Cut To The Chase

[Beowolf]

My best chase scene happend in one of my oldest campains. The PCs were repaying a debt to a dwarven merchant by guarding his caravans to and from a city for a while. On one of the last days of their service they were beset by a groups of skeletal dwarves riding undead lt. war horses. the pcs were spread between the last two wagons of three and the skeles approched from behind. a chase ensued but they could only try to outride them becuse they were on a faily tight forest trail and they were surprised because it was dark. the skeles caught up quckly and began to attack the last wagon while several moved to attack the 2nd wagon. they exhanged blows with the pcs until one of them went after the horses.At first the pcs did not realise what would happen if the skele took out the horse. it soon dawned on them that a wagon going at a high speed and looses a horse suddenly will turn into one bad crash. the pcs scrambled desperatly to stop it but too late the horse fell and the wagon was sent flying and tumbling. All of the pcs survived but were badly hurt and had to face three remaing riders. luckly they were saved by the pcs in the other wagon.
when i ran this i did not prepare ahead for chase rules so i just said that the riders could adjust however many more feet of movement over the wagons thet had every round.
while the pcs could only move around in the wagons. although i realised that the rules probably would not have worked aswell in chase situations that were not similer to this.

Ps.Voadam nice obcure star trek reference ( feel kind of embarrassed knowing that)

 

[GlassJaw]

Sweet!

By the way Corey, how much of the rules are generic versus era-dependent? let's just say I probably won't be running any car chases anytime soon. I definitely want to pick up a good set of chase rules (or at least mash them together with the GT rules).

I'm starting a GT homebrew campaign in a couple of weeks and now I want to start things off with a nice frantic chase scene! Nothing says welcome to the new campaign like having the PC's run for their lives!

 

[barsoomcore]

The rules are COMPLETELY non-setting-specific. They cover rampaging dinosaurs, unicorns, chariots, and Aston Martins. The primary example chase in the book is a stagecoach pursued by a couple of mounted hobgoblins, and it includes rules for running chases with sailing ships, airplanes or just on foot.

They make no assumptions about your campaign other than the basic of d20: Drive or Ride, Hit Dice, Reflex Saves and so on. I run a very wide variety of campaign types so I wanted rules I could use in any scenario.

 

[GMSkarka]

The rules are COMPLETELY non-setting-specific. They cover rampaging dinosaurs, unicorns, chariots, and Aston Martins.

Which is one of the reasons why I think we've got a hit on our hands....in one day, Hot Pursuit has sold enough copies to be our second-best-seller for the month!

Thank you to everybody who has given it a look, and thanks especially to barsoomcore for coming up with a killer app!

 

[KB9JMQ]

Oooh, this sounds great. What timing also.
I am running a Raider's type game in Eberron and want a couple of chases.
I had planned one earlier but couldn't figure out how to run it.
This sounds just like what I need.
Now if I could just find out how fast a Lightning Rail goes

 

[Berandor]

I got the boook. Looks good so far (I'm at Passenger maneuvers, with a little peek to the end), but... (there had to be a but):

I think I'll change a few things for my foot chase. Now, some comments re: exactly that.
You recommend using simple Str checks. I fear that some DCs will quickly become too hight for that. For example, it will be a chase through a city, and I think a shortcut maneuver should be possible. (I'm imagining a character to jump on a cart and a narrow rooftop, then jump the roofs, run down a little alley and come out right behind the quarry).

That would be Head'em off and Join, right. But even at walk speed, the DC to join at short range would be 25, or 20 with a Str check (and Speed Factor, and Dex) - quite hard.
Likewise, a collision with a pedestrian, or a little punching/shoving going on will cause up to 4d4 damage. Even if I convert it to subdual, that's a lot.
I'll likely tone down the damage, at least. Also, I'll probably make the character lose a range increment if he fails a crash check, since you can't lose control of yourself.
I'll also treat a fruit cart (gotta have one) as a moat since you can't really plow through with your frail human body, but jumping it could be done. Hitting it might give up to 8d8 points of damage! (Large, cruising speed in open alley)
I'll likely substitute skill checks for simply attribute checks.For example, Jump for Jumping the fruit cart.

Some questions:
The "Lose 'em" Manoever doesn't list a range. If it can be done at any range, it strikes me as a better choice than Escape almost always. Am I missing something?
The Breakaway maneuver lists the DC as 20, while the example gives us a DC of 15 (earlier in the book). Which is correct? (Again, I think 20 will be quite hard to make in a footrace, so careening into a narrow alley would be *tough*)
What is the reaction roll of "Damn the torpedoes"?
A normal human would have a speed of 24, right? (30ft = 6 squares, Run x4, 6x4=24) I might change the speeds, as well (so "walk" would be more like a speed of 5 - then I could cut the damage in 1/4, too. Hmm...)

Anyway, I guess what this shows is that D&D is not too suited for foot chases. And then the second "chase" will be a foot race through town But I'll simply switch the pursued, then.

Last question: How would you handle speeding alongside a train, trying to overtake it, and crossing the rails just in time? Would you treat the train as an obstacle? Or as another participant (since it wouldn't make any checks, speeding past it should be automatic)? What maneuver would get you past the train?

I realize these may be hard questions, but I hope you don't mind, anyway.

 

[barsoomcore]

Hey Ber, glad you liked it. I want to get to your questions in more detail, but I'm just out the door to watch Thai people beat each other up, so briefly:

Likewise, a collision with a pedestrian, or a little punching/shoving going on will cause up to 4d4 damage.

Keep in mind you're talking about people travelling AT LEAST eleven miles an hour (more than 20 squares, or 100 feet every six seconds). I mean, they're not jogging here. They're flat-out. I think that if you're going full steam and you collide with something, you're going to take a fair bit of hurt.

On the other hand, that's an average of 8hp damage, which isn't going to kill any characters above 1st level, for the most part. And you're probably right about converting it to subdual.

You know, I can already envision an expansion set...

 

[barsoomcore]

Oooh, this sounds great. What timing also.
I am running a Raider's type game in Eberron and want a couple of chases.

That great sequence in the middle of Raiders was one of the primary inspirations for these rules. I'd watch it over and over, making notes on all the cool stuff I wanted people to be able to do in these rules.

Along with The Road Warrior, Operation Condor, Seven Brides and The French Connection. Some great chases there.

 

[satori01]

I would love suggestions for how to run a good chase sequence.
My next adventure is going to be the characters trying to stop a mummy wizard from reaching the head of an 200' tall chaositech golem, and utilizing it to open a portal to hell.

The rules as they stand now would seem to lead to run and grapple checks, but I was wondering how people added excitment to their chases, any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

OK, I bought it, downloaded it, and am reading it.

I have two games in the next two days. One, a d20 Modern military game, which has the PC's about to chase terrorists from an abandoned AFB outside LA and trying to stop them before they hit LA with a 125KT nuke in one truck, and 6 50-gallon barrels of VX and a dispersal device in the back of a converted "hippy school bus".

The other game, they're a bunch of savages and have just managed to ambush some rivals from a rival clan, thier Shaman and Dreamwalker have taken off running, and the PC's want him, since they can extort the other tribe or put them in slavery.

We'll see how the rules work out.