Making a two handed fighter... request help with numbers & cleave family.

[Odessa333]

Hi!

I have a few questions on the character I am building. Questions below, with details of game here for those interested: I am running a human fighter with the two handed fighter archtype. I am wielding a greatsword (two handed weapon, duh). We are currently level 2 with the feats of Power attack, Furious focus, Cleave, and Weapon focus. GM has said game will end by level 10 (10 is max level, even if game isn't done). 15 point build, going 18 STR (+2 bonus here), 14 CON, 12 DEX, 10 WIS, 10 INT, 8 CHA. I was brought in to bring the pain, so damage is key. Other members of party are an archer, a cleric, an oracle, and a wizard.

Follow so far? Let's do this!

1. Math

My math skills are terrible. Yes, I've heard how it's typical 'girls can't do math' yadda yadda yadda. There are a lot of different numbers hitting me for this build, and I'm not sure if i'm adding them right. I'd appreciate someone checking my work.

I have an 18 STR so my bonus is +4. To hit, I have my +4 STR, + 2 from half STR for two handed, and +1 weapon focus = +7. Damage I have +4 STR, +2 from half STR from two handed for +6 normally (another +3 from power attack with no -1 due to furious focus). Level three gives me overhand chop, increasing this to +8 from STR, +4 from half STR for two handed for normal of +12, and +15 with power attack.

Is this right? I never thought I'd have to be THIS good at math to hit things with a sword...


2. Cleave and friends.

I am a tad lost when it comes to Cleave, Great Cleave, Cleaving Finish, and Improved cleaning finish. I am often surrounded by enemies as I am the team's only melee class with an archer, a cleric, an oracle, and a wizard behind me. I need as many attacks as possible, but I don't know how these stack, or if they stack.

Take this battle I had last night:
Numbers are enemies, m= Me
123
4M

I was able to use cleave nearly the entire fight. Hit 4, then 1. Hit 2, then 3, etc.

I add cleaving finish, same formation. I use my power attack and hit 4, don't kill. I cleave 1, kill. Can I then use cleaving finish to attack opponent 2? Could I hit opponent 4 again?

Add in Great cleave, same formation

I hit 4 with power attack (no kill), cleave 1(no kill). Can I then great cleave to hit 2? Then great cleave again to hit 3? If I kill 3, can I use cleaving finish to hit 2 again?

With cleave, great cleave, cleaving finish, and improved cleaving finish. Same formation.
Power attack 4(no kill), cleave 1(kill), great cleave 2(no kill), great cleave 3(kill), cleaving finish 2 (kill), improved cleaving finish 4(kill).

Am I understanding these rules right? Being surrounded often, I want to make sure I am making the most attacks possible to thin out the herd.

Thanks for lending your time to read this. Your help is appreciated!

V

[Ferronach]

If you are playing 3.5 (I'm not sure about the 3.P rules) cleave does not work in that manner.

For cleave to take effect, you will need to do something that causes the enemy that you attacked to fall down ("drop" in RAW). this is usually done by killing the opponent but depending on the DM you can trip etc. to "drop" your opponent. Cleave will only allow you to do this once per round. Great cleave allows you to cleave as many times as possible per round.

To use your example, say you kill 4, you can then cleave into any of the others (1 being the most logical). Say you somehow kill 1 (or otherwise drop it), with cleave you are now done but Great cleave will allow you to attack 2 and possibly 3 if you drop 2.

Note: you cannot take a 5 foot step between your attack and a cleave/great cleave.

In later levels when you have 2 or more attacks, great cleave becomes more useful. Say you kill 4, cleave allows you a free hit on 1 at the same to hit and damage modifiers (from power attack etc.).
If that kills 1 you can then hit 2 with the same numbers (rolling for damage each time). Unfortunately you only damage 2 (you don't drop it for w.e. reason). Now you take your second attack (you can take a 5 foot step here) on 2 and drop it prompting cleave/g. cleave to take effect allowing you to hit 3 with the new modifiers.

hope this helps :)

[HighWater]

You're playing Pathfinder, I'm guessing? You might want to tag your post with the appropriate disclaimer.


My math skills are terrible. Yes, I've heard how it's typical 'girls can't do math' yadda yadda yadda. There are a lot of different numbers hitting me for this build, and I'm not sure if i'm adding them right. I'd appreciate someone checking my work.

DnD math is a headache, I don't think being a girl makes it significantly worse. :smallwink: Time for the math-check:


I have an 18 STR so my bonus is +4. To hit, I have my +4 STR, + 2 from half STR for two handed, and +1 weapon focus = +7.
Your means of calculating To-Hit is wrong. The +Half STR bonus from wielding a weapon Two-Handed only applies on Damage rolls. So your To-Hit is: +4 STR, +1 Weapon Focus, + Your BAB (you're presumably a level 2 Fighter, so that's +2) for a total of +7. The Bonus str does not apply to attack rolls, so eventhough you got the number right, your method was wrong.


Damage I have +4 STR, +2 from half STR from two handed for +6 normally (another +3 from power attack with no -1 due to furious focus). Level three gives me overhand chop, increasing this to +8 from STR, +4 from half STR for two handed for normal of +12, and +15 with power attack.
Your current Damage is +4 STR, +2 from half STR (so +6), and +3 from Pathfinder two-handed Powerattack, so that's alright. I think you're wrong about the next level though (disclaimer: I don't play Pathfinder). The "Double Strength" from Overhand Chop seems to replace the 1+1/2 Strength you usually apply. So your Damage would be +8 from Strength (Twohanded Overhand Chop) +3 from Power Attack for a total of +11.


Is this right? I never thought I'd have to be THIS good at math to hit things with a sword...
It may be a fantasy-sword, but at least the math is real. Maybe that helps...? :smallwink:

I'm not going to look over the Cleave & friends bit, because that would require me to look up all the rules for Pathfinder Cleave (never played it, never used it), but I'm sure somebody else can help you out on that.

[Eldariel]

It shouldn't be that hard to do the math itself but rather to remember which numbers to add. To that end, it's convenient to just remember which influences which.

Hit roll: Strength + BAB + Weapon Bonus + Feats
Damage: Weapon damage + Strength + ½ Strength + Weapon Bonus

At this point, your weapon bonus is 0, but once you get your Excalibur or whatever, your weapon will begin having bonus, which adds to both, to hit and to damage. Either way, just try and remember which numbers add to which and you should be fine. After playing a bit longer it'll get natural as you constantly roll the same numbers though so I wouldn't worry about it at this point too much.


As for Cleave-line...

Cleave (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/cleave-combat) and Great Cleave (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/great-cleave-combat---final) are both Standard Actions. Each round you have 1 Standard Action and 1 Move Action (or 1 Full-Round Action). As such, you can only use either-or. Great Cleave is usually just plain better, so there's no real reason to use Cleave instead of Great Cleave. Either you use normal attack (e.g. when you're only facing single enemy) or Great Cleave.

Cleaving Finish (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/cleaving-finish-combat) adds one extra attack if you kill an opponent. No buts, no fuss. If any of your (Great) Cleaved opponents die, you get exactly one more attack. If more than one die, you still only get exactly one more attack. This attack is made immediately (that is, before the rest of your [Great] Cleave attacks are rolled). With Improved Cleaving Finish (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/improved-cleaving-finish-combat), you get an attack each time an enemy dies to your attack.

Say you have a 10 rats around you and you Great Cleave all of them, you will have one attack/rat as a base, and each time you kill a rat, you'll get another attack. Of course, it doesn't matter how many attacks you have if you have no enemies left to attack. Note that Great Cleave and Cleave both restrict you to attacking each enemy exactly once during this action so you won't be able to beat somebody bloody with a dozen extra attacks from Cleaving Finishes. If you cleave a rat and hit + kill it tho, that does give you two extra attacks. Only the Great Cleave attack will continue the Great Cleave itself but any additional kills will give you additional attacks from Improved Cleaving Finish. This way, you'll very likely kill the 10 rats around you if you Great Cleave them.

[Odessa333]

Ah yes, this is for pathfinder. Silly me!

The math there does check.. I can't believe I had the formula wrong and still had the right number. Oy.

The cleave skills in pathfinder are confusing as all heck to me. Cleave allows one extra attack, Great cleave allows as many as you like (with the rules for what is 'next to' not clear), Finishing cleave adds the 'drop' rule for one more attack, and Greater finishing cleave allows as many of those as you can make. The wording is so unclear I can't figure out how they work together.

EDIT: Didn't see the last post beforehand.

So if surrounded by rats, Great Cleave will let me attack all of them, and greater finishing cleave gives extra attacks for finishing them. So to make sure I get this:

I'm surrounded by rats, and I great cleave the most injured one first. It dies, and I get to use finishing cleave to injure the second rat. It doesn't die then, but then I get to use Greater cleave on it. It dies, triggering Finishing cleave, repeating the process.

In short, if done right, I can use great cleave and finishing cleave on each rat once. Great cleave can only hit an opponent once, but finishing cleave doesn't say that. I can't think of a situation where that would come up, but could you ever use greater finishing cleave on the same enemy twice?

[Eldariel]

EDIT: Didn't see the last post beforehand.

So if surrounded by rats, Great Cleave will let me attack all of them, and greater finishing cleave gives extra attacks for finishing them. So to make sure I get this:

I'm surrounded by rats, and I great cleave the most injured one first. It dies, and I get to use finishing cleave to injure the second rat. It doesn't die then, but then I get to use Greater cleave on it. It dies, triggering Finishing cleave, repeating the process.

In short, if done right, I can use great cleave and finishing cleave on each rat once. Great cleave can only hit an opponent once, but finishing cleave doesn't say that. I can't think of a situation where that would come up, but could you ever use greater finishing cleave on the same enemy twice?

Not exactly. Great Cleave restricts you to only attacking each enemy once during the action. Improved Cleaving Finish grants you bonus attacks when enemies die; that is still during the same action. As such, this limitation limits all attacks done during Great Cleave including bonus attacks from Improved Cleaving Finish, if Improved Cleaving Finish triggers off kills inside the Great Cleave. If you kill people for Improved Cleaving Finish bonus attacks with any action that does not have a restriction like the one Great Cleave has, then there would be no such limit.

As it stands, you hit the first rat and kill it. This gives you bonus attack from Improved Cleaving Finish. Practically, this means that you do the bonus attack from Improved Cleaving Finish first and if this bonus attack kills a rat, you get another attack and continue until you don't kill a rat. Now, you continue Great Cleave afterwards; you can't attack the same rat you hit with Improved Cleaving Finish. However, Great Cleave only continues if you hit each attack so in the event that you miss any of your attacks (with 10 attacks, rolling a Natural 1 is beginning to get likely even if your Hit-bonus is high enough that you'd autohit otherwise), the Improved Cleaving Finish attacks can be beneficial.

So if you Great Cleave a rat and it dies, then you Improved Cleaving Finish another rat but miss, you can still continue to try and Great Cleave on a third rat. On the other hand, without Improved Cleaving Finish: if you Great Cleave a rat, and then miss the second one, your Great Cleave ends there.

[Odessa333]

Not exactly. Great Cleave restricts you to only attacking each enemy once during the action. Improved Cleaving Finish grants you bonus attacks when enemies die; that is still during the same action. As such, this limitation limits all attacks done during Great Cleave including bonus attacks from Improved Cleaving Finish, if Improved Cleaving Finish triggers off kills inside the Great Cleave. If you kill people for Improved Cleaving Finish bonus attacks with any action that does not have a restriction like the one Great Cleave has, then there would be no such limit.

As it stands, you hit the first rat and kill it. This gives you bonus attack from Improved Cleaving Finish. Practically, this means that you do the bonus attack from Improved Cleaving Finish first and if this bonus attack kills a rat, you get another attack and continue until you don't kill a rat. Now, you continue Great Cleave afterwards; you can't attack the same rat you hit with Improved Cleaving Finish. However, Great Cleave only continues if you hit each attack so in the event that you miss any of your attacks (with 10 attacks, rolling a Natural 1 is beginning to get likely even if your Hit-bonus is high enough that you'd autohit otherwise), the Improved Cleaving Finish attacks can be beneficial.

So if you Great Cleave a rat and it dies, then you Improved Cleaving Finish another rat but miss, you can still continue to try and Great Cleave on a third rat. On the other hand, without Improved Cleaving Finish: if you Great Cleave a rat, and then miss the second one, your Great Cleave ends there.

Wow, I knew this stuff was hard...

So I can only cleave, great cleave, finishing cleave, and/or greater finishing cleave each enemy once? If I understand this right if every move hits all you'd need is Great Cleave as the finishing feats don't add attacks, just another way to get an attack. That's nuts. I guess I'll get Great Cleave and forget about finishing cleave.

[Eldariel]

Wow, I knew this stuff was hard...

So I can only cleave, great cleave, finishing cleave, and/or greater finishing cleave each enemy once? If I understand this right if every move hits all you'd need is Great Cleave as the finishing feats don't add attacks, just another way to get an attack. That's nuts. I guess I'll get Great Cleave and forget about finishing cleave.

Well, Great Cleave ends the second you miss. Against many enemies you have as high as a 50% chance of missing so Great Cleave can get interrupted rather fast. Improved Finishing Cleave helps a bit with that. It also works outside Cleave too. So if you do a normal full attack for instance (a more relevant option once you get 6+ Base Attack Bonus and thus a second attack on full attack, and when your Wizard learns Haste), you do a bunch of attacks against the same target and if you kill it, you get extras.

But yeah, you're correct, it's not all that powerful a feat. Same goes for Great Cleave, frankly, since it's only better than Cleave against 3 opponents assuming you hit each one. Then again, it's still strictly better than Cleave so that's nice.

[Odessa333]

Huh, I suppose that DOES make the finishing cleave line worth while. I want to get as many attacks as possible, but needing four feats to make one kind of action work seems overly silly. Having a ton of feats as a fighter isn't as useful as advertised with all the feat taxes.