Dungeons & Dragons Combat Rules and Etiquette

Dungeons and Dragons is definitely a lot of role-playing, but a large chunk of the game, and one of the most important aspects, is the combat. So before you jump into combat for the first time and get your hopelessly unprepared ass killed, today I'm going to give you the breakdown of rules and etiquette in Dungeons and Dragons.

A ROUND VS A TURN

The first thing to know about Dungeons and Dragons combat is the difference between a round and a turn. A turn is each individual player’s moment to play the game, and a round consists of one turn for each player.

Another thing to note is that each round is broken into 6 seconds that happen simultaneously. Think of it like super slow motion combat.

INITIATIVE

Now determining when you go in the turn order is determined by rolling initiative, something that the DM will usually instruct you to do before combat begins.

To roll, you simply roll a d20 like you would with any ability check, and add your initiative score which you can find on your sheet. Turns are arranged highest to lowest so you want to roll high if you like going first.

TAKING YOUR TURN

Once it’s your turn to act, there’s a few things you can do on your turn, and these are broken down into four basic parts. You have your movement, your action, you reaction and your bonus action. There are also some things you can do for free, as long as it doesn’t take longer than 6 seconds.

Movement is found on your character sheet and usually ranges from 25 to 40 for the average player. Now it’s important to remember that on a standard Dungeons and Dragons grid, each square is 5 feet, so if you move 30 feet, then you can move a total of 6 squares in any direction. Another thing to note is that if you are simply trying to run away, or catch up to something, you can use your action to instead double your movement for that turn. Very handy in certain situations.

Your action is the main thing you want to do in that turn. You can do a handful of things with your action, but the main things are attack, dash, disengage, dodge, or interact with things.

You can swing your sword or axe,cast a spell, punch or throw an object, all for your action. If you’d rather, you can dash which means you double your speed for that turn as I explained a moment ago. Dodge means you are expecting an attack and by taking the dodge action, you impose disadvantage on the very next enemy attack. So if they attack twice it only affects the first swing. Disengage allows you to step away from an opponent without taking an attack of opportunity. And then of course for your action you can also open doors, search rooms, or anything else you can think of. This is where the fun comes in because there are really very few limits in D&D. If you can imagine it, you can certainly try.

Now, your bonus action is like a smaller action. Certain spells or abilities allow you to use bonus actions. Not every character has a bonus action, especially at lower levels, but eventually you’ll have the opportunity to try something and it will state very clearly that it requires a bonus action in the description. Remember, you can take an action and a bonus action in the same turn.

For example, if you want to attack as your action, you can swing your sword, and because you are a cleric, you can bonus action healing word to cure some wounds on yourself or an ally, and then as your movement, you can run away.

Now remember those free actions? Well in this example, the free action could be in me telling the enemy to go to hell, or some other expletives if you’d prefer, or picking up a sack in tandem with your movement. These free actions are vaguely described and mostly up to your DM to allow.

And what about reactions? Well reaction are things that occur on the chance you have an ability or spell that calls for it. For example, the Wizard spell, Shield, is a reaction. You can activate this spell whenever someone else attacks you. Certain spells are activated only when you take damage of a certain type for example, and each spell or ability will state clearly whether it’s an action, bonus action, or reaction, so read carefully!

This was just a quick breakdown of combat, and it takes a little practice to get it down right. A great way to learn is to do a practice session with the party, or just the DM if you’d like a more one on one experience to gain some confidence.

COMBAT ETIQUETTE

Now as for etiquette, a few quick dos and donts. Respect the rules and the turns, if its not your turn, let the others play. Of course if you have questions or concerns, feel free to speak up.

The DM is there to help guide the game, so it’s okay to ask questions. But talking during someone else’s turn, or being on your phone is just rude, remember, the DM put a lot of work into this and everyone took time out of their day to play. At least pretend you want to be there.

Never argue the word of the DM. If you have a rule issue, bring it up after the game, there’s no reason to slow down gameplay. Now, obviously, if the DM has said, “call me out on everything” then that’s how they want to play. This is a great reason why a session zero is important to establish table rules and address problems or homebrew rules, but more on that in another video.

Hopefully this was useful for you to help understand the basic rules and etiquette of the game. Combat can be tricky so keep it up and soon enough with some practice you’ll be hacking and slashing your way through the darkest of dungeons.