HYPERBOREA / Mastery and similar weapons

**Posted by Varsuuk** 3/15/2025 2:37 pm

I had a question on weapon mastery. I was looking at both the lance and spear weapon entries and they seemed to imply a great similarity from what is written. Now, my only experience with lances is from movies so to me they look quite different than what I generally see as spears. I see where they are related, but the lances of movies tend to be shaped differently to be of only use in a charge. Where I’d imagine outside of a tournament a lance to be used for anything but a charge needs to be more spear-like. But again, I know nothing about

That said, are Lance, Short Spear and Long Spear all different “Masteries”?

I ask because recently switching from a Spear Mastery Fighter to a Lance (never used yet… no horse) Caraphract (… unfortunately Barbarian part-member post-battle rage oopsie death-related reasons) - I am forced to specialize in that and wondered if it extended to similar weapons or not. Figured not, but checking.

**Posted by rhialto** 3/16/2025 6:39 am

They each require their own mastery (as with the Player's Manual example of battle axe and hand axe, p.260).

**Posted by Varsuuk** 3/17/2025 1:02 am

rhialto wrote:
They each require their own mastery (as with the Player's Manual example of battle axe and hand axe, p.260).

Thank you Rhialto, I am not by my book but I recall reading some comment on lance describing it as a spear to whatever degree and wondered if that was an exception since a battle axe is never described as being a flavor of hand axe. But I did expect the answer you gave, just wanted to check before I hit 8th.

Thanks!

**Posted by BlackKnight** 3/17/2025 2:23 pm

Mastery is all about usage. Lance and Spear may "look" similar, but they are used in fighting in totally different ways. As are Short Spear to Long Spear.
Lances are typically used from a beast of burden (Horse or other). where a Short spear is used in melee combat and has a very active fighting style (Turning, thrusting, and even swinging), Long spears are primarily thrusting-only weapons used in circumstances where you have a "Shield Wall" (one or more characters standing in front of the long spearman, where the spearman can attack through their position to attack targets on the other side of them).

Even when you get into Swords, a lot of them are Similar, but their fighting style is specialized, and is what the master has learned...

**Posted by Blackadder23** 3/18/2025 2:37 pm

By the book, each weapon requires a different mastery (although Jeff did put in some language softening this where the long sword and broad sword are concerned). In a particular campaign it's really the referee's call. I would most likely require a separate one for each per the rules.