Abusing Cleave?

[Len]

The cleave machine in my party is at lvl 14 now and he still uses Cleave a lot. He even gets to use Great Cleave once in a while. His strength isn't out of the ordinary.

 

[Gulla]

b) Cleave + iterative attacks + two-weapon fighting + Great Cleave + Combat Reflexes? Build a fighter around this particular chain, and you are DEATH to low-HD enemies en masse.

One of my players demonstrated that when the spellcasters are nice and leave it to the fighter he can kill 150+ goblins in 2 rounds on level 15. But so could the spellcasters have done.

The relevant abilities were: Cleave + Great Cleave + Superior cleave from Knight Protector prestige class. And Enlarge Person from the wizard.

And of cource a large band of goblins (about 500 of them).

He didn't bother activating his boots of speed.

It was not meant to be a challenge, merely a slight distraction, but the player felt very good for once getting to show the full devestating potential of a cleaving fighter

Håkon

 

[Scratched_back]

Cleave + iterative attacks + two-weapon fighting + Great Cleave + Combat Reflexes? Build a fighter around this particular chain, and you are DEATH to low-HD enemies en masse.

...True, and you'd almost be as effective as a wizard with 3rd level spells

 

[focallength]

Exactly any time you drop your opponent below 0 hp you can get an extra attack. Dosent matter if its with subdual or sneak attack or electric/ fire/ damage from a weapon. I hit you, you go beolow 0, I get an extra attack. As far as a sword with teleport on it, its a DM call.

Drop implies "dropping your opponent below 0 hp". So you cant trip or bull rush or tell a joke and make your opponent "drop" to the ground and say "he dropped I get an extra attack!"

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Exactly any time you drop your opponent below 0 hp you can get an extra attack.

Excepting, of course, those foes who cannot go below 0.

 

[HeavyG]

Exactly any time you drop your opponent below 0 hp you can get an extra attack. Dosent matter if its with subdual or

Nonlethal damage cannot drop anyone below 0 hp ever.

 

[billd91]

I don't think it has anything to do with momentum. If you drop someone by stabbing them with your rapier, you can then stab the guy on the other side of you.

The way I see it, by dropping one of your opponents, who you'd otherwise have to keep defending against, you've now got some time on your hands. Not enough to do anything normally, but the Cleave feat has taught you to use that time to attack someone else.

As you said, the RAW leaves it unclear. I think "Cleave" is just a bad name for the feat.

I remember reading a little about the initial play tests of the game and I believe the designers said they had other more tongue-in-cheek names for most of the feats under development. I can't remember specifics but it would be names like "So's your mother!" or "And the horse you rode in on" and stuff like that. The kinds of taunts you'd make to another player if you were using the feat on him, that sort of thing.
Then, when it came time to actually get things down in writing for publication, they went through to come up with 'typical' names for what was going on. I would assume that cleave seemed to fit this situation reasonably well. The name should not necessarily be taken as a description of how the actual follow-up attack is accomplished.

 

[sullivan]

Exactly any time you drop your opponent below 0 hp you can get an extra attack. Dosent matter if its with subdual or sneak attack or electric/ fire/ damage from a weapon. I hit you, you go beolow 0, I get an extra attack. As far as a sword with teleport on it, its a DM call.

Drop implies "dropping your opponent below 0 hp". So you cant trip or bull rush or tell a joke and make your opponent "drop" to the ground and say "he dropped I get an extra attack!"

How exactly do you come to the conclusion that "drop" implies "dropping your opponent below 0 hp"? The text reads that "dropping your opponent below 0 hp" is -one- way of achieving the "drop", but since there are other ways "drop" is not limited to that.

EDIT: Unless you are mixing in slang here. Since the most common way is reducing to below 0 hp this equivalence can form in people's minds.

 

[werk]

I'd think that teleport or disintegrate, or anything that effectively removes the target from combat, allows a cleave.

add three words:
If you deal a creature enough damage to make it drop out of combat (typically by dropping it to below 0 hit points or killing it), you get an immediate, extra melee attack against another creature within reach. You cannot take a 5-foot step before making this extra attack. The extra attack is with the same weapon and at the same bonus as the attack that dropped the previous creature. You can use this ability once per round.

everyone else is adding three words: to the ground.

EDIT: I found 28 definitions for drop, so a couple extra words would probably help to understand exactly what the designers mean 'make it drop'.

DROP
1-9 are nouns
10[v] give birth; used for animals; "The cow dropped her calf this morning"
11[v] grow worse; "Her condition deteriorated"
12[v] stop pursuing or acting; "drop a lawsuit"; "knock it off!"
13[v] lower the pitch of (musical notes)
14[v] go down in value; "Stock prices dropped"
15[v] change from one level to another; "She dropped into army jargon"
16[v] leave undone or leave out; "How could I miss that typo?"; "The workers on the conveyor belt miss one out of ten"
17[v] utter casually; "drop a hint"
18[v] of games, in sports; "The Giants dropped 11 of their first 13"
19[v] terminate an association with; "drop him from the Republican ticket"
20[v] stop associating with; "They dropped her after she had a child out of wedlock"
21[v] cause to fall by or as if by delivering a blow; "strike down a tree"; "Lightning struck down the hikers"
22[v] leave or unload, esp. of passengers or cargo;
23[v] get rid of; "he shed his image as a pushy boss"; "shed your clothes"
24[v] to fall vertically; "the bombs are dropping on enemy targets"
25[v] let fall to the ground; "Don't drop the dishes"
26[v] fall or drop to a lower place or level; "He sank to his knees."
27[v] pay out; "spend money"
28[v] hang freely; "the ornaments dangled from the tree"; "The light dropped from the ceiling"

 

[azmodean]

I think you're looking at the wrong part of the feat, I think more pertinent to this argument is ": If you deal a creature enough damage to make it drop" which invalidates tripping and teleportation, but technically it might still allow Disintegrate since it deals damage.