The Art of the Chase - Getting players to engage

[Ariosto]

That's the main function of hit points, I think.

If you've lost half your points and the enemy is standing, then you might be in a fair fight (or worse). If you're taking more than you dish out, that's definitely a bad sign.

As a player I don't always do this, but good strategy means having a good exit strategy too.

Yes! Fleeing blindly can dump you "out of the frying pan, into the fire"!

A retreat can sometimes be turned to advantage (e.g., the Romans in the Battle of Pydna, 168 BC).

Tossing your shield is just the primary example of lightening your load for fleeter feet.

Having a ransom can help with some kinds of foes.

 

[Ariosto]

Getting back to the encouragements to provide ...

Canny players are going to consider the odds of escaping versus getting shot in the back, versus surviving a fight.

Providing opportunities to evade pursuit is an important consideration in my mapping out dungeon levels.

 

[Jack7]

Having a ransom can help with some kinds of foes.

That's a very good point as well. Also it is a good idea to have objects and things that might distract an opponent, or that will confuse them, delay them, or even poison them during pursuit.

If you're pursued by hounds or are tracked you might distribute meat along the trail laced with drugs or poison.

You might even (depending upon your opponent) scatter coins or small gemstones behind you as you escape, you might, if you have the opportunity confuse or bloody the trail with false scents, escape across difficult to track terrain, split into groups to better cover your retreat or allow slower groups to redeploy or escape, etc. There are a whole host of useful techniques encompassing what constitutes a good escape, evasion, and retreat.

You don't have to think of the issue as "run blindly away in effort to escape." That rarely works well in any case unless you can just outdistance your enemy, and quickly.

The best thing to do is study good escape, evasion, retreat, and chase/pursuit/tracking (if you know what the other guy is likely to do it is that much easier to thwart his efforts) tactics and learn from those. Whereas learning about an issue from a gaming book might be an interesting, or even in some few cases a useful introduction to that subject, it is no substitute for real knowledge (and ideally, experience) on the subject. Or on any subject for that matter.

Therefore I would recommend studying good real world sources on escape, evasion, pursuit, etc. Because that will give you many ideas and real life examples about how such things can be well-executed in-game. Who knows, you might even find decent internet sources covering the matter(s).

It will (if you encourage your players to study such matters) also give your players good ideas about how they can employ such tactics to their own advantage. By letting, and encouraging your players to study these subjects for themselves they may very well come to understand the usefulness of such techniques without need for much intervention on your part.

Allow them to invest in the idea by learning things that are of value to them.

 

[MarkB]

Two things tend to hinder the possibility of retreat in d20 systems, and in 4e - the difficulty of disengaging from combat and gaining distance vs. the ease of closing and engaging, and the turn-based nature of combat.

Where disengaging is concerned, the only way to retreat cleanly from a melee opponent is to shift out of reach, then spend a move action running. The opponent can then spend his move action closing, and charge into melee, catching up with his target and also gaining bonuses to hit. In order to preclude such options, the retreating character would need a much greater movement speed than the pursuer. A character could choose to simply go into full retreat, opening himself up to Opportunity Attacks to do so, but a character who feels driven to retreat may be in no condition to survive those attacks if they succeed.

And with turn-based combat, it's extremely difficult to co-ordinate a retreat which doesn't leave some characters isolated from the others. It's possible, if some PCs Delay in order for all to retreat at once, but in a combat situation that's become hazardous enough for the party to decide to retreat, several PCs delaying their actions may allow the opposition to press the attack to the point where retreat is impossible.

I agree that pursuit needs to involve different rules than regular combat, but the tricky part is the interface between the two rulesets - how do you manage the transition from one set of combat rules to another when the two are based upon different principles?

 

[frankthedm]

It's possible, if some PCs Delay in order for all to retreat at once, but in a combat situation that's become hazardous enough for the party to decide to retreat, several PCs delaying their actions may allow the opposition to press the attack to the point where retreat is impossible.

Their own damn fault. They could have chosen to delay at the start of battle. A situation like the one you describe is a shining example of why going on dispersed initiative ticks can hamper tactical options.

 

[Umbran]

While I applaud their use of defensive tactics, it occurred to me that all these years of gaming with poor chase mechanisms may have conditioned them to a stand-and-fight mentality.

Here's the thing - a good chase mechanic probably won't encourage the party to flee.

You flee to get as cleanly away as possible. This is inimical to what is usually considered a good chase mechanic, which is designed to give you a whole chase scene - draw out the tension and give the chaser multiple chances at catching up.

 

[Nagol]

My 3.5E group knows the value of retreat and has developed a set of tactics to handle slow party members.

The group splits into smaller tactical groupings in combat. Each group has one or more members that can act as a "vehicle" for their team -- either Dimension Door or Teleport depending on whether the group feels it needs to regroup or to retreat. Usually, the whole team has a Haste effect running as well.

These squads are also very useful if the opposition starts to retreat.

Additionally, the group spellcasters generally prepare a few battlefield control spells to cover areas, slow pursuit, and hinder opponent retreats.

Low-mid levels was the earliest where retreat was a general option. Haste started to be used to boost movement rates to the point where a walking retreat was viable for the plate users and other slowpokes. Before that, the group managed it in particular circumstances through battelfield control magic, but it was much trickier for them.

Retreat / disengagement as a tactical play on the battlefield really started to come into its own once the group had a couple of members with Dimension Door.

 

[Janx]

Here's the thing - a good chase mechanic probably won't encourage the party to flee.

You flee to get as cleanly away as possible. This is inimical to what is usually considered a good chase mechanic, which is designed to give you a whole chase scene - draw out the tension and give the chaser multiple chances at catching up.

good point. chase mechanics tend to be about the pursuer, not the pursued.

Mostly, the game needs a way to break off more cleanly than the rules imply.

One thing to consider is what the winning side wants. Like a turf war, fighting and having the enemy leave the area may be considered victory. Therefore, once the enemy leaves (and is verified to have left) the enemy stops and cheers.

D&D doesn't feel like it supports it, because you move back 12 squares, and then I move up 12 squares. I think what's missing is that the winning side may not have a vested interest in pursuing. At least not in the immediate moment as a combatant who just escaped death themselves.

I like Jack7's idea of players studying books on topics related to their PC. It certainly reinforces that a player has a sense of what their PC is actually doing.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Here's the thing - a good chase mechanic probably won't encourage the party to flee.

You flee to get as cleanly away as possible. This is inimical to what is usually considered a good chase mechanic, which is designed to give you a whole chase scene - draw out the tension and give the chaser multiple chances at catching up.

I have to agree heartily with this. A chase is not a proper way to END an encounter - the chase IS the encounter.

D&D has always had a design oriented around the idea of a very small group of player characters taking on extraordinarily large opponents, or large NUMBERS of opponents - and RELIABLY WINNING. Now DM's have always been intended to provide a range of challenges to PC's, not just present them with things that are always scaled to their level. But the systems support characters further than the players always expect when the PC's get in over their heads. I found this was especially true in 3E when PC's wound up with gear and abilities they never used and forgot all about - until they got desperate and REALLY started pulling out the stops. The system supported them standing and fighting because the game is so much ABOUT PC's standing and fighting against otherwise overwhelming force.

I dunno. Maybe that's true, maybe not. But I'll agree with others - if you want the PC's to flee because YOU, the DM, think they are in over their heads this is not OOC knowledge that you need to keep your trap shut about. TELL THEM you think they should run - AND WHY.

 

[Janx]

I dunno. Maybe that's true, maybe not. But I'll agree with others - if you want the PC's to flee because YOU, the DM, think they are in over their heads this is not OOC knowledge that you need to keep your trap shut about. TELL THEM you think they should run - AND WHY.

excellent points.

I suspect that there should be a DMing guideline of :
If the players are doing something that you think is not tactically sound or doesn't make sense, they probably don't have enough information. Give them some.

Not running away when they're headed for a TPK is a good example. And as a DM, when the players try to run away, perhaps we should let them.

If you run away, that's XP and treasure you're not getting. Damage and resources spent that didn't pay off. Potential reputation lost if it was a public retreat. Why add death to the list?

If you don't, it's like having the mafia run the stock market. Buy a share for $50, it goes down to $40, and when you try to sell and cut your losses to $10, they whack you.