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Glaive / Guisarme

By Sir Guy Francis Laking - A Record of European Armor and Arms Through Seven Centuries: Vol 3, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=60692333, Guisarm
By Sir Guy Francis Laking – A Record of European Armor and Arms Through Seven Centuries: Vol 3, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=60692333

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.]

Source: Pathfinder d20pfsrd.com

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.

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