If I remember right, some times ago there was a thread (or a comment) that explained that the magical ability "Mighty Cleaving" is useless. Reading the DM handbook, I spotted that it grants 1 extra cleaving attack to PCs/NPCs with cleaving. So, it will be effectively useless for the ones with Improved Cleaving and no cleaving at all, but lightly useful for the ones with only cleaving. So it doesn't do anything, it does almost nothing. :s If somebody wants to experiment....
Is that one of those things that is an option when building magic items? I am not familiar with it. There was a comment earlier (made by me and explained better by Kalshane or someone) about the feat Improved Critical on the Great Cleaver (which has a keen edge of course), to the effect that the effects don't stack and it is a waste. Could that be what you are thinking of?
Yes, it is an ability that may be given to weapons (I don't remember if melee only) from any spellcaster (read cleric) with Holy Might spell. Somebody told that it was completely useless, like the Spell Resistance: 13, that is somehow reduced to 0 after magic armor creation/enhancement. But I was just wondering, instead, if it has been used often on weapons for fighters already with Improved Cleaving or on weapons designed to rogues, rangers & co that usually don't have bonus feats and that don't have nor power attack or cleaving. So the M.Cleaving could only LOOK ineffective but instead it works, even if only for PCs already with cleave, that are rare.
I just tried it out with two different characters, two different weapons -- neither of them had Cleave or Great Cleave -- and I couldn't get anything to happen. I would kill an enemy with the enchanted weapon with other enemies in range and never get a bonus attack. Unless I misunderstood some aspect, it seems to be broken.
i heard that the reason it was proclaimed useless was because it does not actually WORK. If it DOES work, then its barely useful... but there is no proper in game description of it so noone knows the exact feat combinations needed for it to be of use.
Mighty cleaving does work if you already have cleave but not improved cleave. As you said, it will give you one extra cleave. It will be useless if you dont have cleave or have improved cleave though. I can see it is useful for non fighter characters who dont have too many feats to waste on improved cleave (not the best feats anyway). It works well for my Fighter1/Druid X human character who uses longspear and have power attack/cleave as a level 1 fighter.
