Where the pike?
 

I need stats for the pike but I can't find it either in Characters or Martial Arts. It's such a well-known weapon I can't believe it would be left out.

Re: Where the pike?
 

I generally just use the stats for a Long Spear.

Re: Where the pike?
 

Sounds reasonable. I just wonder why the weapon isn't even mentioned, except in the entry for pikestaff. It's not even on the weapons' list in Martial Arts.

Re: Where the pike?
 

Because it's a bloomin' silly weapon to use in single combat, and few roleplayers are terribly interested in standing around with three hundred other schlubs hoping that the artillery don't notice them and the cavalry are stupid enough to charge them frontally rather than flanking them?

Re: Where the pike?
 

But don't we need stats for them for those inevitably moments when the PCs on horses decide to frontally charge three hundred schlubs with pikes? ;)

This has actually happened in my campaign, yes. There were only a hundred orcs and not all of them had pikes, but the point remains.

Re: Where the pike?
 

I would imagine that several of them would remain. Ouch.

Still, a spear is a spear is a spear when you're running in to it, no?

Re: Where the pike?
 

The PCs won.

The horses that they were riding died, but that wasn't a surprise to anyone. Anyway, they didn't just decide to charge, one of them just critically failed a default Riding roll and the others decided that following him was a bright idea.

The PCs had good armour, very good skill with their weapons and once they got over having charged the orcs, actually developed some decent tactics. Plus Healing potions. Many for each of them.

I used the Long Spear two-handed stats, required two-hands and made Reach 2-4*. Those were short pikes.

Re: Where the pike?
 

On the other hand, it's exactly the sort of thing that ought to go into GURPS Low-Tech, or whatever it's going to be called. Age of pike and shot, TL4, clearly within the proper range of TLs. Not to mention the TL2 hoplite style that partly inspired it.

Bill Stoddard

Re: Where the pike?
 

It's not much of an individual combat weapon - the other stuff in martial arts is, generally. We have some group combat rules, but the emphasis is on martial artists in general and PC martial artists in specific. Pikes aren't the kind of weapons they use.

Bill's write, a hypothetical low-tech book would cover both TL2 (pike warfare at it's finest), and TL4 (pike-and-shot), and would be a logical place to discuss pikes.

Re: Where the pike?
 

Oh, the pike is solidly TL2. Ask Alexander of Macedon, for a start. It merely enjoyed a revival at TL4.

For that matter, I'm sure that a pike could be made perfectly satisfactorily at TL1. The reasons why this doesn't seem to have happened would be more socio-economic than military, I think.

Whether Macedonian pikemen would have Hoplomachia style is probably not a question with which I'd want to engage.

Re: Where the pike?
 

There are some large Swiss gentlemen and some rather surly looking Renaissance-era Spaniards out back here looking to discuss your definition of "finest"...

Re: Where the pike?
 

What the other guys said. A pike isn't a melee weapon in the conventional Basic Set or Martial Arts sense. At its heart it's more akin to caltrops, a tank obstacle, or razor wire, in that it's a defense used to impede mobility through a controlled area; it just happens to be more portable. The bulk of the killing is then done by other weapons -- in this case, bills, halberds, bows, crossbows, muskets, etc. The fact that some chap is holding onto the far end makes it look melee-weapon-ish, but use is closer to something like Explosives, Poisons, or Traps in nature, in that it's all about effective deployment, not parry, feint, and thrust.

In game terms, have a formation of soldiers roll against the higher of average Spear or average DX-based Soldier (at TL2-4), with either taking a -2 for unfamiliarity if they've never used pikes. Success means the pike formation holds up. As an individual combat weapon, it would be about a Reach 6 spear that can't parry, feint, resist feints, or disarm; that takes many turns to Ready after each attack; and that can only attack at all if the user took a Wait in order to Stop Thust, although you could generously allow a user to poke with it like a spear at about Spear-6 if he's just standing there.

The place for such rules is squarely in some putative Mass Combat book, though, and not Martial Arts. I think a martial-arts historian could make a good case for pike warfare only be a "martial art" inasmuch as artillery gunnery and logistics are "martial arts."

Re: Where the pike?
 

Of course, by the basic definition of 'martial' (of or relating to war), I would say that artillery and logistics have a better claim than unarmed combat techniques.

Re: Where the pike?
 

Could be! But that's not how the term is used these days . . .

Re: Where the pike?
 

Thanks Kromm. How come the pike can't feint, disarm, etc? Surely any object could be used to disarm someone if used correctly.

Re: Where the pike?
 

Because it's too damn big and heavy. It's generally all one can do just to hold a pike or similarly long spear, let alone move it around with any force or accuracy.

Re: Where the pike?
 

The pike is something like 15-20 feet long. You don't use it by moving it around; you use it by planting it in the ground and holding it steady. It's really hard to disarm someone with a weapon that you don't actually move. :)

Re: Where the pike?
 

So a normal human couldn't use it to feint, disarm, etc. I'm assuming that someone with super strength could use it that way.

Re: Where the pike?
 

Sure, and GURPS Supers has guidelines for scaling up a longer weapon's weight, required ST, and thrust and swing damage. Do you have a copy of it?

I'm looking at doing a double length katana for one of my upcoming campaigns, for a Japanese super named Samebito. . . .

Bill Stoddard

Re: Where the pike?
 

Yeah I've got a copy around though I haven't read it in detail.

Re: Where the pike?
 

Yeah, use Supers to scale up a proper personal-combat spear. A pike is too unwieldy for anyone under 3m tall even to attempt to use with the kind of precision needed for individual combat. It has less to do with strength than with arm length; spear moves involve placing your hands some percentage of the spear's length apart, from the head, from the butt, etc. If somebody that big did get a pike, and was strong enough to use it as a spear, then the pike would likely be too slender for his mighty strength. A pike isn't a scaled-up spear; it's a really long spear. A scaled-up spear would be much thicker.

Re: Where the pike?
 

For the record I'm converting some AD&D monsters to GURPS. The pike is listed as one of the weapons orcs use. From what's been said here AD&D gets it wrong.

Re: Where the pike?
 

I remember reading it was fairly common for veteran units in the English Civil War to cut down their pikes to improve mobility and let them perform better if caught in individual combat at the expense of lessened efficiency in 'push of pike'. But some accounts of combat with "pikes" (and most fictional references to city watch or other folks using them for street patrol, man-to-man fighting, etc.) may involve weapons that started out as pikes, but are really functionally long spears.

That said, I think pike should have been included in Basic Set, just in case you're caught with one, but the real reason was that the optional rules for using it can be kind of complex, and the space was better served with coverage of other material.

Re: Where the pike?
 

This is my understanding as well. A "pike" is often what's left of a pike after it has been cut down to what the game calls a long spear, a spear, or in a few cases even a short spear. You can call it Alice, if you want, but it's no longer a pike except in origin. The pikestaff (p. 221) assumes such a snapped-off weapon -- in this case, the half without the point. The long spear in the Basic Set would be the half with the point.

Re: Where the pike?
 

Okay, thanks. I guess I'll give my orcs long spears and say that they're pikes that been shortened.

Re: Where the pike?
 

My copy's not right at hand, but the section is somewhere in chapter 7. It may help you fake a pike, treating it either as a long spear or as a long axe, I think.

Bill Stoddard

Re: Where the pike?
 

I'll reread that chapter when I've got a chance to. I'm going off to one of my gaming groups soon. :)

Re: Where the pike?
 

Sorry but AFAIK you´re wrong on this or better you´re referring to the late time of pike use.

The pike was a weapon used to wound. maim and kill sarriisaari and swiss pikemen were used to use the pike in phalanx and pike blocks as an offensive weapon and tactics
Used in both hands i think it was also possible to feint with it, as well as parry, thrust and strike, which was done if soeone went behind the point.

I´ve reason to think that many a martial arts "historian" isn`t an historian at all, onlly repeating victorian fairy stories.

Where that the 6 m pikes? The swiss pikes were IIRC about 4,50 m, and were used offensiveley, and that with deadly efficiency.

Re: Where the pike?
 

I'd certainly be happy to see a pike with stats something like:

SPEAR (DX-5, Polearm-4, or Staff-2)
TL Weapon Damage Reach Parry Cost Wt. ST
2 Pike thr+3 imp 3,4* -1 $70 dunno, 6-7? 10+

or something like that, anyway, to represent a 4m-4.5m pike, or a 6m pike cut down to combat length. That's just off the cuff, though.

Re: Where the pike?
 

Great. I hope that address specifically the slight problem of my Norse Giant with his three yard sword! :-)

And yes, I have a copy of Supers, but yet not enough time for reading it thoroughly :-/

Re: Where the pike?
 

I expecte/hope to get something like this in Low Tech.