D&D General Why are we fighting?

[overgeeked]

I love this question because it makes you wonder - as I have - if the designers, when thinking of encounters in terms of resource drain, assume all enemies fight to the death, or if they have some expected percentage of fights ending early? And if so, what is it?

I think we already know the answer, after a fashion. The adventuring day assumes 2 medium fights, short rest, 2 medium fights, short rest, 2 medium fights, long rest. Short rests and short rest classes are the key. Fights are designed to be done when the short rest classes are spent.

 

[RangerWickett]

Morale rules or not, part of the issue of dragging combats to the end is that retreat is often more foolhardy than fighting back.

Bad guy wants to flee: disengage, move 30ft.
PC; move 30ft next to bad guy, attack.
Bad guy: disengage, move 30ft.
PC: move 30ft, attack…

There’s no way out. You’ll eventually get killed without doing any damage to your attacker. Let’s try running faster.

Bad guy: move 30ft, dash for an extra 30ft. Provoke attack of opportunity from PC when leaving.
PC: move 30ft, dash for an extra 30ft next to bad guy. PC is out of move/action.
Bad guy: move 30ft, dash for an extra 30ft, provoke attack of opportunity from PC…

A5E has the Sprint action.

You may not take any other actions, bonus actions, or reactions other than your move Speed for the turn.

If you are unencumbered, your Speed is quadrupled for one turn; if you are encumbered or wearing heavy armor, your Speed is tripled for one turn.

You must Sprint in a straight line each turn, although you can change direction each time you Sprint.

You may Sprint for a number of turns equal to your Constitution modifier. Each turn you Sprint after that, you make a Constitution (Athletics) check (DC 10 + 1 per previous check made in the last minute) or you suffer a level of fatigue from either tiredness or a minor sprain or injury. You recover fatigue suffered from sprinting at a rate of one level per minute. You cannot Sprint if you are suffering from one or more levels of fatigue.

Attacks against you are made with advantage until the start of your next turn.

---

So if someone chases after you, they can't attack you. It becomes a question of whether you can do better at the check to keep running than your pursuer. In this way, it behooves you to run away when you still have allies to put pressure on the PCs, so the opportunity cost of pursuit is higher.

 

[Laurefindel]

The question of fleeing also ignores all possible contexts except for everyone’s in melee with someone and there are zero ways to escape. If you’re having dynamic fights, there are going to be ways to escape. Horses and other mounts, flying and flying creatures, magic and magic items of all kinds. “You can’t ever escape” is a weird take.

Not to mention that when you run after a fleeting opponent, you’re removing yourself from the rest of the party and combat, which have consequences of its own.

« You can never escape » is an hyperbolic and weird take indeed, but it’s rarely a done-deal either. Flying creatures can expect one or two rounds-worth of attacks as they go, potentially with cover if they’re smart, but still… Most teleporting abilities are short range and the equivalent of a move, sometimes a dash action. Many invisibility effects will only get you one turn, which is sometimes enough but not always. But when a creature is about to flee, be it PC or enemy, it’s usually because their ressources are getting low (in hp and abilities). And when the creature decides early on that fighting is not a good option and flees, their opponents are also high in resources. So unless they are not willing to spend these resources to pursue (which should happen more often than it does), the escape is far from guarantied.

 

[amethal]

Morale rules or not, part of the issue of dragging combats to the end is that retreat is often more foolhardy than fighting back.

Bad guy wants to flee: disengage, move 30ft.
PC; move 30ft next to bad guy, attack.
Bad guy: disengage, move 30ft.
PC: move 30ft, attack…

There’s no way out. You’ll eventually get killed without doing any damage to your attacker. Let’s try running faster.

Bad guy: move 30ft, dash for an extra 30ft. Provoke attack of opportunity from PC when leaving.
PC: move 30ft, dash for an extra 30ft next to bad guy. PC is out of move/action.
Bad guy: move 30ft, dash for an extra 30ft, provoke attack of opportunity from PC…

Rince and repeat. Again, no way out. And that’s not counting ranged attacks.

That does assume the encounter takes place on a (mostly) featureless plain.

In some cases the bad guys should have thought about how they might retreat, before actually attacking the PCs. "If this goes badly, you know we are all going to die, right? Why are we doing this again?" Especially if the PCs have developed a reputation for never taking prisoners (or the situation is such that taking prisoners is totally impractical).

If one bad guy runs away around a corner, it should at least make the pursuing PC think twice about heading off alone into an unexplored area. Or maybe the PC has to stick to the lit areas.

I mostly play Pathfinder, and the adventures tend to be written such that enemies attack immediately and fight to the death. I enjoy trying to find ways not to slaughter everybody I meet, even though the game actively penalises you for letting enemies get away (since you don't get their treasure, and money = power in Pathfinder). Of course, the game penalises you for fighting, as well, since you might end up poisoned, diseased, cursed or energy drained even if you are confident the foe is isn't able to kill you.

 

[Umbran]

Second, stop using boring goals in combat, like murdering all of the other team.

The players largely set their own goals, though.

 

[iserith]

The only combat slogs I've been in have been entirely due to the DM and/or players not acting and resolving their turns quickly. While plenty of other goals may arise in combat in our games, we still find plenty of drama to wring out of reducing monsters to 0 hit points.

 

[overgeeked]

Not to mention that when you run after a fleeting opponent, you’re removing yourself from the rest of the party and combat, which have consequences of its own.

« You can never escape » is an hyperbolic and weird take indeed, but it’s rarely a done-deal either. Flying creatures can expect one or two rounds-worth of attacks as they go, potentially with cover if they’re smart, but still… Most teleporting abilities are short range and the equivalent of a move, sometimes a dash action. Many invisibility effects will only get you one turn, which is sometimes enough but not always. But when a creature is about to flee, be it PC or enemy, it’s usually because their ressources are getting low (in hp and abilities). And when the creature decides early on that fighting is not a good option and flees, their opponents are also high in resources. So unless they are not willing to spend these resources to pursue (which should happen more often than it does), the escape is far from guarantied.

It’s important to remember the goal here is to get away from pure resource slogs and make better, more dynamic fights. So having a goal that’s not “kill ’em all” is the point. Once that not-murder goal is won or lost, whether someone escapes or not is largely irrelevant.

 

[iserith]

Don't forget the shopping scene slogs, too. I wish there was a subsystem to run away from those!

 

[Oofta]

In the last game I played, we had a couple of chase scenes. One running after an assassin, another where we ran with the McGuffin.

If I'm DMing there will often be multiple ways to get away or chase after a party. I use the chase rules in the DMG as an inspiration and starting point. Doesn't always apply of course, but if the pursued can even break line of sight it often opens up possibilities.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

First off I reject the premise outlined in the OP, that combat in D&D is boring and somewhat Matt Colville's statement that many D&D fights continue past the point where outcome is obvious the party has won and the party has spent the interesting resources and now using cantrips and weapon attacks to grind out the win.

Now in fairness to Matt Colville, he is using this as a potential foundation to a future discussion on level design (or in D&D terms a mini arc)

I am not claiming that I run particularly exciting fights but they are not boring in the way described. At least I do not think so. I very rarely see static fights last more then 3 or 4 rounds and the longer fights are ones where there are reinforcements coming onto the map edges and the fight moves there or particular boss fights.
I generally run a fight to the death in melee but ranged elements may run and I will have the bad guys abandon whole locations if they get a good enough kicking. Unless they have a very compelling reason to stay.
I even have bad guy organisations dissolve if the leadership gets taken out.