why does my attack bonus change?

[le_goat]

So within the past week i've noticed my attack bonus changes randomly. This is not from moving around this is while standing still. My char is a lvl 4 paladin and i pull up the inventory screen and some times it's +3, then some time later its +10 then +5.etc. why does it change? is it a die roll that its based on? I mean i've seen it swing between +5 to +15.
while standing still. in a quest. by myself.no buffs.

just trying to understand whats going on.

[ArgentMage]

It's not random. When you attack, each attack in the sequence gets a different
attack bonus. If you pull up the panel and start attacking, you'll see the different
bonuses scroll by, and they repeat the pattern for each attack sequence.

The problem is that the UI doesn't reset back to your first attack bonus
when you stop swinging, it lists the bonus of the last attack you made, so it
can be any of the 2/3/4/5/6 attacks that you can make.

Anyway, just try it, you'll see.

[le_goat]

thanks for clearing that up.

[Dexol]

If its of interest to you, you can see the pallys attack bonus progression on the table in DDO wiki here: http://ddowiki.com/page/Paladin

for your L4 pally its +4/+4/+9

IIRC your attack number is your (attack bonus for that swing) + (weapon + modifier e.g. +3 khopesh) + (any miscilanius modifiers such as spells and items (GH or goggles of insight)) + (dice roll)

[thundla]

Very helpful. I've always wonder how that worked.

[unionyes]

It can be very helpful to know how your attack bonus progresses, so you can time one shot attacks to be on your higher bonus swings. Trip and Sunder are two that need to hit to work, and for Sunder especially if you are having trouble hitting a particular monster if you time your Sunder attack for your higher bonus swing you have a better chance of hitting it and reducing it's AC.