How often do PCs make an orderly retreat?

[Darklone]

So. My big PC group (level 5-7) once took the "through the frontdoor" approach to rescue one of their own who was sitting in the dungeon below a fortified building in a city. With 600 soldiers (level 2-4) inside. Plus officers (level 2-6) and special unit dudes (level 2-8).

The ensuing battle lasted more than 30 hours... three nights of gaming... caused hundreds of dead NPCs and the PCs got away due to four things:
- They accidently lifted the disguise of the boss of that army... a powerful undead.
- A replacement character (level 5) and an additional player (level 4) for this battle watched the way back out and were somehow able to stop 24 soldiers from blocking it.
- One PC (the groups wizard level 6) didn't want to come along (must have been his high INT). Anyhow, he always was considered to be useless by the others, no matter how often he saved their backs. He watched the battle from a distance and fired some fireballs as the group tried to get out... blasting free the way to freedom.
- The PCs used every expendable item they had. All charges. Every spell they had. Every special ability they had. And they had a lot of luck (NPCs rolled a lot of natural 1 for saving throws this evening.)

My group doesn't do anything orderly. They are choas theory in motion.

That group was the one with the PCs in my signature story. Can you imagine how a group works together where two priests of the god of anarchy are the voice of reason???

It took us 40 hours of discussion at the first few evenings till the characters were happy with treasure distribution, group treasury, who was responsible for it... and still three characters didn't participate!

 

[Lanefan]

Parties in general retreat very rarely.

I've seen one or two quasi-orderly retreats, even by high-level groups, when they realized they were in over their heads.

I've seen one or two retreats that were supposed to be orderly but the PCs got in each others' way, making it quickly become very disorderly.

And of course, the numerous flee-in-panic retreats...

Lanefan

 

[Darklone]

...(And when asked, they usually say something along the lines of "We're the PCs, we can't lose")

That's the first thing I tell new players in my groups to forget. Then I proceed and prove it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Orderly retreat? PCs? hahahaha

That about covers it for me, too. They do PLAN orderly retreats, though, so one of these days, it may happen.

 

[Gundark]

My group doesn't do anything orderly. They are choas theory in motion.

QFT

 

[Quartz]

Fleeing a dungeon / whatever is one thing; fleeing an encounter is quite another. In the latter case, if the PCs don't have appropriate magic, much depends on the NPCs. Often the PCs can't flee, and that's that.

 

[BlackMoria]

My experience is that such decisions to withdraw usually are made past the point that the withdrawal is viable - namely, too late.

The trouble is, recognizing when the situation MAY go south and being able withdraw in good order rather than realizing the situation HAS gone south and then trying to withdrawn under poor or worse conditions which makes withdrawal problematic.

In such circumstances, the only way to withdraw usually means sacrificing one or two members who try to delay the hostiles while the others get the hell out of dodge.

The solution is to plan such that one makes allowances for withdrawal and totally discount luck. Yes, luck. If the decision to hold the course or get out of a situation is dependent on luck, then get out NOW.

Too many times, I have seen groups getting hard pressed and then deciding to hang in there in the hopes the coming round may have a lucky die roll or two that may reverse their fortunes. I hear too often - "Well, if the enemy wizard fails his save against my next spell, then we can make headway against the enemy melee types" or " If we can take out foe X this round...." Only to have luck favor the bad guys and now the good guys have waited too long to quit the situation with any real hope of success.

 

[The Grackle]

I've seen an orderly retreat one or two times when a wiz announces he's going to Dim Door/Teleport in T - 3 rounds. Usually no one thinks to retreat until PCs are already dropping.

 

[Celebrim]

The ability to maintain party cohesion is one of the marks of a skilled, experienced player group.

I've been in play groups that can manage orderly withdraws, and can agree to retreat to fight another day, but I agree that that is the rarity. I've seen alot of spontaneous routs.

One of the hallmarks of an inexperienced player is how they handle not knowing what is going on. I've seen so many groups of young players get trashed by an encounter which was very winnable, but contained some element that they didn't understand. And I've seen alot of groups be trashed because one or more players were so concerned with protecting thier character or scoring loot instead of supporting the party, that they ended up getting thier character killed because thier was no party left to save them.

Often times, no experience at all is better than just a little bit, because a player with just a little bit of experience starts relying on what he knows about the game as a crutch. But when they can't recognize the monster and their standard tactics that they've developed don't seem to be working, and they panic. (Players with no experience are always confused and so either panic and flee immediately or else all hang with it and win by sheer stubbornness.) When players start panicing, you are going to see alot of irrational actions and alot of character deaths. One thing that will tend to happen is that one or more players will be left behind (having already taken thier action) when everyone else in the party suddenly decides to bolt. All the sudden a situation which was dangerous for them, but managable, becomes completely unmanagable as they are left surrounded and without aid. Then the fleeing characters in the party split up, or go in the wrong direction and blunder into new trouble - often while hotly pursued by whatever they were fleeing, and suddenly a situation that was dangerous but managable becomes two or three EL's higher than it was and they don't have a chance.

Then I get accused of being unfair, and I get demands to explain why what happened happened to the players as if I'm cheating.

And it doesn't even have to be anything wierd. It might just be the first creature that they've encounter that has DR, and not everyone's weapon was doing full damage, and they could have easily beaten the creature by using thier explosive oil, arcane spells, torches, power attacks, and magic dagger - but no one (even ones that know the rules) figures out that the problem is the creature has DR (because no one recognizes the monster IC or OOC), and the party ends up fleeing from something that only has 4 hit points left and leaves 2 players to die in the monsters evil clutches.

DM's don't kill characters. Confusion, stupidity, lack of teamwork, and bad luck kill characters.

 

[Arnwyn]

I've seen alot of spontaneous routs.

One of the hallmarks of an inexperienced player is how they handle not knowing what is going on. I've seen so many groups of young players get trashed by an encounter which was very winnable, but contained some element that they didn't understand. And I've seen alot of groups be trashed because one or more players were so concerned with protecting thier character or scoring loot instead of supporting the party, that they ended up getting thier character killed because thier was no party left to save them.

Often times, no experience at all is better than just a little bit, because a player with just a little bit of experience starts relying on what he knows about the game as a crutch. But when they can't recognize the monster and their standard tactics that they've developed don't seem to be working, and they panic. (Players with no experience are always confused and so either panic and flee immediately or else all hang with it and win by sheer stubbornness.) When players start panicing, you are going to see alot of irrational actions and alot of character deaths. One thing that will tend to happen is that one or more players will be left behind (having already taken thier action) when everyone else in the party suddenly decides to bolt. All the sudden a situation which was dangerous for them, but managable, becomes completely unmanagable as they are left surrounded and without aid.

Wow, creepy. I'm just going to have to QFT all that, because you've just described my group perfectly.

I have more than a couple of players that are, at best, considered to have "just a little bit of experience" (even though they've played 3e for 5 years, but that's a whole other can of worms), and they get extremely panicky when their standard tactics don't work. Then they flail around with all manners of wacky actions, and it becomes just a sad scene.