Combat Extras

**Readied Actions and Held Initiative**:

When you have a specific action in mind, but do not yet wish to take the action, you can ready the action. Only standard, move, swift, and free actions can be readied. Readying any type of action uses up that same type of action; standard to ready standard and so on. When readying an action, you must declare the action that you are preparing to take, and the event that will trigger the action.

Any action readied can be triggered as a quick action.

In between readying the action and triggering the action, no other actions may be taken. A character with a readied action can drop the action so that they no longer have the action readied as no action but they lose the use of that action. As an example, on Te'Kel’s turn, if they wanted to hold an attack they could move and then take a standard action to hold their action to strike when the big hobgoblin came within range. They couldn’t have readied the action before moving. If after readying that attack, a goblin in their range provoked an opportunity attack, Te'Kel could not make this attack since they were readying an action. They could choose to lose this attack to make an opportunity attack as a quick action instead.

When readying an action that has a limited number of uses, such as spells, spell-like abilities, smite, fenzy, feats, or any other large number of limited use abilities, the use is expended when the action is readied, regardless of whether the action is triggered.

If a creature wishes to act later in the initiative order than they currently do, they can choose to hold their initiative. This choice is made at the beginning of their turn as a free action. At the end of any creature’s turn, they can choose to begin their turn as no action. They are treated as being at this point in the initiative order for the rest of the encounter. Unlike readying an action, creatures can take quick actions while holding their initiative. A creature can hold their initiative as long as they wish, however if subjected to any effects that take place at “the beginning of their turn” or “the end of their turn” this effect still takes place at the top of the initiative order if they hold their initiative through the end of a round.

**Flanking and Threatening**:

A creature threatens a distance around them with a radius of their natural threatened range or current melee weapon. This can be increased with reach weapons, but not ranged weapons.

A creature is flanked if two hostile creatures threaten them and can draw a line between the two enemies that passes through that creature. When a creature is flanked, creatures attacking it in melee receive a bonus to hit equal to the number of creatures flanking it (max 8).

A creature wielding a ranged weapon can be considered flanking if within 30ft of their target and another creature is threatening the target such that a line drawn between both attacking creatures passes through the target. Creatures threatening the target are not considered to be flanking due to another creature attacking with a ranged weapon.

A creature can choose to ignore any number of enemies as a free action to eliminate the flanking bonuses of other creautres. A creature being ignored does not count as a threatening creature to determine if a creature is being flanked. An ignored creature receives a +4 to hit and attacks the creature’s flat-footed AC.

**Miss Chance:**

Sometimes, the odds are simply unfavorable.

Some effects alter the chance of attacks hitting beyond armor class. Invisible targets, shrouded figures, and unseen foes all incur miss chance. The effect that causes this miss chance will specify a number from 1-9, which specifies the severity of the effect. When rolling an attack with miss chance, if any of the d10s roll the number stated or below, the attack automatically misses. Additionally, the critical threshold of the weapon is increased by the value of the miss chance (max 30).

For example, the spell *Fog Cloud* grants miss chance 2 to creatures within the cloud. If attacked, the attacker rolls 3d10. If any of these three dice result in a 2 or 1, the attack misses, regardless of the total rolled.

If a creature is unable to see their target, but is aware of the target’s location (such as passing a sense check but *blinded*) the creature has miss chance 3 on melee attacks. Ranged attacks have miss chance 4 against such targets.

If a creature does not know where their target is, but manages to correctly guess the area of their target, melee attacks incur miss chance 4, and ranged attacks incur miss chance 5.

**Mounted Combat:**

It is possible for a character or other creature to enter combat on a steed. This requires that the steed have a Stature of 12 more than the rider if a quadruped, or 16 more if a biped. The rider must also not count as more than a medium load for the steed, or a light load for a flying steed. Some classes get animal companions, which may be used as steeds if they meet these prerequisites. Other characters may buy animals to use as steeds, although these will lack the special abilities of companions, they are often just as serviceable.

Mounts go on the same initiative as their rider.

When not targeting a creature, but an area within a given degree of certainty, refer to the following table. Objects gain a natural armor bonus to AC equal to their hardness, and can gain deflection bonuses through enhancements. These values are approximations, and values between those given can be used for more specific circumstances