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Message: <blockquote data-quote="codo" data-source="post: 8864446" data-attributes="member: 94626">I used to like the idea of using morale rules and fleeing enemies, but using them ended up being more trouble than they were worth.  I liked the idea of shortening combats and adding some realistic behavior to the game, but they ended up causing several problems.First of all if you are playing a more heroic game, having the enemies flee can cause all sorts of story and narrative problems.  Heroes don't like letting monsters escape, to be free to attack other innocent people in the future.  My players would inevitably end up trying to chase down the fleeing monsters.  It would usually end up taking longer than finishing the combat would have in the first place.The second big issue was that if I didn't handle things carefully it was really easy to put the players in a no win situation and hurt feelings.  It was difficult to have enemies flee when the party was under any kind of time pressure.  It doesn't feel good when a bunch a goblins escapes into the city to wreak havoc, while the party is  to busy rushing of to stop the Big Bad's evil plans.  Don't get me wrong, I love torturing my players with difficult moral decisions as much as the next DM.  However that kind of difficult moral quandaries tend to work best when they are the direct result of the characters actions, particularly when you foreshadowed the choices in advance.  Having every random fight be a potential moral gotcha gets old fast.In theory I like the idea of morale rules, I just think they work better in a old school dungeon crawl, fantasy Vietnam style game, than in a more modern heroic narrative driven style game.One thing I have been doing in my games instead of having the enemies flee, is that once the party has basically won a fight and they are in the mopping up phase, is to just narratively describe the end of a fight.  Usually something like, "As you slay the bandit leader the rest of the band loses their nerve and panics. You easily cut them down as they flee in terror." (Writing it out sounds a bit blood thirsty, but that is my party. D&D players love a good murderous rampage.  What are you going to do?)</blockquote>

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