AoOs and Cleave/Great Cleave

[Nifft]

For our purposes, Bob is mostly dead (and it is deadness, more than dropping his guard, that caused injury to his ally). He would be unable to hear the scolding.

Dropping guard -> dropping (via deadness or not-deadness).
Dropping -> AoO on ally.

Using the transitive property, we see that dropping guard -> AoO on ally.

-- N

PS: Bob's ability to hear is only marginally related to Bob's ally's tendency to speak her annoyance at Bob out loud. That's just how she is.

 

[RigaMortus2]

It's very different from cleaving on your own turn. On your own turn, you choose the target. Cleave allows you to make an easy kill so fast you still have time to redirect your attack to another legitimate target. In effect, the cleave feat makes the time taken to drop the first target negligible as long as there's another legitimate target to switch to.
When an AoO opportunity comes up, should you elect to take it, you don't choose your target at all, you only get to target the creature who provoked the AoO. Outside of the character's turn, there should be no other legitimate target to use cleave on.
To look at it from the point of view of the target, a character should not be subject to AoO unless they drop their guard and provoke one themselves. They should not become vulnerable because someone else did and went down.

Choosing your target has nothing to do with Cleaving. It only has to do with who you can initially attack (pre-Cleave). On your turn, you can choose who you initially attack. On someone else's turn, the only time you can attack is if someone provokes an AoO, and for that matter, you still choose whether you want to attack them or not. And in either case, if you drop them, you get to Cleave.

Outside of the character's turn, there should be no other legitimate target to use cleave on.

I guess that is a matter of opinion (which I am sure we all know at this point). I feel that, outside of the character's turn, you should be allowed to Cleave any legitimate target.

YMMVAAD (You Mileage May Vary, And Apparently Does) --- Trademarked!

 

[werk]

For our purposes, Bob is mostly dead (and it is deadness, more than dropping his guard, that caused injury to his ally). He would be unable to hear the scolding.

And, if the cleaver were, say, using a reach weapon, and, maybe size large or greater...Bob could be as much as 50-80' away from his comrade...or maybe they aren't even comrades, maybe they were combatants before the cleaver joined the fight.


Sorry, I don't mean to fan the flames, but I think physical explanation of a rule like this is only going to be more easily refuted because the explanation doesn't support the rule in all situations in which the rule may apply.

I'm, personally, with Frank and billd, but I don't think the rules are.

 

[Slaved]

Sorry, I don't mean to fan the flames, but I think physical explanation of a rule like this is only going to be more easily refuted because the explanation doesn't support the rule in all situations in which the rule may apply.

This is the same with hit points really, along with any of the other things that are left more or less only loosely defined.

Going with the hit point analogy sometimes being hit could represent a gushing wound, or a scratch, or even a last minute deflection that left your arm feeling a little numb.

In the same way the cleave ability is loosely defined enough to fit into any situation where the little we know about it actually occurs. The flavor description can be different in each event, we simply know that the event occurs. Describing it and fitting it to the situation is up to the dm and the players.

I would assume that just about any time the cleave applies something can be described which shows what is happening.

I think that in those descriptions that it would be important to describe the skill, or luck, involved by the one doing the cleaving and try to take the focus as far off of "but I did not do anything wrong!" as much as possible.

 

[Nail]

Perhaps he was thinking that in his head, not speaking aloud scolding his unconcious/dead ally.

...'Cause, heaven knows, that's bad karma!