A Word About Cleavage

[TwoHandedSword]

:mischief: That got your attention, didn't it?

But in a classic case of bait-and-switch, what I'm talking about here has nothing to do with female character sprites, but rather the Cleave feat: the one that grants you an extra attack (per round) if your previous strike was a killing blow.

It's available to Barbarians, Fighters, and Eadred the Paladin. It's incredibly helpful in the early part of the game, when undead monsters swarm around your party and every added attack is a precious opportunity.

And because of game mechanics, later on it becomes a liability, and one of the most frustrating 'advantages' one can have--especially if one is soloing.

Why? Because the game automatically applies the feat following a death blow, even if there's no other monster within range to receive it. Which means that the rest of your PC's movement points are used up; instead of killing that Orog or Ormyrr, then stepping away to confront the next one, you're stuck twiddling your thumbs while another monster shambles into range (or worse, continues shooting or spellcasting at you from afar).

It's so annoying that I'll no longer consider playing a fighter, despite all of the other cool and useful feats they acquire. What I'd really like (a pipe dream, I know) would be for someone to create a hack or mod that checks to see whether another monster is in your fighter's threatened area before applying the extra attack.

Does anyone else have an opinion, good or bad, on the use of this feat? Have you ever played a Barbarian, or swapped in Eadred for another character, just to acquire it? Did you find it as frustrating as I did, or does your playing style differ enough that you never even noticed that there was a problem?