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We almost had a total party wipe last night and i am trying to figure out where we, the players, goofed.
Background: 5 players, only one has played 3.x.pathfidner before, the other 4 of us are from more cinematic style games (no maps, very freeform fights), most of us really enjoy RP more than combat, but we acknowledge combat is necessary to advance the plots (and the characters).
The five characters are all level 1, with a 20 point buy, and 90 gold for starting equipment. There is a human paladin, an elf fighter, a gnome sorceress, a halfling cleric and a gnome bard.
The GM is running us through a Piazo campaign, i think is is Kingmaker, and we were on our second gamin session. The first section, we had saved an outpost from some bandits and dealt with a small group of kobolds in the wilderness.
This time, we were on the trail of the bandit camp. We got there and they had EIGHT bandits, all with (we later found out) longbows with a +2 STR mod. We tried to take out the first lookout (he was in a tree) but that alerted the camp and they all came after us. We tried using the spells we had. the fighters meleed, we did everything we could think of - but the elf fighter went down twice (cleric got him back up both times, but that took all his spells), and then this chick dual wielding hand axes ambushes us and almost takes down both the fighter and the paladin. By this point, five bandits were down, one had fled and we had the axe crazy chick and two bandits left. The elf and paladin took out one of the bandits, then the axe chick and started to flee (our first experience with the withdrawal maneuver - that was a shock to us, we didn't know that was possible), and the other bandit fled at that point as well. We were out of spells, the elf was down (for the third time) and the paladin and bard were wounded. If they NPCs had not fled, the party would have wiped.
I work with the elf fighter's player (he's the only one with 3.x prior experience) and we were trying to figure out at lunch today what we did wrong, how we could have possibly, at first level, handled this scenario better - and we were drawing blanks.
Any advice would be much appreciated, but please, no spoilers for the campaign plot.
It is very, very likely you did nothing wrong. At level 1, EVERYONE Is squishy.
Even barbarians will have, at very best, 17 Hit points and only that if they have a 20 starting constitution (which in my experience does not happen all that much).
With most people only having about 8-13 HP at level 1, it is not too hard to get hit a couple times and go down.
And the Paizo AP's are not meant to be cakewalks. Some fights are meant to be hard and challenging. If there was not risk of actual death then there is no tension.
4 PC's versus 8 well geared bandits and a bandit chief at level 1 can be a very risky fight.
I haven't played the first modules in Kingmaker, but my girlfriend (who has played since the start) has told me that when they first started they were TPK'd by a group of bandits. Perhaps this was the same encounter...
If you spotted the sentry before he spotted you, you could have coordinated a volley of death on him. Have everyone take out their ranged weapon and ready an attack to trigger off of one person. Blam, sentry becomes a pin-cushion.
Beyond that, when heavily outnumbered, Fighting Defensively will increase your life expectancy a bit, so if the two melee players were doing that and drawing attention, the sorc and bard could have been dropping more ranged death on the enemy. Beyond that... not sure what to say.
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Scouting could have helped a bit?
The paladin definitely could have been using Lay on Hands every round.
He said they were level 1. Paladins do not get Lay On Hands until level 2.
The paladin definitely could have been using Lay on Hands every round.He said they were level 1. Paladins do not get Lay On Hands until level 2.
Woah, reading comprehension fail on my part!
My apologies, I'm running on about 6 total hours of sleep for the past 72 hours.
Also look to use cover. You can't be hit if you cant be seen. If you're half covered, it is harder to hit you. If you are in melee combat, it is harder to hit you with a ranged attack. But yes, it isn't easy to do 5 on 8 when they have all the bows, even at later levels. If you can get into melee, that helps a lot. Flanking is also a very big thing at this level (+2 is quite a boost).
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We called dual axe chick molly hatchet in our game. We were level 2 and she did a number on us too. She dropped our Druid and the half-orc fighter but he managed to get her with his last swing. That forced the bandits to high tail it away while my Bard played medic on our down PCs.
Depending on the GM these APs tend to be very lethal. So make sure and take defensible positions. Every single fight will not be on a level playing field so don't be foolish. Recon! learn it, live it, love it. There is no shame in retreat you will live to fight another day. Keep in mind now that the enemy is aware of you and the fighting is only going to get nastier.
The encounter in question is a CR 4 encounter when all the enemies are present, which makes it very likely to TPK a group of level 1 PCs who have no prior knowledge of the camp's setup. As such, I don't think you did anything wrong at all.
It might have been wise to send a stealthy group member in first, to scout the camp's layout without being seen. That would obviously be a very risky task, though, but it could have paid off for you.
***
There are a couple of points I'll put in spoiler tags, since I don't know if your DM thinks it's okay for players to read information from the books on encounters they've already been through:
1. The encounter writeup says: "If the bandits suspect the PCs are coming and have a day or so to prepare, Kressle makes sure all eight are present and ready to fortify the camp. Otherwise, the first time the PCs reach the camp, they'll find that four of the eight are out hunting, gathering firewood, or otherwise on patrol. If the PCs take longer than 3 days to reach the camp, the bandits know about what happened to Happs, and they all remain in camp."
Unless you spent more than 3 days getting to the camp, or allowed some of the bandits at Oleg's to escape, you should only have faced four bandits rather than all eight. That would explain the difficulty you faced. Your DM may not have realized this, though, since there's only one mention of this.
2. According to the adventure, the longbows the bandits use don't have any strength rating.
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Yeah, that is a brutal encounter. My players did the same thing, they went straight south in the first two sessions and ended up in this camp. I killed one PC outright and two others were knocked out, the party was 5-players and all were familiar with PF/3.X. They barely made it out, and only did so by taking the axe-wielding ranger captive and forcing the others to lay down their bows.
You didn't do anything wrong, you just went to the wrong place too early in the module (you should be about 2nd level to take care of that one). That setup is brutal with all of them starting in cover and hidden with ranged weapons.
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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
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.
This. I'm in a Kingmaker game right now. We were level 2. DM threw trolls at us.
I think the Flash may have needed to make a few checks to keep up.
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This time, we were on the trail of the bandit camp. We got there and they had EIGHT bandits, all with (we later found out) longbows with a +2 STR mod. We tried to take out the first lookout (he was in a tree) but that alerted the camp and they all came after us. We tried using the spells we had. the fighters meleed, we did everything we could think of - but the elf fighter went down twice (cleric got him back up both times, but that took all his spells), and then this chick dual wielding hand axes ambushes us and almost takes down both the fighter and the paladin. By this point, five bandits were down, one had fled and we had the axe crazy chick and two bandits left. The elf and paladin took out one of the bandits, then the axe chick and started to flee (our first experience with the withdrawal maneuver - that was a shock to us, we didn't know that was possible), and the other bandit fled at that point as well. We were out of spells, the elf was down (for the third time) and the paladin and bard were wounded. If they NPCs had not fled, the party would have wiped.
...
The GM may have goofed it, as the encounter is different depending on how fast the PC's get there,
how many days (game time) was it between defeating the bandits in the Outpost to Thorn River camp?
if it's 1 or 2 days the number of bandits should have been Four, not Eight
Sometimes you just need to get away.
Kingmaker is very free-form, sandbox. While that's great (I like this style), it does mean you need to be ready to run away from encounters you're not ready to handle yet, and come back to them when you are.
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I know the fight you are talking about. When my players went through it (also 5 players, level 1 and 20 point buy). They survived it by utilizing the cover the area provided. There was never a round that all the bandits could attack at once. At least, not with a clear shot. I suppose this only worked because someone made a good perception check.
We had a druid, summoner, bard, wizard and monk. No-one was particularly min-maxed (summoner pet was going for "human-like", druid had no animal companion, etc).
Operating off of some fading memories here, though. We played it when the books first came out.
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
Wow, that's umm, disappointing to hear. Its a wildly divergent play style for our little RP group (the GM is a relative newcomer to our gang of merry old rascals [most of us are low to mid 40's IRL]).
And the fighter went down in the FIRST round of combat: 1d8+2 damage is ferocious at first level. By the time we realised we were way over our heads, it was round two and half the party was wounded or down.
Also, we did scout, that's how we knew there were two snipers up in platforms in the trees. We did miss the two guys behind the logs, but we are very new to this style of play.
oops: fighter went down on round two not round one. My mistake on that.
I've never played Kingmaker, but I've heard it can be pretty lethal. As far as what you may or may not have done "wrong" that's going to be impossible to tell without a round-by-round re-enactment of the fight for us.
If you scouted and knew the snipers were there, what did you do then? Did you immediately engage them? Did you buff the party up and then engage them? Did you focus fire on them? Did you expose yourself or snipe from cover? Etc...
There's no reason that you can't "role play" combat to be more tactically effective if you are a role playing group.
It sounds like you ran into an encounter you probably should have run away from, but it's not going to be possible to say for sure. I would say that for future encounters you should investigate tactics of battlefield control and party buffing before going into combat. Maybe you did that and got whacked anyway, which happens.
I will have to find out about "cover" it is a new concept that i am not familiar with. Is it covered in the online rescources?
I will have to find out about "cover" it is a new concept that i am not familiar with. Is it covered in the online rescources?
It's pretty easy to position yourself to give ranged attacks (including some spells like rays) a -8 to hit you if you have cover and are in combat.Keep in mind other players and NPCs can count as "cover".
Cover is critical when you are being attacked at range. A common mistake I see many players make is to neglect their own ranged attack abilities. I've seen PCs that literally have NO ranged attack weapons and who complain in a ranged fight that they can't do anything. There is no excuse for any character to be unable to at least shoot a crossbow at ranged attackers.
You can also use spells like "obscuring mist" to give ranged attackers a hard time. Hopefully you GM understands the rules regarding firing into melee, so once you are engaged in melee with the enemy, that usually makes it much harder for their archers to hit you due to the -4 penalty for shooting into melee.
Terrain is also a tool to use to your advantage.
As the song says, "know when to fold up, know when to walk away, know when to run..."
Also, something that newbies don't often take into account is tactical maneuvering and cooperative tactics.
Obviously, I don't have all the details of your situation. But a few things come to mind.
- Take cover from archers or at least maneuver so there are more bad guys between you and the archers so they have a harder time hitting you.
- Keep moving so the dual wielding person has to keep closing with you to hit. If they don't get a full attack action they only get one attack. Unless they have some other ability which is less likely to be seen at low level.
- If the BBEG is focusing on one of your characters have that PC fight defensively or even go total defense while others attack it (especially a rogue getting sneak attacks). If one of the other PC's has no real offensive capability, they can aid another to increase the other PC's hit chance or defense.
- Since you were outnumbered it probably would not have been a good idea, but sometimes grappling or bull rushing someone can give you an advantage. Especially if they only have one really dangerous person.
- Might have worked better to set an ambush. Have a fast PC with good defense stumble onto their camp. When he seems to panic and run away he leads them to a point where they are hit by the rest of the PC's.
- I also have to say I think the GM was probably a bit unrealistic on the bandits actions. By the time they have taken 60% losses, typical bandits would be running away. Only fanatics, really elite units, or cornered opponents endure losses like that without running. But you actually see that alot in RPG's where nearly every fight is down to the last man standing.
- If the GM is also new, he may have been allowing the bad guys to do things that should not really have been allowed.
Cover is critical when you are being attacked at range. A common mistake I see many players make is to neglect their own ranged attack abilities. I've seen PCs that literally have NO ranged attack weapons and who complain in a ranged fight that they can't do anything. There is no excuse for any character to be unable to at least shoot a crossbow at ranged attackers.
You can also use spells like "obscuring mist" to give ranged attackers a hard time. Hopefully you GM understands the rules regarding firing into melee, so once you are engaged in melee with the enemy, that usually makes it much harder for their archers to hit you due to the -4 penalty for shooting into melee.
Terrain is also a tool to use to your advantage.
Thank you very much for the link. Wow, it is like high school geometry all over again. Thinking more and more i may not be a good fit to Pathfinder.
We almost had a total party wipe last night and i am trying to figure out where we, the players, goofed.
Background: 5 players, only one has played 3.x.pathfidner before, the other 4 of us are from more cinematic style games (no maps, very freeform fights), most of us really enjoy RP more than combat, but we acknowledge combat is necessary to advance the plots (and the characters).
One thing that you should look to do is take advantage of terrain.
Likewise the GM should get used to including whatever terrain is there on maps. It's very natural to just lay the map down, but reasonably there are trees, bushes and the like that can give cover, concealment, difficult terrain, etc.
Next, I might question the spell selection of the casters. Did they have anything to change the tide of battle for you, or were their choices more geared for other settings?
-James
He did a very nice paper map with squares that had all the terrain (trees, logs, bushes, a road and a small stream) on it. The issue was - that meant nothing to 80% of the party. We don't have the player experience with all the rules (see: my previous queries about cover) to understand what all that stuff was, i know I thought it was just "window dressing".
As for the casters: we had one first level cleric, he ended up using his two spells as heals. The sorceress used one mage armor and three magic missles. The bard used hideous laughter on one of the snipers and got lucky and the sniper fell out of the tree - that was how we started combat. The only other spell the bard had was grease (only knows two spells at level 1 and can only cast two spells total [with CHR bonus])
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First thing you did wrong was assume you were invincible and fought against superior odds. When the camp was alerted you should have withdrawn, fled the scene, and came back later, or spied on the camp and snipered easy victims until you had a better chance at victory.
The BIGGEST flaw of the game when 3.0 came out was create this idea of balance, that the players are always expected to win no matter what. I remember in 1st edition walking in a manor at first level and being hit with vampires and demons in the very first room because we looked at the wrong paintings! We had around 5 or so TPKs in that module before we got through the first level!
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.
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Sounds like you just went in a little too hot. Pathfinder is a great game with all kinds of opportunities for roleplay, but you need to be relatively careful in combat at low levels. (Look at it this way: it's not nearly as lethal as 1st Ed D&D was!)
Like the others said: scout carefully, being outnumbered sucks until you're around 8-10th level, always have an escape plan for when things go sour.
Also: never try a frontal assault on a well defended position. :P
First thing you did wrong was assume you were invincible and fought against superior odds. When the camp was alerted you should have withdrawn, fled the scene, and came back later, or spied on the camp and snipered easy victims until you had a better chance at victory.
The BIGGEST flaw of the game when 3.0 came out was create this idea of balance, that the players are always expected to win no matter what. I remember in 1st edition walking in a manor at first level and being hit with vampires and demons in the very first room because we looked at the wrong paintings! We had around 5 or so TPKs in that module before we got through the first level!
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 can't reference 3.x, the last time i played AD&D was 2nd edition. 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. But i do not game to be real - i play and GM to have fun, and certain death scenarios are not fun to me or the gang i play with.
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I can't reference 3.x, the last time i played AD&D was 2nd edition. 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. But i do not game to be real - i play and GM to have fun, and certain death scenarios are not fun to me or the gang i play with.<<snip stuff>>
The BIGGEST flaw of the game when 3.0 came out was create this idea of balance, that the players are always expected to win no matter what. <<snip stuff>>
I just cannot have fun in a game where I know before I sit down that I have a near 100% chance of always winning.
See, the difference is they CAN win by retreating... running away. If the players win every single time they fight, where is the challenge? When I play Pathfinder Society I am almost bored most of the time. "Yeah yeah throw some dice it's dead what do we do next? Wake me when something interesting happens. The gnome is dead! COOL!"
They have a choice, they can fight and die or they can run away and fight another day. The trust issue is the assumption that the 10th level party fighting the CR22 Red Dragon will survive if they run away (sure realistically they are hosed- the dragon tracks them down flies over head and burns them to a crisp as they run away- but trust me to not be cruel when you do the smart thing)... and trust me they will die if they are so arrogant they fight it.
These balanced games that use 30% of the resources each encounter get dull. Give me a fight where I am on the seat of my pants. Make me think! Make me worry! Every once in a while make me feel the sting of defeat (without TPK) so the sweet thrill of victory is sweeter!
Otherwise just wake me when the gnome dies... :)
There are alot of AP's designed with the idea in mind that you start off as a level 1 peon nobody and level up through the various modules to a nice ripe age of 13th or 14th level or something and retire at a nice old age. The encounters in the first book are for low level guys the stuff in the middle is for.. well, whatever level your guys are at.
Kingmaker doesn't really fit that mold. You find things of various levels all throughout- just like you would if you were *really* exploring the wilderness. None of that "No CR 12 dragons exist in the world because you are level 2" stuff. Its there, its alive, its hungry, and you are squishy and taste good- with or without ketchup. Its a very sand-boxy open campaign, and you have the choice to adapt to that style or die.
Or, of course, talk to the DM about changing AP's.
There is absolutely *nothing* wrong with not liking that style of game and going to chat with the DM about it is really an excellent way to solve the problem. The DM can either change AP's entirely or make sure to only toss stuff at you that you can defeat- in typical D&D style.
There is no bad/wrong way to play D&D- there is only fun. Find fun, and you've found the right way. If you aren't having fun, chat with the DM. Try to find solutions.
-S
Didn't say there weren't challenges and set backs in our games: bad guys get away, allied NPCs get hurt or killed. The last game we played before Pathfinder ended with a cliffhanger were the rightful queens was possed by a dark entity and killed despite everything we did to save her.
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This time, we were on the trail of the bandit camp. We got there and they had EIGHT bandits, all with (we later found out) longbows with a +2 STR mod. We tried to take out the first lookout (he was in a tree) but that alerted the camp and they all came after us. We tried using the spells we had. the fighters meleed, we did everything we could think of - but the elf fighter went down twice (cleric got him back up both times, but that took all his spells), and then this chick dual wielding hand axes ambushes us and almost takes down both the fighter and the paladin. By this point, five bandits were down, one had fled and we had the axe crazy chick and two bandits left. The elf and paladin took out one of the bandits, then the axe chick and started to flee (our first experience with the withdrawal maneuver - that was a shock to us, we didn't know that was possible), and the other bandit fled at that point as well. We were out of spells, the elf was down (for the third time) and the paladin and bard were wounded. If they NPCs had not fled, the party would have wiped.
...
The GM may have goofed it in reading the encounter, as the encounter is different depending on how fast the PC's get there,
how many days (game time) was it between defeating the bandits in the Outpost to Thorn River camp?
if it's One or Two days the number of bandits should have been Four, not Eight
By the way, you should consider this scenario a victory. The adventure assumes that the axe crazy chick will attempt to flee if brought to low hit points, and all remaining bandits will attempt to flee once she does.
So, even if you didn't kill all the bandits, you still defeated them, and you all survived to tell the tale. Plus now that you've assumed control of the camp, the bandits won't be able to return to such a forward position, which certainly counts as a victory.
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You could still be a good fit for Pathfinder you just need time to adjust. Some will argue the modules should be run as written. I tend to tailor them for my groups. If the players are less tactical I will adjust the challenges to match. I would have a talk with the GM so he/she knows this system is new to the players. Hopefully you can reach a point where the game works for everyone.
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First thing you did wrong was assume you were invincible and fought against superior odds. When the camp was alerted you should have withdrawn, fled the scene, and came back later, or spied on the camp and snipered easy victims until you had a better chance at victory.
The BIGGEST flaw of the game when 3.0 came out was create this idea of balance, that the players are always expected to win no matter what. I remember in 1st edition walking in a manor at first level and being hit with vampires and demons in the very first room because we looked at the wrong paintings! We had around 5 or so TPKs in that module before we got through the first level!
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.
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. Unless GM fiats it there was no way the party could have retreat safely.
Movement rules work great. For this scenario for example (from what I can interpret)...
PCs knock a guy to of the tree... he falls and alerts the camp. Eight bad guys grab weapons and head toward the PCs. Run away. Okay no problem. How do the movement rules prevent you from retreating safely?
Also the rules work great for running away. First round use Withdraw so first square does not provoke. Move at max speed away if possible. Every round after that double move or just Run. The bad guys double move or Run. They catch you but can't attack because it was a full round action just to catch you. They can never hit you as long as you double move or more or at least use Withdraw. Once in a great while they may get a swing on you. But ultimately you get away.
If you wait until you are surrounded by eight bad guys... yeah probably should have Withdrawn sooner...
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okay just for reference... assuming Kingmaker and it sounds like it is
First real fight in the book
One CR 1/2 Ranger wielding a +2 composite longbow
Three Cr 1/3 Bandits wielding regular longbows.
and some horses too. :)
tour fight but doable. Sounds like GM pumped it up a bit. Regardless, if I were a player and the GM said there were EIGHT foes advancing my way... I would be running away and rethinking my strategy.
Krome: It's not the first encounter, it's the bandit camp further south-west.
I can't believe no-one's noticed this:
1st level players with 90 gp worth of equipment faced down 8 npcs (presumably with NPC classes) who inexplicably had equipment worth more than the party's entire wealth put together. +2 comp MW longbows cost 600 gp each (you can't have a str bonus otherwise).
This doesn't invalidate other arguments about balance, retreat, etc. Even without the mechanical advantage, first levelers should be careful when outnumbered. But there is a certain degree to which this story sounds like: "We showed up with rusty flintlocks, they had AR-15s, we got our asses kicked."
Those +2 str bows are pure GM fail, characters that level shouldn't have them.
You are late to the party I said that about 90 GP 14 post back
2. According to the adventure, the longbows the bandits use don't have any strength rating.
So that was mess up. iether way a NPC can not aford Might Bow +2 till level 3 and Masterwork one till level 4.
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First thing you did wrong was assume you were invincible and fought against superior odds. When the camp was alerted you should have withdrawn, fled the scene, and came back later, or spied on the camp and snipered easy victims until you had a better chance at victory.
The BIGGEST flaw of the game when 3.0 came out was create this idea of balance, that the players are always expected to win no matter what. I remember in 1st edition walking in a manor at first level and being hit with vampires and demons in the very first room because we looked at the wrong paintings! We had around 5 or so TPKs in that module before we got through the first level!
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 generally attribute much of that "no running" attitude to attacks of opportunity and (on rare occasion) to abilities like pounce. If you run, you can find yourself getting hit even *more* than if you don't. Even Withdraw doesn't mitigate this for the front-liner, as they could easily have themselves in a spot where the ignore-the-first-square bit isn't enough.
This doesn't mean it isn't necessarily still a good idea to run, but it does mean that by the time you've determined that you should run, you're no longer guaranteed to be capable of running (e.g. the AoO would kill you and would likely hit). And even if you are, your conscious mind might not even consider it as your subconscious has filtered it out as the "too dangerous" option.
I may have to consider the ramifications of simply removing AoOs from my games entirely.
...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).