When determining an outcome in combat, you use a formula. The most common formulas are Offensive, Defensive, and Damage. These formulas usually consist of three parts:

• Ability bonus - derived from modifier of the ability or abilities included in the formula
• Base bonus - Base Attack or Base Defense Bonus
• Dice bonus - How many dice are rolled

The dice bonus is calculated in different ways, depending on the formula:

When calculating damage or hit point formulas, the value of the dice is taken at face value. Dice is rolled and the result is summed and then added to the formula

• Example: Your Damage formula is Strength x 2 + 3d6. Your Strength modifier is +4 and you roll the result [3,6,2]. Your damage is [4]+[11]= 15

When using Offensive and Defensive formulas to determine if and where an attack hit, the dice are rolled and any dice that comes up as a “4”, “5”, or “6” is counted as one point and added to the formula

• Example: Your Offensive formula is Attack Bonus + Dex + 5d6. Your BAB is 4, and your Dex modifier is +3. You roll five dice and the result is [5,3,4,2,1]. You count the “5”, and the “4” from this result and your final result is [4]+[3]+[2]= 9

Normally, when a talent has an improvement available, the cost of that improvement is shown by the number of squares in the description:

□ Increase the range by five feet (Costs one talent point)
□□ Increase the duration of the Base Bonus by 1 round (Costs two talent points)

Talent improvements that improve the dice bonus do not follow this rule. The first time you select the improvement, the cost is two, but subsequent improvements incur increasing costs. These costs are for improving the dice bonus, and do not consider any dice included in the base formula

Example
Your base formula for hit is Attack Bonus + Dex + 2d6. You wish to increase the dice bonus by 4d6, which costs you 20 points. Your formula is now: Attack Bonus + Dex + 6d6

When improving the dice bonus of an offensive, defensive, or damage formula in an advent class, the cost starts at 10 talent points and increases as you purchase additional dice following the table below