[Duck]

several months later my players are doing well, surviving the challenges all except one who likes to do it all by himself. Even facing a giant with 3 dwarves hoping to get some extra xp.

But one came up with one tactic that i am wondering what to do with it.

His plan:
to have a few rats in a small cage around his waste.
When combat begins, he releases them, so they fall on the ground and start to run away.
BUT !! they are attached to a string, so they cann't get far.
Because they are leaving, entering and leaving his threatened space, he gets his amount of Attack of Opportunity.
With Cleave, he then reasoned, he could make alot of extra attacks in one round against one enemy.

Note: he may make several attacks of opportunity in one round.

My question: is this legal, and does it work like this (rats ac 12, hp --)?

If it does it seems strange that a player can make more than 5 attackes at lvl 5 in one round with his best modifier. It could seem fair, on the other hand, cause he must always carry those rats, and it is only usable once, and then he must search for more rats or try to buy them.

[WoeTheSinner]

The bag of rats trick is a classic "broken" issue with Cleave in version 3.0. It was cleared up in 3.5. Bellow is the 3.5 version of cleave (the emphasis is mine)

Quote

CLEAVE [GENERAL]

Prerequisites: Str 13, Power Attack.

Benefit: If you deal a creature enough damage to make it drop (typically by dropping it to below 0 hit points or killing it), you get an immediate, extra melee attack against another creature within reach. You cannot take a 5-foot step before making this extra attack. The extra attack is with the same weapon and at the same bonus as the attack that dropped the previous creature. You can use this ability once per round.

Special: A fighter may select Cleave as one of his fighter bonus feats.

By the 3.0 ruleset, yes what he proposes to do is technicaly legal. But this game is not about being technicaly legal. you are the DM, and though what he is doing can bend the 3.0 ruleset it makes absolutely no sense and breaks the game. You have the power, the perogative, and the right to change or either temporarily or permanently dismiss rules to make your game better.

Patt him on the back for figuring out the Cleave feat was broken, then tell him they fixed it and he should get back to playing the game. I say you waint untill he has a bunch of rats strapped to him before you tell him it won't work though. >

-Woe

[Duck]

HHHHmmm, seems to me like I have to buy my self some new 3.5 books.

@woe That is just plain evil, .... sounds good

[WoeTheSinner]

Glad to be of help. Evil by choice and all that fun stuff

[Vaskre]

Yes, quite a few things, including Cleave, were fixed in 3.5 if I recall.

And Woe's our local evil person.

P.S. Just because the rules technically allow it doesn't make it right, IMO, I could have polymorphed my PC into a choker the other day to get two standard actions or a full round action + 1 standard action via an ability that resembled 3.0 haste, but that would've been 'game breaking' so I didn't.

Game breaking can be fun when you figure it out, but once you start to use it it becomes immensely less fun.

Also, it's your job as a DM to make sure everyone, yourself included, has fun, not just powerplayer A.

[Darius]

You may also want to consider that haveing a bunch of rats tied to strings on his waist and running around in battle gives a very nice chance of him stepping on one and tripping , can you say bonuses for being prone

D

[Dthclaw]

Or better still: the rats decide they have a liking for chewing the fighter apart. From inside his clothing.

[Vaskre]

Wouldn't really matter if it was from inside or not, I'm sure they'd find places in the armor to get through.

[Dthclaw]

Better inside so that Mr. Powergamer has to take off his armor in order to get at the rats. And the whole time he's getting eaten. By rodents.

[Antouron]

Wow...that man is being eaten by rats...I'm disturbed...

[blacxthornE]

Well, altho the problem is solved; I have another solution that applies to quite a few broken issues:

Does it have to do anything with the goal in hand? In this example I treat the rats as props that have nothing to do with the combat in hand. The rats can be used to distract an enemy (if they are enough to distract the enemy; which is a case-by-case issue); but cannot be treated as combatants. The guy obviously isn't fighting the rats and the enemy, he's fighting just the enemy. So, even if he fights the rats, I would treat it as another combat so when he attacks a rat he provokes attacks of opportunity from the enemy because he's doing nothing related to that combat.

Of course, if the rats would be used as any kind of weapon, or tactical props; I would give the player credit for that. The TND is a very good example.

[Raven Bloodmoon]

All hail the Tactical Nuclear Balor! Anyway, if a player had a bunch of rats on strings like that, I'd be up for him getting his legs all tied up in the rope. Not only does he end up prone when he trips and eats it, but I'd look into even having a roll to see if he drops his weapon. And being an idiot and falling might even provoke attacks of opportunity, depending on the situation. Then the rats can crawl up his armor and eat him more easily while the enemies stab and bash him repeatedly. And his feet are tied up so he can't even move very well to defend himself. At least a couple people on the board realize how much it sucks to be tied up and without a weapon. They'll vouch for the nastiness of just dropping the weapon.

[Ssri-Tel-Quessir Hitokiri]

I would have to go with Raven on this one. Unless this guy is a druid of sorts or has some way to control these rats (massive minuses to a Handle Animal check) these things would be tugging him in all different directions, making it much more difficult to do anything.

Also, because the rats are tied to him, let the enemies take advantage of that. They would basically have the character on a leash, which is also not very nice. Get two enemies who are relatively strong take a leash each and pull in opposite directions. Then have another enemy pelt the charcter with a ranged weapon or spear. See what happens then.

[Sitraahra]

assuming he gets great cleave...

1) as the Gm, the rats do what you want them to do. Sure, they might run away...or they might just sit in their cages, pooping in fright. Perhaps he'll ahve to take a move or standard action to try a handle animal check

2) if they're tied with strings and rather close, that might be considered grappling. If so, he loses his dex bonus to those not in the grapple, and get -4 to attack if he's not useing a light weapon!

3) if theres a rat on a string thats being considered an enemy, can the opponents flank with the rats? There are also optional rules about being surrounded which increase the normal penalties of flanking

4) if the rats are moving out of his threaten area, the baddies also probably threaten the same area. Even if he considers the rats an enemy doesn't mean the baddies consider them allys: have the opponents get an AoO before his, and he just wasted time and money on a rat

5) it seems a least somewhat difficult to unlock a cage in combat. like drawing a weapon or similiar actions, make sure it counts as at least a move action, if not standard or full round. You may allow him to get masterqwork cages which are easy to open, but we beter hope the mechanism doesn't get damaged

6) have a humerous moment where a thief tries to pickpocket the rats! it'll be funny, but also make him paranoid

[super sorcerer]

In our group we belive that cleave can't be used in attack of opportunity becouse it is realy hard for us to understand how creatures who try to aid one could possibly give his foe more attacks. Even if for any reason you do allow cleave with attack of opportunity than it should be counted as the attack of opportunity you may make against that opponent becouse it is made as part of the attack of opportunity. Anyway the rules that allow someone to get many attack like that just don't make sense both in most worlds (unless you use very strange settings).