Great cleave

[Scion]

as it has come up a few times in various threads I thought I would ask the question.

For those of you who have seen great cleave in action:

How often does it come up?
Is it useful for its cost?
What has it done in your games?

I have only seen one guy take it, and he really didnt get much use out of it. Even with his normal cleave it was usually only used once every 2 or 3 battles.

Any thoughts on the matter?

 

[Marimmar@Home]

I have see Great Cleave several times and it's always been used to good effect.

When large numbers of enemies are present Great Cleave starts kicking in. Often there are more than one badly damaged enemies and so after Cleaving the the first you wipe them off the board. Area spells and Great Cleave are very synergetic with each other.

As for the cost of a Feat, yes it's definitely more cost efficient than Whirlwind and those claiming that it's not worth it probably only fight against single supersized monsters. Even at 10+ Great Cleave is still worth it, especially when Power Attacking.

What has it done? Last session it saved us a lot of time, three bugbears moved up to our dwarven fighter readying for the fourth bugbear to move into flanking position. Well the forth bugbear caused an AoO because of moving through a threatened square and was killed by the dwarf ... along with his three buddies. The next four bugbears moved in more cautiously but where Cleaved dead the next round.

I had to smirk a little bit, thinking of the endless discussions on this board.

Well, it's a time saver and time is a commodity we don't have much anymore when you have day jobs and a family.

When you say that this guy of yours didn't get much use out of it but he still used the Feat every 2 or 3 battles, then what is proper use for a Feat? Saving Throw enhancing Feats will get used only once in a while, nevertheless they are considered great. Spell Penetration is only used against spell resistant foes but is useless pretty much otherwise. There are other good Feats but IMHO using a Feat once every 2-3 fights is worth it.

~Marimmar

 

[Jdvn1]

It's come up rarely for me. Maybe once or twice a session. If I'm lucky. I took it, though, because it was something my character would've taken. Plus, it's used a lot when you have battles with a bunch of little things. Then, you Power Attack and take stuff down quicker, and then Great Cleave is really handy.

 

[azmodean]

It really comes down to one thing.
Are you going to be fighting enemies that you can drop with one hit?
If not, as you observed it won't get used too much.
If you do fight enemies that you can drop with one hit, it will increase your ability to take those enemies out drastically.

Some DMs don't like using "fodder" enemies that are that weak, and therefore it makes the feat not as valuable in those games.
Try to find out what your DMs position on this is.
If you really want to make a character that uses Great Cleave, let your DM know, maybe they can work with you.

 

[Scion]

When you say that this guy of yours didn't get much use out of it but he still used the Feat every 2 or 3 battles, then what is proper use for a Feat? Saving Throw enhancing Feats will get used only once in a while, nevertheless they are considered great. Spell Penetration is only used against spell resistant foes but is useless pretty much otherwise. There are other good Feats but IMHO using a Feat once every 2-3 fights is worth it.

Actually, I said that 'cleave' was only useful every 2 or 3 battles usually. Mainly from him being the primary fighter and working guys down and then other people in the party would get the finishing blow so that the guy couldnt get another action.

As such, I never saw great cleave into play. It wasnt my character though, I should've asked him how he felt about the situation.

Saving throw feats are generally used to shore up a weakness, but 'great'? useful yes, great I dont know about.

At higher levels the spell penetration feats might be used each and every time a spell is cast, so they arent a very good example

Still, I think the issue wasnt so much lack of mook type creatures, they were there, but when there is a horde of guys who all have around 30+ hp taking more than one of these guys out at a time from full hp is just rough, power attacking tends to make attacks hit less, plus this was in 3.0 that I am speaking of currently.

I suppose it might be more useful when you have a large group that you can hit with area of effect spells against the general mook (like I said, the guy I played with might've just had bad timing all of the time, that is why I asked on here) and then wade into it so that you are surrounded and then start potentially great cleaving..

I dont know, it sounds like whirlwind would be better in such situations. If there are four guys there already you are guarenteed an attack on each vs maybe getting to cleave through them all.

It does sound like some people get good use out of it though. I just havent seen it, even in 'fodder' type situations. So I am wanting to hear a few stories of how and why

 

[KarinsDad]

I think it depends on your group and your items/spells.

We had a Fighter with a Ring of Major Fire Resistance (i.e. -20 fire damage after the save) and a Wizard with a Staff of Fire.

The Fighter ran in and Great Cleaved groups quite a bit (he also had Power Attack and sometimes upped his damage) and the Wizard could pound that group multiple times with Fireballs if necessary, but often once was enough.


I suspect that a Sorcerer that dabbles in X element and a Fighter with the appropriate resistance (from ring, spell, whatever) would also make a good Great Cleave team.

Full Round Attack - You keep hitting one already wounded opponent until he goes down. You Cleave from him to your second already wounded opponent. If you do not knock him down and have attacks left over, you key on him for a while, going to a third guy if you get the chance.

Rinse and repeat.

 

[Marimmar@Home]

Whirlwind has that whole Spring Attack chain as a prerequisite which makes it quite undesirable IMO. Also there's the problem that you cannot make a 5' step inbetween attacks when whirlwinding. Many situations with Great Cleave are as follows, regular attack kills off bad guy, Cleave another guy killing him as well, 5' step towards the next maybe weakened opponent, make iterative attacks and possibly Cleave again. This also works against tougher opponents, not just the mooks. Point is, Whirlwind is good in situations where Great Cleave is good too, Great Cleave though is cheaper to get, has more useful prerequisites and is more flexible since you can adjust your position to get the most out of it.

~Marimmar

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Whether Great Cleave is a decent feat depends a lot on your DM.

I have seen Cleave used to good effect a lot.

In a low level campaign, about half our battles are against weakish creatures. I see a lot of cleaves going on here. It must average out to at least once per encounter (including those battles against one or two tough foes in the average). I bet that Great Cleave would work out well here, too.

In a middish level campaign, we are working our way through the D-series. Our powered up dwarven fighter carves through 100+ HP giants. He is getting a Cleave off most battles. 2 or 3 times out of ~20-25 battles Great Cleave would have helped him.

I think the question to ask is how often do most feats give you good benefit. How often does Combat Reflexes, Hold the Line, Close Quarter Fighting make a significant difference? Probably <20% of battles.

There is some teamwork involved here, too. If we suspect a giant is below 50 HPs, we may leave him as Cleave fodder and soften up the next victim with our ranged attacks.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Personally I think that cleave is worth it, and great cleave is not worth it past about level 5.

I've had a character with cleave and prodigious damage-dealing capability. I used cleave a lot. I found myself in a situation wishing I had great cleave a total of... once. And even then it wouldn't have actually contributed to my livelihood, merely guaranteed that a shadow died before it's go. As it was, another party member dropped it instead.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Its usefulness depends on several factors:

1. The ability of the party to work together;
2. The availability of relatively easy-to-kill opponents (not necessarily 1-hits, but couple-hits);
3. The willingness to leave wounded enemies alive

If parties don't do / have access to the above, GC won't happen very often.