Player wants to cleave.

[Chadamantium]

How should I handle it. Couldn't find a ruling so I have two ideas on how to do it.

1. Roll to hit first target. Roll damage. If the target dies, roll for adjacent target. If it hits the left over damage from target 1 goes into 2

2. Roll to hit target 1. Roll damage then half it(round down). Roll to hit target 2. Give other half damage to target 2.

do either of these work or how would you do it differently?

[TrexPushups]

The Great weapon mastery feat has cleave as its first bullet point.

Basically If a player crits with the melee weapon or reduces a creature to 0 hitpoints they can make one melee attack as a bonus action.

Try letting them do that.

[golentan]

How should I handle it. Couldn't find a ruling so I have two ideas on how to do it.

1. Roll to hit first target. Roll damage. If the target dies, roll for adjacent target. If it hits the left over damage from target 1 goes into 2

2. Roll to hit target 1. Roll damage then half it(round down). Roll to hit target 2. Give other half damage to target 2.

do either of these work or how would you do it differently?

There's a feat that allows it... Great Weapon Master rolls together Cleave and Power Attack, basically.

[ZenBear]

The only ways to cleave within the rules are to be a Battlemaster Fighter to use the Cleaving Strike Maneuver, take the Maneuver Master feat for the same on any class, or take Heavy Weapon Master (?afb) to get a bonus action attack after killing or criting while wielding a heavy two-handed weapon.

If you want to house rule something, I like the first one better. Must hit both targets and the second target only takes left over damage.

[bokodasu]

There's optional cleaving rules in the DMG (p272). Basically as long as your hit would hit a second (third, fourth, whatever) creature you apply the excess damage to the next creature until you're out of damage. Works when you have someone doing 80 damage against a bunch of 5-hp kobolds or whatever - and it's a house rule we used back in the olden days so it makes me happy to see it in an official rulebook, even if it is totally silly cinematic.

[HoarsHalberd]

There's optional cleaving rules in the DMG (p272). Basically as long as your hit would hit a second (third, fourth, whatever) creature you apply the excess damage to the next creature until you're out of damage. Works when you have someone doing 80 damage against a bunch of 5-hp kobolds or whatever - and it's a house rule we used back in the olden days so it makes me happy to see it in an official rulebook, even if it is totally silly cinematic.

Seems like that gives too much power to martial classes to deal with hordes. At least at high single digit levels. At higher levels martial classes need as much help as they can get.

[heavyfuel]

There's optional cleaving rules in the DMG (p272). Basically as long as your hit would hit a second (third, fourth, whatever) creature you apply the excess damage to the next creature until you're out of damage. Works when you have someone doing 80 damage against a bunch of 5-hp kobolds or whatever - and it's a house rule we used back in the olden days so it makes me happy to see it in an official rulebook, even if it is totally silly cinematic.

Note the suggention/rule that this only applies to hoards of lower level monsters. So this probably doesn't work in regulars 2 on 1 situations, or in situations were the enemy is of higher/same level as the PC.


Seems like that gives too much power to martial classes to deal with hordes. At least at high single digit levels. At higher levels martial classes need as much help as they can get.

That's the idea. Casters are pretty overpowered anyway, no reason to not let the Barbarian cleave through opponents that are 5+ levels below him...

[HoarsHalberd]

That's the idea. Casters are pretty overpowered anyway, no reason to not let the Barbarian cleave through opponents that are 5+ levels below him...

Aye, but what I meant was having an absolute minimum level fiat-ed in first. Otherwise it eradicates the only downside to rogues and paladins at lower levels. Low horde damage.

[bokodasu]

It's unlikely a low-level barbarian is going to be taking out more than two creatures using this rule, even if you say he can do it all the time against everything. (Which is why it's an optional rule, because most DMs are expected to use their judgement on it instead of saying it works all the time against everything.)

[HoarsHalberd]

It's unlikely a low-level barbarian is going to be taking out more than two creatures using this rule, even if you say he can do it all the time against everything. (Which is why it's an optional rule, because most DMs are expected to use their judgement on it instead of saying it works all the time against everything.)

Yes, its unlikely a low level barbarian would. But a paladin who blows a slot on divine smite could cleave through 3 5hp kobolds in a single turn and all but wipe out a fourth. On average. At level 2. Thus ruining his balance against the other martial classes. As for your second point this thread is a DM asking for help. Without explaining balancing issues how is he supposed to implement it fairly. (Also fiat-ing it in and out of existence arbitrarily is unfair on the player. You should give set rules to govern the use of homebrew or optional rules to enable tactical thinking.)

[heavyfuel]

Aye, but what I meant was having an absolute minimum level fiat-ed in first. Otherwise it eradicates the only downside to rogues and paladins at lower levels. Low horde damage.

Personally, I say that any creature with 5 or less HD than the attacker. This is a personal houserule though, and isn`t reflected anywhere within the rules.


It's unlikely a low-level barbarian is going to be taking out more than two creatures using this rule, even if you say he can do it all the time against everything. (Which is why it's an optional rule, because most DMs are expected to use their judgement on it instead of saying it works all the time against everything.)

Indeed. Not to mention that the language used is "horde", so two creatures occupying a 10 by 5 feet space doesn't count. Horde, as I see it, means more than the max amount that can surround an enemy (9+ medium/small creatures against a single medium/small one, since 8 creatures can surround the single creature with plenty of space for all of them to fight, much like 2 creautres fighitng)

[jkat718]

@heavyfuel: I was going to ask if you meant CR, but I actually think HD makes more sense here. Just because a Kobold can fly doesn't make it harder to cleave through.

[Riston]

Personally, I say that any creature with 5 or less HD than the attacker. This is a personal houserule though, and isn`t reflected anywhere within the rules.

But there isalready a limit in the DMG - it only works when you drop undamaged creature in one hit. Highly unlikely against enemies of similar CR.

[Gwendol]

I like the DMG cleave rule. It gives a tactical dimension to martial combat.

[pwykersotz]

I would probably allow a character to, at his option, attack any number of adjacent opponents by rolling to-hit against each of them and splitting the damage evenly, rounding down. I might put a couple restrictions on it, but those would be situational. I would allow any damage increases from things like smite to stack with this, but any other rider effects would be against the first target only.

No idea if it's balanced, but that's my first inclination. I'll have to crunch some numbers on it.

[heavyfuel]

But there isalready a limit in the DMG - it only works when you drop undamaged creature in one hit. Highly unlikely against enemies of similar CR.

I know that. I just added the HD requirement because at lower levels, you can pretty much take out any CR appropriate creature with a single blow. Especially creatures that find strength in numbers, like Kobolds. I dislike the idea of a lv 1 adventurer killing 3 kobolds in a single critical hit

[Doug Lampert]

There's optional cleaving rules in the DMG (p272). Basically as long as your hit would hit a second (third, fourth, whatever) creature you apply the excess damage to the next creature until you're out of damage. Works when you have someone doing 80 damage against a bunch of 5-hp kobolds or whatever - and it's a house rule we used back in the olden days so it makes me happy to see it in an official rulebook, even if it is totally silly cinematic.

It totally makes sense in the abstraction. HP aren't entirely meat, they also represent your ability to avoid damage. This means that "hits" aren't all solid contact and "attacks" aren't a single swing of a blade.

A level 1 fighter doesn't swing once every six seconds and then stand there. He's constantly attacking, but his foes are constantly defending and the result is that we abstract the resolution with one die roll per round as representing attack vs. defense balance.

But if I can overkill someone with damage left over, then his defense ability is being badly overstated by requiring 6 seconds to kill, I actually CAN kill him with a single casual swing of the sword or whatever, and go on to attack someone else.

A level 1 fighter SHOULD be able to inflict a mortal wound in a tiny fraction of a round some against sufficiently feeble opponents, and the sufficiently feeble opponents are exactly the ones he overkills.

As for killing three kobolds with a single critical hit at level 1, none of the three can defend against your strikes, and you did enough damage to kill all three. Is it really that unbelievable that you can hit 3 targets in one round if the target's CAN'T effectively defend themselves and are taken out in one shot (and if they can effectively defend themselves they should have more HP, HP are the main scaling for melee defense).

Now: I personally would require an extra "to hit" roll prior to applying the left-over damage to a new opponent. But either rule works fine with the abstraction. If you don't want kobolds to be astonishingly weak on defense, give them more HP.

[Chadamantium]

So now I feel dumb for not seeing the Cleaving section in the DMG which makes perfect sense for me. The PHB isn't quite what I'm looking for as the player is using a battleaxe but I could rework it to apply to the axe without any trouble.

Thanks for the help guys.