Melee Combat

Combat is played out in rounds, and in each round everybody acts in turn in a regular cycle. Combat usually runs in the following way.

1. Each combatant starts the battle flat-footed. Once a combatant acts, he or she is no longer flat-footed.
2. The GM determines which characters are aware of their opponents at the start of the battle. If some but not all of the combatants are aware of their opponents, a surprise round happens before regular rounds begin. The combatants who are aware of their opponents can act in the surprise round, so they roll for Initiative. In initiative order (highest to lowest), combatants who started the battle aware of their opponents each takes one Move Action or Standard Action. Combatants who were unaware don’t get to act in the surprise round. If no one or everyone starts the battle aware, there is no surprise round.
3. Combatants who have not yet rolled initiative do so. All combatants are now ready to begin their first regular round.
4. Combatants act in initiative order.
5. When everyone has had a turn, the combatant with the highest initiative acts again, and steps 4 and 5 repeat until combat ends.

## Attack Roll

An attack roll represents a character’s attempts to strike an opponent on the character’s turn in a round. When a character makes an attack roll, he or she rolls 1d20 and adds his or her attack bonus. If the result equals or beats the target’s Defense, the character hits and deals damage. Many modifiers can affect the attack roll.
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 always a threat—a possible critical hit.
If the character is not proficient in the weapon he or she is attacking with (the character doesn’t have the appropriate Weapon Proficiency feat), that character takes a –4 penalty on the attack roll.

### Attack Bonus

A character’s attack bonus with a melee weapon is:
Base attack bonus + Strength modifier + size modifier
Strength Modifier
Strength helps a character swing a weapon harder and faster, so a character’s Strength modifier applies to melee attack rolls.

### Size Modifier

Creature size categories are defined differently from the size categories for weapons and other objects. Since this size modifier applies to Defense against a melee weapon attack or a ranged weapon attack, two creatures of the same size strike each other normally, regardless of what size they actually are. Creature sizes are compatible with vehicle sizes.

## Damage

When a character hits with a weapon, he or she deals damage according to the type of weapon. Effects that modify weapon damage also apply to unarmed strikes and the natural physical attack forms of creatures.
Damage is deducted from the target’s current hit points.

### Minimum Weapon Damage

If penalties to damage bring the damage result below 1, a hit still deals 1 point of damage.
Strength Bonus
When a character hits with a melee weapon or thrown weapon, add his or her Strength modifier to the damage.

Off-Hand Weapon: When a character deals damage with a weapon in her off hand, add only half of the character’s Strength bonus.

Wielding a Weapon Two-Handed: When a character deals damage with a weapon that he or she is wielding two-handed, add 1.5 times the character’s Strength bonus. However, the character doesn’t get this higher Strength bonus when using a light weapon two-handed; in such a case, only the character’s normal Strength bonus applies to the damage roll.

### Multiplying Damage

Sometimes damage is multiplied by some factor. Roll the damage (with all modifiers) multiple times and total the results.
Bonus damage represented as extra dice is an exception. Do not multiply bonus damage dice when a character scores a critical hit.

### Critical Hits

When a character makes an attack roll and gets a natural 20 (the d20 shows 20), the character hits regardless of the target’s Defense, and the character has scored a threat of a critical hit. To find out if it is actually a critical hit, the character immediately makes another attack roll with all the same modifiers as the attack roll that scored the threat. If the second roll also results in a hit against the target’s Defense, the attack is a critical hit. (The second roll just needs to hit to confirm a critical hit; the character doesn’t need to roll a second 20.) If the second roll is a miss, then the attack just deals the damage of a regular hit.

A critical hit multiplies the character’s damage. Unless otherwise specified, the multiplier is x2. (It is possible for some weapons to have higher multipliers, doing more damage on a critical hit.) Some weapons have expanded threat ranges, making a critical hit more likely. However, even with these weapons, only a 20 is an automatic hit. The Critical column on Table: Ranged Weapons and Table: Melee Weapons indicates the threat range for each weapon on the tables.

Bonus damage represented as extra dice is not multiplied when a character scores a critical hit.

Objects (including vehicles) and some types of creatures are immune to critical hits. A 20 is always a successful hit, but deals no extra damage against these targets.