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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 5914756" data-attributes="member: 1165">Tell me about it. Players don't know when to run until it's too late - WotC had an article about how TPKs "sneak up" on players this way. The players panic when a PC falls. Now they know they should retreat, but instead, they fight all the harder to get that PC back up and then take them away. Often this hard fighting kills the enemies, at the cost of daily resources.Here's an example from my own campaign. The PCs were 7th-level, and are high on healing and damage (two leaders, two strikers that day). They wanted to take on a powerful opponent, 11th-level, who knew they were coming due to their obvious strategy - stealing a boat. (Well, a silt ship, and they were all in one place of the city.)I decided to warn them with in-game evidence. The opponent created a bunch of Alarm ritual wards around the district the PCs were heading to. The skill DCs were set to 11th-level (hard 11th-level DCs, as opposed to what the ritual rules say, which would have made them slightly harder to spot). The PCs didn't spot them, despite one having a great Perception score, the alarms always spotted them too. The alarms called a team of giant killers (literally, it made sense in campaign), actually shouting out the name of the district (so obviously there were alarms all over the place). The PCs fought the encounter, but it was set for their level. Alas, it had lots of archers and brutes, so the PCs almost lost. The PCs won, and retreated.It turned out the alarms had no influence on their thinking. It was only getting their butts kicked. Note that they did not retreat until after that encounter was over.I think any set that allows mobile combat (eg charging) makes running away impossible. Moving away defensively (what is that called?) lets you move at half or full speed. Your opponent can catch up and hit you. Same in 3.x and 4e. Or they can just charge (even easier in 4e).IMC, I've tried to have villains escape. It virtually never happens. The NPCs can't teleport far enough (those that can). Those that run simply get shot at and/or charged. By the time the NPCs are retreating, at least a few are dead, so the rest get focus-fired. The same works in reverse. Retreating is lethal, and I think that's the case in every edition of D&D (having played 2e through to 4e).Under what circumstances are you expecting PCs to retreat? I think if the PCs walked into an over-the-top encounter, they would take it as a screwjob, transform into Sun Tzu, and kick its butt anyway just to teach me a lesson.I think retreat should be narrative instead. You've beaten the fore guard, now here comes a thousand orcs. Maybe you want to go back, or face swarms (literally) of orcs.</blockquote>

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