Shattered Kingdoms

You cannot effectively just swing a normal scythe as hard as you can. Unless the guys neck is level with the ground, you are NOT going to cut anything off aside from an ankle.

You don't have to swing at their head. Also war scythes don't have the handle on them, the pole itself curves to fit the hand at both spots to hold. It isn't a straight pole. If you're right handed its an under swing from the lower right side of your body. On top of that because of the style of the swing it is a spin, putting the full force of your body into the swing. How is that not enough force?

Just looking at the weapon as a tool from which is originally is made, it should be able to cleave. It's slicing motion is what causes it to cut wheat, etc. I don't think it should be piercing damage at all because of this, you're not going to pierce a blade of grass to death with it IRL thank you very much. And a war-scythe as the article said was a precursor to the halberd and other such pole arms. Which we have. So no need to distinguish just give scythe cleave and call it that. It's already one of the slowest weapons in game and doesn't have the highest damage output anyways there are better cleave weapons available but again functionally it should be able to, just like pole-axe.

You're describing an all-effort swing with the scythe - but surely that would lower the percentage of a successful cleave simply because everyone would see it coming? Being that cleave is initial attack only, I'd don't know if any of the existing "very slow" cleaving weapons already take this into account or not...

*cough* Pole-axe/Great-axe *cough*

*coughs in agreement*

It's not the swing itself that is slow. It's the recovery time from the swing that makes the weapon slow.

(for the slow)

In other words, if I swing a knife at you as hard as I can, it isn't difficult to stop midswing or change direction.

If I swing a sledgehammer at you, the sheer weight of the weapon will carry it through to the end of its arc whether I want it to or not. The recovery time for this is what makes it a slower attack.

Nonetheless there are still large, fairly high-damage weapons with high accuracy (greatsword? landsknecht?)

But please don't reduce cleave into a skill where you can either use a small accurate weapon and deal no damage or a huge weapon and never hit

As for scythes, they certainly look like cleaving weapons. But the truth is you simply can't swing one headlong into a person full force, like a sword or an axe or any normal bladed weapon. That is the idea behind cleave I guess. If you just look at the shape of it, a scythe really requires a more complex (if not awkward) motion to actually hit somebody with the cutting edge. The amount of force there probably isnt enough to do the kind of devastating limb-severing of the cleave skill (except maybe for the head)

As for war scythes, if there are any in the game then they should be another subtype completely.

Then again it's a fantasy world sooo...

People broadcasting American football will talk about a certain QB's windup being too big. "He needs to only bring the ball back to his ear before throwing it, and not as far back as he's bringing it." The scythe and war-scythe are unwieldy enough that the wind-up itself would give the victims long enough time to avoid such a down-fall.

It is possible to dodge a cleave. Tadaaa. Cleave is fine, and would be fine even with scythes being able to cleave - scythes are horrid. Leave it be.