Cleave question (AoO)

[The Hanged Man]

I keep a pretty good eye on the web for comments from WotC people. I never saw anything indicating that they thought cleaving off an AoO was a good component of the game. I never saw anything remotely supporting the idea that they considered this element and intentionally left it in. If you know where you saw it, I'd love to go check out the thread.

As for it not being too important: If it is not used, it is not important. If it is used, it becomes very important. In some styles of game, this is a very common occurence. For instance, if you play the ToEE video game, count the number of times you'll run into a boss amongst foes that you can take down in one hit. If your experience is like mine, this happens a lot.

I compare it to having a loaded gun in the house: It doesn't really matter unless it goes off. If it does, then you probably have a big problem. Besides, you can't really call it unimportant if you'd spend time writing multiple posts on the thread.

I recall it coming up on one of the chats or the WotC "ask the designer" 3.5 thread, but I could be misremembering. Just not that important of an issue for me.

I think it's important to discover what rules problems are unimportant.

There are lots of problems in 3.5. Some of them are mind-numblingly stupid (like Gate, Trip Attacks, and Polymorph). Some are annoying (like missile weapon sizing, and IMO all the new sizing rules). Some are annoying, but don't come up very much, and generally have a minor non-theoretical effect (like, IMO, AoO/Cleave). If you create additional complexity in the game to fix a minor problem, is the game as a whole actually better? Sometimes, not.

I do currently houserule this (in my IRL games), but I'm starting to question whether the problems caused by AoO/cleave are worth an additional house rule. The only time I've seen it come up in games is when people were making a point or trying to be funny. So, it's worth discussing.

 

[jgsugden]

There are lots of problems in 3.5. Some of them are mind-numblingly stupid (like Gate, Trip Attacks, and Polymorph). Some are annoying (like missile weapon sizing, and IMO all the new sizing rules). Some are annoying, but don't come up very much, and generally have a minor non-theoretical effect (like, IMO, AoO/Cleave). If you create additional complexity in the game to fix a minor problem, is the game as a whole actually better? Sometimes, not.

I disagree that this results in a *minor* nontheoretical effect. If a player has these feats in certain styles of games, cleaving off an AoO is not uncommon at all. I've seen it in a few different games with a few different DMs (once used by the DM to take down a PC in the middle of a crowded market with fleeing peasants).

If you look at the Temple of Elemental Evil video game, you'll see plenty of combats where a character with that has PA, Cleave, Combat Reflex and Great Cleave can get a huge number of extra attacks in (though in the game he can not select his cleave target). My fighter character (who had the combo at either 4th or 6th level ... I forget which ...) has made great use of the combo, so much so that I cast cat's grace on him instead of bull's strength even though his armor will not allow him to get any AC bonus from the increased dexterity. There were a few battles in which all I had to do was have him run up to the enemy troops and stand next to the meanest guy. The enemy minions tried to move into flanking positions, provoked AoOs and he cut them all down with AoOs/cleaving.

One extra free attack on the BBEG at full AB is a big deal. Two, three or four more per round can turn a difficult battle into a cakewalk.

If the DM doesn't tend to put minions in with his tougher opponents, this becomes less of an issue. If the DM keeps those minions far away from the BBEG during combat, this becomes less of an issue. But in games where the orc chief surrounds himself with normal orcs, this can become a nightmare.

Try balancing a combat where you're unsure if the PC rogue or fighter will get either 7 attacks on the BBEG (five at full BAB, one at BAB -5) during the first round or 2 attacks on him (one at full BAB, one at BAB - 5), depending upon whether he can get to the BBEG before the minions move away. If you guess that he'll get 2 attacks, the BBEG will probably be a joke if the PC does get his 7 attacks. If you guess that he'll get 7 attacks and the PC only gets 2, you might be looking at a TPK.