Combat Primer

See also Equipment and Social Combat.

Initiative
Also sometimes referred to as a Join Battle action.

Everyone involved in the fight rolls Wits + Awareness, with the combatant scoring the highest successes going first. Everyone else follows in descending order. Yes, this can result in simultaneous actions.

This functions exactly the same in Social Combat, where it is sometimes referred to as a Join Debate action.

Attacking
The attacker rolls Dexterity + (whatever skill governs the weapon they are using) + (any relevant specialties) + (their weapon's accuracy bonus).


 * Example:Ashen Dawn attacks with his Slashing Sword. He rolls (Dexterity 4) + (Melee 4) + (Swords specialty 2) + (+1 Accuracy from the weapon itself) = 11 dice.

They are attempting to gain more successes on this roll than their target's DV (Defense Value), discussed further on.

Note that attacking inflicts a -1 penalty to all your DVs unless otherwise stated.

Damage
If the roll is successful, they then calculate their raw damage: Strength + (extra successes on the attack roll) + (damage bonus of the weapon). For the "extra successes" bonus, keep in mind that you need one net success to even hit, so 2+ net successes must be rolled for this bonus.


 * Example:Ashen Dawn scored 5 successes on his attack roll, and his target's Parry DV is 4, so he hit. His raw damage is (Strength 3) + (0 extra successes) + (+3L from the sword) = 6L.

The weapon being used determines the style of damage it inflicts: Bashing, Lethal or Aggravated.

Sufficient raw damage can cause Knockdown.

The raw damage is then compared to the target's relevant soak value, which is based off Stamina but the majority of which will usually come from armor.


 * Example:Ashen Dawn's target has a Lethal Soak of 8, which negates all of the attack's raw damage. As such, Ashen Dawn will roll the weapon's minimum damage (one die in this case, different weapons have different values).
 * Example 2:If Ashen Dawn's target instead had a Lethal Soak of 3, he would roll 3 dice of damage.

Every success on the damage roll inflicts one health level of damage of the appropriate type.

Taking sufficient damage in one hit can Stun the victim.

Health Levels
Most PCs have 7 health levels, each with associated wound penalties. These fill in order from least to greatest (i.e. starting with your -0 health level and progressing to -1). As these fill up from taking damage, it becomes harder to perform actions due to pain, blood loss, broken bones and the like. Wound penalties are applied to any roll the victim attempts to make, and are factored in to calculated values as well (such as DV).

Once a victim fills their "Incapacitated" health level they fall unconscious and lie bleeding where they land. From this point they have a number of "Dying" health levels equal to their Stamina. Unless their bleeding is staunched, they continue to lose these health levels at a rate of one per round (as a note, Exalts automatically stop bleeding unless an attack specifically states otherwise). Being knocked out through bludgeoning damage or similar effects that do not leave open wounds does not trigger this "bleeding out" sequence, though continued damage (beating on a foe even after he is down) may still kill the target.

On NPCs
Mortal NPCs (also known as "extras") have only three (3) health levels in total. It is a running gag trope in Exalted that "oops" can be fatal to mortals.

Defense Value
All characters have several Defense Values. These are a passive defensive value indicating the intrinsic desire of all people to not have their insides become their outsides.


 * Parry DV is derived from weaponry skills. You can parry while unarmed, though there are some restrictions (try stopping a sword's blade with your arm, kind of defeats the purpose).
 * (Dexterity + Combat Ability + Specialty + Weapon Defense)/2 is the equation for figuring your Parry DV.
 * Dodge DV is derived from the Dodge skill and involves getting out of the way of the attack entirely.
 * (Dexterity + Dodge + Specialty + Essence)/2 is the equation for figuring your Dodge DV.

Armor does not grant bonuses to your DVs (in fact it often penalizes them in the form of a Mobility Penalty), instead granting you increased Soak.

All penalties are applied to the factored DV after the equation is complete. Many times it is helpful to simply figure your character's relevant DVs and have them written down somewhere, as they rarely change directly.

On Mortals
Mortal characters cannot access their Essence, so they effectively have an Essence of 0 for these equations. As well, they round down, whereas Exalted round up.

Soak
Soak is a passive value that is relatively simple to figure, and whose application has already been discussed (see Damage above).


 * Everyone has Bashing Soak equal to their Stamina.
 * Exalts and other Essence users have Lethal Soak equal to half their Stamina. Mortal cannot soak Lethal damage unaided.
 * Nobody has inherent Aggravated Soak except certain magical beings.

Soak can be added to through Exalted Charms or armor. Most armor will denote the soak it grants in the form of "4B/3L" or the like. All armor grants Aggravated Soak equal to its Lethal Soak value (so the previous example would actually be 4B/3L/3A). These values are directly added on to your inherent soak.


 * Example:Ashen Dawn has Stamina 4, and he is Exalted, so his inherent soak values are 4B/2L/0A. He is wearing a Chain Shirt which grants 5B/7L/7A. Thus, his final soak values are 9B/9L/7A.

Special Maneuvers
There are a number of advanced combat maneuvers anyone can attempt.

Coordinated Attack
Pick a target and roll Charisma + War with a difficulty of (Half the # of participants, round down). During the leader’s next turn, if everyone waited to attack, reduce the target’s DV by the number of successes rolled (max DV penalty is # of participants).


 * Example:Shiba Jim rolls his Charisma + War to attempt to marshal his 3 buddies to beat up this really nasty troll they're dealing with. He needs at least 2 successes (4 participants / 2). He rolls a total of 3 successes. On his next turn, when everyone piles onto the troll, the troll's DVs will be reduced by 3.

Disarm
Attempting to disarm an opponent inflicts a -2 penalty on the "attack" (-4 if the attempt is made at range).

If the attack hits, deal no damage but the victim rolls (Wits + Ability) at a difficulty of (net successes). For every success not met by the victim, the weapon flies one foot away. Victim rolls (Dexterity + weapon ability) at (Difficulty 1) to retrieve it on their action.

Flurry
To make a flurry, you declare how many actions you wish to perform all on the same turn. Weapons have a Speed stat that declares how many attacks may be made with them on the same turn.

Every action made as part of a Flurry suffers a scaling penalty:

Theoretically, this progression could be continuing onwards, but in the very least most weapons have a maximum Speed around 3 or 4.

Of particular note is that the DV penalties incurred by any actions within a flurry are cumulative. Thus, if attacking three times, your DVs would go down by a total of -3.

Knockdown
If an attack deals more raw damage (before Soak) than (Stamina + Resistance) of the target, check for Knockdown. Roll (Dexterity or Strength) + (Athletics or Resistance) against a Difficulty of 2 to resist falling prone.

Stunning
Characters who suffer more health levels of damage (after Soak) than their Stamina need to succeed at a reflexive (Stamina + Resistance) roll with a difficulty of (Damage - Stamina) or be stunned until their next action.

A stunned victim suffers -2 to all rolls, on top of whatever other penalties they have (such as from wounds).