D&D 5E Bravely running away

[GrimCo]

It's not runing away. It's tactical retreat

I design world that has inner logic. PC can and do encounter things way above their pay grade and they are told at session 0 that there will be times when fighting isn't best option and that running away is best option. They get enough warnings that going in guns blazing isn't best option. If they choose to do it, well, sometimes it's round 1 TPK, sometimes it's flee for your life, every man for himself. Same for the enemies. Sometimes they will fight till the bitter end, sometimes they will flee after first round.

I handle tactical retreats on case by case basis and use 5e's "rulings over rules" guideline. If they want to flee, i ask them what they want to do and how are they doing it. Sometimes, they might roll. Sometimes, it's pure narration. Usually, mix of both.

 

[Epic Meepo]

I really don't get the chase rules- they don't seem to let the fleeing characters escape.

A chase ends when one side or the other stops, when the quarry escapes, or when the pursuers are close enough to their quarry to catch it.

If you're in close combat with a group of hobgoblins and hell hounds in some hills and you want to flee... they're going to catch up to you immediately. Resume combat, except now you've spent your turn(s) trying to escape instead of healing/fighting.

The current (2014) chase rules actually do have clear-cut rules for escaping during a chase. They aren't good rules for escaping, but they are clearly stated. From the 2014 DMG:

"If neither side gives up the chase, the quarry makes a Dexterity (Stealth) check at the end of each round, after every participant in the chase has taken its turn. The result is compared to the passive Wisdom (Perception) scores of the pursuers. If the quarry consists of multiple creatures, they all make the check.

If the quarry is never out of the lead pursuer's sight, the check fails automatically. Otherwise, if the result of the quarry's check is greater than the highest passive score, that quarry escapes. If not, the chase continues for another round."

All of that seems rather half-baked, but I guess it does provide an idea for ways to house-rule an escape. If you replace Stealth and Perception with skills that make more sense in context, you can at least hand-wave an escape with skill checks.

 

[MarkB]

The current (2014) chase rules actually do have clear-cut rules for escaping during a chase. They aren't good rules for escaping, but they are clearly stated. From the 2014 DMG:

"If neither side gives up the chase, the quarry makes a Dexterity (Stealth) check at the end of each round, after every participant in the chase has taken its turn. The result is compared to the passive Wisdom (Perception) scores of the pursuers. If the quarry consists of multiple creatures, they all make the check.

If the quarry is never out of the lead pursuer's sight, the check fails automatically. Otherwise, if the result of the quarry's check is greater than the highest passive score, that quarry escapes. If not, the chase continues for another round."

All of that seems rather half-baked, but I guess it does provide an idea for ways to house-rule an escape. If you replace Stealth and Perception with skills that make more sense in context, you can at least hand-wave an escape with skill checks.

"Break line-of-sight and then hide" seems like a pretty reasonable standard for escaping, and is doable in urban terrain, twisty tunnels or heavy undergrowth. Just not so good on open plains.

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

Chases end when the pursuer is close enough to Catch their target - a situation that is likely to occur during the very first round, assuming you a fleeing a monster from melee. This is true even with equal speeds - and many monsters will be faster than the PCs.

The chase rules are best applied when the PCs are chasing or being chased by someone of equal speed, and with a starting distance gap between them.

 

[GMMichael]

I handle tactical retreats on case by case basis and use 5e's "rulings over rules" guideline. If they want to flee, i ask them what they want to do and how are they doing it. Sometimes, they might roll. Sometimes, it's pure narration. Usually, mix of both.

I was told "tactical withdrawal." Which is better than fleeing, I guess, because it means someone is covering your backside while you're showing it to the enemy. I think fleeing means your bladder is still under control, and panicking means you've thrown your weapon away because it's just slowing you down!

The current (2014) chase rules actually do have clear-cut rules for escaping during a chase. They aren't good rules for escaping . . .

Here we go!

"If neither side gives up the chase, the quarry makes a Dexterity (Stealth) check at the end of each round, after every participant in the chase has taken its turn. The result is compared to the passive Wisdom (Perception) scores of the pursuers. If the quarry consists of multiple creatures, they all make the check.

Stealth instead of Athletics? Interesting. Passive Wisdom scores? So, pursuing a quarry is a passive activity. Interesting.

If the quarry is never out of the lead pursuer's sight, the check fails automatically. Otherwise, if the result of the quarry's check is greater than the highest passive score, that quarry escapes. If not, the chase continues for another round."

Automatically failing checks. Huh. And a success by the pursuers doesn't mean the chase is over, but that it continues?

All of that seems rather half-baked, but I guess it does provide an idea for ways to house-rule an escape. If you replace Stealth and Perception with skills that make more sense in context, you can at least hand-wave an escape with skill checks.

Half-baked is right. Would someone make a new edition of this game, already? I wouldn't call requiring skill checks a "hand-wave," but yeah, a few checks would probably be a lot more fun than 50 pages of trying-to-rescue-Merry-and-Pippin.

 

[CreamCloud0]

The current (2014) chase rules actually do have clear-cut rules for escaping during a chase. They aren't good rules for escaping, but they are clearly stated. From the 2014 DMG:

"If neither side gives up the chase, the quarry makes a Dexterity (Stealth) check at the end of each round, after every participant in the chase has taken its turn. The result is compared to the passive Wisdom (Perception) scores of the pursuers. If the quarry consists of multiple creatures, they all make the check.

If the quarry is never out of the lead pursuer's sight, the check fails automatically. Otherwise, if the result of the quarry's check is greater than the highest passive score, that quarry escapes. If not, the chase continues for another round."

All of that seems rather half-baked, but I guess it does provide an idea for ways to house-rule an escape. If you replace Stealth and Perception with skills that make more sense in context, you can at least hand-wave an escape with skill checks.

personally i'd skip anything about speeds and distance while running and instead just have the party declare they're Trying To Escape at the start of the round, which then immediately transitions to something similar to this kind of resolution, everyone can individually attempt a check to outrun(athletics) or hide(stealth) on their turn in the iniative, or take another action to try help or hinder an ally or enemy's contested skill check to prevent them achieving that, as players pass their outrun/hide checks they get phased out of iniative.

this also incoporates the idea of players needing to 'loose something' for running away as they expend abilities to improve their odds of escaping.

 

[Distracted DM]

The current (2014) chase rules actually do have clear-cut rules for escaping during a chase. They aren't good rules for escaping, but they are clearly stated. From the 2014 DMG:

"If neither side gives up the chase, the quarry makes a Dexterity (Stealth) check at the end of each round, after every participant in the chase has taken its turn. The result is compared to the passive Wisdom (Perception) scores of the pursuers. If the quarry consists of multiple creatures, they all make the check.

If the quarry is never out of the lead pursuer's sight, the check fails automatically. Otherwise, if the result of the quarry's check is greater than the highest passive score, that quarry escapes. If not, the chase continues for another round."

All of that seems rather half-baked, but I guess it does provide an idea for ways to house-rule an escape. If you replace Stealth and Perception with skills that make more sense in context, you can at least hand-wave an escape with skill checks.

My primary issue is the bit that I quoted in my post: the chase ends when the pursuers are close enough to catch their quarry. So a chase works if the big scary bad guys see you from 100ft down the road... It doesn't work if you're already in combat and want to get away, which is the whole thing here that is, unless you start house ruling it all anyway.

 

[jasper]

How would you rule it if 2/4 members of the party are unconscious and the remaining two players decide it's time to retreat, and the enemy has reason to pursue them?

You didn't answer 1. If I am hungry I eat. If not, I do a chase scene. And may modify the chase rules.

 

[Xetheral]

Smart PCs will create escape options on the way in. Doors they've set up to be jammable with with an Object Interaction, mounts waiting nearby, contingency plans for a PC with Misty Step to cover the retreat--the options are endless.

But if you do need to run, the best way to escape from an adjacent single creature of equal speed (and no reach weapon) is to Shove them back 5' and then move your speed away. At that point the enemy has to Dash to get adjacent to you, which means they can't attack you on their turn, and on your turn you Shove them again. Sure, every time you fail to Shove them they'll have their action to be able to attack you on their turn, but you only take damage in rounds where you fail the Shove and they succeed in their attack roll. (Against enemies with Extra Attack or Multiattack, you're probably better off Dashing each turn, limiting them to a single opportunity attack.)

In any case, you only need to keep fleeing until you can get to a suitable location for gaining an additional 5 feet on the enemy in a turn where you take the Dash action. The moment you do that, even once, the enemy can't catch you again. This is where getting to pick your flight route is a huge advantage--you get to choose (from the available options, obviously) what terrain the pursuer will have to cross. Ideally you want a place where you can create unavoidable difficult terrain with your Object Interaction, or else where there is marginally jumpable difficult terrain. In the former case, use your Object Interaction to topple the furniture, scatter loose objects, pull down an awning, (etc.) and as long the opponent can't jump it (either the obstacle is too big or the ceiling too low), you've effectively escaped, no check required. In the latter case, try to jump more of the difficult terrain than your pursuer--if you succeed, you've effectively escaped, if you fail, the enemy catches up to you more easily that round, and other than maybe taking an additional attack you're not much worse off--try again at the next patch of suitable terrain.

All this assume that an enemy is willing to pursue you round after round, which if the DM is RPing the enemies may be unlikely (for anything except mindless enemies like Skeletons and Golems, anyway). But if your DM is the sort to have intelligent enemies chase PCs blindly over long distances, you can demonstrate why that's not a good survival strategy by using it to trivially stage ambushes. (And if your DM metagames by only having the enemies chase you when you don't have an ambush prepared, get a new DM.)

 

[el-remmen]

@mearls patreon post today about the size of encounter areas and what is in them brought this thread to mind. It made me wonder to what degree those who are unsatisfied with the opportunities to flee feel that way because of the features of where those fights are happening and how they play out. In my experience of groups who have succeeded in escaping - excluding cases where escape was a result of enemies who did not want to give chase - it has always been because the group has worked together and made use of the terrain/environment.

Though in my experience, escapes where each PC chooses to do their own thing never work, and much like in real life, coordination does a lot of the work when you can't necessarily count on speed.