Isegrim wades through the underbrush and swings the mighty Raven's Blade at the henchman
Isegrim crashes through the underbrush and connects with the fearsome blade. The zombie changes direction to meet the furious warrior but its ambling gate still leaves it short of contact.
Trystan hears movement in the brush to his immediate right, but no attack comes.
Lia wants to flank the bad guy in front of her. She tumbles to avoid being attacked. It's a pretty nifty move.
tumble:
Lia stabs at the bad guy in front of her. She doesn't want her new friend to become a pin cushion.
confirm?
Lia slides past her opponent's weapon and runs the man through the back with her rapier. His death scream is more of an inhuman, high-pitched screech as he falls to the ground. He curls up in a fetal position, half hiding a hideous transformation from man to half-man, half-rodent. His face is stretched beyond recognition, and a partly formed tail sprouts from his hind-quarters.
Brenin's arrow strikes home but doesn't really seem to do any real damage to the woman. Under the robe you catch the gleam of mail, and the arm holding the little crossbow sports a graceful silver buckler that she uses this moment to parry away one of two arrows that the elf stranger launches at her. The second shot whistles over her head and into the night sky.
The elf's curses are practically lost in the screams of the henchmen. Each of them goes through the complete transformation from seemingly normal human to rat humanoid monstrosity right before your eyes.
Throughout their transformations they attack with wild abandon - more animals than men. They still wield their blades, but they also bite and tear at you as they attack.
The dark elf loads another bolt into her crossbow and fires at Brenin. Again the bolt comes home. Without stopping to see if the bolt hit her target or not, the drow turns tail and bolts into the trees (and completely out of the firelight).
"Arrrrggghhhh...B%%$*! You better keep running."
God you Werrats disgust me. You should have run the first time I shocked your azz, cause here it comes again.
Rees's opponent shakes convulsively and collapses to the ground.
Trystan distances himself from the disgusting werecreature and fires a bolt directly at it's chest.
Trystan's spell is lost and his shot goes awry in the tall grass. The wererat's dirty blade gashed his armor near the elbow - but at least it wasn't the monster's teeth.
Trystan gets the sense that there is someone behind him as he fights the wererat.
The dark elf loads another bolt into her crossbow and fires at Brenin. Again the bolt comes home. I hit a 30 AC with 3 hp of damage. Brenin must save again versus poison. DC 15. Without stopping to see if the bolt hit her target or not, the drow turns tail and bolts into the trees (and completely out of the firelight).
As the dark elf darts into the trees, the mystery ally calls out in elven.
The hawk in the tree takes off into the night sky.
"Glad to see the hawk's on our side," Brenin mumbles to himself.
Beastly rats! Isegrim swings with an overhand chop to the ratman.
Isegrim impales his opponent, spilling its tainted blood into the boneyard mud.
The wizard Rondo materializes in back of Trystan as he makes a clumsy attempt to grasp the cleric's shoulder. Trystan twists away from the mage's hand, which glows subtly with a greenish-yellow hue and smells horrible.
The mud-crusted corpse lunges for Isegrim but gets shouldered away. Its mouth gapes, frozen in a long-since silenced scream as it pursues the living flesh so close by.
Lia looks at the elf next to her. "Well, if you aren't my enemy than you must be my friend. That'll do for now." Moving on...
"Rondo, what did you get all over yourself? You should have ran with the drow. Now you're going to die all alone in the swamp."
The impact of Brenin's shot is reduced by some magical protection the wizard enjoys, but he grunts in pain nevertheless, and the magical effect on his hand is lost.
He's just a shadow at the edge of the firelight, so it's not possible to make out the look on his face, but you get the feeling you might enjoy it.
As the elf replies to Lia you realize that he has a very odd accent as well - definitely not local.
"My name is Kwava - and I've no quarrel with your group. We finish these - this wizard in particular, and then I hunt the dark one."
"These ones," he says as he lines up a shot on the remaining wererat, "I had some warning of...". As he looses his running shot, you catch the gleam of silver on the tip of the arrow. The head buries deep in the wererat's flank and it screams in pain.
The creature looks around for its allies. Seeing none remaining, it flees the fight.
Ah Rondo, I've been wanting another shot at you. I feel my eyes start to burn as I look intently at him.
Rondo lets out a howl as his temperature flashes. He pats himself down and does not catch fire.
Trystan's prayer to Cayden is heard as a rapier made of pure force appears and engages the madman.
"I am a man of my promises Rondo and I think you are about out of tricks.."
Here's a linky to the mystery ally Kwava.
The magical weapon slashes into Rondo's magical armor in a contest of force. Cayden's will prevails and the cyphermage is gashed by the blade.
Shrugging from the hapless bite of the zombie Isegrim turns to face the decomposing corpse which has set itself upon him. "Damn zombies! I hate to stain the Raven's Blade with the your pestilent ooze you spawn of feces and filth!" Isegrim swings the blade to cleave the shambling man with a massive swing of the Raven's Blade.
Isegrim destroys the hapless monster with one terrible blow. Its parts continue to writhe on the ground at the big man's feet.
Rondo makes a break for it.
So in a normal turn, you get to spend move and standard actions as normal. Move actions allow you to progress to the next stage. A standard action allows you to do normal standard actions, such as make an attack/cast a spell, etc. If you are in the same 30' stage as your target you can make a melee attack or benefit from PBS. Otherwise, range attacks are subject to concealment based on the number of stages between you and your target. 20% concealment if they are in adjacent stage, 60% if w/in 2 stages, 100% at 3 stages.
If your base speed is less than 30' (Isegrim only, I think), you take a -2 to your actions but still move through 30' stages like everyone else. If you have neither Darkvision nor low-light vision (Brenin, Trystan, Isegrim), you take a -4 to your obstacle-related actions. We'll preserve the initiative sequence, with Rondo acting first in the chase since it was his withdrawal that sparked it.
There's a special full-round action you can take during a chase that allows you to move a total of three stages in one turn. To pull it off, you have to defeat ALL skill/save challenges posed by any stages you leave. If you fail, you stop where your failure occurs.
Lastly, failing one of the challenges will usually just stop your turn there, but some can have more serious consequences (think traps, falls, potentially surprising combats, etc.) Failing a check by more than 5 usually means a more spectacular failure (more likely to result in damage).
The battlemap was large enough to constitute the 1st 2 stages in the chase. Neither of them have obstacles, and which one you start in depends on where you were at the end of the fight relative to Rondo.
Rondo stage 4
Brenin stage 2
Trystan stage 2
Isegrim stage 2
Lia stage 1
Rees stage 1
Kwava stage 1
"You can't escape me out here Rondo. Not a chance."
Ahead of you, you see the ground drops rapidly. It's a water-filled sinkhole, directly in your path. As you come to a halt before the gap, you see Rondo getting up from his own leap over the hole. You take your shot here, scoring a hit despite the magical armor that protects the mage.