Unearthed Arcana: Fight or Flight?

[Klaus]

New UA article, by Richard Baker, providing optional ways to handle retreats, parleys and other ways of ending combat that don't involve one of the sides dead on the ground: Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Fight or Flight?)

I quite like it!

 

[Stumblewyk]

I like it as well, but I can't help but feel like this is another "option" for DMs and players too uncreative enough to figure out how to handle this on their own. I.E. "It's not in the rules, so it must not be in the game!"

My groups have been doing this for years, long before 4e came around. If one side wanted to drop the fight and run, they were welcome to try to do that. If one side wanted to parlay, they could try to convince their attackers to hold their weapons. It doesn't need rules, but Diplomacy/Bluff/Insight are certainly helpful. If a character or monster wanted to hold a doorway so that their allies could escape, they can do that too, but only as long as they have HP or tricks to keep them standing.

>_>

 

[renau1g]

Yeah, not bad, although I'm not sure why it's under Unearthed Arcana...it seems aimed at new DM's less comfortable with these situations, where many long-time DM's regularly have resolutions that aren't "You kill them all" or "you're all killed"

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Not bad. I already use a "Morale Save" for those cases when the enemy starts to feel victory slipping away (i.e. I know which way the fight is going), but the other stuff in here can be of use.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

I really like the idea of the encounter status check step. I've often wanted the ability to transition from a combat encounter to a chase, but when play is focused on the battlemat I've found that hard to do. I think this is a good way to get past that.

Perhaps explicitly adding an extra step to the combat sequence should have been obvious to me, given my two decades of experience with D&D (sheesh I'm starting to feel old now), but for whatever reason it wasn't.

 

[MrMyth]

Yeah, not bad, although I'm not sure why it's under Unearthed Arcana...it seems aimed at new DM's less comfortable with these situations, where many long-time DM's regularly have resolutions that aren't "You kill them all" or "you're all killed"

Because if it doesn't have the Unearthed Arcana tag, a player might read it, and at the end of the third round of combat, say, "Ok, the party is fleeing to an escape scene, I'm using Intimidate to scare this guy off me so I can run."

And the DM, who doesn't want to use these rules, can say no, but we now have a disconnect between what the player expects the rules of the game to be, and which rules the DM is using.

I like this article, but I think these systems definitely work best as optional rules. And that's all that Unearthed Arcana really is.

 

[Kingreaper]

I really like the idea of the encounter status check step. I've often wanted the ability to transition from a combat encounter to a chase, but when play is focused on the battlemat I've found that hard to do. I think this is a good way to get past that.

Perhaps explicitly adding an extra step to the combat sequence should have been obvious to me, given my two decades of experience with D&D (sheesh I'm starting to feel old now), but for whatever reason it wasn't.

I'm in the same situation. It's one of those ideas that are obvious once suggested.

I mean, my group has had quite a few surrender situations etc. but they way they're reached generally seemed a bit clunky.

 

[Daern]

We had a bunch of enemies surrendering and running away in our game yesterday. The 'encounter status check' is a good idea. It gives a nice formal spot to break out of initiative, and it makes it so Players don't have to waste precious standard actions on intimidation rolls.
Cyclical initiative can kinda blur rounds as it is, so a quick, 'what's up?' can't hurt. Maybe not every round, but certainly something a DM or PC can offer at the top of the order.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Quite solid, though I would have liked a bit more concrete information on parlay and surrender. The chase rules are solid stuff, though still tough to implement with minis.

 

[Fox Lee]

I like it as well, but I can't help but feel like this is another "option" for DMs and players too uncreative enough to figure out how to handle this on their own. I.E. "It's not in the rules, so it must not be in the game!"

Let's not pretend that there isn't a middle ground, though.

Personally I like having rules for this kind of situation because I'd rather not make an arbitrary decision; the dice are a useful impartial audjudicator. If my view is that something is neither better or worse for the story/progression, I like being able to roll some dice instead of having to make a random choice - knowing how dreadful humans are at making "random" choices.

I also like to give more control to the players - if they know that there are rules for something like this, they can ask themselves whether or not they think their character should be good at it, and build accordingly. My group likes to build characters whose strengths and weaknesses they know, and who can be relied on to function according to their design. There's nothing wrong, immature, or uncreative about that.