Cleave - Automatic hits on 2nd target?

[Ingolf]

Why exactly is a the Gm putting in impossible to hit creatures?

Worse yet, why is he putting impossible to hit creatures along with a horde of easy to hit creatures?

You can dream up a scenario to make anything the players do overpowered, just as long as you are not limited to the sorts of things that people actually do in the game.

 

[chaotix42]

My only beef with this is not that it does damage, but that it *automatically* does damage and doesn't make any sense why it should. I can see combats where the big bad NPC is afraid of standing next to minions because he might get cleaved, but can go toe-to-toe with the fighter without much fear because he has some incredbile AC or special ability... it's just hypothetical but it's so stupid it's laughable to auto hit something when you can't hit it by aiming at it.

Might get cleaved = might take a small amount of damage.

The small amount of damage is much more dangerous to the minion, since it will kill him. The NPC or solo monster has many more HP and probably has little reason to fear it except over the course of many rounds and many minions. No, the NPC or solo should be much more worried about the fighter using some big Daily on him.

EDIT - Hey, is anyone else's text black when they make a post? The only way I can read what I'm typing is if I highlight my post or preview it. : /

 

[DemonLord57]

EDIT - Hey, is anyone else's text black when they make a post? The only way I can read what I'm typing is if I highlight my post or preview it. : /

Yeah, it is. I "fix" it by making the text white with the colors bar. (Button with a large A over a color)

On the subject, I see no reason to think this is cheap in any way. You still need to hit! This is nothing compared to some cheap minion killing tactics. For example: 1) Use a Rod of Reaving as a warlock. Curse a minion as a minor action. He dies. 2) Be a Blood Mage. Use your second wind. All minions in a 21x21 area centered on you are now dead. 3) Cast cloudkill, stinking cloud, fire storm, astral storm, or just about anything else that does damage regardless of whether you hit or not. Hell, use Cloud of Daggers, the relatively useless Wizard at-will. Instant minion kill.

 

[Derren]

Um, I was under the impression indirect cleave damage would not kill a minion.

No. Minions are not affected by damage resulting from a missed attack, but automatic/indirect damage still kills them.

 

[Pbartender]

3) Cast cloudkill, stinking cloud, fire storm, astral storm, or just about anything else that does damage regardless of whether you hit or not. Hell, use Cloud of Daggers, the relatively useless Wizard at-will.

The rule books explicitly state that minions never die on a miss, regardless of wether they take damage. So, if you toss a fireball at a minion and you fail to hit his Reflex defense, then the minion does not die even though the spell deals 1/2 damage on a miss.

EDIT: Or what Derren said...

 

[WhatGravitas]

Um, I was under the impression indirect cleave damage would not kill a minion.

It does kill the minion. The minion kill process is like this:

Question A: Has the minion taken damage?
If no: It lives.
If yes: Go to B.

Question B: Was that damage from a miss (if any attack roll was involved at all)?
If yes: It lives.
If no: It dies.

The cleave only does indirect damage on a hit, hence it's damage and no miss. Hence, the minion is dead.

Cleave is even an example on page 55 in the DMG.

Cheers, LT.

 

[DemonLord57]

Sorry, I was misleading when I said "whether you hit or not". What I meant was that you don't need to hit, because you don't roll an attack; it does automatic damage. All of those (and more) work to kill minions instantly. This is not a problem, IMO, because they are minions...

 

[NorthSaber]

This edition of the game has a lot of things that don't make sense, but make gameplay faster. Cleave could have been done in 3e style where you make a totally new attack roll and damage roll, but that slows down the game, which is something nobody wants. So 4e made a few logical sacrifices - the end result is 99% the same, and so much faster to play.

Automatic damage is one of those weird ones. Our group faced these tiny crab creatures - totally harmless minions with a weak attack, but if you started next to one of them, you took automatic damage from each of them. Yikes! Didn't matter if you wore platemail or if you were encased in 3" of concrete, those SOBs got through.

4e, more than any other game system I've seen, requires for the DM and the players to work together in coming up with cool explanations of what really happened (i.e. provide appropriate fluff) and what the hp loss really means.

For instance, the cleave might not be a physical hit - you could just as well explain it as the enemy becoming demoralized as you slash his friend's entrails on his face.

Come and Get It has similar problems, as it also draws near invisible rogue-type enemies and weak wizard-type enemies who would rather stay as far away from you as possible, and it is left as a mutual exercise for the DM and the players to come up with an explanation as to how this end result came to be. Did someone push the wizard? Did the fighter feign weakness so the rogue saw an opportunity to strike?

I don't really think it's a problem but it requires a different approach to the game.

 

[Wormwood]

Why exactly is a the Gm putting in impossible to hit creatures?
If its a BBEG is it really afraid to get into the fight because it might take 4 or so damage?
Lastly, this mechanic sounds stupid in description I agree but it allows the fighter to contribute damage at some level just as other classes with "Miss: you still do some damage" abilities.

This. This. A thousand times this.

 

[Mort_Q]

Um, I was under the impression indirect cleave damage would not kill a minion.

No. Minions are not affected by damage resulting from a missed attack, but automatic/indirect damage still kills them.

In fact, Cleave was specifically mentioned in the Minion preview articles as killing Minion.