On your turn you may move a distance of up to your speed and take a single action. You may split your move to occur both before and after your action as long as you do not exceed your maximum speed.
5 ft step
In lieu of your normal movement, you may elect to step a distance of only up to 5 ft. This movement does not provoke Attack of Opportunity (see below), but you may not make any other movement (including standing from prone) this turn.
Movement while Prone
While prone you move at only half speed but you may 5ft step as normal. You may sacrifice half of your total movement speed to stand from prone, but provoke Attack of Opportunity for doing so.
Actions
Below are listed the most common actions that are available to everybody, but many feats and class features provide more choices for your action.
Attack
You make a melee or ranged attack against an opponent of your choice. Many circumstances such as feats, class features, and high BaB may allow you to make more than one attack in a given action. If this is the case, you may continue to use your movement before, after, or between your attacks.
Activate Magic Item
You may use an item such as a potion, scroll, wand, rod, or staff.
Total Defense
Your dodge bonus to AC increases by 4 until you take your next action.
Hustle
You move a distance of up to your speed again, effectively allowing you to move twice for one round.
Run
You move a distance of up to 3x your speed or 2x your speed if you are wearing heavy armor effectively allowing you to move 3 or 4 times your speed for one round. You suffer a -2 penalty to your AC until you take another action.
Charge
You move a distance of up to your speed and make a single attack with a +2 bonus. Your turn ends after this attack and you suffer a -2 penalty to your AC until you take another action.
Withdraw
Any movement you make this round does not provoke attack of opportunity.
Swift Actions
Some feats or class features allow you to take a swift action. If you take a swift action, you may still perform a regular action the same round. You may not make more than one swift action a round.
Not an Action
Some actions do not count as actions in a game sense. Such things as opening doors, pulling levers, shouting basic commands, or drawing items and weapons do not count as actions by themselves and often occur as parts of other actions. The DM may declare these to be actions if for some reason they would take longer to complete. The DM is the final arbiter of what is an action, and what is not.
Attacks Of Opportunity
If you move through an enemy's threatened area you may provoke an attack of opportunity. To make an attack of opportunity, make a melee attack against the enemy which provoked it. You may only make a single attack, but it may be modified as normal by feats such as Power Attack.
If a character moves through a threatened square that is currently occupied by a friendly character, then the enemy gets no attack of opportunity. If you attack or cast a harmful spell before moving, the opponent you affected may not take an attack of opportunity.
Critical Hits
Nothing is immune to Critical Hits.
Combat Maneuvers
Combat maneuvers are more actions which any character may attempt, however they are a bit more difficult to pull off and are designed to have other effects than to simply kill or wound.
Bull Rush
When you make a bull rush, you attempt to push an opponent straight back, knock him prone, or run past him altogether instead of damaging him. As an action, move up to your speed directly toward an opponent.
Roll a touch attack to see if you hit your opponent. If you wish instead to try to run past your opponent, you may elect to automatically fail this attack roll. Your opponent, however, may decide to stand his ground and elect for your attack to hit whether it failed or not.
If your attack is a success, roll a combat maneuver check. If you beat the defender's CMD, you may either knock him prone and continue moving up to your remaining move (including movement for the Bull Rush action), or push him up to half of your remaining move distance in which case you and your opponent are now considered to be grappled.
If your attack misses you move directly through your opponents square, at least one space beyond and up to your maximum speed in any direction thereafter. Your opponent may make an attack of opportunity as you pass. If you land on an occupied square, you land prone in the nearest open space.
If you fail your combat maneuver check, you end your move on the last square you entered before contacting the defender and the defender may choose to immediately begin grappling you.
Grappling
While you are grappling, you are assumed to have one (and only one) arm free. Therefore you may…
- Draw any weapon or item
- Attack with one hand at a -4 to hit.
- Attack using a two handed weapon in one hand (while suffering the normal -4 penalty for using an oversized weapon as well as the normal -4 penalty for grappling)
- Cast a spell (requires Concentration DC 20+the spell’s level)
- Use a scroll (requires Concentration DC 20+the spell’s level)
- Use any other non-Spell Activated items which can be used in one hand
Trip
As an action, you can attempt to trip an opponent. Make a melee touch attack against your target. If your attack succeeds, roll a combat maneuver check against the defender's CMD. If your check succeeds, the defender is knocked prone.
Shield Wall
If creatures armed with shields stay along an even line in close order, they may form a shield wall by overlapping their shields. All creatures that are part of a shield wall must have a heavy or larger shield and must all be the same size category.
Any character that is adjacent to another friendly character may form a shield wall as a move action. The adjacent character must agree to form the shield wall. If he does so, both characters form the wall. If he does not, neither character receives the shield wall bonus.
When the wall is formed, the characters choose it's direction which must face a long edge of the line of adjacent characters. The characters behind the wall gain an additional +2 Shield bonus to AC from attacks that must cross the shield wall. They receive no bonus from their shields at all from attacks from other directions.
 |
| The image shows two legal shield wall formations. The arrows indicate the direction of the shield wall. The guards get another +2 Shield bonus to their AC from any attacks from the side with the arrows. All other attacks bypass their shields completely. |
Maintaining a shield wall requires a move action by each character on their turn. New characters may enter the shield wall as a move action, providing they meet all the necessary requirements. A shield wall may only move if all characters within it act on the same initiative (usually by delaying action). All characters get only a single move action since the other is used to maintain the wall.
A character may leave a shield wall anytime during his action as a free action. If this makes any other characters no longer able to join the wall, those characters are also instantly removed from it.
Other characters friendly to the wall may fire over it with ranged weapons or attack through it with reach weapons, though all these attacks suffer the normal penalties for cover. Precise Shot doesn't negate this penalty, but Improved Precise Shot does.
A tower shield may be used as part of a shield wall, but it may not provide full cover while it does so.
Combat Modifiers
Nothing is immune to flanking.
Attacking from higher ground provides a +2 bonus to your attack whether you use ranged or melee.
Attacking an enemy on higher ground gives you a -2 penalty on melee attacks.
A mounted character is considered to have higher ground if his opponent is on the ground and a smaller size than his mount.
Melee attacking an unarmed character or a character armed with a ranged weapon provides a +2 bonus to your attack.
There is no penalty for firing a ranged weapon into a melee unless combatants provide the target with cover.
The AC bonus provided from cover depends on the amount of cover available.
| Amount of Cover | AC Bonus | Example |
| One-quarter | +2 | A human behind a 2 1/12 ft wall, a character who is kneeling |
| One-half | +4 | Fighting around a corner, standing at an open window |
| Three-quarters | +7 | Peering around a corner |
| Nine-tenths | +10 | Firing a missile weapon from behind a narrow arrow slit |
| Full | Auto Miss | Standing behind a solid wall |
Special Attacks
Turn or Rebuke Undead
Undead that are turned or rebuked continue to be for as long as the character affecting them continues to hold forth his holy symbol. The character may still wield a shield or weapon in his other hand as well as cast rays or spells without somatic components. The character may not hustle, run, or charge while Turning or Rebuking.
