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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6811391" data-attributes="member: 6787650">As a player, I'd be fine with the enemy backtracking us to camp. In fact I'd probably expect it, and there's a good chance I'd try to ambush and mousetrap them*. 5E gives major tactical advantages to the defender and I'd like to exploit them. Ideally I'd attack with a weak force and withdraw, hoping to provoke an enemy attack in "overwhelming force" (because that's what rational enemies do, attack with superior or overwhelming force to minimize their losses), and then I'd counterattack with my real force which is strong enough to beat the supposedly-overwhelming force, especially given my defensive advantages like fields of fire, partial/total cover, and caltrops. (Yay for Mould Earth! Roman legions have nothing on a 5E wizard with Mould Earth.) Then a quick break (short rest) to patch everybody up, and now we're on to the main event: attack the now-weakened main enemy base, which has just lost a bunch of troops, some leaders, and maybe some morale.However, if the bad guys abandon their lair and I don't get any credit for defeating them because I didn't physically hunt them down and murder them, that would leave a bad taste in my mouth. Not so much because I feel cheated, although that's a factor, as because the DM is apparently saying that I have to become a murderer to play in his game, and that nonviolent and indirect solutions are unacceptable. The credit doesn't have to come in the form of XP (maybe the DM has a theory that XP come only from sucking life force out of dying creatures) but at minimum that should go down in the books as a nice bloodless victory, and my military superiors should congratulate me on accomplishing my objective, and then "reward" me by giving me a harder objective with even less chance of success.* If I didn't try to mousetrap them, I might do the opposite: try to get them to attack in force a fake camp when I'm actually somewhere else. Then hit their main base while the big army is away; occupy it and fortify it so that when the main army gets back, I'm sitting behind all of their defenses with all of their treasure. And yes, I did in fact steal that tactic from the Book of Mormon (war chapters in Alma).</blockquote>

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