A few combat situations come up rarely enough that the rules for them intentionally aren’t covered in the Player’s Handbook—in particular, mounted combat and combat underwater.

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ACTIONS THE RULES DON'T COVER

Your presence as the Dungeon Master is what makes D&D such a great game. You make it possible for the players to try anything they can imagine. That means it’s your job to resolve unusual actions when the players try them. Use the “DM’s Best Friend”: This simple guideline helps you adjudicate any unusual situation: An especially favorable circumstance gives a +2 bonus to a check or an attack roll (or it gives combat advantage). A particularly unfavorable circumstance gives a –2 penalty. Cast the Action as a Check: If a character tries an action that might fail, use a check to resolve it. To do that, you need to know what kind of check it is and what the DC is. Attacks: If the action is essentially an attack, use an attack roll. It might involve a weapon and target AC, or it might just be a Strength or Dexterity check against any defense. For an attack, use the appropriate defense of the target. Use an opposed check for anything that involves a contest between two creatures. Other Checks: If the action is related to a skill (Acrobatics and Athletics cover a lot of the stunts characters try in combat), use that check. If it is not an obvious skill or attack roll, use an ability check. Consult the Difficulty Class and Damage by Level table below, and set the DC according to whether you think the task should be easy, hard, or somewhere in between. A quick rule of thumb is to start with a DC of 10 (easy), 15 (moderate), or 20 (hard) and add one-half the character’s level. Setting Improvised Damage: Sometimes you need to set damage for something not covered in the rules—a character stumbles into the campfire or falls into a vat of acid, for example. Choose a column on the Difficulty Class and Damage table based on the severity of the effect. Use a normal damage expression for something that might make an attack round after round, or something that’s relatively minor. These numbers are comparable to a monster’s at-will attack. Use a limited damage expression, comparable to a monster’s special powers, for one-time damaging effects or massive damage. Example: Shiera the 8th-level rogue wants to try the classic swashbuckling move of swinging on a chandelier and kicking an ogre in the chest on her way down to the ground, hoping to push the ogre into the brazier of burning coals behind it. An Acrobatics check seems reasonable. This sort of action is exactly the kind of thinking you want to encourage, so you pick an easy DC: The table says DC 15, but it’s a skill check, so make it DC 20. If she makes that check, she gets a hold on the chandelier and swings to the ogre. Then comes the kicking. She’s more interested in the push than in dealing any damage with the kick itself, so have her make a Strength attack against the ogre’s Fortitude. If she pulls it off, let her push the ogre 1 square and into the brazier, and find an appropriate damage number. Use a normal damage expression from the table, because once the characters see this trick work they’ll try anything they can to keep pushing the ogres into the brazier. You can safely use the high value, though— 2d8 + 5 fire damage. If Shiera had used a 7th-level encounter power and Sneak Attack, she might have dealt 4d6 (plus her Dexterity modifier), so you’re not giving away too much with this damage.

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COVER

The rules in the Player’s Handbook for determining cover are straightforward. A creature that’s around a corner from the attacker, or protected by terrain, has cover. A significant terrain advantage gives superior cover. Most of the time, those rules are the only rules you need. As the referee, you decide based on common sense whether a creature has cover against an attack. If you want rules that can let you determine cover more precisely, you can use these. They’re the same rules that appear in the D&D Miniatures game. In D&D, though, we recommend that you make a quick decision about cover and move on to the fun.

Cover in melee comes up most often when the target is in a square at the corner of the attacker’s space and a wall or other solid obstacle fills one of the squares between them. If the target of the attack occupies the same square as a pillar or tree, that terrain also grants cover. If the attacker is trying to jab the target between the bars of a portcullis, the target has superior cover.

DETERMINING COVER FOR MELEE ATTACKS DETERMINING COVER FOR MELEE ATTACKS

✦ Defender’s Burden: The target of a melee attack has to prove that it has cover. That proof consists of a line between the attacker and the defender that is blocked by a solid object.

✦ Corner to Corner: The defender has cover if an imaginary line from a corner of the attacker’s space to a corner of the defender’s space is blocked.

✦ Getting Technical: If you need to be extremely precise, choose a square the attacker occupies and a square the defender occupies. Draw an imaginary line from every corner of the attacker’s space to every corner of the defender’s space. If even one line is obstructed, the defender has cover. (A line that runs parallel right along a wall isn’t blocked.)

✦ Superior Cover: Only specific terrain features (such as grates and arrow slits) grant superior cover from melee attacks.

Cover comes up a lot more often for ranged attacks, simply because it’s harder for the attacker to move into a position with a clear shot. In melee, a character can usually shift 1 square to avoid attacking around a corner and negate most cover. A ranged attacker might have to move halfway across the battlefield to get a clear shot at a target taking cover around a corner. In addition to shooting a creature partially protected by a corner, an important situation to remember for ranged cover is the presence of other enemies (potential targets) between the attacker and the target.

DETERMINING COVER FOR RANGED ATTACKS DETERMINING COVER FOR RANGED ATTACKS

✦ Attacker’s Burden: For ranged attacks, the attacker has to prove that he has a clear shot. That proof consists of one corner in his space that has clear lines to every corner of the target’s space.

✦ Choose a Corner: The attacker chooses one corner of a square he occupies, and draws imaginary lines from that corner to every corner of any one square the defender occupies. If none of those lines are blocked by a solid object or an enemy creature, the attacker has a clear shot. The defender doesn’t have cover. (A line that runs parallel right along a wall isn’t blocked.)

✦ Cover: If you can’t find a clear shot, the target has cover. No matter which corner in your space you choose, one or two lines from that corner to every corner in the defender’s space are blocked.

✦ Superior Cover: The defender has superior cover if no matter which corner in your space you choose and no matter which square of the target’s space you choose, three or four lines are blocked. If four lines are blocked from every corner, you can’t target the defender.

Close and area attacks work very much like ranged attacks except that you care about the origin square of the effect, not the creature that creates it. A tree between a creature and the center of a fireball helps protect that creature from the blast, not a tree between the creature and the wizard casting the spell. Also unlike ranged attacks, creatures don’t provide cover. An orc in a fireball doesn’t get any protection from the other orc standing between it and the center of the fireball.

DETERMINING COVER FOR CLOSE AND DETERMINING COVER FOR CLOSE AND AREA ATTACKS AREA ATTACKS

✦ Like Ranged Attacks: You determine cover for these attacks in the same way as for ranged attacks, with two exceptions:

✦ Origin, Not Attacker: Treat the origin square of the effect as the attacker’s square.

✦ Creatures Aren’t Cover: Creatures don’t provide cover against close and area attacks.

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FORCED MOVEMENT AND TERRAIN

Many creatures have ways to move others around on the field of battle. “Pull, Push, and Slide” on page 285 of the Player’s Handbook discusses the general rules for forced movement. One extra wrinkle that might come up in your game is how forced movement interacts with various kinds of terrain.

FORCED MOVEMENT AND TERRAIN FORCED MOVEMENT AND TERRAIN

✦ Difficult Terrain: Forced movement isn’t hindered by difficult terrain.

✦ Blocking Terrain: Forced movement can’t move a creature through blocking terrain (page 61). Every square along the path must be a space the creature could normally occupy.

✦ Challenging Terrain: Forced movement can make some powers more effective or hinder them, depending on the specific challenging terrain (page 61). The DM can require the target of forced movement to make a check as if it were moving voluntarily across the terrain, with the same consequence for failure.

✦ Hindering Terrain: Forced movement can force targets into hindering terrain (page 61). Targets forced into hindering terrain receive a saving throw immediately before entering the unsafe square they are forced into. Success leaves the target prone at the edge of the square before entering the unsafe square. If the power that forced the target to move allows the creature that used the power to follow the target into the square that the target would have left, the creature can’t enter the square where the target has fallen prone. If forced movement pushes a Large or larger creature over an edge, the creature doesn’t fall until its entire space is over the edge. On the creature’s next turn, it must either move to a space it can occupy or use a move action to squeeze into the smaller space at the edge of the precipice. A DM can allow a power that pushes a target more than 1 square to carry the target completely over hindering terrain.

Using forced movement to pull, push, or slide a creature onto ice, or into a pit, or into a cloud of daggers is a clever tactic. Challenging terrain can make forced movement powers more effective, but it can also hinder them, depending on the specific terrain. For example, if a white dragon pushes a character over slick ice, you could tell the character to make an Acrobatics check or fall prone. On the flip side, if a shambling mound pushes a character through thick mud, which might require an Athletics check to move through at the cost of paying an extra square of movement, you might let the character use the mud to slow his or her movement, reducing the distance he or she is pushed by 1 square. Targets of forced movement in hindering terrain (pits, precipices, fire) can avoid plunging into a pit or over the edge of a cliff or being pushed into a raging fire. The creature makes a saving throw rolled immediately before entering the unsafe square, with success leaving the creature prone at the edge of the precipice. If the power used to move the creature would allow the character using the power to follow the target into the square it leaves, the character can’t enter the square where the creature has fallen prone. For example, a fighter who bull rushes an orc off a cliff can’t move into the square of the prone orc when the orc catches itself at the edge. At your option, you can allow a power that pushes the target more than 1 square to carry the target over hindering terrain in the way. You might imagine a titan with push 3 knocking a character clear over a pit to land in a heap on the other side. Some powers specifically have this effect, and it’s probably not a good idea to extend it to others. Rely on how you imagine the power working in the world. If you see the blow lifting a creature off the ground, particularly if it leaves him or her prone at the end of the push, you can decide that the power throws the target over hindering terrain along the way.

When you design an encounter area, don’t put 1st-level characters in a fight at the edge of an 80-foot cliff. The 8d10 points of damage from falling off that cliff would be lethal even to the group’s fighter. The table below classifies the distances of falls according to their severity by character level. A painful fall does significant damage to characters of the indicated levels, but shouldn’t kill a character who’s not yet bloodied. A perilous fall might kill a bloodied character, and could leave even a character at full health bloodied. A deadly fall could kill a fragile character, will probably make a character bloodied, and threatens significant harm even to a character who has more hit points than any of his companions.

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AQUATIC COMBAT

Fighting underwater is tricky business for landdwelling adventurers and creatures. Water provides resistance against movement, swirling currents grab and drag a swimmer along, and tempestuous waters immobilize all but expert swimmers.

AQUATIC COMBAT When fighting underwater, the following modifiers apply:

✦ Creatures using powers that have the fire keyword take a –2 penalty to attack rolls.

✦ Characters using weapons from the spear and crossbow weapon groups take no penalties to attack rolls with those weapons while fighting underwater. Characters using any other weapon take a –2 penalty to attack rolls.

✦ Creatures move using their swim speed. A creature without a swim speed must use the Athletics skill to swim, as described in the Player’s Handbook.

✦ Aquatic: Creatures native to watery environments have the aquatic ability. They gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls against opponents that do not have this ability. Aquatic monsters, such as sahuagin, are noted as such.

The most important underwater terrain is the water itself—especially when the water is moving.

UNDERWATER TERRAIN UNDERWATER TERRAIN
✦ Current: A current drags creatures along its path. When you swim into a current, you move a distance and direction according to the current’s strength and in the direction where it flows. This is a slide effect, with the distance and direction determined by the current. If you wish to fight against a current, you can spend squares of movement to reduce the distance the current slides you. You can reduce the distance partially, or decrease it down to zero, provided that you have enough movement to do so. If a current slides you into another square with a current, you ignore that square’s current. This applies to all squares the current moves you into, including the destination. Current terrain on maps indicates the direction the current slides you and the distance in squares that the current moves you.

✦ Other Terrain: Difficult terrain, cover, and concealment all exist in watery realms. The ruins of a sunken ship provide cover, while dirt kicked up by powerful currents grants concealment. Choppy, storm-churned seas act as difficult terrain. Best of all, underwater battles allow for up-and-down movement. Creatures can attack the characters from all directions, not just along the ground.

Aquatic and aerial encounters force you to think in three dimensions. Any DM who has had a monster directly below a PC knows how annoying it is to stack several miniatures in one square. Define an arbitrary elevation, preferably the one where most of the encounter takes place, as “ground” level. Creatures are all positioned above or below the action relative to that altitude. Placing a small d6 or d4 next to a figure is a good way to measure its distance above or below this level. The number on the die shows how many squares the creature is above or below the baseline. Use dice of one color to mark creatures below the fight and another color for those above. When a monster is directly above or below a PC, you can squeeze its miniature into the same place. Although crowded, placing the two miniatures in the same square still works well enough. If you are worried about figures being knocked over or accidentally pushed into the wrong square, pull the miniatures off the table and use smaller proxies, such as the dice that measure elevation, in their place. Determining range against creatures above or below you is straightforward. Look at the distance between the two creatures as if they were at the same elevation, counting squares as normal. Then count the difference between their elevations. Use the higher of these two numbers. Since D&D counts diagonal movement the same as movement across the edges of squares, this method works out well. If a creature is far away from another, you can trace a path that shifts upward via diagonals for free. The opposite is true for a creature that is almost directly above another: As you trace its range up to it, you can choose a path that shifts sideways diagonally and up.

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MOUNTED COMBAT

A valiant knight and his fearless warhorse charge a blue dragon. The dwarf cavalry of the Barrier Peaks takes to its hippogriffs to repel a flight of rampaging harpies. A drow scout patrol rides monstrous spiders across a cavern’s ceiling, watching for surface dwellers foolish enough to blunder into its territory. From a mundane horse to a snarling wyvern, mounted D&D warriors have many options. Mounts offer three basic advantages to riders. They are faster than most humanoids, they can offer movement modes such as flight and swimming, and the more ferocious of them combine their fighting abilities with their riders’ attacks. The mounted combat rules define the relationship between a rider and a mount. The rules combine the actions and options of the two creatures, as though mount and rider were a single creature.

These rules exist to let the PCs use mounts in the easiest, most balanced way. When you decide that the evil wizard rides a wyvern, you add the NPC and the monster to the encounter as normal and let them take their full actions separately. The evil wizard moves along with the wyvern, but both monsters get to attack. The encounter is balanced because you accounted for both of their XP values. You can allow the PCs and the creatures they ride to get their own sets of actions, especially if a character rides a powerful, intelligent monster such as a dragon. However, at that point you have effectively added an additional member to the party. If you do this, add an additional XP value of monsters to the encounter equal to the mounts’ XP value. When granting the PCs experience, subtract these “bonus” monsters from the XP total. You should use this rule if the mount’s level is at the party’s level or higher, or if its level is no more than two below the characters’ level. Lower-level mounts are too weak to have a big effect on the encounter. As usual, use your common sense. If a lower-level mount manages to prove a big help to the party, add extra creatures and hold back XP as above.

MOUNTS

✦ Size: Your mount must be larger than you, and no smaller than Large size.

✦ Adjacent: You must be adjacent to a creature to mount it.

✦ Willing: You can use a creature as a mount only if it is willing.

✦ Saddles: The rules assume that you ride a creature with a saddle. If you lack a saddle, you take a –2 penalty to attack rolls, AC, and Reflex defense while mounted.

✦ Mounted Combat: Anyone can simply ride along with a beast of burden without using the Mounted Combat feat. The Mounted Combat feat allows you to make the most of a mount’s abilities. When you have the Mounted Combat feat and you ride a creature, you gain access to any special mount abilities it confers to its rider. (Not every creature has these abilities.) While you are riding a creature with Mounted Combat, the creature can make any Athletics, Acrobatics, Endurance, or Stealth checks using your base skill check bonus rather than its own if yours is better.

MOUNT AND RIDER

✦ Space: You and your mount occupy the mount’s space. If it is ever important to determine the precise location within the mount’s space that you occupy, you choose.

✦ Targeting: Targeted attacks can target you or your mount, as the attacker chooses. A close attack or an area attack affects both you and your mount if its area includes either of you. ✦ Mount Benefits: Many mounts offer special attacks or benefits they can use or grant to their riders. These abilities range from flat bonuses, such as an AC bonus to the rider, to special attacks that the mount can use. The Monster Manual details the benefits that many creatures grant if you meet a minimum level and have the Mounted Combat feat. If you don’t meet a mount’s prerequisites, you can ride it, but you don’t gain the mount’s special benefits.

✦ Opportunity Attacks: If your mount’s movement provokes an opportunity attack, the attacker chooses to target either you or your mount. If you provoke an opportunity attack by making a ranged attack, the attacker must target you.

✦ Forced Movement: If an attack that forces movement targets you but not your mount, you can choose for your mount to also be affected, so that you and your mount continue to move together. If you don’t want your mount to be affected, you can be pushed off your mount if the forced movement carries you out of the mount’s space.

MOUNTS IN COMBAT

✦ Mounting and Dismounting: Mounting or dismounting a creature is a standard action.

✦ Initiative: You and your mount both act on your initiative count. If you and your mount separate, you both continue acting on the same initiative count.

✦ Actions: On your turn, you and your mount combined can take a normal set of actions—a standard action, a move action, and a minor action. You divide these actions as you wish. Most commonly, your mount takes a move action to walk or fly, and you take a standard action to attack. You and your mount also share a single immediate action. If you and your mount separate, you still share one set of actions on that turn.

✦ Attacking Mounts: Your mount can use a standard action to attack instead of you. If you don’t have the Mounted Combat feat, your mount takes a –2 penalty to all its attack rolls.

✦ Charge: If you charge, you can move your mount’s speed and either make a melee basic attack yourself or let your mount make a melee basic attack.

✦ Squeezing: If your mount squeezes, it and you both take the associated penalties.

✦ Mounts in Enclosed Spaces: Mounts native to outdoor areas don’t like being cramped into tight dungeon rooms and corridors, and take a –2 penalty to attacks and defenses if forced into a confined space. Mounts native to subterranean regions (such as blade spiders and carrion crawlers) don’t take this penalty, and the penalty doesn’t apply in an underground area large enough to seem like it’s outdoors (at least 50 feet in every direction).

✦ Knocked Prone: An attack that knocks your mount prone also forces you to dismount. You move into a space of your choice adjacent to the now-prone mount. If an attack knocks you prone, you immediately attempt a saving throw to avoid being dismounted. This saving throw works just like a normal saving throw, except you make it as soon as you are knocked prone, not at the end of your turn. Lower than 10: Failure. You are dismounted and fall prone in an open space of your choice adjacent to the mount. 10 or higher: Success. You remain in the saddle and are not knocked prone.

Mounts are the most fun when used as part of wilderness adventures, mass battles, and other situations where the characters have open spaces to fight in and long distances to cover. In such situations, you can give the PCs’ enemies mounts of their own. Keep an eye out for traps, narrow corridors that require squeezing, and other effects that make mounts less than useful in dungeons. In addition, wild animals such as griffons typically dislike enclosed spaces. Apply a –2 penalty to such a creature’s attacks and defenses if it is forced inside. Be sure to make such penalties clear to the players so that their characters can plan and react appropriately. If you have any doubts about the effect that mounts have on the campaign, keep them on the sidelines or create story reasons to limit them. For example, the PCs might gain the use of a flight of griffons, but only when they undertake specific missions on the elf king’s behalf. Be forthright with the players. Let them know that they can have cool mounts within the limits you set before they get a chance to use them. Open communication and honesty are the best answers to any problems that arise in the game.

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FLYING

The rules for fighting in the air stress abstraction and simplicity over simulation. In real life, a flying creature’s ability to turn, the speed it must maintain to stay aloft, and other factors put a strict limit on flight. In D&D, flying creatures face far fewer limitations.

Unless otherwise noted below, a flying creature moves like a creature that walks on the ground. It can turn as often as it wants, move backward, and so on. Unless a special ability or a portion of the fly action says otherwise, it moves like it does for any other mode.

FLY: MOVE ACTION

✦ Movement: Fly a number of squares up to your fly speed.

✦ Moving Up and Down: While flying, you can fly straight up, straight down, or diagonally up or down. There is no additional cost for moving up or down.

✦ Remaining in the Air: If you fail to fly at least 2 squares during your turn, whether due to not moving far enough or simply not using the fly action, you crash at the end of your turn.

✦ Landing and Crashing: If a creature flies to a surface it can hold onto or rest upon, it can land. A creature that accidentally flies into an object, such as an invisible wall, immediately crashes.

✦ Double Fly: If you fly twice in a row on the same turn, you can fly a total number of squares equal to double your speed. Normally, you cannot end a move in an ally’s space. If you double fly, you can pass through an ally’s space even if your first fly action would otherwise leave you in its space.

✦ Provokes Opportunity Attacks: If you leave a square that is adjacent to an enemy, that enemy can make an opportunity attack.

✦ No Opportunity Attacks: A flying creature cannot make opportunity attacks.

✦ Knocked Prone: A flying creature that is knocked prone crashes.

Flight is a fast form of movement that allows a traveler to avoid obstacles and swoop over enemies, but it comes with a major drawback. Tumbling from the sky and crashing to the earth is risk enough to keep many adventurers safe on the ground.

Crashing: Most of the time, a creature that falls from the air slams into the ground and takes falling damage as normal (see page 284 of the Player’s Handbook). However, sometimes a creature is high enough in the air or is a skilled enough flier that it can avoid a crash landing.

✦ Safe Distance: A flying creature that crashes immediately drops a distance equal to its fly speed. If it reaches the ground, it lands safely.

✦ Falling: If the flier has not yet reached the ground, it crashes.

✦ Crashes: A creature that crashes falls all the way to the ground and takes falling damage. High-Altitude Crashes: Some encounters take place high above the ground. You need only the following two rules if a flying creature crashes thousands of feet above the ground.

✦ Extreme Altitudes: It is possible that a creature far above the ground can spend more than a round falling to the ground. As a rule of thumb, a creature that crashes falls 100 squares after checking for its safe distance. If it is still in the air, it can attempt to stop its descent by flying again.

✦ Halting a Descent: Halting a descent is a special Athletics check made as a standard action. It is a DC 30 check, with a bonus to the check equal to the creature’s fly speed. On a success, the creature pulls out of its fall and stops falling. It must still use a move action to fly.

Many flying creatures have additional abilities related to flight. Here are the common abilities that modify flight. Altitude Limit: A monster that has an altitude limit can’t fly more than the indicated number of squares off the ground. If it flies higher than this limit, it crashes at the end of its turn even if it drops back below the limit. Clumsy Flying: A clumsy flier takes a –4 penalty to attack rolls and defenses while flying. These creatures are ill suited to fighting in the air. Clumsy Grounded: A creature that is clumsy when grounded takes a –4 penalty to attack rolls and defenses when on the ground, not flying. Such creatures are at home while flying, and due to their anatomy or training fare poorly on the ground. For example, a bat is agile in the air but clumsy on the ground. Hover: A monster that can hover can shift and make opportunity attacks while flying. It remains flying even if it does not move the minimum distance normally needed to remain aloft. It stays in the air even if it takes no move actions to fly. Overland Flight: Overland flight applies to creatures that fly to move from place to place but remain on the ground to fight. A creature using overland flight loses its minor, immediate, and standard actions while it flies, and can use its move action only to fly. The number associated with overland flight is the number of squares the monster moves with a single move action. If it takes actions to do anything else, it crashes.

Difficult terrain for a flying creature includes flying debris, swirling air currents, and other factors that interfere with flight. Clouds provide concealment, while towers, floating castles, and other structures provide cover. In addition, use the rules for current under “Aquatic Combat” (see page 45) to model strong gusts of wind.

It’s fun to knock someone from the skies, but it can be a real drag when fights take place far, far above the surface. The distance a creature falls when crashing is great enough that it likely must spend several rounds doing nothing but moving to return to the melee. You don’t need to invent reasons why a combatant that crashes but manages to recover quickly returns to the fight. If anything, a monster that rises back to the melee just as the characters think they have won makes for a nasty surprise. Keep in mind the possibility of a crash when building encounters in the air. Creatures that knock their foes prone are the biggest cause of crashes. On the other hand, the threat of a crash adds a lot of tension to the game. Use it in moderation, or plan your adventures to account for splitting the party between characters who stay in the air and those who crash.

When you are running a battle in the air, ground based elements allow you to add in terrain and a lot more complexity than you might find in a clear sky. Grounded monsters using ranged weapons are the easiest element to add, while soaring rock spires, towers, and other tall terrain details give the characters and their enemies stuff to swoop around. In an enclosed environment, such as an Underdark cavern or an enormous building, ledges can hang above the fliers, mounted on the chamber’s roof or high on its walls. Add in these platforms to attack fliers from two directions or give walking creatures a chance to jump down upon fliers who draw too close. A readied action to jump on a passing flier makes for an interesting complication or a truly heroic action.

The dwarf crew of an airship works furiously to coax as much speed from its arcane engines as possible. Meanwhile, a flight of marauding gnolls on winged demons draws ever closer to the ship. The characters take to the upper deck, ready to repel the approaching boarders. During the battle, the ship continues to roar forward, the gnolls pushing their mounts to match the pace. When running this sort of battle at your table, with the ship in the center of the activity, designate the ship as a reference point. On the ship’s initiative count, it “moves” forward—but instead of moving the ship, reposition all the creatures flying around it. If the ship flies 10 squares to the east, you can reproduce this event by relocating all the gnolls and their mounts 10 squares to the west. The ship and the gnolls are in the same relative positions as if you had actually moved the ship, but by keeping the ship stationary, you avoid having to reposition the centerpiece of the battle grid.

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DISEASE

When creatures are exposed to a disease—from the bite of a disease-carrying monster, immersion in filthy swamp water, or infected food—they risk contracting the disease.

DISEASE

✦ Infection: When you are exposed to a disease, you risk becoming infected. If you are infected, you suffer the initial effect of the disease and begin to move on the disease track.

Monster Attacks: Make a saving throw at the end of the encounter. If the saving throw fails, you are infected. Other Exposure: For other kinds of exposure (environmental or food), the disease makes an attack roll. If the disease’s attack hits, you are infected. Prolonged Exposure: If a character spends a long time exposed to disease, the disease makes one attack roll per day of exposure.

✦ Disease Track: Every disease has at least three states, arrayed on a a row of effects called the disease’s track: cured (the target is no longer affected), the disease’s initial effect, and the disease’s final state. Initial Effect: When you become infected, you suffer the disease’s initial effect. Moving on the Disease Track: As the disease progresses, you might get worse, moving on the track toward the final state, or you might improve until you are cured. Some effects continue until you are cured, persisting regardless of where you are on the disease’s track, until you improve to the cured state. Other effects end when you move to a better or worse state on the track.

✦ Disease Progression: Once you’re infected, make an Endurance check after each extended rest to see if you improve, worsen, or maintain your current condition. A disease specifies two target Endurance DCs: a lower DC to maintain and a higher DC to improve.

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POISON

A scorpion’s sting or serpent’s fang is a painful attack, but the sting or bite becomes deadly with the addition of the creature’s natural venom. Poison can be harvested from creatures or created through magical and alchemical mixtures. If poison is applied to a weapon, such weapon attacks become more deadly.

POISON

✦ Poison Vector: Poison can be applied with a weapon, to a trap, to darts or needles, smeared in such a way as to seep in through the skin, or dispersed in a powder or gas so it’s inhaled. Poison in food or drink takes effect when it’s ingested unless otherwise noted. The poison attacks the victim when it makes contact through any of these means. Some poisons, as noted in their descriptions, can be administered only by specific means, such as in food or by a weapon that has been coated with the poison.

✦ Poison Characteristics: Poisons are consumable items (similar to magic items). They affect you with an attack power. Some poisons have after effects, which apply after you save against the initial attack.

✦ Poisoned Weapon Attacks: You must apply a poison to a weapon. The poison takes effect the next time the weapon hits and deals damage. The poison’s effect is a secondary attack against the same target. If a poisoned weapon hits multiple targets, the poison attacks only the first target hit. Apply a Poison: Apply poison to a weapon. This is a standard action. Poison applied to a weapon loses its potency at the end of the encounter or after 5 minutes have passed.