Cleave: Give me room to work, my minions!

[Merlin the Tuna]

I need to ask.

How the hell could you possibly have cleaved three giants?

First of all, I'm guessing these were hill giants so after a run they would have been 120 feet away while typical barbarian charge is 80 feet. I'm guessing haste is involved though that still leave me with the real mind twister :

They are Large (2x2 squares). You rarely enough have two within reach, I can't think of a probable scenario when three fleeing giants are within reach of the same weapon. They were fleeing in a tight, convenient, 'L' formation, or what?

This. The formation is an especially problematic issue because even a few configurations that put all three in reach require violating the rule that charging must involve moving to the closest space from which you can attack the opponent.

And if he was a Dwarf Barb, his charge speed was 60 feet.

And there's the potential issue of eating 3 AoOs.

 

[Hussar]

This. The formation is an especially problematic issue because even a few configurations that put all three in reach require violating the rule that charging must involve moving to the closest space from which you can attack the opponent.

And if he was a Dwarf Barb, his charge speed was 60 feet.

And there's the potential issue of eating 3 AoOs.

To be fair, if they were running, they wouldn't get AOO's.

But, then again, if they were running, they'd be 120 feet away in the first round, meaning the dwarf couldn't catch them with a charge. Unless Henry means the first one drew the AOO trying to run and the other two were within reach of the dwarf Barbarian. But, that's different than what he said.

Get's really wonky if the giants are bigger than Large as well.

Playing the World's Largest Dungeon, there were lots of fights. Great cleave was almost never seen for the simple fact that it was extremely rare to get more than two opponents within reach at any given time. The orc barbarian with a greataxe got lots of cleave shots into the second target, but, great cleave? Very, very rare.

I put it in the same basket as whirlwind attack. Very, very hard to pull off.

 

[ruleslawyer]

A few thoughts.

For the literraly minded, a bag of rat was never a bag of rat. Typically it's a summon monster III used to get 1D4+1 weak monster (i.e Fiendish dire rat). These would then be used to attack a fighter with a reach weapon, great cleave and combat reflex so that he can kill them and gain several free attack against a big bad monster. A legal and efficient tactic but an awful violation of the spirit of the game.

For the 4e sceptic who hadn't noticed, the bag of rat trick is dead. There is never going to be a scheme where you can generate artificial target for the fighter and it will be a better strategy than just attacking the damn monster instead. The prime reason for it is that cleave can't be performed as an AoO.

Now, back to the OP, attacking a minion in order to hurt the boss is a valid tactic. But is it better to hit the tougher monster and kill a minion on the same attack with cleave, or kill the minions and do 3 points of damage to the tough monster? Hmmm. You might sometime choose the second option if the boss has a much higher AC than the minions but it'll usually be better to do the first. And the fact that it isn't clear which is better at all time is what makes it interesting from a gameplay POV.

Concerning the monsters, is it better to bring your minion or not? Well, Cleave only works on an adjacent opponent. Up to 4 monsters can attack without being adjacent to each other. And you could have minions five minions attacking without being adjacent with the brute. All in all, bring you minion. Even the fighter wants to use them against the brute, he'll probably only get one ore two shot that way.

This.

Really, if your chances of hitting a BBEG are so bad that you need to generate a fake "minion" to get in 3-4 hp damage on him per round, you're boned anyway. Good luck with that.

More to the point, 4e cleave playtests much better IME. More frequent use, cleaner mechanic, and seems to accomplish roughly the same purpose as in 3e (sweeping through multiple mooks).

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

For those of you who didn't find much use with 3e's cleave, did your DM have very many fights with lots of lesser monsters, or were most fights a small number of more powerful ones? For our group, cleave has seen use I would estimate at least once per every two or three game sessions. One of my most memorable game moments was a Dwarf Barbarian in about 2001 who savaged a group of three giants, they all broke morale and ran, and he charged them while they ran, cutting one down...

...and then the second...

...and then the third! (8th level Barbarian, Great Cleave.) Everyone at the table was standing and cheering like a bunch of goofballs.

Karma is a strange beast. Why was I punished for your success? Story:
I remember the exact opposite situation. In a 3.0 Oriental Adventures campaign, we were attacked by a Giant (or vice versa?). Anyway, we all got close to him to charge and strike at him. Then, the Giant rolled his first attack. Hit, kill target number 1. Cleave. Kill Target number 2. Greater Cleave. Kill target number 3. Greater Cleave. Hit, massive damage, Target 4 is still standing. Second attack. Kill Target number 4. Total Party Kill in 1 round.

A few days later or so, the DM saw what went wrong - his eyes slipped into the wrong row, and so we fought a Giant a lot more CRs above our level then it could work.

---

3E Cleave is relatively useful, I think. You will usually come around to kill one foe per combat. Sometimes, other characters "kill-steal" your target, so you don't get your chance, and at other times, there are no secondary targets around. But your chances of using the ability are not non-existing. But Greater Cleave is useless, unless you fight hordes of mooks. And these hordes could as well be fought without the feat, since they are too weak to threaten anyone...

For 4E Cleave, one also has to consider how many Minions can be used at all for your Cleave purposes. If we assume one Elite Monster, we can add approximately 8 Minions of the same level to the encounter. So, you get a typical maximum of 8 x 3 = 24 points of "free" damage against the big bad monster over the course of 8 rounds!* I am not saying this 24 points of damage won't matter, but it's still not enough to "break" the system. I think the opposite tactic, concentrating your attacks on the big target and use the cleave damage to bring down minions might often be more effective. (But the visual seems to work either way).

By the way - now we know why the Pit Devil let's his allies explode - he doesn't want to be "auto-cleaved"...

*) Assuming the damage is strength based, a strength-maxed fighter might increase this to 8 x 5 = 40 points of free damage. Comparable to a ongoing effect that deals 5 points of damage each round. Also "free" damage, but instead of "Save Ends" it is "Minion Death Ends"

 

[Derren]

Its interesting that someone gets warned by moderators when he brings up a very valid concern about the 4E rules.

The paladins challenge at the DDXP showed that automatic damage is problematic and can be exploited.
Cleave also has a automatic damage part and the problem is that it can be more effective to not attack the big armored guy who you actually want to kill but some other opponent standing next to him (Bag of Rats). This is because the automatic damage of Cleave bypasses all defenses the big armored guy has, be it AC, invisibility, mirror image etc. which is imo the real problem.

 

[Green Knight]

which is imo the real problem.

Except it's not a problem, because anyone who's doing that is just wasting his time rather then accomplishing anything. The BBEG isn't going to be brought down by 3 point damage attacks everyr round, and any character who tries to bring him down with a bag of rats is just asking to get killed.

 

[Derren]

Except it's not a problem, because anyone who's doing that is just wasting his time rather then accomplishing anything. The BBEG isn't going to be brought down by 3 point damage attacks everyr round, and any character who tries to bring him down with a bag of rats is just asking to get killed.

Why not? The damage curve in 4E is supposed to be lower. So its very possible that a normal hit only does 1d6+Str. Compared to that just Str, especially when it is high, doesn't look that bad considering that it is a automatic hit (AC, invisibility, displacment, etc.)

8 Damage also doesn't sound like much but many people reportet that this automatic 8 damage were decisive in the DDXP dragon combat.

 

[Green Knight]

Why not? The damage curve in 4E is supposed to be lower. So its very possible that a normal hit only does 1d6+Str.

Kathra did 1d10+5 with her basic attack. Who's going to be carrying around a bag of rats in order to, hopefully, get off a 3 damage attack, and risk who knows what (Like the Opportunity Attacks Chris Sims mentioned), when your minimum damage with your weapon is twice that, and your max damage is 5 times that?

Compared to that just Str, especially when it is high, doesn't look that bad considering that it is a automatic hit (AC, invisibility, displacment, etc.)

An automatic hit, yes, but one which does miniscule damage. Compared to that, you're better off making regular attacks. Even if you miss a couple times, you're still going to be inflicting more damage in the long run.

8 Damage also doesn't sound like much but many people reportet that this automatic 8 damage were decisive in the DDXP dragon combat.

For one, that's 5 damage more, which adds up pretty quickly. Second, it wasn't dependent on having enough rats in a bag to knock down a 280 HP monster to 0.

 

[FireLance]

8 Damage also doesn't sound like much but many people reportet that this automatic 8 damage were decisive in the DDXP dragon combat.

The problem wasn't the 8 damage. The problem was that the rules loophole allowed the paladin to mark a target and then avoid fighting it entirely, which meant that the marked opponent either had to:

1. Attack nobody; or
2. Attack someone other than the paladin, at -2 to attack rolls AND take 8 points of damage at the same time.

Cleave doesn't have the same problem because the fighter needs to be in melee with someone in order to pull it off, so unless he kills both his primary and secondary targets with Cleave, at least one of them ought to be able to attack him back.

EDIT: In addition, if the paladin also had to make melee attacks against his mark (this probably is not the actual fix, just something to illustrate the implications of remaining in melee range), Divine Challenge isn't going to be a problem, either. The marked opponent will simply attack the paladin, at no penalty to his attack rolls and taking no damage. Yes, it means that the paladin is performing his Defender role very well, but if it's a dangerous opponent, he won't be doing so for long.

 

[occam]

Odd. My 16th level fighter has used those feats during every session (those sessions that had combat encounters, anyway). I've benefited from Cleave and Great Cleave so many times that I can't even begin to count them (often those extra attacks every round or so have saved the whole party).

It probably depends a lot on the DM. We usually fight single boss monsters or small numbers of tough ones, and when we do get to fight less powerful creatures, they tend to spread out. Not a lot of cleaving opportunities with opponents like that.