Does Cleave Work With Improved Trip

[Dandu]

I ask because Cleave goes:

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.

Tripping, obviously, makes people fall to the ground prone. Is this the same thing as "making it drop"?

 

[Jimlock]

Where do you get those ideas?

If you deal a creature enough damage to make it drop

I hope this answers you question....

 

[Dandu]

So... it'd be ok if I had the Knockdown feat?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

While a trip attack is a touch attack, there's nothing in it's description that says that effects upon the weapon- an enchantment like Shocking, a held spell; stunning effects; channeled arcane energy- don't do their damage.

The question then becomes is there a distinction between doing damage AND knocking someone prone or doing damage THAT knocks someone prone.

Tto me, it seems as if what allows the Cleave isn't just the knocking the foe prone, but prone in such a way that he is no longer a threat to the tripper/cleaver (if only temporarily), leaving him able to make the additional attack with impunity.

So, in most cases, I'd have to say no. But if there was a stunning effect in place on the fallen target, I'd probably allow it.

 

[Jimlock]

So... it'd be ok if I had the Knockdown feat?

No, because:

If you deal a creature enough damage to make it drop
=
The creature has to be "dropped" by dealing enough damage to it (to make it drop).



No other means of dropping the creature allows the use of cleave.

 

[Jimlock]

hmmmm...

As for the (typically by dropping it to below 0 hit points or killing it)

I suppose it refers to other means of dropping the creature by enough damage such as:

-Massive Damage
If you ever sustain a single attack deals 50 points of damage or more and it doesn’t kill you outright, you must make a DC 15 Fortitude save. If this saving throw fails, you die regardless of your current hit points. If you take 50 points of damage or more from multiple attacks, no one of which dealt 50 or more points of damage itself, the massive damage rule does not apply.

or even (although a bit stretched, still ok by RAW)...

-Coup de Grace
As a full-round action, you can use a melee weapon to deliver a coup de grace to a helpless opponent. You can also use a bow or crossbow, provided you are adjacent to the target.

 

[Dandu]

No, because:

If you deal a creature enough damage to make it drop
=
The creature has to be "dropped" by dealing enough damage to it (to make it drop).

No other means of dropping the creature allows the use of cleave.

And the Knockdown feat does not qualify because although the trip attempt comes as a result of dealing a creature damage, it is not the damage itself that causes the creature to drop?

 

[Jimlock]

And the Knockdown feat does not qualify because although the trip attempt comes as a result of dealing a creature damage, it is not the damage itself that causes the creature to drop?

Correct.
(that is what I make of it anyway...)

 

[Dandu]

Would you allow it to happen with Awesome Blow?

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

No. It's not spelled out in lawyer-proof legaleese, but the text is clearly talking about dropping someone to unconscious/dying/dead from hit point damage. I would allow Cleave on a nonlethal attack that knocked a foe out (or if your lethal strike + previous nonlethal happened to put him there) or a lethal attack that puts the creature to dying, dead, or destroyed (for nonliving stuff that "goes boom" at 0 hp). That's it.