The Beginner’s Guide to Combat

It’s inevitable. In all but the most chilled out and easygoing campaigns, you and your group are going to end up in combat one way or another.

But how does combat work in Legends of Tarrem? Whether you’re new to tabletop RPGs as a whole, a newcomer from other RPG systems, or just opening this doc to check the rules, this guide is here to help you through combat from start to finish. To do so, let’s run through an example encounter, using example characters to go through as many aspects of combat as we can. For your convenience, important terms and bits of information will be bolded, and further explained where appropriate.

Let’s set a scene…

An Encounter

Part 1: Pre-Combat

Your party is composed of four player characters:

-Jon, a male Human, the Warrior

-Mira, a female Cavefolk, the Rogue - Thief

-Vell, a female Ice Tiefling, the Cleric and Wizard - Evocationist

-Oleg, a male Lesser Fire Dragon, the Ranger - Bowmaster

All of these characters are level 1.

The party is traveling between one town and another in order to fulfill a quest. On the road to their destination, however, they are asked to roll their Cognition attribute or their Awareness skill. To do so, they all roll a 20-sided dice (also known as a D20), and apply the applicable roll modifier/skill bonus to their result. For example, Mira chose to roll her Cognition, and her die came up with a 12. She has Cognition of 7, meaning her modifier is +2. 12 + 2 equals 14. The other players roll lower than her.

After receiving their rolls, the DM explains that Mira notices a few armored silhouettes hiding in the brush nearby, and that at least one of them is holding a weapon. Mira informs her party and says to the DM that she wants to attempt to sneak. The DM allows her to do so, and she rolls her Sneak skill. She rolls her D20 and gets an 18, adding her Sneak bonus to the roll to get a total of 20. Keep this in mind, as we’ll come back to it later.

The DM decides to ask that the other players roll Sneak at that moment as Mira sneaks into the underbrush on the side of the road to hide. The three other players don’t roll anything above 6, a poor result. The DM explains that although Mira manages to reach the bushes unnoticed, they have clearly been seen by their assailants-to-be, since they leap out of the bushes. In their path stand a number of people that look like bandits, brandishing weapons at the party. “Your gold or your life!” one declares, pointing a sword at the group. The group can see 5 bandits in all.

Oleg decides he wants to try and convince the bandits that they’re making a mistake, and that they don’t have to fight. Oleg’s player says that he is rolling his character’s Persuade skill, and rolls his die. Unfortunately, Oleg rolled a 1.

When a 1 is rolled, it is considered a Critical Failure (also known as a Natural 1 or Nat1, a Crit Fail, a Botch, etc.), which is almost always the worst possible result for a roll. When you roll a Critical Failure, a -5 penalty is applied to your roll after any bonuses/modifiers have been applied. When an action Critically Fails, the result is generally much worse than a normal failure, depending on the tendencies of your DM. It’s worth noting that a Critical Failure does NOT guarantee that your action will fail. If you have a high enough roll bonus to offset the -5 penalty, it is still possible to succeed regardless. Critical Failures will also ONLY occur if the die itself shows a 1. If your final result would be a 1 only because of a penalty, it’s considered an “artificial 1”, and does not incur the -5 penalty from a Critical Failure.

Oleg was not nearly skilled enough to offset that penalty, having a -1 penalty to Persuade, resulting in a -5. The DM says that the bandits are so offended by Oleg’s audacity that they attack immediately. The DM asks his players to roll for initiative.

Part 2: Initiative

Initiative is a mechanic that is used to decide the order in which players, enemies, and other NPCs take their turns in combat. To get your initiative, you roll a D20 with no bonuses, which becomes your initiative. The DM also rolls initiative for the enemies in the encounter, as well as for any participating neutral or friendly NPCs. If any initiative rolls are tied, they can be resolved by rolling off (the tied parties roll again, and the winner goes before the loser(s)), or by simply deciding who goes before who. The methods of resolving tied initiative rolls can vary depending on your DM.

DM tip: If there are events taking place during combat, it may be wise to secretly give the event(s) an initiative score. You don’t have to reveal this to your players.

DMs may, if they so choose, have all of their enemies in the encounter share a single turn in the turn order, and in doing so, have all of them move and act during the same turn. For the purposes of this example, we won’t be doing that.

Note: Initiative rolls cannot be Critically Failed or Critically Succeeded (these will be explained later).

The initiative scores are added to the turn order, which is simply a list of all the initiative scores that are sorted from highest to lowest. For the sake of this encounter, here’s our turn order:

Bandit A: 19

Jon: 17

Bandit B: 16

Mira: 15

Bandit C: 14

Oleg: 13

Bandit D: 10

Vell: 6

Bandit E: 5

Part 2.5: Turns and Rotations

Before we proceed, we should explain what turns and rotations are. A rotation encompases one full circuit of turns in the turn order. When the last person in the turn order finishes their turn, the first person in the turn order goes next, provided that person hasn’t successfully escaped, been slain, or otherwise been removed from the encounter. Each rotation takes six in-game seconds.

A turn is simply when a character or NPC gets to take their actions. Combatants are generally unable to take actions when it’s not their turn, unless otherwise stated.

Part 3: Combat Begins

Since Bandit A had the highest initiative, he gets to go first. The DM says that Bandit A, being the one who ordered the party to give up the goods, runs towards Oleg, stopping in an adjacent space next to Oleg. He then raises his sword and slashes it at Oleg.

This enters what we’re going to call the “Defense Phase” for the purposes of this guide. The DM rolls a die, which is Bandit A’s to-hit roll. After getting his result, the DM checks this roll against Oleg’s Dodge or Armor.

Dodge and Armor are defensive stats that every character has, and can be improved by pieces of armor or through other equipment items. For determining your character’s Dodge and Armor, please see our Character Creation Guide. When defending against an attack, the attacker’s to-hit roll is compared to the defender’s Dodge or Armor, but not both. It’s usually a smart idea to use whichever is highest when possible, but the defender is allowed to choose which stat they use for defense if they like.

There’s also Willpower, which is used to defend against Psionic attacks and other mind-affecting abilities, but it functions the same way as Dodge or Armor, and isn’t relevant to this example encounter.

If the to-hit roll is higher than the defender’s Dodge or Armor, then their attack is successful.

If the to-hit roll is lower than the defender’s Dodge or Armor, then the attack fails.

If the to-hit roll is tied with the defender’s Dodge or Armor, the defender wins and the attack fails.

In this case, Oleg has 5 Dodge and 0 Armor, while Bandit A rolled a 9. Therefore, Oleg gets hit.

Once a hit is registered, the attacker rolls the damage of whatever they’re attacking with, and the defender subtracts that damage from their health. The damage received can be reduced through a character’s Damage Resistance, but we’ll discuss that later; for the purposes of this example, Oleg has 0 DR. Bandit A does 43 damage with their sword. Oleg is wounded, but alive. Bandit A has no actions left he can take, and so his turn is over.

Part 4: Action Economy and Critical Successes

Now that it’s Jon’s turn, this is a good time to explain actions. At the start of each turn, players and enemies alike receive 2 Full Actions, 1 Swift Action, 1 Free Action, and 1 Reaction. Full actions are the most commonly used, being used for things like movement, attacking, casting most spells, and much more. If whatever you’re doing doesn’t explicitly say what type of action it requires, it’s safe to assume that it will take 1 Full action, but you can check the Core Guidebook if you’d rather be sure.

Jon says to the DM that he’s going to move towards the bandit that just hit Oleg. Doing so takes 1 full action. While moving, Jon can move 1 square for each 5 feet of Movement Speed he has. Movement speed is determined by the race of your character, but can be increased with equipment, high Dexterity, enchantments, spells, artifacts, and more. Jon’s move ends in a square next to Bandit A. He then spends his other full action on an attack using his Stone Maul, a Two-Handed warhammer.

To attack with most weapons, players must spend AP, or Action Points. Most weapons consume some amount of AP to swing. These weapons can be swung as many times as your AP permits - as long as you have enough AP, you can swing. A Stone Maul has an AP cost of 38, and Jon has 75 AP, meaning that Jon could normally only swing the maul once. However, Jon is a Warrior, and thanks to his rank 0 bonus Weapon Focus from Warrior, he has a weapon focus for warhammers, reducing the AP cost by 1. Therefore, his stone maul costs 37 AP. This means he can swing twice in one action, which he does.

Jon makes his to-hit roll, and to his and his allies’ delight, he rolls a 20. When a 20 is rolled, it is considered a Critical Success (also known as a Crit, Natural 20 or Nat20). When a Critical Success is rolled, a +5 bonus is applied after any roll modifiers/bonuses have been applied. When an action Critically Succeeds, the result is generally much better than normal, depending on the tendencies of your DM. It’s worth noting that a Critical Success does NOT guarantee that your action will succeed. If you have a high enough roll penalty to offset the +5 bonus, it is still possible to fail regardless. Critical Successes will also ONLY occur if the die itself shows a 20. If your final result would be a 20 only because of a bonus, it’s considered an “artificial 20”, and does not incur the +5 bonus from a Critical Success.

Critical Successes have an extra side effect when they occur while hitting an enemy. If your to-hit roll is a critical success, your damage is doubled. Jon rolls his damage and swings his hammer twice, coming up with 199, which comes to a total of 398 damage with the double damage. This is enough damage to instantly kill Bandit A as Jon crushes the foolish bandit’s skull. Bandit A is removed from the turn order after he dies. Jon decides to end his turn there.

Bandit B, after seeing his comrade being so easily dispatched, decides to use a movement action to back up 15 feet, drawing back his bow and firing at Jon. Bandit B rolls a 3. Compared to Jon’s 10 Armor and 8 Dodge, Bandit B’s attack plinks harmlessly off of Jon’s armor. Bandit B ends his turn.

Part 5: Stealth

Mira’s turn is next. From her position, she moves through the bushes and behind the bandits until she is right behind Bandit C. The DM asks her to roll Sneak again, and she gets a 19, then tells her to continue. It’s likely that the DM is making a secret roll for the bandits to spot Mira or hear her footsteps, but luckily for her, none of them do.

Swift actions are less common, but equally important, as they are actions that can be taken even after both full actions are consumed. Mira uses her swift action to apply a paralysis poison to her dagger. Poisons are something that can be applied to a weapon to increase its damage, or in this case add an additional effect. Poisons, Venoms, and other potions that are applied to weapons only work on the next successful attack with the weapon they were used on.

Mira then attacks Bandit C with her poisoned dagger. Since Mira is sneaking when she attacks, she gets to roll with advantage. Advantage means you roll an additional D20 when rolling, and take the higher roll. Mira rolls a 2 and a 12, since 12 is higher that is the roll she takes. A 12 beats Bandit C’s Armor of 10, dealing 66 damage. The bandit is still alive, but the poison now takes effect. The bandit must succeed an SR 10 Fortitude roll, or be paralyzed for 1 rotation.

SR stands for Success Requirement. This is how high you must roll in order for something to occur or to resist an effect. SR 10 means that Bandit C must roll 10 or higher to resist the poison on Mira’s dagger.

Fortitude is one of the seven core attributes of Legends of Tarrem. The others being Vigor, Cognition, Charisma, Intellect, Dexterity, and Fortune. Detailed descriptions of these can be found here. The bandit has a Fortitude of 5, so he has a bonus of +0. The bandit rolls an 11, meaning he resisted the poison and is not paralyzed.

Bandit C, realizing that he’s been attacked, turns and spots Mira. Under normal circumstances, once a player makes a sneak attack, they are revealed, and this is no exception. Mira is out of actions, so her turn is over.

Part 6: Reactions, AOEs, and Status Effects

Bandit C’s turn is next, and his response to Mira’s attack is to turn around and then back away 5 feet from Mira. Since a 5 foot move is considered a swift action, he retains both of his full actions. In attempting to create distance between himself and Mira, he has triggered an attack of opportunity from Mira.

Attacks of Opportunity are triggered when an enemy or other desired target attempts to move while adjacent to you. An Attack of Opportunity consumes a Reaction, so it’s generally only possible to perform them once per rotation. It’s important to note that Attacks of Opportunity are NOT triggered when an enemy moves into a space next to you, only when an enemy tries to move to another space adjacent to you, or when they try to move away from you. Attacks of Opportunity allow for a single attack with a melee weapon on the target. This attack behaves like a normal attack, but does not consume AP, and can be used even if you don’t have enough AP at the time to attack normally.

Mira rolls a 2 to attack, and unfortunately does not defeat Bandit C’s 10 Armor, so her dagger slash impacts harmlessly on his . Once he’s out of range of Mira, Bandit C reaches for a glass bottle in his pack, and then hurls it at the ground beneath Mira’s feet, the bottle shattering against her boot and releasing a cloud of frigid gas.

The potion turns out to be an Apothecary's Ice Field, a common potion that releases a cloud of icy gas within 5 feet of the impact point after being thrown. The effect of the potion dictates that anyone within a 5 foot radius of the impact must succeed an SR 10 Vigor roll or else become Frozen.

This potion’s effect works in an Area of Effect, or AOE. An AOE is a mechanic that applies an effect to an area larger than a singular target, and is very useful for applying this effect to multiple targets at once. When using an AOE effect, be it a spell, a thrown potion, or something more exotic such as a breath weapon, the user must roll to hit, using the appropriate skill if applicable. The user chooses where the effect will land if thrown or cast, but poor rolls may see the attack land off-course, completely miss, or even fail entirely, depending on the circumstances and the DM’s style. (This may be amended if/when we implement attack deviation or scatter). AOEs are difficult to avoid for the defender. If the user’s to-hit roll is low enough that the target(s)’s Dodge or Armor defeats it, the target still takes half damage from the AOE (if any damage is dealt), and is still affected by whatever the AOE’s effect is. In other words, AOEs can be defended against, but the effects are still applied to the defender, albeit halved. More information about AOEs can be found in the Core Guidebook.

Mira makes her Vigor roll to resist the potion’s effects. She has a Vigor of 2. Tonight seems to be an unlucky night for Mira’s player, since she rolls a 2 again, for a final result of -1. The DM describes how Mira is engulfed by the gas, and is now completely immobile, encased in frost. Mira has been afflicted with the “Frozen” status effect.

Status Effects are conditions applied to a character or NPC which alter certain aspects of the character. These can range from taking periodic damage, to having bonuses or penalties to certain rolls, Attributes, or skills, to being unable to act in certain ways, and much more. Information about Status Effects can be found on their page, linked here. The “Frozen” status effect, to put it simply, prevents the afflicted character from moving or acting until they succeed an SR 15 Vigor roll to break free on their own turn, or are thawed out by other means.

Having frozen Mira, Bandit C moves to use her as a living, freezing piece of cover, and ends his turn.

Part 7: Ranged Combat and Racial Abilities

Oleg, the party’s ranger, takes his turn next. Oleg is a Bowmaster ranger, specializing in using a bow. Oleg, still in pain from being attacked by Bandit A, decides to use his swift action to take a 5 foot step backwards, away from Bandit A’s corpse. He notches an arrow with a serrated head to his bow and draws the string back, taking aim at Bandit B.

Bows are a ranged weapon that launch arrows in an arc at a target, and differ somewhat from melee weapons and even other ranged weapons. Bows have an AP cost and can fire as many arrows as their AP can afford, while crossbows, slings, flintlock guns, Mugen guns, and launchers can typically only be fired once in an action. All ranged weapons can be used with different types of ammunition (arrows for bows, bolts for crossbows, shot and bullets for most flintlocks, etc.) that can affect how the attack behaves.

Oleg is firing a Bleed Arrow, which inflicts 1D10 levels of the Bleeding status effect, from his Hunting Bow. He aims at Bandit B and releases the arrow, rolling to hit. Much to his delight, he critically succeeds with his to-hit roll. After rolling his damage, determining how many arrows he fires, applying double damage from his crit, and adding in the damage benefits he gains from the Bow Master and Power in your Bow 1 class abilities from his Bowmaster class, the resulting damage is 360 damage with a whopping 102 levels of Bleeding.

The Bleeding status effect also has a unique quirk: for every 10 levels of Bleeding that are gained all at once, a single level of the Hemorrhaging status effect is gained. For each level of Hemorrhaging the character has, it inflicts 1 additional level of Bleeding on the character each time they take damage. Since 102 levels of Bleeding were applied, Bandit B has gained 10 levels of Hemorrhaging. The DM describes Bandit B looking severely weakened as blood rapidly stains his clothes and .

Having one more action to use, and not wanting to take a movement action, Oleg elects to use one of his racial traits: Fire Breath. As a Lesser Fire Dragon, he can breathe a 20 foot cone of flames at his enemies once per day, dealing 1D6 fire damage that is multiplied by his level. Since he is level 1, D6 damage is all he gets right now.

Racial Traits, or Racial Abilities, are properties of one’s character provided by the race that they chose. Some work passively, providing benefits or detriments without the character needing to do anything. Examples for this party include Mira’s “Low Light Adapted” racial trait, or Oleg’s “Innate Offense” racial trait. Others can be actively used, granting the character access to a special action or benefit. Examples for this party include Jon’s “Hopeful Human” racial trait, or Vell’s “Freezing Grasp” racial trait. Racial traits are extremely varied between all races and hybrids, and it’s worth your time to explore your possibilities.

Oleg’s Fire Breath does not use any of his skills to roll, so he rolls a flat D20 with no bonuses. He rolls a 15 and aims so that the 20ft cone AOE will engulf Bandit B and Bandit D. His roll beats both of their Armor and Dodge, and they take 4 Fire damage. Bandit D survives the flames, and Bandit B only barely survives. The DM describes Bandit B as clearly being on Death’s Door. Having done so, Oleg has no more actions he can take, and ends his turn.

It is now Bandit D’s turn. Angry that he has been blasted with flames, Bandit D is described as starting to move towards Oleg to retaliate before changing his mind, noticing that Jon stands between him and the party’s ranger. Bandit D instead turns and looks at Mira, who is still frozen, and decides to attack her instead. Since Mira is frozen, she is essentially defenseless as Bandit D approaches and strikes her in the ribs with his steel mace. Being frozen, Mira cannot use her Dodge or Armor to avoid the damage. Bandit D must still roll to hit, and rolls a 13. Mira ultimately takes 32 damage. Mira has low Fortitude, having only 2, which means she has relatively low health, especially compared to the rest of her party. She is hurt and panicking, but alive as Bandit D’s turn ends.

Part 8: Magic

Vell, the party’s mage and healer, takes her turn next, and without hesitation, she casts a spell at Bandit E, since Vell’s player knows that Bandit E’s turn is after her own. She chooses to cast the Evocation spell “Spark.”

There are a number of things that make casting spells different from attacking with a weapon. Casting spells does not cost AP, and instead cost Magic points. To cast a spell, a number of conditions need to be met:

• You have enough magic points to pay the spell’s cost. The spell’s cost is always listed with the spell.

• You have learned the spell you are trying to cast. Just because you saw someone cast a spell you don’t know doesn’t mean you can cast it right away.

• Your Caster Level (CL) is equal to or higher than the CL of the spell you’re trying to cast.

• You aren’t in a state of Magic Burnout, a state that happens when your character would spend magic to the point where they go into negative magic.

Vell fulfills all of these conditions, and so is able to use the spell. Since Spark is an Evocation spell, she rolls her Evocation skill, which she has a +3 in. She rolls a 16, resulting in 19 to hit. It hits, dealing 3 Electric damage and stunning Bandit D for 1 turn. The Spark spell is cast as a swift action, so Vell can still act. Vell subtracts the cost of Spark from her magic, and then chooses to cast the “Lesser Magic Orbs” Evocation spell next.

Unfortunately, Vell rolls a nat1 to cast Lesser Magic Orbs. Critically failing when casting a spell causes the spell to “fizzle.” When a spell “fizzles”, the caster loses half of the spell’s magic cost, and the spell does nothing, effectively wasting magic and whatever action was taken to cast it.

Undeterred, and perhaps forgetting in the moment about Mira’s predicament, Vell tries again with her last full action. Vell rolls a 17, resulting in an artificial 20. Lesser Magic Orbs’ effect creates 4 orbs that can damage up to 4 different targets for 6D6 Magic damage. (Note: Magic damage is a type of elemental damage, not the default damage type for offensive spells. Attacks that deal Magic elemental damage will specify such). She hits Bandit B with 2 of the orbs, and Bandit E with the other 2, dealing 35 and 29 damage respectively. Bandit B succumbs to his wounds and falls over, unconscious and dying. The DM removes Bandit B from the turn order while Vell’s player quietly comments on how many low rolls everyone is getting this session.

At this point, the turn order looks like this:

Jon: 17

Mira: 15

Bandit C: 14

Oleg: 13

Bandit D: 10

Vell: 6

Bandit E: 5

Part 9: Dying and DR

Bandit E, seeing that two of his allies have died in front of him, decides he wants revenge. He does so in the same way as Bandit C: attacking the still-helpless Mira. He runs over towards Mira and thrusts his sword into the defenseless Cavefolk’s chest, and much to the party’s horror, Bandit E gets a nat20 to do so! Between the doubled damage from the critical success and how well Bandit E rolled for damage, Mira takes 120 damage, which is enough to reduce Mira’s health to -10.

At this point, Mira has entered the “Dying State.” The Dying State occurs when a character’s health is reduced to 0 or lower. Upon entering the Dying State, the character is immediately rendered unconscious, and cannot act. Mira must now roll a death save each time it becomes her turn, or each time she is attacked while in the Dying State. Each death save is made at an SR 10. If a death save is successful, nothing happens to the character. If a death save is failed, this failure is noted by the DM. If a character fails a death save 3 times in the same Dying State, they die.

The rest of the party calls out for Mira as her frozen and battered body hits the ground, with bloodstains starting to appear and slowly spread beneath her. Bandit E ends his turn by pointing his sword at Mira and threatening to finish her off if the party tries anything.

Now that the bottom of the turn order has been reached, it loops back around to Jon’s turn, beginning a new rotation. Jon isn’t willing to let his comrade be held hostage while she bleeds out on the ground. He runs forward towards Mira, stopping in front of Bandit D before attempting to repeat what he did to Bandit A. He gets a 16 to hit overall, which successfully hits Bandit D. Bandit D takes 203 damage total as Jon savages him with a couple of fierce strikes with a stone maul. Bandit D rolls Fortitude due to the stone maul’s effect, and rolls a 6. The SR he had to beat was 10, so Bandit D is Knocked Down. Jon shouts at Vell to heal Mira as his turn ends.

Mira’s turn is next, and since she’s in the Dying State, the only thing she’s allowed to do is roll her death save. She rolls a 3, which means she’s failed it. The DM describes how Jon can make out the sound of a weak, wet, horrible rattling noise from Mira’s throat.

Bandit C takes his turn next, and seeing that Jon is right there, standing over his comrade, he tries to attack Jon. He rolls high enough to beat Jon’s 10 Armor, bringing his sword down on Jon. Ultimately, Jon would receive 50 damage. However, Jon can apply his DR, or Damage Resistance to reduce damage. DR is granted by the armor that a character wears, certain racial traits, and many other means. For every 3 points of DR a character has, incoming damage is reduced by 1%. For the sake of this example, let’s assume that Jon has 30 DR total. 30 DR means 10% of incoming damage is ignored. Therefore, Jon only takes 45 damage. Bandit C ends his turn.

Oleg takes his turn and fires 1 arrow at Bandit C and hits him successfully, dealing enough damage to kill him. Unfortunately, Oleg lost a lot of his arrows during a previous encounter, and forgot to restock, only having enough arrows for 2 more attacks. He uses both to shoot Bandit D, severely wounding, but not killing him. Oleg ends his turn.

Bandit D spends a full action getting to his feet, starting to fumble about for an item when he stops. Seeing things going so poorly for him and his comrades, Bandit D decides his life isn’t worth this, and drops his mace, shouting “I yield, I yield! Stop!” Feeling cheeky, the DM asks Mira to roll Fortune. Mira gets a 4. The DM asks Mira to make another death save as the heavy mace falls right on her back, shattering some of the ice that is still immobilizing her. Thankfully, Mira succeeds her death save this time, letting out a quiet groan as the weapon hits her, then rolls off of her back. Bandit D finally finds what he had been patting around for: a potion. He drinks its contents, and then crouches down to cower, ending his turn.

Note: Enemies may not always surrender, depending on the creature and/or DM. For the purposes of this example, this DM likes to have enemies surrender when they deem appropriate.

Vell is next, who immediately casts the “Cleric Healing” cleric spell on the unconscious Mira. She rolls a 13 to cast, which is not a failure, so the spell succeeds. She heals Mira for 59 health, which leaves Mira with 49 health. If a character in the Dying State is healed to the point where they have more than 0 health, they exit the Dying State, and are instead unconscious. With Mira now stabilized, Vell turns her attention to the remaining bandits.

Part 10: Cleaning Up

Vell uses her remaining full action to attack Bandit E with Lesser Magic Orbs. She rolls a natural 20, using all 4 orbs from the spell to hit Bandit E, dealing 82 damage total. At this point, even after applying her magic regen at the start of her turn, Vell is extremely low on magic, not having enough to cast any of her other spells. She decides to end her turn instead of trying to cast anyway and entering Magic Burnout.

Bandit E is next, and the DM decides to make a secret roll. After seeing the result, Bandit E turns and starts running for his life, spending all of his actions trying to escape.

Jon next tries to chase down Bandit E, not wanting to let him get away, but isn’t fast enough to catch up. Oleg also tries to chase down the fleeing bandit, being out of arrows and not having time to retrieve them from the bandits’ bodies. Ultimately, they both decide to let Bandit E escape, albeit begrudgingly. They return to the road to help Vell tend to Mira.

With no enemies left in the encounter that are willing to continue fighting, the DM considers combat over and congratulates the party on their victory, and Mira on her survival. The party begins to loot the bodies and decide what to do with Bandit D…

There you have it! For further clarification on mechanics mentioned here, or that we left out for the sake of simplicity, please check out the Core Guidebook, or feel free to ask questions in our Discord server! We hope this example encounter helps you along as you play Legends of Tarrem!