Rules Update: End of Combat, End of Battle, and Surprise

Battle, Combat, and Surprise

Some effects may only be used in or out of combat.  Other effects last the length of a battle.  Both conditions have definitions within the rules of Knight Realms for consistency.

A character is considered to be in combat if she makes an attack other than a surprise attack or if she is struck by or defends against the attack of another by any means.  Being in combat lasts until one minute has passed from the last action that put her in combat.

A character can make a surprise attack (a skill requiring surprise) only if she is not currently in combat.

A battle lasts until a character cannot see or hear the activity of combat for ten minutes.

A character that is Imprisoned does not count time towards being out of combat or the end of a battle while in this state.

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The Surprise part hasn't changed in intent, but is now included with the End of Combat / Battle for ease of use.

Does "Encase in Ice" function as "Impriosn" for this purpose?

Yes

Encase with Ice
6 MP; Traits: Attack, Ranged
This spell surrounds a being in a block of ice, Imprisoning them for a duration of 15 minutes.  The being’s life is completely suspended while encased, including the passage of its death count.

This has been entered into the Online Rulebook.

Under what?

The "Combat" section of the Rulebook.

I'm pretty sure I'm in the right, but I want to make sure 100% what I'm doing is by the rules:
I call spirit of the dragon, I engage in combat and blow a whole bunch of Sith glyphs, and drop back to where I'm not getting any attacks called on me... I wait 1 minute + the time to recharge glyphs, but not longer than (or equal to) 10 minutes before going back into combat... my spirit of the dragon is still active for that whole duration correct?

If you leave combat to charge your glyphs which will have to be ten minutes at a minimum, then your Sotd is over.

Jeff, your information is not correct.

Tim, yes.  If you can avoid combat for a full minute, then spend the time recharging them, but less than 10 minutes, your Spirit is fine.  Even if you spend longer than 10 minutes recharging, but are still within sight & hearing of the battle, your Spirit will be good to go.

You must not be in combat when recharging your Glyph's, so according to the combat rules:

State of Combat, Battle, and Surprise
Some effects may only be used in or out of combat.  Other effects last the length of a battle.  Both conditions have definitions within the rules of Knight Realms for consistency.

A character is considered to be in combat if she makes an attack other than a surprise attack or if she is struck by or defends against the attack of another by any means.  Being in combat lasts until one minute has passed from the last action that put her in combat.

A character can make a surprise attack (a skill requiring surprise) only if she is not currently in combat.

A battle lasts until a character cannot see or hear the activity of combat for ten minutes.

A character that is Imprisoned (per the trait) does not count time towards being out of combat or the end of a battle while in this state.

The third one sates it simple, you must leave the area to re-charge your Glyph but by then you will be out of combat and your Spirit will have dropping, The current Sith list states:

This will take 15 second of concentration per rank of the Glyph. This concentration must be done in a non-combat situation.

You can not simple back out of combat to recharge, this applies to all skills that require you to not be in combat to use them. So Geoff its seems you need to put more quote and rules referances up to over ride this.

Being in combat lasts until one minute has passed from the last action that put her in combat.

There is a subtle, yet important difference between 'combat' and 'battle' by the rules.
This was done intentionally so that we could use those two terms to mean different things game mechanically.

In fact, the first line Jeff bolded illustrates this well.
A battle lasts until the character cannot see or hear the activity of combat for 10 minutes.

Combat, is defined in Jeff's post by the line Cassie quoted, and the line before that:
A character is considered to be in combat if she makes an attack other than a surprise attack or if she is struck by or defends against the attack of another by any means.  Being in combat lasts until one minute has passed from the last action that put her in combat.

It does not state one must leave the battle to charge a glyph, only be out of combat.
Spirit of the Dragon, however, lasts until 'the end of the battle'.

That being the case, Geoff's ruling is the correct one.

Interesting, I re-read it several times. So even though I enter combat and have melee swirling around me as long as I have not gotten hit or hit someone is a sense, I am in a non combat situation to charge my Dragoon Master List Glyphs. Now I understand the complaints.

Thanks Vince for the help now I see it.

I think it's intended more to fall into line with the use of surprise skills, like Waylay and assassin tag skills.

If you're in a melee and don't have to take any action to defend yourself at all for a full minute, the other guy is doing it wrong.