Long spears and shields

[Ashtagon]

We've all seen the classic films about how ancient Greek warriors used spears and shield, often spears of quite ridiculous lengths, even by the standards of Mediaeval Europe. The sarissa was about 13-21 feet long, compared to most mediaeval pole arms which were on the order of 8-10 feet.

In core game terms, it has to be a two-handed weapon. And yet we can easily find images of ancient armies with very long spears and shields.

Various attempts at rendering this in-game has resulted in giving user's oversized weapon feats, or designing special rules for these spears, or inventing new classes or prestige classes.

It occurred to me that perhaps the secret wasn't the spear, but the shield. This line from wikipedia has it:


The sheer bulk and size of the spear required the soldiers to wield the spear with both hands, allowing them to carry only a 24 inch shield (pelta) suspended from the neck to cover the left shoulder.[

So there you have it. The shields (when used with very long spears) were not in any way, shape, or form, hand-held.

So the peltarion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peltarion_%28shield%29) was their shield.

In game terms, it can be considered a light wooden shield when held using the hand/arm grips. When held using the shoulder trap, the character's maximum Dexterity bonus is reduced by two points (or a maximum of a +6 bonus if wearing no armour or padded armour; normally not limited by shields), and the armour check penalty is increases to -4 (normally -1). These somewhat punitive penalties reflect that the shoulder strap would be inherently less secure as a mounting, and that these tactics historically required very precise close formation drilling to work.

Price-wise, it can be charged as a heavy wooden shield (ie. 7 gp). This reflects more the military utility of the shield's strap rather than actual construction cost.

The ancient Greeks also had larger shields (equivalent to heavy wooden shields) which would be used with one-handed weapons.

[Knaight]

One handed spears and shields were also used, including some spears that are only two handed in D&D. Look at the equipment of the Athenian hoplite, the hoplon everywhere it is used, and numerous indications that eight foot spears were common.

[Ashtagon]

One handed spears and shields were also used, including some spears that are only two handed in D&D. Look at the equipment of the Athenian hoplite, the hoplon everywhere it is used, and numerous indications that eight foot spears were common.

I am well aware that one-handed spears of more reasonable lengths existed back then. This is an attempt to create rules that describe how the sarissa (and similar spears that in game terms would necessarily be two-handed) was used.

[Sarco_Phage]

Wait, the Peltarion is a light skirmisher's shield, not a line infantry shield. The "abnormally huge" weapons used by the line infantry were the 10-foot dory spears.

[Ashtagon]

Wait, the Peltarion is a light skirmisher's shield, not a line infantry shield. The "abnormally huge" weapons used by the line infantry were the 10-foot dory spears.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarissa says they used peltarions (well, pelta, which is really just a sloppy transliteration with the noun declension endings chopped off). End of the day, it doesn't really matter what you call it. The key point is that they used shields that were carried by a strap mounted on the neck and shoulder, rather than strapped to the hand and arm. And they definitely used spears longer than the dory, which was a precursor to the sarissa.

fwiw, the standard D&D long spear can be justifiably re-interpreted as a versatile weapon, similar to the bastard sword and dwarf war axe.

[lesser_minion]

Isn't formation combat very different to the kind of fights the D&D combat rules are designed to represent, though?

Without a solid wall of other soldiers helping you out, I get the impression that you will accomplish precisely nothing by waving a sarissa around.

[Icedaemon]

The longer one-handed-held spears such as the Sarissa were more often set against enemy charges than effectively used as something to thrust someone with, if I understand the data correctly. Any maneuvering with the sarissa would be rather noteworthy feats of strength, especially if something squishy ends up on the pointy end. The Peltarion is not a very long spear - it is a normal one-handed weapon, if probably one that could get reach.

[Brother Oni]

So there you have it. The shields (when used with very long spears) were not in any way, shape, or form, hand-held.

From a real world re-enactment point of view (we only had 9ft spears though), the strap is also held hooked with the left thumb and the spear slides from the front hand like a snooker cue.

Letting go of the strap hook made the kite shields we used very un-manoeuvrable, so wasn't much use outside of line formation. Letting go of the strap for a round shield was out of the question as you couldn't control it (when it deflected a blow like this, it usually either completely exposed you for a follow up attack or just smacked you in the face with the rim).

This means that technically the shields were hand held, just that it didn't exclude all other use of that hand. I'm not sure how you'd represent that in game terms, not the usual spearman practice of having a dagger held in the rear hand for when the enemy closed to under the spear's effective range.

[Ashtagon]

The longer one-handed-held spears such as the Sarissa were more often set against enemy charges than effectively used as something to thrust someone with, if I understand the data correctly. Any maneuvering with the sarissa would be rather noteworthy feats of strength, especially if something squishy ends up on the pointy end. The Peltarion is not a very long spear - it is a normal one-handed weapon, if probably one that could get reach.

Well, the sarissa is, according to both wikipedia and common sense, a two-handed weapon. And the peltarion is a shield, not a spear. So it seems fair to say that you are not understanding the data correctly.


From a real world re-enactment point of view (we only had 9ft spears though), the strap is also held hooked with the left thumb and the spear slides from the front hand like a snooker cue.

That sounds a lot like the kind of grip described for the SRD buckler shield (a game item which sadly does not describe the historical buckler at all). Perhaps using the buckler shield statistics would be the way to go for this instead?

[Icedaemon]

Damnit. I was looking for the name of the greek javelin and some sort of an idiotic brainfart-thing led me to noticing peltarion, thinking that was it by drawing some haphazard connection to 'peltast' combined with forgetting half of what I had just read.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Seems like a reasonable ruling to me.

That said, the weapon itself is rather useless outside of phalanx fighting, and your stats for it should definitely reflect that. Additionally, the positioning of the shield and the way it limits arm motion would render it useless for anything but a spear of this sort.

[Brother Oni]

That sounds a lot like the kind of grip described for the SRD buckler shield (a game item which sadly does not describe the historical buckler at all). Perhaps using the buckler shield statistics would be the way to go for this instead?

Possibly - I'd have to look up what the SRD definition is when I get home to confirm (a kite shield was a lot bigger than a buckler), but it seems reasonable enough to me.

Edit: After looking up the SRD rules, I agree with treating it as a buckler would be the simplest fix.
A more complex suggestion would be to allow it the stats of a heavy shield, but allow polearm class weapons to be used with it, with the -1 to attack.

Incidentally, either fix would allow pavise crossbowmen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavise) to be simulated as well.


Additionally, the positioning of the shield and the way it limits arm motion would render it useless for anything but a spear of this sort.

Agreed. A 6ft spear wasn't of much use when combined with a shield in this way, thus in this case, the longer the better. :smallwink:

However never underestimate the ability of a big shield to intimidate and bully the opponent - the shield was as much a component of the fighting style as the spear was.

Fighting without a shield with a spear makes you fight as a skirmisher and has more elaborate/agile moves such as you would see with Eastern spear styles. Spear and shield in this case was very much back and forth fighting.

A one-handed spear and shield has a very different fighting style (it was classed as a different weapon catagory under our re-enactment rules and thus you had to take a separate test to see if you were safe with it), more similar to normal one handed weapon fighting.