Cleave feat

[bolen]

Am I reading this correctly? In the new adventure the Dwarf Fighter PC has the Cleave feat at will power that if an enemy is hit you deal 2d6+3 damage and deal 3 HP damage to an adjacent enemy regardless of what your to hit roll is. So I could have 2 enemies one with a low AC and one with a high AC and I could just hit the lower AC one and automatically damage the other one regardless of if I hit him

 

[hong]

Correct. The general consensus is that this is a stupid idea and you're much better off just using your bigger powers on the tough opponent, but you could indeed do that if you wanted.

 

[brehobit]

Correct. The general consensus is that this is a stupid idea and you're much better off just using your bigger powers on the tough opponent, but you could indeed do that if you wanted.

And if the high AC one happened to be a minion, it's a really good idea. Not the common case, but...

In general, this looks like a "kill the minion" ability.

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

In two sessions, ten combats using the KotS pre-gens the dwarf fighter has used Cleave maybe a dozen times and offed a minion with the splash damage maybe five or six times. He uses Reaping Strike more often to guarantee a bit of damage on a miss or an encounter/daily power.

Not once has the dwarf fighter consciously used cleave to target an easy mark and do splash damage to another critter with higher AC.

 

[Ahglock]

While the logic of the power fails, the only way i could see this being used as suggested in the OP is if the DM throws a monster with a effectively unhitable AC against the party who is surrounded by a bunch of low AC lackeys. It is kind of like a ineffective bag of rats solution to bad DMing.

 

[Sitara]

Still its a cool power, though its very hard to understand IC. Perhaps it would have been better to simply go the way of the traditional cleave and grant an extra attack using the same bonus if the original attack kills the foe.

 

[Kraydak]

*If* your fighter is using a sword-and-board, then it will occasionally be useful to attack a secondary target in hopes of splashing onto your main one with Cleave. Any 2-hander using fighter should have Reaping Strike, which largely invalidates the whole concept (unless the very high AC opponent is a minion).

The key is that with a 1-hander, you are given up less [W] damage (on hits) and at a 50% hit rate on the low-AC guy you are doing the same damage to your desired target as Reaping Strike would on a miss.

The situation will come up, but rarely enough that you might well only notice in retrospect. In average-damage calculations, be *certain* to include criticals. The tactic is only useful against very high AC opponents, and as such *most* of your hits would also be crits (go go removal of crit confirmation rolls...). Note finally that if you are in a situation where using this tactic makes sense, you should probably be spending more mental effort on Running Away.

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

Note finally that if you are in a situation where using this tactic makes sense, you should probably be spending more mental effort on Running Away.

Win!

 

[Grazzt]

Correct. The general consensus is that this is a stupid idea and you're much better off just using your bigger powers on the tough opponent, but you could indeed do that if you wanted.

Yeah. I dont quite care for it as it is. Maybe comparing the original attack roll to the adjacent opponent's AC. If its equal or higher = hit; course, if its not....that power is pretty pointless then I guess.

Maybe alter it so if you drop a target to bloodied or something, then you make an attack against an adjacent opponent.

 

[Kraydak]

Note that my above analysis *only* applies if you don't care about the damage applied to the target you directly attack. This is very rare. In general, if you are facing two targets, attack the lower AC one, even if the higher AC one is the highest priority. If the higher AC one is a minion, it is a no-brainer. If he isn't a minion, it'll take a while to drop him anyways, and clearing out the trash faster is a good idea.