Battle Groups

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

Battle Groups

Storyteller Advice: Resolving Battles

While the decisive/withering attack division is an abstraction and doesn't represent different sorts of attacks within the Exalted game setting, Initiative is an abstraction of something that is more measurable— who's pressing the advantage in a fight. Observant combatants can usually tell when they're in trouble, or when they’ve got an opponent on the ropes.

Most combatants in the world of Exalted aren't fanatics— they're soldiers doing their job to make a living or because they didn't seem to have any other course to follow in life, or they're thugs hoping for an easy mark, or they're heroes with ambitions they hope to live to fulfill. While life is cheap and death is common in the Age of Sorrows, few people want to fight to the death if it means their own death. As a result, it's worth keeping the withdraw, go to ground, and surrender actions in mind. Once it becomes clear that a fight can't be won, or that the cost of doing so is unacceptably high, many opponents will attempt to lay down arms and beg for mercy or to simply run.

Players have no obligation to let their characters' enemies get away or to accept a surrender, but actions build reputations. Those said to be bloodthirsty and merciless can often expect no mercy on the day they find themselves outmatched.

Bands of mountain bandits. Mobs of angry rioters. Squads of hired mercenaries. Vast armies. The Wyld Hunt itself. Sometimes battles in the world of Exalted consist of only a tiny handful of heroes, but more often they feature a great many combatants, far too many for it to be practical to keep track of each fighter's traits individually. These mobs, gangs, and armies are represented by battle groups.

Battle groups are an abstraction used whenever there are more than two combatants on the battlefield who are reasonably similar to one another in terms of capabilities and equipment, who aren't especially noteworthy to the story as individuals, and who aren't potent supernatural beings such as Exalts. Battle groups can represent small groups, such as a squad of a dozen of the Tri-Khan of Chiaroscuro's palace guards, or vast forces such as 1,000 men-atarms riding to war.

Simply put, a battle group is treated as a character with the traits of the average combatant making up the group, plus a few other traits which modify these capabilities.

Quick Overview

Before we get down to details, here's a basic idea of how a battle group works: A battle group is a group of fighters who are mechanically represented as one character. A group of soldiers, for example, is basically a single soldier, except this soldier gets a number of bonuses to his attack, damage, soak, and Defense based on his battle group traits. He always uses withering attacks against you (which start inflicting Health Track damage once you run out of Initiative). By contrast, your withering attacks don't take his Initiative, but instead directly damage his "Health." He's got a special Health Track (called a Magnitude Track) that can absorb a lot of punishment, and it's likely that a battle group will break and run before being totally destroyed— whenever you empty the Magnitude Track, there's a chance they'll flee or surrender. If they don't, their Magnitude refills, but their combat bonuses become weaker, and it gets harder for them not to rout next time they run out of Magnitude.

Battle Group Traits

There are only four differences between a solo character's traits and those of a battle group: battle groups have three special values that individual heroes don't (Size, Drill, and Might), and instead of a Health Track, they have a Magnitude Track.

Size

Size is simple—it measures how big a battle group is, in terms of how many fighters are in it. The greater a battle group's Size, the harder it hits and the tougher it is; Size is the single greatest source of a battle group's power. Battle groups enjoy a bonus to their attack rolls, raw damage, Magnitude (see below), and soak equal to their Size. Thus, a Size 3 battle group adds +3 to its attack pools, +3 to its raw damage, +3 to its soak, and has 3 extra points of Magnitude.

Size 0: One or two fighters. These should be modeled as individual combatants, not as a battle group. Any battle group reduced to Size 0 through Magnitude loss effectively ceases to exist—all of its members are either dead, fled, or surrendered.

Size 1: A small group: a half-dozen thugs in an alley, a fang of Realm legionnaires, a bar brawl, ten Dune People lying in wait beneath the sand. A dozen or fewer combatants.

Size 2: A modest group: a late-night lynch mob, a scale of Realm legionnaires, a Harborhead war-band, an aristocrat's house guard. Several dozen combatants.

Size 3: A moderate group: a mercenary company, a talon to a wing of Realm legionnaires, a sweeping riot, a war band of the Fair Folk. Over a hundred combatants.

Size 4: A large group: a mercenary army, a dragon of Realm legionnaires, an entire Delzahn clan and its bannermen rallied to war, most of a small town slain and raised as the undead soldiers of an Abyssal. Several hundred combatants.

Size 5: A full army: two dragons of Realm legionnaires, a barbarian horde, a city-annihilating plague of fae or undead. Over a thousand combatants.

If appreciably more than a Size 5 battle group worth of combatants are present, they are represented by creating an additional battle group (or groups). 20 extra combatants are a drop in the bucket, but if an extra 300 are present, that's worth starting up a second Size 3 battle group.

Drill

While the traits of the average character making up a battle group determines the quality of the group overall, Drill measures how well the combatants within that group work together. In mass combat, Drill is one of the most important traits a group of fighters can have. It represents hours of training and familiarity—the ability to know what the soldier to the left or right of you will do at any given moment because you've been through these maneuvers with them countless times. Well-drilled units hold together better in the face of sudden catastrophe, respond more readily to orders, and are generally much more difficult to defeat than low-Drill units of greater Size. As a result, Drill modifies rout rolls (p. 208), provides modifiers to command actions (p. 209), and enhances a unit's Defense. In short, high-Drill battle groups are tougher to defeat, and respond better to commands.

There are three categories of Drill:

Poor—A unit with poor Drill has no training in fighting together, or no capability for such training. This is the Drill quality of rioting mobs, of impromptu peasant conscripts tossed directly into battle, of most village militias, of many bandits, of raiders who fight without any sort of coordination, of groups of experienced fighters brought together without any particular familiarity with fighting alongside one another, and of mindless undead.

Poor-quality battle groups inflict a -2 penalty to order and rally for numbers actions (p. 210), do not modify their Defense, and raise the difficulty of all rout and rally rolls by 1.

Average—A battle group with average Drill has some training fighting together, either in the field or through extensive training and practice. In a fight, they know what to do and they move with ease and precision. The majority of military forces in the world of Exalted have average quality Drill. This covers standing armies, common mercenary groups, well-trained guards, Guild caravan security, and the war-bred minions of the Fair Folk.

Average-quality battle groups inflict no penalty to command rolls and enjoy a +1 Defense bonus.

Elite—Elite battle groups have drilled extensively with one another, and have probably gone through a number of battles together. The members of the battle groups often eat, sleep, and relax together, and spend far more time honing their skills as a group than the average band of soldiers. As a result, these battle groups are often small, prestigious units or semi-religious orders. The Realm's elite Imperial Guard, Harborhead's Brides of Ahlat, the warrior-brotherhoods of Medo, and the very best mercenary companies employed by the Guild are all elite-quality battle groups.

Elite-quality battle groups add a +2 bonus to command rolls and enjoy a +2 Defense bonus.

Might

Might is an uncommon trait in the Age of Sorrows, measuring the supernatural power of a battle group. A battle group only possesses might if the average member composing it is supernaturally powerful in some martially relevant fashion. As a result, the overwhelming majority of battle groups have Might 0; very few battle groups with Might above 2 have been fielded since the founding of the Realm. Might goes from 0 to 3, and adds to the accuracy, damage, and Defense of a unit.

Might 0: The Might rating of battle groups primarily composed of ordinary mortals. This rating has no effect on the battle group's traits.

Might 1: The Might rating of battle groups lightly touched by the supernatural or whose members are slightly superhuman. This is the Might rating of groups of beastfolk and martially-enhanced Wyld mutants, or units which fight under divine blessings of a martial nature—something only very potent spirits are able to grant to battle groups above Size 2.

Might 1 bestows a +1 bonus to accuracy and damage and a +1 bonus to Defense.

Might 2: The Might rating of battle groups composed primarily of supernaturally potent beings, such as lesser spirits. This is the rating of groups made up of first circle demons, war ghosts, or lesser elementals, as well as the armies of the Fair Folk.

Might 2 bestows a +2 bonus to accuracy and damage and a +1 bonus to Defense.

Might 3: This is the Might rating of battle groups composed of Terrestrial Exalted or similarly potent beings. Such battle groups have rarely been seen since the First Age—in the Age of Sorrows, such beings simply don't gather in sufficient numbers to require abstract representation, and are almost always depicted as individual heroes, even when three or more are present.

In the event that such a battle group appears, Might 3 bestows a +3 bonus to accuracy and damage and a +2 bonus to Defense.

Fighting Battle Groups

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