Cleave and AoO

[Baron Von StarBlade]

A=you
B=ally
M=monster with 10' reach

A _ M _ B

B is standing 20' away when he drinks his potion. Adding angles and bending around corners can make the distance 25'.

Okay I misunderstood what you meant by being 25 feet away. . I thought you meant 25 feet away from the Monster However A and B are still in the threatened area of M so they are subject to attacks no matter how or when they occur.

Those last two sentences I quoted are exactly stating the problem. Why does B's action affect whether A gets hit an extra time?

The last two sentences are my point. The victim of an attack has no say so in whether or not he is a target. Greatly simplifing you are stating that the victim has control over whether or not he becomes the target of an attack. Specificially, saying that the victim (A in your example) has no control over getting hit from an AoO Cleave therefore he shouldn't be a target of an attack.

Combat 1 (A vs. M)
round 1
A hits M
M hits A
round 2
A hits M, killing M

Combat 2 (A & B vs. M)
round 1
A hits M
B drinks potion, M hits B, cleave on A
M hits A, killing A

Notice any difference?

Yeah you are assuming that M does more damage on a cleave than a normal attack. Since in Example 1 M needs more than 1 hit to drop A. However in Example 2 M only needs 1 hit to drop A. With all things being equal, A would have died in round 1 of the first example.
However you are dodging my question. How is Combat 2 any different from this example

Combat 3 (A & B vs. M)
round 1
A hits M
B hits M
M hits B, cleave on A
M hits A, killing A

In Example 3 the only difference is B got a pot shot on M (possibly killing M). However the outcome is the same & A still has no control of being the target of a cleave.

It seems you are insuating that a Target of a cleave lets his guard down only during the opponents attack action, because any other time they can't be targeted by a cleave attempt. That is unlogical; if anything they would be more defensive when the opponent was attacking and less offensive during the rest of the round.

 

[Archer]

If people in your party are dropping you have more serious problems than wondering if you should get hit because of someone else triggering an AoO.

If its the monsters that a getting whipped, who cares? That's what is supposed to happen. Things are probably so mismatched that a fireball would kill 4x as many as a great cleave.

...Just don't have your friend empty the bucket o' snails and say you get to go to town on the big bad guy.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Yeah you are assuming that M does more damage on a cleave than a normal attack. Since in Example 1 M needs more than 1 hit to drop A. However in Example 2 M only needs 1 hit to drop A. With all things being equal, A would have died in round 1 of the first example.

I am absolutely positively making no such assumption whatsoever. Look at my examples again. In the first example combat last two rounds. In the second example combat last one round because the out of sequence attack from the Cleaved AoO

However you are dodging my question. How is Combat 2 any different from this example

Combat 3 (A & B vs. M)
round 1
A hits M
B hits M
M hits B, cleave on A
M hits A, killing A



It seems you are insuating that a Target of a cleave lets his guard down only during the opponents attack action, because any other time they can't be targeted by a cleave attempt. That is unlogical; if anything they would be more defensive when the opponent was attacking and less offensive during the rest of the round.

The difference between my examples and your example is I keep track of initiative order and you do not. You gave M two actions in a row for no reason I can fathom. (Considering multiple attacks only muddies the situation without changing the fundamental issues.)

A target does not let his guard down when he is attacked.

I am insinuating a target only lets his guard down after his initiative when he provokes an AoO. In 3e "letting one's guard down" only meaningfully applies to flatfooted and actions that provoke AoOs. That is implicit to the entire combat system (even if there are controversies about the implementation).

 

[mikebr99]

I'd probably restrict Cleave from an AoO to opponents that are actually provoking AoOs. If 3 orcs try to charge past you, sure, cut 'em all down in one might swing. But if they charge past you while you locked in combat with a cagey duelist, I don't see why you should get an extra attack on /him/... (heck, if anything, he should get an extra poke at you while you're wildly hacking away at the orcs).

Basicly, Cleave should never let you get in an attack that you couldn't have taken /instead/ of the the one that dropped the opponent. Otherwise, you get situations - like the infamous bag o' rats - where it becomes advantageous to conjure up (litterally or figuratively) whimpy opponents so you can wail on the real ones by killing them.

What you are describing, takes a straight, human fighter 8 levels to get... 5 feats needed for the Whirlwind chain, and 3 for the Great Cleave chain... plus he needs 13+ STR, 13+ DEX, 13+ INT, and is limited to medium armour.

Why do you want to nerf that much dedication? Especially since the fighter has nerfed himself specializing that way anyway...

These kind of powergaming NEVER come up in real games, You are fighting with your party... you really only see two or three baddies at one time as the fighter...

High level mages will be throwing 3 fireballs at the grunts, per round... why can't or shouldn't the fighter be able to keep up to that???

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

If people in your party are dropping you have more serious problems than wondering if you should get hit because of someone else triggering an AoO.

I guess you are right. If we are losing the battle and my unlucky comrade nearby desperately tries to retreat I clearly deserve to die right then and there. How can I be so foolish to think otherwise?

This is not some theorectical situation to me. It is just not common because PCs do not drop unconscious all that often in most campaigns.

The second time I ever say Cleave used we were fighting a monster with reach and my comrade attempted to retreat because he thought he would get killed if he did not disengage. That extra out of sequence attack was the difference between life and death for my character.

 

[Mordeth]

Maybe

Maybe you are looking at this from a straight rules perspective. Lets try to think how this would happen in real life... <kids, please dont try this at home>

You and a friend are wailing on a thug with baseball bats, the thug has a baseball bat as well. Hey, you even have him flanked. Life sucks for the thug. Until your friend remebers he has unloaded gun in his backpack. He decides to dig for it and load it during the middle of this melee. The thug seeing an opening, makes a swing for your friend, clocking him upside his head. Your friend goes down like a sack of potatoes. The momentum from his swing carries around and hits you as well.

That is a cleave. It had nothing to do with you messing up. You were giving him a beatdown, until your partner dropped his guard. Usually, a swing when it hits, smacks some meat and has to be "reset" for the next swing. BUT, when he swings and knocks someone down, he has enough force to continue on and finish the swing.

I "think" this is what was throwing you off, why you get hit for a friend provoking an AoO. Thats what a cleave is anyway, just a massive swing that keeps going, ie great cleave

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

These kind of powergaming NEVER come up in real games, You are fighting with your party... you really only see two or three baddies at one time as the fighter...

A human Fighter can Greater Cleave Whirlwind at 6th level.

It will happen more often than never if the DM allows it.

At higher levels it is efficient for a spellcaster who is having trouble penetrating SR of a Big Monster to turn a 2nd or 3rd level spell slot into a few attacks for the best melee Fighter. SR can be a real problem for multiclassed spellcasters. Summoning kobolds (who cares if they are blind when the Fighter has an AC of 30) and "leveraging" them into attacks with Whirlwind + GC or Combat Reflexes + GC are technically legal ways to do so.

Cheesy and stupid? Yes. No one would ever do it? Only because it is so cheesy and stupid that it should be illegal.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Re: Maybe

Maybe you are looking at this from a straight rules perspective. Lets try to think how this would happen in real life... <kids, please dont try this at home>

...

That is a cleave. It had nothing to do with you messing up. You were giving him a beatdown, until your partner dropped his guard. Usually, a swing when it hits, smacks some meat and has to be "reset" for the next swing. BUT, when he swings and knocks someone down, he has enough force to continue on and finish the swing.

I "think" this is what was throwing you off, why you get hit for a friend provoking an AoO. Thats what a cleave is anyway, just a massive swing that keeps going, ie great cleave

Sure. In that case my fighter will practice Cleaving imaginary opponents. Why not?

In real life it certainly is not easier to clock an imaginary target than a real one, right? That is just good old real life common sense.

When I get Combat Reflexes it will give me 2-3 extra attacks per round.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I don't know where to begin...

OK, in D&D a single attack roll generally represents multiple attacks, parries, fients, dodges, etc. If the roll is successful, one of those gets through. If your BAB is high enough for itterative attacks, maybe more than one gets through (you're not actually hitting more often, just more effectively). If your enemy does something collosally stupid, then one of those attacks that wouldn't normally have gotten through, does. That's an AoO.

AoOs are provoked, courtesy of the victim, not initiated by the attacker. It'd be absurd to allow a Cleave off an AoO into a non-AoO-provoking target. (However, that doesn't mean an AoO that drops a target should never allow you to Cleave...)

Cleave also depends on the idea of one attack roll equating to multiple attacks. When you drop an enemy and you have Cleave, the kill was so easy it didn't really 'use up' your potential, successful attack for the round - you dropped him instantly on the first swing or so. With Great Cleave, it's more so. The attack that dropped the enemy effectively becomes a freebie, and you didn't use up your attack for the round - so you can use it on someone else. Obviously, you can only use that attack on someone you could have attacked /instead/ of the one you dropped. When you're the agressor, that's anyone in your threatened area. The attack you make is effectively the same one that dropped the victim - all the same modifiers, and the same kind of attack.

Thus, if you cleave off an AoO, it's still an AoO. You can't take an AoO on someone who hasn't provoked one. So, unless you have several enemies all provoking AoOs at the same time (for instance, when several try to get past your reach or grapple you or move past you), you don't have a legitimate target for the cleave.

 

[Mordeth]

So even though...

So even though cleave states that when you reduce a target to zero or below HP's, you can make an additional attack, you dont get an attack? AoO stands for ATTACKS of opportunity.

I personally liked the sweep rule better from a long time ago