D&D 5E Fleeing

[lluewhyn]

Recently saw another of those memes discussing "never assume that everything in the world is an appropriate challenge for your level -be prepared to flee". This kind of philosophy has always seemed odd to me, because IMO every edition of D&D has made fleeing/running a sucker's move if you go only by the written rules. Basically, two problems:

1. Unless you have fought specific types of creatures before, you don't know their relative challenge level until you fight them (still doesn't help much against specific creatures). Even if you fight them, you might not be able to gauge their true difficulty if the DM is opaque about their exact stats (HP, Attack Bonus, AC, etc.) until it's several rounds in and party members are dropping. Did that guy who hit you with a 25 (not-critical) have a +6 and roll a 19, or did he roll a 13 with a +12? A PC's first few attack rolls are 23 and 24, which are both hits, so couldn't tell the enemy has a whopping 22 AC. Also, half of your team is down and that Ogre hits like a train -but is the 40 points of damage that you have done to him almost enough to drop him or merely a small dent?

2. Suppose that you do the math and *do* determine that you are out of your league. This is obvious when the players are vastly out-numbered, but trickier when it's a single creature or a small number of enemies. Party (or whoever is left) decides to flee. Except almost every monster in the book can move just as fast as the PCs and/or has ranged weapons that can pick them off as they flee. To be true to RP, I sometimes have enemy mooks flee when it's down to 1 or 2 of their originally much larger party, and they're almost always mowed down before they can get away. True, not every enemy will chase the PCs down, but the PCs don't know that.

So, are people using special rules for fleeing not in the actual books? When I ran Curse of Strahd, I knew that this might be an issue and told the players that they had a special "Flee" action for narrative purposes. If they were not provoking Opportunity Attacks and could move their normal speed on their turn, the "Fled" -gone from the combat, can't be chased without an opposed skill challenge, but can't change their mind and come back until after the battle in case their other party members stay in combat.

But for everyone else, how do you resolve the dilemma that it's very hard to determine the difficulty of an opponent until you engage them in combat, and once you are in combat with them it's hard to flee without them following or using ranged attacks to bring you down?

 

[Lancelot]

It's generally simple enough in my games, and it's an option that the players take at least once every 4-6 sessions.

I use battlemaps and minis for significant battles, and theater-of-the-mind for simple stuff. Fleeing isn't an issue in the latter, so there's almost always a battlemap involved. To initiate the "flee" scenario, the characters simple have to exit the map. Sometimes this involve attacks-of-opportunity; sometimes it won't. However, if they choose to flee, they know that it will be followed by Stage Two below.

Once they're off the map, we're into Skill Challenge territory. They need to describe to me (narratively) how they're attempting to get away. Running for their lives? Athletics checks. Throwing pursuers off the scent? Deception. Hiding? Stealth. And so forth. I'm pretty generous on what skills they can use, because the penalty for failure is high (see below). The DCs starts relatively low (e.g. DC 10, or even DC 5 if they have a particularly good idea). If they have special items or spells that will help, those will grant at least 1 automatic success.

However, the target DCs will increase steadily if the PC only uses the same gambit every round. I run! Athletics DC 10. I keep running! Athletics DC 15. I'm still running! Athletics DC 20. Ummm... maybe I try and hide now? Stealth DC 10. I like to promote some variety, to force them to consider the narrative.

In general, each PC needs to make 4 successes before they accrue 3 failures to escape. A particularly hard pursuit might involve 6 or even 8 successes (e.g. the party is heavily outnumbered, or the pursuers are very fast), before 3 failures are accrued. The reason I do it individually is to give the sense that stragglers are being picked off. It's also to increase the chance of survivors.

If a PC racks up those three failures, he/she is either captured (if that's a reasonable motivation for the pursuers), or dead. End of story. There are no additional saving throws, no more chances to cast spells, no combat rounds. My players know this, and expect this - it adds to the tension of the game.

How does this work in practice? My players don't immediately flee unless they are certain they're outclassed (e.g. their 3rd level PCs have angered an NPC, and he has turned out to be a lich or adult red dragon). More often than not, they'll be fighting a climactic encounter with a deadly enemy (or group), and a few of the PCs are down. They do the math, and realized there's a solid chance it'll be a TPK. The survivors run for it. Maybe they live; maybe they die (or are captured).

As for those PCs who are down in the fight (and cannot flee, obviously), they will either have to stabilize on their own, or they will bleed out. Sometimes, if the victorious enemy has a motivation for wanting the PCs alive, they might attempt Medicine checks to stabilize fallen PCs so they can interrogate/ransom/enslave them later. This creates more story opportunities to continue the campaign, and give the fleeing PCs a chance to come back and save their buddies later on.

In Summary:
1) Once off the battle-map, it's a Skill Challenge. 4 (or 6, or 8) successes for each PC before 3 failures, depending on the difficulty of the pursuit (but low DCs, and generous variety of skills available).
2) Appropriate spells and items grant at least 1 auto success on the challenge
3) The penalty for failure is high: the PC is either captured (intelligent, motivated enemies) or killed if they fail the challenge

 

[lluewhyn]

Thank you. The first half of your reply answers my second question -what to do when a choice to flee has occurred. For the few times it's come up, I've done something similar, but maybe not as harsh. It would be something like opposed Constitution checks to keep up a running speed, and the party that failed would end up in combat with the pursuer again, and know that flight was not an available option. Either way, we're both coming up with a system beyond "X moves 30' and uses their Action to take a Dash/Y moves 30' and uses their action to fire at X with a Longbow".

I was going to ask how this related to my first question, which is determining when flight should be an option, but then saw the part about "in practice". Your answer was pretty good about both dealing with the hypothetical (realizing that an NPC was way beyond their level just by its nature Lich/Dragon), and the actual practice that fleeing really only tends to occur in game-play when the party is screwed and its the remaining PCs are trying to keep it to being a mostly-TPK instead of full TPK. Also, in higher level games, there may be more opportunities for the players to realize they're in trouble before the bodies have already hit the floor: For example, in Curse of Strahd my players engaged Baba Lysaga's Hut after dispatching her earlier, and realized that it was going to be able to take them down (50+ a turn) long before they could drop it, and managed to get away.

But that seems to be the exception to me- that PCs can determine it's time to run and still have an opportunity for all of them to get away, when more typically it's just the few survivors from a total wipe. But I've seen so many people talking about games where their PCs learned the value of running away from fights and not thinking they can take everything down when it seems to me the default system mechanics tend to discourage this option, not just PC cockiness.

 

[Lanefan]

But that seems to be the exception to me- that PCs can determine it's time to run and still have an opportunity for all of them to get away, when more typically it's just the few survivors from a total wipe.

All you need is at least one survivor to allow for the party (and the ongoing campaign) to continue.

And nobody ever said anything about "all of them" getting away. There are acceptable losses.

But I've seen so many people talking about games where their PCs learned the value of running away from fights and not thinking they can take everything down when it seems to me the default system mechanics tend to discourage this option, not just PC cockiness.

System mechanics or not, oftentimes fleeing won't necessarily draw a pursuit. Think about it - usually when a party gets in over its head it's due to having stuck their collective nose where it doesn't belong - often into the lair of something big and nasty. The big nasty thing quite reasonably defends its home, kills a few of the intruders and sends the rest scurrying off, then settles back down to whatever it was doing before (after maybe checking its defenses).

Seems logical enough from here.

Lan-"there's always a bigger fish, and after that there's always a bigger pond"-efan

 

[Blue]

1. Unless you have fought specific types of creatures before, you don't know their relative challenge level until you fight them (still doesn't help much against specific creatures).

If that's the case, I'd ask the DM to step up on their descriptions. Your characters have a sense of how powerful they are, they have a history of battle probably as long as your game has been running, they should be able to do some estimation.

"While humanoid and more than twice as tall as you, their proportions are off. They seem almost painfully thin, until you realize that their arm is still twice as thick as your thigh. They move with an awkward gait but idly limber tree trunks over their shoulders as impromptu clubs. Their skin is green and rubbery, and under coarse black hair their eyes gleam with low cunning."

"Do I think I could take one in single combat?"

"Well, from how they lurch it shouldn't be a problem to hit one. Be hit is a different question. You've fought ogres, but they wouldn't even come up to these things shoulder. A club of these green skinned monstrosities probably weighs more then you and the pack mule together. You might pit two of the ogres against one of these for a good fight, but there are three of them."

Now, in this case the characters don't know that the trolls can also regenerate, so they are even tougher. But they have a good idea and can fade back into the swamp or engage with some clue.

2. Suppose that you do the math and *do* determine that you are out of your league. This is obvious when the players are vastly out-numbered, but trickier when it's a single creature or a small number of enemies. Party (or whoever is left) decides to flee. Except almost every monster in the book can move just as fast as the PCs and/or has ranged weapons that can pick them off as they flee.

This sounds like a DM where every battle is to the death and with a clear victory they want to potentially lose more of their lives just to follow up. Sure, some will chase, others will be happy you are gone. Others might pepper you with ranged attack until you are out of the area but not pursue.

And sometimes you end up having a party member staying behind as the martyr so it doesn't turn into a TPK.These make the greatest of stories, the players will be retelling for decades. Remember Gandalf and the Balrog.

When I ran Curse of Strahd, I knew that this might be an issue and told the players that they had a special "Flee" action for narrative purposes.

I like your solution. 13th Age (a d20 OGL that 5e shares a lot of philosophy with) has a guaranteed safe Flee option - but if you evoke it, you will suffer a campaign loss. This means that there will be some sort of campaign consequence of the party fleeing, but it will be successful and you will bring the bodies of the fallen. (Mind you, you can try to flee without evoking it as well.) Part of is is that they don't want players who are over-cautious and spend half an hour planning everything before doing anything.

They even have an optional rule that they say they borrowed from 7th Sea (1st ed, this was before 7th Sea 2nd was out) which is that you can't be killed by people without a name. So you could get knocked way out and captured and brought tot he named NPC to be sacrificed, but that still gave the rest of the party a chance to rescue you.

 

[Soul Stigma]

One thing that can complicate it in a melee is having to Disengage before fleeing, assuming the PC is not up to taking an AoO. If they can handle an AoO, then they can double their speed to get a head start. At any rate, it is a complicated business to flee if you don't already have range.


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[Saeviomagy]

1. Unless you have fought specific types of creatures before, you don't know their relative challenge level until you fight them (still doesn't help much against specific creatures). Even if you fight them, you might not be able to gauge their true difficulty if the DM is opaque about their exact stats (HP, Attack Bonus, AC, etc.) until it's several rounds in and party members are dropping. Did that guy who hit you with a 25 (not-critical) have a +6 and roll a 19, or did he roll a 13 with a +12? A PC's first few attack rolls are 23 and 24, which are both hits, so couldn't tell the enemy has a whopping 22 AC. Also, half of your team is down and that Ogre hits like a train -but is the 40 points of damage that you have done to him almost enough to drop him or merely a small dent?

It's the DMs job to NOT be opaque. The guy hits you with a 25 ac? If he needed a 19, then he 'only just caught you with...' if he rolled a 13, he 'struck you with relative ease'. I also just straight out tell players AC - if that's jarring to you, follow the same scheme above. Hitpoints... I brought back 4e's bloodied status. Hit him for 40 points and he's not bloodied? Well, he's got at least that many still left.

Even before they enter combat, you should be getting a feel for how strong, dextrous and tough a monster is before combat starts, and with enough observation you should get intelligence, wisdom and potentially charisma too. There are some misleading wolf-in-sheeps-clothing type monsters, but most things are what they seem to be. Hit points are probably the hardest to telegraph, but IMO that's only a problem when they're out of line with the rest of a monster's statistics.

2. Suppose that you do the math and *do* determine that you are out of your league. This is obvious when the players are vastly out-numbered, but trickier when it's a single creature or a small number of enemies. Party (or whoever is left) decides to flee. Except almost every monster in the book can move just as fast as the PCs and/or has ranged weapons that can pick them off as they flee. To be true to RP, I sometimes have enemy mooks flee when it's down to 1 or 2 of their originally much larger party, and they're almost always mowed down before they can get away. True, not every enemy will chase the PCs down, but the PCs don't know that.

If you routinely set your PCs up against things they need to flee... then they should have a plan for fleeing.

Also... MOST enemies won't chase or can be persuaded not to chase. Almost anything defending it's home (or anything else) simply won't chase you. Almost anything hunting for food won't waste time running down prey that fights back.

So... you're down to intelligent foes that want the PCs dead for some other reason, basically. "fights where I don't know the capabilities of my foe, but they really, really want me dead" should be fairly rare.

But for everyone else, how do you resolve the dilemma that it's very hard to determine the difficulty of an opponent until you engage them in combat, and once you are in combat with them it's hard to flee without them following or using ranged attacks to bring you down?

As a DM, you should telegraph how bad-ass things are, monsters should only chase when it makes sense for them to do so, and the PCs really should have an exit plan and make some effort to scout out fights ahead of time.

Make sure that you're not thwarting those scouting efforts. A lot of DMs frown on PCs 'scouting out the dungeon' and 'being prepared for threats'. That shouldn't be a cue to shut down the scouting. It should be a cue to make that scouting necessary.

 

[Soul Stigma]

It's the DMs job to NOT be opaque. The guy hits you with a 25 ac? If he needed a 19, then he 'only just caught you with...' if he rolled a 13, he 'struck you with relative ease'. I also just straight out tell players AC - if that's jarring to you, follow the same scheme above. Hitpoints... I brought back 4e's bloodied status. Hit him for 40 points and he's not bloodied? Well, he's got at least that many still left.

Even before they enter combat, you should be getting a feel for how strong, dextrous and tough a monster is before combat starts, and with enough observation you should get intelligence, wisdom and potentially charisma too. There are some misleading wolf-in-sheeps-clothing type monsters, but most things are what they seem to be. Hit points are probably the hardest to telegraph, but IMO that's only a problem when they're out of line with the rest of a monster's statistics.

If you routinely set your PCs up against things they need to flee... then they should have a plan for fleeing.

Also... MOST enemies won't chase or can be persuaded not to chase. Almost anything defending it's home (or anything else) simply won't chase you. Almost anything hunting for food won't waste time running down prey that fights back.

So... you're down to intelligent foes that want the PCs dead for some other reason, basically. "fights where I don't know the capabilities of my foe, but they really, really want me dead" should be fairly rare.


As a DM, you should telegraph how bad-ass things are, monsters should only chase when it makes sense for them to do so, and the PCs really should have an exit plan and make some effort to scout out fights ahead of time.

Make sure that you're not thwarting those scouting efforts. A lot of DMs frown on PCs 'scouting out the dungeon' and 'being prepared for threats'. That shouldn't be a cue to shut down the scouting. It should be a cue to make that scouting necessary.

I too use the term "bloodied" (no game mechanics with it) from 4e. It's a simple way to help the players gage how the combat is going.


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[snickersnax]

Versus the right opponent, You can start with a shove prone or shove away or both and then run.

Also I count taking a dash action as a fast move which imposes a -5 perception. Usually safer move for the fleers than the chasers, simulates the risk of overchasing into a trap, and could discourage some chase.

If you're going to run from ranged attackers you need cover or dodge and run. Of course the best way is to have a caster with some helpful spells to assist in mobility or cover.

 

[Quickleaf]

Recently saw another of those memes discussing "never assume that everything in the world is an appropriate challenge for your level -be prepared to flee". This kind of philosophy has always seemed odd to me, because IMO every edition of D&D has made fleeing/running a sucker's move if you go only by the written rules. Basically, two problems:

1. Unless you have fought specific types of creatures before, you don't know their relative challenge level until you fight them (still doesn't help much against specific creatures). Even if you fight them, you might not be able to gauge their true difficulty if the DM is opaque about their exact stats (HP, Attack Bonus, AC, etc.) until it's several rounds in and party members are dropping. Did that guy who hit you with a 25 (not-critical) have a +6 and roll a 19, or did he roll a 13 with a +12? A PC's first few attack rolls are 23 and 24, which are both hits, so couldn't tell the enemy has a whopping 22 AC. Also, half of your team is down and that Ogre hits like a train -but is the 40 points of damage that you have done to him almost enough to drop him or merely a small dent?

Short Answer: Don't be an opaque DM.

Longer Answer: In my descriptions as DM, I usually (for players new to D&D) want to evoke a clear sense of the challenge a monster or NPC represents. Say a 1st-2nd level party hears about a bulette (CR 5 – very dangerous for them). I don't need to refer to game rules to do evoke how challenging it is...

"The armor plates on the back of the rhinoceros-sized creature the halfling villagers called a land-shark look as sturdy as splint armor, and the way it moves, padding the earth with wide toes, suggests its listening to your movements through the earth. Powerful hindquarters support a mouth the size of a dragon's. It fearlessly sniffs in your direction and aggressively lowers its head."

I've communicated AC, tremorsense, and a high-damage bite. I've also alluded to it not being intimidated by a party of armed characters. Now it's up to the players to decide what to do.

Btw, some monsters hit above their weight class. The final CR of a monster that appears in the MM is based on an average of a defensive CR and offensive CR. At 1st and 2nd level, certain monsters pose a very dangerous threat to fragile PCs, and the ogre is one of those.