Cleave

[Celebrim]

Awesome - - Quick, Filbert! Use your shift power to move that Kobold wearing an adult diaper so it's adjacent to the red dragon!

Indeed.

It's similar to one of the problems that I had with 1st edition Battlesystem, in that if you mounted a kobold on a dragon, the dragon basically lost half of its hit points.

"Just don't do that" is not an acceptable answer to me.

Some sort of limiting clause, like 'with AC less than or equal to your original target' would not add alot of complexity and would increase how seriously I could take the exploit.

 

[Felon]

So would you compare the original value to the new target's AC or roll again? Either adds an additional level of complexity for a miniscule ammount of damage.

Complexity is not the only thing that can undermine the game's enjoyability. I think having counterintuitive or irrational rules accomplishes that as well. The designers, however, have a "clsoe enough for government work" approach to 4e.

In this case, I think it'd have been simple enough to declare that the cleave has to go to a target with an AC equal or less than the primary target. Indeed, it's sufficiently simple so as to make the fighter's choice of targets for the attack to be obvious in many cases. Attack the red dragon, then splash the cleave to the kobold in the adult diaper.

Then again, exactly because the damage is so minimal, it makes me wonder what the point of Cleave is exactly. If it's to polish off an extra minion, then it would have been simpler to simply have the specific cleave effect be to kill an adjacent minion, rather than inflict a petty amount of damage on minions, standards, elites, and solos alike.

 

[pskought]

Awesome - - Quick, Filbert! Use your shift power to move that Kobold wearing an adult diaper so it's adjacent to the red dragon!

No good! He's got DR higher than my Strength Mod!

 

[brehobit]

No good! He's got DR higher than my Strength Mod!

Yeah, but cleaving from the level 1 Kobold to the level 20 dragon minnon would be scary.

Mark

 

[jeffwik]

But there's another power, IIRC, which does weapon+strength on a hit and strength on a miss. It'll always be better to attack the dragon with that power and have a chance of doing a big pile of damage in addition to the small guaranteed damage, than cleaving a lesser foe solely for purposes of doing strength damage to the adjacent dragon.

 

[Lacyon]

Awesome - - Quick, Filbert! Use your shift power to move that Kobold wearing an adult diaper so it's adjacent to the red dragon!

Because that's clearly a better choice than attacking the dragon directly with a power that deals equivalent damage on a miss, but way more if you hit the dragon?

 

[MindWanderer]

Yeah, but cleaving from the level 1 Kobold to the level 20 dragon minnon would be scary.

Mark

If your DM is putting level 1 kobolds and level 20 dragon minions in the same fight, you have bigger problems.

 

[Nail]

If your DM is putting level 1 kobolds and level 20 dragon minions in the same fight, you have bigger problems.

Right.

One of the things I think 4e does well is accept the fact that the DM has a brain, and can build good encounters.

If he can't....well, this 4e system ain't fer 'im.

 

[hong]

IMO, this cleave models what a "cleave" really is far better: the residual damage you get from swinging hard.

HUR HUR HUR.


Hong "swinging his cleavage" Ooi

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

The real point of cleave is to give a fighter an option to clear out minion.

Using it against a kobold so you can scratch a dragon is called having a deathwish.

Player with IQ above 40 : YOU USED CLEAVE AGAINST A KOBOLD SO YOU COULD DO 6 HP OF DAMAGE ON THE DRAGON!?!?! YOU %?&%$?% IMBECILE!
Player using the fighter : Well, sure. Isn't it smarter than using the my dragon fang power to attack twice at [3w] and do half damage on misses?