Instakill Mechanics in TTRPGs

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

That's an unfair way to put it. Obviously one side starts running when they feel they have to run or they are going to die.

...And then they'll probably be killed while running. Violence is rarely fair.

Funnily enough, this is mechanically supported in most RPGs I've played - fleeing is often mechanically penalized or made outright impossible unless GMs deliberately choose to let PCs escape for free. Attacks of Opportunity, blocking movement, penalties for running, etc etc - these are all over different RPGs!

5e is a great example of one - If you disengage and run away, your foe can close and attack you. If you dash and run away, your foe gets an attack of opportunity, then can dash and catch up to you. Either choice, you get hit and you don't get any further from your foe. The best way to escape is to leave someone behind to die while the rest of the party tries to flee.

 

[Willie the Duck]

...And then they'll probably be killed while running. Violence is rarely fair.

Yep, they then run and make it a foregone conclusion that most of them will die (what might have happened otherwise becoming a great speculation of 'what if'). Few things worsen your tactical situation like breaking formation and turning your back on an already-engaged enemy (and attempting to flee in a hemmed in chaotic environment surrounded by your fellows who now have to do the same).

Funnily enough, this is mechanically supported in most RPGs I've played - fleeing is often mechanically penalized or made outright impossible unless GMs deliberately choose to let PCs escape for free. Attacks of Opportunity, blocking movement, penalties for running, etc etc - these are all over different RPGs!

Sometimes you could miss the AoO if all you did was flee, but then the enemy (if they had the same speed) could just move and attack. The only way to get cleanly away is if the opponents were afraid to follow (counterattack, you were fleeing into the territory of a 3rd party potentially hostile to them, etc.). I always figured it was because the initial D&D game was built on top of wargame rules by people with that mindset, so the really horrific reality of fleeing a losing fight were replicated faithfully.

Mind you, the original rules had additional various chase mechanics which could impact this pursuit. Opponents wouldn't pursue around so many turns in the passageway*, perhaps replicating the concept of fearing reprisal/3rd parties. Intelligent foes would stop to pick up dropped treasure, while animals and such stopping for dropped food (and maybe fallen combatants). These seem to have been lost/ceded to DM discretion (the DM will adjudicate what creatures would do in a given situation), even before that became true of morale as well.
*most rules covering the dungeon-crawling portion of the game.

5e is a great example of one - If you disengage and run away, your foe can close and attack you. If you dash and run away, your foe gets an attack of opportunity, then can dash and catch up to you. Either choice, you get hit and you don't get any further from your foe. The best way to escape is to leave someone behind to die while the rest of the party tries to flee.

Some things have really only changed by small amounts since '74 or so (or swung all the way around to replicate again). Presumably in 5e, the party will have access to more situational solutions (like dropping a fog cloud) than would have been the case in earlier editions.

 

[Gorgon Zee]

...And then they'll probably be killed while running. Violence is rarely fair.

Funnily enough, this is mechanically supported in most RPGs I've played - fleeing is often mechanically penalized or made outright impossible unless GMs deliberately choose to let PCs escape for free.

Most games I play have rules for disengagement from a combat, but none of them are "for free". 13th Age, for example, allows the party to flee by consensus, but the GM will impose a serious "campaign loss", so in games I've played in and run it has been used, but only rarely.

Even in rules-heavy games like D&D4E, because once the grid lines disappear there are effectively no rules for combat anymore, it's a GM call as to what happens. As a GM, my rule of thumb in tactical combat games is that if you leave the map, you can safely flee, and it's generally not that hard to do if your character is standing and can take one AOO. If you wait to flee until 4 of your 6 are unconscious and you are surrounded, then yeah, that's not going to work out great for you.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Most games I play have rules for disengagement from a combat, but none of them are "for free". 13th Age, for example, allows the party to flee by consensus, but the GM will impose a serious "campaign loss", so in games I've played in and run it has been used, but only rarely.

Even in rules-heavy games like D&D4E, because once the grid lines disappear there are effectively no rules for combat anymore, it's a GM call as to what happens. As a GM, my rule of thumb in tactical combat games is that if you leave the map, you can safely flee, and it's generally not that hard to do if your character is standing and can take one AOO. If you wait to flee until 4 of your 6 are unconscious and you are surrounded, then yeah, that's not going to work out great for you.

Well, that's the kicker of course. Unless a battle looks like a lost cause from the get-go (and sometimes that can be hard to tell), you don't tend to want to flee until it looks like its going bad, and often by that time it may be difficult or impossible. And that's not accounting for people who are resistant to abandoning party members.

(Also, I have to note that a lot of GMs don't assume "the grid lines disappear"; once a battle starts they'll go by the combat and movement rules until the battle resolves. What you talk about doing in such games is de-facto recognizing the limitations of such rules handling (when the design hasn't recognized it itself and inserted special cases for fleeing) and house ruling in an exit hatch. Some people don't think its their job to be doing that, especially in games where its rarely needed).

 

[mmadsen]

I have been working on a TTRPG of my own (who hasn't?), and one interesting hurdle I bumped into was how to make the rules facilitate a satisfying assassin playstyle. That is, for a character to be able to sneak up on a creature and swiftly and silently take them out in a single, well-prepared moment.

This seems like the crux of the issue: how do you give a ninja a series of interesting decisions with interesting consequences, leading to a kill that’s instant, as far as the traditional combat system is concerned, but not just a roll from a wider perspective.

 

[Maxperson]

Shouldn't combat be high risk though? If it isn't then it's no different than playing rock, paper, scissors to decide the outcome of something. High risk combat also means that Players will only participate in it if the stakes are worth the risk which really helps stop things like murderhobo behavior where Players deal with everything with violence because there is no risk involved.

The problem I've found with this sort of play is that it also stops fun things like, "Let's go into the Tomb of Lots of Traps and Monsters because it has good loot."

If the game is too deadly, yes it will stop murder hobo, but it also stops most of what makes RPGs fun. Some amount of deadly and instakill is good in my opinion. Too much and it shuts down most of the game. It's a fine line to walk, because it's easy to fall off the too deadly side.

3e/3.5e had a good balance of instakill and PCs are tough enough that they can mitigate it most of the time.

 

[Maxperson]

Low risk combat really isn't a "death defying" situation though, is it?

I mean, you look at death and you defy it because it probably can't kill you.

 

[Maxperson]

It was also a way to get counterattacked eg the Saxons at Hastings.

When one side has Haste, it makes a big difference.

 

[Thomas Shey]

This seems like the crux of the issue: how do you give a ninja a series of interesting decisions with interesting consequences, leading to a kill that’s instant, as far as the traditional combat system is concerned, but not just a roll from a wider perspective.

I'd suggest that you have them spend a certain amount of time and effort in the setup, but once you've done that, a success is a full kill which would otherwise require more work. In other words, the game elements are, instead of the attack itself, primarily getting into position and creating the situation that allows the insta-kill in the first place.

 

[zakael19]

In historical battles, the side that is routed and flees would frequently be pursued and wiped out by the winning side.

Here's a nice AskHistorians Post on the subject by a Greek Historian: LINK

Basically - fleeing a fight is a really good way to die.

That’s not really what the link says, fwiw. It says that the losing side would often sustain far more casualties - 14% of deployed forces vs 5% for a victorious side. Exploiting a disorganized retreat with calvary is a well known Thing across history. You’re not looking to slaughter every last person - just be decisive enough the other polis gives on the purpose of the war (killing is not an aim in itself here after all - there’s a strategic objective at hand).

If we pivot back to our TTRPG paradigm though, it would make far more sense to focus on front line vs front line, where the latter would only commence a slaughter when the losers had no space to flee really.

There’s another comment further down that post that’s more applicable: “people don’t want to die, and even the winning side would usually rather spend time looting then risking their lives hunting down stragglers.”

When a victory is after a bunch of jostling and maneuvering and you’re in heavy armor and fatigued, you don’t want to pursue into the enemy’s reinforcements or their own Calvary or the like.