Fixing the Weapons Table, Part 4: More Polearms (part 2)

Continuing from last time (before I was interrupted by an amor of rampaging cupids)...

I am on a quest to make polearms more appealing weapon options for adventurers, and just more realistic* in general.  Part of that involves updating and expanding the list of polearms.  Last time I covered the bardiche, bec de corbin, lucerne hammer, bill, fauchard, fauchard-fork, halberd, glaive, glaive-guisarme, guisarme, glaive-glaive-glaive-guisarme-glaive...  This time around we've got some more polearms like the partisan, the pike, the pollaxe, and maybe some that don't start with p.  Read on, dear reader.

*By realistic, I don't mean 100% historically accurate, because that is simply not possible within the d20 combat system.  I am attempting to reconcile what we know about polearms with the assumptions about them that are core to D&D.  This may sometimes mean adhering to polearm categories that are relevant to D&D but not to modern historical scholarship (I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as a glaive-guisarme).

Awl Pike

Source: D&D wiki

The awl pike, or ahlspiess, is a much pointier version of a spear.  It's basically a long, armour-piercing spike on the end of a pole.  Many awl pikes have rondel guards (as seen in the photo above) to prevent enemy corpses from sliding down the haft of the weapon and making it heavy and awkward to use.  I essentially made it a longspear with a bigger crit value to account for its piercing power.

Awl pike - Martial Weapon
   Cost: 7 gp
   Dmg (S): 1d6
   Dmg (M): 1d8
   Critical: x4
   Weight: 3 lb.
   Type: P
   Special: Brace, reach

Great Morningstar

Top: Tower of London; Bottom: Royal Armouries - Leeds

Morningstars aren't just the best one-handed simple weapon; they are also a type of polearm that combines blunt force trauma with numerous pointy bits, including one longer pointy bit at the top used for stabbing charging cavalrymen.  To stat this weapon up, I simply upped the damage dice for a simple morningstar and added reach and brace.  As it deals 1d10 damage, the great morningstar is a martial weapon despite its relatively simple nature.

Great morningstar - Martial Weapon
   Cost: 10 gp
   Dmg (S): 1d8
   Dmg (M): 1d10
   Critical: x2
   Weight: 8 lb.
   Type: B and P
   Special: Brace, reach

Partisan

Top to bottom: Kelvingrove, Doge's Palace, Royal Armouries

The partisan is a form of winged spear, sometimes appearing almost as a short sword or a very broad dagger on a stick.  The wings are used for parrying and hooking stuff at range.  This weapon stat-block can also be used for similar polearms like the humourously named spontoon, the hilariously named ox-tongue and the slightly-more-hilariously named Bohemian ear-spoon.

Partisan - Martial Weapon
   Cost: 15 gp
   Dmg (S): 1d6
   Dmg (M): 1d8
   Critical: x3
   Weight: 7 lb.
   Type: P or S
   Special: Brace, disarm, reach

Ranseur or Corseque

Top: Royal Armouries; Bottom: Doge's Palace

This is a partisan variant with longer, curved wings.  All the better to parry, trip, and disarm with, or just keep folk away from you.  With a longer, thinner blade than a partisan typically has, I gave this guy a x4 crit multiplier.  Ranseurs and corseques are kind of different (assuming you think they are worthy of distinguishing), but similar enough that there is no real way to make them different in the d20 system.

Ranseur (or Corseque) - Martial Weapon
   Cost: 17 gp
   Dmg (S): 1d6
   Dmg (M): 2d4
   Critical: x4
   Weight: 6 lb.
   Type: P
   Special: Brace, disarm, reach, trip

Spetum

Doge's Palace, Venice

Alright, the spetum looks a lot like the ranseur, but there is a distinction which I have latched on to: the wings on the spetum are bladed, for slashing.

You can see the cutting wings very clearly on this
mid-16th century Italian folding spetum (clever, that).

Spetum - Martial Weapon
   Cost: 17 gp
   Dmg (S): 1d6
   Dmg (M): 1d8
   Critical: 19-20/x2
   Weight: 7 lb.
   Type: P or S
   Special: Brace, disarm, reach, trip

Pike

Swiss Pikemen via Badassoftheweek.com

A pike is a very long spear, used for stabbing people who are far away.  It's like a longspear, but longer.  15 foot reach!  This weapon was very popular in armies across Europe, especially in the 16th century, as box formations of pikemen could effectively protect units of slow-to-reload arquebusiers from cavalry charges.

Pike - Martial Weapon
   Cost: 7 gp
   Dmg (S): 1d6
   Dmg (M): 1d8
   Critical: x3
   Weight: 7 lb.
   Type: P
   Special: Brace, disarm, reach

Voulge

source: wikipedia

To be honest, historians seem to have mixed opinions on what a voulge actually was or whether it existed as a separate class of polearms in the first place.  For our purposes, I will be taking the classic "meat cleaver on the end of a pole" definition that I am familiar with.  This is a nasty weapon, really.  In its most basic form, it doesn't have any fancy polearm bells and whistles (or, rather, hooks and spikes).  It's just a heavy blade on a pole, for maximum chopping power.

Voulge - Martial Weapon
   Cost: 12 gp
   Dmg (S): 1d10
   Dmg (M): 1d12
   Critical: 19-20/x2
   Weight: 7 lb.
   Type: S
   Special: Reach

Voulge-guisarme

Royal Armouries - Leeds

Again, take this with a grain of salt.  In a scholarly context, I would just call a voulge-guisarme a halberd, but I can justify separating them in game terms.  A voulge-guisarme combines the heavy chopping blade of the voulge with some of the handy pointy bits of the guisarme.  That makes it a sort of heavy halberd.  In game terms, it is a halberd with a 19-20 crit range instead of a x3 crit multiplier.

Voulge - Martial Weapon
   Cost: 13 gp
   Dmg (S): 1d8
   Dmg (M): 1d10
   Critical: 19-20/x2
   Weight: 7 lb.
   Type: P or S
   Special: Brace, reach, trip.

Pollaxe and Coronel-Pollaxe

Kelvingrove Museum - Glasgow

The pollaxe (often incorrectly called pole-axe) is the ultimate weapon, combining the stout haft of a quarterstaff, the blade of an axe, the point of a spear, and the crushing head of a hammer.  The butt of the haft even has a spike that can be used offensively:

Pollaxe demonstration at the Royal Armouries - Leeds

It is a very versatile and specialized weapon, and a favourite of royalty on the tournament ground.

Henry VIII's pollaxe from the Tournament of the Field of Cloth of Gold
on display at the Royal Armouries - Leeds

As it can deal bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage, I have made this an exotic weapon.  I gave it a solid 2d4 damage range to keep it powerful but not overpowered.  A skilled wielder can use the hooks and spikes to disarm and trip their enemies, so these qualities carry over into the game as well:

Pollaxe - Exotic Weapon
   Cost: 13 gp
   Dmg (S): 1d6
   Dmg (M): 2d4
   Critical: x3
   Weight: 6 lb.
   Type: B, P, or S
   Special: Disarm, trip

The coronel pollaxe (see Henry VIII's pollaxe above for an example) replaces the axe head with a tri-pointed coronel, and the heavy hammer head with a sharp spike called the bec de faucon (or falcon's beak).  This sacrifices the versatility of the Bludgeoning, Piercing, Slashing combo to go for a more armour-breaking strategy.  The coronel pollaxe loses the ability to deal slashing damage, but gains a +2 to sunder Medium or Heavy armour, like the bec de corbin or lucerne hammer.

Coronel pollaxe - Exotic Weapon
   Cost: 13 gp
   Dmg (S): 1d6
   Dmg (M): 2d4
   Critical: x3
   Weight: 6 lb.
   Type: B or P
   Special: Disarm, trip, +2 to sunder Medium or Heavy armour

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To sum up, here is a table of all the polearms I have created myself or modified from the existing stats available from the PFSRD.  The following table and its associated yellow text is available as Open Game Content under the OGL.

Notes:
Bill - A mounted opponent hit by a bill has a -1 penalty on his Ride check to stay mounted.  
Bec de Corbin - +2 to sunder Medium or Heavy armour
Coronel Pollaxe - +2 to sunder Medium or Heavy armour
Glaive-guisarme - A mounted opponent hit by a glaive-guisarme has a -2 penalty on his Ride checks to stay mounted.
Lucerne hammer - +2 to sunder Medium or Heavy armour, -2 penalty to ride checks made to stay in the saddle.
Military fork - A rider hit with a military fork suffers a penalty to ride checks made to stay in the saddle equal to 4 plus the fork-wielders strength modifier (so a fighter with 18 strength would inflict a -8 penalty to his opponent’s ride check, but a fighter with an 8 strength would inflict only a -3 penalty).

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Well, that's about it for polearms.  Sometime relatively soon, expect a nice selection of homebrewed feats designed to make polearms fight more realistically.  This will make polearms more of a viable weapon choice for adventurers, and will allow for a polearm fighting style for rangers.

-your d20 polldespot