One of these is taking a 5 foot step when you are pressing the attack on an enemy. The other is dodging out of turn, when you see that someone is about to attack you.
When you are aware of an incoming attack, but before the attack roll, you may opt to take an out-of-turn dodge. This is like taking the Total Defense action out of turn (even though you already took some other action on your turn), with 3 caveats:
Even when not making a touch attack, the attack bonus for Strength has a non-standard limit applied to it. The bonus to hit cannot exceed the target's armor (including armor enhancements, natural and artificial armor, shields, and armoring magic... all the things that a touch attack ignores). With a sufficiently high Strength bonus, an attack effectively becomes a touch attack. That is, the attack bonus for Strength offsets AC bonuses for armor and such, so the situation is equivalent to the attacker making a touch attack against the defender.
An attacker with the Combat Expertise feat can overcome this limitation by using its Strength modifier in a controlled attack rather than a brute-force attack, using its Strength to guide the weapon better rather than to hit harder. In this case the damage bonus is lost, but the attack bonus for Strength counts fully, even for a touch attack. For every +1 the attacker sacrifices from its Strength ability modifier, it gets a +1 attack bonus for control. The limit of the "control bonus" to attack is the attacker's base attack bonus. This change comes as a free action, and lasts until just before the attacker's next turn. This is conceptually the opposite of Power Attack.
An action that provokes an attack of opportunity cannot give a free attack on any creature that did not provoke an attack of opportunity. This may seem obvious, but Cleave and Great Cleave both seem to give the potential to violate this, so they may not be used when taking an attack of opportunity, except to cleave through to others who also provoked.
If the off-hand weapon is not used in a round, you can designate (as with the Dodge feat) a single opponent against whom the off-hand weapon will give you a +2 parry bonus to AC until your turn next round. Against any attackers not so designated, you get a +1 parry bonus to AC until your next turn. These AC bonuses apply only to melee attacks, not missile fire.
A special parrying weapon in the off hand (e.g. with a bell guard) gives +1 more to AC against the designated attacker. Your off-hand weapon cannot be used outside of your initiative turn.
A spell can be interrupted even by a failed grapple attempt. An opponent who is given an attack of opportunity by the casting of a spell can grapple with one hand (or foot) at -20, probably losing as a result of the penalty. This will still interrupt a spell if the caster fails a Concentration check of DC 10 + spell level. (That's the standard check formula with a caster hit for zero damage.) This allows a touch attack to interrupt, rather than a regular melee attack, while maintaining the ability to attack the caster with a non-light weapon in the following round, and maintaining one's Dexterity bonus against the caster's allies. Remember that the Concentration skill is not standard in Fivtoria, the way it is in settings that allow defensive casting.
A caster may still get a spell off in the face of attckers, just by casting a spell that is fast enough:
If someone casts a spell in melee, and the spell has a casting time[*] of greater than 1 (default: spell level greater than 1), the spell will be interrupted unless the caster either isn't hit or makes the Concentration check, as per standard rules.
[*]: What 1st Edition AD&D called "casting time 1 segment" was renamed in 2nd Edition to "casting time 1" (leaving out the "segment"). The 2nd-Ed terminology fits much better with 3rd-Ed, so I'm using that. But it means the same thing as the 1st-Ed equivalent.
But if the spell has a casting time of 1 (default: spell level 1 or 0), we deviate from standard rules for a spell cast undefensively. Attacks of opportunity will go off as usual, but the spell may succeed even if the caster fails his Concentration check. This is because the spell is so quick that the caster may be able to complete it before the distraction (the damage) has a chance to matter.
Aside: Attacks of Opportunity are generally in response to attacks that are not immediate. You get an attack of opportunity against someone firing a crossbow, but that is because he is loading and aiming. If all he has to do is pull the trigger, you get no AoO and must have a ready action to interrupt him -- and even then your attack might not prevent the shot even if it kills the shooter.
So, for quick spells, a creature hitting with an attack of opportunity or a ready attack needs to make a reflex save to deliver the damage quickly enough to interrupt the spell. The DC of this reflex save is 10 plus the prime requisite bonus of the caster, plus the Dexterity bonus of the caster. (Dex mod replaces spell level in the caster's usual save DC.)
If the caster takes a step back (into an unthreatened space) before casting, he can cast a spell without interruption. But if an enemy is pressing the attack on the caster, it will follow and still threaten. Still, the step back does give some respite to the caster, so he would simply succeed with a spell of casting time 1 (but still might be hit with an attack of opportunity), and would have the DC described above to get off a spell with a casting time of 2, instead of 1.
By standard rules, a spell that is cast as a free action (a quickened spell) does not provoke an attack of opportunity. House rule: spells with a casting time of zero also do not provoke. Such spells inlude the "power word" arcane spells, and must be verbal-only.
The effects of Massive Damage take place whenever a single delivery of damage (lethal, non-lethal, or otherwise (including Constitution damage or drain, loss of Constitution from the expiration of a spell or Rage, negative levels, or near-lethal damage)) to a creature meets any of the following 3 criteria:
Creatures in D&D that are immune to the standard death by massive damage (e.g. undead and constructs) still get knocked down, but they cannot be stunned, dazed or staggered. Creatures without a Constitution score are not subject to the Constitution-based criterion for massive damage. And they are generally destroyed upon reaching zero hit points, so the only remaining massive damage criterion is half their full hit points.
Doubly-massive damage: If one delivery of damage meets 2 of the criteria independently (e.g. massive damage that also leave the target with negative hit points), or independently meets one of them twice (e.g. double a threshold is inflicted), then the target must save twice, and take the worse result. If trebly-massive, the target must save 3 times. And so on.
Being prone in melee is dangerous. You provoke by getting up, or by crawling at a speed of 5 feet (10 feet per double move). Two factors make the prone position less dangerous in Fivtoria than in (some) other games that use the D&D v3.5 rules:
Falling prone is not meaningful for a creature in flight (unless it loses all altitude). If merely knocked down, it loses 10 feet of altitude just before its next turn. If Dazed, it loses 20 feet of altitude just before its next turn, but otherwise continues in whatever horizontal direction it was flying just before it took Massive Damage (i.e. no movement if hovering, continuing to coast otherwise), and with any downward (but not upward) momentum that it had before. If Stunned, it loses 50 feet of altitude (a 20 foot drop, then a 30 movement straight downward). These altitude losses apply to any flight under the control of someone who has taken massive damage, even if that creature is not the same as the one in "flight" (as with the Levitate spell).
Falling prone is not meaningful for a swimming creature, either. Creatures swimming on the surface lose 5 feet of altitude, but otherwise there is no special effect for being "knocked down."
Some examples of massive damage in battles:
All those who took massive damage need to make a Fortitude save. Characters of their classes and levels have Fortitude save bonuses in the approximate range +8 to +15, and depending on what DC they make on the save, they will be either Stunned (highly unlikely), Dazed (likely), Staggered (likely), or unaffected (unlikely). Nobody will be knocked prone, unless it is due simply to a negative hit point total.
On the other hand, in melee Nellie doing full Power Attack on a good day would inflict enough to damage to hit the threshold, knocking the giant down and probably leaving it staggered. On a critical hit, Valdor, Nellie, or the new Dwarven Fighter member of KV would deliver massive damage to the giant. (When Valdor fights in giant form he does a lot of damage, Nellie has her class features, and the dwarf uses a weapon that does x3 critical hits.)
Of course, the giant wouldn't be standing around waiting to be attacked. Its boulders inflict an average of 25.5 hit points of (bludgeoning) damage, which is massive damage only to a lower-level character, and its sword inflicts an average of 35, which is just enough to hit the massive damage threshold of much of KV. The giant can't really afford to power attack, since his Strength bonus to hit already exceeds their armor, so it isn't helping him hit and any use of Power Attack would reduce his attack roll by 2 for every +1 damage. So the giant might try to cleave through the less-tough-looking members of the party to knock them down, while hacking away at the hit points of whoever hurts the most.
In reality (so to speak) the giant would take a different tactic. It has the Awesome Blow feat (documented in the back of the Monster Manual), which allows it to cleave through everyone easily (average DC 35), sending them flying back 10 feet and knocking them prone. The party Fighters would have to either surround the giant and take turns trying to attack it (probably without much success), or would have to stay away and used ranged attacks. The exception is Nellie, who could probably kill it herself in melee, if she kept hiding successfully for ambush, and managed to avoid being grappled.
The Disabled condition allows you only a move action or a standard action, and any strenuous action (attack, spell, running) will cause you to lose 1 more hit point at the end of your turn. Healing that restores you to a positive hit point total immediately removes you from the Disabled state.
Dying creatures of size Large often have many more than 10 hit points to lose before their death. (See Death, below.) To account for this, roll their 10% (or whatever the percentage comes out to) only every N rounds/hours/days, but failing the roll results in the loss of N hit points. (In other words, do the same as for humans, but in chunks of N hit points at a time.) N is 1 for Medium and smaller creatures, 2 for Large and Huge creatures, and 3 for Gargantuan and Colossal creatures.
While in this state of post-Disabled recovery, the creature is in the Exhausted state (no run or charge, half speed, -6 Strength and Dexterity) and also suffers a -6 penalty to Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma.
Once the creature has healed back enough lethal or near-lethal damage to reach 0 hit points, it is no longer Exhausted. It graduates to being in the Fatigued state (no run or charge, -2 Strength and Dexterity) and also suffers a -2 penalty to Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma. A creature requires 8 hours of full rest (sleep for races that do sleep) to recover from the Fatigued state.
The chance to stabilize, to recover HP without help, or to wake is a uniform 10% according to the PHB. For compatibility with Fivtorian history (which includes high-Constitution characters recovering on their own from near-death experiences), a high Constitution must improve this chance. Adjust the 10% by twice a character's Constitution modifier. For creatures, only adjust the percentage if its Constitution is unsually high or low for its race.
When your turn does come, if you take action(s) that would normally give you a 5 foot step, that step is unavailable as you have already taken it. If you take action(s) that would normally give you a move, the amount of available move is reduced by 5 feet (the amount of move you took out of turn), and you may not charge or run.
If multiple creatures are pressing the attack on a single enemy, they attempt to follow in initiative order. They may not all be able to follow, depending on terrain obstacles.
Note: This allows a combatant to reserve an attack that would normally be at Base Attack - 10, and use it at full base attack. This is a big advantage, but the downside is that if insufficient attacks of opportunity are provoked, the attacks reserved for this purpose are lost after a round (upon the combatant's next initiative turn).
The Ready action is also often used to disrupt a spell that does not provoke an attack of opportunity. For example, if no member of a group is in melee with an enemy Wizard, the group's archer may want to Ready an arrow for the moment the Wizard starts casting a spell, so as to disrupt his spell. The standard rules allow the arrow to fly 1000 feet and still have its normal chance to disrupt any spell. But since with Fivtoria we're using specific casting times of less than a round, we need to account for the travel time of a ranged weapon as it relates to the casting time of the spell.
The casting of a spell that triggers a Ready missile can be disrupted if the spell's casting time is greater than the attacker's number of range increments. So to disrupt a spell with casting time 3 (default 3rd level), an attacker Ready with a dagger (range increment 10 feet) would need to be within 29 feet, while an attacker Ready with a longbow (range increment 100 feet) would need to be within 299 feet of the spell caster.
The casting of a spell that triggers a Ready spell can be disrupted if the triggering spell has a casting time no shorter than the Ready spell. If the Ready spell has the same or shorter casting time, use the Concentration rules to determine if the triggering spell was disrupted.
Because various combatants will have different initiative modifiers, the only fair way to provide for initiative synchronization is the additional (house rules) "Average Initiatives" action. If this required a special feat, then every time an NPC group is given group initiative rather than individual initiative, they would be getting use of such a feat, whether or not they "bought" it.
Any creature can, as a standard action, subtract from its initiative roll and add the same amount to an adjacent creature's initiative roll, with the limit that the roll being raised may not be raised so much that it exceeds the roll being lowered.
For groups, it is acceptable to average this across all members, rather than to try individual pairings to get the desired result.
Example: Two hobgoblins are moving into battle. The ThingA rolled a 15 for initiative, and has a +1 modifier for Dexterity, for an initiative of 16. ThingB rolled an 8 for initiative, and has a +4 modifier due to the Improved Initiative feat, for an initiative of 12. ThingA doesn't want to charge in alone, so makes a gesture to ThingB that indicates "you first." Their initiative rolls differ by 7, so ThingA can give no more than 3 of his initiative roll to ThingB. He decides to give it all, which results in ThingB having an initiative of 8 +3 (averaging) +4 (improved init), for a net initiative of 15. ThingA is left with 15 -3 (averaging) +1 (dex), for a net initiative of 13. ThingB now has the higher initiative, and can decide whether to charge in, or to make sure he isn't abandoned (by delaying to 13 so the two move together). This would be much simpler in practice, assuming the creatures aren't worried about betrayal.
A creature performing a Bull Rush action makes an opposed Strength check to succeed. If charging, PHB3 gives a +2 bonus on this check, which is provided for in Fivtoria house rules by the +4 effective Strength while charging. The two bonuses are not cumulative.
This trading of attack bonus for Strength bonus is limited by size (not by base attack). For every size above Diminutive, a creature may take up to -2 attack in return for the opposite adjustment to Strength (limited to one weapon). So a human Fighter (size Medium) can take a penalty of up to -6 attack for the corresponding bonus to Strength (+3 additional Strength modifier), meaning he can increase his damage by up to +4 (with a two-handed weapon). (Actually, it could turn out to be as much as +5, either because of rounding effects for a character who starts at, say, 20 Strength, or because of the special exception for lower-Strength characters wielding two-handed weapons.)
This is similar to the standard PHB Power Attack feat, but cannot be used with a full action (unless the creature has the Power Attack feat or is under the effects of a Haste spell), since it consumes a move-equivalent action every round it is used. Otherwise, this variant allows for only 50% more damage bonus when using two hands on a weapon, and the attacker's touch-attack probability is lowered. (The Strength bonus to attack does not apply to touch attacks, and cannot exceed the armor bonus, shield bonus, natural armor bonus, and applicable enhancement bonuses of the defender.)
The advantage of a windup is a greater Strength bonus to damage. If the attacker is using a weapon in one hand, the Strength bonus is calculated as though the weapon were in two hands (i.e. 1.5 times the attacker's Strength modifier, with a minimum increase). If the attacker is using a weapon in two hands, double the damage bonus he usually receives for the second hand (i.e. 2 times the attacker's Strength modifier, or double the minimum increase).
A windup shot takes two rounds: one full-round action to wind up, then another round to deliver the blow. So it is usually combined with a Power Attack, activated in the move-equivalent action on the second round. The target is usually a sleeping creature who will be awakened by an attack, so the attacker wants to make that first strike count as much as possible. It can be combined with a sneak attack. Both the windup and the attack provoke attacks of opportunity.
Furthermore, very hard wood can have hardness as high as 7, and up to +50% HP. Steel can have hardness as high as 15. Mithril has hardness 20, adamantite has hardness 30, and adamant has hardness 50 (and 60hp/inch). Each bonus (to either attack or damage) for fine workmanship adds +5% or +1 (whichever is less) to hardness and +10% or +5 (whichever is less) to hit points. As standard, each +1 enhancement bonus gives +2 hardness and +10hp. Another change: anyone can use his weapon (but not shield) defensively, like fighting defensively but giving the bonus to the weapon (or other held item) rather than to oneself. This gives +8 on the opposed Sunder (defense) check at the cost of -2 to hit with that weapon (or those weapons), and -2 on armor class (unless you have another weapon with which you are willing to defend yourself).
The AC bonus for a shield applies only to people on one side or the other of the defender. If flanked, the shield defends against only one of the flankers.
As in the standard rules, when someone uses a shield without proficiency, the user suffers the shield's armor check penalty to all attack rolls and some skill rolls, such as Ride. In the world of Fivtoria, if you are proficient with a shield as though it were a simple weapon (using the same mechanics as weapon proficiency), the non-proficiency penalty goes away, and the shield usually gives a higher armor class bonus.
Some shields can be more effective at higher levels of proficiency (martial or exotic). If shields are in class, then all shield proficiencies are in class, even if they are classified here as exotic. (Exception: A truly exotic shield, like a halfling, would still count as "out of class" and cost double for proficiency.)
SHIELD PROF:AC
bucker none:0 simple:1 martial:2
light none:1 simple:2 martial:3
heavy none:2 simple:3 martial:4
tower none:cover simple:cover exotic:cover(moving)
shields are considered a narrow group
Tower shields (if I understand correctly) let the "wearer" choose the
degree of AC bonus for cover (as per PHB3 p133) that both he and
attackers will get against each other. When non-proficient, the fact
that the "wearer" is tethered to the tower shield and has to keep it
from falling over results in the standard penalty to his own attacks
(the armor check penalty, which is -10 for a tower shield)."Simple" proficiency in the tower shield (usually 3 ranks) eliminates the armor check penalty for attacking around one's tower shield, when the shield is resting on the ground - when the "wearer" is not moving, or is perhaps taking a 5' step to rotate around the shield. If an attack is made in the same round as the "wearer" moves, then he requires the exotic-level of proficiency (usually 5 ranks) with the shield to avoid the -10 armor check penalty on his attacks.
In a close combat of no more people than can squeeze in a space (e.g. 2 creatures of size Medium) the participants still have their Dexterity AC bonus against each other and those outside the square. They have the penalties of squeezing (-4 AC and -4 attack) against anyone attacking the shared square(s). If more creatures join than can squeeze into the space (up to the maximum number that can grapple at once), they all suffer the penalties of a tight squeeze: -4 AC, no Dexterity bonus to AC, and no attacks or threat outside the space.
Initiating a grapple when already in close combat does not provoke an attack of opportunity. (That should have happened upon entering close combat, when one creature had to enter the square of the other.) Any participants in a grapple no longer threaten or have the ability to attack others in close combat (but outside the grapple), and lose their Dex bonus against the others in close combat, just as though those people were in adjacent spaces rather than sharing the same space (except that the grapplers can pull them in without even provoking).
Entering a close combat is like entering a grapple: you provoke an attack of opportunity from the person you're moving in on (if that person isn't already grappled by someone else). If there are already multiple people in the space, you provoke an attack of opportunity from every opponent (who can threaten) upon your entry. Those are all Fend-Off attacks.
The two most common uses of the close combat rules (other than perhaps bar brawls) are when animals trip a humanoid and when a Monk attacks a Wizard: