Cleave Whirlwind Combo

[Crothian]

I disagree.
Why is three allowed but seven not allowed?
Would 5 be OK?

Geoff.

Actually, my scenerio wasn't meant to be about numbers. It was about in the first part killing all the lackeys and getting many extra attacks against the big bad guy. The second example was about luck of the roll and how you should be able to get to cleave the same target more then once. The explanation was more then a little misleading. Allow me a second chance to explain myself.

Situation where great cleave/ Whirlwind attack and using the cleaves against the same target is abused IMO:
You are fighting a very strong opponent with many little lackies. They all rush you and whenever you drop a lacky the cleave attack goes at the strong opponent.

Situation where great cleave/ WWA and using the cleaves against the same target is not abused, IMO:
You are fighting multiple creatures and you roll great against some, dropping them quickly, but you keep rolling bad against this other guy, so you attack him more with the cleaves.

Does this make more sense? One is where the person is using the cleaves to the greatest effect by keep pounding the toughest foe. The second, you are using the cleave attacks to help negate your bad luck. The sitautions are a little ideal, but I'm just trying to show why allowing more then one cleave attack against the same opponent should not be considered a black and white issue.

 

[hong]

Does this make more sense?

No.

 

[Vaxalon]

The problem hasn't come up in my game... so I haven't had to rule.

In the case of the "bucket of snails" or other such, since they're not opponents, they don't get attacked in a whirlwind. The same for summoned monsters.

To be honest, noone in the game has the Str, Int and Dex requirements to get the whole combo.

 

[Orco42]

If one of my players thought of this on their own I would let it work fine (bucket o' snail and all).

But if one of them does do it I will know they got it from the boards, so I would let them do it one.

Then in the next fight they will fall victim to it.

 

[MeanGenes]

IMO, the easy fix for this (for those who think the GC/WWA combo is too strong) is to only allow a number of cleaves equal to what a BAB would normally allow for one opponent. For instance, if you have a BAB of 11-15, you can use great cleave up to 3 times on one opponent, because that is how many attacks you would have normally had in one round had you decided not to use any cleaves at all. A BAB of 16-20 allows up to 4 cleaves on one opponent. This is how I would adjucate it if I were DM to prevent abuse.

 

[Brother Laszlo]

The simplest fix is simply to rule that the character has to preselect his hits, and make the cleaves carry on tot he next player. I personally don't think the combo is terrifically powerful, but it just doesn't make physical sense.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Another way to conceptualize Cleave is that the kill was so easy it doesn't even count as an action. A character launches multiple attacks every round of melee, but only one or a few have a real chance of landing. When you Cleave, you can think of it as one of these incidental attacks as killing the target, leaving you able to attack another.

Though it's going beyond 'interpretation' and into the realm of a rule-0, this can solve the quandry of how Cleave mixes with AoOs and how Great Cleave mixes with Whirlwind Attack. The idea is that, when you Cleave, the bonus attack can only be used against someone you were entitled to attack instead of the one you dropped, had you chosen not to attack him.

For the first, if you drop an opponent with an AoO you can Cleave into someone else: if they also provoked an AoO, and you're still on the same AoO. If you only get one AoO, but have Great Cleave, and a small army of Kobolds willfully try to run past you, you might be able to take them all down. OTOH, if there's an Ogre standing next you as the Kobolds run by, meleeing you normally (not provoking AoOs) none of those Cleave attacks can go into it.

For the second (the topic of this thread), when you Whirlwind and drop an opponent, you can Cleave into anyone you haven't already hit with the Whirlwind (they're all 'legitimate' targets). By Cleaving into an enemy, you also make him the next target of the Whirlwind (the idea being that, if you hadn't attacked the character you dropped you would have attacked him, ergo, he's your next Whirlwind target). If he survives the Cleave, you Whirlwind him, and, move on to the next available whirlwind victim. If you drop the next guy, you can't go back to someone you've already whirlwinded with the Cleave. If you drop the very last guy you whirlwind, you don't actually get to Cleave (no legitimate targets left).

 

[KarinsDad]

For the second (the topic of this thread), when you Whirlwind and drop an opponent, you can Cleave into anyone you haven't already hit with the Whirlwind (they're all 'legitimate' targets). By Cleaving into an enemy, you also make him the next target of the Whirlwind (the idea being that, if you hadn't attacked the character you dropped you would have attacked him, ergo, he's your next Whirlwind target). If he survives the Cleave, you Whirlwind him, and, move on to the next available whirlwind victim. If you drop the next guy, you can't go back to someone you've already whirlwinded with the Cleave. If you drop the very last guy you whirlwind, you don't actually get to Cleave (no legitimate targets left).

Although this sounds good, I wouldn't want to be the one to explain to my player that although he only dropped the last guy in the Whirlwind, he does not get to use his Cleave (or Great Cleave) feat at all. Minimally, I would add a caveat that if you drop the last guy in the list, you then get a Cleave on the first guy who survived the Whirlwind attack (if you drop him, you can then Great Cleave the next guy who survived the Whirlwind attack, etc.).

 

[Tony Vargas]

Although this sounds good, I wouldn't want to be the one to explain to my player that although he only dropped the last guy in the Whirlwind, he does not get to use his Cleave (or Great Cleave) feat at all.

Most of the time, you have some clue how tough your opponents are, and it would be reasonable to Whirlwind the weakest ones first. Anyway, what the variant I mentioned effectively does is limit you to getting at most one Whirlwind and one Cleave on each target. A simpler implementation would just be to limit Great Cleaving Whirlwinds to one extra attack per target, period. Rationale not required, balance achieved while leaving both feats useful.