Combat is broken into turns. A turn lasts 3 seconds.
At the beginning of the turn, each character makes a Discipline check to determine initiative. Once the order is determined, each character declares an action, starting with the LOWEST initiative. A character may choose to declare actions which take place later in the turn.
You always know what combatants who you can see and whose initiatives are lower than yours are doing. You can take this knowledge into account when you decide what to do.
Once all actions have been declared, characters with Evasion (described under Powers) may make changes to their declared actions, as allowed by that Enhancement. Characters with higher initiative may change their actions in response to the changes by characters with Evasion. After all, they know what combatants with lower initiative are doing; Evasion does not change this. Evasion essentially allows you to declare conditional actions, with limitations.
Next, actions are taken, with the HIGHEST initiative going first. In the case of a tie, those actions happen simultaneously; there are no tie-breakers. You must take the action that you declared unless you have a Power that lets you change your action (such as Evasion).
Example: Hector and Olivia are attacked by a vampire. The vampire wins initiative. Both Hector and Olivia have Evasion. They decide that they are going to attack the vampire, but if the vampire attacks them, they will use Evasion to cancel their attack and parry instead. Knowing this, the vampire decides to attack Hector and dodge Olivia’s attack. Hector changes his action to a parry, while Olivia attacks as planned.
Monsters will often declare “Move to the closest enemy and attack.” It is not unusual for players to make a similar declaration. This is a sequence of two actions, so the penalty for multiple actions applies. However, if the closest enemy turns out to be within hand-to-hand combat range, then movement is unnecessary and the monster or character only needs to take a single action; the penalty for multiple actions should not be imposed in this circumstance. Similarly, if a character declares an action sequence of “Run to the car, open the door, and get in,” but upon reaching the car discovers that the door is already open, the character should only be given a penalty of -2 (for taking two actions); it would not make sense to consider opening the door an action when the door is already open.
