Simultaneity of Attacks

[noeuphoria]

This has come up in our campaign both because of fireshield, and the Initiate of the 7 Veils' 'personal warding' ability. When someone makes a full attack, the attacks happen over time, correct? The question is this: if a fighter is hitting my wiz, who has fireshield, he takes damage for every hit. If the damage the fireshield gives him on his first attack kills him, he doesn't get the rest of his attacks, does he? Same thing applies, a dragon was hitting my initiate in melee and I had the green personal warding up. Needless to say, the dragon hit me twice, taking 1d6 con damage each time. The second set of con damage killed it, but the DM ruled the dragon's attacks all hit. Just wondering what would be an official ruling on this.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

If something dies in the middle of a full attack, the rest of its full attack doesn't happen.

Similarly, if something dies in the middle of the "Cast a Spell" action - like from, say, readied attacks - the spell does not go off.

 

[Hypersmurf]

When someone makes a full attack, the attacks happen over time, correct?

Full Attack
If you get more than one attack per round because your base attack bonus is high enough, because you fight with two weapons or a double weapon or for some special reason you must use a full-round action to get your additional attacks. You do not need to specify the targets of your attacks ahead of time. You can see how the earlier attacks turn out before assigning the later ones.

-Hyp.

 

[Shellman]

This has come up in our campaign both because of fireshield, and the Initiate of the 7 Veils' 'personal warding' ability. When someone makes a full attack, the attacks happen over time, correct? The question is this: if a fighter is hitting my wiz, who has fireshield, he takes damage for every hit. If the damage the fireshield gives him on his first attack kills him, he doesn't get the rest of his attacks, does he? Same thing applies, a dragon was hitting my initiate in melee and I had the green personal warding up. Needless to say, the dragon hit me twice, taking 1d6 con damage each time. The second set of con damage killed it, but the DM ruled the dragon's attacks all hit. Just wondering what would be an official ruling on this.

I am not familiar eith the personal warding effect; but if I understand you correctly, then the dragon would take 1d6 con damage every time he hit you with an attack.

If that is the case, then the dragon hit you if he also took the second set of 1d6 Con damage, becuase he can't take the Con damage if he didn't hit you first. Now if the first set of Con damage killed the Dragon, then his second attack couldn't have hit you.

This is we always resolve each attack as it happens in my gaming group.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

If that is the case, then the dragon hit you if he also took the second set of 1d6 Con damage, becuase he can't take the Con damage if he didn't hit you first. Now if the first set of Con damage killed the Dragon, then his second attack couldn't have hit you.

Dragons have a Claw / Claw / Bite / Wing / Wing / Tail attack routine.

The OP's protective warding killed the dragon after the Claw / Claw part. What the DM said is that the dragon, even though he's now dead, got to proceed with the Bite / Wing / Wing / Tail parts of his attack.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Dragons have a Claw / Claw / Bite / Wing / Wing / Tail attack routine.

Technically, it's Bite / Claw / Claw / Wing / Wing / Tail.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Technically, it's Bite / Claw / Claw / Wing / Wing / Tail.

Except that you can order your attacks:

If you get multiple attacks because your base attack bonus is high enough, you must make the attacks in order from highest bonus to lowest.

Since natural attacks are not "multiple attacks because your base attack bonus is high enough," you can take them in any order.

 

[jgsugden]

In reality, there is a big difference between attacking with five different natural weapons and attacking with the same weapon five times.

If I leap on you in a wild frenzy, kicking at you with both legs, punching you with both fists and slamming you with my head, it is theoretically possible for me to hit you with all five attacks simultaneously. Theoretically. T H E O R E T I C A L L Y. Thus, I can see a possibility, using real world logic, for a dragon to hit with all 5 natural attacks simultaneously.

However, in the real world, it is not possible for me to swing a sword at you five times and hit you with all five strikes simultaneously. The weapon can't attack at the same time in five different instances.

Importantly, the rules of D&D do not capture this difference. In D&D, everything is sequential. Nothing is simultaneous. Even a lion's pounce attacks are sequential. If 1,000,000 orcs are facing off against an army of 500,000 elves, and the orcs are all firing bows, it is possible, over a six second period, in the D&D rules, for each orc to wait and see if the proceeding orc's arrow kills his foe before choosing his target.

However, I do think it perfectly reasonable for a DM to rule that attacks from different sources can or must be performed simultaneously. I know I'd force those orcs to chopose their targets before they knew the result of the other orc's shots ...

 

[the Jester]

Since natural attacks are not "multiple attacks because your base attack bonus is high enough," you can take them in any order.

Ooh, interesting.

I seem to recall something about primary natural attacks always being primary, though- I'm not sure where that is stated (MM? MM3? FF?) but am pretty sure I've seen it. I guess that means a dragon could choose to claw first and bite second, but its bite would still have its full BAB and its claw would still be at a -5 (or -2 with Multiattack).

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I seem to recall something about primary natural attacks always being primary, though- I'm not sure where that is stated (MM? MM3? FF?) but am pretty sure I've seen it. I guess that means a dragon could choose to claw first and bite second, but its bite would still have its full BAB and its claw would still be at a -5 (or -2 with Multiattack).

That's correct. Primary natural attacks are always primary natural attacks (except when they're not!*) and secondary natural attacks are always secondary natural attacks (and there's no exceptions that I know of).

That means that a dragon can claw on an AoO, but since claw is a secondary natural attack, he still suffers the -5 penalty (-2 with Multiattack) on to-hit rolls and only applies .5 Str damage.

* - Primary natural attacks are treated as secondary natural attacks whenever they are mixed with manufactured weapons. If, for instance, the dragon picked up a sword and started swinging it, his bite would be treated as a secondary natural attack during any round he used the sword.

For the rules on this, check the SRD under Monsters: Types, Subtypes, and Special Abilities.