Can You Attack
Chapter 9: Combat
The clatter of a sword striking against a shield. The terrible rending sound as monstrous claws tear through armor. A brilliant flash of lite as a ball of flame blossoms from a wizard's spell. The sharp tang of blood in the air, cutting through the stench of vile monsters. Roars of fury, shouts of triumph, cries of pain. Combat in D&D can exist chaotic, mortiferous, and thrilling.
This section provides the rules you need for your characters and monsters to engage in combat, whether it is a brief skirmish or an extended conflict in a dungeon or on a field of battle. Throughout this section, the rules address you, the histrion or Dungeon Master. The Dungeon Main controls all the monsters and nonplayer characters involved in combat, and each other player controls an charlatan. "Y'all" can also mean the graphic symbol or monster that you control.
The Guild of Combat
A typical combat meet is a clash betwixt two sides, a flurry of weapon swings, feints, parries, footwork, and spellcasting. The game organizes the chaos of combat into a cycle of rounds and turns. A round represents about half-dozen seconds in the game world. During a circular, each participant in a boxing takes a turn. The order of turns is determined at the start of a combat encounter, when everyone rolls initiative. Once anybody has taken a turn, the fight continues to the next circular if neither side has defeated the other.
COMBAT STEP-BY-STEP
1. Determine surprise. The DM determines whether anyone involved in the combat encounter is surprised.
ii. Establish positions. The DM decides where all the characters and monsters are located. Given the adventurers' marching order or their stated positions in the room or other location, the DM figures out where the adversaries are--how far away and in what direction.
3. Roll initiative. Everyone involved in the combat see rolls initiative, determining the order of combatants' turns.
iv. Accept turns. Each participant in the battle takes a turn in initiative guild.
5. Brainstorm the adjacent circular. When everyone involved in the combat has had a plough, the circular ends. Repeat step 4 until the fighting stops.
Surprise
A ring of adventurers sneaks up on a bandit camp, springing from the trees to attack them. A gelled cube glides down a dungeon passage, unnoticed by the adventurers until the cube engulfs one of them. In these situations, one side of the battle gains surprise over the other.
The DM determines who might be surprised. If neither side tries to be stealthy, they automatically notice each other. Otherwise, the DM compares the Dexterity (Stealth) checks of anyone hiding with the passive Wisdom (Perception) score of each creature on the opposing side. Any character or monster that doesn't observe a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter.
If you're surprised, you tin't motility or take an activity on your first plough of the gainsay, and you can't take a reaction until that turn ends. A member of a grouping tin exist surprised even if the other members aren't.
Initiative
Initiative determines the social club of turns during combat. When gainsay starts, every participant makes a Dexterity cheque to make up one's mind their place in the initiative club. The DM makes one roll for an entire group of identical creatures, so each fellow member of the group acts at the same fourth dimension.
The DM ranks the combatants in order from the i with the highest Dexterity check total to the one with the lowest. This is the order (called the initiative order) in which they human activity during each round. The initiative order remains the same from circular to round.
If a tie occurs, the DM decides the order among tied DM-controlled creatures, and the players decide the order among their tied characters. The DM can decide the gild if the tie is between a monster and a player character. Optionally, the DM tin can take the tied characters and monsters each ringlet a d20 to decide the social club, highest curl going first.
Your Turn
On your turn, yous can move a distance up to your speed and take one action. You decide whether to move beginning or take your activeness starting time. Your speed--sometimes chosen your walking speed--is noted on your graphic symbol sail.
The well-nigh common deportment you can have are described in the Actions in Combat section. Many class features and other abilities provide boosted options for your action.
The Movement and Position section gives the rules for your move.
You can forgo moving, taking an action, or doing anything at all on your turn. If yous can't decide what to do on your turn, consider taking the Dodge or Set up action, as described in "Actions in Combat."
Bonus Actions
Various class features, spells, and other abilities let you take an additional action on your turn chosen a bonus action. The Cunning Action characteristic, for example, allows a rogue to accept a bonus activity. Yous tin can have a bonus activity only when a special ability, spell, or other feature of the game states that y'all tin practise something as a bonus activeness. Y'all otherwise don't have a bonus action to take.
Yous tin can take but one bonus action on your plough, so you must choose which bonus activity to use when you have more than 1 available.
You choose when to take a bonus activeness during your plough, unless the bonus action's timing is specified, and anything that deprives you of your ability to take deportment too prevents you from taking a bonus activity.
Other Activity on Your Plough
Your turn can include a multifariousness of flourishes that require neither your action nor your motion.
You can communicate however you lot are able, through brief utterances and gestures, as you take your turn.
You tin also interact with one object or feature of the environs for gratuitous, during either your move or your action. For example, you could open a door during your move as you stride toward a foe, or you could draw your weapon as part of the same action you apply to attack.
If you desire to interact with a second object, you need to use your action. Some magic items and other special objects always require an action to utilize, every bit stated in their descriptions.
The DM might crave you to employ an action for any of these activities when it needs special care or when it presents an unusual obstacle. For instance, the DM could reasonably expect you to use an action to open up a stuck door or turn a crank to lower a drawbridge.
Reactions
Certain special abilities, spells, and situations permit you to accept a special activeness called a reaction. A reaction is an instant response to a trigger of some kind, which tin occur on your plough or on someone else'south. The opportunity attack, described after in this section, is the most common type of reaction.
When yous take a reaction, you can't take some other 1 until the starting time of your next turn. If the reaction interrupts another creature's turn, that beast tin can continue its turn right after the reaction.
Motility and Position
In combat, characters and monsters are in constant movement, often using movement and position to proceeds the upper hand.
On your plough, you can move a altitude up to your speed. Yous can use as much or as footling of your speed every bit you like on your plough, following the rules here.
Your movement tin can include jumping, climbing, and swimming. These different modes of movement can be combined with walking, or they tin can found your entire move. However you're moving, you lot deduct the distance of each part of your motility from your speed until it is used upwardly or until you are done moving.
Breaking Up Your Move
You tin interruption upwardly your motility on your turn, using some of your speed before and later on your activeness. For example, if you have a speed of 30 anxiety, you tin can move x feet, take your activity, and so motility 20 anxiety.
Moving Betwixt Attacks
If you take an action that includes more than one weapon set on, you can break up your movement even further by moving betwixt those attacks. For example, a fighter who can brand two attacks with the Extra Attack feature and who has a speed of 25 feet could move 10 anxiety, make an assault, move xv feet, and then attack once again.
Using Different Speeds
If you have more than one speed, such as your walking speed and a flight speed, yous can switch back and forth betwixt your speeds during your move. Whenever y'all switch, decrease the distance yous've already moved from the new speed. The issue determines how much farther you tin can motility. If the result is 0 or less, yous can't use the new speed during the current move.
For instance, if you have a speed of xxx and a flying speed of lx because a sorcerer cast the fly spell on you, you could fly 20 feet, and then walk x anxiety, and so bound into the air to fly xxx feet more.
Difficult Terrain
Combat rarely takes identify in blank rooms or on featureless plains. Boulder-strewn caverns, briar-high-strung forests, treacherous staircases--the setting of a typical fight contains difficult terrain.
Every pes of movement in difficult terrain costs 1 extra foot. This dominion is true even if multiple things in a space count as difficult terrain.
Low furniture, rubble, undergrowth, steep stairs, snow, and shallow bogs are examples of difficult terrain. The space of some other creature, whether hostile or non, as well counts as difficult terrain.
Being Decumbent
Combatants oft find themselves lying on the basis, either because they are knocked down or because they throw themselves down. In the game, they are prone. You can drop prone without using any of your speed. Standing up takes more endeavour; doing so costs an corporeality of move equal to one-half your speed. For example, if your speed is 30 feet, you must spend 15 anxiety of movement to stand up. You tin can't stand up up if you don't have enough movement left or if your speed is 0.
To move while prone, you must crawl or use magic such as teleportation. Every foot of movement while crawling costs i actress human foot. Itch 1 foot in difficult terrain, therefore, costs iii feet of movement.
INTERACTING WITH OBJECTS Effectually You lot
Here are a few examples of the sorts of thing you can do in tandem with your movement and activity:
- draw or sheathe a sword
- open or shut a door
- withdraw a potion from your backpack
- pick up a dropped axe
- take a bauble from a tabular array
- remove a ring from your finger
- stuff some food into your rima oris
- plant a banner in the footing
- fish a few coins from your chugalug pouch
- drinkable all the ale in a flagon
- throw a lever or a switch
- pull a torch from a sconce
- take a book from a shelf you can reach
- extinguish a small flame
- don a mask
- pull the hood of your cloak up and over your head
- put your ear to a door
- boot a small stone
- turn a central in a lock
- tap the flooring with a 10-foot pole
- mitt an item to another character
Moving Around Other Creatures
You can motility through a nonhostile creature'southward space. In contrast, you lot tin move through a hostile creature's infinite only if the creature is at least two sizes larger or smaller than y'all. Call back that another brute's space is difficult terrain for y'all.
Whether a creature is a friend or an enemy, y'all can't willingly end your move in its space.
If you leave a hostile fauna'south reach during your move, y'all provoke an opportunity attack, equally explained later in the section.
Flying Motion
Flying creatures enjoy many benefits of mobility, but they must also deal with the danger of falling. If a flight fauna is knocked prone, has its speed reduced to 0, or is otherwise deprived of the ability to move, the animal falls, unless it has the ability to hover or it is being held aloft past magic, such equally by the fly spell.
Creature Size
Each creature takes up a different corporeality of space. The Size Categories tabular array shows how much space a creature of a particular size controls in gainsay. Objects sometimes utilize the same size categories.
Size Categories
| Size | Space |
|---|---|
| Tiny | 2 1/2 by 2 ane/2 ft. |
| Pocket-sized | five by five ft. |
| Medium | 5 by 5 ft. |
| Large | ten by 10 ft. |
| Huge | 15 by 15 ft. |
| Gargantuan | 20 by 20 ft. or larger |
Space
A creature's space is the area in feet that it effectively controls in combat, non an expression of its concrete dimensions. A typical Medium creature isn't 5 feet broad, for example, merely it does control a space that wide. If a Medium hobgoblin stands in a five‐foot-wide doorway, other creatures can't go through unless the hobgoblin lets them.
A creature's infinite also reflects the surface area it needs to fight effectively. For that reason, there's a limit to the number of creatures that can surround another creature in gainsay. Bold Medium combatants, 8 creatures can fit in a 5-foot radius effectually some other one.
Because larger creatures have up more than space, fewer of them can environment a brute. If four Large creatures oversupply around a Medium or smaller i, there's piddling room for anyone else. In contrast, as many as twenty Medium creatures can surround a Gargantuan one.
Squeezing into a Smaller Space
A beast can squeeze through a space that is large enough for a creature one size smaller than it. Thus, a Big fauna tin squeeze through a passage that's simply 5 feet wide. While squeezing through a space, a creature must spend 1 extra pes for every foot it moves there, and it has disadvantage on set on rolls and Dexterity saving throws. Attack rolls against the creature have advantage while it'south in the smaller space.
VARIANT: PLAYING ON A Filigree
If you play out a combat using a square grid and miniatures or other tokens, follow these rules.
Squares. Each square on the grid represents five anxiety.
Speed. Rather than moving foot past foot, move square by foursquare on the grid. This ways you utilize your speed in 5-human foot segments. This is particularly easy if you translate your speed into squares by dividing the speed past v. For example, a speed of 30 anxiety translates into a speed of 6 squares.
If you apply a grid often, consider writing your speed in squares on your grapheme sheet.
Entering a Foursquare. To enter a square, yous must have at least 1 square of movement left, even if the foursquare is diagonally side by side to the foursquare yous're in. (The rule for diagonal motion sacrifices realism for the sake of smoothen play. The Dungeon Chief'due south Guide provides guidance on using a more than realistic arroyo.)
If a foursquare costs extra movement, as a square of hard terrain does, y'all must have enough move left to pay for entering it. For instance, you lot must take at to the lowest degree 2 squares of motility left to enter a square of difficult terrain.
Corners. Diagonal motion can't cantankerous the corner of a wall, large tree, or other terrain feature that fills its space.
Ranges. To determine the range on a grid between two things—whether creatures or objects—commencement counting squares from a foursquare adjacent to one of them and stop counting in the space of the other 1. Count past the shortest road.
Deportment in Combat
When you take your action on your turn, you can take one of the actions presented hither, an activeness yous gained from your class or a special characteristic, or an activeness that y'all improvise. Many monsters have action options of their own in their stat blocks.
When y'all depict an action not detailed elsewhere in the rules, the DM tells you whether that action is possible and what kind of curl yous need to make, if any, to determine success or failure.
Attack
The nearly common activeness to take in gainsay is the Assault action, whether you lot are swinging a sword, firing an arrow from a bow, or brawling with your fists.
With this action, you make one melee or ranged attack. See the "Making an Attack" section for the rules that govern attacks.
Sure features, such equally the Actress Attack feature of the fighter, let you to make more than ane assault with this action.
Cast a Spell
Spellcasters such every bit wizards and clerics, besides as many monsters, take access to spells and tin can utilise them to bully effect in combat. Each spell has a casting time, which specifies whether the caster must use an action, a reaction, minutes, or even hours to cast the spell. Casting a spell is, therefore, not necessarily an action. Most spells practise accept a casting time of 1 action, so a spellcaster often uses his or her activeness in combat to cast such a spell.
Dash
When you take the Dash activity, you proceeds extra movement for the current plow. The increase equals your speed, after applying any modifiers. With a speed of 30 feet, for instance, you can move upwards to sixty feet on your turn if you nuance.
Whatsoever increase or subtract to your speed changes this additional movement by the same corporeality. If your speed of xxx anxiety is reduced to 15 feet, for instance, you tin movement up to thirty anxiety this plough if you lot dash.
Disengage
If you lot take the Disengage activeness, your move doesn't provoke opportunity attacks for the rest of the turn.
Dodge
When you take the Dodge action, you lot focus entirely on avoiding attacks. Until the commencement of your next turn, whatsoever assail whorl fabricated against you has disadvantage if you can encounter the attacker, and you lot brand Dexterity saving throws with advantage. Y'all lose this benefit if you are incapacitated or if your speed drops to 0.
Aid
Yous can lend your assistance to another brute in the completion of a job. When yous take the Help action, the creature you assistance gains reward on the adjacent ability check it makes to perform the task yous are helping with, provided that it makes the bank check before the start of your next turn.
Alternatively, yous can aid a friendly creature in attacking a brute inside v feet of you. You feint, distract the target, or in another way team upward to make your ally'southward attack more effective. If your marry attacks the target before your next plow, the first attack gyre is made with reward.
Hide
When you accept the Hide action, you make a Dexterity (Stealth) check in an attempt to hide, post-obit the rules for hiding. If y'all succeed, you gain certain benefits, as described in the "Unseen Attackers and Targets" department later in this section.
Ready
Sometimes you want to get the jump on a foe or look for a particular circumstance before you human action. To do and so, y'all can have the Fix action on your turn, which lets you human activity using your reaction before the starting time of your next turn.
Start, yous decide what perceivable circumstance will trigger your reaction. Then, you choose the activeness you will take in response to that trigger, or you choose to move upwards to your speed in response to it. Examples include "If the cultist steps on the trapdoor, I'll pull the lever that opens it," and "If the goblin steps next to me, I move abroad."
When the trigger occurs, y'all tin can either accept your reaction right afterwards the trigger finishes or ignore the trigger. Remember that you can accept only i reaction per round.
When you gear up a spell, you cast it as normal just hold its energy, which you release with your reaction when the trigger occurs. To be readied, a spell must have a casting time of 1 action, and holding onto the spell'due south magic requires concentration. If your concentration is broken, the spell dissipates without taking effect. For example, if yous are concentrating on the web spell and ready magic missile, your web spell ends, and if you lot take damage before y'all release magic missile with your reaction, your concentration might be cleaved.
Search
When you lot take the Search action, you devote your attention to finding something. Depending on the nature of your search, the DM might have you make a Wisdom (Perception) check or an Intelligence (Investigation) cheque.
Use an Object
You normally interact with an object while doing something else, such equally when you lot draw a sword as part of an assail. When an object requires your action for its apply, y'all take the Utilise an Object action. This action is besides useful when you want to interact with more than one object on your turn.
IMPROVISING AN Activeness
Your character can do things not covered past the actions in this department, such equally breaking down doors, intimidating enemies, sensing weaknesses in magical defenses, or calling for a parley with a foe. The simply limits to the actions you can attempt are your imagination and your grapheme's ability scores. Meet the descriptions of the ability scores in the Using Ability Scores section for inspiration every bit you improvise.
When you describe an action non detailed elsewhere in the rules, the DM tells you whether that action is possible and what kind of roll you need to make, if any, to determine success or failure.
Making an Attack
Whether you lot're hitting with a melee weapon, firing a weapon at range, or making an attack roll as function of a spell, an attack has a simple structure.
1. Cull a target. Pick a target inside your assail's range: a creature, an object, or a location.
2. Make up one's mind modifiers. The DM determines whether the target has cover and whether you take reward or disadvantage against the target. In addition, spells, special abilities, and other effects can apply penalties or bonuses to your attack curlicue.
3. Resolve the attack. You make the attack gyre. On a hit, yous roll damage, unless the detail assault has rules that specify otherwise. Some attacks cause special effects in addition to or instead of damage.
If there's ever any question whether something you're doing counts every bit an assail, the dominion is unproblematic: if you're making an attack whorl, you're making an attack.
Attack Rolls
When yous make an set on, your assail roll determines whether the attack hits or misses. To make an set on scroll, ringlet a d20 and add the appropriate modifiers. If the total of the ringlet plus modifiers equals or exceeds the target's Armor Form (AC), the set on hits. The Air conditioning of a grapheme is determined at character creation, whereas the AC of a monster is in its stat block.
Modifiers to the Roll
When a character makes an attack coil, the two most common modifiers to the roll are an ability modifier and the grapheme's proficiency bonus. When a monster makes an attack roll, information technology uses whatever modifier is provided in its stat block.
Power Modifier. The ability modifier used for a melee weapon assault is Strength, and the power modifier used for a ranged weapon attack is Dexterity. Weapons that take the finesse or thrown property pause this rule.
Some spells too require an attack curl. The ability modifier used for a spell set on depends on the spellcasting ability of the spellcaster.
Proficiency Bonus. Y'all add your proficiency bonus to your attack whorl when you attack using a weapon with which yous have proficiency, likewise equally when you attack with a spell.
Rolling 1 or xx
Sometimes fate blesses or curses a combatant, causing the novice to hit and the veteran to miss.
If the d20 scroll for an attack is a twenty, the assail hits regardless of any modifiers or the target'southward Air conditioning. This is chosen a critical hit, which is explained later in this section.
If the d20 roll for an attack is a one, the attack misses regardless of any modifiers or the target's Air-conditioning.
Unseen Attackers and Targets
Combatants often try to escape their foes' notice by hiding, casting the invisibility spell, or lurking in darkness.
When y'all attack a target that you lot can't encounter, you take disadvantage on the attack roll. This is truthful whether you lot're guessing the target'south location or you're targeting a creature you can hear but non see. If the target isn't in the location you targeted, you lot automatically miss, but the DM typically just says that the assail missed, not whether you guessed the target's location correctly.
When a creature tin't see y'all, you have reward on set on rolls against information technology. If you are hidden--both unseen and unheard--when you lot make an assail, you give away your location when the attack hits or misses.
Ranged Attacks
When you make a ranged attack, yous fire a bow or a crossbow, hurl a handaxe, or otherwise transport projectiles to strike a foe at a distance. A monster might shoot spines from its tail. Many spells too involve making a ranged attack.
Range
You can make ranged attacks only against targets within a specified range.
If a ranged assault, such as one fabricated with a spell, has a single range, y'all can't set on a target beyond this range.
Some ranged attacks, such as those fabricated with a longbow or a shortbow, have two ranges. The smaller number is the normal range, and the larger number is the long range. Your assault roll has disadvantage when your target is across normal range, and you can't attack a target beyond the long range.
Ranged Attacks in Close Combat
Aiming a ranged assault is more difficult when a foe is next to you lot. When y'all make a ranged attack with a weapon, a spell, or another means, yous take disadvantage on the assail roll if y'all are within 5 anxiety of a hostile creature who can see y'all and who isn't incapacitated.
Melee Attacks
Used in hand-to-manus combat, a melee attack allows you to attack a foe within your reach. A melee assault typically uses a handheld weapon such as a sword, a warhammer, or an axe. A typical monster makes a melee attack when information technology strikes with its claws, horns, teeth, tentacles, or other body office. A few spells also involve making a melee attack.
Most creatures have a five-foot accomplish and tin can thus attack targets within 5 anxiety of them when making a melee attack. Certain creatures (typically those larger than Medium) have melee attacks with a greater reach than v feet, as noted in their descriptions.
Instead of using a weapon to brand a melee weapon set on, y'all can employ an unarmed strike: a punch, kicking, caput-butt, or similar forceful blow (none of which count as weapons). On a hit, an unarmed strike deals bludgeoning impairment equal to 1 + your Strength modifier. You are proficient with your unarmed strikes.
Opportunity Attacks
In a fight, everyone is constantly watching for a chance to strike an enemy who is fleeing or passing by. Such a strike is called an opportunity attack.
You lot can make an opportunity attack when a hostile creature that yous can see moves out of your reach. To make the opportunity assail, you lot use your reaction to make 1 melee set on against the provoking beast. The attack occurs right before the creature leaves your attain.
You can avoid provoking an opportunity attack by taking the Disengage action. You also don't provoke an opportunity attack when you teleport or when someone or something moves you without using your movement, action, or reaction. For example, yous don't provoke an opportunity attack if an explosion hurls you out of a foe'due south reach or if gravity causes you to fall past an enemy.
Two-Weapon Fighting
When you lot take the Attack action and attack with a lite melee weapon that you're belongings in i hand, y'all tin can apply a bonus activeness to attack with a different lite melee weapon that you're property in the other hand. You don't add your power modifier to the damage of the bonus set on, unless that modifier is negative.
If either weapon has the thrown holding, you tin throw the weapon, instead of making a melee set on with it.
Contests in Combat
Battle often involves pitting your prowess against that of your foe. Such a challenge is represented past a contest. This section includes the most common contests that require an action in combat: grappling and shoving a fauna. The DM can use these contests as models for improvising others.
Grappling
When you want to grab a creature or wrestle with it, yous can use the Set on action to make a special melee attack, a grapple. If you're able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this assault replaces ane of them.
The target of your grapple must be no more than one size larger than you and must be within your achieve. Using at least one gratis hand, you try to seize the target past making a grapple cheque instead of an attack curlicue: a Force (Athletics) check contested by the target'south Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check (the target chooses the power to use). You succeed automatically if the target is incapacitated. If you lot succeed, y'all subject the target to the grappled condition. The condition specifies the things that stop it, and you tin can release the target whenever you like (no action required).
Escaping a Grapple. A grappled creature tin employ its action to escape. To do so, information technology must succeed on a Force (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check contested by your Strength (Athletics) check.
Moving a Grappled Beast. When you lot motility, yous can elevate or carry the grappled brute with you, but your speed is halved, unless the creature is 2 or more than sizes smaller than you.
Shoving a Creature
Using the Attack action, you can make a special melee attack to shove a creature, either to knock information technology prone or button it away from you. If you're able to brand multiple attacks with the Attack action, this set on replaces 1 of them.
The target must exist no more than than one size larger than you and must be within your reach. Instead of making an assail roll, yous make a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the target'southward Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) cheque (the target chooses the power to use). Y'all succeed automatically if the target is incapacitated. If you succeed, you either knock the target prone or push button information technology 5 feet abroad from you.
Cover
Walls, copse, creatures, and other obstacles tin provide cover during gainsay, making a target more than difficult to harm. A target can benefit from cover simply when an set on or other upshot originates on the opposite side of the comprehend.
There are 3 degrees of encompass. If a target is behind multiple sources of cover, only the well-nigh protective degree of encompass applies; the degrees aren't added together. For instance, if a target is backside a animate being that gives half cover and a tree body that gives 3-quarters comprehend, the target has three-quarters cover.
One-half Comprehend
A target with one-half cover has a +2 bonus to AC and Dexterity saving throws. A target has one-half cover if an obstruction blocks at least half of its body. The obstacle might exist a depression wall, a large piece of piece of furniture, a narrow tree body, or a brute, whether that creature is an enemy or a friend.
Iii-Quarters Cover
A target with three-quarters encompass has a +v bonus to Air-conditioning and Dexterity saving throws. A target has iii-quarters embrace if virtually three-quarters of information technology is covered by an obstacle. The obstacle might be a portcullis, an pointer slit, or a thick tree trunk.
Total Cover
A target with total cover tin can't be targeted directly past an assault or a spell, although some spells tin can accomplish such a target past including it in an area of effect. A target has total cover if it is completely concealed by an obstacle.
Damage and Healing
Injury and the chance of death are abiding companions of those who explore fantasy gaming worlds. The thrust of a sword, a well-placed arrow, or a blast of flame from a fireball spell all have the potential to damage, or even kill, the hardiest of creatures.
Striking Points
Hit points represent a combination of physical and mental immovability, the will to live, and luck. Creatures with more than hit points are more difficult to kill. Those with fewer hitting points are more fragile.
A brute'south electric current hit points (normally only chosen striking points) can exist whatsoever number from the beast'due south hit point maximum downwards to 0. This number changes frequently as a fauna takes impairment or receives healing.
Whenever a creature takes impairment, that damage is subtracted from its hit points. The loss of hit points has no effect on a creature'southward capabilities until the creature drops to 0 hit points.
Harm Rolls
Each weapon, spell, and harmful monster ability specifies the impairment it deals. Yous scroll the harm die or dice, add whatsoever modifiers, and use the damage to your target. Magic weapons, special abilities, and other factors can grant a bonus to damage.
With a penalty, it is possible to deal 0 damage, but never negative damage.
When attacking with a weapon, you add your ability modifier--the same modifier used for the assail scroll--to the damage. A spell tells yous which dice to ringlet for damage and whether to add together whatever modifiers.
If a spell or other outcome deals harm to more than one target at the same time, roll the damage once for all of them. For example, when a wizard casts fireball or a cleric casts flame strike, the spell's harm is rolled once for all creatures caught in the smash.
Critical Hits
When you score a critical hit, you go to roll extra die for the set on's damage against the target. Ringlet all of the attack'due south impairment dice twice and add them together. And then add any relevant modifiers as normal. To speed up play, yous tin can ringlet all the harm dice at once.
For instance, if you score a critical hit with a dagger, curlicue 2d4 for the damage, rather than 1d4, and and then add together your relevant power modifier. If the attack involves other damage dice, such as from the rogue'southward Sneak Attack feature, yous roll those dice twice likewise.
Damage Types
Different attacks, damaging spells, and other harmful effects deal different types of harm. Damage types have no rules of their own, but other rules, such as harm resistance, rely on the types.
The damage types follow, with examples to help a DM assign a damage type to a new result.
Acid. The corrosive spray of an developed black dragon's breath and the dissolving enzymes secreted past a blackness pudding deal acid impairment.
Bludgeoning. Blunt force attacks--hammers, falling, constriction, and the similar--deal bludgeoning damage.
Cold. The infernal chill radiating from an ice devil's spear and the frigid blast of a immature white dragon's jiff deal common cold damage.
Fire. Ancient red dragons breathe fire, and many spells conjure flames to deal burn damage.
Forcefulness. Force is pure magical free energy focused into a damaging form. Near effects that deal force damage are spells, including magic missile and spiritual weapon.
Lightning. A lightning bolt spell and a blue dragon wyrmling's breath deal lightning damage.
Necrotic. Necrotic damage, dealt by certain undead and a spell such every bit chill touch, withers matter and even the soul.
Piercing. Puncturing and impaling attacks, including spears and monsters' bites, bargain piercing damage.
Poison. Venomous stings and the toxic gas of an adult green dragon's jiff deal poison damage.
Psychic. Mental abilities such as a psionic blast deal psychic impairment.
Radiant. Radiant harm, dealt by a cleric'southward flame strike spell or an angel'south smiting weapon, sears the mankind like fire and overloads the spirit with power.
Slashing. Swords, axes, and monsters' claws bargain slashing damage.
Thunder. A concussive outburst of audio, such as the effect of the thunderwave spell, deals thunder harm.
Damage Resistance and Vulnerability
Some creatures and objects are exceedingly hard or unusually piece of cake to hurt with certain types of damage.
If a creature or an object has resistance to a damage blazon, harm of that blazon is halved confronting it. If a creature or an object has vulnerability to a impairment type, impairment of that type is doubled against it.
Resistance and then vulnerability are applied afterward all other modifiers to impairment. For example, a fauna has resistance to bludgeoning damage and is hit by an attack that deals 25 bludgeoning impairment. The creature is too within a magical aureola that reduces all damage by five. The 25 damage is first reduced by v and then halved, so the fauna takes 10 damage.
Multiple instances of resistance or vulnerability that affect the same harm type count as only one instance. For example, if a creature has resistance to fire damage likewise equally resistance to all nonmagical damage, the damage of a nonmagical fire is reduced past one-half confronting the creature, not reduced by three-quarters.
Healing
Unless it results in death, damage isn't permanent. Fifty-fifty death is reversible through powerful magic. Rest tin can restore a animate being's striking points, and magical methods such as a cure wounds spell or a potion of healing can remove damage in an instant.
When a creature receives healing of any kind, hit points regained are added to its current hitting points. A creature's striking points can't exceed its hit point maximum, so any hit points regained in excess of this number are lost. For example, a druid grants a ranger 8 hit points of healing. If the ranger has fourteen current hit points and has a hitting point maximum of 20, the ranger regains 6 hit points from the druid, not 8.
A creature that has died can't regain hit points until magic such equally the revivify spell has restored it to life.
Dropping to 0 Hit Points
When y'all drop to 0 hit points, yous either die outright or fall unconscious, as explained in the post-obit sections.
Instant Death
Massive damage tin can kill you instantly. When damage reduces you to 0 hit points and at that place is damage remaining, you die if the remaining damage equals or exceeds your hit signal maximum.
For example, a cleric with a maximum of 12 striking points currently has 6 striking points. If she takes 18 damage from an assail, she is reduced to 0 hit points, but 12 impairment remains. Considering the remaining damage equals her hitting point maximum, the cleric dies.
Falling Unconscious
If harm reduces you to 0 hit points and fails to kill y'all, you fall unconscious. This unconsciousness ends if you lot regain whatsoever hit points.
Death Saving Throws
Whenever yous start your turn with 0 hit points, yous must make a special saving throw, called a death saving throw, to decide whether you creep closer to death or hang onto life. Unlike other saving throws, this 1 isn't tied to any ability score. Y'all are in the hands of fate now, aided merely by spells and features that improve your chances of succeeding on a saving throw.
Gyre a d20. If the roll is 10 or college, yous succeed. Otherwise, yous fail. A success or failure has no effect by itself. On your third success, y'all go stable (come across beneath). On your 3rd failure, y'all die. The successes and failures don't need to exist consecutive; go along track of both until you lot collect three of a kind. The number of both is reset to nada when you regain whatever hit points or become stable.
Rolling i or 20. When you lot make a death saving throw and curl a 1 on the d20, it counts equally ii failures. If yous roll a 20 on the d20, yous regain i hit indicate.
Impairment at 0 Striking Points. If you have any damage while you take 0 hit points, yous suffer a death saving throw failure. If the damage is from a critical hit, you suffer 2 failures instead. If the damage equals or exceeds your hitting point maximum, you suffer instant death.
Stabilizing a Brute
The best way to save a brute with 0 hitting points is to heal information technology. If healing is unavailable, the animal tin at to the lowest degree be stabilized so that it isn't killed by a failed death saving throw.
You tin employ your action to administer kickoff help to an unconscious animate being and try to stabilize it, which requires a successful DC 10 Wisdom (Medicine) check.
A stable creature doesn't brand death saving throws, even though it has 0 hit points, but it does remain unconscious. The brute stops being stable, and must kickoff making decease saving throws again, if it takes any impairment. A stable beast that isn't healed regains ane hit betoken later on 1d4 hours.
Monsters and Expiry
Nigh DMs take a monster die the instant it drops to 0 hitting points, rather than having it fall unconscious and make death saving throws.
Mighty villains and special nonplayer characters are common exceptions; the DM might have them fall unconscious and follow the aforementioned rules as player characters.
Knocking a Animal Out
Sometimes an assailant wants to incapacitate a foe, rather than deal a killing blow. When an assailant reduces a creature to 0 hit points with a melee assail, the aggressor can knock the creature out. The attacker can make this pick the instant the damage is dealt. The animate being falls unconscious and is stable.
Temporary Hit Points
Some spells and special abilities confer temporary striking points to a creature. Temporary hit points aren't actual hit points; they are a buffer against impairment, a pool of hit points that protect y'all from injury.
When you have temporary hit points and take damage, the temporary hitting points are lost starting time, and whatever leftover damage carries over to your normal striking points. For example, if you have 5 temporary hit points and take 7 damage, yous lose the temporary hit points and then take ii damage.
Because temporary striking points are separate from your bodily striking points, they tin exceed your hit point maximum. A character can, therefore, be at full hit points and receive temporary hit points.
Healing can't restore temporary hit points, and they can't exist added together. If you have temporary hit points and receive more of them, you decide whether to keep the ones you take or to gain the new ones. For case, if a spell grants you 12 temporary hitting points when you lot already have x, you tin have 12 or x, not 22.
If you have 0 hit points, receiving temporary hit points doesn't restore yous to consciousness or stabilize you. They can still absorb harm directed at you while you're in that state, but only true healing tin can relieve you lot.
Unless a characteristic that grants you temporary hit points has a duration, they last until they're depleted or yous finish a long rest.
Mounted Combat
A knight charging into battle on a warhorse, a wizard casting spells from the back of a griffon, or a cleric soaring through the sky on a pegasus all enjoy the benefits of speed and mobility that a mount can provide.
A willing creature that is at least i size larger than you and that has an appropriate anatomy can serve as a mountain, using the following rules.
Mounting and Dismounting
Once during your movement, you can mount a fauna that is within 5 feet of y'all or dismount. Doing so costs an amount of movement equal to half your speed. For example, if your speed is 30 anxiety, you lot must spend 15 feet of movement to mount a horse. Therefore, you tin can't mountain information technology if you don't have 15 feet of move left or if your speed is 0.
If an event moves your mount confronting its will while y'all're on it, you must succeed on a DC 10 Dexterity saving throw or fall off the mount, landing prone in a space within five feet of it. If yous're knocked decumbent while mounted, you must make the same saving throw.
If your mount is knocked decumbent, you can use your reaction to dismount it as information technology falls and land on your feet. Otherwise, you are dismounted and autumn prone in a infinite within 5 anxiety it.
Controlling a Mount
While yous're mounted, you have two options. Y'all can either command the mount or permit information technology to act independently. Intelligent creatures, such every bit dragons, act independently.
You can control a mount only if it has been trained to have a passenger. Domesticated horses, donkeys, and similar creatures are assumed to have such training. The initiative of a controlled mount changes to match yours when you mount information technology. It moves every bit you lot direct information technology, and information technology has only three action options: Nuance, Disengage, and Dodge. A controlled mountain tin move and human activity fifty-fifty on the turn that you mount it.
An independent mount retains its place in the initiative order. Bearing a rider puts no restrictions on the deportment the mount can accept, and it moves and acts every bit it wishes. Information technology might abscond from combat, rush to attack and devour a badly injured foe, or otherwise human activity against your wishes.
In either case, if the mountain provokes an opportunity attack while you're on it, the attacker tin target you or the mount.
Underwater Combat
When adventurers pursue sahuagin back to their undersea homes, fight off sharks in an ancient shipwreck, or observe themselves in a flooded dungeon room, they must fight in a challenging environment. Underwater the post-obit rules employ.
When making a melee weapon attack, a fauna that doesn't have a pond speed (either natural or granted past magic) has disadvantage on the assault whorl unless the weapon is a dagger, javelin, shortsword, spear, or trident.
A ranged weapon attack automatically misses a target across the weapon'due south normal range. Even confronting a target within normal range, the assault roll has disadvantage unless the weapon is a crossbow, a net, or a weapon that is thrown like a javelin (including a spear, trident, or dart).
Creatures and objects that are fully immersed in water have resistance to fire impairment.
Source: https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/combat