There is no support that an event triggered by action happens outside of the action, unless it is explicitly specified.
"Triggered by action" is sort of an odd phrase to use here. I'm not sure if it's ever a thing to have a trigger be an action really. That's certainly not the trigger in this case. For Cleave, the trigger is: "you hit a creature with a melee attack roll using this weapon". That has nothing to do with any action. It's a defined trigger that is exactly what it says it is.
The rules tell you what can and can't do. Sometimes, the rules do one, sometimes the rules do the other, and of course, sometimes they do both. They aren't all encompassing, leaving gaps on either end for DM ruling, if a ruling is needed.
That's simply not how the rules are designed overall. In general, the rules tell you what you can do. Any argument that begins with, "but the rules never say that you can't" or "the rules never say that it doesn't work that way" is inherently an incorrect way of thinking about the rules. There are an infinite number of things that you can't do. The book would be millions of pages long if such a thing were even attempted to be written.
For example, the rules say that "on your turn you can move a distance up to your Speed and take one action".
The rules do not say:
-- On your turn you cannot move a distance of 5 feet more than your Speed.
-- On your turn you cannot move a distance of 20 feet more than your Speed.
-- On your turn you cannot move a distance of 37 feet more than your Speed.
-- On your turn you cannot take 17 actions.
and so on.
Instead, the fact that the book is silent on all of those ideas means that you cannot do any of those things.
In the beginning, before the rules were written, the book contained only blank pages. At that time, creatures could not do anything. Note that there were no rules which forbid creatures from doing certain things. Indeed, there were no rules at all at that time. It's important not to mistake the absence of a rule stating that you cannot do something as some sort of confirmation that you can do it. You can actually only do the things that the rules say that you can do. Likewise, Features only work in the manner that the rules say that they do.
Also, this is not the same thing as the general gameplay philosophy that players can have their characters try to do anything at any time. That is certainly true. A player might tell their DM: "Hey, my character is going to flap his arms really fast and attempt to fly up into the air all the way up to the moon and then he wants to walk around on the moon." An appropriate response from the DM is typically: "Ok! You can certainly try to do that!" However, when the character actually does try to do this, now the DM must use the rules to adjudicate what happens as a result. The end result here is that the character fails in what he was trying to do. That's because there is no general rule and no special Feature that he has access to which allows him to do that. If he then cries out: "But the book never says that I can't do that!", he would just be barking up the wrong tree because the rules do not function that way. They tell us what you can do, not what you cannot do.
"When you do something other than moving or communicating, you typically take an action. The Action table lists the game’s main actions, which are defined in more detail in the Rules Glossary."
Indeed, this was worded very carefully by the author. You typically do take an action to do things because that's the easiest way to do things. There are general rules for the action economy that are available to all creatures. There aren't actually that many other ways to do things. But there are some. Again, a good example to explain the concept is with spellcasting. You typically use your Spellcasting Feature to cast a spell with your spell slots. But sometimes you might acquire access to the rules that are provided by a Species Trait or a Feat which allow you to cast a spell in a different way. There is NOT a rule that says that you MUST use your spell slots when you cast a spell. Likewise, there is NOT a rule that says that you MUST take an action in order to do things. Instead, the action economy is made available as a resource that you can (if you want to) expend in order to perform certain activities and that resource is replenished regularly because the general rules say so. If you have access to a Feature that allows you to perform that activity in some other way, then you can do that too.
Making the Attack: "3. Resolve the Attack. Make the attack roll, as detailed earlier in this chapter. On a hit, you roll damage unless the particular attack has rules that specify otherwise. Some attacks cause special effects in addition to or instead of damage." Cleave is a special rule of the attack therefore is part of resolving the attack and not a separate activity.
No, this is totally incorrect. Cleave is its own thing. It's not related to the process of resolving any other attack. That attack is resolved the same way whether you have access to the Cleave mastery or not. The process of resolving that initial attack creates a trigger. If you have access to the Cleave mastery when that trigger is created, then you have the option to follow the rules for the Cleave Feature as they are written. Nothing about the Cleave Feature creates any sort of relationship between the attack that it creates and any previous attack or action that may have been taken. It only cares that the conditions for the trigger have been met and then it creates its own rules from there.
There is nothing saying it happens outside of the Attack action. . . . In order to be outside of the triggering action, you need something saying that it is so. If it is not there, it is part of the Action, Bonus Action, or Reaction.
Again, this is exactly backwards. The rules do what they say and only what they say. The default is that an attack is NOT part of any action, not the other way around. A rule must declare that an attack is part of an action somehow for it to be so. The absence of the rules saying anything on the subject does NOT mean that it is somehow "automatically" part of the Action, Bonus Action, or Reaction. There is absolutely no rules support for that.
For example, the rule for the Attack action says this:
Attack [Action]
When you take the Attack action, you can make one attack roll with a weapon or an Unarmed Strike.
So, that rule allows you to expend this particular action economy resource in order to perform a particular activity -- one attack roll with a weapon or an Unarmed Strike.
Now, you might have access to some other rule which also allows you to perform that same activity, in which case no action economy action was expended.
Furthermore, it's clear that if you are following that rule for the Attack action then that one particular attack that is referenced is part of that attack action.
By default, no other attacks are part of that Attack action. In order for another attack to be part of this Attack action, a rule must explicitly say so.
For example:
Level 5: Extra Attack
You can attack twice instead of once whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.
This Extra Attack feature explicitly creates a second attack whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.
Nick
When you make the extra attack of the Light property, you can make it as part of the Attack action instead of as a Bonus Action. You can make this extra attack only once per turn.
This Nick Mastery property explicitly causes a particular additional attack to become "part of the Attack action".
The Cleave Mastery property does not do anything like that. It simply defines a trigger and says that you can make an attack in response to that trigger. That's all. Trying to associate that attack with any other attack or any action whatsoever is just making up rules that aren't there.
There is not actually any support in the rules for the notion that every creature activity has to be done within the action economy or that an attack defaults to being part of whatever the most recent action was or anything like that. There are no general rules that require this.
This is true, as far as it goes.
The rest of your post about your theories of rules construction isn't really relevant to the question at hand.
We have abilities that key off whether something is part of the Attack action. However, "part of the attack action" isn't actually defined. It's left as an inferential definition by the reader, which is really mostly fine.
But it's ambiguous in this case.
1) We can all agree that the basic attack is part of the attack action. You can move between attacks. Is the move part of the attack action? Perhaps. You can interact with weapons when you make attacks as part of the action. Is that part of the action? Perhaps. (Mostly, we don't have to care.)
2) Now, you have various abilities that let you do additional things when you make an attack as part of the attack action. Are these additional abilities part of the attack action? Perhaps.There's certainly a solid argument for "yes", especially since they're most often things like "add more damage to the attack"
3) You also have various abilities that let you do things when you make an attack. Are these abilities part of the attack action? If the attack you make is not part of the attack action, clearly no. If it is, the answer ought to be the same as the answer to #2. Again, they're often, but not always, things like "add damage" or "add a rider effect".
4) You now have cleave, which lets you make a whole extra attack under specific conditions when you make an attack. Is this part of the attack action when the initial attack was? At this point, you either have to draw the definition of "part of the attack action" very narrowly, cutting off 2 and 3, and maybe even the moves and weapon interactions. Which you can do. It's just odd. And it's certainly not clear-cut.
Or... you can attempt to establish some principle why Cleave is fundamentally different from, say, Stunning Strike. But I don't think there's any textual evidence that that's so.
If you’ll be wading into the thick of battle, you’ll want to consider grabbing a weapon with the Cleave property.
These heavy weapons can slash through opponents. If you hit a creature with a melee weapon attack, you can make a second attack against a creature within 5 feet that is also within your reach. When you hit with the second attack, you can roll your weapon’s damage, but you don’t add your ability modifier unless it’s negative.
This is excellent in combination with the Halberd, which has Reach and Cleave, allowing you to Cleave into enemies in an extended range.
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"Triggered by action" is sort of an odd phrase to use here. I'm not sure if it's ever a thing to have a trigger be an action really. That's certainly not the trigger in this case. For Cleave, the trigger is: "you hit a creature with a melee attack roll using this weapon". That has nothing to do with any action. It's a defined trigger that is exactly what it says it is.
That's simply not how the rules are designed overall. In general, the rules tell you what you can do. Any argument that begins with, "but the rules never say that you can't" or "the rules never say that it doesn't work that way" is inherently an incorrect way of thinking about the rules. There are an infinite number of things that you can't do. The book would be millions of pages long if such a thing were even attempted to be written.
For example, the rules say that "on your turn you can move a distance up to your Speed and take one action".
The rules do not say:
-- On your turn you cannot move a distance of 5 feet more than your Speed.
-- On your turn you cannot move a distance of 20 feet more than your Speed.
-- On your turn you cannot move a distance of 37 feet more than your Speed.
-- On your turn you cannot take 17 actions.
and so on.
Instead, the fact that the book is silent on all of those ideas means that you cannot do any of those things.
In the beginning, before the rules were written, the book contained only blank pages. At that time, creatures could not do anything. Note that there were no rules which forbid creatures from doing certain things. Indeed, there were no rules at all at that time. It's important not to mistake the absence of a rule stating that you cannot do something as some sort of confirmation that you can do it. You can actually only do the things that the rules say that you can do. Likewise, Features only work in the manner that the rules say that they do.
Also, this is not the same thing as the general gameplay philosophy that players can have their characters try to do anything at any time. That is certainly true. A player might tell their DM: "Hey, my character is going to flap his arms really fast and attempt to fly up into the air all the way up to the moon and then he wants to walk around on the moon." An appropriate response from the DM is typically: "Ok! You can certainly try to do that!" However, when the character actually does try to do this, now the DM must use the rules to adjudicate what happens as a result. The end result here is that the character fails in what he was trying to do. That's because there is no general rule and no special Feature that he has access to which allows him to do that. If he then cries out: "But the book never says that I can't do that!", he would just be barking up the wrong tree because the rules do not function that way. They tell us what you can do, not what you cannot do.
That's incorrect.
Indeed, this was worded very carefully by the author. You typically do take an action to do things because that's the easiest way to do things. There are general rules for the action economy that are available to all creatures. There aren't actually that many other ways to do things. But there are some. Again, a good example to explain the concept is with spellcasting. You typically use your Spellcasting Feature to cast a spell with your spell slots. But sometimes you might acquire access to the rules that are provided by a Species Trait or a Feat which allow you to cast a spell in a different way. There is NOT a rule that says that you MUST use your spell slots when you cast a spell. Likewise, there is NOT a rule that says that you MUST take an action in order to do things. Instead, the action economy is made available as a resource that you can (if you want to) expend in order to perform certain activities and that resource is replenished regularly because the general rules say so. If you have access to a Feature that allows you to perform that activity in some other way, then you can do that too.
No, this is totally incorrect. Cleave is its own thing. It's not related to the process of resolving any other attack. That attack is resolved the same way whether you have access to the Cleave mastery or not. The process of resolving that initial attack creates a trigger. If you have access to the Cleave mastery when that trigger is created, then you have the option to follow the rules for the Cleave Feature as they are written. Nothing about the Cleave Feature creates any sort of relationship between the attack that it creates and any previous attack or action that may have been taken. It only cares that the conditions for the trigger have been met and then it creates its own rules from there.
Again, this is exactly backwards. The rules do what they say and only what they say. The default is that an attack is NOT part of any action, not the other way around. A rule must declare that an attack is part of an action somehow for it to be so. The absence of the rules saying anything on the subject does NOT mean that it is somehow "automatically" part of the Action, Bonus Action, or Reaction. There is absolutely no rules support for that.
For example, the rule for the Attack action says this:
So, that rule allows you to expend this particular action economy resource in order to perform a particular activity -- one attack roll with a weapon or an Unarmed Strike.
Now, you might have access to some other rule which also allows you to perform that same activity, in which case no action economy action was expended.
Furthermore, it's clear that if you are following that rule for the Attack action then that one particular attack that is referenced is part of that attack action.
By default, no other attacks are part of that Attack action. In order for another attack to be part of this Attack action, a rule must explicitly say so.
For example:
This Extra Attack feature explicitly creates a second attack whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.
This Nick Mastery property explicitly causes a particular additional attack to become "part of the Attack action".
The Cleave Mastery property does not do anything like that. It simply defines a trigger and says that you can make an attack in response to that trigger. That's all. Trying to associate that attack with any other attack or any action whatsoever is just making up rules that aren't there.
Isn't Cleave a 2nd attack? You have to roll to hit, so this is not "one attack" but a second attack. True strike only works with one attack.
This is true, as far as it goes.
The rest of your post about your theories of rules construction isn't really relevant to the question at hand.
We have abilities that key off whether something is part of the Attack action. However, "part of the attack action" isn't actually defined. It's left as an inferential definition by the reader, which is really mostly fine.
But it's ambiguous in this case.
1) We can all agree that the basic attack is part of the attack action. You can move between attacks. Is the move part of the attack action? Perhaps. You can interact with weapons when you make attacks as part of the action. Is that part of the action? Perhaps. (Mostly, we don't have to care.)
2) Now, you have various abilities that let you do additional things when you make an attack as part of the attack action. Are these additional abilities part of the attack action? Perhaps.There's certainly a solid argument for "yes", especially since they're most often things like "add more damage to the attack"
3) You also have various abilities that let you do things when you make an attack. Are these abilities part of the attack action? If the attack you make is not part of the attack action, clearly no. If it is, the answer ought to be the same as the answer to #2. Again, they're often, but not always, things like "add damage" or "add a rider effect".
4) You now have cleave, which lets you make a whole extra attack under specific conditions when you make an attack. Is this part of the attack action when the initial attack was? At this point, you either have to draw the definition of "part of the attack action" very narrowly, cutting off 2 and 3, and maybe even the moves and weapon interactions. Which you can do. It's just odd. And it's certainly not clear-cut.
Or... you can attempt to establish some principle why Cleave is fundamentally different from, say, Stunning Strike. But I don't think there's any textual evidence that that's so.
Yes, further indications in Your Guide to Weapon Mastery in the 2024 Player's Handbook point to Cleave being a second attack;