Li Shenron
Legend
Another vote for disallowing it. 
Cleaving after an AoO
- Thread starter Vlos
- Start date
robberbaron
First Post
If it works for the PCs let it work for the Bad Guys.
Once the PCs are on the receiving end of an AoO Cleave Chain (tm) they might think twice about it.
Once the PCs are on the receiving end of an AoO Cleave Chain (tm) they might think twice about it.
Ki Ryn said:
To me it makes perfect sense that actions of others will have a direct consequence on you.
If you are invisible and walking next to your buddy, who is not invisible, and some enemy pops up and fireballs him, what happens to you? The enemy doesnt even know you are there, but through your friend you are taking damage anyway.
In combat you are effected by everyone and everything there to some degree. Sometimes people will make good choices, sometimes bad, and it very well may be that their bad choices do bad things to you, even if they were your teammates before.
It isnt a penalty to the one who got hit through cleave, it is a bonus allowed to the guy with cleave. He spent his feat on being able to do something extra impressive.
Abstraction
First Post
The "bag of puppies" with Cleave is a problem with Whirlwind Attack, which never comes into play with an Attack of Oppportunity.
Cinematic:
Orc A drinks a potion. Seeing the opportunity, you grab his arm, pull him in front of you and stab through him into Orc B who didn't see it coming.
Cinematic:
Orc A drinks a potion. Seeing the opportunity, you grab his arm, pull him in front of you and stab through him into Orc B who didn't see it coming.
Scion said:
Within reason.
This is not within reason.
I am suddenly more vulnerable because my buddy walked past my enemy is not reasonable.
Or thought of another way, what if my enemy PRETENDED that he had a character standing next to him, PRETENDED that he killed that imaginary character when he drank his non-existent potion, and now in REALITY (of the game) gets an extra attack at me?
The point is that sometimes, the mechanics do not make sense. When they do not make sense, WotC should errata a special rule about it.
The Cleave rule should be: "If on your normal sequence of attacks, ..."
That solves the reasonableness issue. Granted, we do not want too many special rules from WotC, but this one screams of stupidity and should have been fixed in 3.5.
Part of the point of playing the game is so that 4 to 8 people can sit in a room and imagine together what is happening. When some game mechanic shatters the believability of that group imagination and "kicks people out of the game", then that game mechanic should be adjusted to no longer do that. IMO.
now we are pretending things? I think I see why it does not make sense to you then 
I'll just pretend that you let your guard down in a number of ways and get a full spectrum of aoo's on you then. Why not?
Your buddy moved and put you in a bad position, but only because the other guy was able to take advantage of it because of his specific training.
Just like the fireball example. Just like someone useing terrain to their advantage and your disadvantage. Just like useing a cleave normally. And just like useing any other feat to gain a benefit normally not allowed.
Still makes sense to me that someone else could put you in a position where yet another person could draw upon their training to take advantage of it. It happens all of the time.
I'll just pretend that you let your guard down in a number of ways and get a full spectrum of aoo's on you then. Why not?
Your buddy moved and put you in a bad position, but only because the other guy was able to take advantage of it because of his specific training.
Just like the fireball example. Just like someone useing terrain to their advantage and your disadvantage. Just like useing a cleave normally. And just like useing any other feat to gain a benefit normally not allowed.
Still makes sense to me that someone else could put you in a position where yet another person could draw upon their training to take advantage of it. It happens all of the time.
Abstraction said:
How exactly do you stab through him with a mace?
Or grab his arm with a shield in one hand and a sword in the other?
Or stab through his plate armor?
And why doesn't your opponent get time to step back while you are playing Errol Flynn here?
The point is that it is a nonsensical side effect of AoOs and it wasn't fixed and people are trying to come up with extreme cinematic attempts to justify a bad rule.
Why bother? Just fix it.
Patryn of Elvenshae
First Post
Allowed by Rules as Written, and allowed in any campaign I or my DMs have run.
Consider Cleave - and Great Cleave - a special case of AoOs, in which you have trained to use the fact that an enemy has ceased fighting to alter the battlespace to benefit yourself.
In other words, "Opponent has dropped" becomes an "action" that provokes an AoO, but only for the person who dropped him, which he can apply to any other creature he is fighting.
Consider Cleave - and Great Cleave - a special case of AoOs, in which you have trained to use the fact that an enemy has ceased fighting to alter the battlespace to benefit yourself.
In other words, "Opponent has dropped" becomes an "action" that provokes an AoO, but only for the person who dropped him, which he can apply to any other creature he is fighting.
