Cleave triggering before target dies

[Famous Seamus]

EDIT: Based on the information provided in the discussion below, this doesn't seem to be a bug. I've left the thread up in case the info is useful for anyone who has a similar experience. A moderator is welcome to lock or delete this, and I'd be glad to remove it upon request.

My character was in a fight with two wererats today, and his Cleave ability triggered after he dropped one to "Near Death" but didn't kill it.

Where:
Slums district of Vallaki, main street.

When:
When an enemy was dropped to "Near Death" in a 2v1 fight.

What:
Once Cleave triggers, the character begins aggroing the other opponent in the fight as if the first one is dead. However, the first one continues to attack as normal. See the following marked screenshot:

Spoiler: show

The first red arrow indicates when Cleave triggered after the first wererat was dropped to "Near Death." As the subsequent entries show, the fight continued with more than one opponent attacking per round. After Cleave shifted my character's attacks to the second wererat, I manually selected the first one to finish it off. The second red arrow indicates when this happens (after one round of attacking the second wererat in between); the first wererat is killed, and Cleave triggers normally. The third arrow indicates when the second wererat is killed and the fight ends (further demonstrating that there were two enemies in the fight).

My character is

Spoiler: show

a level 14 paladin

wielding an enchanted greatsword. (I'd be more comfortable sharing the stats via PM.) He had his full complement of buffs active at the time.

Recreate:
This one's hard because I'm not sure what could be causing it. I guess the most straightforward way would be have a character with Cleave repeatedly 2v1 enemies until they drop one enemy to "Near Death" but fail to kill it.

Ideas:
N/A--sorry.

Other Notes:
I've also noticed a potential Cleave bug in fights with three or more enemies. Enemy 1 will be killed; Cleave will trigger, target, and damage Enemy 2; but then the character will automatically start attacking Enemy 3 even though Enemy 2 is still alive. (Sorry, I didn't get a screenshot of this.) This doesn't happen all the time, and I think it only happened to my character when there were obstacles on the ground nearby and somewhat in between him and Enemy 2 (a rock, a sapling, etc.). Could that mean it's a pathing issue?

If more info about any of this is needed, I can be reached via PM here of over Discord at Famous Seamus#3915.

[Khornite]

Been seeing this exact thing. The other thing I've been noticing is the character just not attacking any more after cleave.

[gotesu]

Can confirm that cleave sometimes "triggers" before a death (and also leading to not hitting the next target as it should)

[zDark Shadowz]

This is a hardcoded quirk of cleave that can't be fixed.

Cleave calculates assuming the attack will kill the target, however, healing and defensive roll can apply inbetween the attack and the damage.

Since wererats have regeneration, this is likely what has happened in this instance.

If you have many attacks per round, this can also cause Cleave to attempt to become "the killing blow" on the same target instead if the first attack in the flurry would have killed it (though this cleave can still miss) but it survived due to healing, defensive roll or some other damage mitigation, which can ruin a follow up targeting.

There is also an issue on this server sometimes where killing an enemy will cause you to stop attacking and not follow through to the next target, which happens regardless of if you have the Cleave feat or not, its not unique to cleave.

[Famous Seamus]

Thanks for sharing your experiences, Khornite and gotesu. And thank you, zDark, for clarifying the cause and confirming that this isn't a bug. This is good to know!

I've updated the original post to reflect the information provided here.