Surprise Attacks / Stealth

    This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse this site, you are agreeing to our Cookie Policy.

    • Surprise Attacks / Stealth

      I have some questions about surprise attacks and stealth during combat. I am new to the system and have read through most of the book so I might be missing something.

      As far as I can tell, surprise attacks can never happen on a character already engaged in combat. This means that an individual can not be distracted by one person attacking allowing a second to get behind and surprise attack.
      An opponent that senses the approach of an attacker in some way or is already engaged in combat is not considered unaware and enters combat with the attacker normally using a standard Initiative Roll. (Compendium p223)

      An example:
      Player 1 attacks an NPC while Player 2 remains stealthed (succeeds at an opposed roll with the NPC's perception) out of the fight. Player 2 spends a round getting behind the NPC and want to make a surprise attack.

      A follow up/related question on stealth. Is it possible to use stealth during combat (ie to escape or prevent reactions from enemies)? If so, what mechanical effect does it have? I would guess that it would be similar to blind fighting in which the subject of the attack has limited action dice or surprise with half defense.

      One final question - what defines a combat for armor damage? I am thinking of having a chase/fight scene through a bazaar where the players need to escape. I want to have the enemies periodically catch up and have a mini (only a few rounds) combat. Would this be one continuous fight or several short ones?
    • RE: Surprise Attacks / Stealth

      Hey there nohelix!!! Welcome to the forums!

      Though rules for our system can certainly be changed for the sake of each GMs campaign (especially if you'd like "surprise attacks" to work in a specific way), in our current rules surprise attacks work a lot like we've seen in cinema, where it's absolutely necessary for the person attempting surprise to utterly catch the opponent unaware to get all the amazing benefits of a surprise attack, which are quite deadly in our game, potentially... And this is saying a lot, considering how lethal our combat system can be even face-to-face!

      If you'd like to handle the use of Stealth in combat to allow for bonuses when attempting to do an unsuspected attack on an already "aware" opponent, you could consider Stealth successes (as compared against the Perception successes rolled by the opponent) as additional successes that a "Stealthing" character might apply to their next attack roll when engaging an already "aware opponent"... Or you could simply let the players use their Stealth as a Complementary Skill roll for such attacks against an already "aware" opponent... I wouldn't necessarily allow players to use Stealth to take away other player's Reactions, since that is essentially what the Stun maneuver is for....

      Our rules are really left fairly open to allow for these types of player-action motivated circumstances, assuming the GM doesn't feel that their game-play is becoming unbalanced due to abuse of such house-rules....

      In the chase scenario you mentioned, I would treat that as a series of individual combats, since most combats in Shard are only a few rounds long anyway,....and that would allow potential targets to get our of "official" combat, become "unaware" of the location of their opponent, and become susceptible to the "Surprise Attack" rules in between each bout....


      Let me know if you have any other questions!

      Scottie ^^