"Suppressed" isn't just a tactical term—it's the deafening roar of a heavy bolter shredding the cover inches from your face. It’s the visceral instinct to curl up when plasma rounds turn the air into ozone and fire. Whether you're a veteran mercenary or a green recruit, when the air fills with lead and light, you stop thinking about charging and start thinking about survival.
Being suppressed means you flinch. You hesitate. You take the long way around to avoid the kill zone. It’s the feeling of a sniper’s laser dot dancing on your visor or a riot suppression drone flooding your sector with tear gas. In that moment, you aren't fighting to win; you're fighting to breathe.
The Suppressed condition represents a creature being hindered by overwhelming firepower, environmental hazards, or tactical pressure. It serves as a primary tool for battlefield control, reducing an enemy's offensive capability and mobility.
Suppressed
Source Player Core pg. 440
You've been affected by a high volume of incoming fire or a particularly dangerous attack that forces you to act less efficiently for your own safety. You take a –1 circumstance penalty to attack rolls and a –10-foot status penalty to all your Speeds.
Duration: Typically lasts until the start of the imposing creature's next turn, forcing the suppressed target to act inefficiently for one round.
Sources: Commonly applied by the Soldier class via the Suppressing Fire feature, weapons with the automatic trait using Auto-Fire, or specific grenades and heavy weapons.
Tactical Applications
Movement Control: The –10-foot speed penalty is crippling in dynamic firefights. It prevents melee rushers from closing the gap, stops fleeing enemies from escaping, and keeps high-mobility targets (like hover-skiffs or jetpack troops) locked in vulnerable positions.
Defensive Screen: By applying a –1 penalty to enemy attacks, a gunner effectively buffs the entire party’s Armor Class. It turns critical hits into normal hits and normal hits into misses.
Focus Fire Marker: In mercenary crews and military units, a suppressed target is often "painted" for elimination. Soldiers with specific fighting styles can trigger devastating secondary effects—knocking suppressed targets prone, dealing extra damage, or terrifying them further.
Non-Combat & Environmental Forms
Rift Storms: Travelers caught in a high-intensity Mana Storm often suffer the suppressed condition, their movement slowed by psychic pressure and gravity fluctuations.
Crowd Control: Corporate security and Guild enforcers use "suppression emitters"—sonic devices that inflict the condition to disperse rioters without firing a shot.
Psychic Pressure: Certain eldritch horrors from the Rift don't need guns; their mere presence suppresses the minds of those nearby, weighing their limbs with dread.
Societal Impact
The existence of efficient suppression tactics has shaped Starfall's warfare. Heavy armor is less about deflection and more about poise—the ability to ignore suppression and keep moving. "Suppression Doctrine" is taught in every academy from the Terran Survivor enclaves to the Commission's elite peacekeepers: "If they aren't shooting back, you're winning."
Adventure Hooks
The Chokepoint: The party must hold a corridor against waves of enemies. Using suppression to slow them down is the only way to prevent being overrun before the blast door seals.
The Pin-Down: A sniper has the party suppressed in open terrain. They must use smoke, magic, or a distraction to break the condition and close the distance.
Riot Breakers: The players are hired to quell a workers' uprising at a spacedock using non-lethal suppression weapons, but agitators in the crowd are escalating the violence.
In a galaxy of lethal firepower, the Suppressed condition is the difference between a disorganized mob and a controlled kill zone. It reminds every adventurer that sometimes, the most dangerous weapon isn't the one that hits you—it's the one that keeps you from moving.
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