Establish Positions

The DM decides the positions of all of the monsters and Player Characters based on their Marching Order or stated position in the current room. It is up to the DM to determine the distances between the PCs and their adversaries, as well as the direction they are each facing.

Determine Surprise

Before you begin a combat encounter, you must first determine who, if anyone, is Surprised.

If anyone was attempting to be sneaky, prior to the encounter, have them roll a Dexterity (Stealth) Ability Check against a DC set by Passive Perception (10 + the Wisdom Modifier) each creature on the opposing side.

If neither side attempts to be stealthy, they notice each other at the same time.

A surprised creature cannot take an action or move on their first turn. They cannot take a reaction until after their first turn ends.

Roll for Initiative!

The first thing you do when you begin a combat encounter is ask all the players to "roll for initiative".

Everyone rolls a d20 and adds their Dexterity modifier to that roll, this is their Initiative.

The DM rolls for the monsters and any NPCs that might participate in the combat.

The order of Initiative is determined from highest to lowest, and this order is maintained from round to round.

If any ties occur, it is at the DMs discretion who goes first. If two players tie, you might allow them to choose or you might pick the creature with the higher Dexterity.

Turns

A round of combat consists of each creature taking a turn.

On your turn, you can move a distance equal to your speed and take one action. If you have a bonus action it can be made at any time during your turn.

Interactions are typically considered free movement, such as retrieving a potion from your pack, or speaking briefly.

Every creature can also make one reaction per round of combat.

Continue taking turns until the combat encounter is resolved.

Granting Inspiration

The DM can choose to give a player inspiration for a variety of reasons.

Typically, DMs award it when a player plays out their personality traits, give in to the drawbacks presented by a flaw or bond, and otherwise portray their character in a compelling way.

A player either have inspiration or you don’t — it can’t stockpile multiple “inspirations” for later use.

Using Inspiration

If a player has inspiration, they can expend it when they make an attack roll, saving throw, or ability check.

Spending your inspiration gives you advantage on that roll.

Additionally, if they have inspiration, they can reward another player for good roleplaying, clever thinking, or simply doing something exciting in the game.

When another player character does something that really contributes to the story in a fun and interesting way, the player who has inspiration can give it up to grant the other inspiration.

The Character Sheet

Your Character Sheet is your interface with the gameworld, it is a record of the Player Character's Ability Scores, Skill Proficiencies, Armor Class, Health, and every other detail you will need to reference in the course of play.

The Game Dice

These polyhedral dice simulate the randomness of the real world and dictate to varying degrees the margins of that randomness. A reference has been included at the bottom of this page, to help you identify which die is which.

When you need to roll dice, the rules will tell you how many dice to roll and which ones, as well as what modifiers to add to your roll.

For most of the exploits you attempt in the course of your adventure, you will roll a twenty-sided die (d20) and add any relevant bonuses to that roll to resolve the success for failure of your attempts.

In the event that the Dungeon Master (DM) asks you to roll a percentile dice, or d100, you will roll two d10's, the first will represent the tens digit and the second the ones digit.

Ability Scores

There are six abilities that measure your characters prowess:

• Strength is your phyiscal power
• Dexterity is your phyiscal agility
• Constitution is your physical endurance
• Intelligence is your mental acuity
• Wisdom is your mindfullness
• Charisma is your force of personality

Each ability has two numbers associated with it, the score (which is the larger number), and the bonus (which is the smaller number).

When you attempt to do something in the game, the DM will as you to perform a Skill Check that requires you to roll a d20 and add the bonus dictated by your ability score.

For instance, if you attempt to swing from a chandelier, your DM may ask you to roll a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check.

In order to do this, you will roll a d20, add any bonus from your Dexterity score, as well as your Proficiency Bonus if you are Proficient in Acrobatics.

Saving Throws

A saving throw represents an attempt to resist a spell, a trap, a poison, a disease, or a similar threat. You don’t normally decide to make a saving throw; you are forced to make one because your character or monster is at risk of harm.

To make a saving throw, roll a d20 and add the appropriate ability modifier.

For example, you use your Dexterity modifier for a Dexterity saving throw.

A saving throw can be modified by a situational bonus or penalty and can be affected by advantage and disadvantage, as determined by the DM.

Each class gives proficiency in at least two saving throws.

The wizard, for example, is proficient in Intelligence saves. As with skill proficiencies, proficiency in a saving throw lets a character add his or her proficiency bonus to saving throws made using a particular ability score. Some monsters have saving throw proficiencies as well.

The Difficulty Class for a saving throw is determined by the effect that causes it. For example, the DC for a saving throw allowed by a spell is determined by the caster’s spellcasting ability and proficiency bonus.

The result of a successful or failed saving throw is also detailed in the effect that allows the save. Usually, a successful save means that a creature suffers no harm, or reduced harm, from an effect.

Advantage

and Disadvantage

Sometimes an ability check, attack roll, or saving throw is modified by special situations called advantage and disadvantage.

Advantage reflects the positive circumstances surrounding a d20 roll, while disadvantage reflects the opposite.

When you have either advantage or disadvantage, you roll a second d20 when you make the roll.

Use the higher of the two rolls if you have advantage, and use the lower roll if you have disadvantage.

For example, if you have disadvantage and roll a 17 and a 5, you use the 5. If you instead have advantage and roll those numbers, you use the 17.

Exploration

During the Exploration phase, the DM will describe a scenario, and perhaps play the role of a Non-Player Character (NPC) and you and your friends will roleplay your own Player Characters' reactions and interactions. There are no discrete "turns" during this phase, it is an organic mode of play.

The Combat phase, which is inevitable in this particular game, is far more structured, and the various dynamics are explained below.

Combat

Dungeons & Dragons is game about combat, everything else is a vehicle to the next encounter.

Once the DM has determined the Initiative Order, and your turn has begun, you have a variety of options to choose how you spend your 6 seconds (that's about how long a turn in-game lasts... you as the player have a bit longer!) .

Attack

The Attack action is the most common action taken in combat. An Attack can be anything from swinging a sword, to firing an arrow, to bare knuckle boxing!

When you take this action, you make one melee or ranged attack.

Certain features, such as the Fighter's Extra Attack will allow for a second attack when you take this action.

Casting a Spell

If the spell has a casting time of 1 Action, it may be used when you take this action in combat.

Dash

The Dash action allows you to take an additional movement equal to your speed after any modifiers.

For instance, if you have a speed of 30 feet and are on Difficult Terrain, taking the Dash action will grant you an additional 15 feet of movement this turn.

Disengage

By taking the Disengage action, you will not provoke attacks of opportunity for the remainder of your turn.

Dodge

In taking the Dodge action, you focus the totality of your efforts on avoiding incoming attacks. Until the start of your next turn, any attack made against you by an attacker you can see is made at disadvantage. Additionally, any Dexterity saving throws you make are made with advantage.

You lose this benefit if you are incapacitated, or if your speed drops to zero.

Help

When you take the Help action, you dedicate your efforts in aid of another. The creature you are helping gains advantage on the next Ability Check they make to perform the action you are aiding it with, so long as it does so before your next turn.

Alternatively, you may use the Help action to aid a friendly creature in attacking an enemy who is within 5 feet of you. If your ally succeeds on their attack before your next turn, their first attack roll is made with advantage.

Hide

If you take the Hide action, you make a Dexterity (Stealth) check in an attempt to hide. If you succeed, you gain the benefits of being hidden.

Ready

When you take the Ready action, you prepare your reaction to be used in order to execute an action when certain conditions are met, before your next turn.

First, you decide what perceivable circumstance will trigger your reaction. Then, you choose the action you will take in response to that trigger, or you choose to move up to your speed in response to it.

Examples include “If the cultist steps on the trapdoor, I’ll pull the lever that opens it,” and “If the goblin steps next to me, I move away.”

When the trigger occurs, you can either take your reaction right after the trigger finishes or ignore the trigger. Remember that you can take only one reaction per round.

When you ready a spell, you cast it as normal but hold its energy, which you release with your reaction when the trigger occurs. To be readied, a spell must have a casting time of 1 action, and holding onto the spell’s magic requires concentration.

If your concentration is broken, the spell dissipates without taking effect. For example, if you are concentrating on the web spell and ready magic missile, your web spell ends, and if you take damage before you release magic missile with your reaction, your concentration might be broken.

Attack Rolls

When you make an attack, your attack roll determines whether the attack hits or misses.

To make an attack roll, roll a d20 and add the appropriate modifiers. If the total of the roll plus modifiers equals or exceeds the target’s Armor Class (AC), the attack hits.

The AC of a character is determined at character creation, whereas the AC of a monster is in its stat block.

Damage Rolls

Each weapon, spell, and harmful monster ability specifies the damage it deals. You roll the damage die or dice, add any modifiers, and apply the damage to your target.

Magic weapons, special abilities, and other factors can grant a bonus to damage.

When attacking with a weapon, you add your ability modifier — the same modifier used for the attack roll — to the damage.

A spell tells you which dice to roll for damage and whether to add any modifiers.

If a spell or other effect deals damage to more than one target at the same time, roll the damage once for all of them.

Critical Hits

If the d20 roll for an attack is a 20, the attack hits regardless of any modifiers or the target’s AC. This is called a critical hit!.

When you score a critical hit, also known as rolling a Natural 20, you get to roll extra dice for the attack’s damage against the target.

Roll all of the attack’s damage dice twice and add them together. Then add any relevant modifiers as normal. To speed up play, you can roll all the damage dice at once.

For example, if you score a critical hit with a dagger, roll 2d4 for the damage, rather than 1d4, and then add your relevant ability modifier.

If the attack involves other damage dice, such as from the rogue’s Sneak Attack feature, you roll those dice twice as well.

Ranged Attacks

When you make a ranged attack, you fire a bow or a crossbow, hurl a handaxe, or otherwise send projectiles to strike a foe at a distance. Many spells also involve making a ranged attack.

Opportunity Attacks

In a fight, everyone is constantly watching for enemies to drop their guard. You can rarely move heedlessly past your foes without putting yourself in danger; doing so provokes an opportunity attack.

You can make an opportunity attack when a hostile creature that you can see moves out of your reach. To make the opportunity attack, you use your reaction to make one melee attack against the provoking creature.

The attack occurs right before the creature leaves your reach.

You can avoid provoking an opportunity attack by taking the Disengage action.

You also don’t provoke an opportunity attack when you teleport or when someone or something moves you without using your movement, action, or reaction.

For example, you don’t provoke an opportunity attack if an explosion hurls you out of a foe’s reach or if gravity causes you to fall past an enemy.

Two-Weapon Fighting

When you take the Attack action and attack with a light melee weapon that you’re holding in one hand, you can use a bonus action to attack with a different light melee weapon that you’re holding in the other hand.

You don’t add your ability modifier to the damage of the bonus attack, unless that modifier is negative.

If either weapon has the thrown property, you can throw the weapon, instead of making a melee attack with it.

Grappled

• A grappled creature’s speed becomes 0, and it can’t benefit from any bonus to its speed.
• The condition ends if the grappler is incapacitated.
• The condition also ends if an effect removes the grappled creature from the reach of the grappler or grappling effect.

Prone

• A prone creature’s only movement option is to crawl.
• The creature has disadvantage on attack rolls.
• An attack roll against the creature has advantage if the attacker is within 5 feet. Otherwise, the attack roll has disadvantage

Incapacitated

An incapacitated creature can’t take actions or reactions.

Spell Level

Every spell has a level from 0 to 9. A spell’s level is a general indicator of how powerful it is, with the lowly magic missile at 1st level and the incredible time stop at 9th.

Cantrips — simple but powerful spells that characters can cast almost by rote — are level 0.

The higher a spell’s level, the higher level a spellcaster must be to use that spell.

Spell level and character level don’t correspond directly. Typically, a character has to be at least 17th level, not 9th level, to cast a 9th-level spell.

Known and Prepared Spells

Before a spellcaster can use a spell, he or she must have the spell firmly fixed in mind, or must have access to the spell in a magic item.

Members of a few classes have a limited list of spells they know that are always fixed in mind. The same thing is true of many magicusing monsters.

Other spellcasters, such as clerics and wizards, undergo a process of preparing spells.

This process varies for different classes, as detailed in their descriptions.

In every case, the number of spells a caster can have fixed in mind at any given time depends on the character’s level.

Spell Slots

Regardless of how many spells a caster knows or prepares, he or she can cast only a limited number of spells before resting.

Manipulating the fabric of magic and channeling its energy into even a simple spell is physically and mentally taxing, and higher-level spells are even more so. Thus, each spellcasting class’s description includes a table showing how many spell slots of each spell level a character can use at each character level.

For example, a 3rd-level wizard has four 1st-level spell slots and two 2nd-level slots.

When a character casts a spell, he or she expends a slot of that spell’s level or higher, effectively “filling” a slot with the spell. You can think of a spell slot as a groove of a certain size — small for a 1st-level slot, larger for a spell of higher level. A 1st-level spell fits into a slot of any size, but a 9th-level spell fits only in a 9th-level slot. So when Umara casts magic missile, a 1st-level spell, she spends one of her four 1st-level slots and has three remaining.

Finishing a long rest restores any expended spell slots.

Some characters and monsters have special abilities that let them cast spells without using spell slots.

Cantrips

A cantrip is a level 0 spell that can be cast at will, without using a spell slot and without being prepared in advance.

Rituals

Certain spells have a special tag: ritual.

Such a spell can be cast following the normal rules for spellcasting, or the spell can be cast as a ritual. The ritual version of a spell takes 10 minutes longer to cast than normal.

It also doesn’t expend a spell slot, which means the ritual version of a spell can’t be cast at a higher level.

To cast a spell as a ritual, a spellcaster must have a feature that grants the ability to do so.

The caster must also have the spell prepared or on his or her list of spells known, unless the character’s ritual feature specifies otherwise, as the wizard’s does.

Casting Time

Most spells require a single action to cast, but some spells require a bonus action, a reaction, or much more time to cast.

Verbal (V)

Most spells require the chanting of mystic words. The words themselves aren’t the source of the spell’s power; rather, the particular combination of sounds, with specific pitch and resonance, sets the threads of magic in motion.

Thus, a character who is gagged or in an area of silence, such as one created by the silence spell, can’t cast a spell with a verbal component.

Somatic (S)

Spellcasting gestures might include a forceful gesticulation or an intricate set of gestures. If a spell requires a somatic component, the caster must have free use of at least one hand to perform these gestures.

Material (M)

Casting some spells requires particular objects, specified in parentheses in the component entry. A character can use a component pouch or a spellcasting focus in place of the components specified for a spell.

But if a cost is indicated for a component, a character must have that specific component before he or she can cast the spell.

If a spell states that a material component is consumed by the spell, the caster must provide this component for each casting of the spell.

A spellcaster must have a hand free to access these components — or to hold a spellcasting focus — but it can be the same hand that he or she uses to perform somatic components.

Instantaneous

Many spells are instantaneous. The spell harms, heals, creates, or alters a creature or an object in a way that can’t be dispelled, because its magic exists only for an instant.

Concentration

Some spells require you to maintain concentration in order to keep their magic active. If you lose concentration, such a spell ends.

If a spell must be maintained with concentration, that fact appears in its Duration entry, and the spell specifies how long you can concentrate on it.

You can end concentration at any time (no action required).

Normal activity, such as moving and attacking, doesn’t interfere with concentration.

The following factors can break concentration:

• Casting another spell that requires concentration. You lose concentration on a spell if you cast another spell that requires concentration. You can’t concentrate on two spells at once.

• Taking damage. Whenever you take damage while you are concentrating on a spell, you must make a Constitution saving throw to maintain your concentration. The DC equals 10 or half the damage you take, whichever number is higher. If you take damage from multiple sources, such as an arrow and a dragon’s breath, you make a separate saving throw for each source of damage.

• Being incapacitated or killed. You lose concentration on a spell if you are incapacitated or if you die.

The DM might also decide that certain environmental phenomena, such as a wave crashing over you while you’re on a storm-tossed ship, require you to succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw to maintain concentration on a spell.

Cone

A cone extends in a direction you choose from its point of origin.

A cone’s width at a given point along its length is equal to that point’s distance from the point of origin. A cone’s area of effect specifies its maximum length.

A cone’s point of origin is not included in the cone’s area of effect, unless you decide otherwise.

Cube

You select a cube’s point of origin, which lies anywhere on a face of the cubic effect. The cube’s size is expressed as the length of each side.

A cube’s point of origin is not included in the cube’s area of effect, unless you decide otherwise.

Cylinder

A cylinder’s point of origin is the center of a circle of a particular radius, as given in the spell description. The circle must either be on the ground or at the height of the spell effect. The energy in a cylinder expands in straight lines from the point of origin to the perimeter of the circle, forming the base of the cylinder. The spell’s effect then shoots up from the base or down from the top, to a distance equal to the height of the cylinder.

A cylinder’s point of origin is included in the cylinder’s area of effect.

Line

A line extends from its point of origin in a straight path up to its length and covers an area defined by its width. A line’s point of origin is not included in the line’s area of effect, unless you decide otherwise.

Sphere

You select a sphere’s point of origin, and the sphere extends outward from that point. The sphere’s size is expressed as a radius in feet that extends from the point.

A sphere’s point of origin is included in the sphere’s area of effect.

Arcane Focus

An arcane focus is a special item — an orb, a crystal, a rod, a specially constructed staff, a wandlike length of wood, or some similar item—designed to channel the power of arcane spells.

Druidic Focus

A druidic focus might be a sprig of mistletoe or holly, a wand or scepter made of yew or another special wood, a staff drawn whole out of a living tree, or a totem object incorporating feathers, fur, bones, and teeth from sacred animals.

Holy Symbol

A holy symbol is a representation of a god or pantheon. It might be an amulet depicting a symbol representing a deity, the same symbol carefully engraved or inlaid as an emblem on a shield, or a tiny box holding a fragment of a sacred relic.

The Player’s Handbook lists many gods in the multiverse and their typical symbols. A cleric or paladin can use a holy symbol as a spellcasting focus.

To use the symbol in this way, the caster must hold it in hand, wear it visibly, or bear it on a shield.

Short Rest

A short rest is a period of downtime, at least 1 hour long, during which a character does nothing more strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds.

A character can spend one or more Hit Dice at the end of a short rest, up to the character’s maximum number of Hit Dice, which is equal to the character’s level. For each Hit Die spent in this way, the player rolls the die and adds the character’s Constitution modifier to it. The character regains hit points equal to the total. The player can decide to spend an additional Hit Die after each roll.

A character regains some spent Hit Dice upon finishing a long rest, as explained below.

Long Rest

A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps or performs light activity: reading, talking, eating, or standing watch for no more than 2 hours.

If the rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity—at least 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity — the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it.

At the end of a long rest, a character regains all lost hit points.

The character also regains spent Hit Dice, up to a number of dice equal to half of the character’s total number of them (minimum of one die). For example, if a character has eight Hit Dice, he or she can regain four spent Hit Dice upon finishing a long rest.

A character can’t benefit from more than one long rest in a 24-hour period, and a character must have at least 1 hit point at the start of the rest to gain its benefits.

Dropping to Zero Hit Points

When you drop to 0 hit points, you either die outright or fall unconscious, as explained in the following sections.