"When I use True Strike with a Cleave weapon and hit, how do I use to resolve the additional attack from Cleave?"
(1) Cleave is a weapon mastery property. Only Barbarians, Fighters, Paladins, Rangers, and Rogues can gain and take advantage of weapon masteries.
(2) every one of those classes get ExtraAttack except Rogue. And TrueStrike doesnt work with ExtraAttack.
Therefore this is a very niche situation as most of these classes will be getting ExtraAttack at which point using TrueStrike will be a downgrade. But for those niche cases, where someone has learned thr weapon mastery property, does not yet havr ExtraAttack, and has a better spellcastung ability than strength, then TrueStrike would work with Cleave weapon mastery.
But cleave says if you hit with a melee attack (which woukd be truestrike), you can make a second melee attack, that does weapon damage only. This would be outside the scope of TrueStrike, so you would havr to use Strength tohit on that cleave attavk
"Eldritch Knight Fighter can use True Strike or any other Wizard Cantrip they know instead of one attack during an Attack action."
So you dont need the feat also, you cant swap an attack for a cantrip until level 7, and you can only do it for 1 attack, not the extra attack, and by level 11, youve got 3 attacks, and only one can be truestrike.the other 2 (and the cleave attack) will have to use dex or str.
If you want to use spellcasting ability for melee attacks, prob goijg to be more powerful to do a pact of the blade+paladin. If are willing to use a quarterstaff, take thr Guide background, pick up shillelagh using INT as your spellcasting ability, and then max your int, go all eldrutxh knight, and just cast shillelagh first turn, and whack away.
Shillelagh from the origin feat, letting you choose your spellcasting ability, leads to some really crazy op builds.
RAW, it is an option regardless of your opinion on the matter. Every class has access to the feat. If you want to make a Warlock with Pact of the Blade and Cleave Weapon Mastery, go nuts. It may be more useful for College of Valor Bards that most other non-martials.
"Eldritch Knight Fighter can use True Strike or any other Wizard Cantrip they know instead of one attack during an Attack action."
So you dont need the feat also, you cant swap an attack for a cantrip until level 7, and you can only do it for 1 attack, not the extra attack, and by level 11, youve got 3 attacks, and only one can be truestrike.the other 2 (and the cleave attack) will have to use dex or str.
You don't need the Feat as an Eldritch Knight. You can swap for a Cantrip once per attack action. That is what I said, "instead of one attack". True Strike will use Intelligence in most cases with an Eldritch Knight. The other attacks will have to use Strength unless you found a Finesse Weapon that also has the Cleave Weapon Mastery. Alternatively, an Eldritch Knight that dipped into Warlock for Pact of the Blade could be leaning heavily into Charisma (and multiclass cantrips are weird). There may be reasons to sacrifice the bonus to hit in order to deal radiant damage (including up to an extra 3D6 Radiant Damage), if you're looking to Cleave, you probably are fighting multiple, hopefully lower-level enemies and their AC drop might match your hit chance drop.
Shillelagh from the origin feat, letting you choose your spellcasting ability, leads to some really crazy op builds.
Shillelagh can't be cast on weapons with the Cleave Weapon Mastery, which is what we are discussing here. True Strike and Cleave. If Shillelagh could be cast on the haft of a Halberd for shenanigans, Shillelagh would be relevant here. Maybe in the future.
"it is an option regardless of your opinion on the matter. Every class has access to the feat."
Its going to be a suboptimal combo. As dm, id probably cut the player some slack, cause it seems like the player built a character that is getting in their own way.
For an Eldritch Knight fighter, you could max str or dex and not worry about truestrike at all. Most EK spells are utility spells, many dont have attack rolls or saving throws, so spell casting ability is unimportant. For a straight fighter, make int 8, and you still get the best spell, Shield.
For a multuclass build, set int to 13.
The key point here is EK cant swap an action/attack for a cantrip until level 7. So this build cant be a 2 level dip into fighter for action surge. ExtraAttack comes at level 5 fighter. So if you buffed INT, and dropped str and dex, you will be making weapon attacks suboptimally, and truestrike will fix only one Action/Attack. The ExtraAttack and any opportunity attacks, and any weapojnmastery attacks, and any polearm master BonusAction attacks, ALL of those attavks will be using the lower str or dex stat.
This build requires 7 levels.of fighter for a cantrip that affects one Actiin/Attack, at the cost of nerfing all other attacks.
If INT is 18 or 20, and str is 15, you could use int to truestrike with the polearm, but then the cleave attack.has to use str. If they pick up PoleArmMaster at level.4, the bonus action pole strike attack also uses strength. If they take 4 more levels in fighter, they get 3 attack/action, and only one uses INT, the.other 2 use STR.
whatever the player is doing with this build,.it is clearly not a power gamer build, so as dm i wouldnt worry about it too much. But i would require they use STR for all attacks except the one TrueStrike attack.
Good, we agree that Cleave can trigger off of True Strike and there are scenarios where someone can cast True Strike and has Weapon Mastery. Polearm Master has no bearing on resolving Cleave triggered from True Strike. The actual values of Strength versus Intelligence have no bearing on resolving the scenario.
The consensus has already been reached that the Cleave attack wasn't affected by True Strike and that was the expected result when I asked the question originally, but I thought it was useful to talk through the scenario in case a different outcome was reached or interesting talking points came out of it.
"When I use True Strike with a Cleave weapon and hit, how do I use to resolve the additional attack from Cleave?"
(1) Cleave is a weapon mastery property. Only Barbarians, Fighters, Paladins, Rangers, and Rogues can gain and take advantage of weapon masteries.
(2) every one of those classes get ExtraAttack except Rogue. And TrueStrike doesnt work with ExtraAttack.
Therefore this is a very niche situation as most of these classes will be getting ExtraAttack at which point using TrueStrike will be a downgrade. But for those niche cases, where someone has learned thr weapon mastery property, does not yet havr ExtraAttack, and has a better spellcastung ability than strength, then TrueStrike would work with Cleave weapon mastery.
But cleave says if you hit with a melee attack (which woukd be truestrike), you can make a second melee attack, that does weapon damage only. This would be outside the scope of TrueStrike, so you would havr to use Strength tohit on that cleave attavk
None of that was the question. However, both are wrong.
(1) Anyone can take the Weapon Master feat to get access to one weapon mastery which they can change out on a long rest as normal.
(2) An Eldritch Knight Fighter can use True Strike or any other Wizard Cantrip they know instead of one attack during an Attack action.
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.
"Anyone can take the Weapon Master feat "
Not me. Not worth it never seen anyone do it.
"Eldritch Knight Fighter can use True Strike or any other Wizard Cantrip they know instead of one attack during an Attack action."
So you dont need the feat also, you cant swap an attack for a cantrip until level 7, and you can only do it for 1 attack, not the extra attack, and by level 11, youve got 3 attacks, and only one can be truestrike.the other 2 (and the cleave attack) will have to use dex or str.
If you want to use spellcasting ability for melee attacks, prob goijg to be more powerful to do a pact of the blade+paladin. If are willing to use a quarterstaff, take thr Guide background, pick up shillelagh using INT as your spellcasting ability, and then max your int, go all eldrutxh knight, and just cast shillelagh first turn, and whack away.
Shillelagh from the origin feat, letting you choose your spellcasting ability, leads to some really crazy op builds.
RAW, it is an option regardless of your opinion on the matter. Every class has access to the feat. If you want to make a Warlock with Pact of the Blade and Cleave Weapon Mastery, go nuts. It may be more useful for College of Valor Bards that most other non-martials.
You don't need the Feat as an Eldritch Knight. You can swap for a Cantrip once per attack action. That is what I said, "instead of one attack". True Strike will use Intelligence in most cases with an Eldritch Knight. The other attacks will have to use Strength unless you found a Finesse Weapon that also has the Cleave Weapon Mastery. Alternatively, an Eldritch Knight that dipped into Warlock for Pact of the Blade could be leaning heavily into Charisma (and multiclass cantrips are weird). There may be reasons to sacrifice the bonus to hit in order to deal radiant damage (including up to an extra 3D6 Radiant Damage), if you're looking to Cleave, you probably are fighting multiple, hopefully lower-level enemies and their AC drop might match your hit chance drop.
Shillelagh can't be cast on weapons with the Cleave Weapon Mastery, which is what we are discussing here. True Strike and Cleave. If Shillelagh could be cast on the haft of a Halberd for shenanigans, Shillelagh would be relevant here. Maybe in the future.
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.
"it is an option regardless of your opinion on the matter. Every class has access to the feat."
Its going to be a suboptimal combo. As dm, id probably cut the player some slack, cause it seems like the player built a character that is getting in their own way.
For an Eldritch Knight fighter, you could max str or dex and not worry about truestrike at all. Most EK spells are utility spells, many dont have attack rolls or saving throws, so spell casting ability is unimportant. For a straight fighter, make int 8, and you still get the best spell, Shield.
For a multuclass build, set int to 13.
The key point here is EK cant swap an action/attack for a cantrip until level 7. So this build cant be a 2 level dip into fighter for action surge. ExtraAttack comes at level 5 fighter. So if you buffed INT, and dropped str and dex, you will be making weapon attacks suboptimally, and truestrike will fix only one Action/Attack. The ExtraAttack and any opportunity attacks, and any weapojnmastery attacks, and any polearm master BonusAction attacks, ALL of those attavks will be using the lower str or dex stat.
This build requires 7 levels.of fighter for a cantrip that affects one Actiin/Attack, at the cost of nerfing all other attacks.
If INT is 18 or 20, and str is 15, you could use int to truestrike with the polearm, but then the cleave attack.has to use str. If they pick up PoleArmMaster at level.4, the bonus action pole strike attack also uses strength. If they take 4 more levels in fighter, they get 3 attack/action, and only one uses INT, the.other 2 use STR.
whatever the player is doing with this build,.it is clearly not a power gamer build, so as dm i wouldnt worry about it too much. But i would require they use STR for all attacks except the one TrueStrike attack.
Intelligence 18, str/dex 14.
Good, we agree that Cleave can trigger off of True Strike and there are scenarios where someone can cast True Strike and has Weapon Mastery. Polearm Master has no bearing on resolving Cleave triggered from True Strike. The actual values of Strength versus Intelligence have no bearing on resolving the scenario.
The consensus has already been reached that the Cleave attack wasn't affected by True Strike and that was the expected result when I asked the question originally, but I thought it was useful to talk through the scenario in case a different outcome was reached or interesting talking points came out of it.
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.