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1. Combat
   1. How Combat Works Combat is cyclical; everybody acts in turn in a regular cycle of rounds. Combat follows this sequence:
      1. Each combatant starts out flat-footed. Once a combatant acts, he or she is no longer flat-footed.
      2. Determine 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 of combat begin. 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 of combat.
      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 [the last two steps] repeat until combat ends.
2. Combat Statistics
   1. Attack roll
      1. An attack roll represents your attempt to strike your opponent on your turn in a round.
      2. When you make an attack roll, you roll a d20 and add your attack bonus. (Other modifiers may also apply to this roll.)
      3. If your result equals or beats the target�s Armor Class, you hit and deal damage.
      4. Automatic Misses and Hits:
         1. A natural 1 (the d20 comes up 1) on an attack roll is always a miss.
         2. A natural 20 (the d20 comes up 20) is always a hit.
         3. A natural 20 is also a threat�a possible critical hit.
   2. Attack bonus
      1. Your attack bonus with a melee weapon is:
         Base attack bonus + Strength modifier + size modifier
      2. With a ranged weapon, your attack bonus is:
         Base attack bonus + Dexterity modifier + size modifier + range penalty
   3. Damage
      1. When your attack succeeds, you deal damage.
      2. The type of weapon used determines the amount of damage you deal.
      3. Effects that modify weapon damage apply to unarmed strikes and the natural physical attack forms of creatures.
      4. Damage reduces a target�s current hit points.
      5. Minimum Damage: If penalties reduce the damage result to less than 1, a hit still deals 1 point of damage.
      6. Strength Bonus:
         1. When you hit with a melee or thrown weapon, including a sling, add your Strength modifier to the damage result.
         2. A Strength penalty, but not a bonus, applies on attacks made with a bow that is not a composite bow.
      7. Off-Hand Weapon: When you deal damage with a weapon in your off hand, you add only 1/2 your Strength bonus.
      8. Wielding a Weapon Two-Handed: When you deal damage with a weapon that you are wielding two-handed, you add 1-1/2 times your Strength bonus. However, you don�t get this higher Strength bonus when using a light weapon with two hands.
      9. Multiplying Damage:
         1. Sometimes you multiply damage by some factor, such as on a critical hit. Roll the damage (with all modifiers) multiple times and total the results.
         2. Note: When you multiply damage more than once, each multiplier works off the original, unmultiplied damage.
         3. Exception: Extra damage dice over and above a weapon�s normal damage are never multiplied.
      10. Ability Damage: Certain creatures and magical effects can cause temporary ability damage.
   4. Armor Class
      1. Your Armor Class (AC) represents how hard it is for opponents to land a solid, damaging blow on you. It�s the attack roll result that an opponent needs to achieve to hit you. Your AC is equal to the following: 10 + armor bonus + shield bonus + Dexterity modifier + size modifier
      2. Note that armor limits your Dexterity bonus, so if you�re wearing armor, you might not be able to apply your whole Dexterity bonus to your AC.
      3. Sometimes you can�t use your Dexterity bonus (if you have one). If you can�t react to a blow, you can�t use your Dexterity bonus to AC. (If you don�t have a Dexterity bonus, nothing happens.)
      4. Other Modifiers: Many other factors modify your AC.
         1. Enhancement Bonuses: Enhancement effects make your armor better.
         2. Deflection Bonus: Magical deflection effects ward off attacks and improve your AC.
         3. Natural Armor: Natural armor improves your AC.
         4. Dodge Bonuses: Some other AC bonuses represent actively avoiding blows. These bonuses are called dodge bonuses. Any situation that denies you your Dexterity bonus also denies you dodge bonuses. (Wearing armor, however, does not limit these bonuses the way it limits a Dexterity bonus to AC.) Unlike most sorts of bonuses, dodge bonuses stack with each other.
         5. Touch Attacks: Some attacks disregard armor, including shields and natural armor. In these cases, the attacker makes a touch attack roll (either ranged or melee). When you are the target of a touch attack, your AC doesn�t include any armor bonus, shield bonus, or natural armor bonus. All other modifiers, such as your size modifier, Dexterity modifier, and deflection bonus (if any) apply normally.
   5. Hit points: When your hit point total reaches 0, you�re disabled. When it reaches �1, you�re dying. When it gets to �10, you�re dead.
   6. Speed
      1. Your speed tells you how far you can move in a round and still do something, such as attack or cast a spell. Your speed depends mostly on your race and what armor you�re wearing.
      2. Dwarves, gnomes, and halflings have a speed of 20 feet (4 squares), or 15 feet (3 squares) when wearing medium or heavy armor (except for dwarves, who move 20 feet in any armor). Humans, elves, half-elves, and half-orcs have a speed of 30 feet (6 squares), or 20 feet (4 squares) in medium or heavy armor.
      3. If you use two move actions in a round (sometimes called a �double move� action), you can move up to double your speed.
      4. If you spend the entire round to run all out, you can move up to quadruple your speed (or triple if you are in heavy armor).
   7. Saving Throws
      1. Generally, when you are subject to an unusual or magical attack, you get a saving throw to avoid or reduce the effect.
      2. Like an attack roll, a saving throw is a d20 roll plus a bonus based on your class, level, and an ability score.
      3. Your saving throw modifier is:
         Base save bonus + ability modifier
      4. Saving Throw Types: The three different kinds of saving throws are Fortitude, Reflex, and Will:
         1. Fortitude: These saves measure your ability to stand up to physical punishment or attacks against your vitality and health. Apply your Constitution modifier to your Fortitude saving throws.
         2. Reflex: These saves test your ability to dodge area attacks. Apply your Dexterity modifier to your Reflex saving throws.
         3. Will: These saves reflect your resistance to mental influence as well as many magical effects. Apply your Wisdom modifier to your Will saving throws.
      5. Saving Throw Difficulty Class: The DC for a save is determined by the attack itself.
      6. Automatic Failures and Successes:
         1. A natural 1 (the d20 comes up 1) on a saving throw is always a failure (and may cause damage to exposed items; see Items Surviving after a Saving Throw).
         2. A natural 20 (the d20 comes up 20) is always a success.
   8. Initiative
      1. Initiative Checks: At the start of a battle, each combatant makes an initiative check.
      2. In every round that follows, the characters act in the same order (unless a character takes an action that results in his or her initiative changing; see Special Initiative Actions).
      3. Flat-Footed: At the start of a battle, before you have had a chance to act (specifically, before your first regular turn in the initiative order), you are flat-footed.
      4. Inaction: Even if you can�t take actions, you retain your initiative score for the duration of the encounter.
      5. Surprise
         1. When a combat starts, if you are not aware of your opponents and they are aware of you, you�re surprised.
         2. Determining Awareness: Sometimes all the combatants on a side are aware of their opponents, sometimes none are, and sometimes only some of them are. Sometimes a few combatants on each side are aware and the other combatants on each side are unaware. Determining awareness may call for Listen checks, Spot checks, or other checks.
         3. The Surprise Round:
            1. If some but not all of the combatants are aware of their opponents, a surprise round happens before regular rounds begin.
            2. If no one or everyone is surprised, no surprise round occurs.
         4. Unaware Combatants: Combatants who are unaware at the start of battle don�t get to act in the surprise round. Unaware combatants are flat-footed because they have not acted yet.
   9. Attacks of Opportunity
      1. Sometimes a combatant in a melee lets her guard down. In this case, combatants near her can take advantage of her lapse in defense to attack her for free. These free attacks are called attacks of opportunity.
      2. An enemy that takes certain actions while in a threatened square provokes an attack of opportunity from you.
      3. [If you don't threaten any squares, you] can�t make attacks of opportunity
      4. Provoking an Attack of Opportunity: Two kinds of actions can provoke attacks of opportunity: moving out of a threatened square and performing an action within a threatened square.
         1. Moving: Moving out of a threatened square usually provokes an attack of opportunity from the threatening opponent. There are two common methods of avoiding such an attack�the 5-foot-step and the withdraw action (see below).
         2. Performing a Distracting Act: Some actions, when performed in a threatened square, provoke attacks of opportunity as you divert your attention from the battle. Table: Actions in Combat notes many of the actions that provoke attacks of opportunity.
         3. Remember that even actions that normally provoke attacks of opportunity may have exceptions to this rule.
      5. Making an Attack of Opportunity:
         1. An attack of opportunity is a single melee attack, and you can only make one per round.
         2. You don�t have to make an attack of opportunity if you don�t want to.
         3. An experienced character gets additional regular melee attacks (by using the full attack action), but at a lower attack bonus. You make your attack of opportunity, however, at your normal attack bonus�even if you�ve already attacked in the round.
         4. An attack of opportunity �interrupts� the normal flow of actions in the round. If an attack of opportunity is provoked, immediately resolve the attack of opportunity, then continue with the next character�s turn (or complete the current turn, if the attack of opportunity was provoked in the midst of a character�s turn).
         5. Combat Reflexes and Additional Attacks of Opportunity:
            1. If you have the Combat Reflexes feat you can add your Dexterity modifier to the number of attacks of opportunity you can make in a round.
            2. This feat does not let you make more than one attack for a given opportunity, but if the same opponent provokes two attacks of opportunity from you, you could make two separate attacks of opportunity (since each one represents a different opportunity).
            3. Moving out of more than one square threatened by the same opponent in the same round doesn�t count as more than one opportunity for that opponent.
            4. All these attacks are at your full normal attack bonus.
3. Actions in Combat
   1. The Combat Round
   2. Action Types
      1. Standard Actions
      2. Move Actions
      3. Full-Round Actions
      4. Free Actions
      5. Miscellaneous Actions
4. Injury and Death
   1. Your hit points measure how hard you are to kill. No matter how many hit points you lose, your character isn�t hindered in any way until your hit points drop to 0 or lower.
   2. The most common way that your character gets hurt is to take lethal damage and lose hit points
   3. Effects of Hit Point Damage: Damage doesn�t slow you down until your current hit points reach 0 or lower. At 0 hit points, you�re disabled.
      At from �1 to �9 hit points, you�re dying.
      At �10 or lower, you�re dead.
   4. Massive Damage:
      1. If you ever sustain a single attack deals 50 points of damage or more and it doesn�t kill you outright, you must make a DC 15 Fortitude save. If this saving throw fails, you die regardless of your current hit points.
      2. If you take 50 points of damage or more from multiple attacks, no one of which dealt 50 or more points of damage itself, the massive damage rule does not apply.
   5. Loss of Hit Points
      1. Disabled (0 hit points)
         1. When your current hit points drop to exactly 0, you�re disabled.
         2. You can also become disabled when recovering from dying. In this case, it�s a step toward recovery, and you can have fewer than 0 hit points (see Stable Characters and Recovery, below).
      2. Dying: When your character�s current hit points drop to between �1 and �9 inclusive, he�s dying.
      3. Dead
         1. When your character�s current hit points drop to �10 or lower, or if he takes massive damage (see above), he�s dead.
         2. A character can also die from taking ability damage or suffering an ability drain that reduces his Constitution to 0.
      4. Stable characters and recovery
         1. On the next turn after a character is reduced to between �1 and �9 hit points and on all subsequent turns, roll d% to see whether the dying character becomes stable. He has a 10% chance of becoming stable. If he doesn�t, he loses 1 hit point.
         2. (A character who�s unconscious or dying can�t use any special action that changes the initiative count on which his action occurs.)
         3. If the character�s hit points drop to �10 or lower, he�s dead.
         4. You can keep a dying character from losing any more hit points and make him stable with a DC 15 Heal check.
         5. If any sort of healing cures the dying character of even 1 point of damage, he stops losing hit points and becomes stable.
         6. Healing that raises the dying character�s hit points to 0 makes him conscious and disabled.
         7. Healing that raises his hit points to 1 or more makes him fully functional again, just as if he�d never been reduced to 0 or lower.
            1. A spellcaster retains the spellcasting capability she had before dropping below 0 hit points.
         8. A stable character who has been tended by a healer or who has been magically healed eventually regains consciousness and recovers hit points naturally.
         9. If the character has no one to tend him, however, his life is still in danger, and he may yet slip away.
         10. Recovering with Help:
             1. One hour after a tended, dying character becomes stable, roll d%. He has a 10% chance of becoming conscious, at which point he is disabled (as if he had 0 hit points).
             2. If he remains unconscious, he has the same chance to revive and become disabled every hour.
             3. Even if unconscious, he recovers hit points naturally.
             4. He is back to normal when his hit points rise to 1 or higher.
         11. Recovering without Help:
             1. A severely wounded character left alone usually dies. He has a small chance, however, of recovering on his own.
             2. A character who becomes stable on his own (by making the 10% roll while dying) and who has no one to tend to him still loses hit points, just at a slower rate.
             3. He has a 10% chance each hour of becoming conscious. Each time he misses his hourly roll to become conscious, he loses 1 hit point. He also does not recover hit points through natural healing.
             4. Even once he becomes conscious and is disabled, an unaided character still does not recover hit points naturally.
                1. Instead, each day he has a 10% chance to start recovering hit points naturally (starting with that day);
                2. otherwise, he loses 1 hit point.
             5. Once an unaided character starts recovering hit points naturally, he is no longer in danger of naturally losing hit points (even if his current hit point total is negative).
   6. Healing
      1. After taking damage, you can recover hit points through natural healing or through magical healing.
      2. In any case, you can�t regain hit points past your full normal hit point total.
      3. Natural Healing:
      4. Magical Healing: Various abilities and spells can restore hit points.
      5. Healing Limits:
         1. You can never recover more hit points than you lost.
         2. Magical healing won�t raise your current hit points higher than your full normal hit point total.
      6. Healing Ability Damage:
   7. Temporary hit points
      1. Certain effects give a character temporary hit points.
      2. When a character gains temporary hit points, note his current hit point total.
      3. When the temporary hit points go away the character�s hit points drop to his current hit point total.
      4. If the character�s hit points are below his current hit point total at that time, all the temporary hit points have already been lost and the character�s hit point total does not drop further.
      5. When temporary hit points are lost, they cannot be restored as real hit points can be, even by magic.
      6. Increases in Constitution Score and Current Hit Points:
         1. An increase in a character�s Constitution score, even a temporary one, can give her more hit points (an effective hit point increase), but these are not temporary hit points.
         2. They can be restored and they are not lost first as temporary hit points are.
   8. Nonlethal damage
      1. Dealing Nonlethal Damage:
         1. Certain attacks deal nonlethal damage.
         2. Other effects, such as heat or being exhausted, also deal nonlethal damage.
      2. When you take nonlethal damage, keep a running total of how much you�ve accumulated.
      3. Do not deduct the nonlethal damage number from your current hit points. It is not �real� damage.
      4. Instead, when your nonlethal damage equals your current hit points, you�re staggered, and when it exceeds your current hit points, you fall unconscious.
      5. It doesn�t matter whether the nonlethal damage equals or exceeds your current hit points because the nonlethal damage has gone up or because your current hit points have gone down.
      6. Nonlethal Damage with a Weapon that Deals Lethal Damage: You can use a melee weapon that deals lethal damage to deal nonlethal damage instead, but you take a �4 penalty on your attack roll.
      7. Lethal Damage with a Weapon that Deals Nonlethal Damage: You can use a weapon that deals nonlethal damage, including an unarmed strike, to deal lethal damage instead, but you take a �4 penalty on your attack roll.
      8. Healing Nonlethal Damage:
         1. You heal nonlethal damage
         2. When a spell or a magical power cures hit point damage, it also removes an equal amount of nonlethal damage.

Glossary of Controlled Terminology