Originally Posted by mrfuji3
Originally Posted by Grudgebearer
That's debatable. I personally hate the fact that they've tied cleave and trip to particular weapons. Why should I have carry around and swap to a quarterstaff just to perform a trip attack? It is possible to trip someone without a quarterstaff.
Imo the quarterstaff's special ability should be more of a stunning bash than a trip. Maybe polearms could have the trip ability.

Does the quarterstaff's Trip ability also do damage? If so, then it's a fine special ability. It's similar to the Battlemaster's Trip Attack.
If not, then yes everyone should be able to trip (shove prone). It'd be great if Larian implemented an option to Shove Away or Shove Prone.

Cleave is fine. No one can cleave by default; it requires a class ability or feat (e.g., GWM). And even then they're not exactly the same ability, so a weapon's "Cleave" ability will stack with GWM's cleave-like ability.

There is no reason that a particular attack even cleave, should be tied to a particular weapon. It's an unnecessary deviation from 5E that serves little purpose; there's no reason that a character shouldn't be able to make a cleave attack with any melee weapon.