Adversaries and escaping

[Khamul]

If adversaires wanna break a skirmish and flee or re-group how do they do that?

[Khamul]

No one knows this? really?

[Otaku-sempai]

If the GM (or the module) hasn't established pre-set conditions then I would think that it would work about the same for the NPCs as it does for the party (substituting the Movement skill for Athletics if necessary).

[Valarian]

If the GM (or the module) hasn't established pre-set conditions then I would think that it would work about the same for the NPCs as it does for the party (substituting the Movement skill for Athletics if necessary).

That's pretty much what I do. The adversary's Movement skill setting a TN for the PC's Athletics. If the adversary wins, they escape. If the PC wins, they catch up and can attack again. I allow archers a single shot (like opening volleys) as adversaries disengage.

[Khamul]

That sounds really cool Valarian, thanks

[Mim]

@Valarian, I've been wondering for sometime about allowing the extra shot during a disengagement, & I'm glad to see that someone else has considered the option. I think I'm going to use this as well.

[Robin Smallburrow]

page 163 of Adventurer's Book:

Any close combat stance: Escape Combat
“Fly! This is a foe beyond any of you.”
A hero who spent his previous round in a rearward
stance may flee the combat zone at the beginning of a
round.
Companions engaged in close combat may attempt to
escape when their turn to act comes.
At the end of a combat round spent fighting in a close
combat stance, a player-hero may attempt to escape the
field by making a roll of Athletics. The TN for the roll is
equal to 10 plus the highest Attribute level among the
opponents that the character is facing.
On a successful roll, the companion has successfully
escaped. A great or extraordinary success is needed
if the hero was engaged by multiple opponents. If the
escape attempt fails, the acting hero remains engaged
and cannot attack when his next turn to act comes.

This passage also applies to adversaries wishing to escape combat, although you should always use p.47 of the Loremaster's book as a guide:

Non-combat Actions

A number of non-combat action options are presented
in the Adventurer’s book, but players will always
surprise their Loremaster by proposing unusual or
unexpected tasks.
This is a good sign that the players are enjoying the
game, and should be encouraged wherever possible.
The factors to consider when resolving these actions
are time, difficulty and consequences:
• Time – can the character perform the task in
one round, or will it take more? This is up to the
judgement of the Loremaster, but for these cases
consider a round to be a maximum of 30 seconds
long.
• Difficulty – if the action requires a roll to resolve,
the difficulty of the task is assigned as usual, with
a default TN of 14 unless the Loremaster decides
otherwise.
• Consequences – as with any task, success or
failure should have consequences. For example,
a player who describes his character as leaping
from a boulder to reach an Orc-chieftain issuing
orders from the rear of battle could be allowed
an Athletics roll (TN 14). As a consequence of
success, the character should be able to engage
the commander in the following round unless one
of the foul creature’s companions can intervene (or
might even attack immediately if he scored a great
or extraordinary success). If the character fails, he
should lose his next action as he picks himself up
from the ground and is immediately engaged by
opponents as if fighting in a forward stance.

You guys need to read through the rulebooks a bit more perhaps???

Robin S.

[Otaku-sempai]

Robin, some of us are familiar with the passages that you quoted. However, adversaries don't always have the Athletics skill listed so using Movement seems like a reasonable substitute. Are you suggesting that the opponent should be treated as if it has zero ranks in Athletics? Because that doesn't seem quite right to me since success would only be possible on a "G" result.

[BobusX]

Your player's let adversaries escape? The one consistent thing about my players, in WFRP, Pathfinder, and even tOR, is that they always run down fleeing adversaries and cut them down as they rout (I swear, its like they are cavalry from Rome: Total War). In tOR I am starting to think I should give them shadow points for always cutting down fleeing enemies, especially of those enemies are bandits or something. Just doesn't see like something I see Gandalf or Aragorn doing, unless they were scouts or something.

[Robin Smallburrow]

p.65 of Loremaster's Book applies here:

Skills
The skills possessed by a creature are represented
by six collective Skill group ratings. Whenever a
roll requires a skill, the Loremaster rolls a number
of Success dice equal to the rating possessed in the
corresponding Skill group. If a Skill group name is
underlined to mark it as favoured, the Loremaster
adds the Attribute level of the creature to the roll.

So for example a Goblin Archer who has Movement 3 means they get 3 dice to use to escape combat and this skill is favoured too! - so in my games the players are finding it hard to prevent some orcs escaping!

I would definitely give out at least 1 Shadow point for any player characters who cut down fleeing foes without mercy - ranks as at least a minor misdeed in my book...

Robin S.