Combat

***The Order of Combat***

The game organizes the chaos of combat into a cycle of rounds and turns. A round represents about 5 seconds in the game world. During a round, each participant in a battle takes a turn. The order of turns is determined at the beginning of a combat encounter when everyone rolls initiative. Once everyone has taken a turn, the fight continues to the next round if neither side has defeated the other.

1. ***Determine Surprise*:** The GM determines whether anyone involved in the combat encounter is surprised.
2. ***Establish Positions***: The GM decides where all the characters and monsters are located. Given the adventurers’ marching order or their stated positions in the room or other location, the GM figures out where the adversaries are - how far away and in what direction.
3. ***Roll Initiative***: Everyone involved in the combat encounter rolls initiative, determining the order of combatants’ turns.
4. ***Take Turns***: Each participant in the battle takes a turn in initiative order.
5. ***Begin the Next Round***: When everyone involved in the combat has had a turn, the round ends. Repeat step 4 until the fighting stops.

***Surprise***

A band of adventurers sneaks up on a bandit camp, springing from trees to attack them, in this situation, one side of the battle gains surprise over the other. The GM determines who might be surprised. If neither side tries to be stealthy, they automatically notice each other. Otherwise, the GM compares the Stealth vs passive Perception of each creature on the opposing side. Any character or monster that doesn’t notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter.

If you’re surprised, you can’t move or take an action on your first turn of the combat, and you can’t take a reaction until that turn ends. A member of a group can be surprised even if the other members aren’t.

***Initiative***

Initiative determines the order of turns during combat. When combat starts, every participant makes a Dexterity check to determine their place in the initiative order. The GM makes one roll for an entire group of identical creatures, so each member of the group acts at the same time.

The GM ranks the combatants in order from the one with the highest Dexterity check total to the one with the lowest. This is the order (called the initiative order) in which they act during each round. The initiative order remains the same from round to round. If a tie occurs the GM decides the order among tied GM-controlled, and the players decide the order among their tied characters. The GM can decide the order if the tie is between a monster and a player character. Optionally, the GM can have the tied characters roll a d20 to determine the order, highest roll going first.

**Imposing Fear**

Characters can still experience fear and intimidation even if there is no enemy actively imposing it on them. Examples of when characters could experience dread in combat include; when the odds seem insurmountable, if the combat takes a turn for the worst, a new stronger enemy shows up, when the characters face a creature they weren’t prepared for, a creature that is alien to them, etc.

At the GM’s discretion, at the start of a round or during an enemy’s turn, the GM may ask for a Resolve saving throw against a DC the GM sets to not be frightened for 1 minute. The characters can repeat this saving throw at the end of their turns. As a rule of thumb, this rule should not be used in all combats, and one single combat should only utilize this once, or maybe twice.