Cleave: Give me room to work, my minions!

[Vaeron]

Automatic 3 pts of damage to adjacent enemy simply sucks.

You're understanding this is a 1st level power, where minions have only 1 hp apiece? If a fighter is still using this power regularly at higher levels, then definitely a problem exists. But this power is more than sufficient for a fighter to knock 2 kobold minions on his round, which reduces a skirmishers attack bonus per minion. Theoretically there will be no invisible or displaced enemies or flaming weapons in a typical 1st level adventure or campaign. You have to think of how the pieces all fit together to really critique a power's effectiveness.

 

[Merlin the Tuna]

Incidentally, I have always imagined that Cleave actually does involve literally smashing/piercing/slashing through the fallen enemy's body. I love cinematic images like that--which makes my reaction to many 4e rules rather puzzling considering that the designers seem to be going for a more cinematic feel....

As I already mentioned, this has a host of problems associated with it. If you are cutting through the person, how is it that they're back on their feet after a single application of Cure Light Wounds, especially considering that you need more powerful magic to reattach limbs? How does it work with bludgeoning weapons? With piercing weapons? Does it work with weaponlike spells like Shocking Grasp? How does that work? Does it get followed up by an unarmed strike or more electrical damage?

Cutting through the guy just doesn't make any sense from a mechanics point of view.

 

[Darkthorne]

To me both visually and functionally I like 4E version better. Visually your swing has just enough force to carry through slicing into the next target. You are not cutting deep into either target doing massive damage, just enough to damage both. In 3x you HAD to drop your target (inferring massive damage being done) to get a chance possibly hit an adjacent target. So you have to make sure you are the one doing the killing blow which is much easier said than done, followed up by hoping you hit the next target. Now if you add great cleave to the mix unless you are doing GOBS (yes it's a technical term) and fighting enemies w/o decent hp it doesn't work at all. Also even in 4E if you are targeting the weaker target say something with 60hp and the BBEG has 200hp. Your main hit (say 10dam) will do about 15% of the hp of the smaller target while doing (3hp) 1% of carryover to the BBEG (this would work about 7 times with dead smaller target and 7% of the BBEG). While the way most people view how it should function (from my pov) woulld be the 10dam to the BBEG about 3% and (3hp) 5% to the smaller target. If he alone does 60% to the BBEG which will may be enough to drop it with the rest of the groups' damage the smaller target if dumb enough to stay put would be dead.

 

[Xethreau]

4e cleave works the way I always thought cleave should: you hit two enemies with one sword swing. Needless to say, I never understood why the 3.5 cleave required you to "drop" the foe. To clue you all into how much this was a put off, I have never played a figher.

 

[Wolfspider]

As I already mentioned, this has a host of problems associated with it. If you are cutting through the person, how is it that they're back on their feet after a single application of Cure Light Wounds

This is quite an assumption. In my experience, enemies that are felled by the Cleaving attack are often killed outright by the attack. (I usually just have enemies killed at 0 hit points anyway). Even if they are not killed outright, I haven't found very much reason in my games for EHPs to run around casting Cure Light Wounds on every fallen mook on the battlefield.

In any case, how is this different from being able to spring back up with the use of a healing surge in 4e?

How does it work with bludgeoning weapons?

Well, I guess the first enemy's head could get knocked off and fly into the second enemy...

With piercing weapons?

Well, I guess the first enemy could get run through and the second could be stabbed as well....

Does it work with weaponlike spells like Shocking Grasp? How does that work? Does it get followed up by an unarmed strike or more electrical damage?

No idea. I've never run into that situation. Characters who can use Shocking Grasp do not often also have the Cleave feat.

Cutting through the guy just doesn't make any sense from a mechanics point of view.

*shrugs*

You are quite welcome to that opinion. It doesn't make any sense, mechanical or otherwise, to be able to automatically hit an opponent, no matter how well armored and defended, just because you have struck an adjacent enemy.

 

[Chimera]

I think if the first thing you think of is a bag of rats when reading thru rules, you might want to choose a different hobby. I hear model airplanes are a lot of fun, and rarely require rats be slaughtered.

Maybe you're just not doing the model airplane thing right. Done a certain way, it can cause a veritable rat holocaust.

On a more serious note,

Yee Gawds people, am I ever glad I do not play with people who think of things like a bag of rats and treat it as a serious proposition and a viable solution. I'd have to carry a Frying Pan of Doom to smash some skulls if people pulled that stuff on me.

Or maybe just my 14th century reproduction mace.

 

[Wolfspider]

Yee Gawds people, am I ever glad I do not play with people who think of things like a bag of rats and treat it as a serious proposition and a viable solution. I'd have to carry a Frying Pan of Doom to smash some skulls if people pulled that stuff on me.

This is how I feel when I hear about some crap that has happened in other folk's games. The whole party turning into invisible flying war trolls every combat....brrr. Sick stuff.

 

[FireLance]

Didn't we hear something previously about a fighter power that did Strength damage on a miss? If it's a 1st-level at-will power (and it doesn't seem to me to be too out of line, power-wise), then for some fighters, at least, the choice is between dealing normal damage to a secondary opponent and Strength damage to the primary opponent on a hit, and dealing normal damage to the primary opponent, and Strength damage even on a miss. Such fighters would be better off attacking the primary opponent with the "damage-on-a-miss" power than wasting attacks on insignificant opponents (like rats from a bag) with Cleave.

 

[Kraydak]

OK Ainatan, out of the thread.

You came in with a trollish attempt to derail the thread (the old bag of rats canard) and have stoked the fire since then. If the first thing that you think of when you read a rule is a bag of rats, then I suggest that you probably have the problem, not the rule.

Don't post in this thread again.

For what its worth, I do think the bag-of-rats issue is a serious one (though not for everyone). It isn't serious because the rule issue is serious, but rather because it the rule issue is so absurd. That absurdity, and the need to institute house-rule fixes (and note, there *will* be cases where you can cleave off a rat, legitimately) breaks immersion for me. It makes DnD less of a role-playing experience, and more of a board game.

Many people won't have any such problem. Some won't even understand the possibility of the problem. That doesn't mean there isn't one.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Many people won't have any such problem. Some won't even understand the possibility of the problem. That doesn't mean there isn't one.

While that's true, it is also true that just because you can create a problem, doesn't mean that a problem is really there.

Fitz