Cleave: Give me room to work, my minions!

[DandD]

Yep. And don't start with Great Cleave. Totally dependent of the GM putting one-hit-cannon fodders in your way just for you, and not the fireballing wizard.

Really, that Cleave-iteration is far less stupid than the 3.X-Cleave...

 

[thatdarnedbob]

Let me correct you: If the first thing I think of is a bag of rats when reading through a rule, that probably means that rule is poorly designed, or it's dumb, or it's broken, or it could create discussion on the table, or it could open a can of worms, etc.

Most people don't have a default assumption of bags of rats and are not constantly looking for ways to level up Biff RatLord the fighter. If you find your mind coming back to rats over and over again, it's not the designers fault, you just like rats.

 

[keterys]

It's worth nothing that all it would take to address Ainatan's concern would be '3 damage to an adjacent enemy whose AC would be hit by your attack' or some similar verbiage. It's not much of a stretch.

 

[HeinorNY]

Most people don't have a default assumption of bags of rats and are not constantly looking for ways to level up Biff RatLord the fighter. If you find your mind coming back to rats over and over again, it's not the designers fault, you just like rats.

Why are you discussing my post? Discuss Cleave, tha's what's this thread about.

 

[FallenTabris]

I think it sucks because it makes no sense. Why should the adjacent enemy receive 3 pts of damage? The rules doesn't take into account the adjacent target's AC. What if the adjacent is invisible, what if he is under the Displacement spell? And why 3 pts of damage? The 18 STR fighter with a greataxe and the 12 STR fighter with a dagger both deal 3 pts of damage? What if I'm wielding a Flaming sword? Shouldn't the adjacent enemy get some fire damage too? What about a poisoned dagger, shouldn't the adjacent enemy be poisoned too? What if I deal 1 pt of damage to the primary target, does the adjacent take 3 damage?

I try to envision Cleave as one powerful swing of the weapon that shatters the body of the first opponent then hits the second blindly on the follow through. Displacement and invisibility don't matter as much that way. Though I think you wouldn't know the invisible target is there so you couldn't choose him/her for Cleave damage without the DM allowing it. And it only does a small amount of damage because the blow lost momentum from the first opponent getting hit. I wonder how item effects work with Cleave.. but we won't know until the book is out.

 

[Plane Sailing]

So if I don't like some of the rules I should quit RPG? That's what you are saying? I think if the first thing you think of is "this guy souldn't play RPG" when reading thru a thread, you might want to stop entering RPG boards.

Let me correct you: If the first thing I think of is a bag of rats when reading thru a rule, that probably means that rule is poorly designed, or it's dumb, or it's broken, or it could create discussion on the table, or it could open a can of worms, etc.

Really, I just think 4E Cleave doesn't deliever all the fun 3E Cleave used to do. It's one of the ultra-simple ultra-boring 4E rules.

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.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Silly poster, didn't you know there's a whole forum here on ENWorld (not to mention the smackdown forums over at WotC's boards) that are dedicated to this type of thing?

And thankfully this type of rules-wankery isn't hamstringing the designers. A bag of rats are equipment and background, not opponents. Nothing YOU bring to the combat is an opponent.

 

[Sir Sebastian Hardin]

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.

And there goes the thread.

Why are you discussing my post? Discuss Cleave, tha's what's this thread about.

I think ainatan was actually trying to get somewhere. He gave a lot of other reasons. It's other's posters fault to keep talking about the bag of rats. It was just an example

 

[DandD]

And there goes the thread.



I think ainatan was actually trying to get somewhere. He gave a lot of other reasons. It's other's posters fault to keep talking about the bag of rats. It was just an example

ainatan brought out the bag of rats as a possible way to "exploit" the new 4th edition Cleave-mechanism, and when people pointed out that this "exploit" really was silly/ridicoulus, he then went on to rant about how ultra-simple and ultra-boring the 4th edition rules are.

You should talk with the moderators if you think that ainatan has been wrongfully put to caution. However, I don't think there's a big chance for that.

 

[Cirex]

I understand the concern of some people, hitting lower armored enemies to get some damage in against the high armored enemies, but I guess we need to wait for the full description of the power. Maybe the predefined encounter balance doesn't leave much room for this "exploit", like, all enemies in a group having similar AC.