Cleave....

[Morval]

This may be an obvious or silly question, but here it goes.

Can you use cleave with ranged or unarmed combat? I would say yes. Cleave and Vital Strike have almost the same description stating "a single attack..." and I have read that Vital strike can be used with all three types of attacks. Spring attack specifically states a melee attack.

In 3.5 it specifically stated a melee attack. But Pathfinder doesn't. Since cleave is a bit different animal in Pathfinder I thought it isn't all that crazy to be able to do it with a bow.

Thanks,

Konrad

Cleave
As a standard action, you can make a single attack at your full base attack bonus against a foe within reach.

Vital Strike
When you use the attack action, you can make one attack at your highest base attack bonus that deals additional damage.

Spring Attack
You can move up to your speed and make a single melee attack without provoking any attacks of opportunity from the target of your attack.

[Brodiggan Gale]

Morval wrote:

Can you use cleave with ranged or unarmed combat? I would say yes. Cleave and Vital Strike have almost the same description stating "a single attack..." and I have read that Vital strike can be used with all three types of attacks. Spring attack specifically states a melee attack.

With an unarmed attack, yes, with a ranged attack, no. The reason you can't use it with ranged attacks is the requirement that the targets be "within reach." Reach has a specific rules meaning, tied to your weapon and size, most normal weapons for a medium character have 5 ft. reach, polearms have 10 ft. reach, etc. Ranged weapons have no reach, and thus no target could qualify for the cleave.

It definitely could have been a bit clearer, if they had left he word "melee" in and used the more common wording of "an opponent that you threaten" instead of "within reach."

[Morval]

Brodiggan Gale wrote:

With an unarmed attack, yes, with a ranged attack, no. The reason you can't use it with ranged attacks is the requirement that the targets be "within reach." Reach has a specific rules meaning, tied to your weapon and size, most normal weapons for a medium character have 5 ft. reach, polearms have 10 ft. reach, etc. Ranged weapons have no reach, and thus no target could qualify for the cleave.

It definitely could have been a bit clearer, if they had left he word "melee" in and used the more common wording of "an opponent that you threaten" instead of "within reach."

Ah, I took "within reach" to be just that, within reach of any of your attacks. Not the game term "Reach".

Thanks,

Konrad