Morale

[S'mon]

Otherwise, morale rules are useless if there is not a fast and fun way to resolve a chase when the monsters break off the encounter.

BX, 1e etc have % Evasion numbers that work fine.

With 3e-4e if the pursuer is as fast or faster then you roll a few Endurance and/or Stealth type rolls. If the pursuee is faster then they always get away, perhaps after a parting shot or two.

 

[Hassassin]

BTW, the effect of morale on encounter level would be an interesting area to explore. If the goblins' level doesn't take into account their higher propensity to flee, how does having them flee after on average half of them are dead alter their level? If it is taken into account, what happens when they land in a fight to the death?

 

[S'mon]

Hmm. I agree with teaching PCs that it's OK to run away from a too-tough fight. But to encourage this you need more than an example - you need to reward the players accordingly. To quote an old Paranoia book "If you reward the players for doing something, they'll do more of that." The characters would need to be moderately successful in their escape, and not punished for being "cowardly" or hosing the rest of the party.

I think a lot of DMs make flight implausibly hard, both for PCs and NPCs. IMCs it works a lot more like the real world: sure if you're on foot and being chased by cavalry across open plains you're in big trouble, but otherwise most of the pursuees are likely to escape a similarly sized pursuing force. When the PCs are pursuing the enemy and the enemy break & scatter, the PCs need (a) superior speed (b) tracking ability, if it's forest, caverns etc and (c) to prioritise which foes they're chasing, which they'll let get away.

Typically the pursuing PCs will chase down the (eg) heavily armoured hobgoblin commander, while his lightly-armoured and faster minions escape. Likewise if you're the Speed 5 Fighter PC and you're being chased by Speed 7 foes, you're probably in a lot of trouble - maybe you can hold them off for a round or two so that your friends can get away.

 

[Hassassin]

If the pursuee is faster then they always get away, perhaps after a parting shot or two.

Or six rounds' worth with 3e longbow range and a mounted opponent.

 

[S'mon]

BTW, the effect of morale on encounter level would be an interesting area to explore. If the goblins' level doesn't take into account their higher propensity to flee, how does having them flee after on average half of them are dead alter their level? If it is taken into account, what happens when they land in a fight to the death?

If the goblins are still a threat after fleeing, the DM should give a reduced XP award - the PCs have not fully overcome the challenge. I don't generally find that low morale significantly reduces the threat level: He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day. In fact judicious flight may raise the absolute threat level of encountered enemies: the goblins escape to warn the rest of their tribe, rather than die pointlessly in an unwinnable fight.

 

[S'mon]

Or six rounds' worth with 3e longbow range and a mounted opponent.

I've read enough now about real-life archery and iron-sight shooting to establish to my satisfaction that 3e listed ranges are drek, so I no longer use them - I put a hard cap on individual targetting of around 400', and limit spell & archery ranges accordingly. In many cases I'd limit it to around 220', or two comp longbow range increments.

4e missile ranges work fine though: 200' for a longbow, 250' with a Distance longbow, is within real-world parameters, as is 1e's "dungeon" bow range of 210', 240' for heavy x-bow. The x3 ranges outside in 1e arise from conflating mass archery vs mass targets with one arrow vs one target, so I only use them for mass battles.

 

[Kzach]

No. This is squarely a DM decision.

 

[Hassassin]

I've read enough now about real-life archery and iron-sight shooting to establish to my satisfaction that 3e listed ranges are drek, so I no longer use them - I put a hard cap on individual targetting of around 400', and limit spell & archery ranges accordingly. In many cases I'd limit it to around 220', or two comp longbow range increments.

4e missile ranges work fine though: 200' for a longbow, 250' with a Distance longbow, is within real-world parameters, as is 1e's "dungeon" bow range of 210', 240' for heavy x-bow. The x3 ranges outside in 1e arise from conflating mass archery vs mass targets with one arrow vs one target, so I only use them for mass battles.

Going very off topic, but an English longbowman was mandated to train at range and could hit targets at 200 to 400 yards depending on source. A 5th level 3e archer has about a -10 attack modifier to shoot 300 yards, so about 1 in 4 chance to hit an immobile man-sized target (AC 5) which rises to 50% chance if you take the time to aim.

 

[Hassassin]

No. This is squarely a DM decision.

Having rules for something doesn't take away the DM's right to decide otherwise.

 

[S'mon]

Going very off topic, but an English longbowman was mandated to train at range and could hit targets at 200 to 400 yards depending on source. .

That's 400 archers firing up in the air so the arrows come down on the 400 French knights 400 yards away. Perfectly doable unless there's a strong headwind.

Edit: In archery training they would typically mark out a square of grass, say 50'x50' then the archers had to hit that square of grass from a long way off. They also did practice point-targetting Robin Hood style, but at closer ranges.

Unfortunately that sort of mass archery is often conflated with point shooting by lone archer at a lone moving target, as indeed you appear to have just done.

I've gone over the statistics, and at 200 yards the best real-world archers using modern compound bows cannot reliably hit a static, unmoving man-sized archery target - hit rate is about 1/3. 400 yards the target is effectively 1/8 the size it was at 200 yards, and with loss of velocity and other effects, hitting a point target is literally impossible.