No matter what type of combat is being fought, the general format is the same. Combat timing is tightly regulated so that the characters have some idea of when it is their turn to fight.
A unit of combat time is called a round. A round is further subdivided into 20 segments. Over the course of a round, every character has an opportunity to perform one basic physical action, or three spiritual/empathic actions in addition to normal movement. Note that activating a Spiritual Power does not count as a spiritual action - those actions are described later in the chapter on Spiritual Combat. Actions that take place in one combat round usually include:
Each round of the combat routine is divided up into twenty segments. The round begins on segment 1 and ends with segment 20. Actions that would be delayed beyond segment 20 must take place in the following round. Thus an action that would take place on segment 22 would actually occur on segment 2 of the next round.
Movement in Combat: In addition to taking one of the above actions, a character may move his full movement before or after attacking. Normally, a character cannot take part of his movement, attack, and then take the rest of his movement.
If a character wishes to run, he may do so and move twice his normal movement in that round. Doing so, however, means that he forfeits his attack for the round and can take no actions other than simple ones that could logically be perform while running.
If a character is involved in an action that takes at least one full round to complete, such as casting a powerful spell, he may still take a 5-foot adjustment that round.