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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FireLance" data-source="post: 2747765" data-attributes="member: 3424">The second guy (A) is not more vulnerable to an attack. He is only just as vulnerable to an attack as if the first guy (B) was not there. If B was not there, C could have attacked A anyway. The way I see it, Cleave allows C to dispatch B with ease, so easily that his efforts against A are not hampered at all. This is represented by the fact that he gets an attack roll against A (representing his efforts at attacking A in the round) even though he has already made an attack roll against B.Again, as in the previous example, C's Great Cleave feat makes the additional opponents irrelevant, but he doesn't get any more attacks against A than he would have got in a round. Had he ignored the dire weasels, he could still have made the same attacks against A. His Great Cleave feat just makes him so efficient at dispatching weak opponents like the dire weasels (C must be awfully high level if he can regularly drop a dire weasel with one blow) that his effectiveness against A is not hampered at all.Yes it is, and this is why. The fundamental premise I'm working on is this: an AOO happens when you lower your defenses (barring special abilities that allow you to take AOOs even when your opponent normally wouldn't provoke them, such as a rogue's Opportunist ability, and the Hold the Line feat). If you don't lower your defenses, you shouldn't be hit with what effectively is an AOO.If A and C are fighting each other, C's damage potential against A is approximated by the attack rolls that C gets by virtue of his BAB. If A does something that causes him to lower his defences, e.g. A attempts to disarm C or sunder his weapon without the appropriate feat, or moves through C's threatened area, this lapse in A's defences is represented by C being able to take an AOO against A, thus increasing C's damage potential against A.If you allow Cleaving off an AOO, C's damage potential against can A increase not because A has lowered his defences, but because someone else (B) did. Take a numerical example. Assume A and C are both 4th-level fighters. In a normal round, C gets just one attack roll against A. Now, three dire rats run behind C. With Combat Reflexes and a Dexterity of 14, C gets AOOs on all three of the dire rats, and with a bit of luck, drops them all (assuming a Strength of 18 and a +1 greatsword, C only needs 6 or better to hit a normal dire rat's AC of 15, and automatically deals enough damage to drop each one on a hit). If C then uses Great Cleave, he then gets three extra attack rolls in that round against A.What I don't particularly like is how C's damage potential against A can quadruple in one round, not because A did anything to lower his defences, but because three weak opponents happened to provoke AOOs from C. This is why I don't think it's fair.Just to clarify: I've no problems with Cleaving off invisible opponents, just Cleaving off AOOs. And I agree that you can explain Cleaving off an AOO in this manner. I just don't like it that's all. There's no accounting for taste, right? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /></blockquote>

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