How to get out of battle

[SRD]

(I haven't seen any rules for it.)
So, if a player is down on his last Health Points can he leave the current encounter to go to town and buy Healing Potions? Or must he stay in the battle no matter what?

 

[VannATLC]

Can he outpace the people he's fighting? Do they have ranged weapons? Are they going to actively chase him? Can he close any doors or create any obstacles behind him?
Will they actually kill him?

Also, Healing Potions don't working like I think you think they work.

If the PC can get to a position where he can safely rest for 8 hours, he have all his Healing Surges and Hitpoints restored.

 

[FireLance]

Generally, it would be a DM call. You can always tell your DM that you are attempting to leave an encounter, and he will tell you whether it is possible and whether you will need to make any checks in order to do so. For example, if you are playing with a battlemat, the DM may ask you how you are moving your PC, and he will determine the reactions of the monsters to your attempt to get away. For example, some monsters may ignore you and focus on the PCs remaining in the fight, while others may choose to pursue you or attack you with a ranged weapon to try and stop you from getting away.

Apart from the mechanical process of getting away, you may want to bear in mind any potential problems you might be causing yourself and the rest of the people you are gaming with. If you are not able to reunite with the other PCs after the fight, the DM may have to deal with a split party. Alternatively, the DM may choose to focus on the other PCs for the remainder of the game and only get back to you after the other PCs have completed the adventure and returned to town as well. In addition, some of the other players may not be happy that you decided to leave in the middle of a fight and may have reactions ranging from gentle ribbing to scorn to outright hostility.

 

[SRD]

Can he outpace the people he's fighting?

How can I (as DM) find out if he can or can't outpace them?

 

[Nichwee]

How can I (as DM) find out if he can or can't outpace them?

His speed (normally base 6 for PCs) versus their speed.
Then if he has abilities to help him go faster (such as Dimension Door for a Teleport 10 Move Action).
Lastly is the issue of how long he can keep going versus how long the enemy chase him (up to the DM on how long monsters chase, can become an Endurance skill challenge type thing, with Acrobatics/Athletics to get more out of your running/skim round obsticles).

There are no definative "Under these conditions you can get away:" rules in 4th Ed that I know of.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

(I haven't seen any rules for it.)
So, if a player is down on his last Health Points can he leave the current encounter to go to town and buy Healing Potions? Or must he stay in the battle no matter what?

This kind of thing isn't covered by rules. Its a matter of what the situation is. A player can always decide his character is going to do anything the character is capable of doing. Running away is going to be one of those things in most cases. As other people have said though, the enemy may give chase. The character might also run into other hazards etc along the way. You'll have to play it out just like you would play out any other situation where a PC is traveling around in your world. Of course the DM usually has a lot of leeway in how easy or hard things are.

Imagine a party of 5 PCs. One of them decides to run away. Maybe a monster follows him. Maybe the monsters finish off the other characters and then come hunting after him, they will only be seconds or minutes behind. If the fleeing character has to cover miles of ground to get home he might not make it.

You could create a skill challenge for this kind of thing. Endurance lets the character keep moving fast for hours at a time, Athletics gets him past obstacles rapidly, Nature lets him take a shortcut, etc. If he fails the challenge then the pursuit catches up. If not he gets away.

Here's the big question though, WHY would one PC decide to leave the party to get healed? Its going to take him a pretty long time to do that, probably a few hours at least. In the meantime what do the other PCs do? Usually by the time the character that left rejoins the party the adventure for the day will be over already. It doesn't make much sense for the party to split up. They might as well all stick together and if they need healing then they should all retreat and get what they need. Remember, if you can survive to the end of an encounter you can use healing surges. If you're out of surges then you really need to withdraw anyway since most healing won't help you at that point.

 

[jbear]

Well, if the character manages to escape... say by hiding somewhere nearby (Stealth vs Perception of any persuing monsters), then technically he doesn't need to wait hours to heal himself at all. He needs only 5 minutes rest. Then he can spend as many HSurges as need to heal himself.

If he has no HSurges, then an extended rest is required.

In theory, in D&D, 'You have to do this' doesn't really exist. Each player decides what their character does and the DM defines the consequences of such actions based on the adventure, the situation, the opponents 'goals/interests', his/her best judgement (hopefully based on following the fun). There certainly exists no strict rule that you have to stay in combat until the end of the fight. Good players will act in the interest of the group, or at least in a way that doesn't needlessly hinder it.