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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 4152455" data-attributes="member: 710"><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />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"</blockquote>

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