Spiked Chain + Great Cleave = DM's Nightmare

[Azlan]

And I do not like having to customize my encounters around the abilities of a single player in a 4 player party. Every time I find myself playing that game, I end up with encounters that become TPK's the moment the character in question is neutralized.

That is my peeve and my concern, as well. (Although, I'm dealing with a 6-player party, here.)

 

[Azlan]

I don't see a great deal of synergy as a result; throwing one extra HD onto the foes in the OP's case completely negates the Great Cleave.

Yes, it does. So, that takes care of the Great Cleave + spiked chain wielder. But that one extra HD (we're talking about an encounter involving 20+ mooks, remember) is probably going to end up overwhelming the group, as a whole.

I would house-rule that you can't cleave off an AoO.

That may be a better – i.e. a more elegant and more across-the-board – alternative to the house rule that I had in mind. At least that way, it wouldn't look like I'm singling out the spiked chain.

Aside from that, taking out low-hp mooks is what the Cleave and Great Cleave feats are for.

I agree. I think Cleave and Great Cleave are cool feats, and I love to see them in play. (Which is one of the reasons why I love throwing hordes of mooks at the PC's.) What I have issue with, really, is when Great Cleave is combined with a spiked chain, with a variable 5' to 10' reach, and used to get additional attacks off of AoO's.

 

[Slaved]

A +2 spiked chain is 8325 gold out of the characters 13000.
A 6th level fighter has 3 feats normally along with 4 bonus feats. Out of those at least 6 are going towards this particular problem. Exotic weapon proficiency, power attack, cleave, great cleave, weapon focus, and weapon specialization.
An 18 in strength takes 16 point buy points and the standard assumption would be either 25 or 28, leaving little room for other important statistics.

The character is also in full plate which means little movement and is a fighter which means little skill choice.

Killing melee mooks looks to basically be all this character is good at. If that goes away I would expect the player to get frustrated and bored quickly.


If the characters statistics are too high then it could give them more power than the game assumes for their level. Only spending 50% or less of the gear value for the level on a single item helps with over specializing as well.

 

[Slaved]

YesWhat I have issue with, really, is when Great Cleave is combined with a spiked chain, with a variable 5' to 10' reach, and used to get additional attacks off of AoO's.

But the character is likely limited to only a single attack of opportunity and they only get that against foes who actually enter melee and have no ability to avoid the attack of opportunity.

Plus if the character uses the attack of opportunity early then there might not be anything to use cleave on and if they wait for a better chance they might not get any more chances that round which wastes it.

If the character gets combat reflexes in order to increase the number of attack of opportunities then that means yet another feat onto the pile and needing a decent dexterity which is blocked both by the full plate and not having many point buy points left after the 18 in strength.