According to Attack Rolls, there are three main types of attack rolls, melee attack rolls, ranged attack rolls, and spell attack rolls. I was under the impression that these didn't really overlap, but I keep seeing game features refer to a "melee weapon attack," a "ranged spell attack roll," simply a "spell attack roll", and even a "ranged unarmed attack."
Do the three main types of attack rolls overlap? Is the attack made in Magnetic Acceleration both a ranged attack and a spell attack, and is the roll for it both a ranged attack roll and a spell attack roll? Is the attack made in Hand of the Apprentice a spell attack that is neither melee nor ranged, and is its spell attack roll neither melee nor ranged?
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
A melee attack roll requires the target be within your reach. This is typically a Strength check, but can be modified with traits like Finesse.
A ranged attack roll requires your target be within range of the attack. This is typically a Dexterity check, but can be modified with traits like Brutal.
A spell attack roll is made when you cast a spell that targets a creature's AC. This is a check based on your Casting modifier.
Spell attacks can sometimes be either Melee or Ranged. This mainly matters for the sake of abilities that trigger on those specific rolls, like Attack of Opportunity. For example, Produce Flame is a Ranged attack, but if you're within your unarmed reach you can make a Melee attack.
Some rolls call for "weapon" attack rolls because they want to exclude "unarmed" and "spell" attacks. For example, the Horse support ability requires a Weapon attack, because people were using it on spell attacks, which was obviously not the intent. Other abilities call for "Unarmed" attacks specifically, mainly Monk abilities. These are just adjectives to describe what exactly is making the attack.
Okay, so a spell like Bless with "gain a +1 status bonus to attack rolls" text does enhance all spell attack rolls. This can only happen if spell attack rolls are still attack rolls. And a +x status bonus to "melee attack rolls" would only boost those spell attacks made via touch.
This means that a "+2 item bonus to melee attack rolls" does indeed enhance melee spell attack rolls, right?
As far as I can tell, a bonus to melee attack rolls would include those melee attacks that use a casting stat like CHA instead of STR or DEX.
Some other items grant bonuses like "... and Dexterity-based attack rolls" which mindfully exclude such spell attack rolls.
And as this is an item bonus intended to scale with and exceed potency runes when on-level, this is kinda a big life preserver for those casters who found a thematic focus spell and want to make melee spell attacks viable.
It's kinda absurd that such spell attacks are fine and on-par at low level, but just due to potency runes, they fall behind into "do not cast" territory, kinda immediately if you're playing a Lvl 11-20 campaign.
(not going to hide the item bonus I've noticed. The alch item Fury Cocktail grants that generic attack bonus, and it's got the mutagen tag. If your PC can afford the 1 bulk Collar of the Shifting Spider, they can stock up on the outdated low level versions, and get that number at Potency par for 0 combat actions at affordable gp amounts. Beware the drawback though, as the hit to both AC and Reflex are very relevant considerations.)
|
Yeah I think the phrasing of the rule may have been polished a bit compared to the (premaster) OP. But basically attacks can be divided up along:
Type: weapon, unarmed or spell attacks
Distance: melee or ranged attacks
As far as I can tell those lines are mutually exclusive; there are/were a few leftover cases of spells that made weapons that were sort of in the gray area but I think most of those got tidied up. But any of the types can be combined with either of the distances. We have examples of ranged unarmed attacks (leshy seedpod), melee spell attacks etc.
That does mean that the Fury Cocktail would work on melee spells, which is definitely a surprising thing, because an item bonus to spell attack to hit is exceedingly rare. It looks a bit like an oversight to me that it's possible. But the drawback is pretty significant, so it's not something I think is really bad for game balance.
What is rather interesting is to see all the different ways that designers have worded their bonuses to avoid generic "attack roll" buffs.
There's the "Dexterity based" example from above,
a whole bunch of effects that do buff generic attack rolls, but only for a targeted weapon,
even effects that boost "weapon and unarmed" attack rolls, neatly excluding spells.
There are a couple of generic attack roll boosts sprinkled around that would help spell attacks, but they are usually contextual abilities or feats that follow up some previous hit/condition to empower your next attack, or to render the foe more vulnerable to your next attack.
Meaning, these generics are not item bonuses. Fury Cocktail is genuinely alone, which I guess actually does fit with Treasure Vault being the one book that really seemed to understand where a lot of the pf2 pain points lie, and snuck as many band-aid items into the game as it could.
The mutagen collar, thrower's bandolier, even the injection trait itself (inject beneficial liquids at touch for 1A total) all are Treasure Vault additions.
And so many of these seem to hide their unique use-case from any speed reader, as if the writer/s were hoping to slip key enabling item benefits past any Paizo overseers undetected.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
There is only one kind of Spell Attack Roll.
The spell attack itself can be ranged or melee or even something else entirely, but you will only ever be making the same kind of roll.
I'm going with this.
Melee attack roll is a physical attack roll that uses your STR modifier by default.
Ranged attack roll is a physical attack roll that uses your DEX modifier by default.
Spell attack roll is a magical attack roll that uses your spellcasting attribute modifier.
Calling something a 'melee spell attack' is a shorthand for "a spell attack for a spell effect made at melee range". Similarly, a 'ranged spell attack' is a shorthand for "a spell attack for a spell effect that has a range farther than melee range".
This means that a "+2 item bonus to melee attack rolls" does indeed enhance melee spell attack rolls, right?
If something modifies "melee attack rolls", then it only modifies melee attack rolls. It doesn't modify spell attack rolls no matter what range they use.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Note that that's also a requirement for spells like Gouging Claw and Ignition to actually be able to benefit from flanking.
Then that would indicate that Gouging Claw and Ignition would, by RAW, not benefit from flanking.
Going against the way that you want the rules to work or the way that you have been running the game for a long time doesn't mean that the rules say something different than what they say.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Wow the text is frustrating to dig through on attack rolls, as it initially handwaives "Spell attack rolls work a little bit differently,"
but I was able to find a good enough paragraph in the player core pg 303https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2248
Some spells require you to succeed at a spell attack roll to affect the target. This is usually because they require you to precisely aim a ray or otherwise make an accurate attack. A spell attack roll is compared to the target’s AC. Spell attack rolls benefit from any bonuses or penalties to attack rolls, including your multiple attack penalty, but not any special benefits or penalties that apply only to weapon or unarmed attacks. Spell attacks don’t deal any damage beyond what’s listed in the spell description. In rare cases, a spell might have you make some other type of attack, such as a weapon Strike. Such attacks use the normal rules and attack bonus for that type of attack.
Thanks to both the "yes apply these" and the "don't apply those" text, IMO a buff to "melee attack rolls" would definitely include melee spell attack rolls.
This text does make it clear that spell attack rolls do exclude weapon & unarmed. Those are the 3 "types of attack" that are mutually exclusive, so the use of any word can exclude the others.
Which leaves the melee/ranged as a valid way to refer to a sub-grouping of all 3 attack roll types, weapon, unarmed, and spell. A mention of a "ranged/melee attack roll" does *not* have any bearing on the weapon/unarmed/spell attack typing.
But goddamn, that other "attack rolls" text on PC pg 402 is a hot mess.
|
So, we have 3 mutually exclusive categories for attacks with attack rolls:
1) Melee attack
Which has 2 mutually exclusive subcategories:
1.a) Melee weapon attack
1.b) Melee unarmed attack
2) Ranged attack
Which has 2 mutually exclusive subcategories:
2.a) Ranged weapon attack
2.b) Ranged unarmed attack
3) Spell attack
Which has 2 mutually exclusive subcategories:
3.a) Ranged spell attack
3.b) Melee spell attack
There does seem to be some cross over effect though.
If a prone character takes cover they get the bonus against ranged attacks.
I have treated this as affecting all attack rolls if done from range including spell attack rolls.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
So,what about flanking in this scheme? Because I think it must work. Melee? Melee. Against AC? Yes. Off-guard, then.
As a reference: "A creature is off-guard (taking a –2 circumstance penalty to AC) to melee attacks from creatures that are flanking it."
It feels like the only sensible outcome to grant off guard. Ignition for example specifically has a "melee" version that says "melee spell attack". Telling a player that what is explicitly a melee spell attack doesn't get flanking because it's not a "melee attack" is a ridiculous outcome that feels bad.
Things make a lot more sense if you simply read it as spell attacks are also either melee or ranged and apply modifiers appropriately. Because the alternative is the rulebook having to call out things like "gain a bonus against ranged attacks and ranged spell attacks", which is going to be a lot of redundant page space with how many times it'd be repeated.
A creature is off-guard (taking a –2 circumstance penalty to AC) to melee attacks from creatures that are flanking it.
If you want to say that flanking applies to spell attacks made at melee range because of this rule, that is a reasonable argument to make. The spell effect is an attack, and it is one at melee range. The rule requires a melee attack.
That all checks out reasonably well.
But stop trying to say that a "Melee Spell Attack Roll" somehow becomes a type of Melee Attack Roll instead of being a Spell Attack Roll.
Remember...
there are three main types: melee attack rolls, ranged attack rolls, and spell attack rolls.
Those types of attack rolls are distinct and separate. You can't change a spell attack roll into a melee attack roll any more than you can change a melee attack roll into a ranged attack roll.
It sounds like the distinction of attack roll types is for a purpose and that purpose is not related to determining flanking or whether to apply things like the prone take cover bonus. They are likely designations meant to help understand what kinds of formula to use for the role and may just be that.
It sounds like the distinction of attack roll types is for a purpose and that purpose is not related to determining flanking or whether to apply things like the prone take cover bonus. They are likely designations meant to help understand what kinds of formula to use for the role and may just be that.
Hard to make that the distinction since these things that you are referencing are adjusting the formulas used for calculating the roll.
If something adds a bonus to melee attack rolls only, then it doesn't apply to ranged attack rolls. And it wouldn't apply to spell attack rolls either. Not even the spell attack rolls made at melee range.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It sounds like the distinction of attack roll types is for a purpose and that purpose is not related to determining flanking or whether to apply things like the prone take cover bonus. They are likely designations meant to help understand what kinds of formula to use for the role and may just be that.
Yeah that's what it looks like to me. They say on page 402 they're gonna start by explaining melee and ranged and explain spell attacks later because they're not so simple.
Which is true: melee is mostly strength, ranged is all dex. They then talk about how spell attacks from your spellcasting tradition (key attribute) are different from innate spells (charisma, usually but not always) or focus spells (often NOT your key attribute, for example for champions with domain spells). And it might vary by source if you're taking some spellcasting archetypes with different key stats too.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So, we have 3 mutually exclusive categories for attacks with attack rolls:
1) Melee attack
Which has 2 mutually exclusive subcategories:
1.a) Melee weapon attack
1.b) Melee unarmed attack2) Ranged attack
Which has 2 mutually exclusive subcategories:
2.a) Ranged weapon attack
2.b) Ranged unarmed attack3) Spell attack
Which has 2 mutually exclusive subcategories:
3.a) Ranged spell attack
3.b) Melee spell attack
Nope.
No where does it say mutually exclusive.
The rules never say distinct and separate.
The various subcategories can co exist and overlap - because the rules text uses it sometimes, eg Ignition cantrip. But what a melee spell attack is is not defined, we are left to guess.
The rules are in natural language.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
As frustrating as Paizo's writing can be at times like this, that text first splits attacks into those 3 groupings of melee, ranged, and spell, only to then directly hand-wave spell attacks as something different to be talked about later.
That text is all about how to roll and what stat applies, which is why it splits the categories that way, by STR, DEX, and ???(spell stat).
________________
The issue you run into is that we cannot have terms like "ranged attack" exclude spell attacks by default, else we become special-pleading hypocrites.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Conditions.aspx?ID=88
You're lying on the ground. You are off-guard and take a –2 circumstance penalty to attack rolls. The only move actions you can use while you're prone are Crawl and Stand. Standing up ends the prone condition. You can Take Cover while prone to hunker down and gain greater cover against ranged attacks, even if you don't have an object to get behind, which grants you a +4 circumstance bonus to AC against ranged attacks (but you remain off-guard).
No one is going to deny that AC bonus to ranged spell attacks.
As far as actually laying out mechanistic rules goes, attacks are more helpfully categorized between weapon, unarmed, and spell. After establishing "what" you later then ask "how" one is making the attack to figure which stat is a part of the roll, melee vs ranged.
Note that it is more important to first check the weapon/unarmed/spell detail first, for considerations of compatibility like Handwraps or weapon-only buffs, and then check the melee/ranged binary split for more narrow considerations like adding STR vs DEX to the roll.
_______________
And as indicated on the text specifically about spell attacks, they do consider bonuses and penalties to attack rolls, just not those bonuses that specifically mention weapon or unarmed attacks. This is why a split between weapon / unarmed / spell is imo much more useful. An unarmed or weapon attack can never be a spell attack by default, and because of that hard split, any use of "weapon attack" will deny spell attacks, etc.
... Spell attack rolls benefit from any bonuses or penalties to attack rolls, including your multiple attack penalty, but not any special benefits or penalties that apply only to weapon or unarmed attacks. ...
The whole point of "specific beats general" as an aphorism is for cases like this.
____________
It's silly to pretend that when we read "ranged attack rolls" that it excludes ranged spell attacks. We know that's not true, so much so that a quick AoN search tops with the new Curse of Recoil spell providing yet more evidence of spell attacks being 1/3 types included by the generic term.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=2498
Trigger: An enemy you can see is about to make a ranged attack....
Critical Failure: The recoil imposes a –2 status penalty to the ranged attack and renders the target off-guard until the beginning of their next turn. Until the start of their next turn, any additional ranged attacks made with the same weapon, spell, or ability take the same penalty.
This is getting frustrating, if you actually cared about finding the truth of this and not confirming your prior position, you'd be finding examples like this one.
The Trigger of generic ranged attack, *and* a specific mention to force the acceptance of spell attacks being a part of that generic term.
It took less than 30 sec to find, and it's the perfect evidence to present for this.
I am guessing its a similar kind of distinction that exists between what an attack is considered and what an attack roll is considered.
Like MAP applies to all attacks.
things that apply to ranged attacks apply to all ranged attacks regardless if they are ranged attack rolls or spell attack rolls.
I guess if an example can be shown where the language says it applies only to ranged attack rolls maybe in that case it wont apply to all ranged attacks.
And certainly something that said it only applies to spell attack rolls would not apply to all ranged attacks.
Something that said it applies to spell attacks would apply to any spell attack roll
But are there examples that dont work with this conception?
There really isn't any such distinction between an attack and its attack roll that exists to my knowledge, other than the attack is a check with the attack trait and an attack roll is a type of check against the targets defences (typically AC). The attack roll(type of check) is part of the attack(the actual check) and cannot be separated, With MAP explicitly applying to the check of the attack.
The RAW in quite a few places in the book and further explained in errata is
So separating the attack and roll is frankly pointless outside of the above example of SkillChecks....Page 446: Attack Rolls. There was some confusion as to whether skill checks with the attack trait (such as Grapple or Trip) are also attack rolls at the same time. They are not. To make this clear, add this sentence to the beginning of the definition of attack roll "When you use a Strike action or make a spell attack, you attempt a check called an attack roll."
To clarify the different rules elements involved:
An attack is any check that has the attack trait. It applies and increases the multiple attack penalty.
An attack roll is one of the core types of checks in the game (along with saving throws, skill checks, and Perception checks). They are used for Strikes and spell attacks, and traditionally target Armor Class.
Some skill actions have the attack trait, specifically Athletics actions such as Grapple and Trip. You still make a skill check with these skills, not an attack roll.
The multiple attack penalty applies on those skill actions as well. As it says later on in the definition of attack roll "Striking multiple times in a turn has diminishing returns. The multiple attack penalty (detailed on page 446) applies to each attack after the first, whether those attacks are Strikes, special attacks like the Grapple action of the Athletics skill, or spell attack rolls." There is inaccurate language in the Multiple Attack Penalty section implying it applies only to attack rolls that will be receiving errata.
Kinda more narrow a view than I was going for but I see the logic your presenting.
basically all i am saying is that you can have a category like melee attack. It can include any kind of specific attack roll that is also a melee attack because it has a range of melee and you can still have functional specific attack roll categories that exist to delineate what kinds of formula to use for the roll.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I like to think of them as non-mutually-exclusive traits.
Attack, interacts with MAP
Roll, requires a d20 roll
Melee, reach range, probably uses strength
Ranged, longer range, probably uses dexterity
Spell, uses casting modifier
Mix and match.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I like to think of them as non-mutually-exclusive traits.
Attack, interacts with MAP
Roll, requires a d20 roll
Melee, reach range, probably uses strength
Ranged, longer range, probably uses dexterity
Spell, uses casting modifierMix and match.
This is definitely what works best. Trying to read these rules extremely literally just results in a bad time.
Also I like how we're already forgetting Impulses again. ;)
I allow flanking for any attack roll that goes against AC performed at melee range while in a flanking position because people can always qualify for flanking with feet or their head or whatever.
Bow user firing at melee range? Can flank and ill give the offguard bonus to them.
Same for any spell that is an attack roll against AC used at the same range for the same reason.
When you and an ally are flanking a foe, it has a harder time defending against you. A creature is off-guard (taking a –2 circumstance penalty to AC) to melee attacks from creatures that are flanking it.
Ugh, I had forgotten about that silly detail. Flanking does not actually inflict the off-guard condition, though it should.
It's instead a Schrodinger's condition that only exists for a creature in the process of making a melee attack, ending the moment the attack is over.
Just skimming through the thread, but it looks to me like part of the confusion is arising from treating melee, ranged, and spell attacks as distinct categories, when as Ravingdork mentions these effectively work like traits (though to be very clear: none of these are actual traits as used in PF2e): your attack roll can be made for a weapon attack, an unarmed attack, a spell attack, or an impulse attack if you're a Kineticist, and those to my knowledge are categories that are fully distinct from each other, but then each of those attacks can be melee or ranged. You can thus have melee spell attacks, ranged unarmed attacks, and so on, but never a melee ranged attack or an impulse weapon attack.
Ugh, I had forgotten about that silly detail. Flanking does not actually inflict the off-guard condition, though it should.
Flanking does inflict the off-guard condition, but the off-guard condition is special in that it can be relative: you can be off-guard only to certain attacks or only to certain creatures, just as you can simply be off-guard, period. This is something mentioned in the off-guard rules as well:
You're distracted or otherwise unable to focus your full attention on defense. You take a –2 circumstance penalty to AC. Some effects give you the off-guard condition only to certain creatures or against certain attacks. Others—especially conditions—can make you off-guard against everything. If a rule doesn't specify that the condition applies only to certain circumstances, it applies to all of them, such as “The target is off-guard.”
Emphasis added to the directly relevant bit. This makes the off-guard condition quite flexible in that it can be used to simulate blind spots, as with flanking, or apply only to certain types of attacks. This is also how conditions like observed, hidden, and undetected work, and in theory any condition could be made to work in the same way, even if in practice it's just a handful of conditions that are treated as relative.