WHETHER IT’S a skirmish against a handful of orcs or an all-out battle with Orcus, Demon Prince of the Undead, combat is a staple of a Steller Winds adventure. Combat encounters usually begin when you enter an area containing monsters. Sometimes the monsters enter your area instead—when werewolves attack your camp at night, for example—or you and the monsters stumble upon each other. You might meet on a road, or you might be exploring a dungeon when you run into a hostile patrol.This chapter details the rules for combat.
✦ The Combat Sequence: The sequence of rounds and turns that make up a battle. Includes rules for rolling initiative.
✦ Action Types: The different types of actions that you can take on your turn and on other combatants’ turns.
✦ Taking Your Turn: What to do at the start of your turn, during your turn, and at the end of your turn.
✦ Attacks and Defenses: How to choose a target,make an attack roll, deal damage, inflict various effects on your enemies, and make saving throws.
✦ Attack Modifiers: Various factors that affect attack rolls, including combat advantage, cover, and concealment.
✦ Movement and Position: Rules for speed,creature size, difficult terrain, obstacles, flanking,teleportation, and forced movement.
✦ Actions in Combat: The most common actions in a battle, from spending an action point to walking.
✦ Healing: Rules on hit points, healing surges,temporary hit points, and regeneration.
✦Wounds, Death and Dying: What happens when you drop to 0 hit points or fewer and how to escape death.
The Combat Sequence
A typical combat encounter is a clash between two sides, a flurry of weapon swings, feints, parries, footwork,and spell casting. The DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game organizes the chaos of combat into a cycle of rounds and turns.
ROUNDS AND TURNS
✦ Round: In a round, every combatant takes a turn.A round represents about 6 seconds in the game world.✦ Turn: On your turn, you take actions: a standard action, a move action, a minor action, and any number of free actions, in any order you wish. See“Action Types,” page 267, for what you can do with these different actions.The actions in a combat encounter happen almost simultaneously in the game world, but to make combat manageable, combatants take turns acting—like taking turns in a board game. If your turn comes up before an enemy’s, your actions take place before the enemy’s actions do. The order of turns is determined at the beginning of a combat encounter, when combatants roll initiative. A combat encounter follows these steps:
1. Determine surprise. The DM determines whether any combatants are surprised. If any combatants notice enemy combatants without being noticed in return, the aware combatants gain a surprise round.
2. Establish positions. The DM decides where the combatants are positioned on the battle grid. For example, if the PCs have just opened a door into room, the DM might draw or arrange a depiction of the door and the room on the battle grid and then ask the players to arrange their miniatures near the door. Then the DM places miniatures that represent the monsters in the room.
Counting Distance: When counting the distance from one square to another, start counting from any
adjacent square (even one that is diagonally adjacent
but around a corner) and then count around solid
obstacles that fill their squares. You must choose the
most direct path to a target when counting squares for
range or when determining the extent of an area of
effect.
3. Roll initiative. Everyone involved in a combat encounter rolls initiative, determining the order of combatants’ turns. You roll initiative only at the beginning of a combat encounter.
4. Take surprise round actions. If any combatants gained a surprise round, they act in initiative order,each one taking a single action. (Surprised combatant stake no actions during the surprise round.)The surprise round then ends, and the first regular round of combat begins.5. Take turns. In initiative order, every combatant takes a turn, which includes various actions.(Combatants can also take certain actions on one another’s turns.)
6. Begin the next round. When every combatant has had a turn, the round ends. Begin the next round with the combatant who has the highest initiative.
7. End the encounter. Repeat steps 5 and 6 until the the combatants on one side are captured, fleeing, unconscious, or dead. The encounter ends when the other side then takes a short rest or an extended rest.
Initiative
Before the first round of combat, you roll initiative. Rolling initiative is a Dexterity check and follows the normal rules for ability checks. The DM rolls initiative
for your enemies. Throughout a battle, combatants act in order, from highest initiative result to lowest. The order in which combatants take their turns is called the initiative order. The initiative order remains the same from round to round, although a combatant’s position in the order can change after delaying or readying an action.
ROLLING INITIATIVE To determine a combat encounter’s initiative order, roll initiative. To do so, make a Dexterity check. Roll 1d20 and add the following: ✦ One-half your level ✦ Your Dexterity modifier ✦ Any bonuses or penalties that apply The result is your initiative for this encounter. |
When combatants have the same initiative, the combatant with the higher initiative bonus (the total of one-half your level, your Dexterity modifier, and any bonuses) goes before the other. If their bonuses are the same, they can roll a die or flip a coin to break the tie.
The Surprise Round
Some battles begin with a surprise round. A surprise round occurs if any combatants are unaware of enemy combatants’ presence or hostile intentions. For
example, if you fail your Perception check to notice concealed enemies, you’re surprised. Or if suppose dallies spring an attack and you failed your Insight check to notice the attackers’ traitorous intentions,you’re surprised. But if any of your allies made their perception or Insight checks, they’re not surprised.When any combatants achieve surprise, they act in initiative order during the surprise round. Surprised combatants don’t act at all during the surprise round.
THE SURPRISE ROUND Two special rules apply to the surprise round. ✦ Limited Action: If you get to act in the surprise round, you can take a standard action, a move action, or a minor action (see “Action Types”). You can also take free actions, but you can’t spend action points. After every nonsurprised combatant has acted, the surprise round ends, and you can act normally in subsequent rounds. ✦ Surprised: If you’re surprised, you can’t take any |
Action Types
A combat round is made up of actions. Firing a shot, casting a spell, running across a room, opening a door—each of these activities, along with many others,is considered an action. You use different action types to do different things. For example, most attack powers are standard actions, and moving from one spot on the battlefield to another is normally a move action. (A few powers don’t require an action to use.)
The Main Action Types
A typical combat round includes actions of four types: standard actions, move actions, minor actions, and free actions.
THE MAIN ACTION TYPES
✦ Standard Action: Standard actions are the core of ✦ Move Action: Move actions involve movement from ✦ Minor Action: Minor actions are enabling actions, ✦ Free Action: Free actions take almost no time or |
Triggered Action Types
Two action types—opportunity actions and immediate actions—require triggers. A trigger is an action, an event, or an effect that allows you to use a triggered action. (Some powers require a trigger but are free actions or aren’t actions at all.)
OPPORTUNITY ACTION
✦ Trigger: Opportunity actions allow you to take an ✦ Once per Combatant’s Turn: You can take no ✦ Interrupts Action: An opportunity action interrupts |
There are two kinds of immediate actions: interrupts and reactions. Certain rules govern all immediate actions, whether they’re immediate interrupts or immediate reactions.
IMMEDIATE ACTION
✦ Trigger: Each immediate action—usually a ✦ Once per Round: You can take only one immediate ✦ Interrupt: An immediate interrupt lets you jump ✦ Reaction: An immediate reaction lets you act in An immediate reaction might interrupt other For example, if a power lets you attack as an immediate |
Taking Your Turn
When your turn comes up in the initiative order, it’s time for you to act. Your turn has three parts: the start of your turn, the actions on your turn, and the end of your turn.
The Start of Your Turn
Before you act, you keep track of certain effects. The start of your turn always takes place, even if you’re unconscious, and it takes no time in the game world.
THE START OF YOUR TURN ✦ Ongoing Damage: If you’re suffering ongoing damage, you take the damage now. ✦ Regeneration: If you have regeneration, you regain hit points now. ✦ Other Effects: Deal with any other effects that occur at the start of your turn. ✦ End Effects: Some effects end automatically at the start of your turn. ✦ No Actions: You can’t take any actions at the start of your turn. |
On your turn, you can take a move action or a minor action instead of a standard action, and you can take a minor action instead of a move action. Because you can substitute actions in this way, the three actions you get on your turn (in addition to any free actions) can vary. Option A Standard Action Move Action Minor Action Option B Option C Option D Option E |
Actions on Your Turn
During your turn, you can take a few actions. You decide what to do with each, considering how your actions can help you and your allies achieve victory. See “Action Types,” above, for definitions of the different actions you can take.
ACTIONS ON YOUR TURN
✦ Your Actions: You get the following three actions ✦ Free Actions: You can take any number of free ✦ Any Order: You can take your actions in any order ✦ Substitute Actions: You can take a move action or ✦ Extra Action: You can take an extra action by ✦ Other Combatants’ Actions: Other combatants |
The End of Your Turn
After you act, you keep track of any effects that stop at the end of your turn or that continue. The end of your turn always takes place, even if you’re unconscious, and it takes no time in the game world.
THE END OF YOUR TURN ✦ Saving Throws: You now make a saving throw (page 279) against any effect on you that a save can end. ✦ Check Actions Spent: Some powers and effects can be sustained for multiple turns (see “Durations,”) Check that you spent the action required to sustain a power or an effect during your turn. If you didn’t spend the action, the power or effect ends now. ✦ End Effects: Some effects end automatically at the end of your turn. ✦ No Actions: You can’t take any actions at the end of your turn. |
Actions on Other Turns Most of your actions take place on your turn. But you can take free actions on anyone’s turn, and an event or another combatant’s actions might provide an opportunity for you to take an immediate action or an opportunity action on someone else’s turn. See “Action Types,” above, for definitions of the different actions you can take. |
Attacks & Defenses
Battles in the Stellar Winds game are won through cleverly chosen attacks, able defenses, and luck. On a typical turn, you’ll use your standard action to make an attack, whether you’re a stalwart fighter, a wily rogue, or a devout cleric. And your defenses will be frequently tested by your foes’ attacks. When you attack, you make an attack roll to determine whether your attack hits your target. You roll a d20, add a bonus for whatever attack you’re using, and compare the result to one of the target’s four defenses:
Armor Class, Fortitude, Reflex, or Will. Each character has a number of attacks to choose from, including a basic attack. The exact attacks you have available depend on which powers you select for your character (see Chapter 4).
MAKING AN ATTACK
All attacks follow the same basic process: 2. Choose targets for the attack. Each target 3. Make an attack roll. 4. Compare your attack roll to the target’s defense 5. Deal damage and apply other effects. |
Attack Types
Attacks in the Stellar Winds world take many forms. A fighter swings a great sword at a foe. A star ranger takes a shot at a distant target. A dragon exhales a blast of fire. A wizard creates a burst of lightning. These examples illustrate the four attack types: melee, ranged, close, and area.
Melee Attack
A melee attack usually uses a weapon and targets one enemy within your melee reach (your reach is usually determined by the weapon you’re wielding). Attacking with a longsword or a pole arm is a melee attack. Some powers allow you to make multiple melee attacks, against either multiple enemies or a single enemy.
MELEE ATTACK
✦ Targeted: Melee attacks target individuals. A melee ✦ Range: A melee attack’s range usually equals your ✦ Reach: Most characters have a reach of 1 square. |
Simply wielding a weapon in each hand doesn’t allow you to make two attacks in a round. If you hold two melee weapons, you can use either one to make a melee attack.
Ranged Attack
A ranged attack is a strike against a distant target. A ranged attack usually targets one creature within its range. Shooting a gun or bow or casting a magic missile is a
ranged attack.
Ranged Attack
RANGED ATTACK
✦ Targeted: Ranged attacks target individuals. ✦ Range: Some powers set a specific range (“Ranged Long Range: If you use a ranged weapon and ✦ Provoke Opportunity Attacks: If you use a ranged |
Close AttackA close attack is an area of effect that comes directly Close attacks include two basic categories of |
CLOSE ATTACK
✦ Area of Effect: A close attack creates an area of ✦ Origin Square: A close attack’s area of effect ✦ Multiple Attack Rolls but One Damage Roll: If you’re using a projectile weapon to make a |
Area Attack
Area attacks are similar to close attacks, except that
the origin square can be some distance away from
you. An area attack’s area of effect sets the shape of
the attack and the targets it affects. A ball of fire that
streaks across the battlefield and explodes is an example
of an area attack. A magical wall of fog that springs
from the ground to obscure a dungeon corridor is
another example.
Area attacks include two categories of powers:
projectiles that detonate in their origin squares and
effects that appear far away from you and fill an area.
AREA ATTACK ✦ Area of Effect: An area attack creates an area of effect, usually a burst or a wall, within range. An area attack affects certain targets within its area of effect, which has a certain size. An area attack’s area of effect, range, and targets are specified in its power description (see Chapter 4). ✦ Origin Square: You choose a square within an area ✦ Multiple Attack Rolls but One Damage Roll: If you’re using a projectile weapon to make an ✦ Provoke Opportunity Attacks: If you use an area ✦ Wall: A wall fills a specified number of contiguous |
Choosing Targets
If you want to use a power against an enemy, the enemy must be within the range of your power, and you have to be able to target the enemy. Many powers allow you to target multiple enemies. Each of these enemies must be an eligible target.
When you use a melee attack or a ranged attack, you can target a square instead of an enemy. This tactic is useful when an enemy has total concealment and you have to guess its location.
Range
The first step in choosing targets for an attack is to check the attack’s range. Range is the distance from you to a target (or to the attack’s origin square). The range of each power is noted in its description. To determine the range between you and a target, count the number of squares between you, including at least one square that the target occupies. If a target’s space is larger than 1 square, you can target that enemy if any square of its space is within range or within the area of effect of your attack.
Counting Distance: When counting the distance from one square to another, start counting from any adjacent square (even one that is diagonally adjacent but around a corner) and then count around solid obstacles that fill their squares. You must choose the most direct path to a target when counting squares for range or when determining the extent of an area of effect.
Adjacent Squares: Two squares are adjacent if a side or a corner of one touches a side or a corner of the other. Two creatures or objects are adjacent if one of
them occupies a square adjacent to a square occupied by the other.
Nearest Creature or Square: To determine the nearest creature or square to you, count distance normally. When two or more squares or creatures are equally close, you can pick either one as the nearest.
Personal: When you use a power with a range of personal, you affect only yourself. Examples include creating magic armor on yourself or giving yourself the ability to fly.
Seeing and Targeting
Cluttered dungeon chambers, dense forests, or brooding ruins offer plenty of places for your enemies to hide. Figuring out whether you can see and target a particular enemy from where you’re standing is often important.
Line of Sight: The first question is what you can see in an encounter area—that is, what is in your line of sight. To determine whether you can see a target, pick a corner of your space and trace an imaginary line from that corner to any part of the target’s space. You can see the target if at least one line doesn’t pass through or touch an object or an effect—such as a wall, a thick curtain, or a cloud of fog—that blocks your vision. Even if you can see a target, objects and effects can still partially block your view. If you can see
a target but at least one line passes through an obstruction, the target has cover or concealment. You can see a gnoll archer crouching behind a rock wall, but the wall makes him more difficult to hit, because the wall gives him cover. You can see a goblin standing at the edge of a fog cloud, but the fog makes him a shadowy figure, giving him concealment.
Line of Effect: You can target a creature or a square if there’s an unblocked path between it and you—that is, if you have line of effect to it. If every imaginary line you trace to a target passes through or touches a solid obstacle, you don’t have line of effect to the target. Fog, darkness, and other types of obscured squares block vision, but they don’t block line of effect. If you hurl a fireball into a pitch-black room, you don’t have to see your enemies for the fireball to hit them. In contrast, you can see through a transparent wall of magical force, but you don’t have line of effect through it. You can see the snarling demon on the other side, but the wall blocks attacks. You need line of effect to any target you attack and to any space in which you wish to create an effect. When you make an area attack, you need line of effect to the attack’s origin square. To hit a target with the
attack, there must be line of effect from the origin square to the target.
ATTACK BONUSES When you create your character, you should determine your base attack bonus for each power you know, including your basic attacks. Your base attack bonus for a power includes the following: ✦ One-half your level ✦ The ability score modifier used for the attack (the power you use specifies which ability) In addition, any of the following factors might apply to an attack’s base attack bonus: ✦ Your weapon’s proficiency bonus (if you’re using a weapon you’re proficient with) ✦ Racial or feat bonuses ✦ An enhancement bonus (usually from a magic weapon or an implement) ✦ An item bonus ✦ A power bonus ✦ Untyped bonuses |
Attack Roll
To determine whether an attack succeeds, you make an attack roll. You roll a d20 and add your base attack bonus for that power. A power’s base attack bonus measures your accuracy with that attack and is the total of all modifiers that normally apply to it.
ATTACK ROLL Roll 1d20 and add the following: ✦ The attack power’s base attack bonus ✦ Situational attack modifiers that apply ✦ Bonuses and penalties from powers affecting you |
The power you use dictates which ability modifier adds to your base attack bonus and which of your target’s defenses you compare the result against. For example:
Melee basic attack | Strength vs. AC |
Ranged basic attack | Dexterity vs. AC |
Stunning steel | Strength vs. Fortitude |
Fireball | Intelligence vs. Reflex |
Cause fear | Wisdom vs. Will |
Your base attack bonus can change temporarily in certain circumstances, such as when you’re affected by a power that gives you an attack bonus or penalty, when a feat or a magic item gives you a bonus in certain circumstances, or when attack modifiers apply.
ATTACK BONUSES
When you create your character, you should determine |
Traze, a 7th-level Human, wizard, attempts to hit three enemies with fireball, an Intelligence vs. Reflex attack. His attack roll against each target gets a +10 bonus, which includes +3 for one-half his level, his +5 Intelligence modifier, the +1 feat bonus from Hellfire Blood, and the +1 enhancement bonus from his +1 wand of witchfire. He could add a +2 bonus from his Wand of Accuracy class feature against one of his targets.
Defenses
Your ability to avoid injury and other ill effects is measured by four defenses: Armor Class, Fortitude, Reflex, and Will. Your defense scores rate how hard it is for an enemy to affect you with attacks.
Armor Class (AC) measures how hard it is for your enemies to land a significant blow on you with a weapon or a magical effect that works like a weapon. Some characters have a high AC because they are extremely quick or intelligent and able to dodge well, while other characters have a high AC because they wear heavy protective armor that is difficult to penetrate.
Fortitude measures the inherent toughness, mass, strength, and resilience of your physique. It is the key defense against attacks that include effects such as disease,
poison, and forced movement.
Reflex measures your ability to predict attacks or to deflect or dodge an attack. It’s useful against areas of effect such as dragon breath or a fireball spell.
Will is your defense against effects that daze, disorient, confuse, or overpower your mind. It measures your strength of will, self-discipline, and devotion.
DEFENSE SCORES You determine your defense scores as follows. ✦ Base Defense: All defenses start with 10 + one-half your level. ✦ Armor Class: Add the armor bonus of the armor ✦ Fortitude: Add your Strength modifier or Constitution ✦ Reflex: Add your Dexterity modifier or Intelligence ✦ Will: Add your Wisdom modifier or Charisma modifier, Also add any of the following that apply: |
Your defenses can change temporarily in certain circumstances— for instance, if you’re affected by a power or condition that increases or lowers your defense scores, or if a feat or a magic item gives you a bonus under certain circumstances.
BONUSES AND PENALTIES
Attack rolls, damage rolls, defenses, skill checks, and ability Bonuses: There’s one important rule for bonuses: Don’t An enhancement bonus augments your attack rolls and An item bonus is granted by certain magic items. The A racial bonus is granted by your race. An elf ’s Group Some bonuses are untyped (“a +2 bonus”). Most of these Penalties: Unlike bonuses, penalties don’t have types. A penalty might be effectively canceled by a bonus and |
Attack Results
You resolve an attack by comparing the total of your attack roll (1d20 + base attack bonus + attack modifiers) to the appropriate defense score. If your roll is higher than or equal to the defense score, you hit. Otherwise, you miss. When you hit, you usually deal damage and sometimes produce some other effect. When you’re using a power, the power description tells you what happens when you hit. Some descriptions also say what happens when you miss or when you score a critical hit.
ATTACK RESULTS
When you make an attack, compare your attack roll ✦ Hit: If the attack roll is higher than or equal to the Automatic Hit: If you roll a natural 20 (the die Critical Hit: If you roll a natural 20 (the die shows ✦ Miss: If your attack roll is lower than the defense ✦ Automatic Miss: If you roll a natural 1 (the die |
Damage
When you hit with an attack, you normally deal damage to your target, reducing the target’s hit points. The damage you deal depends on the power you use for the attack. Most powers deal more damage than basic attacks do, and high-level powers generally deal more damage than low-level ones. If you use a weapon to make the attack, your weapon also affects your damage. If you use a greataxe to deliver a power, you deal more damage than if you use a dagger with the same power.
DAMAGE ROLLS
✦ Roll the damage indicated in the power description. ✦ Add the ability modifier specified in the power In addition, any of the following factors might apply to ✦ Racial or feat bonuses |
Weapon Damage Dice: A [W] in a damage expression stands for your weapon’s damage dice. The number before the [W] indicates the number of times you roll your weapon dice. If a power’s damage is “2[W] + Strength modifier” and you use a dagger (1d4 damage), roll 2d4, then add your Strength modifier. If you use a heavy flail (2d6 damage) with the same power, roll 4d6, then add your Strength modifier.
Weapon Damage Dice: A [W] in a damage expression stands for your weapon’s damage dice. The number before the [W] indicates the number of times you roll your weapon dice. If a power’s damage is “2[W] + Strength modifier” and you use a dagger (1d4 damage), roll 2d4, then add your Strength modifier. If you use a heavy flail (2d6 damage) with the same power, roll 4d6, then add your Strength modifier.
Resistance and Vulnerability
Some creatures are resistant or vulnerable to certain types of damage. Some powers can grant you a similar resistance, or impose vulnerability on an enemy.
Resist: Resistance means you take less damage from a specific damage type. If you have resist 5 fire, then any time you take fire damage, you reduce that damage by 5. (An attack can’t do less than 0 damage to you.)
Vulnerable: Being vulnerable to a damage type means you take extra damage from that damage type. If you have vulnerable 5 fire, then any time you take fire damage, you take an additional 5 fire damage. Some creatures have additional weaknesses tied to damage types. For example, if you use cold against an elemental made of magma, you might slow it or otherwise hinder its moves or attacks.
Conditions
Powers, monsters, traps, and the environment can all cause conditions. A condition imposes a penalty, a vulnerability, a hindrance, or a combination of effects. The Remove Affliction ritual can be useful for eliminating a long-lasting condition that affects you.
BLINDED ✦ You grant combat advantage. ✦ You can’t see any target (your targets have total concealment). ✦ You take a –10 penalty to Perception checks. ✦ You can’t flank an enemy. |
DAZED ✦ You grant combat advantage. ✦ You can take either a standard action, a move action, or a minor action on your turn (you can also take free actions). You can’t take immediate actions or opportunity actions. ✦ You can’t flank an enemy. |
DEAFENED ✦ You can’t hear anything. ✦ You take a –10 penalty to Perception checks. |
DOMINATED ✦ You’re dazed. ✦ The dominating creature chooses your action. The only powers it can make you use are at-will powers. |
DYING ✦ You’re unconscious. ✦ You’re at 0 or negative wounds. ✦ You make a death saving throw every round. |
HELPLESS ✦ You grant combat advantage. ✦ You can be the target of a coup de grace. Note: Usually you’re helpless because you’re unconscious. |
IMMOBILIZED ✦ You can’t move from your space, although you can teleport and can be forced to move by a pull, a push, or a slide. |
MARKED ✦ You take a –2 penalty to attack rolls for any attack that doesn’t target the creature that marked you. |
PETRIFIED ✦ You have been turned to stone. ✦ You can’t take actions. ✦ You gain resist 20 to all damage. ✦ You are unaware of your surroundings. ✦ You don’t age. |
PRONE ✦ You grant combat advantage to enemies making melee attacks against you. ✦ You get a +2 bonus to all defenses against ranged attacks from nonadjacent enemies. ✦ You’re lying on the ground. (If you’re flying, you safely descend a distance equal to your fly speed. If you don’t reach the ground, you fall.) ✦ You take a –2 penalty to attack rolls. ✦ You can drop prone as a minor action. |
RESTRAINED ✦ You grant combat advantage. ✦ You’re immobilized. ✦ You can’t be forced to move by a pull, a push, or a slide. ✦ You take a –2 penalty to attack rolls. |
SLOWED ✦ Your speed becomes 2. This speed applies to all your movement modes, but it does not apply to teleportation or to a pull, a push, or a slide. You can’t increase your speed above 2, and your speed doesn’t increase if it was lower than 2. If you’re slowed while moving, stop moving if you have already moved 2 or more squares. |
STUNNED ✦ You grant combat advantage. ✦ You can’t take actions. ✦ You can’t flank an enemy. |
SURPRISED ✦ You grant combat advantage. ✦ You can’t take actions, other than free actions. ✦ You can’t flank an enemy. |
UNCONSCIOUS ✦ You’re helpless. ✦ You take a –5 penalty to all defenses. ✦ You can’t take actions. ✦ You fall prone, if possible. ✦ You can’t flank an enemy. |
WEAKENED ✦ Your attacks deal half damage. Ongoing damage you deal is not affected. |
Insubstantial
Some creatures, such as wailing ghosts, are insubstantial, and some powers can make you insubstantial.
When you are insubstantial, you take half damage from any attack that deals damage to you. Ongoing damage is also halved.
Ongoing Damage
Some powers deal extra damage on consecutive turns after the initial attack. An efreet might hit you with a
burst of fire that sets you alight, dealing ongoing fire damage. When a snake’s venom courses through your blood, it deals ongoing poison damage. A mummy’s rotting touch deals ongoing necrotic damage, and a kruthik’s corrosive spittle deals ongoing acid damage.
ONGOING DAMAGE ✦ Start of Your Turn: You take the specified damage at the start of your turn. Example: If you’re taking ongoing 5 fire damage, you take 5 points of fire damage at the start of your turn. ✦ Saving Throw: Each round at the end of your turn, ✦ Different Types of Ongoing Damage: If effects ✦ The Same Type of Ongoing Damage: If effects deal |
Critical Hits
When you roll a natural 20 and your total attack roll is high enough to hit your target’s defense, you score a critical hit, also known as a crit.
CRITICAL HIT DAMAGE ✦ Natural 20: If you roll a 20 on the die when making an attack roll, you score a critical hit if your total attack roll is high enough to hit your target’s defense. If your attack roll is too low to score a critical hit, you still hit automatically. ✦ Precision: Some class features and powers allow ✦ Wounding Damage: You roll your weapon's normal damage but instead of applying it the targets Hit Points. You now by pass his hit points and deal him wounding damage. ✦ Extra Damage: Magic weapons and implements, as |
You automatically score a critical hit when you deal a coup de grace.
Forcing Movement
Some powers allow you to force your target to move in specific ways. Depending on the power, you can pull,
push, or slide your target (see “Pull, Push, and Slide,”).
Durations
Many powers take effect and then end; their effects are instantaneous, perhaps as brief as a single swing of your sword. Some powers last beyond your turn, however.
Unless otherwise noted, a power is instantaneous and has no lasting effect. The two types of durations are conditional and sustained.
DURATIONS ✦ Conditional Durations: These effects last until a specified event occurs. Until the Start of Your Next Turn: The effect ends when your next turn starts. Until the End of Your Next Turn: The effect ends when your next turn ends. Until the End of the Encounter: The effect ends when you take a rest (short or extended) or after 5 minutes. Save Ends: The effect ends when the target ✦ Sustained Durations: An effect that has a “sustain ✦ Overlapping Durations: If a target is affected by |
Unless a description says otherwise, you can sustain a power with a sustained duration for as long as 5 minutes. However, you can’t rest while sustaining a power, so you can’t regain the use of your encounter powers or second wind until you stop sustaining a power. Rituals (see Chapter 10) can create effects that last for hours, days, or years.
Saving Throws
When you’re under a persistent effect or condition that can be ended by a save (“save ends”), you have a chance to escape the effect each round at the end of your turn. You do that by making a saving throw, which is a d20 roll unmodified by your level or ability modifiers. A successful saving throw is called a save.
SAVING THROWS ✦ End of Turn: At the end of your turn, you make a saving throw against each effect on you that a save can end. Roll a d20, with one of the following results: Lower than 10: Failure. The effect continues. 10 or higher: Success. The effect ends. ✦ Choose Order: Whenever you make a saving throw, ✦ Modifiers: A saving throw normally doesn’t include |
A saving throw gives you slightly better than even odds to shake off an effect. Most of the time, you can’t improve the odds, and your chance of success doesn’t have anything to do with an effect’s severity. What makes a giant snake’s poison worse than a normal snake’s is not how hard it is to shake off the poison’s effects, but how easily it affects you in the first place (its attack bonus) and what it does to you while it remains in your system (its ongoing damage or other effect).
Each round, at the end of your turn, you roll a saving throw against each effect on you. Sometimes an effect is a single condition or one type of ongoing damage (page 278). Another kind of effect is like an imp’s hellish poison, which includes both ongoing poison damage and a –2 penalty to Will defense. You don’t make separate saving throws against the ongoing poison damage and the Will defense penalty; you make a single saving throw each round against the hellish poison itself.
Some powers create effects that require multiple saving throws to fully escape. These powers include aftereffects that apply after you save against the initial effect. For example, a power might knock you unconscious until you save but have an aftereffect that slows you. Once you save against the unconscious condition, you need to save against the slowed condition before you’ve fully escaped the power’s effects.
An aftereffect doesn’t begin until after you’ve rolled all your saving throws at the end of your turn. This means you can’t make a saving throw against an aftereffect at the end of the same turn when you saved against the initial effect.
Attack Modifiers
Combat rarely consists of foes standing toe to toe and bashing each other. Movement and position are key; if one archer can fire from behind a tree at an enemy archer out in the open, the one using the tree for cover enjoys an advantage. Similarly, the use of magic or special abilities often creates opportunities you can exploit. If your wizard ally turns you invisible, you can easily evade your enemies, but if an enemy wizard stuns you with a spell, you drop your guard, and your enemies can easily gang up on you.
Temporary advantages and disadvantages in combat are reflected in a set of common attack modifiers. An attack modifier is a bonus or a penalty that applies to your attack roll. Add the modifier to your base attack bonus when you make an attack.
Attack Modifers
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Combat Advantage
One of the most common attack modifiers is combat advantage. Combat advantage represents a situation in which the defender can’t give full attention to defense. The defender is pressed by multiple enemies at the same time, stunned, distracted, or otherwise caught off guard. When you have combat advantage against a target, you gain a +2 bonus to your attack rolls against that target.
Some powers require you to have combat advantage in order to use them against a target, and other powers have a better effect against a target you have combat advantage against. If a feat, power, or other ability grants you a benefit when you have combat advantage, that benefit applies only against a target you have combat advantage against.
COMBAT ADVANTAGE ✦ +2 Bonus to Attack Rolls: You gain a +2 bonus to your attack roll when you have combat advantage against the target of your attack. ✦ Able to See Target: You must be able to see a The following situations give an attacker combat |
Once per encounter, you can try to gain combat advantage against a target by making a Bluff check.
Combat advantage is relative. In any given pair of combatants, either, both, or neither might have combat
advantage against the other. It’s possible for a single creature to be adjacent to one enemy that has combat advantage against it and a second enemy that does not.
Cover and Concealment
Many types of terrain offer you places to hide or obstructions you can duck behind in order to avoid attacks. Solid obstructions that can physically deflect or stop objects are considered cover. Objects or effects that don’t physically impede an attack but instead hide you from an enemy’s view are considered concealment.
Cover
Enemies behind a low wall, around a corner, or behind a tree enjoy some amount of cover; you can’t hit them as easily as you normally could.
COVER ✦ Cover (–2 Penalty to Attack Rolls): The target is around a corner or protected by terrain. For example, the target might be in the same square as a small tree, obscured by a small pillar or a large piece of furniture, or behind a low wall. ✦ Superior Cover (–5 Penalty to Attack Rolls): The ✦ Area Attacks and Close Attacks: When you make ✦ Reach: If a creature that has reach attacks through ✦ Creatures and Cover: When you make a ranged ✦ Determining Cover: To determine if a target has |
Concealment
If you can’t get a good look at your target, it has concealment from you, which means your attack rolls take a penalty against that target. You might be fighting in an area of dim light (see “Vision and Light”), in an area filled with smoke or mist, or among terrain features that get in the way of your vision, such as foliage.
OBSCURED SQUARES ✦ Lightly Obscured: Squares of dim light, foliage, fog, smoke, heavy falling snow, or rain are lightly obscured. ✦ Heavily Obscured: Squares of heavy fog, heavy smoke, or heavy foliage are heavily obscured. ✦ Totally Obscured: Squares of darkness are totally obscured. |
Effects that cause concealment obscure vision without preventing attacks.
CONCEALMENT ✦ Concealment (–2 Penalty to Attack Rolls): The target is in a lightly obscured square or in a heavily obscured square but adjacent to you. ✦ Total Concealment (–5 Penalty to Attack Rolls): You can’t see the target. The target is invisible, in a totally obscured square, or in a heavily obscured square and not adjacent to you. ✦ Melee Attacks and Ranged Attacks Only: Attack penalties from concealment apply only to the targets of melee or ranged attacks. |
Part of the challenge of attacking a target you can’t see is knowing where to direct your attack. You have to choose a square to attack, and the target might not even be in that square (see “Targeting What You Can’t
See,” below). A variety of powers and other effects can render you invisible, effectively giving you total concealment.
INVISIBLE ✦ You can’t be seen by normal forms of vision. ✦ You have combat advantage against any enemy that can’t see you. ✦ You don’t provoke opportunity attacks from enemies that can’t see you. |
TARGETING WHAT YOU CAN’T SEE If you’re fighting a creature you can’t see—when a creature is invisible, you’re blinded, or you’re fighting in darkness you can’t see through—you have to target a square rather than the creature. You also have to figure out which square to attack. Here’s how it works. Invisible Creature Uses Stealth: At the end of a concealed Make a Perception Check: On your turn, you can make Pick a Square and Attack: Choose a square to attack, Close or Area Attacks: You can make a close attack or |
Movement and Position
During a pitched battle, heroes and monsters are in constant motion. The rogue skirts the melee, looking for a chance to set up a deadly flanking attack. The wizard keeps a distance from the enemy and tries to find a position to make the best use of area attacks, while goblin archers move to get clear shots with their bows. You can increase your effectiveness in battle by learning how to use movement and position to your advantage.
Creature Size and Space
Each creature falls into one of six size categories, which correspond to the number of squares a creature occupies on the battle grid. A creature’s space is an expression of the number of squares it occupies.
SPECIAL SPECIAL RULES FOR SIZE Creatures smaller than Small or larger than Medium have special rules relating to position and attacking. ✦ Tiny: Four individual Tiny creatures can fit in a ✦ Small: Small creatures occupy the same amount ✦ Large, Huge, and Gargantuan: Very large creatures
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Speed
Your speed is measured in squares on the battle grid, with each 1-inch square representing a 5-foot square
in the game world. A character who has a speed of 6 can move up to 6 squares (or 30 feet) on the battle grid by using a move action. Your speed is determined by your race and the armor you wear. reach—a Large ogre has a reach.
DETERMINING SPEED Determine your speed as follows: ✦ Start with your race’s speed. ✦ Take your armor’s speed penalty, if applicable. ✦ Add any bonuses that apply. |
Your speed is your base walking speed, in contrast to your speed while swimming or, if you’re affected by a power, flying.
Tactical Movement
During your turn, you can use a move action to move some distance across the battlefield and still use a standard action to launch an attack. See “Actions in Combat,” for various move actions you can use in combat. All move actions are governed by the following rules.
Diagonal Movement
Moving diagonally works the same as other movement, except you can’t cross the corner of a wall or another obstacle that fills the corner between the square you’re in and the square you want to move to. You can move diagonally past most creatures, since they don’t completely fill their squares.
Occupied Squares
A creature is considered to occupy the square or squares within its space.
MOVING THROUGH OCCUPIED SQUARES ✦ Ally: You can move through a square occupied by an ally. ✦ Enemy: You normally can’t move through an enemy’s ✦ Ending Movement: You can end your movement ✦ Standing Up: If you’re prone and in the same square |
Terrain and Obstacles
Most battles don’t take place in bare rooms or plains. Adventurers fight in boulder-strewn caverns, briarchoked forests, and steep staircases. Each battleground offers its own combination of cover, concealment, and
poor footing. This section explains how terrain affects movement. For information about how it affects vision and defense, see “Cover and Concealment."
DIFFICULT TERRAIN Rubble, undergrowth, shallow bogs, steep stairs, and all sorts of other impediments are difficult terrain that hampers movement. ✦ Costs 1 Extra Square: Each square of difficult terrain you enter costs 1 extra square of movement. ✦ Large, Huge, and Gargantuan Creatures: If such a creature enters two or more squares with different types of terrain, count that square of movement according to the most difficult terrain. Count only squares it is entering for the first time, not squares it already occupies. ✦ Ending Movement: If you don’t have enough movement remaining to enter a square of difficult terrain, you can’t enter it. ✦ Flying: Creatures are not hampered by difficult terrain when flying. ✦ Terrain Walk: Some creatures have a special ability to ignore difficult terrain in specific kinds of environments. For example, dryads have forest walk, which allows them to ignore difficult terrain in forests. |
Because difficult terrain costs 1 extra square of movement to enter, you can’t normally shift into a square of difficult terrain. On the other hand, if a power lets you shift 2, you can shift into a square of difficult terrain.
OBSTACLES Like difficult terrain, obstacles can hamper movement. ✦ Obstacles Filling Squares: An obstacle such as a ✦ Corners:When an obstacle fills a square, you can’t ✦ Obstacles Between Squares: Some obstacles |
Double Move
On your turn, you can move twice if you take a move action instead of a standard action. If you take the same move action twice in a row—two walks, two runs, two shifts, two crawls—you’re taking a double move.
DOUBLE MOVE ✦ Same Move Action: To double move, you have to take the same move action twice in a row on the same turn. ✦ One Speed: When you double move, add the speeds of the two move actions together and then move. ✦ Occupied Squares: When you double move, your first move action can end in an ally’s space, because you’re not stopping. Your second move action can’t end in an ally’s space, as normal. ✦ Difficult Terrain: When you double move, you can sometimes move over more squares of difficult terrain than normal, because you add the speeds of the two move actions together and then move. For example, if your speed is 5, you can enter only 2 squares of difficult terrain when you walk. If you double move by walking twice in a row, you can enter 5 squares of difficult terrain, not 4. |
Falling
Some kinds of terrain present a unique danger: a precipitous drop. When you fall at least 10 feet, you take damage.
FALLING ✦ Falling Damage: You take 1d10 damage for each 10 feet you fall. Fast Alternative: If you fall more than 50 feet, take ✦ Jumping Down: If you are trained in Acrobatics, you ✦ Catching Yourself: If a power or a bull rush ✦ Large, Huge, and Gargantuan Creatures: If only |
Flanking
One of the simplest combat tactics is for you and an ally to move to flanking positions adjacent to an enemy.
FLANKING ✦ Combat Advantage: You have combat advantage against an enemy you flank. ✦ Opposite Sides: To flank an enemy, you and an ally ✦ Must Be Able to Attack: You and your ally must ✦ Large, Huge, and Gargantuan Creatures: If a |
Pull, Push, and Slide
Certain powers and effects allow you to pull, push, or slide a target.
PULL, PUSH, AND SLIDE ✦ Pull: When you pull a creature, each square you move it must bring it nearer to you. ✦ Push: When you push a creature, each square you ✦ Slide: When you slide a creature, there’s no restriction |
Whether you’re pulling, pushing, or sliding a target, certain rules govern all forced movement.
FORCED MOVEMENT ✦ Line of Effect: You must have line of effect to any square you pull, push, or slide a creature into. ✦ Distance in Squares: The power you’re using specifies ✦ Specific Destination: Some powers don’t specify a ✦ No Opportunity Attacks: Forced movement does ✦Clear Path: Forced movement can’t move a target ✦ Catching Yourself: If you’re forced over a precipice ✦ Swapping Places: Some powers let you swap |
Teleportation
Many powers and rituals allow you to teleport—to move instantaneously from one point to another. Unless a power or a ritual specifies otherwise, teleportation follows these rules.
TELEPORTATION ✦ Line of Sight: You have to be able to see your destination. ✦ No Line of Effect: You can teleport to a place you ✦ No Opportunity Attacks: Your movement doesn’t ✦ Destination: Your destination must be a space you ✦ Instantaneous: When you teleport, you disappear ✦ Immobilized: Being immobilized doesn’t prevent |
Phasing
Some creatures, such as shadow snakes, have a special ability called phasing, and some powers allow you to phase. When you are phasing, you ignore difficult terrain, and you can move through obstacles and other creatures but must end your movement in an unoccupied space.
Actions in Combat
During your turn, you can choose from a wide variety of actions. Usually, the most important decision you make in combat is what to do with your standard action each turn. Do you use one of your powers? If so, which one? Or does the situation demand a different approach, such as using your standard action to drink a healing potion, try to call a parley and talk to your foes, or instead get a second move action this turn? This section describes how to perform the most common actions that are available to you on your turn.
The list isn’t exhaustive—you can try to do anything you can imagine your character doing in the game world. The rules in this section cover the most common actions, and they can serve as a guide for figuring out what happens when you try something not in the rules.
Action Points
Once per encounter, you can spend an action point. When you spend an action point, it’s gone, but you can earn more.
EARNING ACTION POINTS ✦ You start with 1 action point. (Monsters usually have no action points.) ✦ You gain 1 action point when you reach a milestone any unspent action points, but you start fresh with 1 |
Most often, you spend an action point to take an extra action during your turn.
SPEND AN ACTION POINT: FREE ACTION ✦ During Your Turn: You can spend an action point only during your turn, but never during a surprise round. ✦ Gain an Extra Action: You gain an extra action this turn. You decide if the action is a standard action, a move action, or a minor action. ✦ Once per Encounter: After you spend an action point, you must take a short rest before you can spend another. (Some monsters can spend more than 1 action point per encounter.) |
If you spend an action point to take an extra action and are within sight of an allied warlord, the warlord’s Commanding Presence grants you a benefit. Instead of taking an extra action when you spend an action point, you can use a paragon path feature or a feat that requires an action point. Whatever you use an action point for, you can spend only 1 per
encounter.
Aid Another
You use your action to aid another character. You can aid an ally’s attack roll against one enemy or grant an ally a bonus against an enemy’s next attack. You can also use this action to aid someone else’s skill check or ability check.
AID ANOTHER: AID ANOTHER: STANDARD ACTION ✦ Attack Roll: Choose a target within your melee reach and make a melee basic attack vs. AC 10. If you succeed, deal no damage, but choose one ally. That ally gets a +2 bonus to his or her next attack roll against the target or to all defenses against the target’s next attack. This bonus ends if not used by the end of your next turn. ✦ Skill or Ability Check: You can instead aid a skill |
Basic Attack
A basic attack is an at-will attack power that everyone possesses, regardless of class. The power comes in two forms: melee and ranged. You calculate the attack bonuses of a basic attack like those of any other attack power. When a power allows you to make a basic attack, you can make either a melee basic attack or a ranged basic attack. If a power specifically calls for a melee basic attack or a ranged basic attack, you must use that type. You use a melee basic attack to make an opportunity attack, and some powers or effects give you the ability to make a basic attack when it isn’t your turn.
Basic Melee Attack | Basic Attack |
You resort to the simple attack you learned when you first picked up a melee weapon. |
At-Will ✦ Weapon Standard Action Melee weapon Target: One creature Attack: Strength vs. AC |
Hit: 1[W] + Strength modifier damage. |
Increase damage to 2[W] + Strength modifier at 21st level. |
Special: You can use an unarmed attack as a weapon to make a melee basic attack. |
Basic Ranged Attack | Basic Attack |
You resort to the simple attack you learned when you first picked up a ranged weapon. |
At-Will ✦ Weapon Standard Action Ranged weapon Target: One creature Attack: Dexterity vs. AC |
Hit: 1[W] + Dexterity modifier damage. |
Increase damage to 2[W] + Dexterity modifier at 21st level. |
Special: Weapons with the heavy thrown property use Strength instead of Dexterity for attack rolls and damage rolls. Warlocks can use eldritch blast as a ranged basic attack, and wizards can use magic missile as a ranged basic attack. |
Like other ranged attacks, ranged basic attacks provoke opportunity attacks.
Autofire
You hold back on the trigger of a weapon and spray one area knowing that someone will get catch a shot. This tactic is useful for hitting multiple targets that are in a two by two square area.
AUTO-FIRE: STANDARD ACTION ✦ Target: You can shoot an area that is two by two squares wide. ✦ Dexterity Attack: Make a Dexterity attack vs. Reflex defense for each creature in selected area. (-4 without Firearms Expert) Do not add any modifiers for the weapon use. ✦ Hit: Your weapon fires 10 shots, and you deal weapon's damage to everyone who has been failed their reflex defense. ✦Special: Some firearms—particularly machine guns—only have autofire settings and can't normally fire single shots. |
Bull Rush
You try to push an enemy away. This tactic is useful for forcing an enemy out of a defensive position or into a dangerous one, such as in a pool of lava or over a cliff.
BULL RUSH: STANDARD ACTION ✦ Target: You can bull rush a target adjacent to you that is smaller than you, the same size category as you, or one category larger than you. ✦ Strength Attack: Make a Strength attack vs. Fortitude ✦ Hit: Push the target 1 square, and shift into the |
Charge
You throw yourself into the fight, dashing forward and launching an attack.
CHARGE: STANDARD ACTION ✦ Move and Attack: Move your speed as part of the charge and make a melee basic attack or a bull rush at the end of your move. ✦ +1 Bonus to the Attack Roll: You gain a +1 bonus ✦ Movement Requirements: You must move at least ✦ Provoke Opportunity Attacks: If you leave a ✦ No Further Actions: After you resolve a charge |
Coup de Grace
Sometimes, you have the opportunity to attack a foe who is completely defenseless. It’s not chivalrous to do so, but it is viciously effective. This action is known as a coup de grace.
COUP DE GRACE: COUP DE GRACE: STANDARD ACTION ✦ Helpless Target: You can deliver a coup de grace against a helpless enemy adjacent to you. Use any attack power you could normally use against the enemy, including a basic attack. ✦ Hit: You score a critical hit. ✦ Slaying the Target Outright: If you deal damage |
Crawl
When you are prone, you can crawl.
CRAWL: MOVE ACTION ✦ Prone: You must be prone to crawl. ✦ Movement: Move up to half your speed. ✦ Provoke Opportunity Attacks: If you leave a square adjacent to an enemy, that enemy can make an opportunity attack against you. |
Delay
You can choose to wait to take your turn until later in the round. You can wait until after your allies take actions so you can plan out tactics, or you can wait for enemies to move into range.
DELAY: NO ACTION ✦ Delay Entire Turn: You must delay your entire turn, so you can’t delay if you’ve already taken an action on your turn. You also can’t delay if you’re dazed or if you’re unable to take actions. ✦ Coming Back into the Initiative Order: After any ✦ Losing a Delayed Turn: If you don’t take your ✦ Start of Your Turn: At the moment you delay, carry ✦ End of Your Turn: You don’t have a normal end of End Beneficial Effects when You Delay: At the End Sustained Effects when You Delay: You can’t End Harmful Effects after You Act: After you Make Saving Throws after You Act: After you return |
Escape
You attempt to escape from an enemy who has grabbed you (see “Grab”). Other immobilizing effects might let you make escape attempts.
ESCAPE: MOVE ACTION ✦ Acrobatics or Athletics: Make an Acrobatics check vs. Reflex or an Athletics check vs. Fortitude against the creature or effect that immobilized you. ✦ Check: Resolve your check. Failure: You’re still grabbed. |
Actions in Combat Table
Standard Actions
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Move Actions
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Minor Actions
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Immediate Action
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Opportunity Action
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Free Action
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No Action
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Grab
You seize a creature bodily and keep it from moving. The creature you grab can attempt to escape on its turn (see “Escape”).
GRAB: STANDARD ACTION ✦ Target: You can attempt to grab a creature that is smaller than you, the same size category as you, or one category larger than you. The creature must be within your melee reach (don’t count extra reach from a weapon). ✦ Strength Attack: Make a Strength attack vs. Reflex. ✦ Sustaining a Grab: You sustain a grab as a minor ✦ Effects that End a Grab: If you are affected by a |
To move a grabbed target, you must succeed on a Strength attack. However, helpless allies are treated as objects; you just pick them up and move them.
MOVE A GRABBED TARGET: STANDARD ACTION ✦ Strength Attack: Make a Strength attack vs. Fortitude. Do not add any weapon modifiers. Hit: Move up to half your speed and pull the grabbed target with you. ✦ Opportunity Attacks: If you pull the target, you |
Opportunity Attack
Combatants constantly watch for their enemies to drop their guard. When you’re adjacent to an enemy, that enemy can’t move past you or use a ranged power or an area power without putting itself in danger by allowing you to take an opportunity attack against it. The most common form of opportunity action is an opportunity attack—a melee basic attack against the creature that provokes it.
OPPORTUNITY ATTACK: OPPORTUNITY ACTION ✦ Melee Basic Attack: An opportunity attack is a melee basic attack. ✦ Moving Provokes: If an enemy leaves a square ✦ Ranged and Area Powers Provoke: If an enemy ✦ One per Combatant’s Turn: You can take only one ✦ Able to Attack: You can’t make an opportunity ✦ Interrupts Target’s Action: An opportunity action ✦ Threatening Reach: Some creatures have an ability |
Ready an Action
When you ready an action, you prepare to react to a creature’s action or an event. Readying an action is a way of saying, “As soon as x happens, I’ll do y.” For instance, you could say, “As soon as the troll walks out from behind the corner, I’ll use my pinning strike and interrupt its movement” or something like, “If the goblin attacks, I’ll react with a crushing blow.”
READY AN ACTION: READY AN ACTION: STANDARD ACTION ✦ Choose Action to Ready: Choose the specific action you are readying (what attack you plan to use, for example) as well as your intended target. You can ready a standard action, a move action, or a minor action. Whichever action you choose, the act of readying it is a standard action. ✦ Choose Trigger: Choose the action that will trigger ✦ Interrupting an Enemy: If you want to use a readied ✦ Reset Initiative: After you resolve your readied |
Run
You can use an all-out sprint when you really need to cover ground fast. However, this is a dangerous tactic- you have to lower your guard to make your best speed, and you can’t attack very well.
RUN: MOVE ACTION ✦ Speed + 2: Move up to your speed + 2. For example, if your speed is normally 6, you can move up to 8 squares when you run. ✦ –5 Penalty to Attack Rolls: You have a –5 penalty ✦ Grant Combat Advantage: As soon as you begin ✦ Provoke Opportunity Attacks: If you leave a |
Second Wind
You can dig into your resolve and endurance to find an extra burst of vitality. In game terms, you spend a healing surge to regain some of your lost hit points, and
you focus on defending yourself. Unless otherwise noted in the statistics block of a monster or a non player character, this action is available only to player characters.
SECOND WIND: STANDARD ACTION ✦ Spend a Healing Surge: Spend a healing surge to regain hit points. ✦ +2 Bonus to All Defenses: You gain a +2 bonus to ✦ Once per Encounter: You can use your second |
Shift
Moving through a fierce battle is dangerous; you must be careful to avoid a misstep that gives your foe a chance to strike a telling blow. The way you move safely when enemies are nearby is to shift.
SHIFT: MOVE ACTION ✦ Movement: Move 1 square. ✦ No Opportunity Attacks: If you shift out of a ✦ Difficult Terrain: Because each square of difficult ✦ Special Movement Modes: You can’t shift when |
Squeeze
You can squeeze through an area that isn’t as wide as the space you normally take up. Big creatures usually use this move action to fit into narrow corridors, but a Medium or a Small creature can use it to fit into a constrained space, such as a burrow.
SQUEEZE: MOVE ACTION ✦ Smaller Space: A Large, Huge, or Gargantuan creature reduces its space by 1. For example, a Large creature that squeezes has a space of 1 (1 square) instead of 2 (4 squares). A Huge creature’s space changes from 3 (9 squares) to 2 (4 squares). When a Medium or smaller creature squeezes, the DM decides how narrow a space the creature can occupy. If an effect prevents a creature from leaving a square in order to squeeze, the creature cannot squeeze. ✦ Half Speed: As part of the same move action, move ✦ –5 Penalty to Attack Rolls: You have a –5 penalty ✦ Grant Combat Advantage: You grant combat ✦ Provoke Opportunity Attacks: If squeezing causes ✦ Ending a Squeeze: You can end a squeeze as a free |
Stand Up
If you’ve been knocked prone, you need to take a move action to get back on your feet.
STAND UP: MOVE ACTION ✦ Unoccupied Space: If your space is not occupied by another creature, you stand up where you are. ✦ Occupied Space: If your space is occupied by another creature, you can shift 1 square, as part of this move action, to stand up in an adjacent unoccupied space. If your space and all adjacent squares are occupied by other creatures, you can’t stand up. |
Throw Grenade
An explosive is a weapon that, when detonated, affects all creatures and objects within its burst radius by means of shrapnel, heat, or massive concussion. Its effect is broad enough that it can hurt characters just by going off close to them. Some explosives, such as grenades, can be thrown, and they explode when they land. Others are planted, with fuses or timers, and go off after a preset amount of time elapses.
THROWN EXPLOSIVES: ✦ Target: You can attempt to throw a grenade at a group of creatures with in the effective area. The grenades target a specific square that is within line of sight, or assumed line of sight (behind boxes, or through windows). If the square is within one range increment, you do not need to make an attack roll. Roll 1d4 and consult the table to see which corner of the square the explosive bounces to. ✦Deviation Roll: An attack with a thrown explosive is a ranged attack made against a specific square. (A character can target a square occupied by a creature.) Throwing the explosive is an attack action. If the square is within one range increment, you do not need to make an attack roll. Roll 1d4 and consult the table to see which corner of the square the explosive bounces to. If your beyond one range increment, you roll a 1d4. Results, 1 = Upper Left, 2 = Upper right, 3 = Lower Right, 4 = Lower Left. The amount of range increments you are the more spaces it will bounce in the direction rolled. ✦ Dexterity Attack: Make a dexterity attack vs Reflex defense. Reflex. You need two-weapon fighting to throw two grenades. (If two grenades are throw apply the attack twice and allocate damage, and effect respectively.) ✦ Hit: Deal damage / effect of the grenade as described. ✦ Special: Planted Explosives: A planted explosive is set in place, with a timer or fuse determining when it goes off. No attack roll is necessary to plant an explosive; the explosive sits where it is placed until it is moved or goes off. When a planted explosive detonates, it deals its damage to all targets within the burst radius of the weapon. The targets may make Reflex saves (DC varies according to the explosive type) for half damage. |
Total Defense
Sometimes it’s more important to stay alive than attack your foes, so you focus your attention on defense.
TOTAL DEFENSE: STANDARD ACTION ✦ +2 Bonus to All Defenses: You gain a +2 bonus to all defenses until the start of your next turn. |
Use a Power
The powers you know are among your most important tools in the game. Because of your at-will powers, youcan potentially use a power every round.
USE A POWER: ACTION VARIES ✦ Action: Most powers require a standard action, but some require a move action, a minor action, a free action, or no action. |
Walk
Walking is safe only when there are no enemies nearby. It’s dangerous to walk through the middle of a pitched battle, since any enemy can take an opportunity attack as you pass by. The way you move safely when enemies are nearby is to shift instead of walk.
WALK: MOVE ACTION ✦ Movement: Move a number of squares up to your speed. ✦ Provoke Opportunity Attacks: If you leave a |
Healing
Over the course of a battle, you take damage from attacks. Hit points (hp) measure your ability to stand up to punishment, turn deadly strikes into glancing
blows, and stay on your feet throughout a battle. Hit points represent more than physical endurance. They represent your character’s skill, luck, and resolve—all
the factors that combine to help you stay alive in a combat situation.
When you create your character, you determine your maximum hit points. From this number, you derive your bloodied and healing surge values. When you take damage, subtract that number from your current hit points. As long as your current hit point total is higher than 0, you can keep on fighting. When your current total drops to 0 or lower, however,
you no longer have the strength to deflect shots and turn them into glancing blows.
Powers, abilities, and actions that restore hit points are known as healing. You might regain hit points through rest, heroic resolve, or magic. When you heal, add the number to your current hit points. You can heal up to your maximum hit point total, but you can’t exceed it.
HIT POINTS Damage reduces your hit points. ✦ Maximum Hit Points: Your class, level, and Constitution score determine your maximum hit points. Your current hit points can’t exceed this number. ✦ Wounds: Your Constitution ✦ Bloodied Value: You are bloodied when your current ✦ Dying: When your current wounds drop to 0 or |
HEALING SURGES
Most healing requires you to spend a healing surge. Some powers (either your own or those of ✦ Number of Healing Surges: Your class and Constitution ✦ Healing Surge Value: When you spend a healing ✦ Monsters and NPCs: As a general rule, monsters |
Healing in Combat
Even in a heated battle, you can heal. You can heal yourself by using your second wind, an ally can use the Heal skill on you, and an ally can use a healing power on you.
When a power heals you, you don’t have to take an action to spend a healing surge. Even if you’re unconscious, the power uses your healing surge and restores hit points. And some healing powers restore hit point without requiring you to spend a healing surge.
Regeneration
Regeneration is a special form of healing that restores a fixed number of hit points every round. Regeneration doesn’t rely on healing surges.
REGENERATION ✦ Heal Each Turn: If you have regeneration and at least 1 hit point, you regain a specified number of hit points at the start of your turn. If your current hit point total is 0 or lower, you do not regain hit points through regeneration. ✦ Limited by Maximum Hit Points: Like most forms of healing, regeneration can’t cause your current hit points to exceed your maximum hit points. ✦ Not Cumulative: If you gain regeneration from more than one source, only the largest amount of regeneration applies. |
Temporary Hit Points
A variety of sources can grant you temporary hit points—small reservoirs of stamina that insulate you from losing actual hit points.
TEMPORARY HIT POINTS ✦ Not Real Hit Points: Temporary hit points aren’t real hit points. They’re a layer of insulation that attacks have to get through before they start doing damage to you. Don’t add temporary hit points to your current hit points (if your current hit points are 0, you still have 0 when you receive temporary hit points). Keep track of them as a separate pool of hit points. ✦ Don’t Count toward Maximum: Temporary hit ✦ Lose Temporary Hit Points First: When you take ✦ Don’t Add Together: If you get temporary hit ✦ Last until You Rest: Your temporary hit points last |
Death & Dying
In the unending exploration of the unknown and the fight against monsters, death looms as a constant danger.
DEATH AND DYING ✦ Dying: When your wounds drop to 0 or fewer, you fall unconscious and are dying. Any additional damage you take continues to reduce your current hit point total until your character dies. ✦ Death Saving Throw: When you are dying, you Lower than 10: You slip one step closer to death. If 10–19: No change. 20 or higher: Spend a healing surge. When you do ✦ Death: You die when you have taken -10 wounds. |
Knocking Creatures Unconscious
When you reduce a creature to 0 hit points or fewer, you can choose to knock it unconscious rather than kill it. Until it regains hit points, the creature is unconscious but not dying. Any healing makes the creature conscious. If the creature doesn’t receive any healing, it is restored to 1 hit point and becomes conscious after a short rest.
Healing the Dying
When you are dying, any healing restores you to at least 1 wound. If someone has stabilized you using the first aid skill but you receive no healing, you regain hit points after an extended rest. Not wounds. These take careful medical attention.
RESTORING WOUNDS
✦Long Term-Care: If a character has the feat long term-care. They may restore 1 wound point per-day by careing for you while your body naturally recovers from it's wound. ✦ Become Conscious: As soon as you have a current wounds total that’s higher than 0, you become conscious and are no longer dying. (You are still prone until you take an action to stand up.) ✦Healing by Magic: A character can use any kind of healing magic to restore it's wounds first, as well as hit points that have been lost in battle. Healing is instantaneous as the power is often gifted from a divine source. ✦Medical Treatment: A character who doesn't have access to magical means of healing may turn to medical treatment. Treatments of wounds are done through skilled treatments, standard surgery, or even critical surgery. (See Chapter 6 - Feats - Professional Feats) |