Combat: Difference between revisions
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When fighting size Large or larger foes, you can choose which square of their space within your reach to target once per round. This usually doesn't matter, but it is important for some feats and combat maneuvers, such as the Cleave [[combat maneuver]] or [[Darting Viper (Feat)]], when it is important to determine what foes, if any, are adjacent to the foe you are attacking. Which space you attack within a foe never has any impact on whether or not you are threatening a space, that depends solely upon your weapon and your reach. | When fighting size Large or larger foes, you can choose which square of their space within your reach to target once per round. This usually doesn't matter, but it is important for some feats and combat maneuvers, such as the Cleave [[combat maneuver]] or [[Darting Viper (Feat)]], when it is important to determine what foes, if any, are adjacent to the foe you are attacking. Which space you attack within a foe never has any impact on whether or not you are threatening a space, that depends solely upon your weapon and your reach. | ||
===Melee Attacks=== | |||
A Melee Attack is an attack made with a melee weapon that remains attached to the creature making the attack at all times. This means that you (or any creature) must be adjacent to the space of the target of your attack, because you're holding onto the weapon doing the attacking. The classic example is a swung sword. At no point is the sword ever not being firmly held by the attacker. Note that bare hands and gauntlets are defined as weapons for this purpose. | |||
Melee attacks can be made with any melee, poor melee, or melee capable weapon, and also any attack defined as a melee attack in a monster write-up. There are hundreds of ways to make a melee attack, and if there is ever any confusion about some weird circumstance, the GM adjudicates as they see fit. Melee attacks obviously do not require ammunition or any other special circumstance to make, except that you have to be able to reach the bad guy to hit them. | |||
Reach is a weapon quality that allows you to hit things further away than adjacent to your space. Some melee weapons (such as the great whip) have quite a bit of reach as a weapon quality, that is baked right into the weapon. You can also get reach from feats (like monkey lunge), or from weapon properties (like shadowy). If you add up a lot of sources of reach, you can reach quite a long way (like fifty feet). No matter how much reach you stack up, that is always considered a melee attack, and follows all rules for melee attacks, and is not a ranged attack, and never takes range penalties, soft cover, or cover. (see ranged attacks, below) | |||
===Ranged Attacks=== | |||
A Ranged Attack is an attack made with a ranged weapon that you let go of in order to make the attack. They are sorted into thrown weapon attacks (like a throwing axe) in which case you throw the entire weapon at the bad guys, or projectile weapon attacks (like a bow that you hold that shoots arrows, the projectiles). In both cases, once the weapon has left your hands, you have no further control over it. The good news is, ranged weapons cane be used to make attacks a long way way (see range penalties and range increments below). The bad news is, you have to get the weapon back somehow, or, have more weapons, or have more ammunition, if you want to keep attacking. There are magic items and properties which can alleviate all of these problems...for money. | |||
Ranged attacks can reach a ''long'' way. How far is defined by range bands and range increments, detailed in the weapon or ammunition write-ups. With very high-end weapons and good magical properties and lots of feats, it is entirely possible to shoot an arrow a thousand feet and hit the bullseye every time...but you have to be very good to do that. Thrown weapons tend to have much shorter ranges than projectile weapons, but projectile weapons usually need both hands to use and require ammunition to-boot, so there are tradeoffs for everything. | |||
Since a ranged attack is uncontrolled for at least a portion of its attack path, ranged attacks must deal with obstacles in the way. These obstacles are abstracted in the rules as '[[cover]]', and are detailed elsewhere in these rules. In general, anything that exists between you and your target, that does not completely break line of effect (like a solid wall), can instead inflict a cover penalty. Cover comes in various flavors, ranging from total cover to soft cover. Soft cover is when there are friends of yours in between you and your target, partial cover is where there's a low wall or a corner, etc. | |||
===Attack Roll=== | ===Attack Roll=== | ||