Cleave: Give me room to work, my minions!

[occam]

Here's the effect of the 4e fighter's at-will cleave power:

Hit: [W] damage, and an enemy adjacent to the target takes 3 damage.

Maybe this has been mentioned already, but it occurs to me that when facing fighters, the highly-armored boss monster (e.g. young black dragon, AC 24) would do well to keep his fragile servants (e.g. kobold slingers, AC 13) at least a couple of squares away. Otherwise the fighter gets some free damage on an opponent he'd otherwise have a lot of trouble hitting. Not a big deal; it's only 3 points of damage, after all. But still, kinda funny.

 

[wherwrthal]

That's the part of the movie where all the action stops.
The bad guys back away and the really evil guy comes out to face the heroes.
I'm not sure how it's going to play (haven't tested it with the new moving around-ness for 4e), but I think cinematically that's the way it's supposed to look.

 

[bjorn2bwild]

Here's the effect of the 4e fighter's at-will cleave power:

Hit: [W] damage, and an enemy adjacent to the target takes 3 damage.

Maybe this has been mentioned already, but it occurs to me that when facing fighters, the highly-armored boss monster (e.g. young black dragon, AC 24) would do well to keep his fragile servants (e.g. kobold slingers, AC 13) at least a couple of squares away. Otherwise the fighter gets some free damage on an opponent he'd otherwise have a lot of trouble hitting. Not a big deal; it's only 3 points of damage, after all. But still, kinda funny.

edit: helps if I actually read the OP. Yeah, you're exactly right.

But yes, totally swarming the fighter is now a tactical choice, not a tactical given.

 

[HeinorNY]

Here's the effect of the 4e fighter's at-will cleave power:

Hit: [W] damage, and an enemy adjacent to the target takes 3 damage.

Maybe this has been mentioned already, but it occurs to me that when facing fighters, the highly-armored boss monster (e.g. young black dragon, AC 24) would do well to keep his fragile servants (e.g. kobold slingers, AC 13) at least a couple of squares away. Otherwise the fighter gets some free damage on an opponent he'd otherwise have a lot of trouble hitting. Not a big deal; it's only 3 points of damage, after all. But still, kinda funny.

Three words: Bag of rats.

 

[DandD]

And what will the rats accomplish? You can't move/shift forward with the 4th edition Cleave-exploit, so no infinite forward-charging.

 

[Wormwood]

I'm not sure how it's going to play (haven't tested it with the new movig around-ness for 4e), but i think cinematically that's the way it's supposed to look.

Considering that I view everything (as player or DM) through the prism of cinematic action, this development makes me happy.

 

[HeinorNY]

And what will the rats accomplish? You can't move/shift forward with the 4th edition Cleave-exploit, so no infinite forward-charging.

For some reason if you cleave a rat near the Tarrasque, the Tarrasque suffers 3 pts of damage.
It won't accomplish anything useful really, it's serves only to show how some rules could be better designed, or should not even exist.

It feels to me like the designers spent 5 minutes thinking about Cleave, sent it to playtesters, playtesters say nothing for some reason and that Cleave goes to the PHB. Did you hear about the Divine Challenge fiasco?

 

[D'karr]

If you have enough minions it doesn't matter. Some of those minions are going to get smacked just as they shift towards the fighter and will get pummeled anyway. When you have 4-5 kobold minions interspersed with 2-3 kobold skirmishers and they are swarming you, it won't be too comfortable to stay in the same spot taking hits from the kobold mob with combat advantage additional bonuses to hit and additional bonuses to damage. Add in a dragon with the same combat advantage and I'm sure that fighter will not want to stick around long in the same spot.

And just because the Kobold minions are so weak that a single hit will smash them doesn't mean that all minions are the same. There are other types of minions with slightly higher hit points.

 

[D'karr]

For some reason if you cleave a rat near the Tarrasque, the Tarrasque suffers 3 pts of damage.
It won't accomplish anything useful really, it's serves only to show how some rules could be better designed, or should not even exist.

If that's how the fighter would like to spend his last moments on earth I'd say that is perfectly fine. When the Tarrasque takes a chunk out of him, he'll learn his lesson.

 

[keterys]

There are other types of minions with slightly higher hit points.

That's not a given, actually. We have no actual stats for minions other than the kobold minion.

Vampirespawn from mini cards that are months out of date tell us... next to nothing.