Using Cleave is Munchkinesque?

[malichai]

During my last gaming session we were involved in a pretty large fight with a couple bone demons and all those little beasts that they summon up. Our fighter was wading in and was trapped behind a wall of ice, battling the bone demon and those little beasties surrounding it.

The fighter had only 1 attack and possessed the cleave feat, he was hitting at like a like a +12 or something for +12 damage (metaphysical weapon for +3, bull's strength for a 22 strength or something). Anyways, he only attacked the bone demon.

At the end of the fight which we barely won, I asked him why he never attacked one of those beasts that were surrounding him and the bone demon and then cleaved into the bone demon and another player says to me in a voice of GREAT indignation: "That's some bull min-max munchkinism if I ever heard it."

I was flabbergasted. This wasn't some crazy great-cleave/whirlwind/spring-attack combo, this was just asking why he didn't club some of these beasts to get them off his back as he was battling the great bone demon.

Am I some ty munchkin here or what?

 

[reapersaurus]

that guy is obviously confused about what munchkin is.

is it in the core rulebook?
Is it one feat?

It's not munchkin.

I'll bet when someone does Power Attack against an easy-to-hit monster, he'd have conniptions.... :Rolleyes:

 

[buzzard]

Am I some ty munchkin here or what?

Not at all. The other player is merely a painful, holier than thou, role-playing purist. He probably LARPs while alone. That type is best ignored, or thrown in a wood chipper.

Buzzard

 

[Sakzilla]

Not a munchkin

I assume the fighter had the Cleave feat - if that is the case then someone needs to explain a few things to him.

1) He is there to tank foes and kill stuff. If he can whack a minion each turn and still get an attack on the big bad guy, he MUST do it. Other non-fighters will live longer.

2) Why take the feat if he is only going to use it against "worthy" foes? The little guys kill too.

3) The next time he tries it, I would explore tactically in a different direction and leave the high and mighty fighter to his own devices - i.e. flanked by the little guys and dead.

my .02, but you use your max effects to minimze the whackyness that intrudes - bad dice, a GM who plays on characters quirks/faults.

 

[Limper]

Your fine.... however the fighters player is an idiot and a hypocrit to boot... those are some fine combat stats for such a non-munchkin.

Useing your fighting feats is what being a fighter is all about.... there is nothing munchkin about using the feat you picked to your advantage.

Like I said your fellow player is a moron.

 

[Tewligan]

That player is, in fact, a moron. I don't understand wasting the feat slot for a feat that's too "munchkin-y" to use. I suspect that he rides a short bus to get to your games.

 

[buzzard]

Careful guys, the fighter is not the idiot who said it was munchkinesque. It was a different player who was the moron. A third party. You know, the wood chipper bait.

The fighter probably just didn't think of all the ways to use his abilities.

Buzzard

 

[LostSoul]

The visual is a little weird. He's fighting the big guy, so it's better to take his main attack on the little guy? That's strange - you'd figure that the fighter would be better off focusing his attack on the big guy.

I don't think it's "munchkin-eqsue" but I do think it's a strange quirk in the (wargaming) rules.

 

[malichai]

Lostsoul-

I'm not debating whether it's a good idea tactically or not, because frankly, it might BE a poor idea tactically because we HAD to get that Bone Demon dropped or he was gonna destroy us, and we had to get him dropped as quickly as possible...

My problem is this other bastard throwing contempt in my face for even SUGGESTING the tactic of swinging that fighter's halberd in a broader arc to whack some of those little fellows scurrying around the bone demon en route to crunching that bone demon's bones.

Everyone else - Correct, it wasn't the fighter who made that comment. Though that fighter did mention something afterwards that he briefly considered using the feat that way, but decided against it. As I respect him and don't wish to see him flamed, I won't mention his reasons for not using the feat.

 

[Heap Thaumaturgist]

I think mostly it's that, as was brought up, it is counter-intuitive and therefore damaging to game verisimilitude to attack a lesser foe when you are, in fact, attempting to get the big guy down as fast as possible.

It seems like exploiting a hole in the game rules: "I want to kill this guy, but I know I'm getting a free attack every time I swat one of these guys down."

As the DM, I'd have mentioned it to him and cast it sort of like: "If you want to do that, it'll be more like you swinging your sword in wide arcs, sweeping through the small monsters to slam into your intended target."

--HT