I’m asking either from either a player or GM’s perspective.
By the rules it seems extremely difficult to get away from a losing fight. Yeah sure, the party can get away if there is something holding the opponent in place. Undead tied to a site, swamp creature reach out of the much to attack, too big to fit in the passageway, etc… And of course a flying, teleporting, or very fast monster can get away if it doesn’t mind leaving behind its comrades. But those feel like the exceptions.
A huge portion of the time it is humanoids fighting humanoids. With probably a few in at least medium armor. So it seems like you can never get away unless you sacrifice the dwarves and fighters really really often. So a lot of fights have the potential to be to-the-bloody-end. The team doesn’t want to leave a friend behind. By the rules, evasion tactics rarely have much chance to succeed. The players know this, so they rarely try.
From the GM side it really doesn’t cause me too much heart burn. Ok the remaining bugbears try to run and the party chases them down to finish them off. Bla bla bla… It’s not that big a deal. (Though it makes a reoccurring villain that can’t teleport very tough.) Except, since nearly nothing ever gets away I think that predisposes the party to not try to get away. It never works on them, why should we try it?
Besides it really is usually harder for the party to get away. More monsters fly long before that is a common PC ability. Many of them are substantially faster than the PC’s. A lot of them have better senses than PC’s. It seems like almost anytime an opponent is powerful enough that the party might want to run, they have no realistic chance to run.
For example, last week we unexpectedly encountered a black dragon in the out of doors at the edge of a swamp. We rolled rather pathetically at our diplomacy checks to avoid a fight. I think the GM just took pity on us because we could see no way for anyone but the kobold (riding the bat) to escape if a fight broke out. If we scattered one more might have made it (the magus may have been able to recall enough expeditious retreats to get out of sight). The rest would have died.
I have seen exactly one very tactical group that makes this a priority. First priority is the click stick. Second priority was 1 item each to get past magic/silver/coldiron/adamantine damage reduction. Third priority was escape. EVERYONE in the group was expected to buy at least 1 potion of invisibility and fly as soon as possible. Long before magic armor, resistances, stat items, etc… Then everyone had to get something to dimension door, or teleport, or whatever. But that is the only group I know of that does this.
Every other group does not make this a planned for event. Maybe they should, but they don’t. Almost every other player I have seen will get several things to make themselves more powerful or better defended long before they try to get anything to help with running away.
What is the point of this long rambling monologue? I’m trying to figure out a better way of handling this both as a player and a GM.
As a player: I can try and get the group to be more tactically aware and devote some equivalent resources early. But I don’t know if that will go over very well. At least 2 of the players I find it hard to imagine them buying anything else until they get their ‘big 6’ items. I can buy something for me. But from what I can tell, if you keep successfully running away (and being one of the few survivors) then you are a piece of carp player for leaving your friends behind all the time. So you have to stay to the bloody end because they have to stay to the bloody end. What have your groups done?
As a GM: I’m not exactly sure how to encourage intelligent behavior (ie running away when it makes sense). They know the rules at least as well as if not better than me, so they usually know that by the rules they got no chance. I was considering some rules modifications to make it work more often, but I really didn’t know how to go about it. One of the few times they actually tried it, I used some acrobatics checks and then set the DC stupidly low to let them get away. How have you been handling it?
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I think the "impossibility" of PCs escaping a losing fight is, at best, an excuse (even in those cases where it might be true).
The truth is that PCs -- including me, when I'm on the other side of the screen -- simply hate like hell to run. We hate to lose. We hate it, and because of that we're willing to try to roll two miracle crits in a row rather than attempt to retreat.
The issue is exacerbated when the party is composed of heroic -- as opposed to mercenary or anti-heroic -- archetypes.
Another factor is that, by nature, PFRPG combat is pretty swingy. It can be legitimately difficult to judge, early enough to make the tough decision to escape and then to execute it, whether or not an encounter is simply too tough to beat.
It took a long, long time, but (for the most part) I've trained my players to retreat (or at least to try) from a too-tough encounter. How?
(1) I flat-out told them, "Not all encounters will be weighted in favor of the PCs. To avoid PC death, you will have to run sometimes. Sometimes, you'll have to do even worse, like give up treasure!" (Man, if players hate running, and we do, our hatred for being extorted by enemies burns with the white heat of a thousand suns. A group that can do it is an extremely formidable group.)
(2) I almost always give them a chance at revenge, redemption, or recovery.
(3) I roll all attack rolls and saves in the open. While the "AC bracketing" meta-gaming sometimes gives me a middlin' peeve, it's minor, and I find the benefits heavily outweigh that drawback.
(4) If the dice come up that way, I kill PCs.
(5) I usually let them get away if they actually try. Look, a stat-block might well say that a monster can catch and kill fleeing PCs, but the stat-block doesn't say everything about a monster. There are a bajillion reasons a monster might not pursue, from the prosaic (too lazy) to the overly clever ("they're leading me away from my home turf and into a trap").
BTW, if absolutely nothing else, don't handle the escape via the stat-block. Make it a chase, using the chase rules from the GMG (or the card-set). Give the PCs a chance to get away if you want to see them make the attempt occasionally.
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There are ways for players to retreat.
First the group should get into position suitable for retreat. To get into a position suitable for retreat the players may want to use Total Defense, granting a +4 bonus to AC for the round. A suitable position is one where your initial starting square is the only one that will provoke attacks of opportunity. This may require teamwork, such as moving through friendly squares to stop following attackers.
Finally, once you are in a suitable position for retreat use the Withdraw action. It is a full round action allowing you to move up to twice your movement. Once you have left the initial combat, it is nearly impossible for the enemy to attack you again.
Once you are free you can use the Run action, a full round action, allowing you to move up to 4x your move speed for a number of rounds equal to your Con score.
The attackers MUST use full round actions to follow the fleeing PCs. That means if they manage to catch up to the PCs, they still cannot attack, since they used a full round action to regain position. The PCs continue using either Withdraw or Run as needed. Regardless the attackers can never manage to get off an attack (other than maybe a lucky attack of opportunity every once in a while- and then only if the PCs make a big mistake).
Additionally the fleeing PCs might be able to use Free or Swift Actions to knock things over to impede the following attackers. Acrobatics is also extremely useful for moving through threatened squares, climbing or jumping or crossing difficult ledges making more obstacles for the following attackers to fall behind.
In essence the truth is that once the players begin using full round actions to retreat, forcing the attackers to use full round actions to keep up, the combat is in essence over.
Krome, taking a double move doesn't often help you escape, since an enemy can still charge you, moving up to double his speed AND still getting an attack.
Even if you do get out of immediate harm's way, such as by breaking the line of a charge with your double move by going around a corner, you still aren't guaranteed to have escaped. GameMastery Guide has rules for chases, and they allow for two targets with identical speeds to overtake/outrun one another. Even if you manage to escape the encounter under those rules, then there are still things like divinations, tracking, and teleportation that can bring the encounter right back to the escapee.
This game abstracts things for convenience, but that doesn't mean you can use said abstraction to say "I automatically escape" due to the turn-based nature of the game. This game is rooted in fantasy literature, and in most fantasy stories, chase scenes always involve the risk of the hunter catching his prey.
If one of my players turned to me and said "He has no hope of catching me due to the turn-based nature of the game" or "I can continue to take actions because the 'dead' condition doesn't say otherwise" or something equally ridiculous, I'm going to laugh in his face.
Web, entangle and similar spells are usually my get away: front liners hold initiative if necessary, move back after monsters turn, and caster casts AoE rough terrain spell. Then run like hell! Unless the monster is A LOT faster (like a base speed of 60+ vs party 20-30) you should have a good chance of escape. Also shape stone, wall of stone, wall of X (there are a couple) or anything else that can create a temporary barrier is good. The idea is you just need to have 2-3 rounds of retreating to be able to theoretically successfully escape. Summoned creatures can also work for the same purpose.
Now in open air/no cover terrain vs a flying creature (like a dragon) your options are a bit more limited. Well...actually if you are fighting a dragon that is way out of your CR either your DM is a dick/bad DM, you made a HORRIBLE MISTAKE somewhere, it is a plot device (I was in a TPK in the first session to be resurrected as the way to move the plot...I was angry for a bit but it was a new twist for me), or there is something around that you should be able to use (hey look a balista!).
Now for GM...well you set up the environment. If you plan to have your creatures retreat you can cheat a little and set it up to make it easier for them. I actually had a game where they were trying to attack a Drow city thru this long corridor and had checkpoints and when possible had my drow flee to the next one making each one more unpleasant.
In conclusion it is not too difficult for either players or GM to retreat.
I wrote up a recurring enemy pair at one point for a play group of 9. I never got to play them, unfortunately, but they were well suited to play keep-away and stay away.
1. The pairing was an Illusionist Wizard and a Callistrian Anti-Paladin, both Elves, with the AP going Longbow focused.
2. Both wore Boots of Springing and Striding. Both had the Run feat.
3. Both were intelligent foes that would utilize terrain and ambush tactics with clear escape routes.
4. The Illusionist had Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus. Will saves on her spells were quite high.
5. Both had Contingencies on them (the AP had a very high UMD score and used scrolls) to teleport to a designated location if they were "heavily wounded" (25% or fewer HP remaining).
It's much, much harder to play keep-away if you follow combat-only rules and do not have an escape plan.
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I handle my retreats...
...expeditiously.
YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
I handle my retreats...
...expeditiously.
YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
And when that fails you just gotta be faster than the next guy
In my current pathfinder game I play a Zen Archer who was hired to be a bodyguard for another player who plays a scholar. He usually retreats before combat begins, and comes back from hiding under tables after I've flurried everything to hell.
I guess we can't all be heroes : /
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Always have an exit strategy. That's life with combat as war.
Chase rules are ok but they tend to favor heavily those with good physical stats.
Not necessarily, there's plenty of opportunities for perception, knowledge, bluff and the like, plus magic can provide some hefty bonuses to those physical checks.
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Not necessarily, there's plenty of opportunities for perception, knowledge, bluff and the like, plus magic can provide some hefty bonuses to those physical checks.Always have an exit strategy. That's life with combat as war.
Chase rules are ok but they tend to favor heavily those with good physical stats.
I tried telling my players that but every chase I ran went like this;
Monk and Ranger engage in a who can do better contest and have a blast. Wizard flicks his mini over and says "you caught me what happens?"|
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Yeah it all comes down to fun and that player has no fun with them. Cant win them all. I nix'd the crit/fumble decks because I don't like them. Everybody has their hang ups.
Back on topic, it wouldn't hurt to install a back up plan. If your players refuse to back out of a fight use life saver, er, I mean hero points. Instead of a TPK it turns into left for dead nursed back to health by traveling NPCs. Or PCs are captured and need to find a way to escape. Keeps the game the going even though the PCs failed. Just a thought.
Depending on the situation, you could:
1) Attempt a feint and run
"Hey look! An airplane!"
*BBEG looks up*
*Runs away*
or
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I think the "impossibility" of PCs escaping a losing fight is, at best, an excuse (even in those cases where it might be true).
The truth is that PCs -- including me, when I'm on the other side of the screen -- simply hate like hell to run. We hate to lose. We hate it, and because of that we're willing to try to roll two miracle crits in a row rather than attempt to retreat.
The issue is exacerbated when the party is composed of heroic -- as opposed to mercenary or anti-heroic -- archetypes.
My group runs tons, especially at lower levels.
First PF game I played there was an advanced owlbear in the first forest we ran into in a sandbox game, according to local legend a cursed elven knight. For the rest of the game, we ran from that owlbear, until we broke level 11 and someone figured out how to remove the curse. Just never was worth it to fight it before then.
Same campaign, we were spotted sneaking around in a hostile city and the rest of the session turned into the Benny Hill theme song.
Campaign before that, I'd say one-third to half of our encounters ended in a fighting retreat on our part.
Campaign after that, GM threw a Taiga Linnorm at the group at level 1, just to remind us that running was a good idea sometimes.
We tend to gloss over the running bit, occasionally using chase rules. It's just the right amount of complexity and gives an opportunity for some creativity with skill checks. Without some generous application of the chase rules we wouldn't have had a chance at running from the Linnorm, anyway.
Another factor is that, by nature, PFRPG combat is pretty swingy. It can be legitimately difficult to judge, early enough to make the tough decision to escape and then to execute it, whether or not an encounter is simply too tough to beat.
This can be more of an issue. Most of my group's best retreats occur before real engagement, when the PCs recognize a threat they don't want to face and have at least a move action's distance between them and the enemy. Gets a lot more complicated if you're taking AoO as you try to disengage or already at low hit points - one of the worst situations my group got into was an enemy built to prevent retreat, so when it went bad we didn't have any decent options.
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I wonder if you can devise some strategem around first running away, then stopping and readying lots of actions to focus fire on the first pursuer to reach the retreating party? Won't always work (especially against single monsters, obviously), but it might be a way to divide-and-conquer enemies of roughly your own level.
This works out especially well if your party has a more generous allowance for rounds spent running (high Con, Run feats...) and not all of the enemy have the same speed or Con.
Other than that, you could draw up an escape plan based on the fast characters creating distractions (smoke, fog, illusions, caltrops, entangle) to give the slower characters enough time to get away.
Given the finite amount of rounds anyone can spend running, any time you steer an enemy into the wrong direction for a round (illusion?) wins you two rounds worth of distance.
Lots of ways to successfully retreat, but unless you've got something boosting your speed, or are up against a slow enemy, simply running isn't likely to work.
Get on the horses, cast expeditious retreat, throw down the caltrops and the marbles, grease the floors, run up the stairs and trip them when they try to follow, cut the rope bride behind you or just bull rush them over the edge, scramble for the rooftops and pray they have bad climb modifiers, dispel their flight, put a wall of stone/ice/force/iron or a blade barrier across the door, hold some portals, drop obscuring mist on an intersection so they have to guess which way you're going, throw a shiny bit of treasure or a summoned monster to distract them while you run, and so on.
It helps to have a spell to cover your retreat. A wall (Silent Image might be good enough), or a fog works well.
Other things:
* Have someone with reach and lots of attacks of opportunity cover your retreat.
* Turn a corner so they can't see you.
* Turn a corner so they can't charge you.
* Turn a corner and stay there with a readied attack.
* Even when you haven't turned a corner, readied attacks can be generally useful to discourage humanoids; nobody likes being shot or hit.
And of course run away early rather than when it's already too late.Last session our ranger peeked around a corner, got hit, and immediately ran away. We just weren't interested in that fight.
I find simply telling players to have a spare potion of Invisibility (300gp) to work just fine for escapes.