Can you Cleave after a Cup De' Grassey?

[Hypersmurf]

Hyp, you're getting very fond of the "flavor text" argument. Unfortunately, I can find nowhere in the book where it defines the term "flavor text" (or "D&Dese" for that matter) or in any way indicates that some paragraphs have more rules-clout than others. I don't suppose you can provide a page number?

I'm at work away from my books, and the SRD tends to eschew flavour text (which is usually fine, since it's not real rules text anyway ).

I'll get back to you.

-Hyp.

 

[KarinsDad]

I personally think the original intent of "drop" may have been to knock a creature to the ground. This makes the most sense from a descriptive point of view (i.e. you swing at the creature, you do enough damage to knock it over, it did not slow your weapon down, so you continue with attacking another creature because your weapon is still in motion).

However, the examples indicate more of a put a creature into a helpless condition interpretation.

But, if you use that interpretation or the interpretation that you knock a creature prone, it still means that a helpless creature is usually already "dropped", with the possible exception of the Held/Paralyzed case if you interpret that the creature must be prone.

Hence, a Knock-Down attack from Swords and Fist would trigger a cleave in the knock a creature prone interpretation. It may or may not do that in the make a creature helpless interpretation.

The problem here is that both interpretations are valid since the rules are not really clear here. However, interpreting one way or the other may result in different DM rulings in some cases.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Let’s look at the English language. If I say that “On Sunday, before making the bread, I had to decide to add less salt and more sugar. Nowhere in the sentence does it waffle.
The day is Sunday
the action is making the bread
the subaction is changing the recipe

There is nothing in that sentence that would imply that the bread didn’t get made. The way that bread was made might be changed or maybe not but that bread was made. Period!

The word making or make is clear:
“to cause to happen to or be experienced by someone”
in this case it is clearly “to cause to happen”

You would like for the sentence to say:
“On the character's action, before (choosing, or, deciding to) making(e) attack rolls for a round, the character may choose to subtract a number from all melee attack rolls and add the same number to all melee damage rolls.”

Making is not conditional. It is definitive.

Nothing in the rest of the feat would change “making” to a conditional statement.
If you think it is otherwise show me a sentence that follows your example.

While what you say is fine for the context you are using it within, it falls far short of the entirety of the english language.

Context is very, very important.

"Before making bread, decide how much salt and sugar you will need"

Please note that this in no way states that you MUST make bread after you decide on the quantities of salt and sugar you'll need. This is because this is an instruction.

Like, for example, the rules for power attack.

 

[KarinsDad]

Context is very, very important.

"Before making bread, decide how much salt and sugar you will need"

Please note that this in no way states that you MUST make bread after you decide on the quantities of salt and sugar you'll need. This is because this is an instruction.

Thanks for supporting out POV.

"Before making bread, decide how much salt and sugar you will need" does not in any way tell you what to do when making chocolate milk instead.

"before making attacks rolls for a round" does not in any way tell you what to do when not making any attack rolls for the round. For example, it doesn't tell you what to do when casting a spell, when opening a lock or when doing a coup de grace.

I agree with you that you can shift your BAB before deciding to cast a spell and you do not have to do an attack. But, I also insist that to use that shift, you must make an attack roll.

 

[Hypersmurf]

But, I also insist that to use that shift, you must make an attack roll.

Not stated anywhere. Any melee attack rolls you do make are penalised. Any melee damage rolls you do make are enhanced. But it's not stated that for the damage roll to be enhanced, there must be a correlating attack roll that has been penalised.

If I make an attack roll and miss, I don't make a damage roll. But the attack roll still incurs the penalty. If the bonus to a damage roll is unnecessary for the penalty to an attack roll to apply, why do you feel the penalty to an attack roll is required before the bonus to a damage roll is allowed?

-Hyp.

 

[Dthamilaye]

Hypersmurf, what do you think about:

Great Flyby Attack (SS p. 35) and Great Cleave together?

If the flier has , for example, dex bonus 8 and hits and kills 6 targets in the flying path, can he make a cleave for each target that died and hit another 6 targets on the path (within reach at that point) and possibly kill them too and continue like that until the end of his movement? The Great flyby attack is a full-round action.


Another question, OT, but related to previous one:
If the Great flyby attack maker uses True strike on the previous turn (or as quickened), does the +20 affect ALL initial targets? It probably would not affect the cleaved ones, but it would again affect some initial targets later on during the run. How would you handle this?

Thanks alot.

(I try to find out, as IMC, the Large half-dragon dwarf barbarian fighter planar champion got all the feats now and these questions came up)

 

[Hypersmurf]

Hypersmurf, what do you think about:

Great Flyby Attack (SS p. 35) and Great Cleave together?

I'm away from my Savage Species right now, so I have no idea what GFBA does...

-Hyp.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Thanks for supporting out POV.

"Before making bread, decide how much salt and sugar you will need" does not in any way tell you what to do when making chocolate milk instead.

It also doesn't prevent you from choosing how much salt and sugar you will need if you DO decide to make bread, even if you happen to make a milkshake instead (like for instance if you were to decide that you didn't have enough salt and sugar...).

A better analogy might be if you had a recipe in which you were to make a chocolate sauce, and a chocolate cake which contains the ingredients from the sauce:

"Before mixing the cake mix, take the appropriate amount of ingredients and make the sauce, then mix the remaining ingredients into the cake mixture"

There is absolutely nothing stopping you from taking the ingredients required for the sauce,and not making the cake afterwards, instead using the sauce on something else which you can use sauce on.

Now, replace the ingredients required for the sauce with a penalty to all attacks for the round, the cake with attack rolls and sauce with damage bonus.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Hypersmurf, what do you think about:

Great Flyby Attack (SS p. 35) and Great Cleave together?

If the flier has , for example, dex bonus 8 and hits and kills 6 targets in the flying path, can he make a cleave for each target that died and hit another 6 targets on the path (within reach at that point) and possibly kill them too and continue like that until the end of his movement? The Great flyby attack is a full-round action.

Unless great flyby specifies (like whirlwind attack) that it disallows all extra attacks, then you can cleave immediately after each death. You don't rack up the deaths and then assign the cleaves, unless GFB has a really odd way of expressing itself.

Another question, OT, but related to previous one:
If the Great flyby attack maker uses True strike on the previous turn (or as quickened), does the +20 affect ALL initial targets? It probably would not affect the cleaved ones, but it would again affect some initial targets later on during the run. How would you handle this?

Does it use a single attack roll? If so, the +20 affects all the targets, otherwise it only affects the first target.
As to whether the rules say that situational bonii apply to cleave targets or not... who knows?

 

[Hypersmurf]

As to whether the rules say that situational bonii apply to cleave targets or not... who knows?

3E Main FAQ says True Strike doesn't apply to a Cleave, which makes perfect sense, and provides the precedent for other situational bonuses.

Dropping someone from higher ground and Cleaving into someone at the same level.

Dropping a bugbear with a Goblinbane sword and Cleaving into a gnoll.

Dropping a demon with Smite Evil and Cleaving into an earth elemental.

It makes no sense for any of those situational bonuses to carry into the Cleave... and the True Strike ruling provides for their exclusion.

-Hyp.