Dwarf Fighter, Cleave ¿focused?


Advice


Hello! In my last game, my Bard got killed. The good news, there is a sidequest ro resssurect him.

The bad news are thay I have to play another PC while the group is doing the sidequest. I've been always hearing about the "good cleave" and the fun the group got long ago with it; for that I've thought on going fighter (Two-Handed Fighter archetype) and use the full cleave route, probably with an Scythe with my 2 characters made before this dwarf I've ben tempted to use one only because it's a Scythe.

I know my Bard will die some more times (I'm of the ones who only learn in the bad way hahaha) and every time I'll come with the same character until the resurrect sidequest it's done, so I've tried to plan a little the feat order of the "Cleaver". It will start at level 6 (the same level of my "in process to be resurected" bard) and our games use to finish about level 14 - 16. Even if it's some kind of "secondary" character, I want him to be good enought, and I'm not entirely sure if the "Cleave route" cand deal with it.

Is the "Cleave route" good enought to go all the way?
(Cleave, Great Cleave, Cleaving Finish, Improved Cleaving Finish, Goblin Cleaver, Orc Hewer, Giant Killer, Cleave Throught).

The facts that make me doubt are:
1.- Getting -2 to AC.
2.- The first attack missed stop all the cleave.
3.- They are 8 feats (+1 from Giant Killer prerequisites).

Finally, how would you build it?
I gess accuracy it's very important... But I feel like Power Attack and Combat Expertise are enought important to get them, decreasing the accuracy... maybe even so much.

Thanks in advance for giving your time.
And finally sorry for my, almost sure, typos and misspelling.


Fighters have tons of feats so don't feel bad about spending them. You can toggle between combat expertise and power attack as you like. As a cleaver, you will need to move a lot to set up good positions. Dodge and mobility will be your friend. You will be moving a lot so maybe even lightning stance of you can afford it. I had a summer build but also incorporating reach weapons. THAT was feat hungry. Good luck, you should be in good shape.


Well you need power attack to get to any of the cleave feats. Furious focus will make that first power attack likelier to hit, which gets the cleaving going. Great cleave looks more valuble to me than cleaving finish (or at least improved cleaving finish) unless you really think you're hitting hard enough your first swing will drop your target. I think the vital strike tree will work well with a cleave build though.


Cleave and vital strike don't stack. They're both seperated standard actions. Regardless, it feels dirty...

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Would Vital Strike work with Cleaving Finish, at least?

Is the purpose of the Cleave build to get extra attacks each round? Or some other reason? There might be alternative (not necessarily better, but not necessarily worse) methods of gaining additional attacks per round, like Combat Reflexes + reach, Two-Weapon Fighting, etc.

Are you using the scythe so your crits are more likely to drop an opponent so you can cleave afterwards?

Does your campaign have (or will have) lots of weak minions you can walk amongst and Great Cleave through? Is in an AP where it's pre-written, or a homebrew campaign where the GM customizes encounters for the most fun?

Does your party already have a PC that can deal with multiple weak creature at once, like a blaster? If so, would you be stepping on each other's toes, or coordinating by fireballing (or better yet, lightning bolting) first and then having you move in and go all Cuisinart on their (burnt/shocked) faces?

Silver Crusade

I have a 2hd handed fighter dwarf who uses a dwarven longhammer (reach) in PFS who I intended to do the cleave route but in PFS I rarely had any opportunities to use Cleave and eventually swabbed out the feat.

However in a previous non PFS campaign where the GM liked to pit the party against large numbers of minions the cleave feat proved awesome.

If you were to go cleave I think you should consider a reach weapon. Also if you have a caster who can Enlarge you then Goblin Hewer allows you to cleave medium creatures.


I have been thinking about building a cleave heavy dwarf spiritualist with the Ectoplasmatist archetype. as you end up with a weapon with 10' reach that can still hit adjacent targets. Then using the dwarf cleave feats you can hit every enemy you threaten.

That being said I am always wary of Giant killer as I don't know how often big groups of them would be threatened at the same time, which would impact how effective the feat is.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

*cough*:
Rise of the Rune Lords! *cough*


Just grab Steel Soul and you'll be fine, honestly. No matter what, you're a 2 handed Fighter. If you have good strength and power attack, your build has succeeded, so those 8 feats aren't that costly. Especially when they're so spread out and work in such a flow chart manner. The only difficulty is where to pick up Steel Soul.

Also, if you're able to get Advanced Weapon Training and you don't care for Armor Training, I Highly recommend Weapon Master archetype. Steel Soul + Armed Bravery = lol saves. You lose some damage, but its place you get saves, skill points and even a shield bonus with AWT. The only downside is too many goodies.


I get the feeling cleave is better suited for a class without full bab progression. A fighter will want to use full round actions pretty early on.
I have a dwarf warpriest and will pick up cleave mainly for cleaving finish and it s the best way to get multiple attacks with your main weapon before lvl 9.
I would not overinvest in the orc hewer chain, because I think the prereq goblin cleaver is fairly weak.
as a dwarf you can take cleave through at lvl 11 does the same and you don t waste feats on goblin smasher and such.
And I m playing in a campaign where we are mainly fighting orcs, who have stolen the dwarfes home.

Shadow Lodge

Frosty Ace wrote:
Also, if you're able to get Advanced Weapon Training and you don't care for Armor Training, I Highly recommend Weapon Master archetype. Steel Soul + Armed Bravery = lol saves. You lose some damage, but its place you get saves, skill points and even a shield bonus with AWT. The only downside is too many goodies.

You're advocating Weapon Master for early weapon training, I guess? Too bad it replaces Bravery, so you can't take Armed Bravery.

Silver Crusade

I have to agree, a 3/4ths BAB character like the Warpriest who can get some feats at a faster progression makes a much better cleaver since full BAB types like the fighter lose a lot more attacks taking this route. Half-orc or human are nice for this too with racial heritage (dwarf), as both have a very nice selection of feats to take and the first level feat of these classes is hard to pick since you don't have BAB +1.


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Serum wrote:
Frosty Ace wrote:
Also, if you're able to get Advanced Weapon Training and you don't care for Armor Training, I Highly recommend Weapon Master archetype. Steel Soul + Armed Bravery = lol saves. You lose some damage, but its place you get saves, skill points and even a shield bonus with AWT. The only downside is too many goodies.
You're advocating Weapon Master for early weapon training, I guess? Too bad it replaces Bravery, so you can't take Armed Bravery.

Derp. Totally forgot that.

The reason I advocate it is because starting at level 3, your bonus combat feats can select any advanced weapon training. No armed Bravery is rough, but it's still great.

Thinking about it though, the build Hjoldar striving for is hardly requires a ton of AWT anyways. Just get defensive weapon training at 5.

Lvl 1 - Power Attack, Cleave
Lvl 2 - Goblin Clever
Lvl 3 - Orc Hewer
Lvl 4 - Cleaving Finish
Lvl 5 - Great Cleave (Possibly Defensive Weapon Training instead)
Lvl 6 - Lunge
Lvl 7 - Imp. Cleaving Finish
Lvl 8 - Defensive Weapon Training
Lvl 9 - Steel Soul (This could be moved up to lvl 1 honestly)
Lvl 10 - Imp. Crit
Lvl 11 - Giant Killer.

Up to five, if you want to cleave a lot, I recommend sticking to what I posted. Great cleave is debatable, but gets much better use with lunge, as do all the previous cleave feats. I wouldn't be opposed to moving Steel Soul up to level 2 and Defensive Weapon Training up to 5, perhaps replacing Great Cleave for another option.

The beauty of the build is that, well, you a dwarf with a dwarven double axe using power attack. And with the 2HF archetype, you won't be needing much for damage build-wise. Yeah, you're a one trick pony, but anything terrestrial will know your trick well. Hell, with the absurd damage you can get out, (Imp.) Cleaning Finish will be your best friend save for the BBEG. Accuracy will hardly be an issue if you cleave(ing finish) frequently, since that's always at full BAB.


What the Cleave tree actually is.


Greg.Everham wrote:
What the Cleave tree actually is.

Without the dwarf specific feats, I completely agree, but with extended reach/tight spaces, a dwarf cleaver can be a menace.


Frosty Ace wrote:
Greg.Everham wrote:
What the Cleave tree actually is.
Without the dwarf specific feats, I completely agree, but with extended reach/tight spaces, a dwarf cleaver can be a menace.

The Dwarven feat chain (Goblin Hewer, Orc Hewer, Giant Killer) are pretty worthless... if those're what you're referencing. The key feat is Improved Cleaving Finish.

There are three major problems with the Cleave tree. One is the investment; it takes a *ton* of feats to get moving. Cleave, Power Attack, Great Cleave, Cleaving Finish, Improved Cleaving Finish, Cleave Through. Six feats to pull off your *single attack* against each extra enemy. The second is that it's incredibly situational. How often will all the bad guys surround your cleaver to make the combo of feats pay off? In some fights, there might only be a single enemy! The third is that it requires a kill to continue on. This is *very* hard to accomplish with a single attack. If enemies are already that low on HP, the fight has probably been won and it's just an academic matter of finishing them off.

Again, I have to come back to the idea that this game is rocket tag. You focus fire and burn the baddies down quickly. Spreading damage out just leaves more bad guys to act for more rounds. You'd be far better off killing one guy a round than killing three on the third round.


They're not worthless, they make cleave worth using.

Your point one is... a point, I guess. Power Attack is already mandatory, and the number of feats isn't even that serious for the lasot feat starved martial possible. You don't[b] need[B/] cleave feats to be an effective damage dealer. At all. It's simply an option to expand your offense. And you say "single attack"... well yeah. The point of the feats is to get more attacks out of a standard action, and if you think you'll not be taking standards actions frequently, as a dwarf no less, well I envy how much you've gotten to play an 11th level Dervish of Dawn/Mobile Fighter.

Point 2. It depends. No one of saying you need to be surrounded, just for at least 2 enemies within reach. Lunge, Dwarven Longhammer and (possibly) enlarge person is 25' of range. I'd say having two enemies within a 25 foot radius isn't a stretch. Even without enlage person,that's two enemies that can be about 30 feet apart from each other after a move and you can hit both. Again, no one is saying sacrifice a full round attack, but that situations like these do arise, and with easily accessed resources, can become more and more common. And if there is one enemy... just attack it. With a 2HF you have 2xStr and -1/+3(4 at so some point) power attack. I'm pretty sure you'll be fine if you decided to skip a Weapon Spec.

Point 3. Do you know how cleave works? It requires you to hit to continue. Cleaving Finish gives you an extra attack within reach if you kill anything period, cleave or no cleave. Cleave you go at whatever is in reach with the dwarf feats after a move action.

To you final point... You can still full round attack for stupid high damage. You can still focus on one target. Cleaving just allows you to spread the love. I never said it was amazing, but it gives options that I think are being undersold.


I guess it depends on the campaign you play. In most APs that I have played, after low levels cleave isn't worth that feat expenditure. I can use 8+ feats better than getting an extra attack or two in a battle.

The problem is that you can't put out enough damage with single attacks at high level to make a difference, so you end up using cleave once when you move up and then go to full attacks.


PFS Legal Two-Handed Weapon Tricks

Source Weapon Master's Handbook pg. 9
These weapon tricks are known to dwarves of the Five Kings Mountains and Shoanti champions of the Cinderlands. You can use these tricks while wielding any two-handed weapon.

Cleaving Smash (Cleave, Improved Vital Strike, Power Attack): When you use Cleave, you can add the additional damage from Vital Strike to both your initial and your secondary attacks. If you also have the Greater Vital Strike feat, you can instead add the damage from Improved Vital Strike to both your initial and your secondary attacks.

And with this, cleave is great


gnappeur wrote:

PFS Legal Two-Handed Weapon Tricks

Source Weapon Master's Handbook pg. 9
These weapon tricks are known to dwarves of the Five Kings Mountains and Shoanti champions of the Cinderlands. You can use these tricks while wielding any two-handed weapon.

Cleaving Smash (Cleave, Improved Vital Strike, Power Attack): When you use Cleave, you can add the additional damage from Vital Strike to both your initial and your secondary attacks. If you also have the Greater Vital Strike feat, you can instead add the damage from Improved Vital Strike to both your initial and your secondary attacks.

And with this, cleave is great

Seriously, take this advice. I have a Dwarf Warpriest with this and the cleave feat tree and it is amazing.


First of all, sorry for my later response, my pc had some problems.

Thank you all for your prompt reply and your help! This is going to be very helpful!


Hjoldar wrote:

First of all, sorry for my later response, my pc had some problems.

Thank you all for your prompt reply and your help! This is going to be very helpful!

Just be sure that whenever you pull of some sick cleaving shenanigans, you say, "Cleavus Christ!!"


Its strange. In the games I have played, cleave (and cleaving finish) was really useful at low levels when you don't have extra attacks and you tend to fight more groups of opponents who don't have as many HP. Once you start getting up around 8/9+ cleave and cleaving finish start becoming far less useful since you tend to fight fewer, but individually more powerful and bigger, opponents. Groups of opponents tend to get burnt down by whatever spelllobers are in the party. Which doesn't mean cleave and cleaving finish are never useful at higher levels, but spending the additional feats for great cleave and improved cleaving finish just never seems worth it. And for the same reasons giant killer feat just isn't so good. And if you have the cleave feat and the other dwarf cleaving type feats, its a bit redundant.


Frosty Ace wrote:

They're not worthless, they make cleave worth using.

Your point one is... a point, I guess. Power Attack is already mandatory, and the number of feats isn't even that serious for the lasot feat starved martial possible. You don't[b] need[B/] cleave feats to be an effective damage dealer. At all. It's simply an option to expand your offense. And you say "single attack"... well yeah. The point of the feats is to get more attacks out of a standard action, and if you think you'll not be taking standards actions frequently, as a dwarf no less, well I envy how much you've gotten to play an 11th level Dervish of Dawn/Mobile Fighter.

Point 2. It depends. No one of saying you need to be surrounded, just for at least 2 enemies within reach. Lunge, Dwarven Longhammer and (possibly) enlarge person is 25' of range. I'd say having two enemies within a 25 foot radius isn't a stretch. Even without enlage person,that's two enemies that can be about 30 feet apart from each other after a move and you can hit both. Again, no one is saying sacrifice a full round attack, but that situations like these do arise, and with easily accessed resources, can become more and more common. And if there is one enemy... just attack it. With a 2HF you have 2xStr and -1/+3(4 at so some point) power attack. I'm pretty sure you'll be fine if you decided to skip a Weapon Spec.

Point 3. Do you know how cleave works? It requires you to hit to continue. Cleaving Finish gives you an extra attack within reach if you kill anything period, cleave or no cleave. Cleave you go at whatever is in reach with the dwarf feats after a move action.

To you final point... You can still full round attack for stupid high damage. You can still focus on one target. Cleaving just allows you to spread the love. I never said it was amazing, but it gives options that I think are being undersold.

1. Yeah, Power Attack is a feat tax. Melee pretty well have to take it.

1a. If we're concerned with maximizing our Standard Action or getting better usage out of it, Vital Strike is a SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER feat chain. No situational concerns, fewer feats to get moving, better results. All around a better concept.

2. Again, if there are only two enemies in reach, you're better off trying to down one of them right now than trying to down both of them at the same time later. You would need to have many tiny mooks to make Cleave and Greater Cleave worthwhile. Like being an 8th level fighter and running into a goblin warren to just begin slashing at things. Just fighting massive amounts of CR 1/2 mooks. That's what Cleave is for.

2a. I made the point about Cleave tree being feat intensive, to which you said "Nah, fighter gets tons of feats!" Which... now we're missing out on Weapon Specialization, a feat that fighters ought take to chase ever-elusive kills.

3. Cleave and Cleaving Finish have two different triggers and conditions. Cleave's trigger is easy, but it's conditions are impossible. Cleaving Finish's trigger is harder to meet, but it's conditions are possible to employ. Cleave only requires a hit, but asks that all enemies be adjacent to one another. That will happen maybe at the low levels, but at higher levels, not so much. Cleaving Finish requires a kill, but asks that the two enemies only be within reach. This makes it much more likely that you can follow through one to the other, but since you're hitting only one time with a single attack it's rather unlikely to finish the enemy off.

End result is almost always the same... Cleave feats are really fun when they work, but are usually just a wasted feat slot.


The dwarven cleave feats can actually be quite powerful if your campaign pits you against multiple enemies on a regular basis, but you don't need giant killer. We have a dwarven cleaver in our Carrion Crown campaign, and he has the opportunity to make big cleave attacks on a regular basis.
He took:
Power Attack
Cleave
Great cleave
Goblin killer
Orc Hewer

For his fighter weapon group he took polearms which includes just about every reach weapon, and the reach-free nodachi. He took Martial Versatility from the weapon master's handbook. Finally, our alchemist infuses him all the enlarge person Extracts he needs. He is regularly able to move into position and make 3-4 attacks in a single turn (even against large enemies). That lets our wizard save haste for the one-big-guy fights, where our fighter's Two-Handed-Fighter Archetype really gets to shine. It's a balanced and fun build. There's really no reason to take Giant killer so far as we can tell.

Spoiler:

We're in Wake if the Watcher, and he's been cleaving Mi-Go and skum to pieces every turn.

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