The Turn-Based Action rules can be used for more than combat and are also ideal for most high-octane situations. There are several alternative scenarios where an additional layer of granularity can provide new challenges and strategies for the participants.

Suspended Movement

Adventures can take you under the sea, into the sky, or adrift in the Astral Plane. These scenarios aren't anchored to the ground and expand your movement options to a whole new dimension.

The Narrator typically controls all characters that aren't the PCs. However, players may command mounts and hirelings, summon familiars, or conjure squads of reinforcements to tip the scales of any Turn-Based Action encounter in their favor.

Any creatures or summons under your control can take their movement at any point on your turn. Identical creatures and summons move as a group provided each is adjacent to one other member.

The action hardly happens in a featureless void. Craggy roads, chandeliers of suspect quality, and figures reaching out from the mists for fresh blood can all greatly shape the way you move through the world.

World benefits and world penalties are objects, obstacles, and field conditions in the immediate area. They might provide you with bonuses, or can slow you down and provide another source of danger.

Those who seek adventure do so knowing that they face the risk of injury and death. A fall onto sharpened stakes of a cunning pit trap, the scimitar swung recklessly by the dastardly pirate, a druid’s summoned lightning striking from a clear sky, or the deadly bite of a giant serpent—all can damage or kill even the mightiest of creatures.

Hit Points

Hit points represent a creature's stamina, willpower, and the luck needed to survive deadly challenges. Creatures with a lot of hit points are harder to kill, while those with few hit points are more fragile.

Attacks all follow a simple structure, whether it is a melee attack with a sword, a ranged attack with a bow, or a spell attack. If it ever needs to be determined whether an action counts as an attack, it is an attack if you are making an attack roll.

On your turn, you typically have an action, a bonus action, and your movement. You can use one of the following actions, an action gained from your class, magic item, or trait, or an action that you improvise. Monsters have their own action options in their statistics.

When you want to perform an action not detailed here, the Narrator determines whether the action is possible and what kind of roll you need to make to determine if you succeed or fail.

You can move a distance up to your Speed on your turn. With that in mind, how you choose to move and how much movement you use are all up to you.

Size and Space

Creatures and objects come in all different shapes and sizes. To determine the amount of space one can effectively command, Table: Size Categories approximates a standard for Turn-Based Action.

On Your Turn

When it is your turn, you can move a distance up to your Speed and take your actions. You can declare your intent for your turn in any order, breaking up your movement between actions or using your bonus action first. You can also choose to do absolutely nothing.

Within a single round, you can take an action, a bonus action, and any free actions during your turn, and one reaction at any time. The rules for actions and movement are found in the Actions in Combat and Movement and Position sections of this chapter, respectively.

The raging storm howls and a bolt of lightning splits the ground in front of the adventurers. Souls lost to the sea manifest amid the fervor of the fishing competition for another chance at the perfect catch. The battlefield itself can be as active a participant in Turn-Based Action as the characters are, and its actions can have serious consequences for everyone involved.

The initiative step sets the order of everyone's turn throughout the encounter. Each participant makes an ability check to determine their place in the initiative count, from the highest check total to the lowest. This ability check is typically Dexterity. The Narrator might determine that one or more participants should instead roll a different ability check, potentially utilizing a relevant skill or tool (see Table: Types of Initiative). In the event of a tie, the tied participants each roll a d20 to determine the order amongst themselves (the highest roll goes first.)