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I am making a Lore Warden who seem to be pretty good at tripping and disarming when using a great flail (or guisarme for reach trip). My question is on how a few feats would combine and how to resolve Attacks of Opportunity from multiple creatures per turn.
My questions is can you use Great Cleave (description of feats and maneuvers below) to chain together trips that provoke AoO for each foe... and attack that AoO on each foe, then using the remaining attack given by a successful cleave to trip another, and continue the chain? All the descriptions for the feat combat expertise and the rules section for attacks of opportunity talk about the rules for making multiple AoO on a single creature per round not multiple (or at least not that I've found yet). It's also worth noting that those AoO are resolved durning THEIR round of action. My question is about whether or not I can take a SINGLE AoO against many DIFFERENT foes during MY round of action. I'm finding that this is a little bit of a unique situation where you have to resolve an AoO from an enemy that isn't during THEIR round of action. Anyway. What do you think. Here is some info to help your processing
The definition of a trip and disarm are...
Trip = You can attempt to trip your opponent in place of a melee attack. You can only trip an opponent who is no more than one size category larger than you. If you do not have the Improved Trip feat, or a similar ability, initiating a trip provokes an attack of opportunity from the target of your maneuver. If your attack exceeds the target's CMD, the target is knocked prone. If your attack fails by 10 or more, you are knocked prone instead. If the target has more than two legs, add +2 to the DC of the combat maneuver attack roll for each additional leg it has. Some creatures—such as oozes, creatures without legs, and flying creatures—cannot be tripped.
Disarm = You can attempt to disarm your opponent in place of a melee attack. If you do not have the Improved Disarm feat, or a similar ability, attempting to disarm a foe provokes an attack of opportunity from the target of your maneuver. Attempting to disarm a foe while unarmed imposes a –4 penalty on the attack. If your attack is successful, your target drops one item it is carrying of your choice (even if the item is wielded with two hands). If your attack exceeds the CMD of the target by 10 or more, the target drops the items it is carrying in both hands (maximum two items if the target has more than two hands). If your attack fails by 10 or more, you drop the weapon that you were using to attempt the disarm. If you successfully disarm your opponent without using a weapon, you may automatically pick up the item dropped.
Now, the Feat Descriptions...
Great Cleave = As a standard action, you can make a single attack at your full base attack bonus against a foe within reach. If you hit, you deal damage normally and can make an additional attack (using your full base attack bonus) against a foe that is adjacent to the previous foe and also within reach. If you hit, you can continue to make attacks against foes adjacent to the previous foe, so long as they are within your reach. You cannot attack an individual foe more than once during this attack action. When you use this feat, you take a –2 penalty to your Armor Class until your next turn.
Greater Trip = You receive a +2 bonus on checks made to trip a foe. This bonus stacks with the bonus granted by Improved Trip. Whenever you successfully trip an opponent, that opponent provokes attacks of opportunity.
What do you think? Foes that are all adjacent in a row... can I trip the first one, then attack them for the AoO and then use my remaining cleave attack to hit an adjacent foe with a trip, then AoO, then cleave another adjacent, AoO, cleave adjacent... and so on? no need for comments like... yeah, they wouldn't all be standing in a row... I understand that would be rare, this is a hypothetical situation to illustrate my point.
what are your thoughts?
Thank you in advance for your help.
I was a little confused when I read through your post the first time.
Let me make sure I am reading correctly. You want to, on YOUR turn, start a cleave attack with a trip maneuver and then proceed to continue tripping creatures until you miss. All the while, you are making attacks of opportunity for successful trip attempts as a result of Greater Trip.
Considering that PRD said wrote: An attack of opportunity “interrupts” the normal flow of actions in the round. If an attack of opportunity is provoked, immediately resolve the attack of opportunity, then continue with the next character's turn (or complete the current turn, if the attack of opportunity was provoked in the midst of a character's turn). *emphasis mine
I think your strategy is legal. You would be concluding the AoO immediately, then continuing with the rest of your turn similar to if someone with multiple attacks trips 1 person on their first attack, makes an AoO on them, then trips someone else with their second attack.
This actually sounds like an awesome way to initiate a fight. Damage and prone condition to everyone!
Great Cleave wrote: As a standard action, you can make a single attack at your full base attack bonus against a foe within reach. If you hit, you deal damage normally and can make an additional attack (using your full base attack bonus) against a foe that is adjacent to the previous foe and also within reach. If you hit, you can continue to make attacks against foes adjacent to the previous foe, so long as they are within your reach. You cannot attack an individual foe more than once during this attack action. When you use this feat, you take a –2 penalty to your Armor Class until your next turn. I thought this strategy smelled fishy, not trying to kick you down or anything, but it just didn't seem thematically appropriate, Cleave is designed to represent a single swing of the weapon hitting multiple foes, making attacks of opportunity within this single swing doesn't make any sense logically, just had to find the clause mechanically.
Now this will now probably turn into a RAI argument with people arguing both 1) It doesn't explicitly exclude attacks outside of the cleave attack, and 2) It doesn't explicitly state that it only counts for attacks made using this feat.
I am not getting into this argument just wanted to throw my two cents in here.
Hey BigP4anda and Toirin. Thank you both for your reply. BigP, you're right in that cleave is a single swing...that if it connects, you get an additional swing. I think what you're describing about a single swing hitting multiple targets sounds more like whirlwind attack. If you read the description for Great Cleave it reads that you can make single attacks, and if you hit, you can swing again at an adjacent foe. Granted, you can't hit a creature twice, but as long as you keep succeeding on your attack rolls, and there is a new foe next to the creature you just hit, then you can go down the line "bopping them on their heads." That is beauty of great cleave. Regular cleave, you just get your first attack, and one additional attack. Great Cleave you can chain on forever really if the enemies were in one big conga line and you had a great attack bonus.
My real question did go unanswered though. The rules about Attacks of opportunity state that you can only take one attack of opportunity per round (most often, that particular enemies round who provoked it) against a creature. Meaning if they ran through your threat range jumping through 3 threat squares, you could normally only make one attack of opportunity UNLESS you have the feat combat reflexes. Then you can make additional attacks equal to your dex modifier.
Now all that is fine and good, but it doesn't say anything about making one attack of opportunity against 5 different creatures on YOUR OWN turn. It's a bizarre situation, but that's what I'm trying to sort out. I know that in the long run, it all comes down to what your GM will allow, but I'd love to have some firm evidence to back myself up before I ask him about it... because I SOOOOO want to be able to do this! lol. That being said, I do realize this build is VERY specialized and against anything flies, or a foe with its own natural weapons like claws...this build falls apart. But for a few fights in your campaign. You're gonna go up against many smaller level creatures or a team of orcs... and this guy is gonna rule the engagement.
If you really wanna get excited, use a guisarme which gives you reach (10 foot), through in lunge... which gives you an extra 5 feet.
Also, check out Lunge paired with the Combat Patrol feat. your 10 foot reach weapon just became 25 feet of threat at level 10. 30 foot of threat at level 15. Fun stuff to theorize, but there again, how do you handle multiple attacks of opportunity with many creatures.
I guess the best way to ask this question would be if 5 creatures ran through your threat separately on their turns would you only get to do an AoO on the first one (no combat reflexes feat), or would you get a AoO on all of them?
Linkman81, you are misunderstanding the limitation on AoOs.
First, you are only allowed to make ONE AoO per round (unless you have Combat Reflexes). Not per the enemy's turn.
Second, AoOs are just like any other X/round ability. They refresh at the start of your turn. If you use them on your turn you don't get more on the enemy's turn.
So, if you have 5 AoOs (Combat Reflexes and a Dex bonus of 4) it doesn't matter if you take 2 on your turn and 3 when it isn't your turn or all 5 on your turn. They only refresh when it becomes your turn again.
Making a great cleave attack on enemy 1, tripping that enemy with that attack, and then making an AoO on enemy 1 is fine. But doing the same on enemy 2 is only legal if you have Combat Reflexes or some other means to get extra AoOs per round.
Yeah, my Lore Warden trip build uses Whirlwind Attack with Greater Trip and a whip. I also dipped a level to get the Plant(Growth) subdomain. It's pretty nasty when, at level 7, everything within a 30' burst is prone and provoking AoOs. However, the caveat with this guy is that I didn't take Combat Reflexes, so I only make 1 AoO per round. I usually just wait until someone stands up.
Funny thing is, he's level 9 now, and 8 of those levels are Fighter. In the last PFS scenario that I played him in, he didn't deal a single point of damage. I just played him like a controller Wizard, only I stood in the front.
Gauss, I think you're right. Here's the deciding text...
Under the section "Making an Attack of Opportunity" it reads...
"An attack of opportunity is a single melee attack, and most characters can only make one per round."
And of course the definition of a round...
The Combat Round:
When the rules refer to a "full round", they usually mean a span of time from a particular initiative count in one round to the same initiative count in the next round.
and...
A round normally allows each character involved in a combat situation to act.
Soooo, I think you're right... and although it doesn't spell it out explicitly in the AoO section, like many other finer points in the book, they rely on you understanding the exact definition of the language they use to understand it fully.
I am unsure how "explicit" you are expecting the rules to be, 1 AoO per round is pretty cut and dry, kind of hard to misinterpret that. You may have misunderstood it thinking it said once per turn, is the definition you are expecting supposed to look more like this:
An attack of opportunity is a single melee attack, and all characters can only make a single attack of opportunity until the particular initiative count in which the attack of opportunity was taken has reoccurred on the round following this attack of opportunity. This is true unless a character possesses the combat reflexes feat, in which case they may make a number of attacks of opportunity equal to 1 + their Dexterity modifier until the initiative count in which the attack of opportunity is taken reoccurs on the following round.
This much text is completely unnecessary and takes up way too much space, there is a subtle amount of common sense taken into account when the designer write these books, where they assume we do not take their definitions too literally to the point where we expect every tiny bit of clarification to be written out right in front of us.
As for Cleave and Whirlwind Attack, I beseech you to look up the definition of the word "cleave". What I described was not Whirlwind attack, though whirlwind attack does essentially perform a similar task, though it described more as swinging your weapon around and hitting everybody within reach. Cleave is pushing your weapon through one person onto the next, connecting all of your attacks with one elongated push.
BigP4nda,
The term "cleave" is at best misleading. While it gives you the impression of a big slashing weapon cutting through multiple targets the actual use is far from it.
First, you ARE allowed to make non-cleave attacks in the middle of your cleave (Cleaving Finish is an example).
Second, if your weapon is your non-lethal fist, how are you pushing that through one person to the next?
Cleave is a poorly named game mechanic and, like many in 3.5/PF, the fluff does not match the mechanic.
I'm not sure if you can substitute attacks between cleave for trip attacks. I used to think it is possible, but now that Monster Codex came up with a feat called:
Cleaving Sweep
I am not so sure anymore.
With this new feat, 2 scenarios come into mind.
1) It was not legal to declare trip with a cleave attack.
2) It was actually legal, which makes this feat obsolete.
@gauss, nowhere did I say the word cut. You can punch multiple people with one swing if it's powerful and large enough and if you follow through.
And nowhere is Cleaving Finish does it state being able to interrupt a cleave to make the attack. It just tacks on another attack if you reduce an opponent to 0 or fewer hp.
BigPanda, I can see what you're saying. The game tag/description of the feat and the details of how the feat works are different and somewhat contradictory in concept. To be clear though, I'm only interested in the mechanics. In my mind, the mechanical details of how the feat works trumps any description of how the feat would play out in real combat.
(copied and pasted from http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/cleave-combat)
Cleave (Combat)
You can strike two adjacent foes with a single swing.
Prerequisites: Str 13, Power Attack, base attack bonus +1.
Benefit: As a standard action, you can make a single attack at your full base attack bonus against a foe within reach. If you hit, you deal damage normally and can make an additional attack (using your full base attack bonus) against a foe that is adjacent to the first and also within reach. You can only make one additional attack per round with this feat. When you use this feat, you take a –2 penalty to your Armor Class until your next turn.
That is CLEAVE... GREATER CLEAVE which I've quoted in my original post lets you continue to make additional attacks one after another if you keep on successfully hitting them, and the next target is adjacent to the last and still in reach.
Whirlwind attack lets you attack all creatures in threat range regardless of whether you successfully hit any particular one, and regardless of them being adjacent to each other or not.
So as far as I can tell the question is if you're surrounded by monsters (a line is useless because you can't move during a Cleave) you want to trip AoO->trip AoO->etc. through all of them.
So, unfortunately, I don't think they ever addressed an issue that makes this complicated. Does a trip "hit" or not, because Cleave triggers off of a successful hit and combat maneuvers are not generally described as "hitting" (usually it's succeeding). For now we'll assume this does work (because the other option shuts the whole thing down immediately).
Provided you can use trip with Cleave, yes, you absolutely can use Greater Cleave to Trip all of them (provided you continue to hit) and may choose to take an AoO on any of the ones you trip. You still spend AoO as normal and would probably run out before managing to trip all 8 (or 32 if you're large).
I am honestly not sure if even RAW supports this. There is some RAW merit saying that it does, but if people think about it, a lv 6 fighter could reach abnormally high amount of attacks at full BaB. Around two attacks per opponent. Sure, he has to land them and it might be situational, but that's still a lot of possible attacks.
I would dispute that you need to deal actual damage while using Cleave to resolve it, but it's not exactly rules as written.
@Grijm - The way I read it... Cleaving Sweep is more analogous to Whirlwind attack. The fact that they named it cleaving sweep is what is misleading. They should have called it whirlwind trip. Cleaving relies on you chaining successful hits off of adjacent foes. Whirlwind Attack and Cleaving Sweep lets you hit all foes in reach regardless of consecutive successful hits or adjacency.
@Malag - here's my reasoning for thinking that trips will work with a feat like cleave.
Performing a Combat Maneuver:
"When performing a combat maneuver, you must use an action appropriate to the maneuver you are attempting to perform. While many combat maneuvers can be performed as part of an attack action, full-attack action, or attack of opportunity (in place of a melee attack), others require a specific action."
From my perspective, this says that a combat maneuver is an attack action because it can be used as part of an attack action, full attack or attack of opportunity. The description for cleave states... " If you hit, you deal damage normally and can make an additional attack (using your full base attack bonus) against a foe..."
I can't argue what was "intended" but as far for how it is written, it looks clear to me.
If you were talking about the AoO question, I agree. RAW doesn't support endless AoO because it's different creatures. I conceded that in my second post. The definition of ROUND is pretty concrete. You get 1 AoO per ROUND, unless you have the Combat Reflexes feat. So if I had a dex of 14, I could get 3 AoO total in the time from my action in initiative until it came back around again.
@ Grijm
What does Cleaving Sweep have to do with any of this? It's basically Whirlwind Attack, but only with trips, different prereqs, and a much later entry. The only ways that cleave is related are that 1) it's a prereq and 2) both feats start with the same 5 letters.
You can ALWAYS substitute a trip (or disarm/sunder) maneuver for a melee attack.
Bob Bob Bob does raise good point though: maneuvers succeed, attacks hit. Since you make a maneuver IN PLACE OF an attack, it's iffy. However, to attempt a maneuver, you make an attack roll, so...??? I would personally allow it, but a generic PFS GM? That's an entirely different story.
@ Malag
With Whirlwind Attack, Greater Trip, Combat Reflexes, and an absurdly high Dex, he could in fact get 3 attacks per enemy within reach. 1 for Whirlwind, 1 for Greater Trip, and 1 for the little boy down the lane ...No, wait, I mean for flinching ....for standing from prone.
If you're using a reach weapon (of COURSE you are!), try setting up a Wombo Combo by having your Druid/Wizard/Magus friend cast Stone Call centered on you. Sure, you're eating their dust (and 2d6 points of damage), but all your enemies are in difficult terrain, so moving anywhere at all will provoke ANOTHER AoO, which you can then Greater Trip them with....
And THE CIRCLE IS NOW COMPLETE.
Enjoy your new-and-improved, 100% totally legal triplock (Now with AoOs!)
@galahad2112 as awesome as a triplock sounds... it doesn't work. I had the same idea, and eventually found out that an FAQ did cover that as not being legal. Since an AoO is resolved in the moment before the provoking action happens, the creature is still prone and thus can't be tripped. Here is the link to the FAQ that covers it...
http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9n8a
EDIT: oh wait, I see what you were meaning... the difficult terrain and them moving to close the range with you allows you to trip again... not necessarily tripping them when they attempt to stand.
Sounds like you've got it right. Just about the only action they could perform WITHOUT provoking would be the Withdraw action. Of course, they've only got a single move's worth of speed left (since they stood up) and they're in difficult terrain, so they won't get far. Also, have your caster Enlarge you. Withdraw only stops the AoO on the FIRST 5 feet of movement.
Lol... now, just to throw a wrench in...
if he happens to be a dwarf with Goblin Cleaver and Orc Hewer, they no longer have to be adjacent, only in reach and his size....
A much more fun version of whirlwind attack since it is at your highest BAB (which usually always hits) and doesn't take dodge mobility and spring attack to get.
True, it doesn't have quite the same number of prereq feats as Whirlwind, but.... it's 2 racial feats + 2 combat feats, so...it's only 1 feat cheaper than Whirlwind. Also, if you're looking at getting Greater Trip (which the build is kind of predicated on), you're getting the 5th prereq feat for Whirlwind anyway (Combat Expertise). Also, Whirlwind is at your highest BAB, and doesn't require any particular attack to hit to keep attacking. And the whole Whirlwind chain is generally useful.
I guess that it's better for action economy, so that's something.
The real wrench in the plan is having a high enough Dex to actually MAKE all of those AoOs.
The major benefit is that Great Cleave is a Standard action, not a full round like whirlwind attack. So you can do this after moving.
-Grijm- wrote: I'm not sure if you can substitute attacks between cleave for trip attacks. I used to think it is possible, but now that Monster Codex came up with a feat called:
Cleaving Sweep
I am not so sure anymore.
With this new feat, 2 scenarios come into mind.
1) It was not legal to declare trip with a cleave attack.
2) It was actually legal, which makes this feat obsolete.
As it's been pointed out, you're misunderstanding Cleaving Sweep (LINK). Cleaving Sweep could let you make more attacks than you're able to. If you have a BAB of +11, with a greataxe you're only getting 3 attacks. With CS, if there are 8 enemies within reach, then you get to make a trip attempt against all 8 of them at your highest BAB by giving up your full attack. That's a huge difference.
With Great Cleave everyone you try and trip has to be adjacent to each other, within reach, and if you miss your attack-chain stops. CS doesn't care if you miss or not, you get an attempt against everyone within reach no matter what.
Despite the name "Cleaving" and having Cleave as a pre-requisite Cleaving Sweep is like an alternate, trip only version of Whirlwind Attack. It has nothing to do with the Cleave mechanics.
Just to summarize for newcomers to the thread I think this issue has been 90% resolved.
Combat maneuvers such as trip and disarm are indeed written as "attacks" that can be used as part of an attack action, full attack or attacks of opportunity. It's only logical that since these maneuvers are synonymous with [melee] "attack" that you could use it where an "attack" happens as part of a standard action, be it in a feat or otherwise. If it's allowed in an AoO, I don't see why it wouldn't be allowed as an attack outlined in a feat.
What was not settled is whether or not a combat maneuver "hits" as stated in the cleave feat. It is my personal opinion that "hit" in this case would more accurately mean "succeed" (as in your attack roll). If they ONLY intended for you to use a regular attack for cleave they would have been more specific and use the term "damage" instead of "hit." Then, no one could argue that a maneuver could be used instead of swing of the blade.
Also, I was confused on the language used for the rules of Attacks of Opportunity in my original post. In my second post in this thread I conceded the point and quoted a few rules that made that point concrete. You only get one AoO per ROUND without the Combat reflexes feat. And a round is defined as a single point in initiative cycling through all involved and returning to the original point. I was confusing the terms ROUND and TURN. My example was if a parade of (5) creatures each ran past you through your threat range, would you get to swing at all of them? I was thinking if I had 3 AoO, I could take multiple swings at each creature as they ran past me. This is incorrect. You only get three a ROUND, not three for each person's TURN.
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