Cleave and AoOs

[Ridley's Cohort]

I see Cleave as plowing right thru the first guy, and continuing on to the next. And I can see how the first idiot prevented the second guy from properly defending himself by "virtue" of being in the frickin' way.

Being in the way? It is easy to imagine situations where the secondary target is 15 or 25 feet away from the AoO victim. If we were only talking about allies standing 5' apart, maybe this way of thinking about it would make sense. But we are not.

My personal opinion is cleaving off an AoO is allowed by the letter of the rules, but it is a bad idea overall. I consider it a Very Bad Thing for DMs to discourage wounded PCs from attempting to retreat from combat, and throwing in bonus cleaving attacks can do exact that. I have seen it in real play.

YMMV.

 

[hong]

It's strange that people can take two arguments and conclude no question that one is right and another is wrong. So the cleave feat says you can make an extra melee attack per round. So what? The AoO rule says you can only make one per round. So who is to say which is the correct ruling? It's just a matter of opinion.

The cleave attack you get after dropping someone from an AoO is not itself an AoO, and so the limitations on AoOs don't apply.

 

[nimisgod]

Well, I see cleave as a following of momentum after a kill, whether it is literally cleaving through one bad guy into the next, or, a spear man that suddenly makes two stabs in the span of less than a second.

Think of it as something like the use of excess energy in martial arts.

Besides, in a heroic (as opposed to grim and realistic) game like D&D, it's not really that hard to imagine.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Besides, in a heroic (as opposed to grim and realistic) game like D&D, it's not really that hard to imagine.

True. But there are many, many things that are not really that hard to imagine. Most of them make lousy rules IMO.

 

[FrankTrollman]

Cleave can represent any of a number of things - including the Errol Flynn fighting style where you throw knocked over guards into other guards for hillarious combat antics and the Conan style multiplybeheading swing.

Since Cleave works just as well with a warhammer as it does with a greataxe as it does with a trident - I can't believe that there are still people arguing that cleave represents "one specific action" and is thus "unrealistic" when used in some particular circumstance.

What it represents to be using your cleave attack will depend upon the weapon you are using, the types of enemies you are facing and the situation you are in.

It's a very fluid concept because combat itself is fluid. The only thing the game tells you are the game mechanics - namely that you get a bonus attack when you take out a threat. How or why that happens is left to your imagination.

If you can't imagine why or how you could get an extra attack in any situation: your imagination sucks.

-Frank

 

[TracerBullet42]

If you can't imagine why or how you could get an extra attack in any situation: your imagination sucks.

-Frank

Right on, brother!

 

[Fester]

Well, I have to say that the comments posted here made me take time out to reappriase my initial ruling, but even so haven't entirely convinced me that using cleave as an AoO is the right way to go for my campaign. While I totally agree that the rules as they stand allow for such feats to be used as part of an AoO, it just doesn't sit easily with me.

I see cleave as part of a aggressive action against your foe, whereas I see an AoO as just that, an opportunistic attack where you get to hit your foe when he's not expecting it. Following up with cleave just seems to be far too concentrated to fit it with the the idea of opportune.

If that makes any sense...

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Well, I have to say that the comments posted here made me take time out to reappriase my initial ruling, but even so haven't entirely convinced me that using cleave as an AoO is the right way to go for my campaign. While I totally agree that the rules as they stand allow for such feats to be used as part of an AoO, it just doesn't sit easily with me.

I see cleave as part of a aggressive action against your foe, whereas I see an AoO as just that, an opportunistic attack where you get to hit your foe when he's not expecting it. Following up with cleave just seems to be far too concentrated to fit it with the the idea of opportune.

If that makes any sense...

Yes, it makes sense, and I agree with you: The letter of the rules allows the CoO, but it doesn't seem right to me, and so I don't allow it.

 

[Thanee]

The problem is mainly, that the extra attack spawns off another extra attack, which has a limited application, but that limit is lost on the way (which shouldn't be, IMHO at least).

The rules quite clearly do this and thus allow Cleaving off an AoO, but many people (including myself) do not allow this, for the reasons listed here.

It has nothing to do with imagination or what Cleave does represent (the fact alone, that you can Cleave with daggers or rapiers should make clear, that Cleave must mean more than a powerful blow, that cuts one victim in half and carries on into the next ).

Bye
Thanee

 

[nimisgod]

True. But there are many, many things that are not really that hard to imagine. Most of them make lousy rules IMO.

But some of them make decent rules.

I don't think it's unbalancing to assume that Cleave can occur in an AoO. It's not like Cleave occurs ALL the time.