Should the Spear be a finess weapon?

[Hinty]

The Spear is one of the oldest weapons ever used, right after the "Rock", and the "Club" come the "Sharp Rock", and then "The Sharp Rock ona Stick.". However unlike the rock and the club, the Spear has continued to be used by all cultures in almost every theater of war throughout history. Not even as an emergency pick up whats close weapon, but a weapon soldiers were purposely fitted out with by armies. Even now some forces still equip their soldiers with Bayonets to put on the end of their rifles, which, essentially, turns the guns into a spear. The spear has withstood the test of time, and it is probably been fielded by more warriors than any other weapon.

The Spear is a criminally underrated weapon in gaming, relegated to "Oh hey, this is kinda useful against cavalry, when in reality, if you have a sword and the other guy has a spear, you'll have one hell of a time getting even remotely close. Seriously some good vids on youtube on the subject. People with 10 minutes of spear training repeatedly fending of swordsmen with years of practice.

Bearing that in mind, we come to Arelith where the spear is almost non existent. Setting aside a few rangers who use them because they can use some particularly powerfully enchanted ones, and I say that in theory, since I don't recall ever seeing any using those.

The spear is one of only two weapons in the game with 1d6 or lower base damage that can't be used with Finesse. (The other being the club, but a finesse club? That's almost as weird an idea as a flail you can use with finesse. Oh wait...) Even the Double Weapons can, and then there are the 1d8 and 1d10 ones.

I like the Medium spear idea, a spear should be used with a shield sometimes. Most times even. But a spear is all about fast movements, flicks of the tip to block a blow or change target, far more than longswords, and, well less said about the light flail the better.

Making a spear a finesse weapon does not make it so powerful that it suddenly will become the most common weapon on the server, but it might help.

I confess, I have a dog in this fight, since I REALLY want to make a Spear based melee char. I am not remotely a power gamer, I find much more joy in unusual builds, but the weapon is just so inferior that I can't really bring myself to do it shy of a backup weapon for a cavalier when they really really need a shield but want to use their polearm feats, and even then I am not convinced that a Katana or Scimitar would not be better choices even then, but even that aside, it would be so cool to see at least SOME spears around the place.

Edit: Yeah I know this leaves the club in a shitty place, but... its a club. It should be crap. The Spear shouldn't.

[versus]

Hi Hinty.

I politely disagree. I think it's okay for there to be lackluster weapons, especially when they fall into the Simple category. Youtube videos aren't great for this kind of thing, and shouldn't be taken as evidence. Rather, it would be better to look at history and note that weapons regularly fell out of favour to be replaced by others, and these generally weren't fads, but were evolutions of fighting forces where obsolescent tools of war were replaced by those that were better able to meet the challenges of the day.

Many players choose not to take a spear because there are many better options out there, and that's okay.
Other players choose to take a spear because they aren't concerned with maximizing their melee, and that's okay too.

For those who do insist on trying to analyze how weapons work, it should be noted that finessable weapons are small and have a centre of gravity close to the hand due to that small size, or have a rearward centre of gravity due to balance (rapier). A short weapon with centre of gravity near the hand (the point of rotation) means that the weapon has a lower Moment of Inertia, and can thus be turned about more quickly.

From http://www.wikiengineer.com/Structural/MomentOfInertia
[indent]The moment of inertia of a plane area about a given axis describes how difficult it is to change its angular motion about that axis... Therefore, it encompasses not just how much mass the object has overall, but how far each bit of mass is from the axis. The farther out the object's mass is, the more rotational inertia the object has, and the more force is required to change its rotation rate.[/indent]

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

polearms are currently a very strong category to put weapon focus in due it covering two handed and one handed without any exotic feat investment and their being good polearms as well to be crafted. Like i am sad that whenever i want to do a cavalier knight build, i HAVE to go speard and shield instead of sword and shield when off my horse.

That being said, i can not stress enough how much RL weapons will/should never = DnD weapons. I could go into a huge rant how the 2 worlds abide by different laws of physics, but at the end of the day we only need to look at things like the 1 handed longsword; or how we can all pull spears out of our butts (along with altars as long as we have the carrying capacity) without having a proper sheathe the way a sword would. Yes you can be like 'yeah but with magic we can put away long spears, without compromising on the realistic supremacy of long spears'. But then our world becomes bland with everyone only ever wielding weapons that never required proper sheathes sword would just be retired out of existence which would be totally uncool.

[Wethrinea]

While I am all in favour of making the spear more viable, since it really is -the- best melee weapon in human history, I don't see any reason to make it finesseable.

A spear is fast because you can wield it with two hands and rapidly change the grip to lenghten or shorten the reach, as well as move the tip and thus the area you threaten much faster than you can with a one-handed blade. This has nothing to do with dexterity/agility. On a side note, a rapier weighs about the same as a longsword (or greatsword as RPGs call it), but is much more taxing to wield because you hold it in one hand.

There really is no style of fighting or weapon where you gain more from "dexterity" than muscle, daggers included.

The spear could use a beefing up though, for example making it a d8 instead of d6, while retaining medium size.

[Nitro]

Arelith already has some very strong incentives to use a spear.

• It's part of the polearm category which is very good to put focuses in thanks to containing onehand and twohand weapons.

• The spear itself can be -twohanded which means you can use a shield as needed without switching weapons.

• Spear has one of the more powerful weapon craftables on Arelith.

• It's part of the simple weapon group, no one needs to take a feat to use it.

[Arigard]

No last thing we need is dex builds running around with the elder dream. They already have almost everything currently already.

[Gorirah]

Given the weapons that are currently open to finesse, there is no roleplay reason why the spear should not be included.
If the more mechanical argument against is because of one particular spear, the Elder Dream, then maybe that spear should have its enchantments weakened?
You also need to consider that the 2d6 divine damage is not so much an intrinsic property, but takes the place of a permanent essence.

[Gouge Away]

polearms are currently a very strong category to put weapon focus in due it covering two handed and one handed without any exotic feat investment and their being good polearms as well to be crafted. Like i am sad that whenever i want to do a cavalier knight build, i HAVE to go speard and shield instead of sword and shield when off my horse.

I kinda think Cavaliers should get lance (but not all polearm) proficiency to match any other weapon feat they take so they can be proper sword and lance knights etc instead of being limited to the spear or halbred when not mounted.

Right now if you want to play a dex-based cavalier you're kinda screwed and have to take double sets of feats (which is one reason someone might want finesseable spears, to bring it back to the OP).

[AstralUniverse]

It would have been a mostly cosmetic change if Elder Dream wasnt a thing, and a ranger weapon out of all classes. I wouldnt want to see that on dex rangers.

[Dalenger]

I'm in favor. It'd require Elder Meme to be reworked slightly, but I don't see anything wrong with giving one of the best looking most thematic and warfare-defining weapons the ability be be finessable. I don't see giving a 1d6 weapon fineness to be gamebreaking. Not to mention, I think spears are some of the best looking weapons in the game, and imo anything that results in people running around with weapons other than katanas and kukris is a plus in my book.

[Drowboy]

Call me old fashioned, but I'm not seeing elder dream as an argument against: the damage mod is hefty for sure, but there's a decent grip of +4 keen runics available for dexers as it stands anyway, most of them in the same feat category so you can even mix and match.

[Nitro]

If by decent grip you mean three, Dead man's cross(Dagger), Black Scepter(Light Mace) and Dale Sword(Shortsword). All of which are either locked to assassin or halfling with increased UMD to use them otherwise. (+30 for the first two, +50 for the dale sword). So no, you currently can't get a finessable +4 keen runic weapon without some serious investment unless you very specifically are an assassin or halfling.

[Arigard]

IMO If Dex really want spear that badly for cosmetic reasons, they can make a new category "Light Spear" that has the traditional progression "Bronze - Masterly Damask" - and leave the current spears as "Heavy Spears" for STR, similar to what they did with lances imo.

[Drowboy]

If by decent grip you mean three, Dead man's cross(Dagger), Black Scepter(Light Mace) and Dale Sword(Shortsword). All of which are either locked to assassin or halfling with increased UMD to use them otherwise. (+30 for the first two, +50 for the dale sword). So no, you currently can't get a finessable +4 keen runic weapon without some serious investment unless you very specifically are an assassin or halfling.

Add elf, longsword is finesseable

[AstralUniverse]

IMO If Dex really want spear that badly for cosmetic reasons, they can make a new category "Light Spear" that has the traditional progression "Bronze - Masterly Damask" - and leave the current spears as "Heavy Spears" for STR, similar to what they did with lances imo.

But why work this hard to make a new weapon when the current spear is really 99% useless to dexers anyway.

Again, Elder dream is a pretty strong weapon that I wouldnt want to see on dex ranger dips (those really few builds without blade thirst which tbh arent that good) but other than this particular case everyone else needs 55 umd and heavy rangers just use blade thirst anyway and there's a longsword +4 at much lower umd requirement. It would buff dex bards but I doubt this is viable anymore, given it barely scratches the 400 max hp.

Mostly cosmetic.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

I like the idea, but it should wait to see if dex builds really take the predicted hit before adding yet another boon to them. Unless spears are no longer 3x crits, in which case I would think its totally fine now.

[AstralUniverse]

its still x3 but its not as relevant to dexers.

If someone who thinks it's not a good idea could please post a spreasheet or even just tell us generally about a build that would break the game with it, I'm quite curious.

[Ork]

Its not an issue of "why not" but "why"? Spears aren't finesseable because they aren't and despite the fear of slippery slope fallacy- ain't this a slippery slope?

[Hinty]

There are reasons to do this, reasons not to, and I fully admit there are plenty of people out there who know more about the mathematics who can crunch the numbers and accurately judge the balance far better than I.

BUT.

If you have a lackluster weapon that is only really viable with a handful of builds for ONE class, that is then forced to use ONE SPECIFIC magic weapon and someone comes up with a possible fix to make the weapon fun and viable for a much wider variety of characters, "OMG it'll make this weapon OP" is not a reason not to do it. It just means you'll have to nerf that 1 specific item when you buff the weapon as a whole. (No i don't mean make it so every ranger build with elder dream will suck. Just make it so that the nerf to the item, combined with the buff to the base weapon results in the same power level as before the change, while making other classes with other spears roughly closeish.)

Choice and variety is the magic that makes RP flow. When you only have one choice, RP suffers, hell PvP suffers since everyone can make damn good guesses what items you are using. Has that guy got a spear? Well then, he HAS to have Elder Dream. So he HAS to have Ranger levels, and he likely has Cavalier levels.

Want to play a solider character that is a Fighter that uses spears? Gotta dip ranger.
Cavalier that uses a spear when not charging with lance? Gotta dip ranger.
Spear wielding Spellsword? Gotta Dip Ranger. So no room for a prestige dip, or rogue dip, or fighter dip.

So, is it worth making a spear based character? You'll be limited to only one prestige class (unless you are a ranger), so many fun builds are off the table right away. You have to throw away 3 levels for Ranger, so it may well cost you some of the fun high level class abilities.
Want to play a Cavalier Weapon Master? Not if you want to use a spear you don't.
Want to play a Halberd Weapon Master that also has Weapon of Choice for Spear for emergency shield needing times? Well hope you'll be OK only having 14 levels in whichever base class you chose. Bummer if there were some fun class abilities at 16 or 17.

You should never look at a level 30 and say, oh, they are using a spear, I know exactly what stats it has, what damage it will do, and how best to counter it, never mind being able to guess, class, build, damage types, crit range etc.


I'm not even saying that every spear character has to be as powerful as a ranger with Elder Dream is right now. I'm just saying that there should be options.

[AstralUniverse]

Its not an issue of "why not" but "why"?

I suspect there might be a deal breaker somewhere in here that we havent noted yet - because its already a pretty good weapon that doesnt lack incentives to play as is, as Nitro listed above. Then you ask why. Because it would be really cool, cosmetically, to use spears as dexer characters. Is it a slippery slope? sure. But many other things are and its worth at least the discussion imo, because it would look cool at least, and really the more I think about it the more it does seem like nothing but cosmetics. Does spear have better base stats than a longsword?

[Hinty]

Its not an issue of "why not" but "why"? Spears aren't finesseable because they aren't and despite the fear of slippery slope fallacy- ain't this a slippery slope?

I don't see the slippery slope here. Every other weapon with the same damage output, and many with more can be used with finesse. The only weapon with comparable or lower output that doesn't is the club.

[Arigard]

This discussion seems to be going all over the place imo. Either this is about cosmetics, or it's about mechanics. To me, this seems to be a mechanical discussion being masked as cosmetic.

The Elder Dream spear finessed would instantly become the best available dex weapon out there hands down. The only other x3 crit 'special' +4 or above weapon that exists to dex is the Svirfneblin Rune Hammer and that's 1d4, tiny & locked behind a huge UMD 75 requirement. The damage on that is also racial/alignment locked.

Natures Balance is a powerful level 8 breach. Barkskin 3/day is very good utility.

It is not hard to get 55 UMD, especially on divine builds. The base ranks + CHA + an epic skill focus gets you a couple away from what is required. There are plenty of good ranger dex combinations that could be built around this weapon.

If this is not a mechanical discussion, but a cosmetic one, then my suggestion of having a separate finessable tier of spears, like lances should meet no disagreement, as it gives people what they supposedly want, access to more RP options without adding more power to the dex meta. The only reason to disagree with this is if this discussion is driven by the desire to mechanically gain access to the more powerful spears on dex based builds.

The argument that there are other weapons already available to dex builds that are just as good is wrong. The Elder Dream is better than anything currently available to them on base stats and properties alone and it offers alternative strengths, being able to do more damage on the higher rolls (18-20), which becomes more and more important in a high AC meta (*coughs Arelith*) where having a higher range becomes useless if you cannot hit people within that range.

Then you have the fact it's a medium weapon, not small/tiny which removes weaknesses based on weapon size. I know people tried to downplay this in previous threads, but I use disarm daily. It makes a massive difference fighting high AC characters who have smaller weapons. It's a literal game changer having an extra +4 or +8 to ab.

I don't see the slippery slope here. Every other weapon with the same damage output, and many with more can be used with finesse. The only weapon with comparable or lower output that doesn't is the club.

The slippery slope is that there are always going to be things that can be compared. Bastard sword & Dwarven Waraxe are also both 1d10 like the katana. Should we be allowing finessable Rune Axes?

I do not disagree with allowing spears to be finessable, but only if it is truly cosmetic. It would simply be a substantial power increase for dex to add Elder Dream and some of the other spears (Enchanted Spear has the potential to be powerful to) to the dex meta and to nerf them simply to cater to dex, that already has so much going for it, seems incredibly unfair.

[Dalenger]

Not to follow this rabbit hole too deep, but hasn't this basically turned into "elder meme too good if it can be finessed"? I don't disagree, but simply comparing baseline spears to baseline katanas or scimitars, I don't see what gets broken by giving spears a little more flexibility. Even if spears were finessable, I still reckon they'd be outclassed by scimitars in a few places, namely crit range and synergy with duel-wielding. If the elder dream would suddenly be made too good for its own good, then I don't see why it couldn't see a nerf or see its UMD check jacked up to 90 (not that I'm a huge fan of that option, but).

I just don't see the disadvantage of expanding the meta to allow for more than a few of the same weapon models being the default go-to. Perhaps this is a cosmetic argument as Arigard says, but I'm always in favor of giving more options rather than fewer for players who want to not look like every other cookie cutter WM build out there.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

An overlooked reason we were able to get away with finesse longswords is it strictly appli3d to one hand edge weapons. Polearms are much more flexible. Covers 2 handed, 1 handed and lances.

It's not just cosmetic. Cosmeticslly i wish i could get lance weapon focus from my longsword, but unfortunately, I can't.

[AstralUniverse]

The argument that polearm covers both 1h and 2h weapons really doesnt mean much to a Dexer.