Polearms and initiative in melee

What do you actually want out of an initiative system?

Having fought a dude with a spear before I gotta say that's pretty realistic already familia.

Init bonus is one way to do it, yeah, though unless the system is fairly deadly that's often just a fairly unimportant gimmick that doesn't really represent the full impact of long reach. It does however have the advantage of being a very simple implementation, since you only need to check once if a character is using one.

An alternative approach could be to let polearms give the user a bonus to defense (at least in systems with passive defenses) if their weapon has a significantly longer reach than the opponent's. This would similarly represent the difficulty in getting around a longer-ranged weapon trying to keep you at bay. The problem there is that it's a more complex implementation, since you need to compare both the attacker's and the defender's weapons each time. It does allow for some more granularity, since you could add on rules to the effect that such a bonus doesn't apply if the character is flanked, or that several polearms in close order have their bonuses stack, and suchlike.

>An alternative approach could be to let polearms give the user a bonus to defense (at least in systems with passive defenses)

Yeah, this sounds more like what I was looking for. Are there any existing game systems that use this mechanic?

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> always gets first initiative

I'd be a bit more selective about handing out the bonus, to initiative or defence. Not every fight starts at a distance, hostilities may commence when the guy you're literally rubbing shoulder with pulls a dagger, and a fight with uneven weapons that start at great enough distance will tend to have one party doing his best to close that distance and keep it closed.

I kinda like the Burning Wheel approach when it comes to weapon lengths.
There is positioning checks between rounds where fighters try to maneuver to optimal distance from their opponent, optimal being at the end of the blade, and longer weapons get bonuses for these checks.

So polearm users have easier time keeping opponents at distance where they have hard time getting hits in, but if the opponent manages to rush in the polearm becomes almost useless.

But that's not really something that you can apply to system that handles positioning less abstractly and, while it works with groups it's optimal in 1 to 1 fights.

>>51198776
>first initiative
>not a reaction attack when enemies try to close the distance
>making spearmen go before archers because of weapon choice alone
shiggy diggy

>>51198776
I've seen a system where the long weapon gives you the first attack, but then the opponent steps inside and you can't back up fast enough, so you can no longer fight with the polearm, and must drop it and draw another weapon, and also cannot parry anything until your turn.

>>51198776
In TRoS length of the weapon defines who hits first if two guys attack each other and gives hefty penalty to attacks with shorter weapons (or longer weapon if fighter are very close to each other). Combined with decent damage of polearms it means other fighters are relucant to attack a guy with a spear. Polearms provide tactical advantage and let you act bolder and more aggressively.

>>51201958
Don't look at me, I'm not the one who wrote those rules.