So I was looking through the UE at the various pole arms, and I noticed that the illustrations for the bill and the halberd are mirror copies of each other. So, I was wondering, if I have weapon focus halberd, but I hold it with the blade pointed the other way, do I need weapon focus bill to retain the bonus?
Seriously, I find it a bit lame that they just reversed the image for two items like that. How much effort would it take to find a separate picture for the bill? I mean, to anyone that is interested in historical weapons, that is most certainly not a bill. Very much a halberd, though.
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If you want historical accuracy or realistic combat in your gaming, pathfinder is not the system for you.
That said, it's entirely possible that the image was swapped in error when the book was sent to the publishers. It wouldn't be the first time.
True. I can't wait to see what the other five books in that adventure path will hold!
Hardly any rpg I have seen is very historically accurate as far as combat goes, but its pretty easy to have the weapons look like they really did, which is what I was complaining about. Not sure where you got the "realistic combat" bit from my post.
To be fair, there is no 'definitive' encyclopedia of X weapon has Y qualities. Essentially different weapons could be called the same thing, and the same weapon could be called different things, depending on time and place. A bill and a halberd (and a poleaxe and guisarme etc.) can be pretty damn similar in form and function.
Much as I like playing Pathfinder, isn't realistic fantasy role-playing an oxymoron? :D
Seriously, though, I've noticed in flipping through some of the weapon descriptions that they often do take into account how similar a lot of weapons are. The gladius description mentions that it's almost identical to a short sword, so any feats and such you have that are specific to short swords will work on a gladius, except the notable performance weapon bit.
Or, as Imbicatus said, there might have just been an "oopsies" that got past the proof readers...