How Do Your Villains Escape?

Matt Lazarus · Sep 13, 2003

jasamcarl said:
Here is a question. How do you award xp and gp when you essentially only give a pc a partial encounter? This is a practical rules question, one which i've had trouble answering.

If a character has "defeated" a villian, then it's XP (think Spiderman and Mysterio, Spiderman always wins, but rarely captures Mysterio). If it was a hard fought combat where they overcame the villain despite the threat of death, than they deserve XP regardless of whether it was a kill. If they save the city by destroying the doomsday engine, they get a bonus on top of that. Gold is whatever the villian leaves behind, think of all the cool trophies Superman picked up from all those wacky alien conquerers

jasamcarl · Sep 13, 2003

Matt Lazarus said:
If a character has "defeated" a villian, then it's XP (think Spiderman and Mysterio, Spiderman always wins, but rarely captures Mysterio). If it was a hard fought combat where they overcame the villain despite the threat of death, than they deserve XP regardless of whether it was a kill. If they save the city by destroying the doomsday engine, they get a bonus on top of that. Gold is whatever the villian leaves behind, think of all the cool trophies Superman picked up from all those wacky alien conquerers

Yeah, but the key is that the party didn't really face all of the villian's strength, and thus didn't expend the resources that the cr/el system assumes they would have. If they are killed and resurrected, yeah, i would award the party full xp. I suppose you can do a bit of fudging and allow the npc to survive beyond 0hp; that would mean the party expended the resources, but for narrative reasons, the villian still exists. I don't know if that would piss off the players though.

Matt Lazarus · Sep 13, 2003

jasamcarl said:
Yeah, but the key is that the party didn't really face all of the villian's strength, and thus didn't expend the resources that the cr/el system assumes they would have. If they are killed and resurrected, yeah, i would award the party full xp. I suppose you can do a bit of fudging and allow the npc to survive beyond 0hp; that would mean the party expended the resources, but for narrative reasons, the villian still exists. I don't know if that would piss off the players though.

Well yeah, but it depends if you're working off a narrative based campaign or a math based campaign. Mathematically, if you look at the game like that, you should allocate an XP bonus based off equations ( I don't go near anything that reminds me this much of high school). If you play for fun, the effect should be calculated off the effect on the story.

Victim · Sep 13, 2003

jasamcarl said:
Yeah, but the key is that the party didn't really face all of the villian's strength, and thus didn't expend the resources that the cr/el system assumes they would have. If they are killed and resurrected, yeah, i would award the party full xp. I suppose you can do a bit of fudging and allow the npc to survive beyond 0hp; that would mean the party expended the resources, but for narrative reasons, the villian still exists. I don't know if that would piss off the players though.

You might consider the resources not spent to be balanced by both the villain's intel gain which sets him up for a higher EL battle next, and the fact the party will probably devote lots of resources to prevent him from escaping next time.

BSF · Sep 13, 2003

I admit that I am rather arbitrary on this. I basically just decide a percentage of the exp that the party will earn. It isn't real formalized and I generally base it on a gut feel for how much the party learned about the opponent. Sorry Jasamcarl, that isn't much help.

fusangite · Sep 13, 2003

My players, despite their deficiencies, are incredibly good at preventing my villains from escaping. They have almost made a science of it; I have illusions, haste spells, darkness, etc. and they frequently manage to thwart my escape plans. When they do that, for me, that's the moment when the greatness of D&D is revealed -- when the players can legitimately thwart your plans for the next episode and force you to come up with back-up schemes for the bad guys that you had never considered. In my view, if you have such a story-driven game that you villain must escape come hell or high water, you should be playing a game other than D&D. D&D is at its best when the players can force you to send the story in a direction you had never intended.

BSF · Sep 13, 2003

fusangite said:
My players, despite their deficiencies, are incredibly good at preventing my villains from escaping. They have almost made a science of it; I have illusions, haste spells, darkness, etc. and they frequently manage to thwart my escape plans. When they do that, for me, that's the moment when the greatness of D&D is revealed -- when the players can legitimately thwart your plans for the next episode and force you to come up with back-up schemes for the bad guys that you had never considered. In my view, if you have such a story-driven game that you villain must escape come hell or high water, you should be playing a game other than D&D. D&D is at its best when the players can force you to send the story in a direction you had never intended.

I love it when my players thwart an otherwise good plan! I try to make my villians realistic in that most of them will have retreat plans (or good reasons why they won't bother) and if the situation warrants it, the villian will try to flee. I have seen escape plans fail through tenacity, recklessnes, good luck and great play. Those moments are all worthwhile!

In all fairness, MojoDM did specify that he was looking for how a villian might escape that the PC's could thwart. I get the feeling he is looking for a variety of legitimate options rather than being stuck in the same contingency teleport escape path.

Norfleet · Sep 13, 2003

The most cunning escape plan that the PCs will be very hard-pressed to thwart is the pre-emptive escape plan:

The PCs battle their way through the villain's lair, striking down many (weak)minions, surviving (not so) deadly traps, and bursting into the villain's inner sanctum....

Which is empty. (aka "Sorry, Mario, but the Princess is in another castle!")

S'mon · Sep 13, 2003

Norfleet said:
The most cunning escape plan that the PCs will be very hard-pressed to thwart is the pre-emptive escape plan:

The PCs battle their way through the villain's lair, striking down many (weak)minions, surviving (not so) deadly traps, and bursting into the villain's inner sanctum....

Which is empty. (aka "Sorry, Mario, but the Princess is in another castle!")

Running 1e/2e, that was usually the only way my villains survived - by not being home when the PCs got there. In 1e/2e offense massively outdid defense. That doesn't seem to be the case in 3e - it seems to be easier for villains to escape, or for outmatched parties to retreat successfully without getting slaughtered. A lot of that is the way the full attack rules work - if you move, you only get one attack, which really cuts down on fatalities during flight.

Norfleet · Sep 13, 2003

S'mon said:
Running 1e/2e, that was usually the only way my villains survived - by not being home when the PCs got there. In 1e/2e offense massively outdid defense. That doesn't seem to be the case in 3e - it seems to be easier for villains to escape, or for outmatched parties to retreat successfully without getting slaughtered. A lot of that is the way the full attack rules work - if you move, you only get one attack, which really cuts down on fatalities during flight.

Massively outdid defense? That's not the pre-3E rules *I* remember. In 1E/2E, everyone got one attack, PERIOD, except for those high-level fighter types, and they got maybe *2*. Hell, in 3E, 2 attacks a round is "just getting started" territory for fighters. And rounds were longer, much longer. In pre-3E, a round was a minute. Now a round is all of 6 seconds, and amazingly, people can still attack over half-a-dozen times a round, at rates comparable to that of automatic weaponry.

And we didn't have that save-or-die business to the same level it is today. In the old days, that save or die crap, it never worked right. Nowadays, you can pretty much pick a target, and it'll work every time. Target a "weak" save, and your target has a snowball's chance in hell of passing.

I am at a complete loss for where you come up with the idea that pre-3E editions strongly favored offense over defense.

How Do Your Villains Escape?

Matt Lazarus

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jasamcarl

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Matt Lazarus

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Victim

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BSF

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fusangite

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BSF

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Norfleet

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S'mon

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Norfleet

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