Human
3rd LVL Fighter (BAB +3)
18 STR
Great Axe Weapon of choice
Feats: Toughness, Power Attack, Weapon Focus (Great Axe), Iron Will, Cleave
Using the Two-Handed Fighter sub class from the APV
Question 1a: Declaring "Power Attack" and using the Overhand Chop (and rolling high enough to hit)should give me the following:
1d20+7 to hit, 1d12 for Great Axe and adding 8 damage for the Overhand Chop plus 3 more damage for Power Attack for a total of 11 damage. Is this correct? potentially doing 23 points damage?
Question 1b: If I am able to Cleave into an adjacent opponent, do I use the same formula?
I thank everyone in advance
1a. Yes! Looks right on the calculations. You can do 23 damage or a whopping 69 damage on a crit.
1b. I'm not sure. Since Overhand Chop is very explicit and says it only works when you make a single attack (such as with the attack action or charge). A cleave is a specific standard action and not technically an attack action.
But, we can wait to see what others think about it.
Cleave is an standard action attack that, under the right conditions, grants an additional attack that doesn't use an action.
Given that, I would say that the first attack would get the bonus, but if were able to make the second attack, the bonus would not apply to the second attack.
Here's a visual aid at 56 seconds and again at a minute into the video. This is pretty much what comes to mind when I think of how the cleave feat works.
One attack; multiple mooks.
The overhand chop doesn't say instead of 1.5 dmg with two hander. Wouldn't it be 1.5+(x2) otherwise isn't the archtype really weakened by the loss of armor training. Trading it for only a 2 bonus dmg? ...2 dmg??? that way it's +8 dmg rather than +2, now +8 is worth losing armor training.
A search for other equally ancient discussions of Overhand Chop should make it fairly clear that the +2 damage interpretation (more at higher strength values) is what the designers intended.
The Two-Handed Fighter also gets 'Backswing', 'Piledriver', and 'Greater Power Attack' for the loss of Armor Training. Underpowered? There are worse archetypes out there.
Cleave causes Overhand Chop to stop working since it's an action that is potentially giving you two attacks. Overhand chop is for when you "makes a single attack" thus anything causing you to do more than 1 attack turns it off. Since you activate cleave before making any attacks, they don't work together.
Yeah, things like cleave and vital strike and other sorts of attack actions are different than a normal attack action. It keeps combinations with abilities like spring attack from getting out of hand.
Overhand Chop follow the same rules as Vital Strike and is applicable in the same circumstances. Cleave is not one.
Vital strike is actual part of a normal attack action. But other than that, yes CampinCarl is correct.
Ah right, I got the FAQ about vital strike + spring attack backwards.