Cleave with a touch spell?

[FireLance]

No. Because while you're making it drop, you're not dealing it enough damage to make it drop; you're bypassing the damage-dealing requirement entirely.

Using that interpretation, lopping a creature's head off with a vorpal weapon wouldn't trigger Cleave, unless you could have made the creature drop with the damage dealt alone.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Using that interpretation, lopping a creature's head off with a vorpal weapon wouldn't trigger Cleave, unless you could have made the creature drop with the damage dealt alone.

Right.

"If you deal a creature enough damage to make it drop..."

Did you deal enough damage to make it drop? No; it dropped for a different reason. You didn't satisfy the requirements for Cleave to trigger.

-Hyp.

 

[frankthedm]

The SRD quote that Barendd Nobeard uses states "typically by dropping it to below 0 hit points or killing it"

So a death effect that kills the victim should work shouldn't it (provided that you still had a charge of course)? A vorpral weapon critical would be another example.

So you try to drop off half the sentece? This is not a movie advertisment. The SRD quote actually states [bolding the parts that you left off] "If you deal a creature enough damage to make it drop (typically by dropping it to below 0 hit points or killing it), you get an immediate, extra melee attack against another creature within reach. You cannot take a 5-foot step before making this extra attack. The extra attack is with the same weapon and at the same bonus as the attack that dropped the previous creature. You can use this ability once per round."

Death Effect: No
Vorpal: No
Death by Massive Damage: Yes