Attacks in the FFd20 world take many forms. A fighter swings a greatsword at a foe. An archer looses an arrow at a distant target. A dragon exhales a blast of fire. A black mage creates a burst of lightning. These examples illustrate the four attack types: melee, ranged, close, and area.
Melee Attack
A melee attack usually uses a weapon and targets one enemy within your melee reach (your reach is usually determined by the weapon you’re wielding). Attacking with a longsword or a polearm is a melee attack. Some powers allow you to make multiple melee attacks, against either multiple enemies or a single enemy.
✦ Targeted: Melee attacks target individuals. A melee attack against multiple enemies consists of separate attacks, each with its own attack roll and damage roll. Melee attacks don’t create areas of effect.
✦ Range: A melee attack’s range usually equals your melee reach. (Sometimes a power specifies that it affects only adjacent targets, though, so even if you’re using a reach weapon, you can’t attack more distant targets with that power.)
✦ Reach: Most characters have a reach of 1 square. Certain powers, feats, and weapons can increase your reach. Simply wielding a weapon in each hand doesn’t allow you to make two attacks in a round. If you hold two melee weapons, you can use either one to make a melee attack.
Ranged Attack
A ranged attack is a strike against a distant target. A ranged attack usually targets one creature within its range. Shooting a bow or casting a magic missile is a ranged attack.
✦ Targeted: Ranged attacks target individuals. A ranged attack against multiple enemies consists of separate attacks, each with its own attack roll and damage roll. Ranged attacks don’t create areas of effect. If you’re using a projectile weapon to make a ranged attack against multiple targets, you need one piece of ammunition for each target, and if you’re using thrown weapons, you need one for each target.
✦ Range: Some powers set a specific range (“Ranged 10”) or allow you to attack any target you can see (“Ranged sight”). If you’re using a weapon, the attack’s range is the range of your weapon, as shown on the Ranged Weapons table. Long Range: If you use a ranged weapon and your target is farther away than the weapon’s normal range but within its long range, you take a –2 penalty to your attack roll. You can’t hit a target beyond the weapon’s long range. A ranged power that doesn’t use a weapon has a normal range but no long range.
✦ Provoke Opportunity Attacks: If you use a ranged power while adjacent to an enemy, that enemy can make an opportunity attack against you.
Close Attack
A close attack is an area of effect that comes directly from you; its origin square is within your space. Swinging your sword in an arc to hit every enemy next to you with one blow, creating a blast of fire from your hands, or causing radiant energy to burst from your holy symbol—these are all examples of close attacks.
Close attacks include two basic categories of powers: weapon attacks that damage multiple enemies with one swing, and powers created from energy that flows directly from your body or an object you carry.
✦ Area of Effect: A close attack creates an area of effect, usually a blast or a burst. A close attack affects certain targets within its area of effect, which has a certain size. A close attack’s area of effect and targets are specified in its power description.
✦ Origin Square: A close attack’s area of effect defines the attack’s origin square, which is the attack’s starting point. A close burst uses your space as its origin square. A close blast uses a square within your space as its origin square. For a target to be affected by a close attack, there must be line of effect from the origin square to the target.
✦ Multiple Attack Rolls but One Damage Roll: When you make a close attack, you make a separate attack roll against each target in the area of effect, but you make a single damage roll that affects all the targets. A Large or larger creature hit by a close attack is affected only once by the attack, even if multiple squares of the creature’s space are in the area of effect. If you’re using a projectile weapon to make a close attack, you need one piece of ammunition for each target, and if you’re using thrown weapons, you need one for each target.
Area Attack
Area attacks are similar to close attacks, except that the origin square can be some distance away from you. An area attack’s area of effect sets the shape of the attack and the targets it affects. A ball of fire that streaks across the battlefield and explodes is an example of an area attack. A magical wall of fog that springs from the ground to obscure a dungeon corridor is another example.
Area attacks include two categories of powers: projectiles that detonate in their origin squares and effects that appear far away from you and fill an area.
✦ Area of Effect: An area attack creates an area of effect, usually a burst or a wall, within range. An area attack affects certain targets within its area of effect, which has a certain size. An area attack’s area of effect, range, and targets are specified in its power description.
✦ Origin Square: You choose a square within an area attack’s range as the attack’s origin square, which is where you center or start the area of effect. You need line of effect from a square in your space to the origin square. For a target to be affected by an area attack, there needs to be line of effect from the origin square to the target. You don’t have to be able to see the origin square or the target, and concealment between the origin square and the target doesn’t apply.
✦ Multiple Attack Rolls but One Damage Roll: When you make an area attack, you make a separate attack roll against each target in the area of effect, but you make a single damage roll that affects all the targets. A Large or larger creature hit by an area attack is affected only once by the attack, even if multiple squares of the creature’s space are in the area of effect. If you’re using a projectile weapon to make an area attack, you need one piece of ammunition for each target, and if you’re using thrown weapons, you need one for each target.
✦ Provoke Opportunity Attacks: If you use an area power while adjacent to an enemy, that enemy can make an opportunity attack against you.
Areas of Effect
Most area attacks and close attacks have one of three areas of effect: a blast, a burst, or a wall.
✦ Blast: A blast fills an area adjacent to you that is a specified number of squares on a side. For example, the black mage power thunderwave is a blast 3, which means the power affects a 3-square-by-3-square area adjacent to you. The blast must be adjacent to its origin square, which is a square in your space. The origin square is not affected by the blast. A blast affects a target only if the target is in the blast’s area and if there is line of effect from the origin square to the target.
✦ Burst: A burst starts in an origin square and extends in all directions to a specified number of squares from the origin square. For example, the white mage power flame strike is a burst 2 within 10 squares of you, which means the power originates in a square up to 10 squares away from you and affects the origin square and every square within 2 squares of it (a 5-square-by-5-square area). Unless a power description notes otherwise, a close burst you create does not affect you. However, an area burst you create does affect you. A burst affects a target only if there is line of effect from the burst’s origin square to the target.
✦ Wall: A wall fills a specified number of contiguous squares within range, starting from an origin square. Each square of the wall must share a side—not just a corner—with at least one other square of the wall, but a square can share no more than two sides with other squares in the wall (this limitation does not apply when stacking squares on top of each other). You can shape the wall however you like within those limitations. A solid wall, such as a wall of ice, cannot be created in occupied squares.
Choosing Targets
If you want to use a power against an enemy, the enemy must be within the range of your power, and you have to be able to target the enemy. Many powers allow you to target multiple enemies. Each of these enemies must be an eligible target. When you use a melee attack or a ranged attack, you can target a square instead of an enemy. This tactic is useful when an enemy has total concealment and you have to guess its location.
Range: The first step in choosing targets for an attack is to check the attack’s range. Range is the distance from you to a target (or to the attack’s origin square). The range of each power is noted in its description. To determine the range between you and a target, count the number of squares between you, including at least one square that the target occupies. If a target’s space is larger than 1 square, you can target that enemy if any square of its space is within range or within the area of effect of your attack.
Counting Distance: When counting the distance from one square to another, start counting from any adjacent square (even one that is diagonally adjacent but around a corner) and then count around solid obstacles that fill their squares. You must choose the most direct path to a target when counting squares for range or when determining the extent of an area of effect.
Adjacent Squares: Two squares are adjacent if a side or a corner of one touches a side or a corner of the other. Two creatures or objects are adjacent if one of them occupies a square adjacent to a square occupied by the other.
Nearest Creature or Square: To determine the nearest creature or square to you, count distance normally. When two or more squares or creatures are equally close, you can pick either one as the nearest.
Personal: When you use a power with a range of personal, you affect only yourself. Examples include creating magic armor on yourself or giving yourself the ability to fly.
Seeing and Targeting
Cluttered dungeon chambers, dense forests, or brooding ruins offer plenty of places for your enemies to hide. Figuring out whether you can see and target a particular enemy from where you’re standing is often important.
Line of Sight: The first question is what you can see in an encounter area—that is, what is in your line of sight. To determine whether you can see a target, pick a corner of your space and trace an imaginary line from that corner to any part of the target’s space. You can see the target if at least one line doesn’t pass through or touch an object or an effect—such as a wall, a thick curtain, or a cloud of fog—that blocks your vision. Even if you can see a target, objects and effects can still partially block your view. If you can see a target but at least one line passes through an obstruction, the target has cover or concealment. You can see a gnoll archer crouching behind a rock wall, but the wall makes him more difficult to hit, because the wall gives him cover. You can see a goblin standing at the edge of a fog cloud, but the fog makes him a shadowy figure, giving him concealment.
Line of Effect: You can target a creature or a square if there’s an unblocked path between it and you—that is, if you have line of effect to it. If every imaginary line you trace to a target passes through or touches a solid obstacle, you don’t have line of effect to the target. Fog, darkness, and other types of obscured squares block vision, but they don’t block line of effect. If you hurl a fireball into a pitch-black room, you don’t have to see your enemies for the fireball to hit them. In contrast, you can see through a transparent wall of magical force, but you don’t have line of effect through it. You can see the snarling demon on the other side, but the wall blocks attacks. You need line of effect to any target you attack and to any space in which you wish to create an effect. When you make an area attack, you need line of effect to the attack’s origin square. To hit a target with the attack, there must be line of effect from the origin square to the target.