You guys did better than we did. Our party stumbled right into the middle of the camp in the dead of night. Almost all of the archers were asleep in the trees. Almost all.
One spotted us, raised an alarm, and my tank fighter went down from eight arrows before anyone in the party could even react. By the time everyone could get to cover, most were already wounded.
Between the darkness of night, and all the bandits being in high, hard to get places (which provided them cover in addition to the concealment) we were WAY over matched.
Though our rogue managed to stealth his way up a tree and dispatch a bandit, the party was ultimately forced to retreat, leaving my fighter to become the bandits' prisoner (one brave PC risked many an arrow to stabilize me before running off into the night, but sadly, didn't have enough time/hp to drag me to safety).
It took them a week to rescue me, all the while I was being tortured by Axe Lady.
The PCs eventually killed off the bandits, rescued their fighter, and sent Axe Lady off into the wild naked to die from exposure.
They would end up TPKing soon after. A new party was made and sent in to "rescue" them. Who did they find, but Axe Lady, who was quick to use their ignorance against them by claiming to be one of those in need of saving.
Ironically, she would ultimately obtain a cushy position of power as the new party's city's warden, holding up the law and keeping bandit at bay.
|
...It never ceases to amaze me. Several times I have thrown a party up against an impossible to beat challenge, and every single time the players never even think once to run away. I have had them ask several times how they were supposed to have beaten it and lived. I always replied with you should have run away and come back later when you were better prepared for it.
Just remember this... if a TPK happens and the players never even once attempt to run away then really it is their fault...
I have to disagree with this a little bit. The way the rules are currently. It is very difficult to run away. Players get used to finding out that anything that can beat them can almost always keep up and kill them while they are trying to run.
Not always the case. And some GM's don't enforce it by allowing the PC's to succeed in running. But by RAW we've usually found that it is very difficult to break off combat with something unless you were already more powerful than it (in which case you don't need to run away).
Basically this.
So far I can think of the following things that discourage running:
* Slower PCs (gnomes and armored folk) or faster monsters (anything that flies or is quadrupedal). It is far more common for a monster to have the speed advantage than a PC, and there is essentially always at least one PC that moves at a speed of 20 or slower and prevents escape without death.
* The Pounce ability.
* Attacks of Opportunity as a whole (baddies with reach exacerbate this).
* Charge can often counter a Withdraw (related to attacks of opportunities: without those, the players could use the run action to get out of range of a charge)
* Run makes you lose your dexterity bonus to AC (only bad if an open area with ranged baddies).
Note that most of these are related to AoOs. If those didn't exist, a PC would almost always use the Run action. This means that the PC would be able to keep out of reach of a charge even if somewhat slower than their opponent (say, 20ft versus 30ft). This lack of charge negates (or at least severely dampens) the usefulness of the pounce ability.
|
First thing that struck me is that the party seems short on starting gold (90 gp should be less than average die roll for most classes).
However, you have to think tactically. Look for flanks, avoid attacks of opportunity, hide behind cover from ranged attackers (melee opponents are great for providing cover).
Make sure your GM was applying the appropriate penalties to the ranged attackers when firing into melee (+4 to target's AC, -4 for firing into melee unless the archers have Precise Shot).
From what everyone else has said, however, it sounds like this is designed to be a potentially lethal fight so you shouldn't be surprised that it was rough. It sounds like you all made it out alive and took out at least some of the bad guys -- that's actually a win in an APL+3 encounter.
Copy form StabbittyDoom
"Note that most of these are related to AoOs. If those didn't exist, a PC would almost always use the Run action. This means that the PC would be able to keep out of reach of a charge even if somewhat slower than their opponent (say, 20ft versus 30ft). This lack of charge negates (or at least severely dampens) the usefulness of the pounce ability."
Or looking the other direction the bad would allways get away.
Beside not that many thing have pounce. 11 out of 323 in bestary 1 that only 3.405573%
And as far as PC build on type of Bardian and druid/wizard/sorcerer that wild share or use shape spells realy not that may.
|
|
Copy form StabbittyDoom
"Note that most of these are related to AoOs. If those didn't exist, a PC would almost always use the Run action. This means that the PC would be able to keep out of reach of a charge even if somewhat slower than their opponent (say, 20ft versus 30ft). This lack of charge negates (or at least severely dampens) the usefulness of the pounce ability."Or looking the other direction the bad would allways get away.
Beside not that many thing have pounce. 11 out of 323 in bestary 1 that only 3.405573%
And as far as PC build on type of Bardian and druid/wizard/sorcerer that wild share or use shape spells realy not that may.
Not all bad guys can afford to flee. Attack them in their home and where will they go? If you push someone into a corner, they will fight to the death.
Besides which, I would LIKE to see the occasional bad guy running away. As of right now you generally don't get realistic encounters because, realistically speaking, if the two parties encounter each-other in a neutral zone then the fight SHOULD end with *someone* getting away. This is why you keep an archer/mage around (if you really need to kill them all).
The "bad guy gets away" thing is a huge trope in fantasy that is very difficult to execute in 3.X systems without fiat abilities, contrived terrain or making them a wizard/sorcerer so that they can teleport.
As to the pounce thing: I fully admit it's a minor concern... except when it's not. On the average it's minor but when it happens it's major. Some creatures actually have *more* attacks on a charge than on a typical full-round (see the Rake ability).
At the end of the day, I feel the removal of AoOs would do a lot to encourage running. The other end is leading by example by having some baddies run away and ensuring that your baddies don't go Inevitable on their asses every single time the party runs.
Basically throw the gnome sorceress under the bus. The movement rules make running away just about impossible, especially with a small character at level 1.
That's why the small characters ride the medium ones, as seen here.
Unless GM fiats it there was no way the party could have retreat safely.
Not really; people do not leave their horses saddled and tacked at all times when relaxing in camp. So it's not "fiat" to say they aren't ready to ride immediately. Plus they will need time to get to their horses, time the party could use to fade into the woods.
P.S. I've seen the encounter run, against IIRC 2nd level characters (they may still have been first, but I think they had gotten to 2nd).
It's only people who want to insist that "there's no way the party could have escaped" who are creating an artificially impossible situation.
"Running away" does not mean "run in a blind panic". It should mean beating a tactical retreat.
This is one area where spells like obscuring mist or entangle can be very, very helpful. Even some caltrops can make a huge difference. The last time I was in a party that ran away, my cleric sacrificed himself so the rest of the party could get away.
How is it not GM fiat that the horses are not saddled?Because in the encounter in question, the gang is hanging out in their own camp, with most of them - except for those on watch - relaxing. Not ready for battle. So it would be DM fiat to say that the mounts are saddled and at hand and they're all mounted and ready to go the instant the PCs run.
Also riding bareback is not that tough at all.
Riding bareback may not be tough, but fighting bareback is. Now someone will point to certain nomad cavalry and say "they did it" - but I don't think these random bandits were born-in-the-saddle plains horse archers with mounted combat and mounted archery feats. In fact, I know they weren't.
Trying to come up with strained arguments for why it would have been "impossible" for the PCs to escape the encounter is an exercise in the wrong kind of creativity.
Also carrying a <snipped>
That part is what is commonly called "humor," or at least "an attempt at humor."
But it's at least as plausible as claiming the bandits keep their horses saddled all the time and teleport into the saddle from wherever they are in the camp the instant they see the PCs running (from wherever the PCs are on the encounter map) so that it's absurd for anyone to suggest the PCs could possibly escape the encounter alive by trying to withdraw.
The only thing I think "done wrong" here is that the GM played a tactical encounter with a group used to free-form role-play.
Pathfinder is a fairly tactical game (as were 3.0 and 3.5 before it). That can be downplayed by not using a mat or miniatures, but many GMs who started with 3.x aren't as comfortable doing that.
Now, having said that, there is a lot of good advice here.
3.x's advice to GMs was to design with a mix of encounters.. Challenge Rating = APL is a "standard challenge" expected to use 20% of the party's resources for the day.. so they cna face *about* 5 in a day.
The design advice also included mixing up the levels a bit.. 5 "standard challenges" in a row could be boring.. 3 of those and one that was a lot tougher would still be a decent "day of adventure" while the one tougher battle would stand out.
The problem is, some people read the guidelines as the "only way". They are a baseline, you're supposed to deviate from it as seems appropriate to your group.
As I said, Pathfinder is a fairly tactical game. Part of the challenge in a sandbox AP such as Kingmaker can be just surviving. Pathfinder is inspired with the old-school pulp vibe.. being cautious, and clever, while occasionally bold (if you have a PLAN), is the cornerstone of success.
It does sound as though there's room for the GM to have made some mistakes. Really, the key one was in not making sure that the PLAYERS a) expected a tactical game and b) were ready to use some basic tactics (such as cover, retreat, concentrated fire, etc.). Expecting a group that is not used to tactical positioning and is not used to the terrain being more than decorative, and putting them up against an already tough challenge that does know how to use some tactics is a recipe for player frustration and a TPK.
All-in-all, if the GM made some of the mistakes it soinds like, the players actually did quite well to survive. The trick is now, as suggested, to talk with the GM about expectations. Once everyone is on the same page, you can continue (and work on some tactics) or make changes to keep it fun for all.
from what i experienced as a GM running that campaign, was my PCs didn't go straight to that fight, they explored other areas did some of the quests at the outpost. They ended up with some allies that scouted the camp for them and then they attacked at night. Swept up the bandits pretty easily but the PCs they weren't level 1 by this point, more like 2, but there was only three. a Bard Aasimar, a Rogue Half-Elf, and an Inquisitor Human. I think tactics, not just running in, made the major difference in this fight. attacking at night, dropping a sleep spell before combat, casting pyrotechnics on the camp fire, all of these helped in the long run.
Was the bard performing to grant party buffs?
If within 30ft, did anyone think to use intimidate?
I've never run through the encounter but from the description it sounds like it was at night ... usually the only time anyone posts a watch ... was vision ever utalized?
Yes, the bard launched into his inspire courage the round after he cast of hideous laughter.
We, the [layers, had felt a sense of great urgency that we must rush to the bandit camp as soon as we found out about it. Whether our impression was correct is up for debate, but talking to the other players, the majority felt that we had to rush there ASAP.
I don't think any of our characters could intimidate, or at least none of us knew what that was.
I think you did ok, considering the odds of what you were up against. Don't beat yourself up over it, and consider the valuable lessons you have learned both from the encounter, and advice here on how to do better in future combats.
I would like to add from what I read of your posts, that the cleric used 2 spells to heal? The cleric likely has access to channeling, which is an excellent source of healing and depending on who is in range, could potentially heal everyone in the party at once. The channeling ability also preserves some spells for the cleric to use for utility or combat, and not just to use as healing all the time.
Not using the mounts against fleeing PCs on such a low DC would be the definition of GM fiat.
The DM having them teleport from wherever they are on the battle map to their mounts in no actions and, as bandits untrained in mounted combat, decide riding bareback into combat this is the best way to hunt them down, and use zero actions to go from where the horses are to immediately track the PCs with no need for tracking rolls because they're instantly there, yes, that's DM fiat.
You just are determined to insist "nope, no way the PCs could have realistically withdrawn, they'd have had to fight to the death, period, if that's what it came down to" but, no, that's actually. . .absurd.
Ok I am talking about RAW. It is only +5 DC to the ride check with no saddle. To fight mounted bareback is just DC 15.
+5 to the DC makes it DC 20 for untrained bandits. Not even axe-lady has Ride, much less Mounted Combat.
So even if you have them teleporting to the backs mounts, taking no actions (so no head start for the PCs to fade into the woods), and then riding after the PCs to attack them from horseback, it's fail.
Did you miss the part that at least one of the PCs were small and the other half were wearing heavy armor?
Let's not even talk about the mounts.
Then why did you? You focused on mounts, because you want to create an unrebuttable presumption that there is no way the PCs could possibly withdraw from the encounter without a handwave.
Now that this was disproven, you want to drop that and still claim the PCs can't possibly withdraw from an encounter if they have small characters in the party.
Not because the facts support your presumptive assertion; you'll shape those to fit the assertion, and, when they don't, you'll say "lets not even talk about those."
Well, that's fine; you're wedded to a position. It doesn't have to be that way, though, and the OP's DM doesn't have to adopt that position in his campaign - because you have to shape and contort things in order to attempt to make it hold, and then saw off parts when they don't. That's. . .fiat. Not a proof it can't possibly be any other way than what you insist - a situation where the PCs have no choice but to fight to the death.
I'm just suggesting that, rather than using your creativity to come up with rationalizations for why PCs can't do anything but fight to the death when faced with an encounter out of their depth, use your creativity to come up for reasons how they could live to fight another day.
|
1. Lack of rules knowledge on player's part.
2. Arbitrarily low wealth for your characters (has a particular effect on AC in particular).
3. Bandits given gear beyond what they are supposed to have in Kingmaker. All the standard Bandits have longbows but they are not composite, nor do they have strength rating's on them. Attacks at +2 for 1d8 damage.
4. Unless you spent a few days between the fight at the outpost which gave them time to smell a rat, the camp should have been unprepared for an assault and more importantly there should only have been four bandits present with the leader Kressle. The other four are out hunting unless they had reason to be alert.
Did I miss anything? Because i'm very familiar with this AP and i'm seeing a lot of mistakes on the GM's part rather than the players.
For knowledge sake, you can use the intimidate skill to demoralize an opponent (even unskilled) to give the opponent the 'shaken' condition. Doesn't seem like much but the additional -2 to everything can be a great help to those in melee.
And you can use out to 30 ft away
You don't have to outrun the bandits - you just have to outrun the gnome. :P
Yeah, well I'm most likely to be the gnome (or dwarf).
It was apparently dusk, in a mostly-thickly-wooded area. 4 out of 5 PCs had low-light vision; the bandits did not. This *should* have made it harder for the bandits to shoot the PCs, and might have made it easier for the PCs (except the Human) to run away and hide.
Since the AP is designed for 4 PCs, I could see a DM deciding to *either* increase the encounter difficulties for 5 PCs, *or* reduce the PCs starting wealth (and hit points? I gather they didn't get full HO at first level?). Doing both seems excessive.
The PCs won this encounter and people are griping? As I read the OP, it sounds like your group pulled it out of the fire and made off with some nice loot!
Lessons learned are tactical regardless of game system:
* use cover to protect yourself against ranged attacks
* FOCUS FIRE - I can't begin to ttell you how many times I've seen players pick seperate targets only to wind up merely kicking the proverbial hornet's nest and getting slaughtered as a result
* never split the party during combat or in a hostile location
* the one advantage your group's freeform RP style should provide is thinking outside of the box. Intimidation in my experience is usually a hallmark (among others) of heavy RP.
* gather information - whether by scouting, talking to the locals or making various skill checks, information is your friend. If something sounds big, mean and nasty *and* it has friends/ cubs / minions, you want as much information as you can vget.
... It's only people who want to insist that "there's no way the party could have escaped" who are creating an artificially impossible situation.
I was not "insisting that there's no way the party could have escaped." I am saying that players in general are conditioned to not think of that option because it is very often so difficult to escape.
In this case, horses were not needed. At least one of the party is slower than the bandits on foot. All of the bandits are decent archers, so are arguably more dangerous when the party tries to pull away. All of the materials or spells that have been suggested to use during escape, the party did not have. Now I will agree, that many GM’s will kinda back off if the party is trying to evade in order to let them escape. But many won’t.
Since this subject keeps coming up, I’ve been kinda keeping track in our game sessions. We play slightly to heavily modified published adventures. We tend to be in the low to mid levels but are probably a bit above WBL (unfortunately concentrated in weapons). In the last few months, we have had 7 occasions where running away should have been at least considered. Of those only 2 occasions were situations where more than 1 or 2 of the 5 PC’s had any realistic hope of getting away. One was a hugantic prehistoric shark that obviously couldn’t leave the water. The other was a slow but physically powerful golem type creature that didn’t have flight or magic to keep up with the party. All the other occasions the bad guys had flight, were faster, outnumbered the PC’s, had more magical options, or could have killed with spells or ranged attacks while withdrawing.
We have just started a new campaign (I’m GM for this one) at level 5. The module write-up states that the party is expected to retreat from at least 2 of the early encounters. But the way it is written, I don’t see much chance of that happening.
In one, the party starts off surrounded. Almost all of the monsters in those encounters are fast. Many have flight. Several are incorporeal (not hindered by the terrain). Most can see through any darkness. Several have magical abilities that it specifically says how they will be used to run down fleeing foes. The group has a dwarf and 2 others with heavy armor. I don’t think the casters have many of the obscurement type spells. The sorc may have fly, but not enough for everyone.
I think about the best the PC’s could manage is trying to run away. Then maybe the different speeds and abilities of the pursuers will string them out so they don’t have to fight all at once. They might have the opportunity to defeat them in detail (although they will lose most of the benefit from AoA attacks). But it doesn’t seem too likely unless I have these supposedly intelligent opponents behave stupidly.
The write-up and the mechanics don’t make sense. They are expected to run away, but experienced players will recognize that it is nearly impossible. So they will most likely fight to the death.
So to avoid a TPK but still progress the story I need to figure out how to modify the encounter. I need an opponent set and situation that realistically allows the PC’s to evade. But more importantly, the PC’s have to be able to realize they can evade or they won’t even bother to try. They will just assume they are cornered and fight to the bloody end.
The first one is pretty easy to do. I will just put several of the most dangerous opponents in heavy armor. I might even make it dwarven stone plate to emphasize how slow but unstoppable they are.
The second one will be much more difficult. It is largely flying undead archers and wizards (using piles of summons). The write up even specifically says several of the casters are assigned to just counter spell the party. That one is going to require a lot more thought.
Edit: Sorry for the long response, but this is one of the few things that actually does bug me about the PF system.
|
...
* FOCUS FIRE - I can't begin to ttell you how many times I've seen players pick seperate targets only to wind up merely kicking the proverbial hornet's nest and getting slaughtered as a result...
This +1
This game sytem gives you almost no benefit to hurting an opponent. Right up until the point you actually take him out he still operates at peak efficiency.
Noobs (both players and GM's) will often not realize this.
1. Lack of rules knowledge on player's part.
2. Arbitrarily low wealth for your characters (has a particular effect on AC in particular).
3. Bandits given gear beyond what they are supposed to have in Kingmaker. All the standard Bandits have longbows but they are not composite, nor do they have strength rating's on them. Attacks at +2 for 1d8 damage.
4. Unless you spent a few days between the fight at the outpost which gave them time to smell a rat, the camp should have been unprepared for an assault and more importantly there should only have been four bandits present with the leader Kressle. The other four are out hunting unless they had reason to be alert.
Did I miss anything? Because i'm very familiar with this AP and i'm seeing a lot of mistakes on the GM's part rather than the players.
I think Alex sums it up well and quite simple and to the point.
What I will say is every should now have bow and nice nest egg cause long bow is 100 gp a pop.
It just seems to me that kingmaker is a hard AP to start pathfinder with for people inexperienced with the pathfinder combat system.
I think the GM could have anticipated this and made sure the party was level 2 or made the encounter a bit milder, by removing a few bandits. Nobody is perfect though, so it was a rough encounter take what you learned and do better next time.
...
Play out a classical villainous "over-confidence":"Run little insects... Flee before the mighty Invincikrull while you can. You shall feed my hounds with your fear! Bwahahaha..."
And give the PCs a head start.
- the PCs run for it
...
I might try something like that. But one of the problems is it rarely gets to that line "the PC's run for it."
They 'know' by RAW running almost never works so they don't try it. Experienced players (not the characers) know that fast zombies can chase them down, ghosts can float straight through the walls of the spiral passages, etc...
So I don't think they will even try to run.
I think if I put all the serious baddies in heavy armor, they might try to bash through a few and run. But I'm not sure of that.
But what you call balance above is what i call trust - when i GM i want to players to feel that they can trust me not to set-up a scenario where they just can't win: is that realistic? HECK NO.
See, this is where we'll have to agree to disagree. If I challenge someone to a dart throwing competition, I'm going to lose. I really have no chance of winning (poor vision) but the scenario is 100% realistic.
Kingmaker is a sandbox type-AP. This means that it's goal is to realistically simulate a fantasy setting. A fantasy setting where you are not the most powerful things going. It does this well, even if it's not the kind of game you're expecting.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Noobs (both players and GM's) will often not realize this.
Please don't be insulting. Myself and others often choose to divide targets because that's good tactics (that's why SWAT and Special Forces do it). After all, if the party fighter, paladin, and rogue are busy ganking one of the three bandits, the other two bandits are going to be busy ganking the party wizard--then where would they all be?
Just because we choose not to game the system like some Gamists do doesn't make us better or worse roleplayers.
What you did wrong was.. fail to run the heck away.
This is pretty much a primary lesson for Kingmaker.
The encuonters are based on what lives where- not based on your level or when a "good time" would be for you to meet it. The same is true for the random encounters.If your group refuses to run away when things look too tough you are going to blow through alot of character sheets.
Learn to evaluate the threat and run away if its too big for you. It'll save you alot of grief in the long run.
-S
My group was level 2 when they ran into a Shambling Mound as a random encounter from the random encounter table. Instead of running, they tried kiting it and I had to send a certain Kesten Garess to the rescue. They actually managed to kill it with some lucky crits, but half of Garess' men had to die in the process. As for the bandits, I assume they were the ones from the start of the campaign, and I will also thus assume you guys just had bad rolls and the DM had some good ones.
Rory, I agree all of those are reasonable and within the rules.
However, they are all things the GM might do, not things the PC's might do. The players have no way to know that any of those are likely to happen if the GM doesn't make a regular point of that kind of thing occurring. Most GM's simply do not have some of them stay back and guard the camp, not follow orders, think there is a larger force nearby, etc... Even if the GM was planning on that happening, would the players think it was going to happen?
You could say it is the players decision to set fire to something, but it is still the GM's decision on whether or not some stay behind to put out the fire. I would say maybe 50% of the GM's I've played with would allow that to happen. But would 1st level PC's with little gear or magic be able to start a fire in the middle of a fight without dying? More importantly would the players think they could do it?
|
|
Noobs (both players and GM's) will often not realize this.Please don't be insulting. Myself and others often choose to divide targets because that's good tactics (that's why SWAT and Special Forces do it). After all, if the party fighter, paladin, and rogue are busy ganking one of the three bandits, the other two bandits are going to be busy ganking the party wizard--then where would they all be?
Just because we choose not to game the system like some Gamists do doesn't make us better or worse roleplayers.
I appologize if it came across that way, it was not intentional and not what I meant. I did not say there is never a reason to split attacks or not guard your fellows. I never even mentioned "better or worse roleplayers."
The thread is about self admitted noob players (I don't know if the GM is a noob also, but it kinda sounded like he might be) not experienced players like you RavingDork.
Yes SWAT and special forces do that because it works in real life. In real life people get distracted, get tired, operate less efficiently when wounded, get slowed down, etc... Those don't happen in this game system. I don't know the specifics; but if they did 2 points of damage to every one of the bandit archers, that does not change the return damage at all. But if they did all 16 points to any one of the archers (except maybe the leader) it would have reduced the opposition force.
Often people who are not real familiar with the rules do not realize this. They spread their efforts out evenly amongst all the opponents thinking that those real life things will happen. Sometimes an experienced GM will allow them to happen even though the rules do not.
The exception of course is concentration checks for casters. There is a rule in the system for giving them problems.
(Edit: Even in real life. A military force will use some small portion of their firepower to make the opposition keep their head down but will concentrate on the primary threat/target. Concentration of firepower is a major military virtue.)
If you choose to withdraw to not eat the AoO you are only 40 ft away, which is within charging distance of the bandits. Those without charging lanes can double move and cut you off.
Assuming PCs choose to retreat while the bandits are using longbows:
To charge and attack, the bandits will have to drop their longbows and draw melee weapons. If they have at least +1 BAB (seems likely), they can probably do so while charging, but then they don't have longbows any more, making running away safer (assuming you survived the charge). And this all assumes that the bandits are within 60' of the PCs, *after* the PCs withdraw (or better yet, Run; no AoO's with bows, and after the PCs are in the darkening woods it should be quite difficult to shoot them).Assuming PCs choose to retreat while engaged in melee:
Run. You'll eat an AoO from the bandit, but he'll have to take time to switch weapons on his round if he wants to then shoot you. And since you're running into a thick forest, *at dusk*, between cover and darkness he should have difficulty shooting you. And if he runs after you, I as DM would make it somewhat difficult and dangerous to Run through a thick forest at dusk if you don't have low-light vision (which, yes, sucks for the Human Paladin).
All that being said: Yes, 5 PCS vs. 8 higher-level, better-equipped NPCs is bad, and may be hard to get away from without some casualties, especially for inexperienced players. My group (also 5 PCs) was 2nd level before we got there. I think that was the designer's expectation, but since it's Kingmaker, there are fewer constraints than usual to keep things "level-appropriate." Seems like the DM actually made it harder than it was supposed to be, though.
...
Give them a sense motive roll. Let them know that the master villain seems way over-confident and is "sincere" about not caring if the party gets a head start and runs. Give them an intelligence (or wisdom) check to realize that they are doomed if they don't run (almost an auto check here).Give the priest a caster level check for an inspired vision to run the right way into the convenient hiding spot. Give the high PER character a roll to spot a landscape feature to help escape or slow the foes down.
Try not to make it too obvious by making them roll some checks to avoid a "chase encounter". If they fail a check, execute the "encounter". You can add more encounter checks as desired until they make one, or just have them stumble near immediately into the escape chance.
In short, you can turn the "chase" into a skills contest and actually avoid the "fiat scenario".
The vision one feels like railroading, but I like the other ideas.
Thanks, I will give them a try.
However, it is still things a GM can do to give the PC's a chance to run. The default still seems to be that running doesn't work unless the GM gives them something to make it possible.
|
|
On the subject of GM Fiat:
The NPCs have no real agency of their own outside of what the GM gives them. The GM can play those NPCs as he or she sees fit, and that means that don't have to pursue, or they can laugh maniacally and monologue instead of killing the PCs, or behave in any other ridiculous but dramatically interesting manner. That's not GM fiat.
An example of GM Fiat would be saying "The bandits chase you but you elude them because nobody's in the mood to play out a chase scene right now and I don't have the right tools prepared."