Pursuit and Evasion in D&D

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What did you you do when your party encounters a force too great in the wilderness? RUN!
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[@mookiewilson4166]

Honestly, this has been the sticking point in what I think could make an awesome adventure-mounted characters on horseback being stalked through the honeycombing paths and trails of the wilderness by a werewolf. Need a pursuit and evasion mechanic.

[@BanditsKeep]

You’ve got one now, that sound like a fun adventure. A horse is faster than a werewolf but it would be fair to say the woods slow the horse and not the wolf to balance it out.

[@satturnine7320]

A good run is better than a bad stand- General Custer in a alternate universe probably

[@BanditsKeep]

😂

[@99zxk]

The Nazgul pursued the Hobbits for a month.

[@BanditsKeep]

Yes!

[@krystal2423]

30 Beserkers, sounds like a perfect time for smoke cloud.

[@BanditsKeep]

Indeed!

[@paavohirn3728]

Ah, gotta watch some of your plays again! We should get out of the Ghazali finally this Saturday in one of my own games 😁

[@BanditsKeep]

@@paavohirn3728 awesome

[@Squirrel-Hermit]

Run away! Run away! Ha!

[@BanditsKeep]

Always a good option

[@sw33n3yto00]

Got to love the old systems.

[@BanditsKeep]

I really enjoy it

[@alberthennen7370]

Thanks Daniel , as always. You are very effective at underlining how well the early versions od D7D addressed a myriad of situations , with a minimum of hard and fast rules. Much appreciated.

[@BanditsKeep]

Thanks 🙏🏻

[@Lowe505]

Daniel i love your channel because i only play B/X

[@BanditsKeep]

thanks, that’s awesome - have you always only played BX? Or have you played other things in the past?

[@evilscientistrecords]

Good breakdown! Thanks!

[@BanditsKeep]

Thanks

[@TheArcturusProject]

Good stuff!

[@BanditsKeep]

Thank You!

[@hoboogre8023]

Around about 9:00, about pursuing for days, reminded me of the "I don't ride on Saturdays" scene from Frisco Kid. Now I have to re-watch that scene and note which evasion/pursuit rolls were made or failed. Inspiring post, thank you.

[@BanditsKeep]

😊

[@dantherpghero2885]

I always assumed party size included horses, pack mules, etc. Because animals make noise at inappropriate times and maybe hoof prints or their scent could give the party away too.

[@BanditsKeep]

For sure - that makes sense

[@CaptCook999]

We didn't use these rules too often. I usually tried to figure out a way to dissuade the enemy from wanting to follow us. If you can make the enemy believe that you are tougher than you are, they tend to lose morale and not want to chase you. This is when an Illusionist comes in real handy.

[@BanditsKeep]

For sure

[@elfbait3774]

Your channel constantly reminds me how much there was in the old systems. I am not sure we ever used a lot of these but I wish we had.

[@BanditsKeep]

For sure - I am constantly picking up the BX books and finding things again

[@SimonAshworthWood]

Nice ideas, Daniel. This video has inspired me in my own adventure creation.

[@BanditsKeep]

Awesome! Let me know how it goes

[@SimonAshworthWood]

@@BanditsKeep oh, I don't expect to play D&D in the next few months and by the time I do, with how busy I am in my life, I suspect I'll have forgotten you asked me this. Sorry, Daniel.

[@SimonAshworthWood]

@@BanditsKeep by the way, some of the ideas I liked were: thieves acting as scouts in the wilderness; noticing a powerful monster (e.g. a dragon) or horde of humanoids at a distance and fleeing from them; finding a monster cave when the occupant (e.g. a cyclops) is away....

[@BanditsKeep]

@@SimonAshworthWood no worries!

[@seanledet1]

I was looking for a guideline to facilitate a party on horseback chasing a horde of goblins riding wargs. The "tracking" flip is a step in the right direction. Thanks for the video.

[@BanditsKeep]

Excellent!

[@ForeverYoungKickboxer]

Thanks for this video, man. Good stuff as usual. I like the idea of the hexcrawl pursuit & evade adventure

[@BanditsKeep]

Thanks 🙏🏻 I’ll have that one next week - working on it right now

[@paavohirn3728]

I might give the fleeing characters another getting lost roll with a penalty instead of automatically losing direction.

[@BanditsKeep]

@@paavohirn3728 I think the idea is that they are forced to run into the wild so can’t keep track of where they are - if you don’t make them lost there is almost no down side to failing the evasion roll

[@paavohirn3728]

@@BanditsKeep Right. It's the consequence of failure. I may have lost track at some point. 😄

[@everthingtotal8798]

Glad you made this. I use the OSE pursuit/evasion rules. This video has some really good ideas how to use them intelligently.

[@BanditsKeep]

Thanks 🙏🏻 they are a hidden gem in the BX / OSE rules

[@paavohirn3728]

Very cool! Thanks for pointing these out!

[@BanditsKeep]

Thanks

[@daviamorim]

Daniel, I'm curious: how you would adjudicate how many of those 20 bugbears would be hit by a fireball in "theatre of the mind" combat? Great video, as always, btw.

[@BanditsKeep]

Off the top of my head, I’d group them in bunches based on the “dungeon” wandering monsters - I this case 8… give the players the benefit and say 10 can be hit.

[@daviamorim]

@@BanditsKeep Good one! Thank you very much for the swift response!

[@hendrikvanleeuwen9110]

There are always dice.

[@BanditsKeep]

@@hendrikvanleeuwen9110 not following you… the question was how to handle it, not what dice to use, how would use use these dice?

[@paavohirn3728]

@@BanditsKeep I suppose rolling some dice to figure out how many are in the area. In this case it could be d10+6 perhaps. Letting the player roll. I like to use this method.

Hi Daniel! Great content as usual! Regarding Pursuit, I understand that if the other group is faster there is a 50% change that they are caught, but what if the other group is not faster? What's the percentage of getting caught?

[@BanditsKeep]

If they are not faster than you just move to the next turn and the fleeing party tries to evade again - basically no chance of capture that day but the party must run in a random direction - they may find themselves trapped eventually.

[@paavohirn3728]

@@BanditsKeep Aha!

[@Grimlore82]

Just started the video, I'm curious to see if we do the same thing. Weather 5th edition or second edition, whatever. I have a tendency to look at the characters base speed or movement rate and then just have them roll initiative to see who catches up to who or rather who gets away :-) now I shall hush up my commenting and watch this badass video!

[@BanditsKeep]

That tends to work in dungeons for sure

[@Grimlore82]

I believe you could not have covered this topic any more efficiently. Well done!

[@2plus2isfive]

I love the idea of a thief acting as a scout in a hex crawl. But I have a mechanical question I suppose. Do the PCs essentially split up when the theif is scouting ahead? What I mean is, are the PCs essentially travelling in 2 groups who both experience encounter rolls etc? Or, is it sort of a marhing order type thing? So when something is encountered the theif breaks off at that point? I'm just tying to imagine how it loks like in play.

[@BanditsKeep]

I would treat the group as 1 for an encounter roll. But a smaller party for the evasion.

[@2plus2isfive]

@@BanditsKeep That makes total sense. I came across an OSR game called Errant, and the marching order mechanic concern scouts in particular reminded me of this discussion. errants who are scouting are exploring about 120 yards ahead of the rest of the company; any encounters and encounter signs are found by the scouts first, and they make any necessary reaction rolls. If encountered by npcs, scouting errants are allowed to make a check to hide. I think this is essentially a gamified/proceduralized version of what you're saying! Cheers once again for turning me on to this! ✊🏽

[@gopro_audio]

5E needs this data.

[@BanditsKeep]

It would be super useful for sure!

[@RedwoodRhiadra]

The nice thing is since it only relies on the number of creatures on each side, the system works as-is in literally any game!

[@shellbackbeau7021]

My current thief has a DEX of 3! Haha But my Dwarf died so I rolled up a fighter and a thief and the fighter died to the same tiger beetle that killed the Dwarf. (both nat 20s) then my thief back stabbed the beetle twice!

[@BanditsKeep]

Nice! (About the thief, not the others lol)

[@hoboogre8023]

Dunno, though. From 15:00 on, you kinda prove this chart should be inverted: the more enemies looking for you while you hide, the higher the chance to be found? Or am I confusing running vs hiding? Seems a party of 5 could EASILY loose a cyclops, maybe a penalty for a larger pursuer?

[@BanditsKeep]

Larger groups tend to make more noise - now of course the 5 could spread out

[@SusCalvin]

@@BanditsKeep Then if you are found by a sub-unit of orcs, you don't have the entire troop of 30 orcs on top of you either. It's your PCs who stumble into one of those search parties of 4-8 orcs. If they are spreading out through an entire hex, chances are they won't be in line of sight with eachother. The orcs themselves will think "Will our search parties get whacked?" They might limit how many search parties they send, or make them into larger groups of 10. If the orcs spread out into groups of two, there would be a lot of search parties but even random wilderness would quickly snack on them. The PCs probably wants to murder these guys fast, while they want to call attention to their pals. The other search parties have no idea where the fight takes place at first. But if it drags out, they will start to appear. The orcs you're fighting are probably yelling as loud as they can to their mates. You could get clever about it too. Pick out which orc has a large signal horn or a flare pistol. See if they send out a runner. Or the PCs are out of luck, and the orcs all have combat radios with fresh batteries.

[@fchrisb804]

I would like to use them.

[@BanditsKeep]

Cool!

[@BanjoSick]

Just read the evasion rules from OSE and it did not make heads and tails of it. Coming from a mainly rational system like Rolemaster, these idiosyncratic rules of old school dnd are hard to parse. So many weird, eccentric points of views on things. Your defense is honorable but these rules, where the GM has to divide the group of enemies for it to make sense is ermmm *cough* not a good solution.

[@BanjoSick]

Ok, finished your video and it makes more sense now. Great stuff you put out. The murky mist that is ad&d begins to lift!

[@BanditsKeep]

The more I use the rules from OD&D the more it actually does make sense - it’s the same system but I think OD&D describes it better TBH

[@sgtbigballs666]

My favorite scout is monk for insane movement rate, guess that didn't come in until ad&d 1st though

[@BanditsKeep]

Yeah, that would be AD&D (or OD&D with supplements) - but very good point, no armor and super fast move!