Ive been noticing that our sessions go very fast during the RPing parts, and when we get to the combat segments, we are getting bogged down. So to help expediate this, I am going to list some of the more common status effects, and other basic rules that come into play often, this way, we have this as a quick refrence insted of having to halt the game because everyone goes to the compendium to look a rule up online. To be clear, I
am not aiming this at anyone, I understand people forget rules, I forget them too.
Status Effects: DazedWhile a creature is dazed, it doesn’t get its normal complement of actions on its turn; it can take either a standard, a move, or a minor action. The creature can still take free actions, but it can’t take immediate or opportunity actions. It also grants combat advantage and can’t flank.
Slowed
When a creature is slowed, its speed becomes 2 if it was higher than that. This speed applies to all of the creature’s movement modes (walking, flying, and so on), but it does not apply to forced movement against it, teleportation, or any other movement that doesn’t use the creature’s speed. The creature also cannot benefit from bonuses to speed, although it can take actions, such as the run action, that allow it to move farther than its speed.
Prone
When a creature is prone, it is lying down. It takes a -2 penalty to attack rolls, and the only way it can move is by crawling, teleporting, or being pulled, pushed, or slid. In addition, it grants combat advantage to enemies making melee attacks against it, but it gains a +2 bonus to all defenses against ranged attacks from enemies that aren’t adjacent to it.
If a creature is flying when it falls prone, it safely descends a distance equal to its fly speed. If it doesn’t reach a solid surface, it falls.
A creature can end this condition on itself by standing up. A creature can drop prone as a minor action.
This condition can affect limbless creatures, such as fish and snakes, as well as amorphous creatures, such as oozes.
Blinded
While a creature is blinded, it can’t see, which means its targets have total concealment against it, and it takes a -10 penalty to Perception checks. It also grants combat advantage and can’t flank.
Stealth
When a creature is hidden from an enemy, the creature is silent and invisible to that enemy. A creature normally uses the Stealth skill to become hidden.
Invisible
If a creature is invisible, it has several advantages against creatures that can’t see it: It has total concealment against them, it doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks from them, and they grant combat advantage to it.
COVER AND CONCEALMENT: (Yes, they are diffrent in real life too)
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 target is protected by a significant terrain advantage, such as when fighting from behind a window, a portcullis, a grate, or an arrow slit.
Area Attacks and Close Attacks: When you make an area attack or a close attack, a target has cover if there is an obstruction between the origin square and the target, not between you and the target.
Reach: If a creature that has reach attacks through terrain that would grant cover if the target were in it, the target has cover. For example, even if you’re not in the same square as a small pillar, it gives you cover from the attack of an ogre on the other side of the pillar.
Creatures and Cover: When you make a ranged attack against an enemy and other enemies are in the way, your target has cover. Your allies never grant cover to your enemies, and neither allies nor enemies give cover against melee, close, or area attacks.
Determining Cover: To determine if a target has cover, choose a corner of a square you occupy (or a corner of your attack’s origin square) and trace imaginary lines from that corner to every corner of any one square the target occupies. If one or two of those lines are blocked by an obstacle or an enemy, the target has cover. (A line isn’t blocked if it runs along the edge of an obstacle’s or an enemy’s square.) If three or four of those lines are blocked but you have line of effect, the target has superior cover.
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.
Actions:
Each turn a player gets 3 actions, 1 standard, 1 movement, and 1 minor, along with any free actions you want to take. A player can trade down there actions, never trade up. Example, a player can Use a standard action to move, a movement to move.
Limited Action If you get to act in the surprise round, you can take a standard action, a move action, or a minor action. 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.
TOTAL DEFENSE: STANDARD ACTION+2 Bonus to All Defenses: You gain a +2 bonus to all defenses until the start of your next turn.
Action PointYou start with 1 action point. (Monsters usually have no action points.)
You gain 1 action point when you reach a milestone. After you take an extended rest, you lose any unspent action points, but you start fresh with 1 action point.
No more than once per encounter, you can spend an action point to take an extra action, user certain feats, or use paragon path powers.
SPEND AN ACTION POINT: FREE ACTIONDuring 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. Unlike PCs, a monster can spend more than 1 action point in an encounter, but only 1 per round.
I would like to reiderate that this is just a brief touching on some of the more common rules people forget, I want to make it clear, that this
is not aimed at anyone, just a tool for the group.
Along with these rules, I'd like to just give a couple of the tip that I have been passed over the years that makes combat a bit smoother.
A) Try and have your next move planned out before your turn comes. I understand that things are going to change on every persons turn. It helps though if you have a plan, and not waiting for your turn to even think about what your going to do.
B) If you have a question,
ASK, it would be better if you asked before it was an issue, such as, you have a new power, and are unsure what a keyword or something means, ask the DM, or one of the more experenced players.
C) Review your character the day your going to play! I am in about 4 diffrent games at this point and time, there is no way in hell I can remember what all my characters do, even worse when someone dies and I just grab a character that is the same level I made two months ago. What I tend to do, is calcuate out what my normal atack is, and what average damage is going to be. I also like to calcuate out what the max damage I could do in one turn, using an action point, could be. I also look at my class features in the compendium often, you think I remember which levels get new power points for a psion? Hell no lol, I have to real that stuff constantly. Same thing with powers, I am always looking at the powers on the builer so I remember how they function. Yes, I really have nothing better to do most days.
With all of this, if anyone has ANY questions while we are playing a game, Myself (Liekxombies, or Travis), GBLACK3 (Gerry) and Ormath (joaquin) are all very well versed in the rules, and have seen some of the most broken characters ever played lol, so feel free to ask any of us any questions that might come up.
