Bullrush + Cleave


Rules Questions

The Exchange

If you charge someone and use bullrush as your attack and succeed, can you then use cleave to attack another target w/your weapon?

Shadow Lodge

No. Cleave doesn't work that way anymore.

It is now a special attack on it's own.

You spend a Standard Action to innitiate it, and it lets you use your full BaB to attack a target. If that attack hits, you can also attack a second target that is within your reach, and next to the first target, both for normal damage.


Like Beckett wrote, if you are "Charging" in game terms (as opposed to just a Move + Standard Action), you can't Cleave at all even with normal melee attacks, as Cleave is it's own Standard Action.

For when you ARE able to use Cleave (i.e. not Charging), I think you're able to use attack-substitutable maneuvers in conjunction with it, but not Bull Rush (in other words Trip and Disarm are Cleave-able, but not Sunder which IS "in place of a melee attack" but must use the "attack" action that Vital Strike applies to). Slightly confusing here is that as written, Bullrush IS attack-substitutable *as part of a Charge* (gaining relevant attack bonuses), but that doesn't help you since Cleave is it's own action separate from Charge.

If you have Shield Master you COULD Cleave (when not Charging) with Shield Bash attacks & their free Bullrush.
And if you have the Barbarian Power Knockback, you can add on a free Bullrush, but only to one melee attack per round, not everybody you can hit with Cleave.

The Exchange

Quandary wrote:
Like Beckett wrote, if you are "Charging" in game terms (as opposed to just a Move + Standard Action), you can't Cleave at all even with normal melee attacks, as Cleave is it's own Standard Action.

Thank you both - this goes to show what happens if you 'think' you know what a feat does based on 3E/3/5 =)

Quandary wrote:
For when you ARE able to use Cleave (i.e. not Charging), I think you're able to use attack-substitutable maneuvers in conjunction with it, but not Bull Rush (in other words Trip and Disarm are Cleave-able, but not Sunder which IS "in place of a melee attack" but must use the "attack" action that Vital Strike applies to). Slightly confusing here is that as written, Bullrush IS attack-substitutable *as part of a Charge* (gaining relevant attack bonuses), but that doesn't help you since Cleave is it's own action separate from Charge.

Not so sure about that, I think it's more of a case of Sunder being written a bit confusing. "You can attempt to sunder an item held or worn by your opponent as part of an attack action in place of a melee

attack." Whereas both Disarm/Trip are "You can attempt to disarm/trip your opponent in place of a melee attack." Either way you have to use an attack action to make any of those three special attacks, how else are you going to do something in place of a melee attack if not w/an attack action? Unless the designers meant something different and I'm just not gleaning their meaning (hey, that rhymed). =)

Shadow Lodge

I'm pretty sure you can "Sundering" Cleave two targets. I also think it was ruled that you can Spring Attack and cleave as well. But I'll be honest, I am ignoring everything that is ruled here until the FAQ and Errata come out. It is impossible to keep up with it. I'm kind of of the opinion that PF screwed up all these special attacks as bad as "Grapple", except I never had any trouble with Grapple (was pretty clear to me).


Gilamunsta wrote:
Whereas both Disarm/Trip are "You can attempt to disarm/trip your opponent in place of a melee attack." Either way you have to use an attack action to make any of those three special attacks, how else are you going to do something in place of a melee attack if not w/an attack action?

Any of the attacks a full attack action entitles you to, a charge attack, or an attack of opportunity, none of which are attack actions. If this isn't making sense, read up on "Attack Action" in the FAQ on d20pfsrd.com, as well as the Table of Combat Actions in the Combat Chapter, where "Attack" is a SPECIFIC type of Standard Action. Yes, I agree there could be better names for this action :-)

Beckett wrote:
I'm pretty sure you can "Sundering" Cleave two targets. I also think it was ruled that you can Spring Attack and cleave as well. But I'll be honest, I am ignoring everything that is ruled here until the FAQ and Errata come out. It is impossible to keep up with it.
PRD: Cleave wrote:
You can attempt to sunder an item held or worn by your opponent as part of an attack action in place of a melee attack.

I'll be honest, I thought it was substitutable for any attack as well, but that's what it says, clearly different than Trip or Disarm's wording. Spring Attack is going to be Errata'd because it's action type isn't remotely specified, but it's wording of 'one single attack' would seem to preclude Cleave. Waiting until the next Update/Errata is out before you start pulling your hair out over RAW is a good policy, IMHO :-)

Beckett wrote:
I'm kind of of the opinion that PF screwed up all these special attacks as bad as "Grapple", except I never had any trouble with Grapple (was pretty clear to me).

Yeah, I think in combo with the change/EMPHASIS made to "Attack" action, that it is far from as clear as it could be... I'm saying this thinking that the BASIC change of making maneuvers conform to attack vs. AC is a good change (though CMD should have just been made a variant AC, and maneuver attacks should just use a size modifier applied to normal attack #'s rather than re-invent the wheel). Over on d20pfsrd's site I'm suggesting a TABLE which lays out the action types/ attack substitutability of all the Maneuvers - not being able to easily look up this info at a glance is a big part of the problem, compounded by the 'finickyness'/non-intuitiveness of the attack action situations.


As I read it, if you make a great cleave attack with a Shield Bash, using Shield Slam, and proceed to Bullrush everyone adjacent to you.

A bit like one of those classical Hercules seens where he's get swarmed and sudenly everyone is flying through the air away from him. :-)

Stephen E

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