Cleaving with ranged weapons?

[Kai Lord]

But what if the bow was an intelligent magic item named "Melee?" Then it should work according to the rules....right? Right?

 

[Sejs]

Only if you also had an intelligent sword named "Archery", already in your inventory.

 

[Tonguez]

In the same way, if you killed someone with the spikey end of an Urgrosh, I wouldn't let you Cleave with the choppy end.-Hyp.

This ones interesting - because personally I would. Take a staff for instance I hit with one end and then using the momentum spin around and hit the next opponent with the other end - why would an Urgosh ve different?

so my ruling would be Ranged + Melee NO <=> Melee + Melee YES

 

[Black Knight Irios]

Because one end of your Staff is +5 and the end with which you struck your opponent down is only +3!
Therefore NO!

 

[Drakh]

CLEAVE [GENERAL]
Prerequisites: Str 13, Power Attack.
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.
Special: A fighter may select Cleave as one of his fighter bonus feats.

1) using the Bow as an improvised weapon after shooting someone with an arrow fired from the bow is NOT the same weapon

2) The same attack bonus only refers to your base attack modifier. e.g. if you get 3 attacks at +15, +10 and +5 and you kill something with the +10 hit, the cleave attack will be with the +10 also.

3) unless you have a reach of 10 ft or more firing at an opponent while someone is standing next to you will leave you vulnerable and you will immediately suffer an attack of opportunity.

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I have a pet hate for cleave because it can seriously trivialise low level encounters.

To combat this i am starting to use a house rule that cleave will only work if you successfully kill the creature outright by reducing its HPs to -10 (or -con if you use that rule)

The visual aspect of cleave is that someone swings their weapon and in the same motion slices through one opponent and into the next and i like to keep this in mind when i describe this in my adventures.

 

[mikebr99]

I have a pet hate for cleave because it can seriously trivialise low level encounters.

To combat this i am starting to use a house rule that cleave will only work if you successfully kill the creature outright by reducing its HPs to -10 (or -con if you use that rule)

The visual aspect of cleave is that someone swings their weapon and in the same motion slices through one opponent and into the next and i like to keep this in mind when i describe this in my adventures.

You are right about the visual... but you still get that when your target falls below 0... there isn't any need to nerf fighters any more then they are already. All they have is combat... lets leave that alone shall we?? YMMV

And what is the big deal about the 1st level fighter taking out 2 kobolds instead of 1 per round?


Mike

 

[Drakh]

My problem with it is that our groups mentality and play style has led to 50% + of the groups makeup includes fighters and rogues. Almost all those either take bow specialist (another thing i personally hate about the current system) or power attack and cleave as their first 2 feats.

Wizards and sorcerers are a rareity in my groups play and if they do take an arcane caster they still find it advantagous to take a few levels of fighter too.

And its not just at first level - when you have 5th level characters still oneshotting creatures (multiclass fighter/rogues can dish out 20+ damage very easy), then cleaving into the next, encounter after encounter, while the wizard in the group is lucky to find an opening to use the one or two fireballs he has memorised without hitting the fighters charging head long in.

Ive been thinking its because of the general high power of play our group normally does (we rarely play games beyond 7th level characters and most characters total stat modifier ranges from +7 to +14!) and im planing a more low powered approach in the future - but for now i will be putting a limit on feats i see being abused in my games.

 

[mikebr99]

My problem with it is that our groups mentality and play style has led to 50% + of the groups makeup includes fighters and rogues. Almost all those either take bow specialist (another thing i personally hate about the current system) or power attack and cleave as their first 2 feats.

Wizards and sorcerers are a rareity in my groups play and if they do take an arcane caster they still find it advantagous to take a few levels of fighter too.

And its not just at first level - when you have 5th level characters still oneshotting creatures (multiclass fighter/rogues can dish out 20+ damage very easy), then cleaving into the next, encounter after encounter, while the wizard in the group is lucky to find an opening to use the one or two fireballs he has memorised without hitting the fighters charging head long in.

Ive been thinking its because of the general high power of play our group normally does (we rarely play games beyond 7th level characters and most characters total stat modifier ranges from +7 to +14!) and im planing a more low powered approach in the future - but for now i will be putting a limit on feats i see being abused in my games.

Well, some BBEG spellcasters would run roughshod over these guys... mix up the encounters a little more.

Power attack/cleave is great for mooks (read: low level opponents), and it is there, for fighters to shine at low levels, which you seem to end at. At mid and higher, it shows up less and less... YMMV. It really depends on what encounters you would like your party to see.

And this lack of dedicated spellcasters should be played up as the liability it is...


Mike

 

[Len]

And its not just at first level - when you have 5th level characters still oneshotting creatures (multiclass fighter/rogues can dish out 20+ damage very easy), then cleaving into the next, encounter after encounter, while the wizard in the group is lucky to find an opening to use the one or two fireballs he has memorised without hitting the fighters charging head long in.

Cleave shouldn't be making every encounter easy to win. You can't cleave a dragon (unless there are two dragons). You can't cleave a wizard standing 50 feet away while you're busy cleaving through the mooks all around you.

As for the wizard, he could use his fireballs on the archers and spellcasters while the fighters are busy cleaving the front line. Or he could stop trying to compete for the highest body count and do something else useful, such as casting haste or dispel, or readying a magic missile or flame arrow to interrupt the enemy wizard.

In my group at level 8, the fighter with great cleave sometimes gets to chop through a big pile of bad guys, but sometimes he's held up by competent enemies while others go after the spellcaster in the back. We get a variety of encounters, so we can't use the same tactics every time.

 

[Hypersmurf]

The visual aspect of cleave is that someone swings their weapon and in the same motion slices through one opponent and into the next and i like to keep this in mind when i describe this in my adventures.

What's your visual for cleaving two opponents standing 20 feet away from each other with a longspear, out of curiosity?

Or cleaving with a spiked gauntlet, or punching dagger, or whip?

-Hyp.