Who uses a Ranseur?

[Voadam]

I would expect peasants to wield most polearms, followed by the archetype of palace guards with halberds, Japanes warriors with naginata and swiss mercs with pikes.

Tridents are for gladiators, undersea races and worshippers of sea gods.

I had a PC in my group who worshipped poseidon and used a trident. I used a naginata when I did some OA type adventures.

 

[candidus_cogitens]

Interesting. From a min-max perspective, I'd go with a glaive: with a glaive, combat reflexes, and improved trip, you have a nice little one-two smack you can do on people. Disarming someone just isn't as much fun, in my opinion, as tripping them and then beating on them when they're down.

Although if your wild elf lives in the forest, consider whether polearms would be an appropriate weapon: he may not be used to having much room to swing such a big weapon around.

Daniel

The advantage of disarming over tripping is that standing up from prone does not provoke an AoO, while picking up a dropped weapon does! So, if you have Combat reflexes, disarming is awesome!

I don't think one would "swing" a ranseur exactly, but I see your point ... you would still need to be able to maneuver it and not get it tangled in branches.

 

[Tonguez]

Polearms were a lot more common than Fantasy literature would have us beleive. Granted the 'Long Sword' has always been the 'prestige' weapon and the short sword the most convinient backup weapon however with that said most armies are made up of polearm using infantry (Pikeman, Spearman etc) followed up by calvary with lances and only a few sword using men-at-arms and officers (Knights, Champions etc - ie your standard PC)

That being said I like to give my Barbarians polearms - the image of a halberd swining barbarian is just more fun than one with a sword or ax even.

In fact come to think of it most of my weapon using (ie non-scorcerer) characters use polearms - reach and improved trip are wonderful things!

 

[candidus_cogitens]

Is it reasonable to use a ranseur (or some other kind of reach weapon) while mounted?

 

[Tordek]

The bulk of the shade army in the Forgotten Realm Setting uses Ranseurs.

And that's like the most advanced and badass race and army in the Realms. So they ust have a good reason other then that the things are cool =]