Cleaving after an AoO

[Scion]

Wow!
Nicely done atom. What a concept! Use the rules to show what the rule is.
Ok, the answer to the original post is that it cannot be done.
Next.

If of course it actually worked that way, but even by what he just quoted it does not.

The aoo allows you an attack against an opponent. Fine. Then cleave, if its conditions are met, grant an 'extra' attack. That would make an attack that is in addition because the correct conditions were met. Just like a normal full attack action only allows for your normal amount of attacks but haste can add an extra attack in there, same thing.

So, one aoo, if conditions are met then cleave. Going directly by what he just quoted it works just fine.

 

[Lamoni]

I think that your entire gripe is simply with Cleave itself. It is a difficult feat to really think about, it works in very odd ways. However, the point is not that it is hard to think about, the point is how it works and what it does.

Sorry, I had to step in here. I hate being told what I am saying when it isn't true. In the last thread on this topic that went on for several pages it was a recurring theme to say that people who didn't like it just didn't like cleave in general.

Here is a situation. one fighter with great cleave, 8 orcs surrounding the fighter. On the fighters turn he kills orc1, cleaves, kills orc 2, cleaves, kills orc 3, cleaves. Even if he kills all 8 orcs on his turn he is still limited by his BAB for his number of attacks against any one orc.

Let's say his BAB is +5. If he ever misses an orc, his attacks stop. He can never get a second attack against an orc in one round without that orc doing something stupid and provoking an attack of opportunity. Now let's say his BAB is +16. He can never get more than 4 attacks against a single opponent unless that opponent provokes an attack of opportunity.

Okay, I have ignored Cleaving off of AoO's until now. But as you can see by the above, I have no problem with Cleave working to make extra attacks when you kill an enemy. How it works above is how I feel it should work.

Now let's allow cleaving off of AoO's. Fighter (level 3) attacks on his turn and hits Orc1 (level 5). Orc 2 drinks potion, fighter makes AoO, kills him and attacks Orc1 again. Orc3 drinks potion, fighter makes AoO, kills him and attacks Orc1 again. Orc 4 does the same thing and fighter is finally able to kill off Orc1 after 4 attacks in one round. Granted, this is a hypothetical situation and would never come up in actual play.

I know people doing stupid things can make it harder for you. Without giving one of your wild examples of someone casting a fireball, explain the following example. Fighter with spiked chain is fighting a mummy who is within 5'. 10' away on the other side of a fighter there is a goblin who gets scared and runs away from the fight. Explain how that goblin really made it disadvantageous for the mummy so it makes sense to use the Cleave on AoO mechanic. If you can do that, you've earned yourself a cookie... and you might just convince me to want to use it too. If you can't come up with a convincing explanation, maybe at least you will have more respect for those that don't bother allowing it in their games.

 

[Scion]

Sorry, I had to step in here. I hate being told what I am saying when it isn't true. In the last thread on this topic that went on for several pages it was a recurring theme to say that people who didn't like it just didn't like cleave in general.

So.. you are saying that I was not interpreting him correctly? Lets see here..

Cleave makes very little sense as is in real combat. It's just a mechanics driven silly little feat that someone thought "Hey, wouldn't this be cool?"

How exactly do you stab through him with a mace?

How else would one interpret this? There are a few other not quite so blatant examples, but they still imply the same thing.

Explain how that goblin really made it disadvantageous for the mummy so it makes sense to use the Cleave on AoO mechanic.

The person fighting the goblin saw an opportunity, he reached over with his weapon and lopped off its head. Following through with the same motion he brought his weapon around directly with a flourish which stabbed into the mummy.

It works exactly the same way if it was instead one of his normal attacks, or an attack gained through some spell, or an attack that happened because of some other special feat/situation/whatever that was going on.

If it is difficult to picture the motion going from one to the next then the problem is more with picturing cleave itself then whatever made the attack that cleave worked off of. If you like cleave then there shouldnt be any problem useing cleave off of anytime that its conditions are met (down a foe with a melee attack). It doesnt matter whether the attack came from a normal attack, from some spell (by this I mean things like haste or snakes swiftness), or from an aoo. The condition was met and that is what matters for the mechanic. After that the player can describe it in just about any way they like, that is part of the fun.

 

[Felonious Ntent]

This came up last night in session and caught me a bit off guard. We ruled in game that it was ok, but wanted outside opinion just to confirm for future reference.

A character had the ability to make an Attack of Opportunity, where in the process he downed the attacker, he then used his Cleave feat to attack another attacker (which had not provoked an attack of opportunity).

Was this legal? Does anyone house rule this different if it is? And why?

Thanks

Benefit: 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.

I would say it depends. Has the Character used cleave yet this round? If so I'd say no. If not I'd allow it.

 

[KarinsDad]

By that same reasoning you could not cleave at the end of a charge even if you took down your opponent.

Thanks for pointing this out Scion.

Attacking on a Charge: After moving, you may make a single melee attack.

...

Even if you have extra attacks, such as from having a high enough base attack bonus or from using multiple weapons, you only get to make one attack during a charge.

 

[Thanee]

Even though I am against it for reasons mentioned above, this here is in no way relevant for the actual question.

Ok, so Cleave gives you an extra melee attack, but an attack of opportunity only allows you one melee attack. By a strict reading of the rules, Cleave won't give you an extra melee attack during an attack of opportunity because you only get one attack during an attack of opportunity.

AoO is a single melee attack. Once this single melee attack is done (and the opponened dropped), Cleave kicks in and another immediate single melee attack is spawned, which is completely seperate from the single AoO attack. You still got only one attack from the AoO. The other attack you got is from Cleave.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Scion]

Thanks for pointing this out Scion.

np of course, but it doesnt prove what I think you are trying to say that it proves.

You cannot make the cleave as 'part' of the charge, but you still get the cleave if your charge took out the opponent. It simply comes as an immediate action just after. Just like the cleave after the aoo

 

[Thanee]

Yep, it's pretty much the same. The only difference is the situation, which creates the original attack in the first place, which is why I have no problem with cleaving after a charge, but with cleaving after an AoO.

But technically both work just fine.

Bye
Thanee

 

[KarinsDad]

The person fighting the goblin saw an opportunity, he reached over with his weapon and lopped off its head. Following through with the same motion he brought his weapon around directly with a flourish which stabbed into the mummy.

The problem with your examples are that they are nonsensical for the following reason: All of your examples could be replaced with a non-existent character, the same moves could be made, and then Fighters could get AoOs against imaginary foes at any time, just to get the real follow up Cleave against the real foe.

For example, your example here. The person pretends there is a goblin behind the mummy and does the exact same actions and gets a free attack on the mummy.

Why wouldn't this work from a real combat perspective (as opposed to a game mechanic perspective)?

Well, it doesn't make sense that it should.

Precisely for the EXACT SAME reason that it doesn't make sense that it should if a Goblin was really there and really running away.

And so far, all of your "explanations of how it could work" are that way.

You are trying to justify a game mechanic which is non-justifiable in common sense (otherwise, the imaginary character replacement would work).


Bottom line: If you cannot get this free attack against A if B is not there, why should you get it if B is there?

This is an unanswerable question outside of purely game mechanics answers. It is unanswerable in real world combat terms and hence, the concept of Cleaves on AoOs is silly outside a purely game mechanics point of view.

You cannot justify it for real world combat.
You can justify it for game mechanics.

 

[KarinsDad]

np of course, but it doesnt prove what I think you are trying to say that it proves.

You cannot make the cleave as 'part' of the charge, but you still get the cleave if your charge took out the opponent. It simply comes as an immediate action just after. Just like the cleave after the aoo

I wasn't actually trying to prove it.

I was trying to be facetious (and humorous).

Evidently, I was unsuccessful because even you didn't get it.