3. You can't attack through a square occupied by an ally (or can you? I'm not sure about the rules at that point. Can monsters with reach attack "through" their allies? or your allies?)
So, what do you think? Is a polearm specialist feasible under the current rules? Did I overlook some feat enabling useful polearm fighting? Or did I misremember the rules at some point?
I would allow attacking through a friendly space. Historically, trusting reach polearms (such as a long spear) were either used in overlapping rows or with the polearm set up behind a shield bearer armed with a thrusting short sword.
Off course, this was typically used in a formation of mass troops.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
|
Agreed. My advice in Pathfinder would be for your pole-arm specialist to (a) have an ally in place right in front of you, to act as a blocker (b) make sure there's enough room behind you to withdraw as necessary, (c) get ready to punch an advancing enemy with a spiked gauntlet.
(I'm still playing D&D 3.5, where the Short Haft feat and the lack of Step Up avoid some of these issues.)
I do think including "Advance" & "Step Up" (countering all advantages of Reach),
while having nothing to maintain Reach's advantages, or even VIABILITY,
would be regrettable if it made it into the final product.
Hopefully we'll see some good Feats for Reach Weapon users,
to keep them up to the level of the game. ("Short Haft" is appropriate, to start)
I do think including "Advance" & "Step Up" (countering all advantages of Reach),
while having nothing to maintain Reach's advantages, or even VIABILITY,
would be regrettable if it made it into the final product.Hopefully we'll see some good Feats for Reach Weapon users,
to keep them up to the level of the game. ("Short Haft" is appropriate, to start)
Or maybe a "Push Off" feat allowing them to push back those advancing... allowing people to advance without AoO does seem to downgrade mass polearm / pike type formations. On second thought just dump the current Advance / Step Up and keep the AoO on anyone who tries it. The difficulty of advancing into a hedge of pikes is why the German landsknecht used the dopplesoldner / two handed sword specialists to break / cut pike heads. If a heroic fighter wants to push in, he can use one of his multiple attacks to smash a pike head or two and then advance.
In any event, the reliance of mass formations for polearm types seems to go against the grain of specialist fighter types, for me at least. I see warrior NPCs making more use of pole arms in city guard and militia formations...
Maybe a "fix" for the polearm user should better be discussed in the Feats section, as the main problems seem to be in Advance / Step Up / Shall not pass / the missing Push Back, etc.
But what belongs into the combat section is the question whether a combatant with reach can attack through / over the heads of enemies or allies.
As pointed out above, this was a common practice in phalanx / formation fighting.
I also imagine that a gargantuan red dragon should be able to attack over the head of a frontline fighter if a juicier target stands just inside its reach...
I'd just give the enemy a cover bonus if you have to attack through a rank to get to him.
On a separate note, I really think there were some neat things in earlier editions where rounds were broken up into distinct phases or steps. For example, there was a missile fire stage, and that happened before melee. There was a movement stage, and then there was a polearm stage (if I recall). Strikes from polearms would occur before strikes from normal weapons, so that if someone was holding a polearm he would automatically get to go before the guy who was trying to attack him. I don't recall the exact order, but in general there were some really neat timing issues that resulted from that earlier "simpler" time. I think lessons could easily be taken from looking at earlier editions and seeing how they handled some of these things and see if those solutions would make any sense in the new world.
In my opinion, there should be a general option for attacking adjacent foes with the shaft of a polearm, maybe at -4 to the attack roll and dealing 1d4 damage (slightly less than a club or quarterstaff at 1d6).
In addition to that, it would be nice to have a new feat similiar to "Shield Slam":
Shaft Slam (Combat)
In the right position, your polearm shaft can be used to send opponents
flying.
Prerequisites: ???.
Benefit: Any adjacent opponents hit by your polearm shaft are also
hit with a free bull rush attack, substituting your attack
roll for the combat maneuver check (see the Combat chapter).
This bull rush does not provoke an attack of opportunity.
Opponents who cannot move back due to a wall or
other surface are knocked prone after moving the maximum
possible distance.
In my opinion, there should be a general option for attacking adjacent foes with the shaft of a polearm, maybe at -4 to the attack roll and dealing 1d4 damage (slightly less than a club or quarterstaff at 1d6).
In addition to that, it would be nice to have a new feat similiar to "Shield Slam":
Shaft Slam (Combat)
In the right position, your polearm shaft can be used to send opponents
flying.
Prerequisites: ???.
Benefit: Any adjacent opponents hit by your polearm shaft are also
hit with a free bull rush attack, substituting your attack
roll for the combat maneuver check (see the Combat chapter).
This bull rush does not provoke an attack of opportunity.
Opponents who cannot move back due to a wall or
other surface are knocked prone after moving the maximum
possible distance.
Drop the feat. Just an attack for 1-4 with a penalty of, say -2, for the weapon being clumsy to use in that manner. Bingo, they can smack someone adjacent with the haft of the weapon. Desparate times and all that...
I added the rule, that you can make an attack of opportunity against an opponent who moves out of a threatened square and next to your own square, even though he made a 5 foot step, which usually don't provoke AoOs.
Maybe add an extra feat that makes him fail to move into the square next to you, if the attack succeeds.
I think this tiny adjustment makes polearms a much more interesting choice of weapon. When you also have a polearm that can trip opponents, that can turn out to be a really nasty character.
So, what do you think? Is a polearm specialist feasible under the current rules? Did I overlook some feat enabling useful polearm fighting? Or did I misremember the rules at some point?
The solution for a game breaking pole-arm specialist is to use something with a natural attack. The *most* devastating character was a 3.0 Minotaur fighter/monk who used a large polearm. he threatened from 10-15 with the polearm, and anyone who approached through that death circle could get gored by natural attacks (hello monk). Took some feats, but by sixth level, he was rockin' and rolling. With 3.0 cleave he could drop every creature in his threat range.
Traditionally, human polearm specialists have a blocker. You can give natural weapons with spells, non-humans work excellently (lizard folk etc.). You can actually be pretty effective due to the longer reach if you're willing to re-engineer your whole concept to raep the reach rules.