What happened to monk free cleave?

Pekka · Post by **Pekka** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 3:10 pm

Hello, guys. Does anybody know what happened to monk free cleave feat? I enjoy playing monk once in a while (though its not my favourite class) and was very disappointed that cleave got left out in NWN2. I mean, did they think that monks are overpowered or smth? Well, they arent.The only thing that can be called overpowered is spell resistance, but now several races have it, so whats the deal?

Magrus · Post by **Magrus** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 3:31 pm

It isn't a part of the monk class at all, so it was removed. I believe the developers added it in the first game due to the fact several monk class abilities aren't able to be incorporated into the game and wanted to balance that out with adding a feat. However, if the things the lost abilities aren't incorporated into the game at all, the monks aren't losing a whole lot as they wouldn't have gained anything by having them anyhow.

Overall, if you go full monk, it isn't a big difference. However, if you take 1 monk level to get all of the neat first level monk abilities and cleave, it makes that broken. You not only get a free feat, but you bypass the prerequisite feat Power Attack as well, saving you a feat in the process.

Pekka · Post by **Pekka** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 7:18 am

Magrus wrote:It isn't a part of the monk class at all, so it was removed. I believe the developers added it in the first game due to the fact several monk class abilities aren't able to be incorporated into the game and wanted to balance that out with adding a feat. However, if the things the lost abilities aren't incorporated into the game at all, the monks aren't losing a whole lot as they wouldn't have gained anything by having them anyhow.

Overall, if you go full monk, it isn't a big difference. However, if you take 1 monk level to get all of the neat first level monk abilities and cleave, it makes that broken. You not only get a free feat, but you bypass the prerequisite feat Power Attack as well, saving you a feat in the process.

Thanks for your reply. However, I still get a feeling that monks got nerfed, since cleave IS a rather useful feat for melee chars, though not so useful as to warrant a two-point feat investment, imo. After all monks arent fighters with their tons of extra feats. Btw many ppl (me included) take 1 lvl of fighter just for the martial proficiency and an extra feat (cleric-fighter comes to mind) and no one complains about that.

Magrus · Post by **Magrus** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 3:41 pm

Yeah, but the cleave feat isn't a part of the monk class, period. That's why it got removed. As far as taking a level of fighter or cleric, a lot of people do. However, the game developers didn't add anything extra to those classes like they did with monk at 1st level, so, there is a difference there.

Siberys · Post by **Siberys** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 4:25 pm

Yeah, they got nerfed alright, 3.5 all the way and not just NWN 2. In 3rd edition they were way overpowered. Not only did they get a bunch of insane abilities, but they also got 1D20 damage. That simply doesn't make sense with the D20 system.

So yeah, they were nerfed, but the nerfing is a good thing, it makes them balanced so long as you play it semi smart-like, kinda like you have to do with a fighter and his feats.

sun_facer · Post by **sun_facer** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 5:06 pm

it's in the manual.

I understand that cleave is not part of the monk class.

But it's in the manual! And when I took the class, I was shocked not to see the feat. The manual misguided me.

I have a 12fighter/7wm/... and had been looking for a class to splash. rogue? Divine Champion? Finally, I realised that the +2 to all saves, the Diplomacy/Tumble Class skill and the Cleave feat will really sit nicely with my char.

I chose the monk.. and viola! No Cleave! ****!