Cleaving after an AoO

[KarinsDad]

Karin'sdad

if AoO Cleave is so unfair? How is cleave/great cleave by itself fair?

...

If you dont have a problem with Cleave please explain why Cleave is okay on its own?

just curious

Read FireLance's well thought out post.

The bottom line of the fairness issue is:

Cleave during your turn does not give you any more additional attacks against any single opponent than you could normally have had in your turn. If you get 3 attacks per round during a full round attack, you will not get more than 3 attacks against a single opponent (assuming no other feat combination that gets past this like Whirlwind Great Cleave) no matter how you choose to attack.

Cleave during AoO gives you an additional attack against any single opponent which you could normally not have had.


So in one case, you get no additional attacks against one single opponent (e.g. the BBEG).

In the other case, you do get an additional attack against an opponent and you also get this additional attack when the opponent you are doing it against did not do anything to warrant it.

That is basically the definition of fairness and equity. If someone gets something that they did not deserve (either positively or negatively). The purpose of Cleave is to not waste one of your full round attacks on an opponent who is almost dead anyway, not to get a free unjustified attack against the BBEG because someone else on the battlefield was a moron.


The real problem with AoO Cleave is that you get a free attack (free attacks in the Combat Reflexes AoO Great Cleave case) against someone who did not provoke that free attack and it is (IMO) a game loophole that allows you to do this. Any feat that allows for an additional attack could just have easily been written that it only occurs on the characters turn and we would not have had this 14 page discussion at all. Nobody would have even thought about this and it would be a non-issue.

 

[Philip]

Karin'sdad

if AoO Cleave is so unfair? How is cleave/great cleave by itself fair?

I did try to explain this in one of my earlier posts (in my own imperfect way):

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1890895&postcount=98

And in some other responses later.

 

[Abraxas]

Firelance's post is pretty much sums up my opposition to AoO/Cleave also.

As an aside, and something that I just realized.

In 3.0 the whirlwind attack feat read

"Benefit: When you perform the full attack action, you can give up your regular attacks and instead make one melee attack at your full base attack bonus against each opponent within 5 feet."

This allowed a character with this feat and Great Cleave to effectively do the same things as the AoO/Combat Reflexes/Great Cleave routine does by the 3.5 RAW. The character could get multiple attacks on the BBEG's mooks and multiple attacks on the BBEG.

In 3.5 the feat now reads

"Benefit: When you use the full attack action, you can give up your regular attacks and instead make one melee attack at your full base attack bonus against each opponent within reach.
When you use the Whirlwind Attack feat, you also forfeit any bonus or extra attacks granted by other feats, spells, or abilities (such as the Cleave feat or the haste spell)."

So it would appear that someone at WoTC doesn't like the idea of making the BBEG's mooks a liability.
If getting multiple attacks, at your highest BAB, against the BBEG on your turn via Whirlwind/Great Cleave (a tactic that has an even higher feat requirement) is unacceptable why would getting them when its not your turn via AoOs/Great Cleave be acceptable?

I'm off to write the sage with this one.

 

[Wrathamon]

Thanks for the explanations

Firelance that was really well thought out and well presented.

 

[Storyteller01]

Well, I'm a person who has no problems with Cleave or Great Cleave, and no problems with AOOs, but I do have a problem with Cleaving off an AOO.

I suppose my problem is this: To me, an AOO is an extra chance to attack a combatant that occurs because he lowered his defences. A combatant who does not lower his defences should not be subject to any extra attacks that are only possible because of lowered defences.

Similarly, to me, Cleave and Great Cleave are feats that make weak opponents irrelevant. A high-level fighter with four iterative attacks per round who is fighting a powerful opponent and several weak ones could aim all his four attacks at the powerful opponent. However, Cleave and Great Cleave allow him to cut down the weak opponents and Cleave off them to attack others, including the powerful one. However, used in this way, Cleave and Great Cleave don't give the fighter any more attacks against any single opponent than if he had focused all his attention on him. The powerful opponent is no worse off no matter how many minions he surrounds himself with. They are at worst irrelevant, and at best, they could soak up some of the attacks that would have been directed at him.

The difference between a normal Cleave and Cleaving off an AOO is the difference between being irrelevant and being a liability. Cleaving off an AOO means that some of the weaker opponents could actually become liabilities, if they provoke AOOs from the fighter. The powerful opponent could be attacked one or more additional times per round at the fighter's best attack bonus, even though he has not lowered his defences, simply because his minions have. As a DM, I could avoid the issue entirely by making sure that nobody provokes AOOs, but I feel that I shouldn't have to.

At the end of the day, Cleaving off an AOO just doesn't gel with my sense of internal logic, so I wouldn't allow it. It does with others, and so they do. That's all there is to it.

Well put Firelance (being of the opposite camp)

 

[Storyteller01]

Firelance's post is pretty much sums up my opposition to AoO/Cleave also.

As an aside, and something that I just realized.

In 3.0 the whirlwind attack feat read

"Benefit: When you perform the full attack action, you can give up your regular attacks and instead make one melee attack at your full base attack bonus against each opponent within 5 feet."

This allowed a character with this feat and Great Cleave to effectively do the same things as the AoO/Combat Reflexes/Great Cleave routine does by the 3.5 RAW. The character could get multiple attacks on the BBEG's mooks and multiple attacks on the BBEG.

In 3.5 the feat now reads

"Benefit: When you use the full attack action, you can give up your regular attacks and instead make one melee attack at your full base attack bonus against each opponent within reach.
When you use the Whirlwind Attack feat, you also forfeit any bonus or extra attacks granted by other feats, spells, or abilities (such as the Cleave feat or the haste spell)."

So it would appear that someone at WoTC doesn't like the idea of making the BBEG's mooks a liability.
If getting multiple attacks, at your highest BAB, against the BBEG on your turn via Whirlwind/Great Cleave (a tactic that has an even higher feat requirement) is unacceptable why would getting them when its not your turn via AoOs/Great Cleave be acceptable?

I'm off to write the sage with this one.

But cleaving on an AoO in far different from cleaving with thw Whirlwind Attack feat.

In that combo, the player would gain multiple cleave in one round, and I would agree that you do not get Cleaves from Whirlwind attacks (all your energy is focused on the mass attack, and cannot be diverted, or the attacks will be stopped).

In the AoO example, you get one cleave (or great cleave) for one attack.

(Not an attack here) if WotC thought that the Cleave from an AoO is bad, why didn't they make the same direct addendum statement for the Cleave feat? (again, not an attack, just a logical question)

 

[Abraxas]

In that combo, the player would gain multiple cleave in one round, and I would agree that you do not get Cleaves from Whirlwind attacks (all your energy is focused on the mass attack, and cannot be diverted, or the attacks will be stopped).

In 3.0, with Great Cleave and Whirlwind attack you could get 1 cleave attack for every opponent you dropped with the whirlwind attack. Nothing in the feats descriptions precluded this. Your visualization of how it would work is irrelevant. Your comments in parenthesis are your interpretation. They have nothing to do with the rules. By your logic you can't whirlwind attack with a longspear.

In the AoO example, you get one cleave (or great cleave) for one attack.

At your highest attack value - just like whirlwind attack. Only one difference, AoOs happen on someone elses turn and have to be provoked. The only time you would get more attacks from the 3.0 Whirlwinf/Great Cleave combo is if there were more creatures surrounding you than you could take advantage of with the Combat Reflexes/AoO/Great Cleave combo.

(Not an attack here) if WotC thought that the Cleave from an AoO is bad, why didn't they make the same direct addendum statement for the Cleave feat? (again, not an attack, just a logical question)

Are you defending their editing? Perhaps they thought it was evident from the description of AoOs - one attack per provoked AoO directed at the provoker.

Do you really believe it is more reasonable to allow this to occur on someone elses turn and still get a full round of attacks when it wasn't considered reasonable for it to occur on your turn when you have an investment of 6 feats and have to face multiple opponents for the whirlwind/Great Cleave thing to work?

If you do I have nothing more to say.

Ciao

 

[Storyteller01]

Do you really believe it is more reasonable to allow this to occur on someone elses turn and still get a full round of attacks when it wasn't considered reasonable for it to occur on your turn when you have an investment of 6 feats and have to face multiple opponents for the whirlwind/Great Cleave thing to work?

If you do I have nothing more to say.

Ciao

Yea, pretty much defending this one.

Just going off of experience here, and yae, it is my intrepretation .

If your concentrating on hitting 6 to 8 guys at the same time, taking AoO's are nearly impossible, given the amount of concentration involved making sure you don't leave an opening they can take advangtage of (by the way, can someone take an AoO on you if you use the Whirlwind Attack feat, or only when you move into position to use it? Actually question, and I would love an answer. Hopefully I haven't hijacked this thread). you just have to let it go and hope it doesn't bite you later.

(by the way, in my experience [anecdotal as it is] the Whirlwind attack is generally used to create space by forcing everyone to back away from you. Since your focus is on the need for space, and not taking advantage of openings, they tend to go by the wayside. If opponents DO get hit get hit, well...guess they know better ).

However, If someone leaves an opening that that you can utilize to hit someone else, theh go for it. It is an opprotunity that circumstances have allowed you took take advantage of.

By the way, If I am guilty of highjacking, feel free to bean me with fuzzy dice!

 

[Abraxas]

However, If someone leaves an opening that that you can utilize to hit someone else, theh go for it. It is an opprotunity that circumstances have allowed you took take advantage of.

So when four guys provoke AoOs its still fine? even though the DM may move these 4 individually they are all acting about at the same time. How can you be so concentrated as to take advantage of four separate openings but can't concentrate enough to do exactly the same thing when trying to hit those same 4 guys on your turn?

That to me is meta gaming.

 

[Abraxas]

Storyteller01 - we have beat this poor equine into its component molecules - how bout we agree to disagree and lets these threads slip away quietly?