Stealth

Stealth is a powerful advantage in battle, affording the opportunity to strike when an opponent least expects it, or when he doesn’t realize he’s in danger at all.

Stealth Attempts
All stealth attempts consist of opposed rolls, generally (Dexterity + Stealth) against (Perception + Awareness).

Stealth rolls can easily take penalties if the conditions aren’t amenable to sneaking or hiding — dry underbrush, bright light, and scant cover can all make stealth more difficult. Likewise,

Awareness rolls can take penalties due to cluttered or noisy environments (such as market crowds or stormy nights) — Stealth and Awareness are both very context-governed Abilities.

Unexpected Attack
Assuming that a character has successfully concealed himself, he may then attempt to make an unexpected attack. Unexpected attacks are either an Ambush or a Surprise Attack.

Ambush
An ambush is defined as an attack against a target completely unaware of the attacker’s presence — generally only possible during the first round of a fight, against a target with a lower Initiative value than the attacker.

An ambush attack completely ignores the target’s Defense; the target is considered to have Defense 0 against the attack.

Surprise Attack
A surprise attack, is an attack launched from hiding against an opponent who knows he’s in battle and who is actively on the lookout for attacks, even if he isn’t sure exactly where all of his opponents are at the moment.

A target faced with a surprise attack suffers a -2 Defense penalty against that attack.

Stealth attempts while already in combat are made with a -3 penalty.

Reestablishing Surprise
Attempting to reestablish surprise is a combat action that cannot be placed in a flurry.

Stealth attempts while already in combat are made with a -3 penalty.

Movement
A character in stealth cannot take Rush actions.

If he wants to move normally in combat while maintaining concealment, he must have some adequate place to hide in the spot he’s moving to, and must make another reflexive (Dexterity + Stealth) roll when he moves, to keep from being spotted while moving. If this movement crosses wide-open terrain with no appreciable cover, the Stealth roll’s penalty climbs from the usual -3 (for attempting stealth while already in combat) to -5.