D20 Mechanic: Special Attack Options

This section expands upon the common types of special attacks, such as bull rush and charges.

Crush

You can attempt to make a crush attack as a standard action. When you make a crush attack, you are attempting to leverage your larger size and mass against a significantly smaller creature, dealing damage through stomping on it or otherwise using your body as a weapon.

The target creature must be at least two size categories smaller than you. If you are attempting to crush a swarm, the swarm's constituent creatures must be at least two sizes smaller than you, and you must be occupying at least one of the swarm's squares; swarms are not immune to the damage dealt by this effect.

When you make a crush attack, your size bonus or penalty is inverted for purposes of the attack roll. Thus a Large creature would get a +1, rather than a -1, to hit, while a Small creature would get a -1, rather than a +1.

If you hit, you deal an amount of bludgeoning damage dependent upon your size to the creature; if you are Medium, you deal 1d10 damage. Refer to this chart to determine your damage if you are larger or smaller. Add 1½ times your Strength bonus to your damage.

In addition, if the creature is at least three size categories smaller than you, not airborne, and not a swarm, you can make make a free grapple check against the creature; if you win, the creature is pinned, automatically taking bludgeoning damage during the next round unless you choose to move off them. If you chooses to maintain the pin, treat it as a normal grapple attack. Pinned opponents take damage from the crush each round if they don’t escape.

Example: Ehrgeiz is fighting a swarm of flightless scarabs. Only carrying a bastard sword, he decides to attempt to crush the bugs. As a standard action, he makes an attack roll against the swarm, and manages to hit; he deals 1d10+4 points of damage to the swarm, even if they would normally be immune to weapon damage.