Status effects

Status effects are the conditions, buffs, and debuffs that ride on a character, such as the burn eating at an enemy, the meal steadying your party, or the weight of an overloaded pack slowing you down. Each one shows on the character it afflicts, with what it does and how it ends.

How they end

Most effects carry a timer and count down as time passes. An effect with no fixed timer instead shows the condition that sustains it, such as While Overburdened from encumbrance, and ends when that condition does. Some clear on a rest, as described on Rest. A short combat buff of five minutes or less holds its full duration until a fight starts, so it does not tick down while you approach.

Damage over time

Burns, poisons, and bleeds tick as time passes, and they weaken as they run, so the first tick is the strongest and every later one lands weaker. Damage over time keeps ticking on any enemy close enough to fight you. The same kind of wound stacks up to ten times from one attacker without any feat, and each attacker keeps their own wound on a target, so your bleeds stay separate from an ally's. A weapon affix that deals damage over time also ticks once when it first lands.

Conditions in combat

The sharpest effects change how a round plays, as described on Combat:

• Blinded characters strike poorly, and attacks against them land more easily.
• Chilled characters move more slowly and dodge less well.
• Stasis holds its victim in place and beyond all harm until it breaks.
• Stunned, asleep, paralyzed, petrified, frozen, grappled, restrained and stasis all prevent movement for as long as they last, while Chilled only slows.
• Dying takes you out of the fight and starts the bleed, and a downed character cannot dodge.

Where they come from

Effects come from everywhere the world can touch you, including triggered gear affixes that burn, poison, blind, or put a target to sleep, item effects you activate, meals and camps, feats, and the attacks of everything that fights you. See Affixes, Item effects, and Rest for the sources you control. Enemies carrying magic items can trigger those effects on you, the same as you can on them.