Cleave question (AoO)

[mikebr99]

3.5 druids break down into three camps: Melee druids, spellcasting druids and summoning druids. The great cleave tree and combat reflexes will be popular amongst the melee druids. I doubt many melee druids will get to 18th level without picking up combat reflexes. Most of those will probably get great cleave as well. The spellcasting and summoning druids may look elsewhere, but melee druids get too much bang out of these feats to ignore them ...

way OT

I am not in any of those camps... druid wise.

I feel that every druid can be all of those things just by changing their spells. And a few feats from each of those camps.

(not necessarily in this order)

• spell focus - conjuration
• augment summoning
• natural spellcasting
• power attack
• craft wonderous
• leadership
• extend spell
• maximise spell
• cleave
• etc.

 

[Storm Raven]

Because none of the things need for the combo are epic, maybe? The fact that the situation came up at epic levels is irrelevant to the discussion, I've had the same thing happen with a level 10 Psychic warrior when attacked by an army of kobolds. Using powers I managed to get a Reach of 15' and a DEX of 24; I ended up killing 30 or so in one turn.

Wow. A 10th level character managed to bump off 30 1/4 CR creatures in a single turn. Never mind that this is an encounter of such a trivial nature for such a character that he gets no experience for it. The fact that a character optimized for this sort of thing used up some power points and managed to bump off a bunch of meanignless mooks in a single round is evidence that the COMBO IS BROKEN!

Please. Color me unimpressed with your argument.

Add in Whirlwind Attack and a Bucket of Snails and it gets even more entertaining.

Or not. Whirlwind Attack allows you to attack enemies. Snails are not enemies.

 

[Elvinis75]

So? Epic characters can do epic things. Where is the problem?

I had a 14th level cleric that killed over 1000 orcs in an army in a sea of fire over 9 seconds. One firewall cast after another. They trampled each other trying to get away.
Cleave off AOO is not a power issue. I don’t believe that you should be able to make AOO off allies. I thought that it was limited to foes?

 

[The Hanged Man]

AoO is limited to enemies - which is never defined. It can get very metaphysical ("The enemy of my enemy is my friend!").

I find it hard to believe 1000 orcs were killed by a wall of fire. Not even orcs are that stupid.

 

[The Hanged Man]

[/b]
Or not. Whirlwind Attack allows you to attack enemies. Snails are not enemies.

Are they your friends, then? Seriously, why can't a character hate snails with a passion? Maybe you really, really like strawberries, and the snails eat them before you can each spring.

 

[jgsugden]

People are missing the target on the combo. Killing 30 kobolds is not the problem. That is just great cleave in action, allowing a fighter to act like afireball in limited situations.

The problem is getting extra attacks on the BBEG at full AB because his minions provoke and AoO. The problem is a midlevel character (4th level fighter, 6th level human, 9th level other raced) can generate multiple extra strikes at their full attack bonus on a BBEG because he has minions and they provoke an AoO. The problem is that these 'set up' AoO/cleaves are more powerful than the character's nomal attacks.

This leads to ridiculous contrivances just to create the situation. Instead of killing the minion orcs, you cast sleep on them and drag them to the BBEG's lair so that you can wake them up, watch them stand up or crawl away (provoking an AoO), kill them and cleave into the BBEG for extra attacks.

There is something there that can be exploited. If nobody will ever exploite it in your game, you don't need to worry about the problem. Go live a happy life.

If somebody ever decides that they will exploite it in your game, if you wait until they've built up a character over 9 levels specifically to exploite this isuue before outlawing it, that player will resent that you're 'nerfing' his character concept after he spent dozens of hours playing the character up to that point. If, however, you make a house rule that prevents the abuse of the combo before anyone starts to build a character that exploites it, then nobody gets hurt.

Cleaving off an AoO doesn't really make sense, anyways.

BBEG: "Gee, my minion let his guard down. I guess that means I deserve a solid thwacking when you PCs hack it up. I'll let you attack me when you kill my minion."
PCs: "Right decent of you, mate."

 

[jgsugden]

way OT

I am not in any of those camps... druid wise.

I feel that every druid can be all of those things just by changing their spells. And a few feats from each of those camps.

OK. 4 camps. The jack-of-all-trades druid. A druid that focuses on melee will probably be better at it than a j-o-a-t druid.

Yes, even a melee druid can cast spells and summon creatures, but he won't be as good at it as the druid that has taken all the metamagic and spell focus feats or the augment summoning feat.

 

[The Hanged Man]

It was an intended combo, though. They changed whirlwind/cleave, but intentionally left AoO/cleave.

 

[jgsugden]

It was an intended combo, though. They changed whirlwind/cleave, but intentionally left AoO/cleave.

That does not make it intended. It may make it overlooked. The problems with the Gate spell were overlooked. Many problems were overlooked. They've repeatedly said that they did not have the time or resources to change everything they wanted to change. This has not been a situation that was as abused as the whirlwind/cleave combo, so it may not have been a high enough priority to WotC, but it can grant massive numbers of extra attacks to a character. That is a problem.

 

[The Hanged Man]

That does not make it intended. It may make it overlooked. The problems with the Gate spell were overlooked. Many problems were overlooked. They've repeatedly said that they did not have the time or resources to change everything they wanted to change. This has not been a situation that was as abused as the whirlwind/cleave combo, so it may not have been a high enough priority to WotC, but it can grant massive numbers of extra attacks to a character. That is a problem.

Well, differ on the intent. IIRC, the designers said several times this was intended.

Whether it's a smart thing or not is another question. IMO, it's not a big deal in terms of actual effect on the game, but really annoying in terms of "purity of the game," if there is such a thing. Realistically, AoO/Cleave just isn't a problem that often. Is it important enough to warrant making the rules more comlicated?

I tend to agree, it's lame. My houserule is that a cleave off of an AoO simply gives you another AoO to play with. But it does add complexity, and I'm not sure it's worth it.