D&D 5E Melee combat on the run

[robus]

It feels like you're getting into that unfortunate territory some DMs do, where they're too keen on their monsters/NPCs to let them get killed, and insist on violently bending or even breaking the rules just to deprive the PCs of a victory that they actually earned (or that you granted them by messing up your own tactics/rolls). I mean, if you wanted to flee, you should have run earlier, not when you were at such risk from OAs that you were going to get creamed by them.

In my defense the PCs did get opportunity attacks as expected when the monster gave up and made a break for it. I didn't want it to flee early, I wanted it to fight like the pissed off Tarrasque it was. It only fled when it finally got through its thick skull that it was losing (which is not a thing it had ever experienced before).

It's a problem with singular monsters and NPCs. Unless they can teleport or put on an extreme burst of speed or something, you just can't expect them to succeed in fleeing, and should design the encounter accordingly.

I appreciate the assumption that there was no design to my encounter. In actual fact, the tarrasque was imprisoned in a McGuffin the PCs needed for other purposes. The only way to get the McGuffin was to release the tarrasque and thus they planned very carefully for expected battle and designed a killing field basically. Despite all their preparations it was still a tense and exciting combat, but they prevailed in the end.

So I'd say mission accomplished except for my narration cock-up which would have been easily averted if I'd just remembered, in the moment, that the players need to have a clear recital of the state of play, before being invited to act and not rely on the fact that I'd just effectively narrated the state of play with the creature's action.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I appreciate the assumption that there was no design to my encounter.

I didn't assume that. But clearly you didn't plan well for the Tarrasque's retreat, leading to this situation. This isn't just a failure of description.

Also is this some kind of brainiac Tarrasque? They have an INT of 3. They're a vicious animal, basically like a honey badger and godzilla had a baby. So them making a bad decision re: fleeing and getting totally chopped up seems much more in line with that than the smart retreat here (or failing to retreat at all - many vicious animals fight to the death even when "clearly losing").

 

[Hriston]

I imagine this has been discussed before, so apologies in advance.

I had an interesting situation come up tonight which surprisingly hasn’t happened before in my game. A combat had been going on for a while and eventually the monster decided to make a break for it. It ran off, provoking opportunity attacks in the process, and a couple of melee PCs gave chase and attacked it when the caught up. The creature was trying to escape so it wasn’t going to stop and fight them off it kept running on its turn and when it came to the PC’s turn they asked how close to the monster they were. I said that they were running after the creature so would be right by it (that’s how it was playing out in my head at least, because the creature continuing to move hadn’t triggered fresh opportunity attacks because the melee was “on the run”). The player naturally protested because they said they hadn’t said they’d moved, but then the creature would have moved out of melee provoking more opportunity attacks. So I said fine, the monster is now 40 ft away what do you want to do? They chose to hold their action.

It all was a bit unpleasant, which was sad as the combat had been exciting and fast paced till that point (and the monster was about to die on the next strike which is why it I thought the PC would want to be in melee range...)

So what would have been a smarter way to handle that?

I’m going to break with what most have said here and say the chase rules don’t have much to offer in this situation. Your mistake was in not giving the PCs opportunity attacks when the tarrasque continued to run. It had already been established that the pursuing PCs were within melee range of the tarrasque, so if it used its movement to move away, they should have gotten opportunity attacks. This doesn’t depend on whether they decide to move on their turn subsequently, so you had no reason to presuppose they would.

In my opinion, a chase happens only when the pursuers cannot simply close to melee range on their turns.

 

[Asisreo]

I’m going to break with what most have said here and say the chase rules don’t have much to offer in this situation. Your mistake was in not giving the PCs opportunity attacks when the tarrasque continued to run. It had already been established that the pursuing PCs were within melee range of the tarrasque, so if it used its movement to move away, they should have gotten opportunity attacks. This doesn’t depend on whether they decide to move on their turn subsequently, so you had no reason to presuppose they would.

In my opinion, a chase happens only when the pursuers cannot simply close to melee range on their turns.

Nah, it's clear the Tarrasque was running and OA'ing it just means there was no point in it running, which isn't always true irl. The Tarrasque has move as it's legendary action, too so it has more of a chance to escape.

Combat is an abstraction but clearly if two characters are staying within 5 ft of each other running in the same direction, they're maintaining that distance and doing a red-light-green-light routine with OA's in-between.

 

[Hriston]

Nah, it's clear the Tarrasque was running and OA'ing it just means there was no point in it running, which isn't always true irl. The Tarrasque has move as it's legendary action, too so it has more of a chance to escape.

Combat is an abstraction but clearly if two characters are staying within 5 ft of each other running in the same direction, they're maintaining that distance and doing a red-light-green-light routine with OA's in-between.

I’m not entirely sure what you’re saying “nah” to.

 

[Asisreo]

I’m not entirely sure what you’re saying “nah” to.

To only chasing when the pursuers can't close the melee distance. The main reason I dislike that is: you're no longer letting the players play, you're telling them how it goes on. If they want to spend time doing that, even if it seems meaningless or the outcome is the same, let them. We're all playing D&D to waste time somehow and if they really like chases even when the outcome was decided in your mind, let them play.

They can't read your mind so they don't know if it's worth their time and you can't read their's so you don't know why it's worth their time.

 

[Hriston]

To only chasing when the pursuers can't close the melee distance. The main reason I dislike that is: you're no longer letting the players play, you're telling them how it goes on. If they want to spend time doing that, even if it seems meaningless or the outcome is the same, let them. We're all playing D&D to waste time somehow and if they really like chases even when the outcome was decided in your mind, let them play.

They can't read your mind so they don't know if it's worth their time and you can't read their's so you don't know why it's worth their time.

This makes even less sense to me. The chase rules aren’t something for the players to invoke. They’re a tool for the DM to adjudicate the players’ declared actions. I’m saying the tool is inappropriate for the situation as described, which to my understanding is as follows:

Tarrasque’s turn: The tarrasque uses its action to attack the PCs and then moves its full speed to get away, incurring opportunity attacks from the PCs.​

​

PCs’ turn: The PCs move to close to melee distance and use their actions to attack the tarrasque.​

​

Tarrasque’s turn: The tarrasque continues to run from the PCs.​

​

It is at this point, in my opinion, that the tarrasque’s movement should have triggered more opportunity attacks. @robus can correct me if I’ve missed some crucial detail of the action.

 

[iserith]

This makes even less sense to me. The chase rules aren’t something for the players to invoke. They’re a tool for the DM to adjudicate the players’ declared actions. I’m saying the tool is inappropriate for the situation as described, which to my understanding is as follows:

Tarrasque’s turn: The tarrasque uses its action to attack the PCs and then moves its full speed to get away, incurring opportunity attacks from the PCs.​

​

PCs’ turn: The PCs move to close to melee distance and use their actions to attack the tarrasque.​

​

Tarrasque’s turn: The tarrasque continues to run from the PCs.​

​

It is at this point, in my opinion, that the tarrasque’s movement should have triggered more opportunity attacks. @robus can correct me if I’ve missed some crucial detail of the action.

The tarrasque runs away. The players decide to have their characters give chase. Why is it inappropriate to transition to chase rules at that time?

 

[Blue]

I have a huge problem unilaterally moving out of combat rules.

1. Just because one foe is fleeing does not mean the others are. Combat may still be going on.
2. Consistency - if while on the map the party's rogue can keep up with the foe's dash and still attack, why can they suddenly not do the same action on the same creature? There are lots of cases where swapping rules subsystems will favor or hinder withour a corresponding large payout to offset this loss of consistency.
3. Some people may not be chasing, instead they are still in combat using ranged attacks.

 

[Asisreo]

I have a huge problem unilaterally moving out of combat rules.

1. Just because one foe is fleeing does not mean the others are. Combat may still be going on.
2. Consistency - if while on the map the party's rogue can keep up with the foe's dash and still attack, why can they suddenly not do the same action on the same creature? There are lots of cases where swapping rules subsystems will favor or hinder withour a corresponding large payout to offset this loss of consistency.
3. Some people may not be chasing, instead they are still in combat using ranged attacks.

1. The chase only starts when everyone commits. If someone's committed to chase and not run combat, they aren't a part of combat anymore.

2. Rogues can absolutely BA dash and attack in a chase. Nothing changed for that. That's the point of being a rogue and having cunning actions.

3. Chase rules account for this. You're spending you action to attack rather than dash. Eventually they'll leave your range, though, since they're dashing. Or they'll leave your LoS since they're the Quarry and incentivized to do that anyways.