AoO and Cleave

[Thanee]

Let me turn this on it's head.

Cleave shouldn't work if you're making a standard attack because you only get one attack unless makign a full attack action.

WTF?

I hope that shows how silly this is.

I'm afraid, you have just shown that you did not completey understand what FireLance is talking about. This is very well possible, if you look at it from a completely different angle, but sometimes it would be nice if people actually tried to understand what others are talking about before replying.


Anyways, I think it's not unreasonable to only allow Cleaves against targets, that you could have attacked with the original attack instead of the target you have chosen. This completely rules out Cleaves off AoOs and also disallows Cleaving from Whirlwind Attacks, since in both cases your attacks only have a single specific target, which cannot be changed.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Li Shenron]

I don't really want to jump into the adjudication of the RAW on this topic... We have agreed in our group not to allow Cleave on AoOs just because of a sort of fair play.

Anyway, IMO the problem really is not with Cleave but rather with AoOs. It's the AoOs awkward idea of attacking when it's not your action which causes certain problems.

 

[Storm Raven]

I like to use the invisible dire lemming example to illustrate this. Let's say there are two fighters, A and B, facing each other in combat. B has Combat Reflexes and Great Cleave, and has true seeing cast on him. Someone (maybe an ally of B) suddenly releases a pack of invisible dire lemmings (like dire rats, but more suicidal) and they run behind B. As they do so, they provoke AOOs for movement from him. B gets several attacks on the dire lemmings because of Combat Reflexes, and he easily kills each with one blow and Cleaves into A. The dire lemmings don't distract A because he can't see them. As far as A is concerned, he's keeping a wary eye on B, and defending himself normally against him. However, B suddenly erupts into a flurry of motion, landing several solid blows on A.

Yes, it's a pretty contrived scenario, but I hope it serves to illustrate why I don't think Cleaving off an AOO should work.

Actually, as far as I'm concerned, this scenario just illustrates the silliness of any argument that relies on invisible dire lemmings to make a point.

 

[Nac_Mac_Feegle]

Actually, as far as I'm concerned, this scenario just illustrates the silliness of any argument that relies on invisible dire lemmings to make a point.

SSSSSHHHH dont let the lemmings hear you say that

Feegle Out

 

[KarinsDad]

Anyway, IMO the problem really is not with Cleave but rather with AoOs. It's the AoOs awkward idea of attacking when it's not your action which causes certain problems.

Yes, I agree. But, it is not just the concept of attacking outside your turn. It is the concept of getting an extra attack in, just in order to attempt to balance out some portion of the game that is considered more potent.

The entire idea of AoOs has been part and parcel of our collective consciousness for several years now.

But, when it first came out with 3E, a lot of players had issues with it because it was so darn non-intuitive.

I even had a player quit because he had a problem with a Fighter "in front of him" who was "facing away" and attacking someone else with a longspear and when he tried to sneak up behind him, the opponent got a free AoO against him.

I agree with that player. What the heck is that??? It makes no sense.

But, this simple game mechanic rule has become so ingrained within our culture, that people even spend time explaining how something so non-intuitive actually makes sense. I have seen many people here on the boards trying to rationalize this type of thing (in fact, a few people did that here in this thread as well).


AoOs were introduced to resolve the "Everyone run past the guards and attack the king. The guards cannot to anything to stop you.". It is a clever game mechanic trick to balance out such issues caused by each player getting one turn each round and being able to run past opponents in order to attack the spell caster in the real of the group issues.

But in real life, you often have your hands full with one opponent, let alone being able to worry about what 1 to 7 other opponents around you are doing.

AoOs turned into a way to balance out other tactical combat issues. For example:

1) Archers can attack multiple times per turn virtually every turn. Fighters can only do this when they are basically within 5 feet of an opponent. So, archers have an edge and we need a balancing factor for that edge.

2) Spellcasters can attack with spells that are often more potent than an attack by a melee or missile user. So, spellcasters have an edge and we need a balancing factor for that edge.


The problem with it is that it can allow other abuses such as the fairness issue that FireLance has. But, his fairness issue is no different than the fairness issue of attacking someone approaching from the rear with a reach weapon while you are fighting someone in front of you with it. They are anomalies caused by the fact that very few game mechanics are good simulation models for reality. They are approximations at best, hence, there can be situations where the model breaks down.

Cleaves on AoOs just happens to be one of those situations.

I allow it just because:

a) The rules allow it.
b) It is not unbalancing due to the limited utility of Cleave in the first place.
c) It adds flavor to the game.

I can very much understand why FireLance has a fairness issue with it though.

 

[Nac_Mac_Feegle]

Dont forget, in a melee, its expected that you do not actually stand toe to toe and slug it out, but move around, therefore, there is no "Rear" and this is why shooting into melee has its dangers unless your feated up, you can no more sneak up and just back stab, because the target is in constant motion once melee is underway.

Feegle Out

 

[Shazman]

Well, since you brought up the concept of flowing time, consider this: The net effect of C's attacks on A over the course of a round is represented by the attack roll on C's turn (assume, for the sake of argument, that C's BAB is 5 or less and thus he only gets a single attack roll). If A defends himself "normally" and doesn't perform any distracting act, that single attack roll represents the net effect of C's efforts to attack A in the round.

Now, B enters the picture, and does something that attracts an AOO from C. C drops him with the AOO. So far so good. B lowered his defences, and the net effect of that is C managed to injure him enough to drop him.

However, it doesn't make sense to me if we go on from there and allow C to cleave into A. This effectively gives C two attack rolls against A in a single round, even though A was still defending himself normally against C and did not perform any distracting act. C's effectiveness against A is effectively doubled because B (not A) lowered his defences and performed a distracting act. That is what is hard for me to reconcile, and why I don't think it's fair.

I know it's the rule and it can be explained in several ways - B somehow "distracts" A by dropping and causes him to lower his defences (even if A doesn't know B exists, as in the invisble dire lemming example), C is somehow "energized" by dropping B, C has learned a combat technique that allows him to turn a killing blow into a deadly strike against someone else, etc. However, none of these really persuade me, and I still think it's unfair to A.

It's not about A lowering his defenses. He's just in the path of the weapon when it blasts through B's body. Does thinking of it like that help any?

 

[KarinsDad]

Dont forget, in a melee, its expected that you do not actually stand toe to toe and slug it out, but move around, therefore, there is no "Rear" and this is why shooting into melee has its dangers unless your feated up, you can no more sneak up and just back stab, because the target is in constant motion once melee is underway.

That is a rationalization to explain a different game mechanic: no facing in the game.

In real life, there sure is facing and while in combat, you can easily get attacked from behind where you have no clue the opponent is there.

Using one game mechanic rule to rationalize another game mechanic rule doesn't really work. Both are models to emulate some combat concept, but whether a given model is good or not (i.e. has holes) is only partially dependent on what other models you use.

The usefulness and reasonableness of a given model is more dependent on itself.

Do AoOs make sense as models? Not really. Do they resolve balance issues? Yes.

So, their utility more than makes up for their lack of rationale and people can easily suspend their disbelief in them by considering them just another rule.

 

[Abraxas]

Let me turn this on it's head.

Cleave shouldn't work if you're making a standard attack because you only get one attack unless makign a full attack action.

I was actually in a game where the DM ruled this way exactly because of the line in the PHB (pg 140) that says "Multiple Attacks: A character who can make more than one attack per round must use the full attack action (see Full-Round Actions, below) in order to get more than one attack."

 

[Cabral]

Not fairness in the sense of PC vs NPC, but fairness in the sense of a combatant who has not lowered his defenses enough to attract an AOO effectively gets hit by one because someone else did.

But how do you explain Cleave entitling someone to make an attack on a guarded opponent just because the fighter dropped his buddy? He's not any less defensive because it's the fighters turn.

An extra attack granted by Cleave is just as valid, in my opinion, whether it happens from an attack of opportunity or from a standard/full attack action. Now, it might become tricky enforcing the 1 cleave per round. (Simple rule: One cleave per Initiative pass; Complex: 1 round between Cleaves)