Spear and Shield

[Jarmo]

There was a nice eyeopening scene in the book Musashi, probably also in the manga Vagabond, where a bunch of samurai were discussing the merits of, and whether to adopt and practice the spear or the sword. Most leaning on the spear since it's so much more versatile.

[el pinko grande]

I think the best argument in favor of the spear + shield combo is the first few minutes of this fight scene:

 

[Caerdon]

I just knew Troy would come up, sooner or later. That masterpiece from the Golden Age of Historical Accuracy.

[general_azure]

I'd be willing to trade some historical accuracy for plain old awesome in this case =P

[el pinko grande]

I just knew Troy would come up, sooner or later. That masterpiece from the Golden Age of Historical Accuracy.

 

Uh. Okay. Clearly it wasn't accurate, since we have no historical basis for reconstructing the fighting styles of Mycenean Greece. Complaining about the fighting in Troy is a little like complaining about the fighting in Lord of the Rings- there's no basis for the complaint, since it is entirely made up, anyway.

 

They could have gone with equipment that was accurate to the era, but that would have made a ****ty movie IMO. Nobody wants to watch Brad Pitt fight in this.

[Celsius]

Age of Decadence has shield and spear fighting in. It'd be nice to be able to use a spear either with a shield or two-handed.

[Aldereth]

I mentioned this in the other thread about combat stance.

 

But the core of the problem is that for a turn base game, there are only 2 key weapon stats: weapon speed in the from of rate/number of attack, and weapon damage.

 

So at the end of the day, there is only one or few base weapon selection that make tactical sense. And most of the time, this lead to the dominance of sword in cRPG, the blatant proliferation of dual wield to the point that you would think every cRPG hero is ambidexterous.

 

Some cRPG tried to mix it up by either dividing it into damage type like skeleton receive full damage only from blunt weapon, which only create the situation that players carry around a blunt weapon in the beginning up to the point they gain enough bonus on their primary weapon (sword for most case) that the penalty does not mean a thing. Older games give pole arm extra reach but the fact is, the core of the issue is in game mechanic terms, there is only one optimum solution.

 

This is less of a problem for real time action game as they can give each weapon distinct move that make tactical sense. Case and point in Dark Soul where some players are more comfortable to use spear and board, axes or any other combination. So if we can take some inspiration from this, and assuming enough resource available, perhaps design a combat melee system that gives different attack and/or tactical moves for different weapons that offer advantages their specific blend of advantageous and disadvantageous . eg. Spear offer better defense rating for shield than when used with a slashing weapon, Special charging attack, spear throwing or set against charge...etc. or for the case of dagger allow for spell casting without penalty, bonus in cramp space...etc.

[ogrezilla]

I didn't read all of this, but was shield and spear that good in a small scale fight? It seems to me it would be great in an organized formation but fairly unwieldy in a free-form fight. Its hard to do much more than stab with a spear in one hand. With a formation, the enemy would always be in front of you and if they sidestep your spear the guy beside you can stab him so it works. When the enemy can step around you I would think it would lose a lot of effectiveness.

Edited October 4, 2012 by ogrezilla

[Aldereth]

I didn't read all of this, but was shield and spear that good in a small scale fight? It seems to me it would be great in an organized formation but fairly unwieldy in a free-form fight. Its hard to do much more than stab with a spear in one hand. With a formation, the enemy would always be in front of you and if they sidestep your spear the guy beside you can stab him so it works. When the enemy can step around you I would think it would lose a lot of effectiveness.

 

While I am not an expert in hand to hand combat. There are some logical advantage one can think of. A few have point out the strategic advantage when use in phalanx formation. Further, it would be easier to field an army with spear than sword. metal is generally more expensive and all. I suspect training an army would be easier too. Mainly thrusting attack.

 

On a individual level, spear and shield would be more save as one can pretty much poke from behind the shield cover while a sword, mace or axe swing, you are pretty open. Yes, you can poke with a sword too but it got far less range.

[ogrezilla]

I didn't read all of this, but was shield and spear that good in a small scale fight? It seems to me it would be great in an organized formation but fairly unwieldy in a free-form fight. Its hard to do much more than stab with a spear in one hand. With a formation, the enemy would always be in front of you and if they sidestep your spear the guy beside you can stab him so it works. When the enemy can step around you I would think it would lose a lot of effectiveness.

 

While I am not an expert in hand to hand combat. There are some logical advantage one can think of. A few have point out the strategic advantage when use in phalanx formation. Further, it would be easier to field an army with spear than sword. metal is generally more expensive and all. I suspect training an army would be easier too. Mainly thrusting attack.

 

On a individual level, spear and shield would be more save as one can pretty much poke from behind the shield cover while a sword, mace or axe swing, you are pretty open. Yes, you can poke with a sword too but it got far less range.

But if you are alone, I really don't you'd be all that safe unless you were in a narrow passage. If you miss one stab they are going to be able to get inside your stab reach and the best you can do then is awkwardly smack them with the side of the spear. If you want any sort of lateral control over a spear, you will need two hands.

[Umberlin]

I just knew Troy would come up, sooner or later. That masterpiece from the Golden Age of Historical Accuracy.

 

Not accurate at all, actually. That said it did show fights involving spears could be made to look just as visually interesting, if not more, than more used sword fights. That said the real nice thing about Troy was the armor design. The costuming work for the armor, not accurate (at all), but very, very pretty. Personally while Troy was generally trash as a film (simply because it claimed to try to be historically accurate, which was . . . nonsense), when it comes to a high fantasy styled game . . . I'm not exactly looking for an accurate word for word historical document, I'm looking for a high fantasy game.

 

Troy with the same fighting styles, armor styles and the like, applied to a fully fantasy based film, with an appropriate story, without the crutch of having to be historically accurate . . . could have, potentially, been a better film. Also Brad Pitt wore a leather skirt surprisingly well.

Edited October 6, 2012 by Umberlin

[Aldereth]

But if you are alone, I really don't you'd be all that safe unless you were in a narrow passage. If you miss one stab they are going to be able to get inside your stab reach and the best you can do then is awkwardly smack them with the side of the spear. If you want any sort of lateral control over a spear, you will need two hands.

 

If a guy miss while poking from behind the shield, he/she is going to be disadvantaged assuming the opponent have similar reflex to him or her. To assume a combatant can follow with a lateral strike seems to be assuming that the combatant is more skilled and have better refex than the opponent. The safest thing to do is actually blocking the counterhit and back away to keep the range advantage. And if he was poking from beind the shield, the shield is still up. It would take slashing weapon longer to bring the shield back up. Slashing from behind a raise shield is awkward at best and even reduce the range of the weapon much more.

 

By the way, this is by no means an endorsement of spear over other weapon. It is just to point out that it is a bit safer

[Emanresu]

I liked the way Titan Quest dealt with spears/lances. They were slower but bigger damage and could be used with a shield. Their main draw was that it would do a large percentage of piercing damage where a percentage of your damage would always ignore the enemies' armor no matter what.

 

Other weapons like swords and axes tended to do more damage but didn't have piercing damage and therefore were less effective against highly-armored foes. When you got up to the higher difficulties, using piercing damage tended to be increasingly more important than straight damage.

[Gavinfoxx]

The real life draw of a spear over a sword, one on one, is that even with a one handed weapon, you don't have to get too close to someone to kill them! Seriously, standoff is huge.

[Lephys]

The real life draw of a spear over a sword, one on one, is that even with a one handed weapon, you don't have to get too close to someone to kill them! Seriously, standoff is huge.

 

Coming in at number two is "It allows for jovial games of limbo so the party can de-stress between intense battles."

 

Seriously, though, I'm thrilled about the confirmation of not only spears, but multiple kinds! ^_^! Of course, even though they're confirmed now, they could always opt to remove them later for some reason...

 

Oh no, o_o... I just jinxed it. If they get removed, I accept whatever punishment you can conjure, -___-

[Adhin]

They wont remove it... they can't... they... Lephys... *sighs*. So anyway I look forward to a spear setup for one of my classes, always liked shield/spear on druid types for some weird reason. As for vikings an axe is just about as cheap as a spear and vikings, in general, didn't have a single weapon. The whole Spear/Shield thing in ancient times also often had a backup gladious. Same with vikings, except usually an axe or 2.

 

Also cRPG didn't invent the blunt differentials that's been in DnD forever. Well before 3E but as of 3E the vast majority of blunt weapons have a 20/x2 crit modifier which is the worst of the lot but the vast majority of monsters have no resistance vs blunt weapons. Good chunk of golems can't even be hurt unless you have a blunt, most undead have some hefty immunity to slashing and piercing weapons. Zombies in 3.5 had something like 10/blunt. Meaning only way to bypass that 10 DR was with a blunt weapon.

 

In the end it makes sense, outside of massive sledgehammers most blunt weapons take a 2 or more swings to crack open a skull (or a real lucky solid hit). Kinda depends, either case the damage they produce is rather consistent regardless of protection... unless your, I dunno, in one of them dog biting suits. And who the ****s going into battle with one of those?

 

-edit-

Meant SHIELD/Spear, not sword >.>

Edited January 16, 2013 by Adhin

[warkong]

Spears were popular for fighting on horseback because of their range, that's also right for the middle ages, I admit. And the city watch also used spears and halberds, but mostly not for real fighting but for deterrence and symbol of their stand.

 

I also admit that spears were used in the middle ages by poor peasants and landsknechts, but not very often by knights. A spear was a weapon for the poor because you only need a stick and a little iron point. And I think the companions in PE should be no poor peasants who couldn't buy not even a sword. And even if they fight with a spear they would certainly exchange it with a sword from a fallen enemy if they had the chance to do so.

 

Vikings used spears as well but their greatest appearance in Europe was at the very beginning of the middle ages and not at the end. At the beginning of the middle ages armor techniques weren't as sophisticated as in the transition to the Renaissance and same is true for weapons techniques.

[asnjas]

What am I missing in this thread? Spears and and shields can be used together? My kana is currently and has been using spear with a shield