Cleave with piercing and bludgeoning weapons?

[The Insanity]

It's pretty clear how Cleave with a slashing weapon looks like, but I'm having trouble imagining the feat being used with a piercing or bludgeoning weapon. Or Great Cleave, for that matter. I know, mechanically it's just additional attacks, but fluffwise they're supposed to be one swing. And I like that fluff. So... help?

[exelsisxax]

Stab all the way through a guy with your spear and hit the guy behind him - and maybe the guy behind him too.

Bludgeoning weapons don't make sense because you can't push them through targets. Just pretend it makes sense.

[Chronikoce]

Bludgeoning could be hitting target so hard that you smash the target into a secondary target who takes bludgeoning damage from being hit by the displaced corpse.

[torrasque666]

Remember in Lord of the Rings when they show Sauron sending waves of soldiers flying with a single swing of his mace? That's a bludgeoning cleave.

[DrMotives]

A dragon's tail sweep attack is basically a bludgeoning cleave attack. The image of a big oafish giant smashing his club through puny human soldiers, knocking them down like bowling pins is a bludgeoning cleave. The are iconic fantasy combat moves.

I'll give you piercing, it's a little weird unless you're shooting a ballista or shoving a spear through a bunch of enemy all lined up; which is less a heroic fantasy trope & more of a really violent, straight-to-video B horror movie trope.

[The Insanity]

Remember in Lord of the Rings when they show Sauron sending waves of soldiers flying with a single swing of his mace? That's a bludgeoning cleave.
But Cleave doesn't send enemies flying.


Stab all the way through a guy with your spear and hit the guy behind him - and maybe the guy behind him too.
Doesn't really work when enemies stand next to each other, surrounding you, instead of in a line.


A dragon's tail sweep attack is basically a bludgeoning cleave attack. The image of a big oafish giant smashing his club through puny human soldiers, knocking them down like bowling pins is a bludgeoning cleave. The are iconic fantasy combat moves.
But Cleave doesn't do that. I guess maybe, if you trip with the attacks?

[exelsisxax]

You can't chop through 3 orcs with any kind of axe or sword either. You are conflating the mechanics with the things they are sort-of simulating. Nobody takes turns or stands still. Roleplay it like you moved into a position where you could impale multiple opponents in rapid succession. You aren't getting anything better than that.

[DrMotives]

How does cleave not do that? It literally activates when you drop an enemy. There's no trip needed.

[SangoProduction]

You can't chop through 3 orcs with any kind of axe or sword either. You are conflating the mechanics with the things they are sort-of simulating. Nobody takes turns or stands still. Roleplay it like you moved into a position where you could impale multiple opponents in rapid succession. You aren't getting anything better than that.

This, in it's entirety.

[Hal0Badger]

When you cleave, the extra attack is not the part of same attack, or to be more precise, don't have to be.

Simply put, when you down an enemy, you use momentum and surprise to attack another one in the blink of an eye.

You don't need to impale or smash multiple enemies with a single attack. Actually, not doing that should be the norm, since you roll another attack and not use the same one you rolled earlier.

[weckar]

I always saw cleave as the quintessential ninja move of dancing through a battlefield killing one after the next so swiftly no one can really respond.
The type of weapon quickly becomes irrelevant.