Preventing foes from fleeing, good idea or bad idea?

demon_jr · Jan 18, 2003

Have you ever been in a situation where your party and the enemies are near death, but the enemy party decides to retreat?

Now, would you try and press your luck or thank the DM for letting you get away with this encounter?

I know of one spell, dimensional anchor, that sometimes prevents enemies from escaping.

What tactics does your party use to prevent them from "running away" if you want them to stick around?

I hate it when I chase an enemy, but he pulls the ol' "disappearing around the corner" trick.

Ridley's Cohort · Jan 19, 2003

Sun Tzu would say that an enemy without means to escape is the most dangerous. He even advocated generals removing their own escape routes for key battles. Pretty hard core, eh?

In general, I would call it good roleplaying on the part of the NPCs to retreat when their own death is obviously likely. "Real" people value their skins, much more so than the typical PC.

In real life, would you want to flip a coin where heads -- gain a fat bonus and promotion, tales -- you die? I don't think so. The NPCs usually feel the same way.

As far as cheesy escapes, I can't help you there. Wall spells and Dimensional Anchor will help, but the DM "insists" on an NPC escaping there are always magical means of getting away. As long as the DM is consistent and gives the PCs the benefit of the doubt when its their turn to run for it, I wouldn't bother complaining. Abstract game systems (D&D included) don't handle chases very well so some fudging is necessary.

Epametheus · Jan 19, 2003

Just had that happen about 4 hours ago..

I had an undead bard with several low-end undead trying to retreat; they had attacked a caravan that the party was travelling with, and while nearly all of the people in the caravan died, the party was still going and the undead had suffered serious losses, so they decided to pull off. Sacrificing the bulk of their ghoul clan (I was using CoC ghouls) to kill 5 people (two of which had great cleave) didn't seem like a good trade-off.

The party went "we want the bard's magic bow!" and pursued.

Or rather, the two fighters and the sorcerer pursued; the druid and the cleric remained with the caravan. Anyways, it was fairly messy; one of the fighters only lived through the grace of Great Cleave + Power Attack, the sorcerer got blinded, but the other fighter managed to kill the bard. And which point the two fighters wound fighting the undead dire wolf that the bard had been riding on; after two rounds of fighting, the cleric (who had started running after the party once it turned out the pursuit was in trouble) ran in and used a cure spell to steal the kill.

Having Boots of Striding & Springing helps a bit in preventing retreat. Having the Improved Grab feat helps too.

Oogar · Jan 19, 2003

Trip & Tanglefoot bags - for the lower levels at least.

Stalker0 · Jan 20, 2003

Ridley's Cohort said:
Sun Tzu would say that an enemy without means to escape is the most dangerous. He even advocated generals removing their own escape routes for key battles. Pretty hard core, eh?

Hehe, I would tell Sun Tzu about WWII where British troops were carried across teh english channel in everything from tugboats to bath tubs to survive the German attack. Many people feel teh British would have been out of the war if they hadn't made it out of there.

Oh well.. Tzu can't always be right

Artoomis · Jan 20, 2003

Stalker0 said:
Hehe, I would tell Sun Tzu about WWII where British troops were carried across teh english channel in everything from tugboats to bath tubs to survive the German attack. Many people feel teh British would have been out of the war if they hadn't made it out of there.

Oh well.. Tzu can't always be right

Those particular British soldiers who escaped would indeed have been much more dangerous if they had no escape. They would have been wiped out or surrendered, sure, but they would have been far more dangerous.

Being more dangerous in the short term and winning in the long term are not equal.

FreeTheSlaves · Jan 20, 2003

I definitely would not press a pursuit if severely wounded. As a DM I have had the monsters last defence kill too often.

It really depends on the nature of the pursuit, is it an opportunity strike or fool hardy charge?

[Evil] If it was the latter I would be too tempted to throw another encounter later on using the feign retreat tactic, just to see how the players react... [/Evil]

Dr_Rictus · Jan 20, 2003

On the subject of cutting off your own escape, note that the doctrine being referenced (and I don't have my Art of War with me, so I can't check) advocates this tactic for key battles. Presumably, that is, those where victory is crucial. So the example of Dunkirk simply illustrates that victory in that battle was not crucial to the British. While arguably, survival of that battle was.

Not that Sun Tzu was incapable of being wrong, but I don't think we can count this point against him yet.