-- combat -- facing --

Facing

It is important that facing be considered in combat. You can attack any character in front of you without a penalty, or to your sides with a -4 to hit penalty, or there is a -10 to hit penalty to trying to hit behind you.

In order to change your facing, you will need to use your free action. You can only get one free action per turn, so if you change your facing, you cannot change it again in the same turn.

An opponent attacking you from the sides (flanks) gets a +2 bonus to hit on you, and when they attack from behind, they get a +4 bonus to hit.

Perceptions matter a lot when it is applied to the direction that you are facing. This is more of a roleplaying challenge than anything, because you have to be a bit more honest about your ability to see, and also to perceive, what happens.

For example, you wouldn’t necessarily see a door cracking open if it is behind you, but you might hear the sound. Honesty comes into play when you have to determine if your character would actually put together a squeaky sound in a room with the door opening behind you.

Spot checks also take a penalty based off of facing. If you are spotting something on your sides (flanks), you take a -4 penalty, and if you are trying to spot something behind you, you take a -10 penalty. This can be eliminated by taking the Combat Awareness feat.

Some creatures are considered “faceless” – these creatures are things that have no assigned front and back, they can perceive thing in any direction. Examples of these creatures are oozes, elementals, assassin vines, mimic, phantasm, will-o’-wisp, and octopus. Tiny and smaller creatures don’t have facings, because of their size.

Some feats that are helpful when it comes to facing are –

Cleave and Great Cleave: the extra attacks granted by these feats can be made into flank areas without penalty, as well as into front areas.
Combat Reflexes: make attacks of opportunity into flank areas without penalty.
Improved Uncanny Dodge: No attacker gets the +2 bonus for attacking into your flank areas, or the +4 for hitting you from behind. Only a rogue of four levels higher than you can deal sneak attack damage by attacking from a rear square.
Mounted Combat: while mounted, you can attack into your steed’s flank areas without penalty.
Whirlwind Attack: you can attack into any area without penalties.

Spellcasters can only cast spell from their front sections, not from the rear. Common sense. If something can use an attack that originates from the side of their bodies, such as dragon wing attacks, they don’t take penalties. Also, if they have something like a tail attack (something that comes from the rear of the creature) don’t have penalties.