Glaive

Version 0.15: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Name	Glaive
Skill	Polearms
Damage	15
Accuracy	-3
Base delay (%)	17 (170%)
Min delay	7 at skill 20
Hands	2H
Size	Large
Ranged?	No

A pole with a large, heavy blade on one end. "To know the perfect length of your ſhort ſtaffe, or half Pike, Forreſt bil, Partiſan, or Gleue, or ſuch like weapons of vantage and perfect lenghts, you ſhall ſtand vpright, holding the ſtaffe vpright cloſe by your body, with your left hãd, reaching with your right hand your ſtaffe as high as you can, and then allow to that length a ſpace to ſet both your hands, when you come to fight, wherein you may conueniently ſtrike, thrust and ward, & that is the iuſt length according to you ſtature. And this note, that theſe lengths will commonly fall out to be eight or nine foor long, and will fit, although not iuſt, the ſtatures of all men, without any hindrance at all vnto them in their fight, becauſe in any weapon wherin the hands may be remoued, and at libertie, to make the weapon lõger or ſhorter in fight at his pleaſure, a foot of the ſtaffe behind the backmost hand doth no harme." -George Silver, _Paradoxes of Defence_, 1599

This weapon falls into the 'Polearms' category. It is a two handed weapon.

The glaive is the largest of the common polearms, dealing respectable damage once you've put in the skill investment needed to bring them to min delay. As weapons with high base damage, they work particularly well with such brands as freezing, speed, or holy wrath. Although glaives are decent weapons, some players may prefer a demon trident/holy trishula in order to allow use of a shield as well, and characters with sufficiently high Polearms skill may wish to eventually upgrade to a bardiche.

Like all polearms, glaives are capable of making reaching attacks.

	Image
Mundane
Magical
Artifact

	Unrandarts
Glaive of Prune
Glaive of the Guard

History

Prior to 0.10, these lacked innate reaching and had a greater (18) base delay.