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If your attack roll is equal to or higher than the armor class you are attacking, you have scored a hit, and it's time to resolve your damage. | If your attack roll is equal to or higher than the armor class you are attacking, you have scored a hit, and it's time to resolve your damage. | ||
==Splash Weapons== | |||
A splash weapon is a ranged weapon that breaks on impact, splashing or scattering its contents over its target and nearby creatures or objects. These include such classic favorites as hornet's nests and bottles of alchemical fire, which is basically magic napalm and the best friend of people fighting Trolls for decades. | |||
To attack a creature with a splash weapon, make a ranged touch attack against the target creature. Thrown splash weapons require no weapon proficiency, so you dont take the 4 non-proficiency penalty, which makes alchemical splash weapons a great choice for starting spell-casters to use in a pinch. If you hit the creature's touch AC, the splash weapon deals direct hit damage to the target as described in the item. It also bursts messily and inflicts a lower amount of splash damage to all creatures within 5 feet of the space of the targeted creature. | |||
If the target creature is size Large or larger, you choose one of its squares and the splash damage affects creatures within 5 feet of that square. No, a Large or larger creature is not then affected by splash damage as well as direct hit damage, sorry. In no cases (unless by DM fiat) can splash weapons deal precision-based damage (such as the damage from the rogues sneak attack class feature). | |||
Now, if you do not wish to attack a creature, splash weapons allow you to attack an area, instead. You can choose your target to be a specific grid intersection. Treat this as a ranged attack against AC 5. When you target an area in this way, you must have some sort of a solid object to break your splash weapon. For most cases, the ground is just about as solid as you can get, and works fine, but what if you are throwing a flask of alchemical fire up into the branches of a tree to burn up that nasty group of stirges? The branches of a tree constitute difficult terrain that is not on the ground, so does the flask break, or not? | |||
The GM adjudicates all thrown splash weapons that are not targeted at creatures touch AC or blindingly obvious area targets such as floors or walls. Such attacks are always against difficult, impeded, or blocked squares. Blocked squares are as solid as the ground, and break flasks reliably, unless they are made of things like flesh or rubber. As a rough rule of thumb, impeded squares are usually sufficient to break a thrown splash weapon, and squares of difficult terrain are often good as well. The exact character of the obstacle is left up to the GM. A flask of acid thrown into dense spider webs is unlikely to break, but that same flask thrown into a tangle of melted sword-blades is almost certain to break, while a tangle of brush falls somewhere in between. | |||
However, if you target a grid intersection with a splash weapon, and it breaks on impact, creatures in all adjacent squares are dealt the splash damage, and the direct hit damage is not dealt to ANY creature. You cant target a grid intersection inside a Large or larger creatures space. In that case, you are aiming at the creatures touch AC, see above.. | |||
If you miss the target (whether aiming at a creature or a grid intersection), roll 1d8. This determines the misdirection of the throw, with 1 falling short (off-target in a straight line toward the thrower), and 2 through 8 rotating around the target creature or grid intersection in a clockwise direction. Then, count a number of squares in the indicated direction equal to the range increment of the throw. After you determine where the weapon landed, it deals splash damage to all creatures in that square and in all adjacent squares. Yes, missed splash weapons damage a larger area than one thrown at the ground, to offset the fact that you can't precisely aim a miss. | |||
==Resolving Damage== | ==Resolving Damage== | ||