D&D 5E Running away...

[Bayonet]

I agree with Paul, just let your player tell you what they want to do, then make up a DC or a contested ability check.

Your PC wants to body check the guard onto his ass and keep running? Contested Athletics check. Your PC wants to baseball slide through the guards legs? Contested check, Your Dex (acrobatics) vs his.

Simpler is better.

 

[mlund]

In general, murdering the guy in the door way is much easier than trying to wrestling your way past him. It just has worse social consequences. If it is too difficult to turn the fellow blocking the doorway into a corpse, it's definitely too difficult to move him aside / move past him.

But that's combat thinking and the OP focus was about combat rules.

The real trick here is that your game situation has shifted from a fight scene to an escape scene. They shouldn't use the same exact rules paradigm. Chase and escape scenes aren't about "playing by the rules" of the combat sport. They aren't about killing people and taking their stuff - they are about trying to entangle, evade, and bamboozle people. They are about dynamics that the "Combat" section doesn't cover as well as the "Interaction" pillar does. It's one of those situations where you hang up the weapon and spell damage dice and start writing in plausible terrain features where the DM will allow you. Every character announces a tactic they are going to employ to try and force an opening. They DM sets checks and a bar for success. The stakes are how man rounds of one-sided combat the enemies get against the PCs before they make good on their escape - and what a PC might have to leave behind in the grips of a foe. Making my poor PC choose between his life / freedom or the contents of his Handy Haversack is rather cruel, but dramatically appropriate if he's the bad at escaping.

You are fleeing, so combat failed. Fail forward into something else.

Marty Lund

 

[Saeviomagy]

If it is too difficult to turn the fellow blocking the doorway into a corpse, it's definitely too difficult to move him aside / move past him.

That's a really bizarre statement to make. It doesn't match the game rules or reality in the remotest sense.

 

[mlund]

That's a really bizarre statement to make. It doesn't match the game rules or reality in the remotest sense.

I disagree.

Given your standard compliment of murderous hobos that make up an adventuring party you have about 3-5 people with swords, axes, hammers, bows, fire bolts, and other implements of death and mayhem capable of killing / mortally wounding a "normal" person in a single stroke. On the other side you have a guard blocking a doorway with a military weapon of some sort.

What's faster and more reliable given the circumstance in a real world? Trying to wrestle him and extricate yourself cleanly or hitting him with a deadly weapon (which in the real world will basically incapacitate him in one shot)? Applying deadly force is -much- faster and more reliable in the real world. (It's just rather depraved in most circumstances.) It's even worse in a real-world scenario because while you're trying to bull-rush him said guard is going to be trying to resist by killing you with a sword / mace / ax / halberd!

What's faster and more reliable given the combat mechanics in 5E D&D? If he's standing in front of the door-way you need to move him 10' minimum to clear the area. That's going to be 2 successful bull-rush attempts against a character whose best stat is Strength. Depending on your party composition this could be a coin-flip effort at best, and a long-shot at worst. Pretty much regardless of party composition a round of just laying into the unfortunate fellow with your best attack options will be just as effective, if not more so. It'll just be far more violent.

Though, looking at some of the alternative proposals, grapple might be effective. Its' a 10' move, a successful grapple check, and 20' of movement spent to move him the remaining 10'. That could actually clear a doorway, though not a hallway. However if the guard has another friend at his back then all such methods are fruitless. You can't bull-rush backwards because the space behind him is occupied. You can't move his friend on the other side because the space in front of his is occupied. Knocking someone prone does not allow you to move through their 5' square area in combat. You're going to have to start dropping people to 0 HP at that point because that's the only mechanical solution that Combat section makes available.

Again, the real point here is that the Combat section is full of mechanics for a fight scene and escaping from guards in a castle is totally a chase scene that calls for Interaction pillar mechanics.

Marty Lund

 

[The Crimson Binome]

That's a really bizarre statement to make. It doesn't match the game rules or reality in the remotest sense.

Different people describe HP in different ways. If you see HP as the ability to defy force, and depletion of HP as draining that willpower - as evidence by the ease with which you can KO an enemy instead of killing - then it makes perfect sense that you can't completely bypass that resistance with a simple Dex check.

Not that I'm arguing the position, mind. I'm just saying how it could match the reality of the game world, as represented by the rules in effect. Personally, I would just say you can't do it because "a medium creature occupies a 5-foot square" is a fundamental concession for making the game playable, and I don't want to be forced into a judgment call with every ooze or construct on whether you can or cannot squeeze past. Besides, there's already a perfectly functional mechanic for moving past - using Strength to shove the enemy out of the way - and letting anyone substitute Dex in place of Strength erodes the meaning of the different stats.

 

[mlund]

Different people describe HP in different ways. If you see HP as the ability to defy force, and depletion of HP as draining that willpower - as evidence by the ease with which you can KO an enemy instead of killing - then it makes perfect sense that you can't completely bypass that resistance with a simple Dex check.

More specifically, hit points what separate a character from being beaten into a helpless, senseless state (unconscious). Maybe that's some meat, some dumb luck, a bunch of stamina, and probably a pain threshold too. It doesn't really matter, though. If an enemy has Hit Points he's resisting you. You can't cross his 5' square area. He's probably employing a lethal weapon against you too. If an enemy has no hit points he's in a pile on the floor, no longer posing any resistance, possibly bleeding out or going into shock.

The key point is that the Combat mechanics revolve around putting opponents to 0 HP. A lot of the functionality is framed around this kind of throw-down. A chase scene doesn't have that goal and doesn't need to play by those rules. The two can bleed over into one-another as appropriate, but this isn't a game where every rule is part of some sort of simulation physics engine. What's true in Combat (you can't dodge past that armored guy in a fight scene just to get at the squishy guys behind him) doesn't have to be true in Interaction (you probably can dodge past that armored guy in a chase scene to continue making your escape through the castle - tell me about your stunt).

Marty Lund

 

[The Crimson Binome]

The key point is that the Combat mechanics revolve around putting opponents to 0 HP. A lot of the functionality is framed around this kind of throw-down. A chase scene doesn't have that goal and doesn't need to play by those rules. The two can bleed over into one-another as appropriate, but this isn't a game where every rule is part of some sort of simulation physics engine.

Unless you want it to be. Which I do.

Of course, I accept this physics engine only works the way it does because of certain assumptions, so the game rules stop applying when those assumptions no longer hold. It's not that I distinguish between a chase scene or a combat scene, because the whole concept of "scene" and "goal" are purely meta-game. Instead, I consider that an enemy who isn't in combat - who isn't aware that there's someone nearby, for whom she should remain on guard - is not going to be frantically looking around for foes or even trying to maintain control over her personal space. That is why you might be able to sneak past, out of combat.

 

[mlund]

Unless you want it to be. Which I do.

Sure, if your table is interested in a game that works that way have fun. I'm just not going to consider it a system flaw if trying to do that has negative consequences. Nothing in the rules as written suggests you need to apply all the Combat mechanics all time - or even every time someone draws a weapon.

It's not that I distinguish between a chase scene or a combat scene, because the whole concept of "scene" and "goal" are purely meta-game.

I'm not sure if that's really relevant. You're dealing with a game, a system (or set of systems, really), and a story all at once. Depending on the individual part of the individual story you're dealing with you apply the most germane game mechanics as needed. That's probably going to depend on what the table actually enjoys doing with their time.

"The Combat Mechanics make an escape / chase hard to accomplish," is not necessarily a flaw in the system. Sometimes it is a flaw in execution. You can take the position of, "oh well, escaping is hard - game physics is a harsh mistress" or you can take the position of, "the Combat Mechanics might not be the best ones to adjudicate a chase as opposed to a fight."

Marty Lund

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I'm not sure if that's really relevant. You're dealing with a game, a system (or set of systems, really), and a story all at once. Depending on the individual part of the individual story you're dealing with you apply the most germane game mechanics as needed. That's probably going to depend on what the table actually enjoys doing with their time.

Eh... we may have to disagree on that. We're dealing with a system, and it's presented in the form of a game. A story is just something that arises, as a result of applying the system mechanics in order to play the game. You don't need to deal with the story at all.

Unless that's your thing, I guess.

 

[mlund]

Eh... we may have to disagree on that.

We can disagree on our personal preferences, sure.

We're dealing with a system, and it's presented in the form of a game.

Eh, I'd take it the other way. We're dealing with a game. It's composed of a series of systems - many of which are mutable / optional in the first place.

A story is just something that arises, as a result of applying the system mechanics in order to play the game.

Or a story is something that exists a priori, and systems are applied as appropriate to introduce a game aspect to shape that story as it continues.

Story is optional, as are pretty much all the rules modules. That's the beautiful thing about a flexible, modular game system.

Marty Lund