Namely that reach weapons are two-handed except for the whip (and I think one other I'm forgetting).
Dwarven Dorn-Degar with the Dorn-Degar master feat? AKA "probably the best reason to play a Dwarf Magus".
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^This(*). And the Scorpion Whip is also a non-Two-Handed Reach weapon (and if you are proficient with both this and the normal Whip, you can treat it as both a Light weapon and a One-Handed weapon).
(*)Except I wouldn't necessarily say that it's the best reason to play a Dwarf Magus, even though it's good -- Dwarves have Martial access to some other nice One-Handed and Light weapons (that are less feat-intensive than the Dorn-Dergar) as long as you aren't depending upon the widest Critical to match up with a straight-up damage spell, and they are TOUGH, which is important if you're a full-time front-liner as opposed to a nova striker.
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By the way, this video about Halberds puts forth the interesting theory (although self-admittedly without the historical evidence to test it) that Halberds were used primarily as advanced Spears, with the axe blade and hook being used for tripping, disrupting shield walls, and secondary cutting. The Pathfinder Halberd doesn't seem to correspond very well to the historical Halberd of Earth, instead being a short (non-Reach) polearm (poleaxe). Also see this video about Poleaxes, Halberds, and Bills. Note that these videos disagree with each other with respect to how heavily armored the combatants would usually be when using each type of weapon.
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Still curious: Anyone got a link to credible artwork, legitimately posted online, of an Elven Branched Spear?
Is using a Small longspear cheese?
Probably.
That's what makes doing it awesome! Anybody can play the game as intended, it takes skill to play in unintended ways.
One-handed small longspear presumably isn't something Paizo put in on purpose, but it's hardly an overpowered gameplay option. Low damage dice. Loss of two-handed damage boosts. Penalty to hit. And a shield is less useful to a reach attacker than to just about any other melee character.
Two-weapon-fighting with two non-light weapon and an extra hit penalty - I make that -6 to hit with each hand.
I'm saddened by the lack of support for my favorite weapon; the khopesh. Especially given that its the iconic weapon of the Egyptians and pathfinder has osirion and an entire pantheon of osirion gods (remarkably, none of them have favored weapon khopesh) based off of ancient Egypt. It also seems odd that it was used to stab around shields with its sharp tip (if it's the variant with a sharp tip) as much as it was used to slash, yet in pathfinder its just a pretty underwhelming exotic slashing weapon.
Still holding out hope the khopesh might get some love in an upcoming player companion/setting though, maybe in the form of a setting themed osirion fighting style feat.
Feats for a specific weapon should be done as weapon groups, it really would solve problems and the feat bloat that happens.
It also makes sense in game terms. I understand maybe not real life terms BUT this is not real life.
In my experience, taking the idea of "weapon group" seriously raises more problems than it solves. The problem is that no one can agree on where one weapon group begins and another one ends -- a bayonet is a spear? Seriously? -- and you end up in countless fights about whether a halberd should be treated as a hafted weapon, as an axe, as a spear, as a glaive, or as a shuriken. It's simpler and causes fewer problems at the table to say that a halberd is a halberd.
halberd [snip] as a shuriken.I have stuff to do this week, stop dropping concepts I can't help but try to build!
I'll try.
But I just note in passing that there are lots of decaffienated products on the market that are just as tasty as the real thing.
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The problem is that no one can agree on where one weapon group begins and another one ends -- a bayonet is a spear? Seriously? -- and you end up in countless fights about whether a halberd should be treated as a hafted weapon, as an axe, as a spear, as a glaive, or as a shuriken. It's simpler and causes fewer problems at the table to say that a halberd is a halberd.Why shouldn't some weapons simply belong to multiple groups?
No reason they shouldn't. But down that path lies "every weapon belongs to every group." And it's not so much a "path" as a "double black diamond ski run"; you very quickly end up at the end, and unless you're an Olympic-level expert, you usually end up in an embarrassingly twisted pile of your own making.
It's simpler and causes fewer problems at the table to say that one weapon = one group, and a halberd is just a halberd, even if one of your players insists that they can find a video of a ninja master using a halberd as a throwing weapon.
I know, following up to my own post, whatever,....
But down that path lies "every weapon belongs to every group."
Serious example of this phenomenon: Name five weapons that cannot be used as a "club." Anything that has a haft, for example, can be reversed to turn into a club. Anything that has a hilt can be reversed to be used as a club. Anything that has a stock (like a crossbow) can be reversed to be used as a club. Anything that involves a piece of wood longer than it is wide can be used as a club. Anything that involves a piece of wood wider than it is long can be turned on its side and used as a club.
I'm sure somewhere out there are videos of people bludgeoning each other with ninja stars. ---- and, no, Sideromancer, you have work to do, don't try it!
"Obviously," this makes mastery of the club the most overpowered ability in the game.
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Orfamay I think your thinking in real life, this is with in the context of the game and already done for you.
No extra thought invovled in thinking about weapon groups because Paizo did it and they just need to word the feats to reflect weapon group instead of x weapon (not weapon X for copy right reasons).
You could use anything to "club" someone but there are weapons that are called clubs, maybe you're being overly specific for a reason or maybe not. We do understand that you don't like certain things, I don't like certain things it is part of being human, or a Dwarf or an Elf or anything really.
Why not try to benefit the game we love and play instead of dragging it into more realism since that is not where it belongs?
You could use anything to "club" someone but there are weapons that are called clubs, maybe you're being overly specific for a reason or maybe not.
Well, look upthread. There are some people who are insisting that Mesopotamian soldiers with "spears" should have all the tactical flexibility and capacity of early modern pikemen, cavalry with lances, and halberdiers, despite the fact that none of those weapons would be invented for millennia.
On the basis, largely, that you can use anything with a point to "spear" someone.
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I just had a post and I hit reload /sigh
So basically weapon groups and damage types are the limiting factor of how a weapon works and is categorized in PF.
Eliminate certain weapons that you don't like/want to be used in your time period or area.
You could use a great sword to spear someone and it has been done in the past and it was a valid Tactic but in PF it is not. A Pike man is a spear wielder with more training and a better designed weapon. They were more effective against a charging opponent sure BUT they could be used to attack if needs be, albeit not the best choice but still a choice.
All the time periods were different in their armoring as well. A spear is not effective against solid plate but chain mail or leather or no armor it was effective, A hammer bent solid place, chain dispersed the force better.
Just one of those things that if you think about it to much you can find all the problems.
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Pikes weren't a thing (they aren't high tech to make) because they weren't needed or advantageous until the battlefield changed and for a time they were, and if they were introduced much earlier they wouldn't dominate at all because that wasn't the battlefield need at the time.
Actually, pikes were dominant a lot earlier on the battlefield than most people think. Phillip of Macedon managed to dominate the battlefield with a 5m long stick with a thrusting tip on the end -- a pike, by any other name -- called the "sarissa" long before the pike became one of the defining weapons of the Early Modern period.
The issue wasn't that the pike was high-tech to make, it's that it was (and is) high-tech to use. It requires a degree of training and discipline that most Bronze and Iron Age armies didn't have. Indeed, most of the successor kingdoms after Alexander the Great didn't keep up the training of their armies, and as a result didn't have as much success with pikes.
But that gets back to my original point. Even if the Mesopotamians had thought that a 5m long "spear" would have been of any use (and it's not clear that they would have; many inventions that are obvious in retrospect actually take a stroke of genius to invent; wheels on luggage weren't invented until 1970, and the rollaboard wasn't invented until 1987. We had people on the moon before we had rolling luggage), Mesopotamian fighters wouldn't have the training to use it, because it's a different weapon than the spear.
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I always envision the PCs as a strike team, they would have a different sort of gear set since they expect to face everything all at once.
I was a while ago working for Home brew to get rid of some of the over abundance of feats, trim them down to make options seem less swingy and like you have to commit or die to a few ways of playing.
I always envision the PCs as a strike team, they would have a different sort of gear set since they expect to face everything all at once.
Yeah, that makes sense, and with magic it's not like humping 50 kg of different weapons is even a problem.
The problem, typified on this thread, is when someone insists they don't need different sorts of gear because you can use object X as though it were object Y, despite them clearly being different objects in the PF rules. Particularly in a setting where object Y doesn't exist for whatever reasons (like you're running a Bronze Age campaign).
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This post addresses real life combat.
Below I have linked numerous videos from the AHF (Academy of Historics Fencing), a group which does extensive full contact unarmored sparring with blunt weapons of great variety. We see below spears used one and two handed, in melee and individual combat. The people fighting are usually fairly well trained in what they are doing (so they people using spears know how to use a spear, the people with a longsword know how to use a longsword, ect). In many of the videos they switch roles, with one person using the spear for a few exchanges and then using whatever sword is being used. This is to correct for differences in skill. They are not simulating armored combat, which works somewhat differently. However, for much of history similar core principles apply, namely, don't let your opponent hit you, as they might be able to hit a gap in your armor.
I don't expect anyone to watch all of these, but if you watch one or two of different types you can get a sense of what real spear combat is like. They go until one solid hit has been delivered, which realistically will be incapacitating and deadly to an unarmored opponent, and for roughly a single exchange after that (one tempo, which means one attack from the person who got hit), this simulates what is called an afterblow. Getting hit is not always instantly lethal, and it is very common in historical accounts of melee combat for a person to get hit and continue fighting for a short time, often resulting in double kills.
One handed spear usage, spear & shield vs sword and shield. The swords are quite similar to viking style swords, although viking swords might have favored close range draw cuts more, based on extrapolation from the shape of the pommel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ni-h8SH1yUw&t=90s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHkW0rCoe_A
Melee combat, spears used one handed, spears and shields vs swords and shields. Swords outnumber spears close to 2:1 and odds are fairly even.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UybEdUDdxM
Two handed spear usage. Spear vs longsword, no shields.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdHrz_PZQEY&t=3s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK32P7qnDuE
Two handed spear usage. Spear vs sabre, no shields.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3KRJl9zNMg
Spear vs sidesword (essentially a broadsword, a one handed cut and thrust medium length sword with good hand protection).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywhEV26Uaqs
A person well trained in short sword fighting going against a spear for the first time. No shields.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhgO7cEZnns&t=115s
In all of the videos, the spear seems to be quite dominant. I think this fairly conclusively shows that in unarmored combat between two people where one uses a spear as a primary weapon and the other uses a sword, the spear user has a distinct advantage. Furthermore, we can extrapolate that in many scenarios where armor provides imperfect coverage, such as a mail hauberk which leaves the arms, face, and legs exposed, a similar conclusion could be reached.
The dominance of spears is not represented in pathfinder. I think that a one handed spear with reach would not be at all unreasonable in terms of realism, although pathfinder is increadibly crude in the way it treats reach. Using a nine foot spear in tandem with a shield is not particularly difficult after moderate training, and was widespread.
Against really good armor, the spear becomes less dominant. However, a sword is also ineffective against armor the large majority of the time. Against good plate armor, for instance, one would want to use a pole arm, like a poleaxe, to try to trip the opponent and also to bypass the armor by stabbing in gaps. There is also bludgeoning potential, hence most poleaxes have large hammers, which can be used to hurt opponents by striking bony areas, particularly the head. When fighting an armored opponent with a sword, it is a good idea to try to thrust into gaps in the armor, trip the opponent, and grapple with them. It can be effective to hold a sword backwards and strike with the pommel and crossguard, this is called a murder stroke, because it is ussually done on an opponent who is unable to respond. There are examples of spiked pommels and crossguards for this purpose.
In general, the main advantage of a sword is that it is small enough to be sheathed. This means that it can be carried about in day to day life without disrupting activities. Sheathing an eight foot spear is not particularly practical. Throughout much of historical Europe, there were often laws about who could carry a sword, typically it was the nobility who could carry a sword, and in general swords are associated with nobility because of this (and other factors, which I will not detail). This is a big part of the reason why they are seen as heroic. The other major factor in making swords heroic is that they are more present in civilian life, thus the tales which are constructed about heroes and designed to resonate with civilians tend to mention swords more than they should, although to be clear many heroic tales do mention spears.
The sheathing advantage of a sword is also why it would be carried by an adventurer. If the adventurer was planning on going into a dungeon where they knew they were going to be fighting, they might carry a spear, but otherwise as they went about their daily life they would most likely have a sword. The sword they would use would be dependant on what was available, which would depend on what was effective.
Different weapons are good for different things. Consider: a rapier is an excellent weapon for unarmed combat between two civilians. It has long reach, good hand protection, enough weight to parry, and both cutting and thrusting power. It is probably the best one handed sword in an unarmored duel with no offhand weapon. But if one is expecting to go up against armored opponents, a longsword is probably a better sidearm, because it will have more leverage and a more robust thrust, good for getting through padding which will be present in the gaps one will thrust into.
Pathfinder does not represent most of this. Movies do not represent most of this. I don't get a bonus for using a warhammer against an armored opponent, indeed, a warhammer is just as good as a sabre against someone in full plate.
Also, one other thing I noticed in this thread is that someone mentioned that the primary weapon of a samurai was a spear. Considering the design of samurai armor, as well as the opinions of individuals more knowledgeable on that topic than I am, I feel safe saying that the primary weapon of a samurai was not a spear. It was a bow. The spear was the primary melee weapon, though, with smaller sheathed weapons being used as weapons of last resort and in civilian contexts. Generally archers don't get to have spears because you can't sheath a spear. You can't really sheath a greatsword either.
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In my experience, taking the idea of "weapon group" seriously raises more problems than it solves.
I mean, take Startoss Style for example. You can skip a sling bullet or a chakram off of one person and hit another one? Sure, those things are thrown with signficant angular momentum and will ricochet; it ricocheting exactly where you want it to is somewhat implausible, but Xena did it so we'll roll with it.
But using Startoss style with a Javelin, Trident, Dagger, Throwing Axe, Net, Harpoon, Shortspear, or Blowgun Dart? The idea when you throw a javelin or shoot a blow gun dart is that its going to stick in whatever you hit with it, and probably shouldn't do damage if you were to somehow skip it off one person and hit the guy standing 10 feet to his left.
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Thanks guys. I didn't talk a lot about the various different problems with pathfinder's representation of spears. I would say that the feat which makes the area around you difficult terrain should probably not have prerequisites, and in general I think if pathfinder treated threatened squares as difficult terrain the combat would be a touch more realistic.
Carrying a spear and another small weapon was done, lots of reenactors like to do that, and it is possible, although somewhat difficult, to draw a dagger after a swordsman has passed your point but before they hit you, so that you have some chance there. Pathfinder lets you do this with a move action, which I think is fine, but there is a fairly high chance of fumbling the draw. If I were changing pathfinder, I'd make it so that
1) two handed weapons can't be sheathed
2) drawing a different type of weapon was a swift or move action, depending on the weapon (dagger might be swift, rapier might be move). Rolling a D20 + BaB against a DC of 5 makes it a longer action.
The problem is that no one can agree on where one weapon group begins and another one ends
But.. the weapon groups are in the rules? A bayonet is a close weapon and a light blade. A halberd is a polearm. That's... right in the rules.
So I'm not sure why you think there's going to be some sort of confusion on it. There's going to be some issues with weapons that Paizo hasn't put in groups yet, but that's another topic.
I would recommend reforming the Weapon Groups containing Polearms and Spears, so that weapons that had swinging attacks would be in Polearms and weapons that had thrusting attacks would be in Spears, and weapons that had both would be in both groups, but you would need Weapon Training in both groups to get the full benefit of such weapons.
Perhaps a similar thing could be done with Piercing/Thrusting swords and Slashing/Swinging swords.
The problem with weapon groups, and weapon descriptions, is that the presumption of standardization, across races, cultures and vast geographical separation. The Roman army weaponry was standardized early in that era, throughout the empire. After that, significant standardization was uncommon beyond the company level until post US Civil War.
I have seen a civil war long rifle (ca 6 foot long) with a 20 inch bladed bayonet, which would certainly act like a standard spear, sans balance for throwing. This is certainly not the average, but someone could easily use it in an argument.
I heard on a Dan Carlin podcast that other peoples tried to copy the pike phalanx technique used by Athens and Sparta - but it didn't work anywhere near as well for them. They had similar equipment and aimed to fight the same way, but something in the training or culture meant that they couldn't quite pull it off.
In general there were two styles of ancient (and not so ancient) warfare - 'civilized' people who fought in dense blocks of infantry and 'barbaric' people who relied more on individual strength and tended to charge at the enemy in no particular formation. If the 'civilized' people maintained their discipline then the 'barbarians' would be getting stabbed by three people at once. But if they broke formation, they'd usually panic and flee.
(I have no particular history expertise - let me know if I've got things wrong, guys.)
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The problem with weapon groups, and weapon descriptions, is that the presumption of standardization, across races, cultures and vast geographical separation.
I understand what you are saying BUT that really has nothing to do with the game. Paizo has created standard weapon groups, it is a great advantage to feat design to use them but it doesn't seem to happen. It is a tool to use for home brew because most of the leg work is done for you.
If you don't want something in a weapon group to work with a feat like the Thrown group mentioned above then it is easier to remove said weapon then scrap the whole feat/weapon group.
Now I've got this vision in which the PCs, while searching through scattered art items in the ruins of the Jistka Imperium, find a requiem to Leeroius Ienkenis . . . .
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By the way, updated Kirthfinder documents link (thanks to Firewarrior44 for this new link) -- these documents are dated early 2016 instead of 2012 like the ones I was looking at, and I notice that the Weapons section of the equipment document has been updated, with the Longspear getting enough love that you can choose up to 3 Exotic Weapon Proficiency options for it.