The Gaming Den

Ok, so the retreat rules in D&D are terrible, we all know this and this is in large part the reason why it is such a lethal game. If we want to make it less lethal we not only need to stop making players take a -4 penalty for using non-lethal damage but we also need to fix the retreat rules.

I have been thinking on this and here is something I've come up with. Tell me if this fixes anything.


Retreat

If combat seems hopeless you have the option of running away as an immediate action. You instantly become frightened even if you are immune to fear. You remain frightened until you can no longer detect any enemies nearby and 1 minute afterwards. You instantly gain another turn and all your movement speeds are set to 60 ft unless they are already 60 ft or higher, in which case you gain a +20 ft bonus. You also make all rolls to escape from a grapple, bonds or similar effects with a +4 bonus while you remain frightened.
If you are ever unable to flee then you cannot use this option. If you ever become unable to flee when using this option then you lose the frightened condition and become shaken for 1 minute instead.

Edge Option: While you remain frightened you do not provoke attacks of opportunity from leaving threatened squares of enemies over which you have the edge. You still provoke attacks of opportunity for other actions normally.

Special: if you are riding a mount when you use this option then it receives these bonuses as well.

That sounds good, but might be annoying for the players if the DM decides to spam that in fights. Especially if the DM has the rule "if you didn't kill them, you don't get XP", though nowadays that ruling makes me wanna chokeslam DMs who support such an idea.

Cool. Also, added an Edge Option for Tome games.

This isn't very "fixy". The bonuses to Retreat means you may as well write "you auto escape" in any kind of reasonable similar match up. Your bonuses however aren't big enough to get you away from something with a stupidly high move speed or a ludicrously large grapple bonus, which will still be bad enough to be "you auto don't escape".

"You auto escape (or auto not)" is the problem with d20 style chase mechanics as they stand. Fiddling about and moving that tipping point around is just shifting deck chairs on the Titanic.

People won't exactly be fighting monsters that are too fast or too big right out of the bat. These rules are means to make retreating at lower levels more viable while at higher levels people should have some form of magic to help them escape.

That is the idea anyway.

These houserules are outright ass. And not like hot bikini ass - more like stinky hairy ass after a few too many microwave burritos.

They let characters get turns out of turn, they don't let escaping characters get out of range of spells or bows, the don't let escaping characters who don't have movement features even match the speed of monsters at their expected CR nor of classes which get movement bonuses and the encourage fleeing characters to put on blindfolds and cover their ears to remove penalties.

Just fucking come out and say "You're safe if you make it to the edge of the battlemat, but you cannot re-enter the combat after that" - it's videogamey as hell, but it gives a reasonable escape option that's clear to players and easy to adjudicate.

People won't exactly be fighting monsters that are too fast or too big right out of the bat.

Have you even read the monster manual?

CR 1, Speed 50' - which is faster than an armored human or unarmored dwarf, gnome or halfling who is benefiting from your escape speed boost.

CR 1, speed 60, available as starting PC equipment

CR 1/4, potential of speed 80

CR 2, Fly 100 ft

CR 2, Fly 60' with perfect maneuverability and a side helping of Teleport sans Error.

CR 2, 500' speed charge once per hour . Note that "Speed" is what a character moves in a single move action - so the actual charge can be up to 1000' feet.

CR 1, 200' speed as full-round action

CR 2, teleport 720' ft per round as a free action on top of a 40' move

Josh_Kablack wrote: Just fucking come out and say "You're safe if you make it to the edge of the battlemat, but you cannot re-enter the combat after that" - it's videogamey as hell, but it gives a reasonable escape option that's clear to players and easy to adjudicate.

I had that house rule at one point. Except it wasn't because I wanted an escape rule, it's because I was tired of one of my players spending all his movement every round to move farther and farther off the battle mat. It was pissing me off, so I made that rule.

80% of Joshes complaints are utter bullshit but I am not going to go over each one and explain why they are ass.

Instead I'll focus on the one complaint that is actually valid. The speed bonus was too small so I upped it to a level where it can allow PCs to escape most dangers early game dangers. Now, the few enemies that are actually fast enough to prevent the PCs from escaping is part of what makes them threatening, so I am not going to do anything about that.

I think that retreat mechanics should be generalized into chase mechanics.

I ain't too familiar with the chase mechanics. Mainly because I have never seen any DM actually try and use them.

I'm not sure how we'd integrate them in.

Well, I don't think there actually are any chase mechanics in D&D, other than, "if you are faster, you win," and, "if you are the same speed, roll endurance," but After Sundown has them.

Also, Really Abstract Locations says something like, "if you can retreat some number of locations away from the enemy and keep going, you get away."

A simple approach might be to trigger a retreat boost based on being low on HP (below half?). Perhaps you get a boost to your speed while using the Withdraw option (x3, or maybe even x4) instead of x2, and maybe you get a defensive boost as well during this time to AC and saves. It would allow you to outrun and outmaneuver chargers. You'd still be limited based on speed, so a lot of what Josh listed would still out run you, but maybe that's okay. Maybe that's what makes that type of encounter dangerous.

RadiantPhoenix wrote:Well, I don't think there actually are any chase mechanics in D&D, other than, "if you are faster, you win," and, "if you are the same speed, roll endurance," but After Sundown has them."

I read over those and liked them. If skills worked properly in D&D, it might not be too hard to port them over.

RobbyPants wrote:I read over those and liked them. If skills worked properly in D&D, it might not be too hard to port them over.

I don't think that having it use skills directly is a good idea, because it means that when you run into something you're actually scared of, you can't escape, because it's higher level than you.

RadiantPhoenix wrote:

RobbyPants wrote:I read over those and liked them. If skills worked properly in D&D, it might not be too hard to port them over.

I don't think that having it use skills directly is a good idea, because it means that when you run into something you're actually scared of, you can't escape, because it's higher level than you.

How would you do it?

Although, running into stuff significantly higher level than you tends to be pretty terribad, anyway. I'm not sure there are many ways around that.

RobbyPants wrote:How would you do it?

A special, opposed, 'chase' check which you can make skill checks to get a small bonus
1d20 + some combination of
* CON bonus, because it needs to do something active
* A logarithmic function of your speed, probably about +4 for each doubling
* Synergy bonus from various athletic skills where appropriate: DC 15 check to get +2 personally
* Synergy bonus from an appropriate knowledge skill for the terrain: DC 15 check for +2 to the party
* Synergy bonus to escape from stealth skills, DC 20 for +2 personally
* Synergy bonus to pursue for listen and spot, DC 20 for +2 if the other guy is trying to use either stealth skill
* Various feats that seem like they should help, but don't already add a bonus.

And then you can interact with terrain features or use class abilities to make things more difficult for the other guy, like jumping over a chasm or throwing a tanglefoot bag.

That's potentially a lot of dice rolling. Are you talking about rolling all of those skills up front to get a total mod you use for the entire chase, or do you have to roll those every time you attempt to allude/run down someone?

RobbyPants wrote:That's potentially a lot of dice rolling. Are you talking about rolling all of those skills up front to get a total mod you use for the entire chase, or do you have to roll those every time you attempt to allude/run down someone?

That's a good point. I was originally going to just use straight-up synergy bonuses for all the skills, but that leaves first level characters in the lurch.

Perhaps replace all the skill checks with, "If you have 5 ranks, +2; if you are level 1 and have 4 ranks, get +1"?

EDIT: added [ s ], because a character shouldn't be penalized for leveling up.

It's quick and dirty, and could work, although enough synergy stacking could get you a +10 on the guy which would make it very unlikely he'd escape/catch you.

The biggest hole I see in this is once you've hit five ranks (level 2), there's no more scaling by level. The only way to scale it is to either pick up more skills/feats or boost your Con mod. Is that intentional?

RobbyPants wrote:The biggest hole I see in this is once you've hit five ranks (level 2), there's no more scaling by level. The only way to scale it is to either pick up more skills/feats or boost your Con mod. Is that intentional?

Yes. The purpose of the system is to allow people to run away from a losing battle some of the time. If you are losing, you probably ran into something that's significantly higher level than you, so the system should not make it enormously/impossibly difficult to run away from someone with more levels.

EDIT: Also, if you are using a variant ruleset in which skills are either trained or untrained rather than having ranks, I would suggest just having 'trained' +2, and not use the +1 at all.

It's 5 ranks for +2 because I wanted it to match up with skill synergy.