Does Cleave Work With Improved Trip

[Jimlock]

hmmm... now you are making it harder to come to a verdict.

Awesome Blow [General, Fighter]
Prerequisites
Str 25, Power Attack, Improved Bull Rush, size Large or larger.Benefit
As a standard action, the creature may choose to subtract 4 from its melee attack roll and deliver an awesome blow. If the creature hits a corporeal opponent smaller than itself with an awesome blow, its opponent must succeed on a Reflex save (DC = damage dealt) or be knocked flying 10 feet in a direction of the attacking creature’s choice and fall prone. The attacking creature can only push the opponent in a straight line, and the opponent can’t move closer to the attacking creature than the square it started in. If an obstacle prevents the completion of the opponent’s move, the opponent and the obstacle each take 1d6 points of damage, and the opponent stops in the space adjacent to the obstacle.

I guess that this time around the "enough damage" can be translated into that failed Reflex save (which is dependent upon damage dealt).

So one can argue that the damage is "enough" (because the opponent failed the save - which is damage dependent), so as to allow the use of cleave.


...so... Yes. I believe this is a valid use of the feat.

 

[Jimlock]

On the other hand, by RAI... one could argue that the "drop" does not refer to falling/dropping "prone", and it only refers to dropping because the damage suffered drops you to an unconscious, dying or dead state...

...and that the "typically" is inserted because of others ways to "drop" a creature to an unconscious, dying or dead state, other that reducing it's hit points in a direct way (blow by blow)... ...such as the ones I mentioned in my earlier post.

 

[Jimlock]

No. It's not spelled out in lawyer-proof legaleese, but the text is clearly talking about dropping someone to unconscious/dying/dead from hit point damage. I would allow Cleave on a nonlethal attack that knocked a foe out (or if your lethal strike + previous nonlethal happened to put him there) or a lethal attack that puts the creature to dying, dead, or destroyed (for nonliving stuff that "goes boom" at 0 hp). That's it.

Oops! didn't see your post before answering!

I agree it is not spelled out in a lawyer-proof way. This is why i agreed it is possible. (because by RAW it is).

However I'd also go by RAI and I wouldn't allow it.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

Don't you just love WotC's ambiguous wording?

I'd personally say Cleave intends the character to knock out, kill, or otherwise destroy the first target before getting an attack on the second. Great Cleave is the same way.

 

[kitcik]

My take:

Awesome Blow would work.

Knockdown should work based on flavor (it's called "Knockdown" after all, not tripdown - the trip attack is just the mechanic, it's the damage that knocks them down IMHO), but probably not under RAW.

Improved Trip by itself does not and should not work.

 

[Empirate]

I just had another idea: If a creature is already prone when you deal it enough damage to kill it - can you make a Cleave attempt?!

By RAW, you can't, as the creature is already "dropped". You now have no way of "dealing enough damage to make it drop", since all the damage you deal will be dealt to a creature that can't possibly drop any further. So, prone target = no Cleave?

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

I just had another idea: If a creature is already prone when you deal it enough damage to kill it - can you make a Cleave attempt?!

By RAW, you can't, as the creature is already "dropped". You now have no way of "dealing enough damage to make it drop", since all the damage you deal will be dealt to a creature that can't possibly drop any further. So, prone target = no Cleave?

How about an attack with +1 Dislocator Weapon? The creature on the ground, Upon hitting, you teleport target 10' up into the air, causing them to drop down (dropping further!) as gravity brings them to the ground. Than the target hits the ground a second time.

Then Cleave?

Nothing is impossible in D&D!

 

[Empirate]

Things get even more convoluted if you're fighting an Aoa, especially the smaller version(Look it up, it's in Fiend Folio!).