I think we should run away

[Rosstin]

Anyone else have this happen to them?

I often find myself in games where I'm playing a level 1 character with no previous adventuring experience in a party of other level 1s who are gung-ho to take on a dungeon. And I always wonder... what kind of insane people are these guys?

When we're fighting in an encounter that is way past our ability, my character is usually the one thinking: why are we fighting this monster? We're losing! We're going to die! We should have just gone around it! But my party is always gung-ho, let's do this thing! Why are you running away? And somehow things work out, even though we're fighting a demon with a huge CR that should have destroyed us.

I guess I usually play cowardly characters.

Anyway, it got me thinking. As a DM, I think if I ran a campaign with combat again, I'd like to do one where at least 30% of the combats in the early part of the game are unwinnable. You shouldn't get into these fights, and if you do, you should run away! Some of them, it might even be possible to win, if you're clever and find a weakness, but you shouldn't take it on faith that there always is one. Sometimes, you just can't win... some opponents are unbeatable under certain circumstances, like the peasants who found the sleeping Tarrasque.

Just some thoughts. I haven't DMed a full campaign for years (I take it way too seriously-- a flaw of being a game designer), but sometimes I like to think about the philosophies I would use to build one.

[Jack of Spades]

Depending on the character, I generally consider running away as an option in any given fight. It helps that I tend not to think of the math of the game, and even at high levels I'm looking more at what an adversary's apparent in-character power level is rather than what I expect it to be mechanically.

So, I pretty much know for a fact that I've run away from fights I probably would have won because it seemed like the right thing for the character to do in that situation.

It might factor in that I often get a kick out of playing cowards with big mouths.

[Kol Korran]

It really depends on the sort of expectstions the GM and the players set about when discussing the game at first. D&D was originally built as a fairly "balanced" (Or at least striving to be) system, where the basic assumptions is that the PCs are supposed to be able to tackle 95% of the challenges they face, even if some are quite hard.

For quite a few people, this is a great part of the appeal in the system. They WANT to feel like cool super powered bad asses. And that's fine. Others like the game to be super challenging, where you have to weigh your options, and choose your battles only when you got the upper hand, because damn! these things would kill ya! And that's fine as well.

But it's important, VERY important to discuss this as a gaming group before you even start playing. This is the contract between GM and players, and it should be accepted by all.

Personally? I love the unwinnable battle every some time. Being able to run away from a high powered pursuing enemy can be just as rewarding as beating it.

[Saph]

It really depends on the sort of expectstions the GM and the players set about when discussing the game at first. D&D was originally built as a fairly "balanced" (Or at least striving to be) system, where the basic assumptions is that the PCs are supposed to be able to tackle 95% of the challenges they face, even if some are quite hard.

Kinda.

The very early editions of D&D were built much less around the 'combat as sport' model, where it was expected that the PCs could beat everything, and more around the 'do whatever it takes' model. Since you didn't even get any real XP from killing monsters, there was an incentive to run away from/negotiate with/sneak past most enemies rather than killing them, so that you could get to the important stuff – the loot.

It wasn't until later editions that adventures started to be designed on the assumption that the PCs would fight everything in the dungeon (because that was what they were getting XP for).

Personally, I like to think of your aggression/cowardice as one of the main ways you roleplay your character. If your PC is willing to fight a seemingly overpowering monster for no very obvious reason, well, then that says something about them. If your first reaction is 'screw that, I'm out of here' then that says something different!

[PairO'Dice Lost]

D&D was originally built as a fairly "balanced" (Or at least striving to be) system, where the basic assumptions is that the PCs are supposed to be able to tackle 95% of the challenges they face, even if some are quite hard.

On the contrary, AD&D didn't have any CR-equivalent for determining whether a given encounter is level-appropriate, and it was expected that many encounters were in the "run away or die" category (less so for published modules, more so for hexcrawls and "killer dungeons").

Even the more regulated 3e framework expects that 20% of encounters will have a good chance of killing at least one PC, a quarter of which might end up in a TPK. The supposed "4 encounters per day of even CR" guideline is actually just an average between "PCs can very easily handle this" encounters and "a PC will likely die" encounters.

You're definitely right that this is something to discuss in each group, though. Some people love mowing through tons of mooks, some find it a boring grind-fest; some people like always facing boss-level set-piece encounters, some feel like it forces them to work too hard to keep up. D&D can do any style you want, from PCs-as-unstoppable-badasses to PCs-as-cautious-cowards, as long as you work out expectations upfront.

EDIT: Swordsage'd by Saph. Good points there; I forgot to mention how "encounters" being the main source of XP as opposed to treasure drastically changed the playstyle between early AD&D and late 3e, but it's kind of a big deal when determining whether to fight that dragon or grab its hoard and run away from it.

[Rhynn]

I often find myself in games where I'm playing a level 1 character with no previous adventuring experience in a party of other level 1s who are gung-ho to take on a dungeon. And I always wonder... what kind of insane people are these guys?

This is a system and playstyle thing. D&D 3.X and D&D 4E especially are built around the assumption that the PCs will face "appropriate" challenges.

Old-school D&D, and many other RPGs, work differently - many lack any way to (supposedly) measure the difficulty of an encounter to begin with.

In old-school D&D, running away is one of your most valuable tactics, and a good reason to make sure the party isn't overburdened and slowed down. In dungeon encounter, the distances are so short that movement rates don't appear to have any use - even with 30' movement, you can easily reach opponents in one round. But the real use of movement rates is to compare them - can you outrun the enemy and get away?

I'm still in the midst of running B4 The Lost City (a BECM D&D module for 1st-level PCs), and my players haven't run away from any fights so far, but they've paid the price in casualties: 2 PCs dead, 2-3 henchmen dead, 2-3 more henchmen with permanent, often crippling wounds. The closest they came to retreat was when a group of ghouls attacked them and paralyzed most of the party - the two mages were about to beat a retreat (one advantage of being a mage is that you're usually lightly loaded and at full movement), but fired off some parting shows and killed a ghoul, causing the remaining one to fail its morale check and flee!

Similarly, old-school outdoor encounters are terrifying for low-level PCs: they can run into wyverns, ogres, and hordes of humanoids that can easily kill them. Avoiding such encounters (ACKS provides simple rules) or running away is critically important (and a great reason to travel mounted!).

Further, editions from AD&D 2E onwards focused the game, mechanically, on defeating enemies: 2E made XP-for-treasure a sidenote optional rule, and 3E and 4E removed it altogether. In older editions, 75% or more of the available XP comes from treasure! (Run the numbers on some modules like The Village of Hommlet, and you'll come up with something like 3000-5000 XP available from combat, not counting random encounters, and a good 15,000-20,000 XP available from treasure.) This meant the PCs were incentivized to find ways to get the treasure that didn't involve dangerous and deadly combat - stealth, negotiation, trickery, bribery, and other tactics.

(Fun fact: in AD&D 2E, XP for defeating enemies is still pathetically low, but the "individual awards" that replaced XP-for-treasure are even more pitiful, leading to far, far, far slower advancement than in any previous edition of D&D, including AD&D 1E.)

Basically, if the system or playstyle or GM doesn't run the game in a way where defeat is possible, and if the players are pretty much assured they won't be in over their heads unless they are foolish, then PCs are unlikely to ever retreat.

D&D was originally built as a fairly "balanced" (Or at least striving to be) system, where the basic assumptions is that the PCs are supposed to be able to tackle 95% of the challenges they face, even if some are quite hard.

I assume you're referring pretty much exclusively to 3E D&D (the change started in 2E AD&D, but that system wasn't built on those assumptions).

[Kalmageddon]

I don't know if you should put your idea into practice... You see, I've already done it and it didn't work out, let me explain:

I had my players pick their fights poorly quite often and I've even seen them make huge mistakes during an otherwise fair fight, making it much harder then it should have been.
Now, I usually never put my players in a situation they can't run away from, so I figured that when things get rough they would have been smart enough to run away to minimize their losses and that I sould just keep playing their NPCs opponents normally.
Huge mistake.

In D&D and in similar systems it seems that once the initiative is rolled the players completly forget that they aren't fighting in an arena and that retreat is even an option. Until basically 90% of the group is on the ground bleeding to death they don't even consider running away and the few times they were actually defeated in a TPK they didn't reacted well when I asked "why didn't you just escape?" afterwards.
It seems that players need to get an explicit clue in order to understand the power of their enemy or how unfavorable the odds are. And no, crushing numerical disadvantage is not a clue.

Aside from players incompetence I blame this on two factors, at least when playing D&D and similar systems: Challenge Rating and battle grid.

The first basically says "you don't have to care how many the enemies are, just how high their challenge rating is", making the players used to being able to defeat a large number of enemies. It also doesn't matter how big an enemy is. I mean, a Large sized creature could range from a challenge rating 3 to a 20, if they don't know the creature OOC they will probably try to fight it assuming it's of the appropriate CR, doesn't matter how scary and intimidating you try to make it seem, they won't get a clue unless they can extrapolate how high its BAB or AC is.

Battle grid is a more subtle problem. But what I've noticed is that players tend to forget that the battle grid is often just a small part of the world and they think that somehow, even if the battle is taking place on an open field with no obstacles they can only move as far as the battle grid allows them to.

At least, this is my theory.
So, in theory, the idea in the OP should work fine. In practice, you absolutely have to tell your players how strong their enemy is, either explicitly or via IC clues, very noticeble, very nonsubtle clues.

[Rhynn]

Honestly, I think more GMs should just brutally let their players' characters get killed when they could easily have run away, over and over, until the players learn.

But I have this weird idea that rolling dice is boring and thinking up tactics and making decisions weighing risk and reward is fun...

[qwertyu63]

That is exactly how I DM. If you won't run away from the overwhelming NPCs I will field now and then, you will die and I will let it happen (of course, you can kill those guys later, after you gain some levels).

[Spore]

Anyway, it got me thinking. As a DM, I think if I ran a campaign with combat again, I'd like to do one where at least 30% of the combats in the early part of the game are unwinnable.

Do not consider my post talking down to you because as a game designer you should know 95% of that stuff anyway.

While this notion is a refreshing new (and also old) thought on things I feel like you should tell your group.

1) Players have expectations on your game, and while they might realize that fleeing is the only option here they might get frustated. You do not build a cool fire based sorcerer to run away from things that can burn.

2) Forced decisions are lame. This is not a board game and not a story driven computer game. It's an RPG, and anything that seems to force you into a way the DM wants feels like railroading. Some enjoy this but use unwinnable fights by with caution.

3) You can't make virtually unwinnable fights without major cheese and/or DM fiat. Every creature has a limited amount of life, an attacking potential and special abilities. If the group can work around this (and you still thought this creature to be unkillable) they DESERVE the win. You can't just go: "And then an evil cleric 11/wizard 9 teleports in and casts Heal on the monster."

I have had groups that ranged from struggling to fight an appropriate monster (going so far as a Paladin dying to an undead creature) and other groups that destroy fights constructed to be barely winnable with 100% ressources (smart usage of buffs gave us about 2 rounds of attacking before being killed and our chance to hit was 50%, with having to hit 3 attacks out of 7).

4) Fleeing builds up the need to have revenge on an enemy. This is used as a motive for several stories. Do not use it all the time as it tends to depress players. E.g. you loose to a superior robot in Mega Man X. You loose to the Black Knights in Final Fantasy 3 (?).

5) Emotional decisions are not logical. Being the finale of our campaign, we decided to end the terror reign of the white dragon in our lands and went out to kill him. Being seething with hate we followed its trail in the snow (white dragons do not leave trails in snow, and we knew that), being prepared for its spells and cold damage (the primary danger from this type of dragon is its major armor and dangerous amount of attacks) We got ambushed and are currently dying to it (because it hits us with 90% chance every round for 60-90 damage, while the average hero has about 80 life while we have a 50% miss chance due to the high AC. Spells on it miss for 45% and its saves are beyond good (leaving save-or-suck spells at a measily 25% chance to work). I guess we will die to the creature (since my oracle and the party barbarian will not flee; also because it's the finale anyway; I might however force a planeshift onto the barbarian to save her because she is the queen and has to live).

So all in all unwinnable fights are great, coward characters are great (if not used on things like fighters or barbarians) but use them with caution. This is a turn based "fighting" system with some skills on top and having a character that skips every fight and lots of unwinnable fights is counter intuitive. Stuff like that is not supposed to be in D&D, this is more for The Dark Eye or Call of Cthulhu.

[Rhynn]

2) Forced decisions are lame.

3) You can't make virtually unwinnable fights without major cheese and/or DM fiat.

A GM should never set out to create an "unbeatable encounter." (Not least because, as you observe, it can't be done reliably without just railroading and cheating.) But unless your game is heavily plot-based, then an organic, plausible world/setting will have more and less dangerous creatures.

In old-school D&D (like ACKS, which I run), sometimes you get a random encounter that's too tough for you. Sometime you go too deep in the dungeon too fast. And, most especially, a lot of the time you get a wilderness encounter that's way too tough.

If the PCs can defeat these encounters anyway, through luck or ingenuity, that's awesome! Those are some of the best moments for everyone. But if they can't, then they should have the sense to flee.

Stuff like that is not supposed to be in D&D, this is more for The Dark Eye or Call of Cthulhu.

I think you're referring to D&D 3E/4E, and even then the point is arguable. It's very important to understand that "D&D" is a pretty broad concept. :) TDE started out as a D&D clone, and the expectations aren't that different from old-school D&D.

[Airk]

The problem I always had with 'run away' was that the rules didn't appear to support it in any sort of useful fashion. If an enemy moves as fast as you do, it's literally impossible to escape it. So what's the point in running away? It's basically just saying "okay, GM, we give up, you can kill us if you want, but we'd really appreciate it if you let us go."

So how is that a valid tactical decision? There's a reason the term 'rout' in military terminology is pretty synonymous with "heavy casualties".

[Rhynn]

The problem I always had with 'run away' was that the rules didn't appear to support it in any sort of useful fashion. If an enemy moves as fast as you do, it's literally impossible to escape it. So what's the point in running away?

Which rules?

There's a lot of basic tactics you can use, from withdrawing while your friends dump down some oil between you and the enemy and set it on fire (sure to discourage any animals and many humanoids), throwing down some treasure or rations, et cetera. And when in the wilderness, smart parties keep mounted - you might lose your heavily-laden pack animals, but at least you'll live. Basic spells like grease or obscuring mist can be a great help, too.

This is all basic stuff I've seen used...

ACKS rules also support it quite well, with specific actions for withdrawal and fighting retreats. But it is absolutely true that, in old-school D&D, "who's faster" is a big consideration. If you're decked out in plate mail, you've pretty much committed to fight to the bitter end - which may be a terrible idea! Smart fighters try to stay at least at 90' (out of 120') movement, preferrably the full 120'. In ACKS, at least, magic armor helps a lot, because each magic 'plus' reduces its effective weight.

I agree that D&D 3E is terrible at this, though. PC speed is either 30' or 20', and monsters are frequently even faster!

Also, frankly, you may have to be willing to abandon slower companions to their deaths; it can lead to bad feeling between players if they can't handle that (fie on them!), but how does it help anyone for the whole party to get killed? No one complained when my party's mages were about to book it from the ghouls and leave their paralyzed companions to be devoured - their odds of survival looked to be nil.

[Airk]

Which rules?

Most of them that I've read, honestly. Maybe some of the newer OSR games address this issue, but they're not really my bag.

There's a lot of basic tactics you can use, from withdrawing while your friends dump down some oil between you and the enemy and set it on fire (sure to discourage any animals and many humanoids), throwing down some treasure or rations, et cetera. And when in the wilderness, smart parties keep mounted - you might lose your heavily-laden pack animals, but at least you'll live. Basic spells like grease or obscuring mist can be a great help, too.

All of which take long enough that your opponents are now going to be up in your face hitting you their axes... =/

Horses are certainly helpful though. That is definitely a situation from which you can retreat. Unless, you know, Wyverns.

ACKS rules also support it quite well, with specific actions for withdrawal and fighting retreats. But it is absolutely true that, in old-school D&D, "who's faster" is a big consideration. If you're decked out in plate mail, you've pretty much committed to fight to the bitter end - which may be a terrible idea! Smart fighters try to stay at least at 90' (out of 120') movement, preferrably the full 120'. In ACKS, at least, magic armor helps a lot, because each magic 'plus' reduces its effective weight.

Which is super awesome in a system (such as early D&D editions) where one of a fighter's small number of advantages is being able to wear decent armor. =/

Also, even being able to -match- a monster's move speed doesn't actually get you away from it in most systems, and it's even worse in those that feature some sort of "charge as move+attack" action. ("I double move away!" "Okay. He moves and charges and hits you.")

Also, frankly, you may have to be willing to abandon slower companions to their deaths; it can lead to bad feeling between players if they can't handle that (fie on them!), but how does it help anyone for the whole party to get killed? No one complained when my party's mages were about to book it from the ghouls and leave their paralyzed companions to be devoured - their odds of survival looked to be nil.

Sure. Presuming that whatever you are fighting won't chase the fast ones because it can catch them too and come back and mop up the slow people later. If you're dealing with Neutral Hungry monsters, this works well, for actively malevolent ones, not so much.

[Rhynn]

All of which take long enough that your opponents are now going to be up in your face hitting you their axes... =/

How do you figure that? All of those sound like "my action for the round" to me, especially with 1-minute rounds. I'd certainly let any PC do something like "toss out some oil" or "throw some rations on the ground" or "fling some treasure at them" as a single action, maybe coupled with moving away.

Horses are certainly helpful though. That is definitely a situation from which you can retreat. Unless, you know, Wyverns.

Yup, absolutely. ACKS has Evasion Checks for that, but you can totally run into things in the wilderness that will kill part of the group. Adventuring is dangerous! Again, though, 3 wyverns can only kill so many opponents, and horses probably look more tasty than humans...

stuff

Yes, sometimes it's harder to get away. Sometimes fleeing isn't the right option. That doesn't mean it isn't frequently a great option. If it was always the best option, the game would get pretty boring!

[Brendanicus]

I tend to play cowardly characters too. Bad habit, seeing as it got both myself and one of my friend's characters killed once. Just metagame it, honestly. Unless you are screwing with your DM of she made a mistake, you should be in level appropriate en****ers.

[Airk]

How do you figure that? All of those sound like "my action for the round" to me, especially with 1-minute rounds. I'd certainly let any PC do something like "toss out some oil" or "throw some rations on the ground" or "fling some treasure at them" as a single action, maybe coupled with moving away.

Sure, dropping some stuff is one thing, casting a spell or actually lighting the oil on fire aren't exactly free actions though. And even then, the efficacy of all these methods is basically an appeal to the mercy of the GM. ("Really? The wolves stopped to eat your iron rations instead of pursuing you?")

Yes, sometimes it's harder to get away. Sometimes fleeing isn't the right option. That doesn't mean it isn't frequently a great option. If it was always the best option, the game would get pretty boring!

My point was rather "The number of situations in which rulesets support fleeing as a good option is so small that it shouldn't come as any surprise that people choose not to do it."

[Rhynn]

Sure, dropping some stuff is one thing, casting a spell or actually lighting the oil on fire aren't exactly free actions though.

Actually, I'm pretty sure dropping a torch is specifically a free action even in D&D 3.5 ... and it certainly doesn't seem like it'd take a full round in most games. Plus I was talking in the plural ("friends") - it's much easier to make a retreat by working together.

Actually, in ACKS, a fighting retreat specifically explicitly works, especially if the party is faster than the enemy: they can make a fighting retreat, moving away and getting an attack on any enemies that pursue them. (This would mostly be a dungeon tactic, where you have narrow corridors to force them through.)

And even then, the efficacy of all these methods is basically an appeal to the mercy of the GM. ("Really? The wolves stopped to eat your iron rations instead of pursuing you?")

If your GM is out to get you, you can never win. (Also, of course wolves don't care about iron rations, but if you cut your pony's leg and leave it for them...)

Obviously it's all about GM adjudication. If you, as GM, don't want to let the PCs retreat, then of course they shouldn't retreat. That's kind of obvious, isn't it?

My point was rather "The number of situations in which rulesets support fleeing as a good option is so small that it shouldn't come as any surprise that people choose not to do it."

My experience (outside of D&D 3E and 4E) is completely different; not only in D&D, but in most other RPGs. I absolutely agree that D&D 3E and 4E totally fail in this respect; they're really awful games (at least at being D&D), if you think about it.

[Airk]

Obviously it's all about GM adjudication. If you, as GM, don't want to let the PCs retreat, then of course they shouldn't retreat. That's kind of obvious, isn't it?

Yeah; And that, probably factors in to why a lot of people think it won't work. There's no "rules protection" that says it should work. It's the same reason you don't usually see people swinging from candeliers.

(And not to nitpick, but just kinda pouring some oil out of a flask and then haphazardly dropping your torch isn't likely to create the kind of enemy deterring inferno you might want.)

My experience (outside of D&D 3E and 4E) is completely different; not only in D&D, but in most other RPGs. I absolutely agree that D&D 3E and 4E totally fail in this respect; they're really awful games (at least at being D&D), if you think about it.

Dunno. This is the impression I've had since BECM. The monsters move at the same speed you do, and there's no rule for running faster, so how do you get away?

[Saph]

Dunno. This is the impression I've had since BECM. The monsters move at the same speed you do, and there's no rule for running faster, so how do you get away?

In D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder, if the monsters move at the same speed as you, retreating is pretty much a guaranteed way of stopping the monsters from attacking. You withdraw, they double move . . . and they've just used up their actions, so no attacks this round. Only way they can manage it is if they charge, and given the amount of restrictions on the charge action, it's not hard to stop it (putting any kind of obstacle in their way will do the trick).

To catch up with a withdraw action and still attack you, a monster needs to have a speed at least twice your speed, ie 60+, and while some monsters do have this, not all do by any means.

And that's just basic movement. If you're smart and have prepared for it, there are dozens of ways to lose a pursuing enemy. The trouble is that most players just assume the choices are 'win or die'.

[Airk]

In D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder...

I guess 3.5 isn't so "awful" after all, eh? ;)

[Slipperychicken]

I do this sometimes.

Running away works if you either

• Use chase rules like PF does
• Are faster than the pursuer
• Have more endurance than the pursuer
• Can otherwise evade or hide from the pursuer.

Of course, the withdraw action may still provoke AoOs if your enemy has reach or something.

[Lord Torath]

In BECMI, most basic monsters had moves slower than 120' Orcs, Ogres, goblins, most had a move of 90'. Even bears had a move of 90', if I recall correctly.

[mucat]

Yeah; And that, probably factors in to why a lot of people think it won't work. There's no "rules protection" that says it should work. It's the same reason you don't usually see people swinging from candeliers.

Wait...that's not what chandeliers are for?

Seriously, though. If I put a chandelier in a room, and let a bit of hell break loose there, then one of my players is gonna find a way to swing from it, whether it makes sense or not.

[Slipperychicken]

Wait...that's not what chandeliers are for?

Seriously, though. If I put a chandelier in a room, and let a bit of hell break loose there, then one of my players is gonna find a way to swing from it, whether it makes sense or not.

You could try rolling weight-based damage to the chandelier to see if it breaks under the strain of some ~200lbs adventurer + >100lbs of gear using it as an impromptu swingset. Then if it breaks, the adventurer falls and makes a tumble roll to see if he lands on his feet.

And IMO you generally don't see PCs swinging from chandeliers because that doesn't work in the physics which dnd tries to emulate.

[Aron Times]

The notion of "numbers don't matter, only challenge ratings do" may have led to an aspect of D&D Next, a.k.a. D&D 5e, called "bounded accuracy." Basically, with bounded accuracy, even a lowly level 1 conscript has a small but not impossible chance to hit the AC of a level 20 character, and a really massive horde of level 1 monsters can and will overwhelm a level 20 party. Sure, they'll suffer horrible losses, but sheer numbers will win even if the challenge ratings are way off.

Anyway, this scenario is still possible in D&D 3.x to a lesser extent. This strip comes to mind:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0417.html

[Mr Beer]

As stated above, the "you should run away from this one" encounter is fine depending on the group. My players would likely assume it's doable and pretty much charge straight in.

[Slipperychicken]

The notion of "numbers don't matter, only challenge ratings do" may have led to an aspect of D&D Next, a.k.a. D&D 5e, called "bounded accuracy." Basically, with bounded accuracy, even a lowly level 1 conscript has a small but not impossible chance to hit the AC of a level 20 character, and a really massive horde of level 1 monsters can and will overwhelm a level 20 party. Sure, they'll suffer horrible losses, but sheer numbers will win even if the challenge ratings are way off.

I think this is a feature though. It gives a reason for states to keep conventional armies, a reason for civilization to survive against dragons and other megabeasts, and it gives high-level PCs a decent reason to follow the rules.

I prefer low-power adventures where being outnumbered is a very serious issue (i.e simply rushing headlong into an army will get you killed). Also, it breaks my immersion to have one guy, even a hero, solo entire armies unsupported and without a sweat when any mortal should be toast.

Granted, I would probably be happier if they tried to make it more like Shadowrun, where multiple attackers per round simply penalizes the defender's defense number (since it's harder to dodge multiple attacks in a short period pf time), meaning that being severely outnumbered (i.e. 4 to 1) can take down even the baddest of asses.

[Knaight]

Running away works if you either

• Use chase rules like PF does
• Are faster than the pursuer
• Have more endurance than the pursuer
• Can otherwise evade or hide from the pursuer.

Of course, the withdraw action may still provoke AoOs if your enemy has reach or something.

Chase rules are ideal. Take REIGN, which added them in a supplemental - it mechanically suggests running, it makes it more than whoever is fastest wins, and it provides genuinely interesting mechanics for complex chases where everything from search parties to manipulating crowds to using endurance to hide underwater while people pass comes in.

[Arbane]

And IMO you generally don't see PCs swinging from chandeliers because that doesn't work in the physics which dnd tries to emulate.

You generally don't see D&D PCs trying to swing from chandeliers because the most effective fighters in D&D are Sherman tanks with legs. A rogue or monk could TRY, but the system would punish them for it, because the game with firebreathing dragons needs REALISM.