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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 5915303" data-attributes="member: 1165">Even after reading Three Kingdoms, though, I have little idea of how to do a fighting retreat. It seems to consist of locking shields (did they use shield walls in China? Well, they did in Ancient Rome, so good enough) and moving back slowly (in D&D terms, just shifting or withdrawing, to not provoke opportunity attacks). However, that keeps the enemy in your face. They're only as tired as you are. Mechanically they should keep fighting.It seems to work because the opponents are very scared of dying as individual soldiers, and they've already won, so they just let the "losers" flee. This mindset could easily apply to many (most? almost all?) NPCs. It doesn't apply to PCs though. They won't do a fighting retreat unless it gets them to safety within a minute (eg if they're fighting right outside the city walls, and it takes only a couple of rounds to get behind the gate), and if the PCs are winning, and the NPCs are doing a fighting retreat, the PCs will just kill them anyway (or demand their surrender), since as far as they're concerned the PCs won, the NPCs lost, and if they had anything new they'd have used it already.Don't know about broken but ... yes. It gets worse in 4e Essentials, since virtually everything is a bonus to a melee basic attack, and opportunity attacks are melee basic attacks. It only gets worse with a fighter (either knight or slayer, if they're using a warhammer or a battlexe) as they can essentially make retreat impossible.A knight can use Guard the Line to make every melee attack slow the victim. Using Staggering Hammer, they can apply Power Strike to their OA, which means their opponent is "immobilized as long as they're next to the knight" (in essence, the knight is grabbing the opponent with a warhammer, somehow). A slayer with Brutal Axe can knock you prone when using Power Strike, which needless to say makes retreating a tad difficult.I wish I had the link to that TPK article WotC did in late 3.x. I find the same thing on the DM's side of the screen. One moment the battle looks even, next moment half of the NPCs are dead, and the rest are bloodied. They can try to retreat now, but they're just going to die/be forced into surrender instead.Or x3 for those with heavy armor, who are likely half the party <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" /> In which case, the NPCs can run too, those who aren't shooting arrows at your now slightly lower ACs, and it becomes a contest of Constitution checks.And did you see that point about PCs having an incredible fear of AoOs? (This might be especially important if you're losing, low on hit points, don't want to provoke an AoO from those poison-tipped spears that were just kicking your butts, etc.) AoOs aren't in every game system, and I think they're a big part of the issue. If you could just run, without penalty (other than losing the battle), I think you'd see it more often.</blockquote>

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