Special Combat Situations

Ambush

Attacker rolls Dex + Stealth vs. defender’s Perception + Alertness (resisted).

• Attacker wins: Free attack before initiative. Extra successes add to attack pool.
• Tie: Attacker goes first; defender may respond normally.
• Defender wins: Normal initiative; no advantage.

Blind Fighting

+2 difficulty to all attack rolls in total darkness or complete sensory deprivation.

Ranged attacks become essentially inaccurate — the attacker must still guess the target’s location.

Mitigation:

• Heightened Senses (Auspex ●) eliminates the penalty
• Eyes of the Beast (Protean ●) eliminates the penalty
• Thermographic or electronic vision removes the penalty depending on source

Flank and Rear Attacks

The target is unaware of the attack direction. This is a passive positional bonus — no additional roll required to establish flanking position.

Dazed

If the number of damage successes remaining after soak exceeds the target’s:

• Stamina (mortal)
• Stamina +2 (supernatural)

The target is dazed. They must spend their next action recovering — they cannot act offensively, defend, or use Disciplines. They may spend Willpower to act despite being dazed (at Storyteller discretion).

Knockdown

A knockdown result (from Sweep, Tackle, or certain other effects) sends the target to the ground.

Recovery options:

• Roll Dexterity + Athletics (difficulty varies by situation) to immediately recover — if successful, the character stands with –2 initiative
• Fail the roll: spend the next full action standing up
• Botch: Take 1 automatic bashing damage from the fall

A prone target is at +1 difficulty on all attack rolls and is at +1 difficulty to defend against attacks (or attackers gain +1 to hit, depending on framing).

Immobilization

Partially immobilized (struggling, held, caught):

• Attacker gains +2 dice to attack rolls against the target

Completely immobilized (bound, staked, paralyzed, out of Willpower):

• Attacks hit automatically — no attack roll required
• Damage roll proceeds normally