Can you use Cleaving Smash on the attacks from Great Cleave?
Cleaving Smash only mentions the Cleave feat but then goes on to talk about "both your initial and your secondary attacks" which suggests it might also work with Great Cleave , since it is the only form of Cleave with multiple secondary attacks. Doesn't seem that clear to me.
RAW no, because Cleaving Smash says "When you use Cleave", and Great Cleave is a seperate feat from Cleave. Similar to the Vital Strike line, the later feats do not alter the initial one, but de facto replace them, so that you're only using the later feat.
I think it says "attacks" because it's talking about two of them. Not 100% sure about the exact English rules here, though.
Since it says "initial and your secondary attacks", I don't see why it wouldn't work. Otherwise they wouldn't have pluralised "attacks".
Seems kinda silly that Great Cleave would be a downgrade to regular Cleave. And Cleave was never a top tier feat line to start with.
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I think it says "attacks" because it's talking about two of them. Not 100% sure about the exact English rules here, though.
Yeah it's talking a out "your initial attack and your secondary attack", and combining those two individual words into one plural word: "attacks".
Having said that it's probably not going to break anything to allow it to work with Great Cleave.
For this to grant any bonus at all they have to take 4 feats that aren't considered very good (Cleave, Great Cleave, Vital Strike, Improved Vital Strike) and also take Cleaving Smash. After all that they need at least 3 enemies standing in a line, which I can't imagine is something that happens every day.
If they've invested 5 feats in something they should get something for it.
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If they've invested 5 feats in something they should get something for it.
I feel like this is a game principle that needs to be brought front and center when adjucating fiddly rules interactions that could go either way.
I feel like this is a game principle that needs to be brought front and center when adjucating fiddly rules interactions that could go either way.
If they've invested 5 feats in something they should get something for it.
I agree.
They bought the tickets, let them take the ride...
Having said that it's probably not going to break anything to allow it to work with Great Cleave.
I'd totally allow it as a GM. But I wholeheartedly believe that the RAW should be understood so that an informed decision can be made.
RAW, it doesn't work, because Cleaving Smash is a conditional ability that triggers when you use the feat Cleave, and you can't use Great Cleave and Cleave on the same action; therefore using the former does not fulfill the condition that triggers Cleaving Smash.
Allowing Great Cleave to trigger Cleaving Smash is a houserule, nothing more, albeit a houserule that I can support and even endorse.
fiddly rules interactions that could go either way.
It's none of these. The rules are perfectly clear - the Great Cleave feat is not the Cleave feat.
I don't want to be nitpicky, but the ability in question reads "When you use Cleave", not "When you use the Cleave feat".
Does that make a difference wording-wise?
No, because the word "Cleave" is capitalized in the Weapon Trick's description, meaning it refers to a name. Only something with that name can be valid. The only leeway I can see would be that the mythic feat Cleave also fulfills that condition, and since that one explicitly works with "Cleave or Great Cleave", it allows the Weapon Trick to do the same.
I think it says "attacks" because it's talking about two of them. Not 100% sure about the exact English rules here, though.Yeah it's talking a out "your initial attack and your secondary attack", and combining those two individual words into one plural word: "attacks".
Having said that it's probably not going to break anything to allow it to work with Great Cleave.
For this to grant any bonus at all they have to take 4 feats that aren't considered very good (Cleave, Great Cleave, Vital Strike, Improved Vital Strike) and also take Cleaving Smash. After all that they need at least 3 enemies standing in a line, which I can't imagine is something that happens every day.
If they've invested 5 feats in something they should get something for it.
Somewhere out there, a very demanding player, who insists on playing niche fighters whose concept of adventuring always entails mass battles against formations of opponents, is very happy with your verdict. ;)
On a more serious note, I think the most obvious evidence that Cleaving Smash doesn’t work with Great Cleave is that it isn’t listed as a prerequisite — or even mentioned.
By contrast, while Greater Vital Strike isn’t a prerequisite for Cleaving Smash, it’s qualified how the two work together. Within the context of what this feat does, as well as its prerequisites, it seems clear the initial and secondary attacks in question are the single attack you would normally make through the Vital Strike feat and the secondary attack this extensive feat tree allows you to make, by way of the Cleave feat.
I get that what you get for those five feats might be underwhelming, but I think it’d be equally fair to argue that most of the Combat Feat trees are underwhelming.
This is the same argument that pops up about Gorum's Divine Fighting Technique and Pounce. It's a bunch of nitpicking what is written down and cherrypicking what rules apply depending on which way you want it to read.
The REAL, and honesty the only relevant, answer is if it positively contributes to gameplay, it does exactly what the character taking the feats wants them to do. The written text and the author's intentions be d@mned.
This is the same argument that pops up about Gorum's Divine Fighting Technique and Pounce. It's a bunch of nitpicking what is written down and cherrypicking what rules apply depending on which way you want it to read.
The REAL, and honesty the only relevant, answer is if it positively contributes to gameplay, it does exactly what the character taking the feats wants them to do. The written text and the author's intentions be d@mned.
They could do a broad FAQ answer to "should we read "an" as in an attack as a standard action, or an attack at the end of a charge, as a singular attack, or an attack that fulfills those conditions.
I read it as an attack that happens to fall within those conditions due to the care that they've taken to emphasize when things only apply to the first attack in a series (startoss style chain being an example)
I get that what you get for those five feats might be underwhelming, but I think it’d be equally fair to argue that most of the Combat Feat trees are underwhelming.
Maybe that's because they are already made situational and rulings like this are making them nigh unusable?
It is almost impossible for anyone except fighter to make room for some of them in their build, so, in return, we often have an utterly boring combat - fest of full-attacks, buffs and saving throws.
What is it good for? Restrictive ruling for expensive feats gives you nothing, except cutting build ideas. Why not read ambigous rulings in favor of the user (be it PC or NPC)?
I don’t disagree with this at all — quite the contrary.
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For the record in case it wasn't clear.
RAW: It doesn't work with Great Cleave.
RAI: Who knows? (probably matches RAW)
RAF (Rules As Fun): Let it work. It's not overpowered and you'll make someone happy.
It's a bunch of nitpicking what is written down and cherrypicking what rules apply depending on which way you want it to read.
Do you even listen to yourself? You are the one who wants to selectively decide which rules to abide by and which to blatantly ignore because you don't like them. The only cherrypicking of rules in this thread is done by you.
The REAL, and honesty the only relevant, answer is if it positively contributes to gameplay, it does exactly what the character taking the feats wants them to do. The written text and the author's intentions be d@mned.
Hell no. This is the rules questions forum. People post in this forum to have rules questions answered. It very much matters what the written text says. If what you said was true, the whole subforum wouldn't have a reason to exist.
But it's not true. People want a ruleset to follow. That's why people play Pathfinder and not completely make up their own system. What gives you the right to call following those rules "nitpicking"? What gives you the right to call answers that answer the OP's question exactly as they want them answered 'not real'? If the OP wasn't interested in an answer based on the wording, they wouldn't have made a followup question regarding the exact wording!
Your entire post boils down to "you should not make an informed decision". That's a position that I consider not only absolutely wrong, but harmful.
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Yeah, RAW I have to agree with Derklord. The way cleave and great cleave are written, these are two separate things. They don't even replace each other. Each gives you an ability you can use as a standard action. You could still take the cleave action even if you had the great cleave feat. It could have said when you cleave you also... or this works like cleave but... they don't.
I would also ignore RAW and let it function with great cleave at my table.
And for the feats we can have Cleave, then in the feat tree comes Great Cleave, which is clearly an improvement, built upon the first feat (like Improved->Greater feats, for example), and it stops working like Cleave for any Cleave-related feats, because it has +1 word in the name.
It's a bit of a double-edged sword. One one hand, if you make the followup feat self-sustaining rather than have them modify the base feat (like Great Cleave, the Vital Strike line, or the Blind-Fight line), they work if you gain them as prereq-ignoring bonus feats (say, via Qinggong Monk), whereas that's not the case if the followup feats only modify the base feat (like Step Up and Strike or Improved Spring Attack for an example). On the other hand, they don't work with abilities that only work with the base feats, unless these other options list all of the feats.
So you can't use Great Cleave with Cleaving Smash, but you can use it if you grabbed it on a 6th level Ranger via the two-handed weapon Ranger Combat Style, and it works even if you don't have Cleave.