Dungeon Master: The Dungeons and Dragons, 5th Edition is out. You are all set with your characters, powers, strengths and weaknesses in place.
Now, you have filled up the character sheet as well, but you encounter something!
Something big and unknown walks to wards you! Gasp! Oh no!
It’s the Attack Bonus!
So, dear brave adventurers, how will you tackle this problem?
The first step is to understand and gather information about your enemy.
What exactly is this ‘Attack Bonus’?
Dungeons and Dragon is a multiplayer role-playing game that gives you the complete freedom to do and be who you are.
There is no winning, no losing; just experiencing and exploring the world that the Dungeon Master creates for the players.
Each player has to create a character for them to play as. You can choose and customize everything from race to pets to clothing to abilities.
These details must be filled in character sheets to keep track of your progress and what your character can and cannot do.
These sheets can be freely downloaded from the Official D&D website or just this link:
https://dnd.wizards.com/charactersheets
The Attack Bonus in the middle of Starter Set Character Sheets is added to attack rolls.
Mind you, to attack rolls only and not damage rolls!
Second step, how is this bonus calculated?
Each character has 6 abilities, Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma, Wisdom and Intelligence.
All of these are assigned certain values in the beginning based on their race or weapons or other character traits.
Each ability comes with its specific ‘Ability Modifier’.
This modifier is different for different skills, strength for Melee skills and Dexterity for Ranged skills).
Now, your character will get a bonus if they are proficient with certain weapons. .
This combined with the abilities of your character gives you the attack bonus.
So, your Attack Bonus = Ability Modifier + Proficiency Bonus
Third Step, let’s try and understand with an example:
Let’s take the character, Rolen. Rolen is a high elf wizard. A high elf wizard is more an intelligence based character than a strength based one.
High Elves are proficient in using a longsword, a shortsword, longbow and shortbow.
Wizards have a Proficiency in using Daggers, darts, slings, quarterstaffs, light crossbows.
So, here our Attack Bonus would be proficiency bonus of using, let’s say, light crossbows which +2 at Level 1 and Ability Modifier for Intelligence would be +3, giving you an attack bonus of +5 at Level 1.
As you level increases, so will your proficiency and with it, your attack bonus.
