making a 10th level fighter, and am debating about using cleave and great cleave. sure, its great at lower levels, but at the mid range levels, the wiz/sorcs can throw fireball and just destroy your ability to make a good great cleave. and worse, you cannot move while doing great cleave, because you can only attack those creatures within reach...
anything worthy of a good replacement, or is there a viable counter point to my statement?
making a 10th level fighter, and am debating about using cleave and great cleave. sure, its great at lower levels, but at the mid range levels, the wiz/sorcs can throw fireball and just destroy your ability to make a good great cleave. and worse, you cannot move while doing great cleave, because you can only attack those creatures within reach...
anything worthy of a good replacement, or is there a viable counter point to my statement?
I never consider great cleave(or even just cleave) worth my time in a build. I just see it as being too situational. Granted, in the right situation with lunge, it could be like a fighter induced fireball, but I don't see that happening often enough to justify a feat better spent.
wether it is good or bad will probably depend ALOT on your dm the game he is trying to run and what the other players make.
ultimately if you take the feat your dm should provide you opportunities to use it. but after lvl 5 ALOT of dms seem to make nods with 0 spell craft stop moving I'n tight groups.
I would say it is not worth the feat, too situational as stated above.
so then what would be good replacements for these 2 feats?
it is worth while if you find yourself doing just one attack per round, i have a character who is a two-handed fighter build and so because when i use my overhand chop ability i will only get one attack per round instead of multiple with a full attack action with iterative attacks, so having cleave and eventually great cleave i will be able to at least attempt to hit more than one foe.
so then what would be good replacements for these 2 feats?
Whirlwind Attack and Lunge?
|
so then what would be good replacements for these 2 feats?
The easiest answer is it depends.
what do you expect to be facing? lots of dragons and solo monsters? or groups of morlocks with their pack in ability and a few class levels? I've had a good PFS fighter build with great cleave break a module
The 9th level barbarian in our group has great cleave and has used it to great effect in a party with a wizard who knows the fireball spell. So, in my limited experience you will be able to utilize the cleave feats, and there is no need to worry about the spellcasters killing everything before you get the chance.
For our current campaign it works great. The majority of our combats take place indoors against multiple, intelligent/tactical foes. The meat-shield being surrounded within the first round or two usually just happens naturally creating the perfect opportunity to cleave and a less than optimal situation for fireball or the like as it would also hit at least one PC. The cleave feats may actually be a little overpowered for this type of campaign since the ‘balancing’ drawback of it being situational rarely comes up except for during the surprise round.
|
making a 10th level fighter, and am debating about using cleave and great cleave.See if your DM will remove the targets must be adjacent requirement.
If so then cleave becomes useful, with it then it rarely will come up.
-James
+1 That adjacent rule really nerfed cleave. Power Attack (with a 2 handed weapon) is now more important than ever, especially with Furious Focus.
What are you looking to do with this fighter?
On a related note;
How would cleave/gr eat cleave interact with spring attack.
Moving both before and after an attack, but what if you have more than one attack?
P.s. I hardly ever play fighter types.
+1 That adjacent rule really nerfed cleave. Power Attack (with a 2 handed weapon) is now more important than ever, especially with Furious Focus.making a 10th level fighter, and am debating about using cleave and great cleave.See if your DM will remove the targets must be adjacent requirement.
If so then cleave becomes useful, with it then it rarely will come up.
-James
+1
Cleave / Great Cleave are good 'cos they're standard actions - run up and swipe a bunch of guys. It helps if you're using a reach weapon, of course... and it also helps if you fight hordes of mooks every now and then... if it's a single BBEG every fight, then no, they're probably not so helpful...
Agreed - I've seen plenty of situations where Cleave would be very useful, great cleave less so, but not less so than before.
Just *don't* also take vital strike, they absorb too much of each other's optimum situations.
I'd say both Cleave and Vital Strike are both good choices for a fighter when you can't full-attack. With Cleave, you can attack two adjacent opponents; with Vital Strike you can hit a single opponent for more damage. Great Cleave is more situational (although it's easier to meet the prerequisites and use than Whirlwind Attack).
The "within reach" requirement of Cleave and Great Cleave is not really that restrictive with Lunge and/or a 50 gp potion of enlarge person; possibly with a reach weapon as well (with all three, you can attack opponents from 15-25 ft away).
For an extra trick use a Dorn-Dergar with Darting Viper. Change your reach to hit more opponents. See This Thread.discussing its legality.