D&D 5E Grind-out fights, unconscious heroes, and retreat

[transtemporal]

I think intelligent monsters are actually the other way around. Unless they're zealots of chaos or completely feral, they are reluctant to kill because they want to show enough strength to drive off the invaders, but not give the invaders an incentive for revenge or back them into a corner where mutually assured destruction is the only course.

I think a "no quarter given or asked for" situation would be uncommon, since everyone wants to live and theres always the chance you'll be on the losing side...

 

[redrick]

Running away is actually quite easy in my opinion, if your enemies are primarily melee (as most monsters are). That might be because I build in "run away" options for every single PC I make, but even with a vanilla PC, you just need to suffer one opportunity attack and buy one round of distance between yourself and the enemy. That could mean everyone runs away while the party monk or rogue Dodges for a turn, then catches up next turn while the monsters fall behind. Or it could mean a wizard casting Grease (or better, Web) in a strategic location during the retreat.

I think every PC should have an exit strategy, but, at least for the players that I've played with, this isn't usually the case! I'd like to nudge my campaign in that direction, however, and have said as such to the players. I think a large part of the problem is that players frequently don't think of retreat until a PC is already down to their last hit's worth of hp. Once you have an unconscious PC, retreat becomes much harder than just taking the dash action, and if you know that one OoA will knock your character unconscious, you might as well have an unconscious PC. That doesn't mean it can't be done, it just becomes an encounter that requires a new strategy or approach. Leaving an unconscious character behind can be a little rough if the group isn't ready for it.

(The only character deaths in this particular campaign happened in exactly that way. PCs charged into a room full of monsters. Got into the room, realized that there were a lot of monsters, and that some of the monsters around the corner were much bigger and nastier than they expected. Two PCs were knocked out in one round. The other PCs didn't look back. That was back in october.)

 

[DaveDash]

I think intelligent monsters are actually the other way around. Unless they're zealots of chaos or completely feral, they are reluctant to kill because they want to show enough strength to drive off the invaders, but not give the invaders an incentive for revenge or back them into a corner where mutually assured destruction is the only course.

I think a "no quarter given or asked for" situation would be uncommon, since everyone wants to live and theres always the chance you'll be on the losing side...

Not really.

The party consists of arguably intelligent creatures, and they generally don't take more than one prisoner (depending on what they're fighting). That one prisoner is usually dispatched of after its deemed its crimes are punishable by death, or "they don't want to have to deal with it later".

 

[redrick]

I think intelligent monsters are actually the other way around. Unless they're zealots of chaos or completely feral, they are reluctant to kill because they want to show enough strength to drive off the invaders, but not give the invaders an incentive for revenge or back them into a corner where mutually assured destruction is the only course.

I think a "no quarter given or asked for" situation would be uncommon, since everyone wants to live and theres always the chance you'll be on the losing side...

But that strategy doesn't really work against adventurers. Adventurers don't say, "oh no, they knocked out one of our guys. we will run away." They say, "oh no, they knocked out one of our guys. We need to get our guy back." Sure, if you kill one of the PCs, they will be back for revenge, but if you don't kill one of the PCs, they don't need to come back. They're already in your monstrous home, invading it and stealing all of your stuff. As an intelligent monster, I would assume that a putative group of adventurers would probably run away after seeing one of their own get killed, then surveying the battle and saying, "at this rate, another 2 or 3 of us are also likely to get killed." On the other hand, very few adventurers will run away after surveying a battle and saying, "3 or 4 of us might get knocked unconscious, but at least one or should survive long enough to win the day and then revive our companions."

Now, sure, if there is the possibility for some sort of prisoner exchange, some groups will attempt that. Unfortunately, a prisoner exchange depends on strong communication between parties and a certain degree of trust.

Being knocked unconscious, in of itself, just isn't that scary. Sure, there's something like a 3% chance that you'll crit-fail one death save and then fail another one, killing you in 2 rounds. But, on average, an unconscious character has 4 or 5 rounds of death saves, and a 55% chance that they will stabilize without any intervention whatsoever. There's even a 5% chance that they'll pull through on their own and be back up on their feet, swinging that greatsword. When you're a monster, repelling invaders, and that's the most you've got to scare your invaders with, you're not going to have much success.

 

[transtemporal]

I'm all for the players having moments where they come within a hair's breadth of death, and where they decide to stick it out against all odds and all reason. I think those moments are fun, and everybody likes winning a lot more than running away. The problem is that running away is also hard to do, especially once melee combat is engaged.

Our group has discovered that running away is fun too! We've been routed once (in a foolish fight against a black dragon) and tactically retreated once (in a foolish frontal attack against a gnoll tribe). It's fun because it feels realistic and you don't feel like the rules of the metagame will keep you alive. Also, we learned from that and we kinda have a plan for retreat now.

The sense of doom comes because of the way that DnD fights are structured. The longer you fight, the worse it is for you, so you want to blow all your big attacks early which means that big fights that should end with epicness kind of fizzle out or worse, start to become pervaded by a sense of doom.

Its another thread really, but I'm thinking of format where you don't have uses per rest of abilities. Effectively, your abilities "charge up" in combat and are reset when you use an ability higher than your level. Or something.

 

[transtemporal]

Not really.

The party consists of arguably intelligent creatures, and they generally don't take more than one prisoner (depending on what they're fighting). That one prisoner is usually dispatched of after its deemed its crimes are punishable by death, or "they don't want to have to deal with it later".

Yeah, but let's face it, players are really the true monsters.

 

[transtemporal]

But that strategy doesn't really work against adventurers.

Yeah, I know players are super bloodthirsty. I was overlaying the real world, since your monsters seem to be acting in realistic ways.

You can communicate a heck of a lot of information to the PCs by having a monster meaningfully stand over the unconscious PC with a weapon, and not coup-de-grace him. And likewise of course you can communicate a completely different message, by having the monster coup-de-grace him and grin at the PCs.

 

[redrick]

Our group has discovered that running away is fun too! We've been routed once (in a foolish fight against a black dragon) and tactically retreated once (in a foolish frontal attack against a gnoll tribe). It's fun because it feels realistic and you don't feel like the rules of the metagame will keep you alive. Also, we learned from that and we kinda have a plan for retreat now.

I know! I want to run some good escape scenes!

The sense of doom comes because of the way that DnD fights are structured. The longer you fight, the worse it is for you, so you want to blow all your big attacks early which means that big fights that should end with epicness kind of fizzle out or worse, start to become pervaded by a sense of doom.

Its another thread really, but I'm thinking of format where you don't have uses per rest of abilities. Effectively, your abilities "charge up" in combat and are reset when you use an ability higher than your level. Or something.

I have seen this happen a little less in 5e than I remember it happening in 4e, because there are no longer any "encounter" powers, meaning that players don't automatically open each combat with their strongest combo. So, in the 3rd round, a fighter might see an opening and use an action surge to try to break the back of the opposition and rout them. Spellcasters also usually keep at least one slot "in reserve" for when **** really gets real. The only resources that seem to get used overwhelmingly at the beginning of combat are large area of effect and control spells. Fireballs make great opening moves, but my players have not yet been nihilistically desperate enough to drop one on a melee once half the party is locked into it.

Of course, a fight like the one I described in the OP finishes as a grueling grind, because it's probably gone on for more than 10 rounds, at which point, every resource has been burned, and you're trying to throw healing potions across the room to get the fighter up. (Valiant effort, except the ranger was knocked out before she could administer the potion.)

I think part of the sense of doom was because I wasn't hiding the fact that I thought the situation had gotten out of hand, but also wasn't making any indications that I planned to put it back "in hand." I figured I was watching myself administer a TPK. And I may have cackled every time a villain landed a hit on the 19 AC plate dwarf. In a cartoonish french accent.

I do like the possibility of a mechanic where some sort of mechanic is earned after a certain amount of time in combat. Might be too gamist for some, but, if done right, it could be fun. On the other hand, since I'm trying to get my players to cut their losses more often, the idea of introducing a special combo that opens up after 5 rounds of combat seems a little antithetical.

 

[77IM]

I love the death saving throw system, but in practice it means that downed players live for at least 3 rounds, likely more, which is usually enough time for the fight to resolve one way or another. In other words, making death saving throws is largely pointless -- either the party wins and there are last-minute stabilization checks, or it's a TPK/capture and everybody is equally dead/captured.

Having monsters attack unconscious people is a good solution. I think house rules might be a good solution too. A simple one is: you only need succeed/fail at 2 death saves to stabilize/die, instead of 3. That makes things MUCH more touch-and-go for dropped players. They know they won't die next round but the one after that is iffy. A similar change is, you must make the first death save immediately instead of waiting a round. Both of those ideas speed up the death/stabilization process without really making it more dangerous. If you want it to be scarier, just increase the death save DC to 15. This makes dying after 3-4 rounds much more likely than stabilizing on your own. Or, instead of suffering 2 failed saves on a result of 1, it's on any result of 5 or less, making it much harder to predict the rate at which you might bleed out. I guess if I were going to introduce a house rule like this I would give the party a single scroll of raise dead as compensation (your first one is free...).

 

[77IM]

I do like the possibility of a mechanic where some sort of mechanic is earned after a certain amount of time in combat. Might be too gamist for some, but, if done right, it could be fun. On the other hand, since I'm trying to get my players to cut their losses more often, the idea of introducing a special combo that opens up after 5 rounds of combat seems a little antithetical.

I don't know what your policies on Inspiration are, but it's a great bribery tool. After 5 rounds of a difficult combat: "Are you sure you want to die here today? If you can state a reason to live and thus retreat, OR a reason to stand and fight, I'll give you an Inspiration."