PCs Running away when they should

[DanMcS]

3) Do you think it is feasible to withdraw from combat, or does your last chance to get away disappear when you close within 60" or so?

This is really the problem. It's not. People (PCs or NPCs) only ever escape through DM sayso, and it's so arbitrary that you can't include "retreat to fight another day" in your repertoire of useful tactics, at least until you get to the level that some magic (teleport, etc) makes it workable.

At lower levels, the bad men you fight have mostly the same movement as you, and if they have any archers, it's usually more suicidal to run away and get shot at as you go, than to charge and try to kill the archers.

Likewise, by the rules, it's really hard verging on impossible to escape on foot. The bad guys can stay right with you, or move up, double-team, and kill your lower-initiative comrades after the high-initiative PCs take flight. A party of monks and barbarians might pull it off, but your dwarves and heavy-armored buddies are screwed.

 

[DanMcS]

This is why I only put in encounters that they cannot handle that are obviously so. I usually let them see the monster with a clear path of avoidance or escape.

To a player, this just looks like railroading. "I've put this clear path here, and to force you to go down it, I'm sending the Inexorable Crushing Monster Plot Device to scare your characters down it."

 

[buzzard]

Back when I was DMing our home game regularly I generally tried to make it clear when a fight was too much for them. If they didn't take the blunt instrument hint that I offered, I fed them into the mulching machine.

I managed a TPK -2 (out of 8) in the final session before I handed off DMing duties. They had every indication that they were walking into an ambush, and yet they did it. I wasn't very sympathetic afterwards.

buzzard

 

[Henry]

Back when I was DMing our home game regularly I generally tried to make it clear when a fight was too much for them. If they didn't take the blunt instrument hint that I offered, I fed them into the mulching machine.

I managed a TPK -2 (out of 8) in the final session before I handed off DMing duties. They had every indication that they were walking into an ambush, and yet they did it. I wasn't very sympathetic afterwards.

buzzard

My current group knows - but I had to teach some of them, over two very costly campaigns that failed and had to be restarted due to dead characters.

It was a hard learning curve, and I mayhaps would have done it differently, but the fact is players may not understand a DM's running style until they charge an obviously superior foe.

EXAMPLE 1: Party tracks a band of goblins and hobgob's to rescue some halflings in a cavern. One player notes the umber hulk lair, Umber Hulk bothering no one, and decides his 2nd level self is "going off alone to get all the XP's for himself." The party had to make 2 trips to get his remains.

EXAMPLE 2: party decides that they will raise the alarm in an evil temple themselves in order to "clean the place out at one time." In the end, they succeeded, BARELY, after fighting a running battle, and in the end, the wizard was the last one left conscious, having vanquished the last foe by PUNCHING him out.

EXAMPLE 3: A party enters what they KNEW was a trap, one at a time. It took losing 2 of the party before they stopped and regrouped.

After those examples, they learned that there are things in the world meaner than them, and they can only win against those mean things if they are crafty.

Last week, they were passing through a mountain range, hearing distant thunder. The "thunder" was a tribe of Hill giants obliterating a marauding orc band. After the orcs were dead, the party passed by quietly. The giants weren't looking for trouble.

Later, they actually TRADED with the giant band, gaining some pretty good stuff in the deal.

The important thing is the knowledge: Do your players know your style? will they take the information you provide that the danger ahead is beyond them?

 

[Elf Witch]

My party has run from things before and we have often paid the price for running like losing all our equipment. But hey we lived to fight another day.

One of the problems is that often the DM thinks he is giving good warnings but he isn't so the players really can't tell of this is the one to run away from.

I think there should be things you have to run away from but I also think that some encounters should be cake walks too. As a player in our game once said "why is it when you level all the kobolds disapper?" Having both low and high makes the world feel more real.

 

[buzzard]

My party has run from things before and we have often paid the price for running like losing all our equipment. But hey we lived to fight another day.

One of the problems is that often the DM thinks he is giving good warnings but he isn't so the players really can't tell of this is the one to run away from.

In my case they were assaulting a fortress and a scout saw them and reported back with it. They waited around, planned and then went in. During the whole planning session I asked such things as "Are you sure you want to go in, that thing apparently saw you?". I felt like Darwin.

I think there should be things you have to run away from but I also think that some encounters should be cake walks too. As a player in our game once said "why is it when you level all the kobolds disapper?" Having both low and high makes the world feel more real.

To concur with this, my party always commented how much they liked a fight I set up once. It consisted of an assault on their castle by some hill giants and orcs. They really enjoyed being able to cleave into hordes of orcs. The giants were, of course, a different matter.

buzzard

 

[night_lord]

I never, NEVER prepare an encounter that my players are unable to handle. But, sometimes a tough encounter can go horribly wrong due to bad rolls, poor judgment or a combination of both.

Yeah me too. I do throw in all types of creatures or all types of CRs. I don't believe that for example Hill giants just hide out until the PCs are at a level were they can take them. These encounters are ones that they don't have to face. the ones that they do have to face are ones that they can beat. there are just times when they just roll badly, or they make poor tactical decisions. And my group is really bad at running away.

 

[Tortoise]

I play in Old One's campaign.

He rolls all combat rolls in the open and as a player I find that makes a huge difference in having a sense of needing to stand and fight or run off. We've gotten pretty banged up when we failed to fully research the enemy and on several occasions we've withdrawn from fights we felt were headed toward being too costly.

I've talked to people in different games and it seems that players in games where the DM rolls behind a screen seem more inclined to risk fights than those in games where the combat is openly rolled. It has a lot to do with thinking the DM will fidge the rolls.

 

[Magic Slim]

I know the only times we've ever run is after a couple of PC's had died...

Slim

 

[Trainz]

Maybe it is because in litterature, especially heroic-fantasy, very rarely do heroes flee. They always seem to *barely* win, through luck and talent. Maybe players are influenced by that.

In a campaign some time ago, we where about 14th level. There was a Barbarian/Fighter (Me), an Arcane Archer, and a Cleric. We meet a mountain giant. I win init, so I close to fight. He gets an AoO, and wacks me for 2/3 of my hit points... instead of taking an attack action, I transform it into another move action and got the hell outta there. The other PC's followed suit on their init as well.

We got the hint. The giant was 12 CR above our party level. I kinda new that, but my PC didn't, so I had to at least get whacked once before logically making him run to the hills.