A combat round is made up of actions. Firing an arrow, 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.
✦ Standard Action: Standard actions are the core of combat. You can normally take one standard action on your turn. Examples: most attack powers, charging an enemy, using your second wind.
✦ Move Action: Move actions involve movement from one place to another. You can normally take them only on your turn. Examples: walking, shifting.
✦ Minor Action: Minor actions are enabling actions, simple actions that usually lead to more exciting actions. You can normally take them only on your turn. Examples: pulling an item from a pouch or a sheath, opening a door or a treasure chest, picking up an item in your space or in an unoccupied square within reach.
✦ Free Action: Free actions take almost no time or effort. You can take as many free actions as you want during your or another combatant’s turn. The DM can restrict the number of free actions in a turn. Examples: speaking a few sentences, dropping a held item, letting go of a grabbed enemy.
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.)
✦ Trigger: Opportunity actions allow you to take an action in response to an enemy letting its guard down. The one type of opportunity action that every combatant can take is an opportunity attack. Opportunity attacks are triggered by an enemy leaving a square adjacent to you or by an adjacent enemy making a ranged attack or an area attack.
✦ Once per Combatant’s Turn: You can take no more than one opportunity action on each other combatant’s turn. You can’t take an opportunity action on your own turn.
✦ Interrupts Action: An opportunity action interrupts the action that triggered it.
There are two kinds of immediate actions: interrupts and reactions. Certain rules govern all immediate actions, whether they’re immediate interrupts or immediate reactions.
✦ Trigger: Each immediate action—usually a power—defines its specific trigger. The one type of immediate action that every combatant can take is a readied action.
✦ Once per Round: You can take only one immediate action per round, either an immediate interrupt or an immediate reaction. If you haven’t taken an immediate action since the end of your last turn, you can take one when a trigger allows you to. You can’t take an immediate action on your own turn.
✦ Interrupt: An immediate interrupt lets you jump in when a certain trigger condition arises, acting before the trigger resolves. If an interrupt invalidates a triggering action, that action is lost. For example, an enemy makes a melee attack against you, but you use a power that lets you shift away as an immediate interrupt. If your enemy can no longer reach you, the enemy’s attack action is lost.
✦ Reaction: An immediate reaction lets you act in response to a trigger. The triggering action, event, or condition occurs and is completely resolved before you take your reaction, except that you can interrupt a creature’s movement. If a creature triggers your immediate reaction while moving (by coming into range, for example), you take your action before the creature finishes moving but after it has moved at least 1 square.
An immediate reaction might interrupt other actions a combatant takes after its triggering action. For example, if a power lets you attack as an immediate reaction when an attack hits you, your action happens before the monster that hit you can take any other action. If a monster has a power that lets it make two attack rolls against you as a standard action, and the first one hits, you can use an immediate reaction before the next attack roll.
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.
✦ 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.
Substituting Actions: 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
Standard action
Two minor actions
Option C
Two move actions
Move action
Option D
Minor action
Two minor actions
Option E
Three minor actions
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.
✦ Your Actions: You get the following three actions on your turn: Standard action, Move action, Minor action.
✦ Free Actions: You can take any number of free actions on your turn.
✦ Any Order: You can take your actions in any order you wish, and you can skip any of them.
✦ Substitute Actions: 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.
✦ Extra Action: You can take an extra action by spending an action point.
✦ Other Combatants’ Actions: Other combatants can take free actions on your turn, and you might take actions that trigger immediate actions or opportunity actions from 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.
✦ Saving Throws: You now make a saving throw against any effect on you that a save can end.
✦ Check Actions Spent: Some powers and effects can be sustained for multiple turns. 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.
✦ Opportunity Actions: You can take one opportunity action on each other combatant’s turn. An opportunity action must be triggered by an enemy’s action.
✦ Immediate Actions: You can take one immediate action per round, either an immediate interrupt or an immediate reaction. An immediate action must be triggered by an event or an action on another combatant’s turn.
✦ Free Actions: You can take any number of free actions on other combatants’ turns.