Mighty Cleaving special weapon ability

[atom crash]

From the SRD:

Mighty Cleaving: A mighty cleaving weapon allows a wielder with the Cleave feat to make one additional cleave attempt in a round.

A fighter drops an opponent, uses cleave to hit another foe within reach. He also drops this new foe. Mighty Cleaving allows him to cleave into a third foe, if he meets the requirements listed for cleave.

But, suppose he drops his foe and makes a cleave attempt but misses the second foe. Does the Mighty Cleaving weapon give him an additional cleave attempt by allowing a re-roll of the missed cleave attempt?

 

[Plane Sailing]

No, it just grants one additional cleave above and beyond what the cleave feat normally gives you. Doesn't allow you to reroll a missed cleave (it would expressly say that if it did allow it)

Cheers

 

[mikebr99]

From the SRD:



A fighter drops an opponent, uses cleave to hit another foe within reach. He also drops this new foe. Mighty Cleaving allows him to cleave into a third foe, if he meets the requirements listed for cleave.

But, suppose he drops his foe and makes a cleave attempt but misses the second foe. Does the Mighty Cleaving weapon give him an additional cleave attempt by allowing a re-roll of the missed cleave attempt?

Nope, sorry... your 1st guess was the right one.

Mike

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

The "Mighty Cleaving" enhancement is one of the most worthless weapon enhancements I've yet seen.

 

[Darklone]

... but IMHO pretty stylish compared to all the other stuff.

 

[mikebr99]

... but IMHO pretty stylish compared to all the other stuff.

Right, it's cheaper to buy this on a weapon, then buy the great cleave feat... for all the use you'll get out of it.

YMMV


Mike

 

[atom crash]

It's that word "attempt" that causes me problems.

The Cleave feat text says you get "an immediate, extra melee attack." The Mighty Cleaving text says "an additional cleave attempt." Why does it use the word "attempt" rather than "attack"?

I keep reading the text as literally "an additional attempt to cleave" -- if you miss with the additional attack, you get to try again.

Maybe I'm just reading too much into the text instead of realizing that the authors of the SRD are human and therefore inconsistent.

As I think about it, the re-roll interpretation would be worth much more that the +1 bonus cost of the ability. The luck blade grants a re-roll once per day and costs 22,060 gp.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

As I think about it, the re-roll interpretation would be worth much more that the +1 bonus cost of the ability. The luck blade grants a re-roll once per day and costs 22,060 gp.

Doesn't the Luck Blade also contain a Wish?

The others have already clarified the rule. But I don't think your interpretation would be unbalanced. In that case, though, you wouldn't get a third attack (second Cleave "attack") if you successfully dropped the second foe, since you aren't being granted a second cleave "attack," merely another "attempt" at the one cleave "attack" provided by the feat.

Indeed, by your interpretation, Mighty Cleaving would actually be useful even if you had Great Cleave, since it'd allow you to retry a missed swing and possibly maintain a chain of Cleave attacks that would otherwise have broken.

 

[atom crash]

The 22,060 gp is for the luck blade itself. Each wish adds 40,300 gp to the price. The +2 enhancement of the luck blade is 8000 gp, the luck bonus to saves is worth about 1500 gp (150% of the cloak of resistance cost), and the shortsword itself is 310 gp, so the re-roll ability of the luck blade is worth about 12,250 gp (Am I figuring this right? At any rate, it's worth way more than the +1 enhancement cost of the Mighty Cleaving ability). And it's limited to once per day.

I can see how the re-roll would be a very generous interpretation of the bonus.

 

[Elephant]

What does the phrase "Mighty Cleaving" suggest to you as you try to visualize its effect? I find that most ambiguities in the rules don't seem so ambiguous if you can visualize the situations covered by the rule and work to a logical result (well, as logical as you can get in a world where dragons breed with everything, elves are commonplace, and magic reigns supreme, heh)

I visualize the Cleave feat as: You kill an opponent with an especially powerful swing, and you are able to follow-through on the swing's momentum, threatening a second opponent on the same attack move.

Alternatively, it could be a thrust that not only skewers your opponent but also wounds his companion!

With that imagery in mind, I think of the Mighty Cleaving ability as granting the extra 'oomph' required to swing through not only two, but possibly THREE opponents with a single mighty blow!

It makes a lot more sense than a re-roll, anyway.