Buy me a coffeeGlaive / Guisarme
A guisarme (sometimes gisarme or bisarme) was a pole weapon used in Europe primarily between 1000-1400. It was used primarily to dismount knights and horsemen. Like most polearms it was developed by peasants by combining hand tools with long poles: in this case by putting a pruning hook onto a spear shaft.
While hooks are fine for dismounting horsemen from mounts, they lack the stopping power of a spear especially when dealing with static opponents. While early designs were simply a hook on the end of a long pole, later designs implemented a small reverse spike on the back of the blade. Eventually weapon makers incorporated the usefulness of the hook in a variety of different polearms and guisarme became a catch-all for any weapon that included a hook on the blade. This is exemplified by the terms bill-guisarmes, voulge-guisarmes, and glaive-guisarmes.
[This content was created for the Pathfinder rules by Paizo Publishing LLC and is part of the Pathfinder RPG product line.]
This polearm combines the blade of a glaive with a wicked hook.
Benefit: A mounted opponent hit by a glaive-guisarme takes a -2 penalty on his Ride checks to stay mounted.
Weapon Feature(s): brace, reach
Section 15: Copyright Notice – Advanced Player’s Guide
Advanced Player’s Guide. Copyright 2010, Paizo Publishing, LLC; Author: Jason Bulmahn.