XerExaltedLite/Combat

Combat

The Combat rules for Exalted Lite are similar to, but not identicle, to the 2nd Edition rules:

• Tics are a bit less than a third of a second. (.3, or 200 tics to the minute).
• 'Called shots' exist both for maiming and bypassing armor
• Damage is not rolled. It is calculated by:
  • (Attack Successes - Defense Value)*(Damage Rating - Soak) - Soak cannot normally reduce the DR of an attack below half the attacker's permanent Essence.

Pre-Combat

Determine Ambush: The would-be victims make a Reflexive Wits+War (or appropriate Awareness skill) versus the attacker's Dexterity + Subterfuge (or appropriate Stealth skill). If the ambushers succeed, they add the amount of net successes they have gained to their Initiative rolls.

• Surprised characters must make another roll, Dexterity+War to try and get whatever successes they failed with their first roll. If this fails, they do not gain the benefit of their defensive values at all for the number of tics that they failed by. Ambushes, like most Subterfuge attempts, do not typically benefit fromXerExaltedLite/Cooperation rules.
• In the case of opposing teams, the ambusher with the lowest Dexterity + Subterfuge total rolls and sets the default difficulty for the Ambushed. Each Ambushed must make the roll (though the victims can useXerExaltedLite/Cooperation rules normally).
• Environmental penalties and bonuses may apply to either side, as set by the Storyteller.
• This can also reflect general surprise rules.

Determine Initiative: Characters roll Wits + War (if any, Initiative is the relevant skill). If this has been a successful ambush, the winning team adds the relevant successes to their total.

• The tic counter begins on tic zero. The character or characters with the highest Initiative result go on this total.
• The character with the next highest score goes on tic (Highest result - character's result).
• Rinse and repeat. Every character begins acting on tic (Highest initiative - their initiative)

• In the case of a tie on a given tic count, it is resolved: Major Characters before Minor before Extras. Otherwise, actions are simultanious.

Battle is Joined

Once battle begins, the characters keep track of which tic they and their familiars, followers, etc. go on. The Storyteller keeps track of the current tic, and those her NPCs go on. The characters take one of two types of actions:

• Focus actions are those which the character maintains until she decides to do something else. Full defense, setting spears, sprinting and so on. A character may stop the Focus action on any tic, but doing so negates the benefit of the focus action for that tic.
• Active actions are actual attacks, and things done singly like drawing weapons and so on. These have a tic cost
• Movement: Characters are considered to be in constant motion, moving, jumping, dancing and whathaveyou. See theXerExaltedLite/Prowess rules for specific movement rates, but unless someone is trying to run away, or is charging an archer or similar situation, it is wise not to focus overmuch on where a person is. Characters can move up to their Running speed and act without penalty. Sprinting is more intensive and is a Focus action.

Focus Actions

• Sprinting: A character moves at her Sprinting rate. This is typically a Chase or Escape. She may only use her Dodge Defensive Value when Sprinting.
• Full Defense: The character is making no attempt to attack. For the purposes of calculating her DDV (Dodge Defensive Value) and PDV (Parry Defensive Value), she adds her full Ability, instead of half. For example:
  • A character with Essence 1, Dexterity 4, Combat 3 and Prowess 2 normally has a DDV of 3 and a PDV of 3. If she enters full defense, her DDV becomes 4, and her PDV 5. SeeXerExaltedLite/Derived for information on Defensive Values.
• Ready: Usually 'Ready Spear'. A readied spear, polearm, or similar weapon whose business end is almost always closer to the opponent than the character and significantly longer (lumped under 'Reach' weapons), is very dangerous for an opponent without a similar weapon.
  • If a character without a Reach Weapon attempts to strike a character with a readied weapon, the latter may instantly make a 1-tic attack with said weapon (regardless of how fast or slow the weapon is normally). If the readied attack deals damage, the initial attack is cancelled, with the tic cost still applying.
  • If a character with a weapon (more than just gauntlets) is facing an unarmed attacker, she may also Ready against her opponent.
  • Yes, spears are butch.

Active Actions

• Attack: Weapons have a recover time. The strike normally occurs on the tic you declare on, and the remaining time is spent in recovery before you can strike again. See below for 'called shot' rules.
  • If you activate a supplemental Charm to aid your attack, you may not normally activate Charms until the recover time is over. See the Combo rules for the exception.
  • If the Storyteller wishes to deal with it, ranged attacks move at about 100 feet per tic. So, a ranged attack from significantly more than 100 feet away strikes on the second tic instead of the first, and so on. This is optional, and should be handled in a loose manner - Powerbows fire their projectiles significantly further, for example.
• Activate Charm: Simple Charms have a recover time just as Attacks do. You may not normally activate other Charms while activating a Simple Charm. See the Combo rules for the exception.
• Draw Weapon: Typically one tic. Weapons that are too heavy for the character will take additional tics equal to the amount of Brawn by which they fail.
• Disengage: Takes your opponent's (Wits + War) minus your (Wits + War) in tics, minimum 1. Safely disengage from melee from an opponent so that you may flee or run to the aid of another, for example.
• Press: If someone is using a Reach weapon and you are lacking, you may spend a tic to Press before your attack to get inside their guard. This forces their readied attack to face your Defense Value as if you were Fully Defending.
• Clinch: Initiative a Clinch is an unarmed attack that normally takes two (2) tics. See the Clinch rules, below, for details.

For example:

• On tic 0, Amerae goes first. Waaay first, for this example. She draws her weapon, which takes her a single tic.
• On tic 1, she strikes with her weapon, and her recovery time with it is 2 tics.
• On tic 3, she goes again.

Reasons #814 and #815 why it sucks to be UnExalted

Bleeding

• UnExalted characters who suffer Lethal or Aggravated damage bleed at a rate of one Bashing health level per minute. A Wits + Natural (First Aid) roll will stabilize the Character. The difficulty is the number of wounds suffered from any single blow, +1 if self bandaging.
• Exalted have no risk of bleeding.

Infection

• Combat is in some ways the first form of biological war. The roll to resist infection from any given hit is Brawn + Might (Resist Disease), difficulty 3, plus any penalties from wounds or poor conditions (such as swamps, or intentionally dirtied weapons - common with arrows). If wounds are left undressed, this roll must be made each time the character otherwise risks infection, though only at difficulty 1. UnExalted characters who suffer from infection must make Brawn+Might (Resist Disease) rolls daily, or suffer the normal consequences without treatment.
• Terrestrial Exalted subtract 2 from the successes they need to resist infection, and fight off the infection if they make their daily Brawn+Might roll, always at difficulty 1. If they fail, though, they suffer +1 difficulty to all actions until they fight it off.
• Celestial Exalted are immune to infection.

Penalties

Apply penalties to all appropriate actions.

• Off-hand: +1 Difficulty
• Stunned: +1 Difficulty
• Blind: +3 Difficulty
• Deaf-Blind: +6 Difficulty
• Height Disadvantages:
  • Small (Stairs, slope, knee deep water, shallow mud): +1 Difficulty
  • Designed (Trick stairs, Abatis): +1 additional Difficulty
  • Vicious (Too steep to climb without hands, scaling ladder, knee deep mud, waist deep water): +2 Difficulty
  • Complications (Scree, Thorns): +1 Additional Difficulty.

Called Shots

Although called shots for say, headshots do not exist, outright killing might not be the goal of the player. Or beating one's way through armor may be impractical. There are four kinds of 'called shots':

• Non-lethal damage:<B> Making a lethal attack bashing typically only adds one to the difficulty. The Storyteller may rule that certain situations are harder because of the nature of the weapon and/or opponent.
• <B>Lethal damage: Making a normally Bashing attack deal Lethal damage halves the DR, and faces a .
• Limb Removal: Targetting an arm, leg, or similarly sized appendage (but not the head) lets the target use their full Dexterity and Essence for their DV. In order to remove the appendage, the target's full, normal HP in lethal damage must be dealt. Only half of this damage applies to the victim. Limb removal either bypasses armor (if it does not protect the limb in question) or it doesn't - no armor bypass rules allowed.
• Bypassing Armor: Armor has chinks. Some of it covers quite well, others... less so.
  • Armor has a Cover rating. This is the Difficulty penalty required to reduce the Armor's soak by 1.
  • If the Cover rating is -, 0, or Not Applicable, then there is no bypassing the armor.
  • Natural Soak, such as that derived from Brawn, cannot be bypassed.

• Maiming: Targetting a finger, toe, eye, nose, ear, hand, groin, and such depends on the victim:
  • Characters without a rank in Combat (including all Extras and minor Characters) require a difficulty penalty identicle to Limb Removal.
  • Characters with a rank in Combat use a DV of (Dexterity + Combat + Prowess + Essence). Full Defense doubles the relative Combat and Prowess scores.
  • Severing or otherwise incapacitating the target requires the victim's Size Multiplier (3 for most mortals, 2 for small, 4 for large) in lethal or aggravated damage be dealt. Ox Body counts towards this Size Multiplier. The target receives up to this amount of damage directly, but no more.
  • Some armors may render certain targets incapable of being maimed so.

Florentine (Two Weapons)

Weilding a weapon in both hands and using them effectively is somewhat tricky. It imposes a difficulty penalty of (12 - Wits - Combat, minimum zero), +1 if the character does not have Ambidexterity. This -includes- the character's Parry Defensive Value, meaning PDV could easily go negative. However, it allows the character to choose one of the following 'modes':

• Twin attacks. When the character attacks, she attacks twice in a row, using the averaged statistics of the weapons, but both of these attacks occur during the averaged tic cost. All weapon statistics are averaged, rounding down.
  • Storytellers are free to penalize what appears to be abuse of this averaging.
• Guard and Strike. One of the blades is used for defense, granting the character the benefits of a Full Parry defense, while she can still make attacks with her other weapon as normal.

Clinching (Grappling)

Initiating a Clinch maneuver is an unarmed attack taking 2 tics that initially deals no damage, but if the clinch makes contact, both contestants roll (Brawn or Dexterity) + Combat (Wrestling) on the second tic. The victor has the following options:

• End the Clinch, with the option of pushing the victim back her Brawn in yards, or knocking her victim prone.
• Hold for ten tics, but do no damage
• Deal (Brawn + Extra Successes) bashing damage to the loser over the next ten tics.

The (Brawn or Dexterity) + Combat (Wrestling) roll is made every ten tics, until the victor of a given round ends it in some manner.