How come people never use spears as a weapon when making their character? It seems to be a weapon reserved solely for Town Guards for some reason. Spears can be cool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxXD7LTAVIQ
>>97542171>How come people never use spears as a weapon when making their characterin DnD?because dedicated combat classes like the fighter or paladin are better of using the halberd or pike if they want a polearm, a greatsword for pure damage, or a longsword for use with a shieldsame in pathfinder, plain old spears are the definition of average and dedicated melee classes have access to martial weapons that outperform itthere arent very many systems that give spears enough of a gimmick to stand out from using zweihanders or halberds
>>97542202What of GURPS?
>>97542202Building on this, player characters like that are rarely forced to cut corners with their weapons for long. So being cheap doesn't help the spear either.
>>97542207Never played it, how does GURPS handle it? Like anon says >>97542202many games seem to make spears worse than other two handed weapons (less damage), and many players prefer to use single handed weapons due to being able to take a shield. Only a few games (like WHFRP) give advantages to attack speed, reach or initiative and even fewer allow a spear user to keep an enemy at a distance or parry with their spear like a spear user would do in combat.
>>97542352>many games seem to make spears worse than other two handed weapons (less damage)thats primarily a consequence of spears being classed simple weapons, so they are forced to use simple weapon statline of D6/D8they also lack reach for some reason, essentially making it just a worse rapiermartial weapons are better than simple weapons as a rule, but every dedicated melee class has martial weapon training alreadyso they always have access to better polearmsthe only class that wants to get stuck in melee but only has simple weapons is the monk, and the monk is probably the only class that will consistently use the spear NPCs have spears simply because they are CR1/8 and dont have martial weapons training
>>97542171Because I only use BASED polearms like glaives...or a bardiche or poleaxe if I desperately need to improvise.
>>97542352GURPS has quite good rules for reach, lets spears parry as well as swords do, and allows you to hold enemies at bay with thrusting weapons, or do extra damage if you receive a charge with a planted spear. It also makes spears way more affordable than swords.Then it completely fucks over spears by having thrusting damage lag far behind swinging at typical PC strength levels, makes weapons like the duelling halberd basically act as spears but better, and allowing one-handed swords to have better reach than them.You can build an efficient spear-wielder in GURPS, but it generally involves tricks like using your spear as a staff most of the time, rather than just being a simple, reliable, best option for your average fighter.
>>97542393>using your spear as a staff most of the timeIs this historically accurate though?
spears are the weapons of the masses. doesnt take much to thrust a pointy stick at an enemy and most games do well to treat it as such.
>>97542415Vikings actually used spears more than axes to be h
>>97542415Spear beats sword 9 out of 10 times realistically, but realism has fuck all to do with elf games
>>97542171Because it's the most basic weapon of all, even a basic pole is more useful in some situations
>>97542433among equals, yes.
>>97542171Because the majority of game designers are retards who make swords shit like 5 damage or 2d6 damage or what not because "swords are cool" while making spears 2 damage or 1d6 damage or some shit because they think spears are weak or lame.Basically it's the end result of unathletic nerds who have never worked out or been in fights and who don't even have a basic knowledge of history and became nerds because of shitty movies/games/anime where the hero is a swordfag.
>>97542445spears are only good in formation.
>>97542449Lol dumbass
>>97542433realistically, we do not know the winrates of swords vs spears because no one in ancient times was writing detailed W/R rates of swords and spears in either lab or combat conditionswe only know that both spears and swords were widespread, both of them are present on battlefields, and skeletons often have wounds from either swords or spears presentno one has run a study on the number of bodies that held swords that had lethal spear wounds on them, and there are likely not enough preserved bodies to make any representative claimthe only thing we can assume is that sword and spear users had a decent chance of beating each other, otherwise one of them them would have fallen out of fashion>>97542449its more nuanced than thatspear fighters could duel just fine because of the length of their weaponsswords could fight in formation just fine because you could switch from slashing to thrusting, and the shortness of the weapon becomes an advantage if you are locked tight in formation and you need something maneuverable to hit around the enemy shieldtheres a good reason professional soldiers carried both when they could help it
>>97542445>Spartafag deriding people for lacking knowledge of history
>>97542445the DnD short sword deals D6 damage while the spear also deals D6the spear is, on paper, a better weapon because it can be two-handed for D8 damage and has the thrown property and needs no training on top of thatthe reason its overshadowed is because the halberd exists which deals D10 and has reach2D6 is the greatsword, which is a two-hand only weapon with a STR requirement, so it better deal high damagethe short sword is only better than the spear for high DEX, low STR characters who can make use of finesse and dont want to use a rapier
>>97542171Traditional games?
>>97542506surprisingly, it was TTRPG related for the first 6-7 posts before spearfag turbonerds decided to show up
>>97542506
>>97542171I know it's ahistorical, but I just associate a spear with fighting in a formation and being a lone badass. While the spear (and polearms in general) was the backbone of war for basically all of history, it doesn't have the culture momentum that the sword does. Maybe it'd be different if King Arthur pulled a spear out of the stone.
>>97542433Yeah, we all know the weapons triangle. Sword beats Axe, Axe beats Polearm, Polearm beats Sword.
>>97542430Almost all soldiers in human history prior to firearms used spears/pole arms more than swores, axes, etc.
>>97542171I always pick spear in TDE because I like the combat feats of pole weapons like tripping your opponent. Also, I usually play poor bastards.
>>97543235not by such a wide margin as you might think, especially not with professional soldierswhile a peasant levy might be stuck with just his spear, militia men and men-at-arms generally did have a sword on them in addition to their spear
>>97543309As far as I know (which might be wrong), they did often carry both, but in actual combat people usually used the spear first and considered the sword as a side arm.Though admittably this knowledge is not based on actual historical research, but on sheer cultural armchair osmosis.
>>97543538>but in actual combat people usually used the spear first and considered the sword as a side arm.side arm is technically true, a literal armament carried on their side, but it leaves out most of the nuanceswords are shorter and much easier to handle than a spear, so theres a lot of battlefield situations where you would willingly switch to a sword even if your spear is still functionalwhile spears are nowhere near as fragile as they are depicted in fiction, they are still made of wood, so your sidearm has a much higher chance of becoming your primary than a handgun would in modern times
>>97542393>Then it completely fucks over spears by having thrusting damage lag far behind swingingThis is fixed with an optional rule called Know Your Own Strength. Anyone who is playing a medieval game should be using this.>dueling halberdAn absolutely retarded weapon and I don't get why the devs made it so strong.>reachI never thought about it but it is weird that I can use a katana to cut a reach 2 but if I use a spear one-handed I can only stab at reach 1.
>>97542414I guess it depends on the time and place, surviving Asian styles do this but we don't even conclusively know what kind of grip historical spearfighters of antiquity used
i fixed this issue by just giving the spear a +2 to the attack roll
>>97542433Shield
>>97542433>>97546007Yeah youtube hema retards going "If neither opponent has a shield and the rule is first blow landed wins, spear always beats sword!"Because nobody wore armour that could block a spear strike or walk off a glancing wound, right? And it's totally fair to give the guy with a one handed weapon no shield.
>>97546007Full armor
>>97542171How is that this shitpost is going on for over a decade?
>>97542433A bloke with a shield can casually overcome any polearm soldier. Been a stable of war since fucking Bronze Age, and always eventually warfare does the same cycle>Someone gets longer spears/pikes and train troops to use them well>For a minute, everyone gets obsessed with the new pikes>Then someone reminds himself "wait a minute, shields exist">Pike formations get obsolete in the next decadeAnd then they made it even worse for polearmed troops, adding guns to the mix.
>>97549031This is neglecting to mention that beyond a certain critical mass, polearm formations become incredibly cumbersome and are highly vulnerable to being outmaneuvered.
>>97549031>>97551760This is contextual to the time period, no? For most of history shield + spear was the bread and butter of most infantry formations. Then you've got things like Cynoscephalae where Roman flexibility could outmaneuver polearm units.Early middle ages it was still mostly spear and shields. Martel and, later Charlemagne used spears and shields mostly. The Umayyads? Spears, mostly.Poleaxes and other "angular momentum" weapons (as opposed to spears) became popular in later middle ages when armor permitted the infantryman to abandon a shield without dying. Pit a well armored man-at-arms with a poleaxe against most folks with shields? I'll take the poleaxe most days.
>>97542171I just got out of a DnD campaign where a party member used a spear, and I used a glaive.
Simple answer? the tight confines of your average dungeon are much better suited to a sword than a spear. IMHO tho spears should be made a martial weapon, do d8/d10 1H/2H dmg, and be given the reach ability
>>97542483Didn't the Romans win more than they lost against the Greeks, who used spears? Or like, bigger spears. There's a word for them but I don't give enough for a shit about spears to go look it up.
>>97553433campaign-level success depends on factors far beyond the size of infantry weaponsand what we know of the pyrrhic wars is nowhere near statistically complete to deduce the rate at which spears beat swords or vice-versa nor the contexts with which combat between them would occur
>>97542202>spears as a weapon when making their character>in DnD?Spears were the weapon of choice of the greatest martial class that ever was, now lost to the ravages of time and edition churn.>The Warlord
>>97553460There were more Greek/Roman wars than just the Pyrrhic wars. Rome fought the Macedonians and the Seleucids.
>>97553521>WarlordWOWMMORPG WEEABOO FIGHTAN MAJICKS!!!1111111111
>>97553532Go back to sucking Elminster's needle dick
>>97549024>anons see a thread they like>recreate it ad nauseam to try and recapture that original feeling
>>97542171to my knowledge there is no special rule for spears to take advantage of its range, which is the reason it has been the weapon of choice for over 12000 years of warfare history irl, with luck you'll be able to throw it in d&d and pathfinder and other rpgs, it's more clear in videogames though, there is this game that i love called wartales were you can attack through your allies with a spear so you can use a tank to keep enemies busy and attack and retreat with your spearman, but in tabletop there is no such mechanic
This thread has inspired me to make my next character a spear user to start at least, but I'll likely switch to a rapier and shield once I have access to both. Wish there were a better way to get my Dexterity modifier on a Valor Bard in 5e 2024 than to take a level in Monk. .
>>97542171To make spear make sense you need weapon breaking mechanics.Spear or bow, sword, dagger. It's stupid how only rogue characters end up using daggers when daggers were number one anti-armor sidearms.
>>97557155>were number one anti-armor sidearms.daggers were for delivering the coup de grace against fallen enemies after they had already been incapacitated by other meanseven the joints on a late-medieval suit of armor were protected by maille, so slipping a dagger into weak points is a myth unless it was a specialized anti-armor dagger that was basically just a glorified ice pickyour weapon for attacking joints would have been a straight sword, which progressively got focused on thrusting over cutting alongside armor development for this reason
Swords = heroes/royalty/soldiersAxes/halberds/big weapons = brutes/savagesMaces = priests/sometimes brutesSpears = mass infantry/peasants/savages
>>97553521>the greatest martial class that ever was>tome of battleLOLOLOLOL
>>97542483>realistically, we do not know the winrates of swords vs spearsYes we do, we can compare how different armies fared against each other and find out what armaments outperformed the rest. The Romans were pretty much unopposed in their golden age and swords were their primary weapons. Not even long swords, short stabby swords. Nearly every other military of the age primarily used spears as their weapons of choice, and the Romans thoroughly trumped nearly everyone.
>>97558030roman victories were almost entirely due to their organization rather than their weaponsand their enemies also carried swords
>>97558038Yeah man, they just organized themselves really well and all their enemies just laid down and died. There was absolutely zero actual combat where the advantages and disadvantages of weaponry would become immediately apparent or anything like that
>>97558044you are fucking retardedit's like pointing at Vietnam and saying that clearly covering sharpened sticks in shit is a more effective weapon than a fighter jet
>>97558044>There was absolutely zero actual combat where the advantages and disadvantages of weaponry would become immediately apparent or anything like thatindividual weapons dont even decide battles, much less campaignsromans used swords in addition to spears, which was the same as almost every other contemporary army, a spear in addition to the swordthe romans tended to come out better due to decisions made high up, the ability to raise and muster large armies, pay and feed large armies, and mobilize large armies over distanceswe know very little about how well combat was like between individual soldiers against other individual soldiers, we dont have the wealth of data that we had in the 21st century for evaluating the performance of weapons against other weapons like we did in vietnamancient writers were far more concerned with how battles played out at the formation level rather than how individual 1v1s played out, so how often sword wielding soldiers prevailed against spear wielding soldiers is just not going to survive in meaningful way to uswe only really know how well formation sized units beat other formation sized units and the deciding factor was almost always positioning rather than the outcome of any individual
>>97558048>the most effective military of its age, renowned for its adaptability, would arbitrarily use swords over spears for no tactical advantage whatsoeverYeah man. Sure.>>97558057>individual weapons dont even decide battlesThis is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Yes, choice of weaponry does decide battles. It is one of the most macro strategic choices a military makes, because it decides how every single micro-engagement will play out. Anglo-Saxons choosing to bring spear infantry vs. viking Danish axes proved the tactical superiority of the Danish axe over and over, the advantages of said longaxes proven across an entire historical period. Everything you are arguing is founded upon the most outrageously flawed premise one could ever seriously try to claim, that weapons aren't important and strategy wins wars. Weapons are half of strategy, my guy. >romans used swords in addition to spearsPilums are not spears. They are heavy javelins. The Roman Legions only used pila for softening up enemy formations prior to the charge, and their primary weapon was always the sword.>the romans tended to come out better due to decisions made high upActually no, their greatest strategic advantage wasn't their generals. Their generals were good most of the time, but it was their centurions. It made a Legion's individual centurias more adaptable to changing conditions than most armies. >we know very little about how well combat was like between individual soldiers against other individual soldiers,That's not even remotely true. Take a history class sometime. We have both contemporary accounts and archaeological evidence telling us mountains of information about how ancient soldiers clashed.>so how often sword wielding soldiers prevailed against spear wielding soldiersRoman Legions dominated their corner of the world for centuries, in hundreds of campaigns against spear-wielding empires. I rest my case.
>>97542445spears are objectively not as capable of damage as a sword
>>97558134>This is the stupidest thing I've ever hearbut its also the truth>Weapons are half of strategy, my guy.weapons are half of individual combat, which is only half of tactics, which is less than half of strategy, and all of the above are the bitches of grand strategy>The Roman Legions only used pila for softening up enemy formations prior to the chargeromans used their pilum for both throwing and jabbing> We have both contemporary accounts and archaeological evidence telling us mountains of information about how ancient soldiers clashed.we do not have blow by blow breakdowns of individual spear vs sword ccounts, not enough to make a statistical studywe have no ancient equivalent of the ballistic research lab that has compiled >Roman Legions dominated their corner of the world for centuries, in hundreds of campaigns against spear-wielding empiresbecause they were better at raising and maintaining large armies and supplying themwe do not have a breakdown of how many individual clashes between soldiers involved spears and swords, how many won, the contexts of each individual fightwhat we see are large armies where victory was decided by army placement, army movement, army size, and whoever could best use local terrainaccounts of historical battles like the battle of cannae pay very little attention to invidividual combat between soldiers but a lot of attention to how the troops were positioned, how the troops maneuvered and flanked, and the timing with which units were deployed
>>97558134>We have both contemporary accounts and archaeological evidence telling us mountains of information about how ancient soldiers clashed.NTA but we don't have definitive proof that either Jesus or Muhammad existed as real people. History is built off of a ton of assumptions with very shaky ground. We assume they're real because it's the easiest, simplest answer. Thinking that we can establish the exact weapon compositions armies used or their efficacy? Insanity.
>>97558161>but its also the truthNo. >weapons are half of individual combat,In the same breath that you say this, you argue that spears are objectively superior to swords. Your own argument is inherently self-defeating; you cannot assert there is no meaningful strategic advantage derived from weaponry, and then argue that spears are therefore better than swords. You might as well argue that rocks are better weapons than assault rifles. It's such a patently self-defeating argument that I feel like there's not even much point addressing the rest of your post. Your shit doesn't even make a lick of sense.>romans used their pilum for both throwing and jabbingNo, they did not. Pilums are not weighted nor designed for thrusting, and in fact perform quite poorly at anything except as thrown weapons. You might be able to find a handful of accounts of legionaries trying to use a pilum as a substitute weapon, but never as a primary armament. If the Romans wanted to use spears, they made actual spears, like the spears they equipped their auxiliary forces and cavalry with. >we do not have blow by blow breakdowns of individual spear vs sword ccounts,Nice job moving the goalposts. Next you'll demand video footage of the Punic Wars. We do have plenty of physical and testimonial evidence of how battles were fought and what the results of those battles were. Roman Legions won by closing the gap with spearmen and crushing them in close combat via swords. Deal with it.>because they were better at raising and maintaining large armies and supplying themThat's not what wins battles anon and you know it. The best logistics in the world doesn't make an army of rock-throwers able to defeat an army with modern firearms. Also, kinda funny how you pivoted from tactics to logistics as your excuse for why Rome prevailed for so long. If swords were a weakness, they would have simply used anything else.
>>97558212>NTA but we don't have definitive proof that either Jesus or Muhammad existed as real people. History is built off of a ton of assumptions with very shaky ground. We assume they're real because it's the easiest, simplest answer. Really weird how confident you are about history when you clearly know nothing about it. >Thinking that we can establish the exact weapon compositions armies used or their efficacy? Insanity.Yeah man, it's all made up. All that archaeological evidence, all the testimonial accounts stretching across centuries, aliens put that shit on Earth to trick us. Romans never used swords. In fact, they used God's caliber, the M1911. TWO WORLD WARS AND ALL THREE PUNIC WARS!
>>97558213>No.yes>In the same breath that you say this, you argue that spears are objectively superior to swords. >>97542483no, I am arguing that there is no way to argue that a spear beat a sword 90% of the time because archaeological and historical evidence is simply too sparse and unconcerned with individual clashes to make such a bold claimwe only know that spears were popular, swords were popular, lots of people died to both weapons>Nice job moving the goalposts. Next you'll demand video footage of the Punic Wars. Wethe goal posts were not movedthe fact we do not have video footage of ancient battles or detailed statistical data on hundreds of individual battles makes bold claims like "spears beat swords 90% of the time" utterly unproveablebut it also means claims to the contrary unrpoveablethe only thing we can know is that both swords and spears were widespread and effective, but not whether one weapon beat another weapon with any accuracy>Also, kinda funny how you pivoted from tactics to logistics as your excuse for why Rome prevailed for so longthere was no pivotthe argument that rome used swords, rome had a big empire, therefore swords are better just does not followbecause rome had a ton of other, more important, factors than whether they used swords or not that led to their success
There's an old film directed by John Woo, with Jackie Chan as a spearman.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xV6TnjW338And this has a couple good spear fights, Chinese vs Japanese styles.https://m.ok.ru/video/6927607335483
ENTER
>>97556006I mean even in 5e you can make a busted ass spearman build. With Polearm master you basically make an area around you just no go and combined with Sentinel you stop them in their tracks. That's pretty consistent with the fantasy of a spear user.
>>97557982>Spears = mass infantry/peasants/savagesand gods
>>97542171Same reason no-one rides bicycles in the post-apocalypse.
>>97542171If you want a real answer it's because of when the germanic peoples aquired swords they became obsessed with them as status symbols so their mythology and tales are rife with heroes wielding swords exclusively, which in turn influenced modern fantasy
>>97559545>Spear with historical reach advantages inherent to the weapon itself>You must take *two* feats in order to enjoy the benefits of the weapon.This is why you should play Mythras, Harnmaster, Song of Swords or other roleplaying games that give even the slightest fuck about simulation rather than slop.
>>97560349Gods no one cares about.
>>97561730I seewell in the real world we have big shot spear-wielding gods such as odin, lugh, ares, athena...
>>97561337Swords were status symbols as far back as the Sumerian dynasties, this cultural convention was not unique to the Germanic tribes but rather because swords were always far more expensive to produce than spears and thus ownership of a sword inevitably became a sign of wealth and prestige in every culture.
>>97558267>yesNo. You've proven you don't know a damn thing about military history at this point.>no, I am arguing that there is no way to argue that a spear beat a sword 90% of the timeThen you're arguing nothing at all. You're just spouting a load of horseshit about how history isn't real when you could walk into a museum and see genuine articles of weapons and armor used throughout history. >the goal posts were not movedYes they were, you said we can't know anything about how wars were fought back then, except we absolutely do know and I showed you how we know. Now you want fucking video footage of battles from back then? Fuck off nigger. Goddamn dumbshit.>but not whether one weapon beat another weapon with any accuracyThis is just so absolutely ridiculous a claim that it deserves open mockery. Ancient historians recorded numerous cases where weapons were absolutely superior to others and became the new norm in warfare. >there was no pivotYes there was. You claimed Romans won because of their orders from the top, now you switched to saying it was actually logistics that won for them, literally anything but accepting the obvious fact that Roman equipment was highly effective in war otherwise they would have changed to using something else. >the argument that rome used swords, rome had a big empire, therefore swords are better just does not followYou're the one who argued spears were the only weapon people used historically. Now you're unironically arguing that history isn't real. You are the worst kind of fucking pseudointellectual dumbshit who knows nothing, gets caught out on how little he knows, and moves the goalposts over and over, contradicts himself again and again, and eventually is left with nothing. You have no argument. Your argument is the rejection of all actual evidence from history. Begone, fatherless ape.
>>97561687>training with the weapon improves the effectiveness of the weaponSay it ain't so. Truly DnDogshit is irredeemable.
>>97561928Why do dumbfucks always double down? Feats represent optional, specialized talents or areas of expertise that are beyond the typical class features.Fighters and other classes that are proficient in spears should benefit from the specific features that distinguish spears from other weapons (such as swords). Proficiency should grant the ability to use a spear effectively. DnD has decided to separate out basic spear proficiency into FEATS.Fucking retard.
>>97542393>it completely fucks over spears by having thrusting damage lag far behind swinging at typical PC strength levelsDoesn't thrusting with a spear inflict Imp damage and swinging a sword Cut? Isn't imp x2 to wounding with damage past DR and cut x1?
>>97561928Said the retarded nogames.
>>97542171
>>97562827that's a pike, not a spearit is, unsurprisingly, quite easy to defeat a man wielding a pike in a 1v1 because pikes are incredibly unwieldy and they're mainly chosen as a counter to cavalrywar spears are only around the height of the man wielding them and far more deft as weapons. It'd be a far trickier prospect to fight a spearman with a sword
>>97561876>Then you're arguing nothing at all.I am arguing that a blanket statement like X beat Y Z% of the time is literally impossible to know with the data available to us >Now you want fucking video footage of battles from back thenThe lack of video footage significantly hinders what we can know about ancient warfareAlong with the lack of statistical scholarly analysisWe cant say "sword win X% of the time" because we can only go by anecdotes amd archaeology, which cant tell us something that precise>This is just so absolutely ridiculous a claim that it deserves open mockery. We can know general trends, but not "spears beat swords 90% of the time">es there was. You claimed Romans won because of their orders from the top, now you switched to saying it was actually logistics that won for them,The argument is that roman success is based on factors far beyond what they chose to equip their soldiers with >You're the one who argued spears were the only weapon people used historicallyYou are arguing with the wrong person, I am arguing that the "a spear user beats a sword user 9/10 times" isnt just wrong but literally unprovable with the data we have because we do not have anything like the ballistic lab small arm survey that gives a breakdown of every engagement to tell us the exact times and circumstances that one weapon beat anotherI am literally arguing that swords were commonplace and have been uncovered on battlefields, so clearly are not merely status symbolsBut i am not arguing that swords beat spears either and the romans using swords to a wider degree than others is not proof of the superiority of the sword
>>97546346>>97546392Armor renders the big advantage of a spear useless, doubly do if Sword Guy has a shield to go with the armor, then it becomes a matter of who can get the point of their weapon into a gap first. My money is on the sword, BECAUSE it has less reach, it's better for using in such close quarters. "Spear killed more" only exists because massed troops with spears fight other massed troops, people who VERY rarely wore substantial armor.
Best line up>buff athlete nigga>knows grappling>sword + spear combo
>>97542171It's the weapon of the untrained levee peasant. It's simply culturally uncool.
>>97562827There are pikemen/spearmen who didn't carry a sword as a backup weapon?
>>97562827And I might add, the pike is supposed to be carried in formation. I'd like to see your theater kid fancy dancer swordsman get through this.
>>97563562They flanked and then closed in
>>97562876Pike weren’t specifically for killing Cavalry. They were effective, yes, but in the polearm arms race, there’s always an advantage to having a longer spear.Most pikes were anti-infantry
>>97562916the most realistic spear user>some peasant conscripted from their farm family and were told to point the sharp end on the enemy
>>97542171I had a guy use a harpoon once; he was playing a fisherman in Runequest.
>>97563613Because spear and pike are just stuck in place, like Lego men, right? And flank defenses like cavalry never existed?WHY IS EVEYONE ON THIS SHIT BOARD A FUCKING IDIOT?
>>97561846Yeah but moden fantasy is inherently western and germanic culture was heavily influential alongside greek and roman
>>97564296counter-play and counter-countet play existed, combat was dynamic but there was always something you could do to beat a polearm with a sword and vice-versa, stop acting like there was always a fixed resolution to every engagement
>>97564333He's just a Greek worshipping spearman dickrider
>>97542171I do.
>>97564333I'm not saying that at all, I'm just calling you a cunt.
>>97565442>I'm not saying that at all,>what can swords do against this?>well they can try to do something>no you cant do something, the enemy will do something else
I just saved that comic because it starts arguments and I think thats funny.
>>97542171I always take a longspear when I play cleric or similar in 3.pf, it's as good as it gets for simple weapons.
>>97563753>They were effective, yes, but in the polearm arms race, there’s always an advantage to having a longer spear.Except when a spear is more than twice your own height, it becomes an incredibly awkward and unwieldy weapon that requires special training to not fuck up with. Pikes (and sarissas, the Macedonian phalanx equivalent) were entirely based on creating walls of spears, like hedgehog spines, and essentially daring your enemy to try and break it. It works especially well against cavalry because their own momentum will kill them on a line of pikes, which is why pike squares became a critical component of medieval forces to deal with the otherwise supremacy of cavalry that could very easily crush most other formations. You could put a pike square on the field for a fraction of the cost of raising a good company of cavaliers, and they were 'good enough' to deal with other infantry so long as you kept them out of the way of crossbows and handgonnes. But it is significantly less effective against heavy infantry (that is to say, well-armored and elite fighters) who were equipped to force their way through such unwieldy lines. One of the better examples would be Romans, who had some of the heaviest armor of their era but more importantly very, very good shields, although they still took heavy casualties against the elite Greek armies. But their casualties were nowhere near as severe as what the Greeks took.
