Combat

Systems and Conflict: Glossary | General Structure | Combat | Complications | Battle Groups | Social Influence | Disease | Crafting

The Solar Exalted have returned to a world teeming with enemies, from the hired armies of greedy princes and the elite assassins of the Wyld Hunt to hostile Exalts determined to halt the Solars' rise to power. Battle is unavoidable.

How Combat Works

Combat in Exalted is a dynamic and cinematic affair. Heroes leap into battle, daiklaves flashing. They knock opponents through teahouse railings in showers of splintered wood; they're hurled through stone walls by the blows of terrible demons, only to rise and rush back into the fray. Nimble demigods run across treetops or race over the massed arrow barrages of armies. Swordsmen drive each other through rain-slick streets in symphonies of ringing steel, until a final, fatal blow settles the fight.

In order to win a battle in the Exalted Storyteller System, characters must seize the upper hand during the course of battle (by raising their Initiative) and then find the proper moment to capitalize on their advantage with a decisive blow (filling an enemy's Health Track with damage). A character whose Health Track is completely filled with damage is Incapacitated—unconscious (if his last Health Level is marked off with bashing damage), or dead or dying (if filled with lethal damage). In any event, he's not a threat any more.

Combat proceeds in a series of rounds, during which each combatant acts once; the order in which characters take turns acting is determined by their Initiative ratings (in order from highest to lowest). Generally each combatant will attempt to attack another character in each round, attempting to either bolster her Initiative at the expense of an enemy's Initiative (known as a withering attack), or to "cash in" a high Initiative value to damage an opponent's Health Track and hopefully defeat him (known as a decisive attack). When no enemies remain to offer resistance, the battle is over.

When no enemies remain to offer resistance, the battle is over.

Withering and Decisive Attacks

Whenever a character attacks, his player must decide whether the attack is withering or decisive. Withering attacks attempt to damage their target's Initiative score, raising the attacker's Initiative by the same amount of damage inflicted on the target. Decisive attacks inflict damage directly to an opponent's Health Track, but their potential to inflict that damage is determined by the attacker's current Initiative rating.

Withering attacks model the rising tension of cinematic combat, allowing drama to drive the mechanics of battle. Daiklaves and armor ring in showers of sparks. Near-misses cleave and shatter the fighters' surroundings, as the two drive one another across the battlefield. These are the exchanges that escalate a battle toward its conclusion—in cinema, it is the beginning of the fight where martial artists exchange blows that sting and stagger, or where two swordsmen clash and attempt to force an opening.

Because withering attacks determine the ebb and flow of battle, they factor in all the advantages that combatants brings to the battlefield—the strength of their weapons, their fighting prowess, and the protection of their armor. The more advantages a combatant has in a fight, the easier it is for him to seize the upper hand!

An opponent who is 'struck' by a withering attack is disadvantaged in some way. He may be left off-balance as his desperate avoidance leaves him backing toward a corner, or landing on unstable footing. He may suffer a glancing blow from a weapon that sets him off-balance, or suffer an unarmed strike that winds him, but doesn't put him down for the count. Because withering attacks only damage the target's Initiative, they never inflict more than superficial damage to the opponent—a dramatic scratch or slight bruise at most.

If withering attacks are the cinematic build-up which makes up the majority of clashes between heroes, decisive attacks are the turning points or conclusions of such battles. In a decisive attack, the character makes a dramatic play to end the fight; the result of the dice roll tells whether he succeeds completely, partially, or not at all.

Successful decisive attacks inflict damage to the opponent's Health Track. A daiklave rips through the opponent's chest or beheads him entirely; a warhammer staves in ribs; a martial artist lands a brutal spinning kick to the opponent's temple, staggering him or knocking him out. One character seizes the Initiative he's accumulated and uses it to end the fight—or tries to. A character that attempts a decisive attack and fails cedes some of his advantage, and may soon find himself facing a comeback from his opponent.

Because decisive attacks are the result of seizing the Initiative provided by withering attacks, the quality of the combatants' arms has only a limited effect on their outcome. Even a lowly mortal hero armed with a knife may strike down one of the Solar Exalted, should the battle have brought him to the right moment.

Withering Attacks and Drama

To be clear, withering and decisive attacks are a game abstraction used to model the cinematic nature of combat between heroes in Creation. Individuals within the world of Exalted would recognize no such distinction; setting aside feints and the like, characters absolutely intend for most withering attacks to injure or kill their target. The players and Storyteller declare attacks as withering or decisive to create satisfying and exciting battles; for characters, each cut and thrust is made in deadly earnest.

The default assumption is that a withering attack depicts a glancing blow—something that grazes the character, or strikes his armor without wounding. Players might use stunts to also depict successful withering attacks as nearmisses that characters unbalance themselves avoiding, or put themselves into bad tactical positions parrying at the last moment, but the usual assumption is that it's a glancing blow.

Withering attacks must be described as serious combat maneuvers—they're usually intended as killing or disabling blows by the characters who make them. You might also describe a withering attack as a feint to draw your opponent off-guard, or an intricate kata intended to force an opening for a finishing blow. What's not valid, ever, is "I wither him to steal some Initiative." Initiative is a system abstraction of momentum and tactical advantage—you have to do things to establish that advantage. It isn't something combatants directly interact with in the setting.

Resolving Attacks

Explained below are the steps in resolving attacks, followed by an explanation of the elements involved.

Resolving a Withering Attack

First, you decide what combat Ability your character is attacking with—Archery, Brawl, Martial Arts, Melee, or Thrown. Based on this decision, you make an attack roll:

Step One: Roll (Dexterity + [relevant combat Ability] + weapon's accuracy and any other modifiers) against a difficulty of the target's Defense. If the roll produces fewer successes than the target's Defense, it fails.

Step Two: If attack succeeds, determine its raw damage. Raw damage is an attack's damage rating before soak is subtracted. Raw damage is usually calculated as (attacker's Strength + weapon's damage value + threshold successes on attack roll in Step One.) A few weapons, such as firewands and crossbows, omit Strength from this calculation.

Step Three: Subtract target's soak from the attack's raw damage. This cannot produce a result lower than the weapon's Overwhelming rating. Roll a dice pool equal to whatever damage remains after soak. Unlike decisive attacks, the Double 10s rule does apply to withering damage rolls.

Step Four: First, you gain one point of Initiative simply for landing a successful withering attack. Then count up the successes on the damage roll. Subtract that amount from the target's Initiative, and add it to your character's Initiative.

Resolving a Decisive Attack

Decisive attacks carry a penalty if used unsuccessfully— choose your moment to launch decisive attacks carefully! As with a withering attack, you start by selecting which combat Ability your character is attacking with.

Step One: Roll (Dexterity + [relevant combat Ability] + any modifiers) against a difficulty of the target's Defense. You do not add your weapon's accuracy to this roll. If the roll fails, and your current Initiative is 1-10, your character loses 2 Initiative. If it's 11+ and the attack fails, your character loses 3 Initiative.

Step Two: If attack is successful, roll your current Initiative value as a dice pool. The Double 10s rule does not apply to this roll. If your target has Hardness equal to or greater than your damage pool in this step, you inflict no damage but your attack is still considered a success; proceed to Step Four.

Step Three: Count up the successes on the Initiative roll. Apply that many levels of damage to the target's Health Track. This damage will be bashing or lethal, as determined by the weapon used.

Step Four: If the attack was successful, reset your character's Initiative value to 3 (also known as "Resetting to base value.")

Elements of Combat

Combat contains a number of special rules and traits, each of which are explained in more detail below:

Advanced Troubleshooting: Changing Initiative and Simultaneous Actions

Once Charms get into play, a character's Initiative value can bounce up and down very quickly during a round. What if a character who has not yet taken her turn suddenly gains a great deal of Initiative, and finds herself with a higher Initiative value than other characters who have already taken their turns? What if this Initiative value is higher than the current tick the round is moving through?

Characters cannot be forced to miss out on taking a turn during a round because of situations like this. If a character's Initiative suddenly changes in such a way that it indicates she should have already taken her turn, she takes her turn on the following tick.

Finally, what if two characters act on the same tick and it becomes important to determine whose action resolves first, as in the case of two characters both attacking the same opponent, and both Crashing him simultaneously? They can't both get an Initiative Break bonus—so who attacked first? If one player wants to allow the other to go first, then he get to do so. If both players want to act first, flip a coin or have each simultaneously acting player roll a die to break the tie.

Combat Timing

Timing is key to battles in Exalted—those who control the tempo of a fight are most likely to seize victory. It's thus important to understand how time is measured during a fight:

• Scene—Sometimes a battle constitutes a scene unto itself, while other times it is merely part of a larger scene. Any effect stating that it lasts for one scene will effectively persist at least for the rest of the current battle.
• Join Battle—Join Battle is a roll (detailed below) which precedes every fight. All participants in the fight make this roll before the first round begins. The results of this roll dictate characters' Initiative ratings in the first round.
• Round]—A round is the basic measure of combat, during which characters take turns acting, from highest Initiative value to lowest. Characters with identical Initiative values act simultaneously. A round ends when all characters have taken their turns.
• Tick]—The smallest measurable unit of time in the Exalted system, ticks are used to measure certain actions taken within a round—generally magical actions (see Chapter Six). Ticks are numbered, and correspond to characters' Initiative ratings. For example, a Dawn Caste with an Initiative value of 7 will take her turn on tick 7 of the round. A Night Caste with Initiative 5 will take his action on tick 5 of the round—two ticks after the Dawn.
• Turn—The tick on which a player declares her character's combat action for the round. Characters' Initiative ratings determine the order in which they take their turns. A character may only take one turn per round, no matter how her Initiative may rise or fall.

Order of Action

Combat proceeds in rounds, with the characters acting in order of highest Initiative to lowest. Characters with equal Initiative values act simultaneously. Although a character's Initiative may shift during the course of a round, she may only take a single combat action during a round. Initiative values persist until something happens to change them, or until the end of the scene. Once all participants in the fight have acted ("Taken their turn"), the next round begins.

Join Battle

Join Battle is a reflexive action that automatically occurs for all characters at the beginning of combat. It measures a character's responsiveness and readiness when violence breaks out and things turn ugly—how fast can she drop into the mindset of a fighter, and how ready is she to take command of the pace of battle?

Join Battle is a (Wits + Awareness) roll. Count out the successes gained on this roll, then add three. This is your starting Initiative rating in the first round of battle. Because Join Battle is a commonly-used value, a space is provided to record it on your character sheet. Join Battle cannot be botched.

If a character joins the scene in the middle of an alreadyongoing fight, her player immediately rolls Join Battle to determine starting initiative.

Initiative

Initiative is possibly the most important element of combat. It not only determines what order characters take their turns in, but more importantly functions as an overall measure of the tempo of battle and a character's confidence and advantage within the fight. A character with high Initiative controls the flow of combat, forcing opponents to respond to his tactics and assaults; a character with low Initiative is on the ropes, clawing for an opening to turn the tide in his favor. Sudden reversals of fortune are not only possible but frequent, so it's normal for a character's Initiative rating to change from round to round. Gaining a high Initiative and then using it well is the key to victory in Exalted.

There is no limit on how high a character's Initiative may rise, nor on how low it can fall—Initiative may be driven down to 0 and even below, into negative numbers. This state is known as Initiative Crash.

Initiative Crash

A character whose Initiative value drops to 0 or below is in a state of Initiative Crash. He's on the ropes, having utterly lost control of the fight. So long as a Crashed character remains in that state, the following special rules apply:

• A Crashed character is considered to have Hardness 0 regardless of any magic or equipment employed, unless it explicitly states that it provides Hardness in Crash.
• A character in Initiative Crash cannot launch decisive attacks.
• A character in Initiative Crash can't use Charms with the Perilous keyword.
• Withering attacks continue to affect a Crashed character normally, driving his Initiative deeper into negative values and granting Initiative to his attackers. However, if the Storyteller decides that a Crashed character has no hope of recovery against his opponents, and that his continued presence will only serve to give the players a "free" source of Initiative, she can declare the Crashed character defeated the next time he suffers a successful withering attack.
• If a character survives three consecutive turns spent in Initiative Crash, his Initiative resets to 3 at the beginning of his next turn. This is known as "Resetting to base Initiative."
• If a character enters Initiative Crash as a result of his own actions (such as by using a disengage action, which costs 2 Initiative to attempt, with only 2 Initiative remaining), he immediately loses another 5 Initiative.

Initiative Break

When a character forces an opponent into Initiative Crash with an attack, he gains what is known as an Initiative Break bonus. An Initiative Break bonus is a +5 bonus to Initiative. A character cannot gain an Initiative Break bonus from an enemy during the round that enemy recovers from Crash, or during the round that follows that. If a character forces himself into Initiative Crash (such as by using a Charm which costs Initiative to activate), then the Initiative Break bonus is awarded to the opponent most directly responsible for provoking the action which caused the character to Crash, at the Storyteller's discretion.

Initiative Shift

While suffering Initiative Crash, if you are able to Crash the opponent who Crashed you, you instantly return to base Initiative (unless this would cause you to lose Initiative) and make a Join Battle roll, adding the result to your Initiative. Your turn is then refreshed: any combat or movement actions you have used that turn are reset, allowing you to act again, immediately; however, should this renewed action be used to attack, you can only attack the character you Shifted against.

A character who entered Initiative Crash as a result of his own actions (such as by using a disengage action) cannot achieve Initiative Shift.

Friendly Fire and Other Shenanigans

Question: Can allies whomp on one another with withering attacks to manipulate Initiative values? For example, can a Circle's Twilight drop his Defense and let the Dawn beat on him to raise the Dawn's Initiative value quickly?

Answer: No. Withering attacks are an abstraction of advantage against the enemy. They don't actually exist—and what's being abstracted in the above example doesn't make sense. Why would the Dawn attack his allies, if not under some form of mind control? The Twilight isn’t an enemy, and so there's no advantage to be gained.

Use common sense when adjudicating such situations—for example, a training duel between two friendly martial artists is an obvious exception to the above. Ultimately, if it seems like shenanigans to the Storyteller, it doesn’t net anybody Initiative, as per the Storyteller's Rule.

Defense

It's safe to assume a character in a fight is trying to stay alive as best he can. As such, self-protection doesn't require any action taken—it's always happening! This is represented by a character's Defense static values.

Characters can protect themselves by attempting to parry or dodge attacks. Their skill at doing so is measured by their Parry and Evasion ratings.

A character's Parry rating is ([Dexterity + Brawl, Martial Arts or Melee, whichever is appropriate to the character's current armament] / 2, round up) + weapon's Defense bonus, if any. Characters wielding ranged weapons such as bows or chakrams cannot parry.

A character's Evasion rating is equal to ([Dexterity + Dodge] / 2, round up) – armor's mobility penalty, if any. The highest applicable number among the two values is the character's overall Defense static value. The difficulty of all attacks made against the character is equal to her Defense value.

Any applicable specialties add +1 to the calculation before dividing by two and rounding up. Thus, an unarmored character with Dexterity 3, Dodge 3, and an "Unarmored" specialty would have Evasion 4.

Some bonuses or penalties will specify that they apply to your Parry or Evasion, while others modify your Defense, meaning that it modifies both Parry and Evasion. Finally, there is a special kind of penalty that Defense ratings commonly suffer, known as an onslaught penalty. Every time an opponent attacks a character, that character suffers a cumulative -1 Defense penalty until his next turn. As a result, even mighty heroes should be wary of facing too many opponents all at once.

Soak

Characters possess a trait called soak. Where Defense measures a character's ability to avoid harm altogether, soak determines how well-protected the character is from successful withering assaults. As such, soak is determined by a character's Stamina rating and the quality and type of his armor.

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