Hindered Chase Through City Streets

[OneViGOR]

Hey guys,

I've been running a campaign for a few months and my players have grown quite attached to it. However, my last session was a bit disappointing, revolving around a chase sequence that turned out to be quite a mess. I'm determined now to make the next session as good as possible.

The scenario I have in mind is as follows. The players have been trying to guard some treasures from a cult for some time. Only now, the cult have recruited a small army of mercenaries to their cause and are attacking in full force. Assuming they manage to get their hands on the case containing the treasures, they must then carry them through some city streets (which would be relatively quiet) and get the case onto an airship to be taken away. The rest of the mercenaries are prepared to attack anyone following the carrier, some of them mounted on hippogriffs in flight.

It makes a pretty epic and cinematic scene in my head, but I worry that translating it to a roleplay setting may be a bit on the ambitious side. I'm unsure whether to make this more chase-focused or more combat-focused. I'm concerned that if it's mainly chase it involves missing out on a lot of the potential action and making for a less interesting encounter. At the same time, basing it too heavily on combat may make it too easy to lose the guy they're chasing, not that they should be easy to catch.

It's important to note that these mercenaries aren't as interested in killing the player party as acquiring the treasures. Once they've acquired the treasures they would most likely retreat.

I'm open to suggestions on how to handle a scenario such as this, if you have any to offer. Many of the details mentioned are open to be changed if it's necessary to improve the gameplay.

Thanks!

OneViGOR

[Garfunion]

Why aren't the hippogriffs transporting the case? I would replace the hippogriffs with rooftop mercenaries (maybe temporarily enchanted with jump & spider climb spells).

[Laserlight]

The difficulty with having a chase scene with the PCs as the pursuers is that they don't really have any choices.
"What do you do?"
"I continue chasing them."
"How do you chase them?"
"I, uh, take the same route that they take. Only faster."
"You don't cut down any alleyways, or through any buildings?"
"Only if they do. I'm just following them."

Most of the chase scenes I recall have the heroes being chased. They can take the riskier actions (racing across the rooftops, leaping over wagons, knocking down tentpoles or baskets of fruit, etc) to reduce the number of pursuers.
Off the top of my head, when the hero is doing the pursuing, he's usually mounted, and fights his way through guards to get to the coach / wagon containing the McGuffin; he then leaps onto the conveyance and holds off the remainder of the guards, or something of that sort.

Whatever you do, give the players meaningful choices. "Here's a group of young women with babies, blocking your way. What do you do? You can charge through them, probably knocking some over, or you can go around them, with a possible delay, or you can do something else" rather than "Make a DEX roll. Okay, you avoid the crowd."

If you have a few hours to invest, TVTropes has a Chase Scene page.

[OneViGOR]

The difficulty with having a chase scene with the PCs as the pursuers is that they don't really have any choices.

This is essentially what was wrong with the first chase I did. The heroes just wanted to "run faster" and that was hardly a satisfying encounter.

Perhaps it would make more sense to replace the hippogriff riders with enhanced mercs.

Would it make sense to simply lay out the environment and scatter enemies around? If the players decide to engage them they can, but make sure they understand that doing so will allow the runner to escape. Does that sound like a sensible encounter?

[Mhl7]

Out of my mind, you can try something like this.

Set a Chase Distance Counter (from now on CDC). Say a number from 1 to 5.

I assume that the scene starts with the chase already going.

At the beginning the CDC is 1: the PC are close behind.
Step 1: Encounter: some mercenaries stops the PC on their track and want to fight them. Resolve the encounter. Set a number of rounds, say 2. If the PC manage to win the encounter within 2 rounds they resume the chase at CDC 1, else they lose as much as the number of rounds they take to finish the encounter minus 2. For instance if they win within 4 rounds the CDC increases of +2.

Step 2: Chase Scene 1: they run in the streets. If the CDC is 1, they can see the enemies and follow them. If the CDC is 2 or more they need to make a Survival Check to follow the track. If they succeed nothing changes, if they fail the CDC increases by 1, if they succeed by more than 10, the CDC decreases by 1 . Ask the PC if they want to do something in particular to gain an advantage (for instance 'take side alleyways', 'climb on the roof to avoid the traffic'). If they do you can make up a relevant check (Survival, Athletics, ecc..) or simply adjudicate the outcome. If they succeed the CDC is reduced by 1.
You can also add complications here: 'a truck crosses the street, make a group Athletics check to jump over it'. Success, nothing happens, failure the CDC is increased by 1.

Repeat Step1 and 2 as you see fit. I would suggest 2 or 3 times each. Changing every time the nature of the encounter or of the complication.

If the CDC reaches 5, the chase is lost. They can continue follow but, unless they come up with some genius plan, they reach the flying ship just in time to see it take off with their goods.

You can decide that the CDC can be decreased to 0. In that case the PC menage to reach the case-bearer and his escort and there is a combat encounter to regain the treasure. However, I would advise against this and go for the following.

Otherwise you can decide that they can never decrease the CDC below 1 and that, for any result between 1 and 4 at the end of the chase, they will have a very cinematic stand off on the bridge of the flying vessel. The difficulty of the encounter depends on the CDC. For a CDC of 1 the case-bearer just arrived at the ship and is still in the open. With a CDC of 4 the ship is already moving and the PC need to grab on some loose rope to get on board.

[OneViGOR]

The CDC is a nice idea. I can understand why you wouldn't increase it during the start of combat for the purposes of balance, but I'm not seeing an easy way to justify that in the narrative unless they are fighting while on the run, which would seem odd. And of course the guy with the case isn't just going to stop and wait for two turns.

Still, it's probably the best solution so far and most likely what I'll end up using. Thank you very much. :D

[Mhl7]

The CDC is a nice idea. I can understand why you wouldn't increase it during the start of combat for the purposes of balance, but I'm not seeing an easy way to justify that in the narrative unless they are fighting while on the run, which would seem odd. And of course the guy with the case isn't just going to stop and wait for two turns.

Still, it's probably the best solution so far and most likely what I'll end up using. Thank you very much. :D

You can decide to increase it at the start of the combat. It was just the first thing that came to my mind. Two rounds are 12 seconds delay. I am not sure how much relevant they are in this case.

If you increase it, you should simply balance it during the Chase Scene Step. Like, add more ways to decrease it. 'You are sure that, if you can collapse that water tower 100ft ahead, you will slow down your enemies' stuff like this.

Disclaimer: The numbers are all made up on the spot, so I don't claim that they are fair. I just went with my guts.

[OneViGOR]

You can decide to increase it at the start of the combat. It was just the first thing that came to my mind. Two rounds are 12 seconds delay. I am not sure how much relevant they are in this case.

If you increase it, you should simply balance it during the Chase Scene Step. Like, add more ways to decrease it. 'You are sure that, if you can collapse that water tower 100ft ahead, you will slow down your enemies' stuff like this.

Disclaimer: The numbers are all made up on the spot, so I don't claim that they are fair. I just went with my guts.

Ah, I see. Fair enough. They look like some pretty good numbers to start with but I may consider the precise balancing a little more before I run the adventure. Thank you again. :)

[Regitnui]

This is also a good place for skill challenges in noncombat rounds; say each party/person makes an Athletics check, using that as initiative. Then, each following round they repeat the skill check, or any other they can deem appropriate. Say after the initial skill checks the thieves are ahead: the rogue can use Dexterity (Athletics) to try catch up, the barbarian can roll Strength to attempt throwing an object or obstacle in the thieves' path, the wizard Intelligence to figure out a route to cut them off or Arcana to cut them off with strategic spell... You get the idea. Maybe combine with the Combat Count idea above.