PCs Running away when they should

[Greybar]

Think of the Balrog and the Fellowship's retreat in DnD terms: "This foe is bey-" "BAMF!" The Balor teleports into an attack position. If the group tries to run, it can use its superior mobility from limitless Teleports to either pick of stragglers or cut them off. It's hard to run away from this kind of stuff.

To be honest, this is why I think I may remove Teleport from my campaign - and that includes from the bad guys too - or maybe bump it up in level. Doesn't fit my idea of how I want the world to work. The wizard in the group just used DDoor to wonderful ability recently, but there's a big leap to the "the plot is 100 miles away, let's go! - BAMF".

Now I 100% understand this may not fit your game (and I use the generic you here, not any one poster to this read), but it's something I'm mulling.

john

 

[hong]

I don't think we're that far apart on this, except perhaps that I (nowadays) tend to play NPC mooks with a little more thought to plausibility.

Fair enough.

In summary the PCs IMC have plenty of chances to demonstrate their coolness and Great Cleave hordes of mooks, but I play most mooks as somewhat rational - normally, once the hero has slaughtered a score or so of regular goblins in 2 rounds of combat, the other 180 may think twice about approaching him.

Well, there's nothing wrong with mooks running away. It's not like destroying your enemies is the only option. Driving them before you and hearing the lamentation of their women will work too.

If he was fighting the Sultan's Fanatical Death Commandoes in the Royal Palace it'd be different.

True. Mind you, if I was to run an uber-battle like the one I mentioned, I'd probably have the mooks _be_ a bit more fanatical than normal, if only to facilitate the sort of epic violence that I like.

The first few times the PCs fought orcs IMC, they were fanatical and threw themselves at the party with scant regard for self-preservation. This caused some comment at the time, along the lines of "why are orcs so stupid?"

The answer, which they found out at the end of a quest, was that orcs are spirits of Hatred. They spawn in the Underworld when mortals succumb to such emotions, and from there, they make their way to the surface world, where they plunder and destroy. One of the consequences of this is that orcs thus have a vested, subconscious interest in making the other races hate them. They never surrender, and engage in plentiful atrocities if given the chance. Even if a given orc gets whacked, he'll be replaced soon enough, if his killer hardens his heart to them. This doesn't mean orcs will never run away, but it does mean I can have them throw themselves with just a little bit more abandon at the PCs.

If the mooks were regular humans, then things would probably be different, and they'd either surrender or retreat after enough of their number had been killed. Mind you, bloody massacres of fellow humans would probably not be a regular occurrence IMC. That's what orcs and other supernatural foes are for.

 

[hong]

D&D as written is far more tactically oriented than a true Wuxia-inspired game like Exalted. It's also more flexible - you can run Wuxia or Supers type games, but don't have to, even at high level (IMO). Shark's game doesn't sound particularly Wuxia or Supers-ish to me. My 1e/2e deity campaign (the one Thrin/Upper_Krust talks about) certainly wasn't Wuxia or Superhero inspired - for one thing I haven't seen that much of either type of film, or had any particular desire to emulate them. Primary inspiration for my campaigns is epic swords & sorcery fantasy, stuff like Moorcock's Elric saga. Sometimes Elric slaughters small enemy armies mano-a-mano. Against large enemy armies he resorts to other tactics (eg get a bunch of dragons and burn them from above). I just don't see the game as being solely about showing how cool the heroes are. Coolness IMC is earned, not granted.

I'd probably say that the fact that you've survived to 20th level means you've earned the right to be cool.

In any case, I'm not really disparaging the need for tactics. Even in Exalted, there's a tactical element, even if the rules encourage a more over-the-top feel: if you're a dumb player who doesn't know how to use their charms properly, then all other things being equal, you're going to lose out to a smarter player. In D&D, the coolness factor will similarly only get you so far.

I think it's just a different emphasis in what we're after at high levels. I prefer to say that mook hordes serve a specific purpose in dramatic terms, which is to provide a counterpoint to the truly tough encounters (dragons, fiends, levelled NPCs, etc). This doesn't mean they'll just march up like robots to be slaughtered, but it does mean that I don't expect them to be a significant challenge in the same way as ubermonsters are.

Nor am I belittling the need for tough encounters, which do carry a significant risk for the PCs. Slaughtering hapless orcs may be fun, but it does get boring after a while, even for someone with a bloodlust quotient as high as mine. Variety is good.

 

[S'mon]

Fair enough.

Well, there's nothing wrong with mooks running away. It's not like destroying your enemies is the only option. Driving them before you and hearing the lamentation of their women will work too.

In specific example I'm thinking of, the mid-level heroes were retreating at a run, pursued by maybe a hundred or so goblinoids who were threatening to catch them and overwhelm them. The PC fighter-barbarian turned and fought, killing 13 in 1 round of great cleaving. The goblinoids fell back, firing arrows. The PC took a fair bit of damage from the arrows, but was able to run, escaping into the trees. It was just as heroic & satisfying as if he'd slaughtered them all, I thought.

 

[S'mon]

I think it's just a different emphasis in what we're after at high levels. I prefer to say that mook hordes serve a specific purpose in dramatic terms, which is to provide a counterpoint to the truly tough encounters (dragons, fiends, levelled NPCs, etc). This doesn't mean they'll just march up like robots to be slaughtered, but it does mean that I don't expect them to be a significant challenge in the same way as ubermonsters are.

Yes, I think the difference is that I like the mook encounters to still be significant, if there are enough of them - as when Boromir was killed by the orcs in the book version of the fight. Usually though enemy armies function more as a sort of 'terrain' for high level battles - the masses of enemy are an irritation and give the enemy champions a 'home field advantage' vs the attacking HLers, rather being likely to kill the attackers themselves. Exceptions arise most obviously if a PC is foolish enough to expose themself to massed enemy bow fire, eg by flying over the battlefield within bow range.

 

[hong]

Yes, I think the difference is that I like the mook encounters to still be significant, if there are enough of them - as when Boromir was killed by the orcs in the book version of the fight. Usually though enemy armies function more as a sort of 'terrain' for high level battles - the masses of enemy are an irritation and give the enemy champions a 'home field advantage' vs the attacking HLers, rather being likely to kill the attackers themselves. Exceptions arise most obviously if a PC is foolish enough to expose themself to massed enemy bow fire, eg by flying over the battlefield within bow range.

I suspect that what you're calling high level, I'd call mid-level (10th or so). Boromir, for example, wouldn't really be a high-level D&D character. He certainly wasn't decked out with as much funky equipment as a 20th level D&D character would have, going by the book. I tend to think of 20th level characters as being more like Feanor, Gilgamesh, Hercules or Achilles: approaching mythic levels of power, especially if they have as much magic as the rulebooks assume.

IMC the last huge fight I've had was between 6 8th level PCs and about 50 orcs. The PCs made short work of most of the 1HD mooks, but had a much tougher time dealing with the core group of ogre fighters, backed up by a few 6th level sorcerers. Two PCs got dropped unconscious, and they only managed to survive by using a horn of blasting (a broken item in 3E, which I'd mistakenly given them earlier -- they've been pretty good at not abusing the crap out of it). So at levels up to 10 at least, I'm certainly not expecting PCs to take on hundreds of orcs and survive. 20th level is a completely different matter, though.

 

[S'mon]

I suspect that what you're calling high level, I'd call mid-level (10th or so). Boromir, for example, wouldn't really be a high-level D&D character. He certainly wasn't decked out with as much funky equipment as a 20th level D&D character would have, going by the book.

I was using standard 3e terminology - mid-level is 6-11, high is 12+ (DMG 3.0 pg 144-5). The important point about Boromir is not his exact level*, but that he was tough enough to kill any orc who came near him, so after he'd killed a bunch they shot him instead. IMC this could happen to a lone 6th level fighter or to a lone 20th level fighter - a (flying) Ftr-18 IMC did nearly get himself killed attacking a force of 200 horse archers, AIR. He and his similarly pincushioned Wiz (Conjurer)-17/Rgr-9 NPC friend narrowly escaped (this was in 2e).

*In the book I'd have put him around 10th, in the film they all seemed tougher (kewler) than I recalled from the book.

 

[Greybar]

hong said:

The answer, which they found out at the end of a quest, was that orcs are spirits of Hatred.

btw, very cool hong.

So the bottom line sounds to be "retreating hard and unheroic" making it unusual, with it being necessary a few times to heighten the realism and/or revenge factor.

john

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

What did the party say? You guessed it. "We can take 'em!" We did, but half the party died as a result. Grrr. At least I lived and didn't have to create a new character.

I can proudly say that I was the Face for a party that met a big nasty evil Giant on the road while we were on important business. By my best guestimate we would have won, but ~half the party would have died in the process. As a player, I thought the fight would have been a blast. But my character would never risk the mission or his comrades' lives just to kill a random(?) monster.

When in doubt, roleplay.


Of course, sometimes that means charging in and getting killed.

 

[grodog]

I also never felt D&D had appropriate rules to handle the situation. With the way movement rates are handled, you either tend to get away immediately or can't get away at all. Plus, I feel they are kind of boring as written.

AD&D/1e and Basic/Expert used to have good and simple pursuit rules. I imagine that they got dropped along with the morale rules, since they're somewhat akin.

I've been trying to think of ways to incorporate the Spycraft chase rules into D&D to help this issue. There are rules for obstacles, special maneuvers and dexterity there that make chases a viable gaming option. The rules also provide the chance for a bit of action to an area that was previously lacking.

I don't own Spycraft, and would be happy to hear more about these rules. I've heard others tout them before as well. Does AEG have an SRD available for Spycraft? If not, has anyone summarized the chase rules (if they're OGL)?