Complications

In Exalted combat, there are a few other unusual complications that may arise from time to time, which certain sorts of characters are likely to specialize in.

Gambits
While Gambits are technically a Complication, they get their own entry here.

Crippling
Crippling injuries allow for a player to trade part of the Health Track damage he has just suffered for a debilitating effect. A character can do this once per story, and must receive a minimum of 2 damage after the Crippling trade-off.

Being Prone
A prone character must take a rise from prone combat action to regain his footing.

As long as a character is prone, he suffers a -1 penalty to his Parry, a -2 penalty to his Evasion, a -3 penalty to attacks, and cannot take any movement actions other than to rise from prone. He also automatically fails all attempts to resist rush and disengage actions.

Clash Attacks
Clash Attacks are a special roll used when two characters attack one another on the same tick.

Clash Attacks ignore both characters’ Defense. Instead,the two attacks act as an opposed roll. The character who accumulates more successes wins, striking his opponent, while the loser’s attack is thwarted.

If a Clash Attack is withering, then it adds the threshold by which the winning fighter beat his opponent’s roll to its raw damage. A successful withering Clash attack adds 3 additional points of Initiative damage after damage is rolled.

A successful decisive Clash attack adds one additional automaticpoint of Health Track damage after damage is rolled.

Finally, in addition to suffering damage, the loser of the Clash Attack suffers a -2 penalty to his Defense until his next turn.

Mounted Fighting
Opponents fighting from horseback (or from atop any similarly-sized mount) enjoy a number of advantages and a few disadvantages over combatants on foot.

Movement
Most mounts grant a movement bonus to rush, disengage, and withdraw actions. These bonuses are listed in the stat block of any creature suitable as a mount as a mount’s Speed Bonus. The Ride Ability replaces Athletics and Dodge for any movement rolls made while mounted.

Combat
Mounted fighters employing close-range weapons enjoy a +1 bonus to withering attacks against non-mounted opponents of human scale, or +2 against battle groups not armed with weapons with the reaching tag. Mounted fighters also enjoy a +1 Defense bonus against attacks from close-range weapons wielded by non-mounted opponents, so long as those weapons lack the reaching tag.

Unusual Mounts
Some rare mounts render these rules unsuitable.

Flying Mounts
Flying mounts grant no combat bonuses, instead offering only superior mobility.

Enormous Mounts
Enormous mounts such as mammoths, yeddim, or tyrant lizards prevent their rider from being attacked at all by short-range weapons not possessing the reaching tag, unless opponents first use a miscellaneous (Dexterity + Athletics, difficulty 3) action to climb aboard the huge mount (this counts as the character’s movement for the round). However, riders atop such mounts similarly cannot attack opponents on the ground with short-range weapons which lack the reaching tag.

Attacking Mounts
Mounts generally don’t have their own Initiative track, though the Storyteller may waive this if it seems appropriate (such as a Fair Folk noble entering battle on the back of a behemoth more dangerous than its rider). Unless a mount has its own Initiative track, all withering attacks against it are considered to target its rider.

Decisive attacks can be used to target mounts with the intent of killing them out from under their riders; in many circumstances, however, the unhorse gambit is a more effective option.

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.

Hold at Bay
A permutation of an ambush, to hold someone at bay is to succeed at an ambush without attacking, choosing instead to hold the target hostage for a number of rounds.

The character may interrogate, threaten, cajole, or otherwise detain her opponent for a number of rounds equal to the difference in their Initiative.

If the target chooses to cooperate, the hostage-taker’s Resolve and Guile are at +1, while the target’s are each at -2 until the specified number of rounds have passed. When the hold at bay rounds have passed, if the target has not agreed to surrender, both roll Join Battle to determine who will act first, with the hostage suffering a -2 penalty to his results. If the hostage-taker wins, she can immediately execute a standard ambush attack.

If the target chooses to struggle or try to escape before these rounds are finished, the character may make an immediate decisive ambush attack against him with onerous results: not only is the target’s Defense set to 0, but his Hardness is set to 0 as well, and the attack gains +5 automatic damage.

If the character chooses to attack her target before the rounds are up, he may defend normally.

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.