The Tavern

Inspired by the post in the squarelos thread.

I always thought axes cleaved when confused because that is what I intuitively assumed. Not cleaving feels non-intuitive. You're swinging an axe around, confused or not, you're going to cleave. In less flavor related and more logical terms, I expect cleaving to work when confused because confusion changes the direction of the attack. There's nothing that indicates that it also cuts off both sides of the axe swing and only makes it hit a single tile. I think most people would assume that cleaving works when confused. Is there a good reason to disable cleaving? Yes it makes confusion less dangerous when using axes, but this is not a significant balance problem by any means, if weapons being good in different situations is a balance problem in the first place. Keeping logical interactions between mechanics is important; in this case cleave + random attack direction = random cleave direction.

For what it's worth, I wouldn't mind.

There used to be much dissension about what cleaving is worth (in terms of raw damage loss). I believe that cleaving is useful but not overpowered, on current axes. In my opinion it's okay to make cleaving more useful in the OP's niche case.

Wow, I just threw that out there, almost as a joke, but Wahaha makes some good points why it makes sense to do it.

Not sure how it was implemented - but I think axe cleaving while confused should hit all adjacent monsters including allies.

I'm pretty sure they removed axe cleaving while confused because of interaction with allies and gods being upset if you attacked them.

I did not think of that, but still think cleaving should work. It's possible to hit an ally with a cleave-less axe, or any other weapon type, and make a god mad. Removing cleaving greatly reduces the chances of hitting an ally, but the only time when you would attack next to an ally even with a non-cleave weapon is when the random attack is worth the risk of making an ally hostile. If you're following a god that will put you in penance, the risk is basically never worth it so it's not even worth considering cleaving vs non-cleaving. For various allies that won't incur god wrath, if the player attacks next to an ally, and remember they would still be risking to hit them even with a non-cleave weapon, I don't think it's bad if the cleave hits them.

It's a little strange that there's no warning for attacking while confused next to an ally though. Especially when a god will get mad.
edit: Berder's post has the tl;dr version
edit2: Basically ask the question: "In what situations would I attack with a non-cleave weapon, but not with a cleave weapon?". The answer is those situations are very nearly nonexistent. Even if such a situation were to occur, I would value keeping logical cleave mechanics over removing cleaving when confused because... having a small chance of hitting an ally is ok, but a high chance is bad?

That doesn't make sense, because if you attack while confused with any weapon you have a chance of hitting allies.

We should still prompt the player if they may cleave-hit an ally. Some other devs want to revert the commit.