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Lance Charge and Cleave.
- Thread starter Ysgarran
- Start date
HEL Pit Fiend
First Post
Try Great Cleaving and Ride-by-Attack, now there's a visual...
No, there's nothing in the rules that stops you cleaving with a lance. There's also nothing in the rules that stops you from using Ambidex and TWF to use two light lances simultaneously while mounted. Mounted combat is one of those areas where the 3E rules blow up, so it's up to the DM to use common sense.
If I were a DM in this situation (and I might be, if the player currently running a goblin bard in my campaign ever decides to run the goblin worg-riding paladin he's been thinking about), I'd allow a character with Cleave to advance another 5' in the same direction (if he wanted) and impale someone else. If he had Great Cleave, I'd allow him to keep moving forward and impale as many foes as was "reasonable" (i.e., with a 10' lance, up to ten or so elves might make sense).
That way, the feat still "works", just in a different and much more reasonable way. And it's a really cool image
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That way, the feat still "works", just in a different and much more reasonable way. And it's a really cool image
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Ridley's Cohort
First Post
Considering that charging on a horse with a spear or lance was the most devastating and effective attack known to man for a thousand years, I am skeptical of adding limitations...
<backpedaling> Dual lances! Eeek!!!
<backpedaling> Dual lances! Eeek!!!
Tony Vargas
Legend
Nevermind dual light lances. Go with one heavy & one light - threaten at 10 /and/ 5 feet! 
Yes, nothing explicit in the rules keeps you from cleaving off a lance charge.
However, a charge is a very limitted form of attack. One of many caveats placed on the charge is that you have make your attack as soon as the target is within your threatened area. That means that the only valid target for a charge is someone whom you have just moved just close enough to threaten. With a charging horse and a heavy lance, that prettymuch has to be someone in one of the 5 squared directly in front of the horse. Anyone elsewhere in your threatened area you'd have to have moved /past/, thus making them invalid targets for the charge.
If you go with the idea that the cleave is basicly the same attack as the one that dropped the first target, only those characters you could have charged can be targeted with cleave. Of course, by that token, you'd also get to hit them with /all/ the modifieres for the charge, including the double damage (yipe!).
I do rather like Forester's idea, allowing the cleave to go only in straight line, but allowing you to move before taking it - that puts an apropriate trade-off this particular use of it.
Another similar might be to allow you to cleave off a charge by continuing the straight line of the charge until you get a /new/ enemy into your threatened area for the first time. Thus you couldn't cleave into, say, adjacent enemies, but could cleave through ranks of them...
Yes, nothing explicit in the rules keeps you from cleaving off a lance charge.
However, a charge is a very limitted form of attack. One of many caveats placed on the charge is that you have make your attack as soon as the target is within your threatened area. That means that the only valid target for a charge is someone whom you have just moved just close enough to threaten. With a charging horse and a heavy lance, that prettymuch has to be someone in one of the 5 squared directly in front of the horse. Anyone elsewhere in your threatened area you'd have to have moved /past/, thus making them invalid targets for the charge.
If you go with the idea that the cleave is basicly the same attack as the one that dropped the first target, only those characters you could have charged can be targeted with cleave. Of course, by that token, you'd also get to hit them with /all/ the modifieres for the charge, including the double damage (yipe!).
I do rather like Forester's idea, allowing the cleave to go only in straight line, but allowing you to move before taking it - that puts an apropriate trade-off this particular use of it.
Another similar might be to allow you to cleave off a charge by continuing the straight line of the charge until you get a /new/ enemy into your threatened area for the first time. Thus you couldn't cleave into, say, adjacent enemies, but could cleave through ranks of them...
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