The Attack Roll; Weapon Feats And Proficiency - Black Isle ICEWIND DALE 2 Manual

Generic Bonuses: These are the remaining armor bonuses you can get from any other source - some
spells provide generic armor bonuses, and some Feats can also give character a generic armor bonus.
Unlike the four other categories above, generic bonuses do stack with one another.
So a character with a Dexterity Ability Modifier of +2 and Leather Armor, which has an armor bonus of +2,
would have an Armor Class of 14 (10 + 2 + 2).
Note that touch-based spells and effects ignore armor bonuses for the purposes of scoring a hit.
At the heart of the combat system is the Attack Roll, the die roll that determines whether any physical attack
(missile or hand to hand, but not spells) succeeds or fails. The number a player needs in order to make a
successful attack roll is also called the "to hit" number and is equal to the total Armor Class of their target.
In Icewind Dale II the "to hit" roll is done behind the scenes - if your character is successful, he hits - if
not, he misses.
When an attack is made, the Armor Class is what the attacker must 'roll' in order to hit the opponent. This
"roll of the die" is done with a d20, or twenty sided die, resulting in a number between 1 and 20. The attack-
er's Attack Bonus is then added to this roll (you can see all the different Base Attack Bonuses on a per char-
acter and level standpoint in Table 3). If the resulting number is equal to or higher than the defender's Armor
Class, then the attack is successful, and damage is done. If the attack is unsuccessful, then the attacker
missed completely or was unable to penetrate the opponent's armor.
For example, the captain of the Wicked Wench, Hedron Kerdos (a fighter) has an Attack Bonus of 7. He is
attacking a marauding goblin with an AC of 14. If Hedron "rolls" a 7 or higher on the twenty-sided die, he
hits the goblin and hurts it. (7 + 7 = 14)
Note that in Melee combat, not every swing is intended to hit. A character in Icewind Dale II may make a
"cosmetic" swing during the round aside from the actual attempt to deliver damage. This swing represents
the feints and parries that would occur in real combat.
A weapon proficiency feat represents a character's knowledge and training with a specific group of
weapons. When a character is created, he or she has proficiency feats in a number of weapons dependent
on the class chosen. As a character reaches higher experience levels, he can choose to spend new feats on
weapon proficiencies.
A character with a specific weapon proficiency is skilled with that weapon. Hence, if you have assigned one
proficiency feat to a character, he or she can attack without penalty using that weapon. If you equip a charac-
ter with a weapon that he or she is not proficient with, they suffer penalties to hit and damage.
Once a character has proficiency in a certain weapon type, you can choose to have him spend another feat to
focus on that weapon type. He will then get a +1 to all attack rolls when using those types of weapons.
Fighters who have achieved at least 4th level also have the options of choosing weapon specialization in a cer-
tain weapon type once they already have a focus in that type of weapon. Weapon specialization adds a bonus
of 2 to damage whenever the fighters successfully hits with that weapon type.
To see the types of weapons that can be used with Simple Weapon proficiencies see Table 6. For the list of
weapons usable by the different Martial Weapon proficiencies see, Table 7. The bastard sword has been
included in Icewind Dale II, however it lies outside of the distinction between simple and martial weapons. It
is considered an exotic weapon and has its own proficiency feat. The statistics for the bastard sword are
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included in Table 7on page 146.
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