Inflicting Damage

Damage Rolls

If the attack roll result equals or exceeds the target's AC, the attack is successful, and the attacker deals damage to the defender. Roll the appropriate damage for the attacker's weapon. The damage is deducted from the target character's current hit points.

Minimum Weapon Damage

If penalties to damage bring the damage result below 1, a hit still deals 1 point of damage.

Fighting with Two Weapons

When a character is fighting with two weapons deals damage with the extra attack, add only one-half of the character's Strength bonus.

Wielding a Weapon Two-Handed

When a character deals damage with a weapon that the character is wielding two-handed, the character adds one and one half times the character's Strength bonus. Light weapons don't get this higher Strength bonus when used two-handed.

Unarmed Strike Damage

An unarmed strike from a Medium-size character deals 1d3 points of damage (with a character's Strength modifier, as normal). A Small character's unarmed strike deals 1d2 points of damage. All damage is subdual damage. Unarmed strikes count as light weapons (for purposes of two-weapon attack penalties and so on).

Dealing Normal Damage

A character can specify that its unarmed strike will deal normal damage before it makes an attack roll, but the attack suffers a -4 penalty.

Critical Hits

When a character makes an attack roll and gets a natural 20, the character hits regardless of the target's AC, and the character has scored a threat. The hit might be a critical hit (or "crit"). To find out if it's a critical hit, the character immediately makes a critical roll - another attack roll with all the same modifiers as the attack roll the character just made. If the critical roll also results in a hit against the target's AC, the character's original hit is a critical hit. If the critical roll is a miss, then the character's hit is just a regular hit.

A critical hit means that the attacker rolls for damage more than once, as indicated by the weapon description for the weapon that scored the threat, with all the attacker's usual bonuses, and add the rolls together to get total damage.

Exception: Bonus damage represented as extra dice is not multiplied when a character score a critical hit.

Increased Threat Range

Sometimes a character's threat range is greater than 20. In such cases, a roll below 20 is not an automatic hit. Any attack roll that doesn't result in a hit is not a threat.

Increased Critical Multiplier

Some weapons, deal better than double damage with a critical hit.

Multiplying Damage

Sometimes a character multiplies damage by some factor, such as when a character scores a critical hit. Roll the damage (with all modifiers) multiple times and total the results.

Subdual Damage

Nonlethal damage is subdual damage. If a character takes sufficient subdual damage, the character falls unconscious, but the character doesn't die.

Dealing Subdual Damage

Certain attacks deal subdual damage. Other stresses, such as heat or exhaustion, also deal subdual damage. When a character takes subdual damage, keep a running total of how much a has accumulated. Do not deduct the subdual damage number from a character's current hit points. It is not "real" damage. Instead, when a character's subdual damage equals a character's current hit points, the character is staggered, and when it exceeds a character's current hit points, the character goes unconscious. It doesn't matter whether the subdual damage equals or exceeds a character's current hit points because the subdual damage has gone up or because a character's current hit points have gone down.

A character can use a weapon that deals subdual damage, including an unarmed strike, to deal normal damage instead, but the character suffers a -4 penalty on the attack roll.