I have to dissent with what seems to be the prevailing interpretations here. While playing fast-and-loose with ranges and giving pikes a Short Range attack is all well and good, I think this is only suitable to a very fantastic/epic/heroic style of game. Which is fine! If that's what you're playing, more power to you, and the Short Range interpretation can work as your heroes whirl around the room impaling baddies with abandon.

I think there's a little too much D&D influence in this interpretation, however, both equating the ranges to fairly literal brackets where Engaged is 5ft and Short is your 10ft Reach attack as well as committing D&D's decades-old sins of weird fantasy brainbugs about medieval weapons. I was very happy to see the thinking that went into Genesys' fantasy/medieval weapon list, because I think it does a much better job of capturing the tactical value of various weapons than, say, D&D. Genesys has established the precedent -- and rightfully so -- of weapons with longer reach having the Defensive quality, as with the Halberd and Spear entries. This models the actual tactical advantage of reach much better than trying to fiddle and quibble over specific range brackets.

A long pike like a sarissa is probably best modeled by removing the Pierce quality from the Halberd and perhaps giving it the Spear's Accurate and/or increasing its Defensive to 2. Combat should be abstracted to the point that whether someone is 5 inches away or 5 feet away at any given moment shouldn't really matter (those are both well within the concept of "Engaged"). A fight goes back-and-forth quite quickly and the mere presence of a spear/polearm will keep the opponent naturally at a distance anyway, which is what the Defensive is representing -- whether you're being stabbed from 5 inches away or 5 feet away makes no difference, mechanically; the important thing to model is that if you can be stabbed from 5 feet away, you will have a lot more difficulty using your 5-inch dagger to attack your opponent, hence the 1-2 Setback dice.

If you really want to strangle your players with pedantry, you can apply GM-fiat Setback dice to the pike-user's attacks if for some reason the combat has devolved into face-to-face grappling where the pike can't be used as effectively, or whatever. But as said, this shouldn't happen most of the time, because the threat of a long stabby thing is quite real to anyone with a sense of self-preservation, preventing someone from simply face-tanking a pike-wielder and laughing "Ha ha, your Reach weapon can't attack me this close!" That's just a silly D&D-ism with no real basis in reality.

7 hours ago, BCGaius said:

I have to dissent with what seems to be the prevailing interpretations here. While playing fast-and-loose with ranges and giving pikes a Short Range attack is all well and good, I think this is only suitable to a very fantastic/epic/heroic style of game. Which is fine! If that's what you're playing, more power to you, and the Short Range interpretation can work as your heroes whirl around the room impaling baddies with abandon.

I think there's a little too much D&D influence in this interpretation, however, both equating the ranges to fairly literal brackets where Engaged is 5ft and Short is your 10ft Reach attack as well as committing D&D's decades-old sins of weird fantasy brainbugs about medieval weapons. I was very happy to see the thinking that went into Genesys' fantasy/medieval weapon list, because I think it does a much better job of capturing the tactical value of various weapons than, say, D&D. Genesys has established the precedent -- and rightfully so -- of weapons with longer reach having the Defensive quality, as with the Halberd and Spear entries. This models the actual tactical advantage of reach much better than trying to fiddle and quibble over specific range brackets.

A long pike like a sarissa is probably best modeled by removing the Pierce quality from the Halberd and perhaps giving it the Spear's Accurate and/or increasing its Defensive to 2. Combat should be abstracted to the point that whether someone is 5 inches away or 5 feet away at any given moment shouldn't really matter (those are both well within the concept of "Engaged"). A fight goes back-and-forth quite quickly and the mere presence of a spear/polearm will keep the opponent naturally at a distance anyway, which is what the Defensive is representing -- whether you're being stabbed from 5 inches away or 5 feet away makes no difference, mechanically; the important thing to model is that if you can be stabbed from 5 feet away, you will have a lot more difficulty using your 5-inch dagger to attack your opponent, hence the 1-2 Setback dice.

If you really want to strangle your players with pedantry, you can apply GM-fiat Setback dice to the pike-user's attacks if for some reason the combat has devolved into face-to-face grappling where the pike can't be used as effectively, or whatever. But as said, this shouldn't happen most of the time, because the threat of a long stabby thing is quite real to anyone with a sense of self-preservation, preventing someone from simply face-tanking a pike-wielder and laughing "Ha ha, your Reach weapon can't attack me this close!" That's just a silly D&D-ism with no real basis in reality.

Have you seen a pike before? Those things aren’t five feet long, they are 10-20 ft long. Last time I checked, there is no possible way for anyone with a sword, axe, dagger, etc to hit someone when there is a 20 ft pike in the way. Also, if someone DOES manage to get close, there is no way to poke someone with that same 20 ft pike. So yes, there definitely IS a basis in reality there.

I was thinking 6 damage with the pierce 2 and ensnare quality and the ability to use melee at short range. When used at engaged it loses its ensnare quality and gains inaccurate 2. I feel this is thematic because a pike is good when someone is attempting to approach a player but after approach that weapon becomes less effective. Pikemen also wielded swords and dagger in case the pike failed. The ensnare ability allows pikemen to hold an opponent at short range out of melee range while still being able to hit them. It is not always going to work as people can slip by and render the pike useless hence the inaccurate ability. It can still be used as a weapon in engaged but not very well.

I was also thinking of the pike working more like trap where it required some form of skill check to enter engaged but it was too clunky and ensnare does the same thing simpler. The only thing I'm using extra as a rule would be a melee weapon reaching short range which I realize is controversial in this discussion but as per the core book on page 106 under the Engaged subheading it mentions to "Consider engaged as a subcategory of short range... the difference in distance is relatively minor. Thus spending a maneuver to move to engage someone or something is as much a matter of moving into combat cautiously enough to avoid receiving a blow unnecessarily as it is moving a physical distance." This I feel backs up the notion that this weapon could bend this rule as its purpose is to create a line where melee combat is difficult if not impossible.

I would also consider making this weapon with vehicle qualities as opponents on horseback would have difficulty facing a minion group with pikes.

Hmm, had a realization about ensnare. It stops them from moving anywhere, even withdrawing, which pikes don't necessarily do. So I would simply make a quality called Withhold (Active) that prevents a target from moving into engaged range. If multiple targets suffer hits from a weapon with Withhold, the quality may be triggered multiple times, affecting a different target each time. A Withheld target may perform an action to attempt a Hard Athletics check on their turn to break free from the effect. That should give the weapon the effect needed to hold someone from passing. Also I don't know why I put damage at 6 but I meant to put +3.

6 hours ago, Johan Marek Phoenix Knight said:

Have you seen a pike before? Those things aren’t five feet long, they are 10-20 ft long. Last time I checked, there is no possible way for anyone with a sword, axe, dagger, etc to hit someone when there is a 20 ft pike in the way. Also, if someone DOES manage to get close, there is no way to poke someone with that same 20 ft pike. So yes, there definitely IS a basis in reality there.

A pike that long is a weapon of war, and outside of aforementioned epic fantasy-themed games, you'd only ever use one in a formation with other pikes against opposing formations of troops. In such a context, the two groups fighting each other are still Engaged in every meaningful sense of the rules. Again, this fixation of treating its range as Short just because it's on the extreme end of Engaged is missing the point of the Genesys system and is a result of treating range in literal, absolute D&D terms when range in Genesys is meant to be abstract. If you are stabbing someone in hand-to-hand combat, you are by definition Engaged with that someone. That you are doing it from a relative distance is abstracted into qualities like Defensive, and handled narratively as appropriate ("you can stab down into the moat because your pike is so long, roll a Melee (Heavy) at Average difficulty with a Boost for having higher ground.").

As I said, there is an argument for giving a long pike Defensive 2, because yes, it is hard to fight someone with more reach than you. There is not "no possible way," however. Hafts, especially ones as unwieldy as a massive pike's, can be grappled, attacked, and damaged. The lead arm and hand of a polearm wielder extends and is relatively vulnerable compared to the rest of his body. If a swordsman (for example) successfully defends against the pike, the pike user is forced to choke up and effectively shorten the weapon in order to continue threatening the swordsman. The swordsman is at a disadvantage, initially -- which is why he's slapped with 2 Setback dice from Defensive. Because this isn't a medieval combat simulator, that abstraction is all you really need. The rest is covered by the ebb and flow of the combat rounds and the expenditure of Threat and Advantage to create an interesting scene.

Fun Fact: Greatswords (proper ones, not large two-handed longswords) came about to combat pike formations. Presumably, you don't want to obsessively model such interactions in your game (though I suppose you could if you wanted to run a medieval warfare Genesys game). So the abstractions suffice; the Greatsword having Defensive 1 to provide a little help against the Pike's Defensive 2.

Don't overdo Genesys. Its strength is applying and upgrading simple dice types to model the odds of a situation, and then going wild with the resulting Success, Failure, Advantage, and Threat to describe all the things that can happen in that situation. If someone has a really long pike, narrate the effects of that based on the result of the dice pool: The 2 Defensive Setback dice come up with 2 uncancelled Threat, hence: "The orcish pikes keep you and your comrades at bay with lethal intent, harrying your every attempt to approach with threatening jabs and narrow grazes, and the men begin to doubt their odds. Take 2 Strain damage." Don't try to over-simulate every oddity; use the system's abstraction to your advantage.

Pikes can greatly vary in length, but if we are talking the Alexander/Macedonian ones, I completely agree they would be only useful in a formation. One-on-one combat probably didn't occur with the 20'-25' spear length versions. You dropped them and grabbed a secondary weapon probably. In a game setting, pikes would need to be differentiated so you have Short Spear vs Long Spear or Short Spear, Long Spear, and Pike. The long, 2-handers, would be easily batted aside if not used in a formation. They were only useful when used in depth creating a porcupine effect as first developed by Macedonians.

That being said, I'm still going to use some form of the rules above for length advantage. The very long pikes should probably be given high Cumbersome and/or Setbacks, but give benefits for some future fantasy squad rules?