A typical combat encounter is a clash between two sides, a flurry of weapon swings, feints, parries, footwork, and spellcasting. The FFd20 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.
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 a 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.
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 combatants take 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.
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 supposed allies 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.
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 non-surprised 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 actions (not even free actions, immediate actions, or opportunity actions), and you grant combat advantage to all attackers. As soon as the surprise round ends, you are no longer surprised.