Go to Ground

A character who goes to ground is attempting to hide somewhere on the battlefield and to avoid detection until the fight is over (and, hopefully, any hostiles have left). In order to attempt to go to ground, a character must already be in stealth. His player must then declare he is attempting to go to ground, and then make a successful (Dexterity + Stealth) attempt to maintain concealment over the next three turns. The first roll is at a -3 penalty, the second at -4, and the final roll at -5. If all of these rolls successfully defeat the (Perception + Awareness) rolls of the character’s enemies, he is considered so well hidden that there is no hope of finding him until he voluntarily emerges from concealment.

This climbing difficulty can represent either the increasing difficulty of maintaining a single hiding place in the face of concerted efforts to find the character or the risk of moving about from hiding place to hiding place to evade searching opponents. Players are encouraged to think about how their characters attempt to go to ground, and to stunt appropriately—they’ll need all the help they can get to deal with the penalties.

A character who goes to ground successfully, but then emerges from hiding to re-join the fight in the midst of the same combat, re-enters the fight in Initiative Crash, at -10 Initiative.