Exotic Weapon Proficiency
Bastard Sword:
A bastard sword is too large to use in one hand without special training; thus it is an exot-
ic weapon. Bastard swords are also known as hand-and-a-half swords.
Attacking with Two Weapons
If you wield a second weapon in your off hand, you can get one extra attack per round with that weapon.
Fighting in this way is very hard, however, and you suffer a -6 penalty with your regular attack or attacks with
your primary hand and a -10 penalty to the attack with your off hand. You can reduce these stiff penalties
according to the following table:
Circumstance
Primary Hand
Off Hand
Normal Penalties
-6
-10
Ambidexterity Feat
-6
-6
Two-Weapon Fighting Feat
-4
-8
Ambidexterity Feat and
-4
-4
Two-Weapon Fighting Feat
Critical Hits and Misses
When an attack roll is made and it’s a 20, your character hits regardless of the target’s AC, and you have
scored a threat. The hit might be a critical hit (or “crit”). To find out if it’s a critical hit, a critical roll is made
immediately- this is another attack roll with all the same modifiers as the attack roll that was just made. If the
critical roll also results in a hit against the target’s AC, the original hit is a critical hit. (The critical roll just
needs to hit to give a crit. It doesn’t need to come up 20 again.) If the critical roll is a miss, then the hit is
just a regular hit.
A critical hit means that damage is rolled more than once, with all the usual bonuses, and the rolls are added
together to get total damage. Unless otherwise specified, the threat range for a critical hit on an attack roll is
20, and the multiplier is 2. (See Increased Threat Range and Increased Critical Multiplier, below.)
Exception: Bonus damage represented as extra dice, such as from a sneak attack or a flaming sword, is not
multiplied when a critical hit is scored.
Increased Threat Range: Sometimes a threat range is greater than 20. That is, a threat can be scored on a
lower number. Longswords, for instance, give threat on a natural attack roll of 19 or 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, such as battleaxes and arrows, deal better than double damage
with a critical hit. See Tables 6 and 7 which list general statistics for simple and martial weapons on page
145-146.
Improving the Odds In Combat
In combat, many factors can modify the number a character needs for a successful hit. These variables are
reflected in modifiers to the to-hit number or to the attack roll.
Strength Ability Modifier for Melee Weapons:
A character’s Strength can modify the die roll, altering
both the chance to hit and the damage caused. This modifier is always applied to melee (hand to hand) and
hurled missile weapons (a dagger or an axe) attacks. The higher your Strength, the easier it is to hit someone
and hurt them.
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IWD2 PDF Manual 4/28/03 12:22 PM Page 41
