Cleave and Attacks of Oppertunity

[Skullfyre]

so he can charge in from 25 feet and attack one of the 3 and can hit the other 2 as long as they are in 5 feet of his great cleave

x
o x
x


x being the baddies and o being my barbarian boy
And there fore he charges in(gets AOO) but if he drops the first guy down he can get the others thanks to Great cleave

 

[Hypersmurf]

And there fore he charges in(gets AOO) but if he drops the first guy down he can get the others thanks to Great cleave

There are a few misconceptions in there.

You don't get to make an AoO when you charge. You get to make a normal attack.

If that attack drops one of the opponents, then Great Cleave allows him to attack another one of the opponents.

If - and only if - he also drops that second opponent, Great Cleave allows him to attack the third.

-Hyp.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Eek! He keeps editing while I'm typing!

-Hyp.

 

[Skullfyre]

so he can charge in from 25 feet and attack one of the 3 and can hit the other 2 as long as they are in 5 feet of his great cleave

x
o x
x


x being the baddies and o being my barbarian boy
And there fore he charges in(gets AOO)(They get the AOO) but if he drops the first guy down he can get the others thanks to Great cleave

 

[Hypersmurf]

Oh.

For the sake of the question, why not ignore AoOs all together?

A
B@ <-- @
C

If @ charges B, then in this situation there are no AoOs.

If he hits B and drops him, then with Great Cleave, he can attack one foe he threatens - A or C.

If that attack misses, it's the end of his turn.

If that attack hits, but fails to drop the second opponent, it's the end of his turn.

If that attack hits and drops A, then with Great Cleave, he can attack one foe he threatens - C is the only one left, so he attacks C.

No matter what happens, he doesn't threaten anyone else, so after that attack is resolved, it's the end of his turn.

Well, unless he's hasted. In which case he might or might not get a 5' step. But we won't go there.

-Hyp.

 

[Xarlen]

If you do something on an AoO (Trip, Disarm, Grapple) that would provoke an AoO (Disarming without improved Disarm), do They get an AoO? So it's an AoO within an AoO?

 

[CRGreathouse]

If you do something on an AoO (Trip, Disarm, Grapple) that would provoke an AoO (Disarming without improved Disarm), do They get an AoO? So it's an AoO within an AoO?

http://www.enworld.org/messageboards/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3463

 

[RigaMortus]

Oh.

For the sake of the question, why not ignore AoOs all together?

A
B@ <-- @
C

If @ charges B, then in this situation there are no AoOs.

If he hits B and drops him, then with Great Cleave, he can attack one foe he threatens - A or C.

If that attack misses, it's the end of his turn.

If that attack hits, but fails to drop the second opponent, it's the end of his turn.

If that attack hits and drops A, then with Great Cleave, he can attack one foe he threatens - C is the only one left, so he attacks C.

No matter what happens, he doesn't threaten anyone else, so after that attack is resolved, it's the end of his turn.

Well, unless he's hasted. In which case he might or might not get a 5' step. But we won't go there.

-Hyp.

I'm not sure if this would work exactly as you have it set up, or maybe I have been playing it wrong. I was under the impression that a Cleave is basically a single melee attack that is so devastating that it hacks right though one opponent (killing them) right into the next one standing near them. At least, that is how I haven been playing it.

Cleave: If you deal a creature enough damage to make it drop (typically by dropping it below 0 hit points, killing it, etc.), you get an immediate, extra melee attack against another creature in the immediate vicinity.

The first question is to define "immediate vicinity". Does this mean any 5' area that surrounds you? Does this mean any 5' area that surrounds your opponent? Does this mean any area that you can reach in melee combat?

If you kill creature B first, then Cleave to creature C and kill him, you won't be able to Cleave to creature A because he isn't within the immediate vicinity of creature C.

 

[Hypersmurf]

The first question is to define "immediate vicinity". Does this mean any 5' area that surrounds you? Does this mean any 5' area that surrounds your opponent? Does this mean any area that you can reach in melee combat?

The last one. "Immediate vicinity" refers to the fact that you can't move before making the attack. If you're using a longspear and you stab someone 10' to the north and they drop, you can use Cleave to stab someone 10' to the south.

"Hacking through one opponent and into the next one" is one way to visualise the effect of Cleave, sure. But you can Cleave with a punching dagger, or a rapier, or a sap, or a spiked gauntlet, or even a melee-wielded arrow.

Can you really visualise hacking through one opponent and into another with a punching dagger?

-Hyp.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Another way to conceptualize Cleave is that the kill was so easy it doesn't even count as an action. A character launches multiple attacks every round of melee, but only one or a few have a real chance of landing. When you Cleave, you can think of it as one of these incidental attacks as killing the target, leaving you able to attack another.

Though it's going beyond 'interpretation' and into the realm of a rule-0, this can solve the quandry of how Cleave mixes with AoOs and how Great Cleave mixes with Whirlwind Attack. The idea is that, when you Cleave, the bonus attack can only be used against someone you were entitled to attack instead of the one you dropped, had you chosen not to attack him.

For the first, if you drop an opponent with an AoO you can Cleave into someone else: if they also provoked an AoO, and you're still on the same AoO. If you only get one AoO, but have Great Cleave, and a small army of Kobolds willfully try to run past you, you might be able to take them all down. OTOH, if there's an Ogre standing next you as the Kobolds run by, meleeing you normally (not provoking AoOs) none of those Cleave attacks can go into it.

For the second, when you Whirlwind and drop an opponent, you can Cleave into anyone you haven't already hit with the Whirlwind (they're all 'legitimate' targets). By Cleaving into an enemy, you also make him the next target of the Whirlwind (the idea being that, if you hadn't attacked the character you dropped you would have attacked him, ergo, he's your next Whirlwind target). If he survives the Cleave, you Whirlwind him, and, move on to the next available whirlwind victim. If you drop the next guy, you can't go back to someone you've already whirlwinded with the Cleave. If you drop the very last guy you whirlwind, you don't actually get to Cleave (no legitimate targets left).