The Player Psychology of Fleeing Villains

[Stalker0]

Players hate when a villian gets away, which is why the ones that did manage to escape often become the best villians.

 

[Iron Sky]

Before I get into the 'fleeing' part, let me bring up a similar issue I have seen players grumble over: use of healing potions.

This makes me think of my 3.x rule: when I rolled treasure for an intelligent monster, they were using it. For expendables, I gave the monsters "ghost consumables" equal to the consumables present. For example, if a monster had two healing potions for treasure, he'd have two that he could use and when he was defeated, there would be exactly two left on him.

I actually had an experience of the "kill on flee" phenomena tonight. Two melee characters were fighting some Githyanki in the streets while the archer was on the rooftops dueling with a couple Gith psychics. Even though on the street level things were pretty dire (fighter went negative with ongoing damage), the archer chose to shoot at some near-dead running enemies rather than the ones on street level that were still fighting.

I wonder if part of it has to do with video games where you get the XP only when the bodies hit the floor - if they run, you've "missed out". Heck, when I was playing Deus Ex 3 the other day, I knocked out two guards that were worth 0 xp just so I could hack the alarm panel behind them since I'd get 50xp for it (I'm admittedly somewhat OCD when I play CRPGs though).

In RL, in most ancient battles, the majority of casualties inflicted were when one side or the other routed - there were surprisingly few losses during the actual fighting for various reasons, but once an army broke it was a slaughter.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I have always assumed that if the NPC has healing potions then they will use them.

Ditto for scrolls, wands, etc..

Unless a potion is in a chest or otherwise not on the NPC's person then *Gulp!* It is why they have it.

The Auld Grump

 

[The Shaman]

I have always assumed that if the NPC has healing potions then they will use them.

Ditto for scrolls, wands, etc..

Unless a potion is in a chest or otherwise not on the NPC's person then *Gulp!* It is why they have it.

Yeah, same here - it's silly for intelligent foes to not use all the means at their disposal, and if the adventurers want to get hold of expendable magic intact, then that should be reflected in their tactics.