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 weapon that remains attached to the creature making the attack at all times. The target of a melee attack must be within reach of the creature performing the attack, which is nearly always an adjacent space to the attacking creature's own space (unless their weapon has some form of reach).  The classic example is a swung sword. At no point does the sword leave the firm grip of the attacker. Note that bare hands and gauntlets are defined as weapons for this reason.
Melee attacks can be made with any melee weapon, including thrown or ranged weapons that feature the [[Melee Capable (Quality)|Melee Capable]] or [[Poor Melee (Quality)|Poor Melee]] qualities, 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 accoutrements to make, except that you have to be able to reach the bad guy to hit them.
[[Reach (Quality)|Reach]] is a weapon quality that allows you to hit things further away than adjacent to your space. All melee weapons are assumed to have 5-feet of reach unless they specifically list a quality that states that their reach is greater than 5 feet. Five feat of reach is the minimum required reach to attack a creature in an adjacent space.  If a weapon or creature has less than 5-feet of reach, they must be in the same space as the creature they are attacking in order to perform a melee attack against them (as in the case of Swarms).  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 (Feat)|Monkey Lunge]]), or from weapon properties (like [[Shadowy (Melee Weapon Magic Property)|Shadowy]]). If you add up a lot of sources of reach, you can reach quite a long way (maybe as much as fifty feet if you ''really'' lean into it). 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, penalties from soft cover (see ranged attacks, below).
===Ranged Attacks===
A Ranged Attack is an attack made with a thrown or projectile 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 can be used to make attacks a long way away (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===
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When making a melee attack against an adjacent target, your target ''only'' has cover if any line from any corner of your square to the target's square goes through a wall (including a low wall). When making a melee attack against a target that isn't adjacent to you (such as with a reach weapon), use the rules for determining cover from ranged attacks.
When making a melee attack against an adjacent target, your target ''only'' has cover if any line from any corner of your square to the target's square goes through a wall (including a low wall). When making a melee attack against a target that isn't adjacent to you (such as with a reach weapon), use the rules for determining cover from ranged attacks.
=== Soft Cover ===
If you attempt to make a ranged attack against a creature, and there are one or more creatures in the path between you and your target (whether those intervening creatures are enemies or allies) they are said to be "soft cover" for your target.  If your target has soft cover, you suffer a -2 penalty to-hit.  This penalty is always -2, even if there are multiple creatures in the way.  Note that this penalty can be stacked with the AC bonus from partial cover, if your target also has partial cover, which would make them quite difficult to hit.  Some feats, such as [[Point-Blank Shot (Feat)|Point-Blank Shot]], allow you to ignore the soft cover penalty when making ranged attacks under certain circumstances.


===Low Obstacles and Cover===
===Low Obstacles and Cover===

Revision as of 17:24, 9 January 2021