Can you Cleave with Lay on Hands?

[starwed]

One thing to note is that you can combine a touch attack with an unarmed strike, and it doesn't provoke an AoO. So if you are fighting something which is easy to hit, you can make an unarmed strike combined with LoH, and then cleave off of that with another strike. It doesn't let you use LoH again, but it does let you combine LoH and cleave.

 

[Wolfwood2]

One thing to note is that you can combine a touch attack with an unarmed strike, and it doesn't provoke an AoO. So if you are fighting something which is easy to hit, you can make an unarmed strike combined with LoH, and then cleave off of that with another strike. It doesn't let you use LoH again, but it does let you combine LoH and cleave.

Huh. Would the Lay on Hands be wasted if you missed, or would it work like a Touch spell where you keep the charge until you make a successful hit?

Also, would this work with a gauntlet attack? Few paladins will have Improved Unarmed Strike, but most suits of plate armor come with a pair of gauntlets built in.

 

[starwed]

Well, the description of LoH states that the paladin decides how many of her daily allotment of points to use as damage after successfully touching an undead creature.

And I'm gauntlets just modify your unarmed strike to deal lethal damage. They don't change any of the other rules.

 

[Wish]

How closely do most folks read the "at the same bonus" section?

Suppose a dwarf paladin with a goblin-bane weapon smites a hobgoblin.

He's +8 normally, +2 for the smite, +2 for the bane, +1 for race, for a total of +13 to hit. The gobbo explodes.

He cleaves to a neutral human mercenary. Is he +13 to hit, or +8?

 

[James McMurray]

I'd much rather see a feat that let you lay on hands as part of a cleave attack then one that let you do it as a free action. The first lets you do what the poster is wanting to do and isn't too bad. The second also does what the poster is looking to do but includes vastly more uses and abuses.

Wish: My group reads it as meaning your same BAB, with all other factors changed according to your status during that attack.

 

[ThirdWizard]

I think he meant start a Lay on Hands as a Standard Action, touch and drop Badguy1, start another Lay on Hands as a Swift Action and Cleave.

That assumed you can perform a swift action as a standard action. I fall on the "one swift action per round and that's final" side of that argument, so I would see that as not an option.

For one thing, the primary reason to take such a feat would not be so that you could Cleave with Lay on Hands. It would be so that you could heal yourself in the middle of battle without losing a round of attacks. Cleaving would just be a nice by-product.

That falls into the whole limited unlimited actions thing. Yeah, you could do that, but the max healed hp you can do per day keeps it from being a problem, at least IMO. A feat that lets you Cleave with LoH would be pretty dark weak. Would anyone actually take that? Throw that one a bone.*

How closely do most folks read the "at the same bonus" section?

Suppose a dwarf paladin with a goblin-bane weapon smites a hobgoblin.

He's +8 normally, +2 for the smite, +2 for the bane, +1 for race, for a total of +13 to hit. The gobbo explodes.

He cleaves to a neutral human mercenary. Is he +13 to hit, or +8?

Another fun debate I haven't seen in a while. I think the traditional example uses a Charge, but I might be thinking of something else.

[size=-2]* I play a paladin in a monthly game[/size]

 

[Hypersmurf]

Another fun debate I haven't seen in a while. I think the traditional example uses a Charge, but I might be thinking of something else.

My traditional example used Charge, Flanking, Higher Ground, and True Strike in addition to the ones already listed.

My interpretation is that "at the same bonus" refers to the BAB component of the attack, with situational modifiers added or not added according to the situation.

-Hyp.

 

[Darklone]

Ah yes, the charge bonus and all that other stuff... flanking... add in some strange ability that triggers on your first hit that combat like that Combat Focus feats...

Wasn't the gnome dodge bonus in there as well somehow?

Hyp had such an example years ago...

Edit: And he was faster.

 

[Wolfwood2]

That assumed you can perform a swift action as a standard action. I fall on the "one swift action per round and that's final" side of that argument, so I would see that as not an option.

Well the feat doesn't actually exist, so you could write it to either say "you may still use Lay on Hands as a standard action, thus laying on hands twice per round" or "you must use Lay on Hands as a Swift action and cannot use it twice per round".

There's no need to introduce hypothetical ambiguity!

That falls into the whole limited unlimited actions thing. Yeah, you could do that, but the max healed hp you can do per day keeps it from being a problem, at least IMO. A feat that lets you Cleave with LoH would be pretty dark weak. Would anyone actually take that? Throw that one a bone.*

No, I wouldn't take a feat that only let you Cleave with Lay on Hands. That would be pretty weak.

Maybe if the Cleave attack were allowed to do positive energy damage equal to the initial attack without spending any more Lay on Hands points, then it would be worth it for a cleave-only feat.

 

[moritheil]

How closely do most folks read the "at the same bonus" section?

Suppose a dwarf paladin with a goblin-bane weapon smites a hobgoblin.

He's +8 normally, +2 for the smite, +2 for the bane, +1 for race, for a total of +13 to hit. The gobbo explodes.

He cleaves to a neutral human mercenary. Is he +13 to hit, or +8?

RAW? +13. In actual play most people would interpret it more as Hyp did, I imagine.

There's no need to introduce hypothetical ambiguity!

If only needed things existed on the Internet, it would be very different.