Great cleave

[irdeggman]

It depends on the game and situation.

In Star Wars I have a PC with great cleave who is a martial artist Klatoonian. He has used it to effect a couple of times.

In our D&D game another player's PC has it and has used it to effect a couple of times.

While not popping up all that frequently in our games it has a tremendous scenematic effect and is just a joy to "see" happening when it does.

 

[Crothian]

Not many of my playewrs have taken it, but I tell them that if they take the feat (same with others like whirlwind) I'll include a few more circumstances for them to potentiall use it. As a DM I want my players to be able to use the feats and abilities of the character so I have no problems adding a few more lowly grogs to rush the PC and die in fury of great cleaving.

 

[Thanee]

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?

The only time I have seen the feat to be of any use was in NWN.

While I think Cleave is a great feat (even without AoO-Cleaves ), Great Cleave seems almost completely useless.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Pickaxe]

As noted, the efficacy of Great Cleave will be campaign specific. In my own limited experience (mainly low level campaigns), I find Cleave very useful, because there are many situations where enough damage has been concentrated on a single opponent to make cleaving more likely. Great Cleaving requires either lots of weaker opponents, or else area of effect/multiple target damage. Since lower level campaigns don't have much opportunity for the latter, the only likely opportunities for Great Cleave are mobs of weaklings. In the event that you have lots of weak opponents, you probably won't get hit anyway, so there's not often a big rush to do away with them in one round.

I used to plan on taking Great Cleave for any melee tank, but lately I've decided to leave it and try out other feats, or else get things with more general applications (e.g., Improved Initiative).

--Axe

 

[robberbaron]

The usefulness of Great Cleave tends to drop as your level rises.
In fact, by the time you get it, it is already lower on usefulness.

To begin with you are fighting critters who could be taken down with one blow (gobbos, kobolds, etc.) but by the time you are 4th or 5th, most of the things you face take 2 or 3 blows.
Can be useful to get you extra attacks when fighting in a mass melee - there could well be several enemies low on HP at the same time.

 

[Legildur]

In my groups, it is typically the 2-handed weapon Power Attacking barbarian that takes Cleave. Yet not one of them has taken Great Cleave. Sure, I can think of a few circumstances where it may have come in useful, but generally they got better mileage out of another feat (Extra Rage, Iron Will etc for Bbr or Divine Might for Pal).

I have a PbP elven fighter with the Whirlwind Attack tree. Sure, it's expensive, and sure, sometimes I wish I had Power Attack, but overall the utility of Dodge, Cbt Expertise, and Spring Attack far outweighs that of Great Cleave. And there was that time we were facing the 100 worg mounted goblins...... 2 opponents per square surrounding my high AC fighter - thank you very much.

I think Cleave makes sense if you have taken Power Attack and you are not eligible to take Divine Might. But Great Cleave is a marginal feat in my opinion - unless you are a fighter and have the extra feats.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

As alot of people have said above, it can be brutal if the PCs work together.

My party would intentionally focus on multiple baddies with the high-init ranged attacks so the bbn could clear the floor. The bbn had a very high average damage with a few points of power attack, high STR, and that two-handed greatsword so it was much better to leave 15-20 points on guys and let the street-sweeper do 40, 60 total damage in a round by greatcleaving through. Raises the total Damage Dealt By Party that way.

--fje

 

[Marimmar]

My greataxe wielding half-orc barbarian makes good use of the Feat. When fighting multiple opponents he regularly gets at least one extra attack per combat from Great Cleave. At 1d12+18 base damage while greater raging even high HP opponents tend to drop quite fast and his iterative attacks still have enough chance to hit left in them so that often more than one enemy drops per round, even without artillery spells from the rear.

~Marimmar

 

[Thanee]

My greataxe wielding half-orc barbarian makes good use of the Feat. When fighting multiple opponents he regularly gets at least one extra attack per combat from Great Cleave.

You need to get at least two extra attacks in a single round to make ANY use of the feat, since the one is already covered by Cleave, the prerequisite of Great Cleave.

Happens, sure, but how often really?

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

My party would intentionally focus on multiple baddies with the high-init ranged attacks so the bbn could clear the floor. The bbn had a very high average damage with a few points of power attack, high STR, and that two-handed greatsword so it was much better to leave 15-20 points on guys and let the street-sweeper do 40, 60 total damage in a round by greatcleaving through. Raises the total Damage Dealt By Party that way.

That would certainly work, tho being a bit risky in the way, that all opponents are still active and even barbarians can miss sometimes.

Anyways... what I wanted to say is... do you know the hit points your opponents have left?

Because in our games it is often hard to guess how much damage would be needed to down an opponent, as we never know the exact hit points of them. Sure, we have a general description, but that's vague enough to accomodate quite a range.

Bye
Thanee