Using cleavers to your advantage

What's the best way to exploit the cleavers? IIRC, these weapons are basically 2d6 17-20x3 hand axes. They seem a bit buggy in the game and seem to be some wierd mix of masterwork and magic +1.

I was thinking they could be crafted to +3 Holy Axiomatic and Keen (so they become 13-20x3). Flaming or Frost could be added as well.

Then you could have a high-strength Fighter. Your strength bonus to damage gets multiplied when you get a critical hit. Then for feats you could take Weapon Focus (Hand Axe), Weapon Specialization (Hand Axe), Improved Weapon Focus (Hand Axe), Two Weapon Fighting, Improved Two Weapon Fighting, and Two Weapon Defense, as well as Power Attack, Cleave, and Great Cleave.

A barbarian with Rage might work nicely, but he doesn't have nearly as many feats, so two-weapon fighting is difficult.

Unfortunately, with a rogue your sneak attack damage doesn't get multiplied in a critical hit. So the cleavers are somewhat wasted on him.

What do you think?

 

Keen, +3 and elemental damage dice are all you really need.

The weapon is so dumb to begin with, you don't really need to invest any real work into making it work.

Two weapon defense isn't worth taking. No feat is worth blowing on a +1 to armor. Also, is a hand-axe a light weapon? You will take two weapon fighting penalties if it's not. That's something to consider.

 

A hand axe is a light weapon. A cleaver, however, is not.

My preference is to give it to a barbarian/fighter hybrid who follows the "skilled" feat progression. Essentially, he uses the Cleaver with a shield (after his first fighter level), gets into the middle of the fray, and uses whirlwind. The uncanny dodge from the barbarian levels make him more suited to this type of strategy than a straight fighter would be. The rages don't hurt, either.. I reccomend using a Dwarf for this build, since a dwarf can wear heavier armor without losing his barbarian speed bonus as well.

I really think the Great Cleaver should require an exotic weapons feat.

 

And pretty nifty, too!

 

While the Great Cleaver is really overpowered, why should it require Exotic Weapon? It's a fairly straight foreward weapon to use, you see something, you hit it with the sharp side.

 

A hand axe weighs 3 lbs. A great cleaver weighs 10........more than 3 times what a hand axe weighs. If the great cleaver doesn't warrant it' s own proficiency than neither does the rapier, which only weighs 2 lbs less than a long sword and is roughly the same size.

 

Weight has nothing to do with a weapon requiring Exotic or not. If it did then Great Axe and Great Club would as well.

And your absolutely right, a rapier DOESN'T require an Exotic Weapon feat, it's under the Martial weapons list in my book.

If memory serves, most if not all weapons in the Exotic list have more than one way to use. For most of them, they can be used either 1 handed or 2 handed.

 

An exotic weapon is generally any weapon that a warrior probably wouldn't have trained with. A Kama, Siangham, or shuriken qualify as an exotic....even though a kama, at least, is relatively simple to use. They are exotic because most warriors never train with them. A 10 lb meat cleaver isn't going to bear any resemblance to any weapon that a warrior already knows how to use. To test this theory look at a hatchet the aproximate size and weight of a 3.5e hand axe and then look at a Cleaver. Now, think about how much bigger that cleaver would be in order to actually weigh 10 lbs. It would be gargantuan, and would look and feel nothing like a hatchet or even an axe or battle axe. I daresay that the TOEE Great Cleaver would actually have more in common with a Falchion in terms of balance and heft.

 

VERY. works good against lacedon & drelb!

 

Changes were made to it, too, by Co8 with much discussion and debate - prior to the changes being made it.

cleaver discussion

 

I wasn't actually suggesting that the great cleaver should use the Falchion proficiency, but IIRC the Falchion was a very (top) heavy sword intended for use on horseback to punch through armor and whatnot......so it was used one handed, at least historically. Think about how big that cleaver blade actually has to be in order for the thing to weigh 10 lbs and it becomes all the more apparent that this thing is going to be balanced and wielded quite differently than a 3 lb hand axe. I'm also well aware that you are currently unable to add exotic weapon profs to the game. Personally, I think it should just be mapped over to using the Dwarven War Axe proficiency.

 

I don't think the game applies non-proficiency penalties to NPCs. At least it doesn't seem to.

As for making them pay a feat for it, I say good. But my distaste for the cleavers is pretty well known.