These are the
most common, straightforward actions that a character or creature
might take to attack. More specialized Attack The attack action is a standard action. You can move and then make a single attack, or attack and then move. Melee Attacks: With a normal melee weapon, you can strike any enemy within 5 feet. (Enemies within 5 feet are considered adjacent to you.) Some melee weapons have reach, as indicated in their descriptions in Weapons. You can strike opponents 10 feet away with a reach weapon, but you cannot strike adjacent foes (those within 5 feet). Ranged Attacks: With a ranged weapon, you can shoot or throw at any target that is within the ranged weapon’s maximum range and in line of sight. A target is in line of sight if no obstructions are between you and the target. The maximum range for a thrown weapon is five range increments. For projectile weapons, it is ten range increments. Some ranged weapons have shorter maximum ranges, as specified in their descriptions. Unarmed Attacks: Unarmed attacks are covered in Unarmed Attacks, and Subdual Damage. Attack Rolls: An attack roll represents your attempts to strike your opponent, including feints and wild swings. It does not represent a single swing of the sword, for example. Rather, it simply indicates whether, over perhaps several attempts, you managed to connect solidly. Your attack roll is 1d20 + your attack bonus with the weapon you’re using. If the result is at least as high as the target’s AC, you hit and deal damage. Automatic Misses and Hits: A natural 1 (the d20 comes up 1) on the attack roll is always a miss. A natural 20 (the d20 comes up 20) is always a hit. A natural 20 is also a threat—a possible critical hit (see Critical Hits, below). Damage Rolls: If the attack roll result equals or exceeds the target’s AC, the attack is successful, and you deal damage. Roll the appropriate damage for your weapon (see Table: Weapons). Damage is deducted from the target’s current hit points. If the opponent’s hit points drop to 0 or less, he’s in bad shape (see Injury and Death). Critical Hits: When you make an attack roll and get a natural 20 (the d20 shows 20), you hit regardless of your target’s AC, and you have scored a threat. The hit might be a critical hit (or “crit”). To find out if it’s a critical hit, you immediately make a critical roll—another attack roll with all the same modifiers as the attack roll you just made. If the critical roll also results in a hit against the target’s AC, your original hit is a critical hit. (The critical roll just needs to hit to give you a crit. It doesn’t need to come up 20 again.) If the critical roll is a miss, then your hit is just a regular hit. A critical hit means that you roll your damage more than once, with all your usual bonuses, and add the rolls together to get total damage. Unless otherwise specified, the threat range for a critical hit on an attack roll is 20, and the multiplier is x2. (See Increased Threat Range and Increased Critical Multiplier, below.) Exception: Bonus damage represented as extra dice, such as from a sneak attack or a flaming sword, is not multiplied when you score a critical hit. Increased Threat Range: Sometimes your threat range is greater than 20. That is, you can score a threat on a lower number. Longswords, for instance, give you a threat on a natural attack roll of 19 or 20. In such cases, a roll below 20 is not an automatic hit. Any attack roll that doesn’t result in a hit is not a threat. Increased Critical Multiplier: Some weapons, such as battleaxes and arrows, deal better than double damage with a critical hit. See Table: Weapons and the “Critical” section of Weapon Qualities. Spells and Critical Hits: A spell that requires an attack roll, such as shocking grasp or Melf’s acid arrow, can score a critical hit. A spell attack that requires no attack roll, such as lightning bolt, cannot score a critical hit. Multiple Attacks: A character with more than one attack per round must use the full attack action in order to get more than one attack. Shooting or Throwing into a Melee: If you shoot or throw a ranged weapon at a target that is engaged in melee with an ally, you suffer a –4 penalty on your attack roll because you have to aim carefully to avoid hitting your ally. Two characters are engaged in melee if they are enemies of each other and either threatens the other. (A held, unconscious, or otherwise immobilized character is not considered engaged unless he is actually being attacked.) If your target (or the part of your target you're aiming at, if it’s a big target) is at least 10 feet away from the nearest ally, you can avoid the –4 penalty, even if the creature you’re aiming at is engaged in melee with an ally. Precise Shot: If you have the Precise Shot feat, you don’t suffer this penalty. Fighting Defensively: You can choose to fight defensively when taking the attack action. If you do so, you take a –4 penalty on all attacks in a round to gain a +2 dodge bonus to AC for the same round. Charge Charging is a special standard action that allows you to move more than your speed and attack during the action. However, it carries tight restrictions on how you can move. Movement during a Charge: You must move before your attack, not after. You must move at least 10 feet and may move up to double your speed. All movement must be in a straight line, with no backing up allowed. You must stop as soon as you are within striking range of your target. You can’t run past him and attack from another direction. Attacking: After moving, you may make a single melee attack. Since you can use the momentum of the charge in your favor, you get a +2 bonus on the attack roll. Since a charge is impossible without a bit of recklessness, you also suffer a –2 penalty to your AC for 1 round. Even if you have extra attacks, such as from having a high enough base attack bonus or from using multiple weapons, you only get to make one attack during a charge. Lances and Charge Attacks: A lance deals double damage if employed by a mounted character in a charge. Weapons Readied against a Charge: Spears, tridents, and certain other piercing weapons deal double damage when readied (set) and used against a charging character (see Table: Weapons, and Ready). Full Attack If you get more than one attack per action because your base attack bonus is high enough, because you fight with two weapons, because you’re using a double weapon, or for some special reason (such as a feat or a magic item), you must use the full attack action to get your additional attacks. You do not need to specify the targets of your attacks ahead of time. You can see how the earlier attacks turn out before assigning the later ones. Full attack is a full-round action. Because of this, the only movement you can take during a full attack is a 5-foot step. You may take the step before, after, or between your attacks. If you get multiple attacks based on your base attack bonus, you must make the attacks in order from highest bonus to lowest. If you are using two weapons, you can strike with either weapon first. If you are using a double weapon, you can strike with either part of the weapon first. Deciding between an Attack or a Full Attack Action: After your first attack, if you have not yet taken a 5-foot step, you can decide to move instead of making your remaining attacks. Essentially, you can decide whether to take the normal attack action or the full attack action depending on how the first attack turns out. Fighting Defensively: You can choose to fight defensively when taking the full attack action. If you do so, you take a –4 penalty on all attacks in a round to gain a +2 dodge bonus to AC for the same round. Attacking with Two Weapons: If you wield a second weapon in your off hand, you can get one extra attack per round with that weapon. Fighting in this way is very hard, however, and you suffer a –6 penalty with your regular attack or attacks with your primary hand and a –10 penalty to the attack with your off hand. You can reduce these stiff penalties in three ways: • If your off-hand weapon is light, the penalties are reduced by 2 each. A light weapon is one that’s smaller than a weapon you could use in one hand. Its size category is smaller than yours. (An unarmed strike is always considered light.) A short sword is light to a human and a dagger is light to a gnome. • The Ambidexterity feat reduces the off-hand penalty by 4. • The Two-Weapon Fighting feat reduces both penalties by 2. Table: Two-Weapon Fighting Penalties summarizes the interaction of all these factors. Double Weapons: You can use a double weapon to make an extra attack as if you were fighting with two weapons. The penalties apply as if the off-hand weapon were light. Table Two-Weapon Fighting Penalties
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