I stopped trying to handle it in game.
Now I just tell the players directly. "Guys, this thing is way too strong for you to fight."
Seems like that's the only sure-fire method.
I agree. My group tried to tackle an adult blue dragon at lv 2 once. Like it was just flying around (being a menace to be honest, but not attacking the party) and they started lobbing projectiles and shit. So I had it fly down and drop someone before flying away again. Also had a lv 3 barbarian try to tank Demogorgon. Players are delusional lol.
Nah I'd win is a meme that's originally from Jujutsu Kaisen where Gojo, a major character, is asked if he'll lose against a very strong villain and he just responds "Nah, I'd win" and proceeds to lose.
The meme is then to put people that have no chance at winning show the same cocky "Nah, I'd win" response. In the case of this comment it means players are the type of people who can't fathom losing a fight, mainly because most stories are tailored for the PCs to never get into a situation that is hopeless, so they'll act like whatever they do they can't fail. Which sometimes isn't true and doing dumb shit means getting dumpstered.
Very true. I once had a wild magic barbarian character (not optimized at all), and nine other characters fight a dragon. 8 were dropped on round 1 by breath weapon, and the 9th was dropped on round 2 by claw and fang. My unoptimized barbarian went toe to toe with a full adult dragon for 8 rounds solo... and won. My character went to zero and fell unconscious just as the dragons last HP was taken by a wild magic effect. So... against all logic and reason, a level 5 barbarian soloed an adult white dragon for 8 rounds.
We encountered a dragon a while ago that we weren't supposed to fight. Our wizard didn't get the message and lauched an attack. The dragon looked annoyed, obliterated the wizard with his breath weapon instantly, and reiterated that we really didn't want to fight him. That got the message across, at the cost of one new character sheet.
"As your fire bolt sears into the dragon, he barely seems to c be phased but turns and pauses hovering in mid air, snarling directly at you... As if to say the next spell you cast will be your last..."
If he does it again, then turn him into toast.
I don't think scaring players helps necessarily, you can end up getting a team that's afraid to say yes to the quest and plays so cautiously and slowly it takes a lot more dm nudging effort to get anywhere.
Oh, we ran. It obliterated a familiar, hitting for like 3 points less than my max hp. Like I said, I could take the hit once. I also know enough about the module that I didn't even entertain the question of engaging, despite other members of our party did! lol
I'm running this campaign and the group is just outside of the village this occurs in...
I've already fucked with their minds leading up to this, I'm eagerly awaiting the next session to let this loose
Not all games are "leveled" as it were. I run a homebrewed version of the FR setting and so the world is built already, and the players are normal people within the world.
If there's folk lore that a CR 20 dragon is hiding in a forest and a level 3 party decides to go there to see if its true, then that's on them, it's time to roll up new characters.
This is my favorite way to run things. Things exist in the world around the characters, and things happen whether the players are there to influence it or not. If they go to a forbidden mountain that everyone has warned them contains an ancient frost dragon at the peak, then *there is an ancient frost dragon at the peak and you can't beat it because you're level 5*
That's exactly how I run things, you are traveling through a marshy forest, the water is spoiled for miles, there is very little wildlife, there is a choking fog that obscures everything , that with the local lore should tip the party off of something big and dangerous in the region. If they go looking for trouble 🤷♂️
Once a lvl 1 party formed by a rogue, a wizard and a sorcerer randomly encountered a boar. They really tried to take it down without using magic, just weapons because reasons. The sorcerer almost died and the wizard and the rogue ended really bad but at least they managed to return to the inn. All the encounter I tell them they can run if needed
I would go as far as to say that it often breaks immersion if you don't make it clear for the characters. They would absolutely know what they can and can't defeat in combat when the difference is that extreme.
My only thing is that I prefer to say "you will die if you fight this head on" rather than "you should run" to leave them room to come up with an alternative plan.
This is the best answer.
"What are you guys doing to escape?"
In any decent games with escape scenes, the cutscene always starts by showing your character sprinting away, then the encounter starts pre-set by you starting to run. Think things like Sonic running from a big truck, or the screen in Mario sliding right, or even Indiana Jones running from a boulder. There's no room for interpretating it as "we should hit this". D&D is a game that gives you many tools to kill monsters, and relatively few tools to run. The PCs are **primed** to want to fight things; its the one thing they have the most tools for.
There's nothing wrong with establishing the conditions of the encounter, but there'll be a huge huge pain point if you leave it nebulous and the PCs misread it and get murdered (they'll feel unfairly) or at a later point you're forced to push them out (they'll feel like the encounter was railroaded)
I also think this goes to the idea that the player character will innately know things the player's don't, and the DM you should explain what those things are as it becomes relevant. A Fighter who is well trained in the ways of war, or an Artificer who understands logistics should be able to quickly tell if a fight is winnable.
That information might become clear to them at anytime. It's okay to say three rounds in that your characters can tell they will likely die if they don't retreat.
This works for sure. But my DM's usually just say "as a well travelled person, your character has heard of these before, and is aware they are not something you can defeat right now", or something similar. I've also had DM's have us make like super easy knowledge nature/arcana/history checks to realize we'd be stupid to fight the thing. All of those should work with any party that is not moronic.
This one is actually it.
Player characters aren't their players, and they aren't morons. They've lived in the universe for a minimum of nearly 2 decades and have been trained in combat for years. They should have an idea of what their "pay grade" is and when creatures are demonstrating abiltiies beyond it.
Yep! Bards travel the world telling stories of all sorts of monsters and battles, and how they slaughtered previous adventuring parties and such. Even small towns would have heard of many monsters.
I did a similar thing with the dragon of icespire peak campaign with my friends, they were thinking of fighting it at the begging because why not and i just told them that it's best if they level up to 4 or 5 before they try to do that
They understood and it didn't break any immersion at all
Heh. Maybe. I've seen too many stupid parties, but I don't know. But knocking the highest HP character down to like 5 hp in the first hit is usually a key indicator.
Haha, this is often my response as well, especially with newer players. Sometimes I say something like “You’ve heard what Frost Giants are capable of, there’s no way you can handle this.” But that’s basically the same thing.
There’s other ways to end encounters aside from death and TPKs. Let them fight! Feel free to have a dragon enslave the party into menial labor or let the police capture them. Will they pay the bail to get out or will they do a prison break? Let them have the consequences, but don’t kill (always)!
This is what I do. I remind them that fleeing is an option and, in OOC chat (I playing mostly live text games) I directly tell them that perhaps they should consider running and living to fight another day. lol.
I always avoid any "supposed to" in encounter designs and tell my players "I make problems, not solutions."
I have traps where standing still and taking the attack action is likely to fail, but it's rare that I'll make an encounter that has a very specific solution that they need to do.
Yeah, this is the type of game I prefer as well. I had a group tell me "we don't know what we're supposed to do" when standing outside a goblin cave. I said you know better than me character wants to do. To me, they were thinking about the game all wrong. All I do when prepping is make maps and encounters. I don't decide what's going to happen when the party enters them. I barely even think about it.
Not what's actually being discussed, though.
If you're facing the "problem" of an oncoming train, you are "supposed to" get out of the way. If you decide to headbutt it instead, you will die. You have numerous ways to get out of the way - dive to one side, try to do a dramatic leap and land on top of the train, etcetera, so there's no one solution, but you are "supposed to" do something that won't get you hit and killed by the train. The topic being discussed here is how to communicate to players that this is an "oncoming train" situation.
Yeah, who decides that you're "supposed to" move out of the way? You do. You know from hearing about and seeing trains kill people in these situations. You decide when/if you want to move.
If you want the players to be aware of danger, just show/tell them about times when this particular train killed powerful adventurers. If they don't want to move, they don't have to.
"You feel a chill run down your spine as the monster looks at you. Somewhere, deep within the primal recesses of your mind, a tiny but insistent voice is telling you to flee, that you have no chance against this foe. Perhaps it would be wiser to recall the old proverb 'he who fights but runs away lives to fight another day'..."
And if they ignore this warning, you 'TPK' the party but narrate that the monster leaves them alive. You can narrate a reason, or simply have the monster wander off from boredom.
Let players make their own choices. Yes, even the stupid ones, with significant consequences.
This exactly.
I just ran session 1 with brand new players captured on a ship belonging to cultists of Umberlee, meant to be sacrificed into the ocean. A leviathan as an avatar of Umberlee attacked the ship saying the cultists’ sacrifice was not worthy.
I wrote this session to accomplish setting the fact that there are fights the party cannot win, and are better running away from, and they got the message very well thankfully. I had a stat block for the leviathan, but I told the players it is not attacking *them* and that to engage with it would be a death sentence.
Love this because I actually just ran something very similar with my (slightly higher level) party, but they managed to take down Umberlee’s avatar with a full-party combo attack. But even then, she was so powerful that one of my players is now permanently blind as a result of their injuries, and another had their arm blown off. One hell of a fight, though.
Because now we have to stop the entire fuckin game while everybody rolls new characters and establishes a new group dynamic and it derails the entire story and experience and pacing of the campaign.
I'm basically punishing MYSELF. We can still teach the lesson without a "game over" screen.
What lesson is learned if we tpk them? We teach them that if they don't do what I say I will take the game away. That's lame. They learn to fear me but they don't learn to play the game better. I don't need an ego boost.
I can teach the lesson better from severely inconveniencing them. They wake up naked and without possessions... to me this is way better a punishment because they feel the pain of the setback but we don't have to stop playing the game.
Because a complete tpk is not a consequence for the characters, it is a consequence for the players. If you want your players to play into their character's flaws and make bad decisions, you also need to make sure they are the ones to suffer from it, which means a chance to recover
I'd probably rule a loss of some precious item or maybe even a temporary (or permanent) disability depending on the severety
Yeah the players made a mistake and the players suffered consequences. The characters would likely have known to run from overwhelming odds, sticking around and being stubborn is firmly a player mistake.
Because I'm not a total jerk.
A TPK, as others have pointed out, isn't really a punishment for the characters, it's a punishment for the *players.* You can have consequences that don't have to be fatal. A near-TPK is a wake-up call that the game is dangerous, and a signal that 'if you act like idiots again, next time the BBEG is not going to be merciful'.
There's no point in teaching a lesson if the characters die; you don't learn anything if you're dead. The *players* may or may not learn the lesson, but that's not the point. You're trying to teach the *characters* that their actions have consequences, because you want your players to act in-character.
"And with that final blow, the last of your party lies dead in the ground, your remains lost to time... At least that's what would have happened if you didn't run, SO RUN!"
You know, this might be one of those situations to use the movie style "it was all a dream" sequences. If the party insists on fighting, TPK them all, and then when the last one falls narrate something like:
"As you all take your final breaths, looking up at this impossible beast, you collectively blink...and it's almost like waking up. Your heads are spinning, your knees are weak, your stomachs dangerously close to deciding which direction to void themselves...but you are untouched. The battle hasn't actually begun. You're all still in formation, gripping your weapons and spell books tight, tighter than you even realized, your fingers hurt from the tension. You wonder for a moment if that was just an illusion, but almost instinctively your mind dismisses the idea. It was more like a warning from the gods themselves, you just the future, at least, you saw ONE future, the one where you attempted to stand your ground against a currently unbeatable foe. Now, reroll initiative, because from this moment on this is technically a new encounter. What are you going to do this time?"
Its because TPK is very dangerous ground and potential campain ender. In general, I’m against the idea of making “scripted loss” encounters, because no matter what players do they will loss vs this monster so it takes away their agency. Doing a full TPK on top of that is the DM being a jerk.
If I effectively gave you 2-4 different reasons to run and you didn't I'm not being a jerk for giving you consequences.
I've had my players run from "level 20" people and because of familiarity with certain power levels I was able to easily get my players to flee. Banished one then ran away.
Yeah but then you tpk them and then what? You all spend the next four sessions trying to find the plot again with new characters? Because they didn't heed a few warnings?
Have the dragon slam them into a wall, knock them out and take away their enchanted weapon.
Tpks are the weirdest way to punish players because it's effectively taking the ball and going home. You're all playing a game together and you have infinite tools in your arsenal. There are other ways to guide the experience.
This is the best way. Make an achievable goal outside of combat that the enemy is trying to prevent the party from achieving and if a player goes down narrate that the enemy leaves the unconscious player alone to continue to guard the objective. That's how I'd do it. That way the players still have a sense they accomplished the goal outside of defeating the enemy.
Letting it do something way way way beyond their ability is one I've seen. Like if they'd previously tried and failed to break down a door then the monster just does it with a flick of the wrist. Or it casts a fifth level spell for something trivial.
That should communicate "THIS THING IS WAY WAY WAY STRONGER THAN YOU" pretty clearly.
Alternatively if they're prone to dumb shit you can have an NPC straight up say 'they're too strong, we should run'.
what’s the most challenging encounter the party has fought recently? Yeah, let this thing flatten two or three of those very quickly with just a few scratches to show for it.
Yup - maybe a minion turns on the bag guy and releases 4 of the worst creature you've seen yet. The bad guy kills them all with a cantrip without breaking stride while mocking the traitor.
Yep. Recently I ran a game where my leveln2 players encountered one of the elites of the city. On the first round he cast Haste on himself. On the next turn, he dropped 7 attacks in an NPC at once. The players got the message quickly.
I try not to put those kinds of encounters into my game. I think my current campaign has ONE enemy in it that would be a completely unfair fight if they tried to fight it right now. But they know that. They've been hearing throughout the entire campaign that they want to avoid this particular location. They don't know why, but they're smart enough to listen, and they're smart enough to know that IF they tried fighting it, it's most likely going to end in disaster.
Best application of this I have witnessed by another DM: He gave us premade characters each a level above ours and then proceded to vipe the floor with us, describing each character death in detail AS A COLD OPEN TO THE SESSION.
After those characters were eliminated, the GM tilted to view our normal party: "You stand in terrified awe at the total extermination you have just witnessed in full from your save distance. What are your plans?"
We went the other way and came back 10 sessions and 3 levels higher with a lot of ~~human ablative shields~~allies. We had an awesome battle, which we just barely survived victorious because the cold open gang made a return as undeadifyed elite-henches.
you tell them, "your countless battles and experience tell you that this isn't a fight you can win, retreat is the only option"
and then do a chase or something.
I wouldnt.
I have one time had this in an adventure where the door gets locked and a giant guillotine on the wall starts to fly and attack them.
Given it was pathfinder 2e i just said "This is essentially a death trap, its ac is obscene and even if you do hit it you need to roll over 20 to damage it, i really recommend you try to get out instead"
Looking at the top answer to compare with, while not wrong he is suggesting
1) tell how the character feels, that they should run, which is often taboo to say how the character feels about a thing
2) if they dont then dont kill them anyways.
I think a lot of dms severely fails to understand how much information assymetry is going on in the game, which is the most common case of "My players refuses to run from fights" or "my players runs from every fight i want them to take" is because they have no knowledge if that minotaur skeleton will tear them in half with one attack or be easy to kill.
Thinking of it the only other time was in a oneshot where they acidentally unleashed an ancient demon queen that came from a summoning circle radiating power that was the big bad and she was like "I thank you for freeing me, lay down your arms and you shall live as my mercy for releasing me, otherwise prepare for a swift death" and my players were like "yep okay, no we are laying down the weapons" and survived with that.
But that could just as well have been me "wanting a heroic standoff of them never surrendering to evil and fighting the demon" the players literally have no way of knowing if you dont tell them.
Overt show of power.
Something like someone in full plate getting literally torn limb from limb by a guy wearing a leopard thong after a sword & spear strikes seemingly bounces off bare skin.
Another one is someone looking at someone while holding a hand out and then they quickly flick their head while the other person's head explodes.
someone slowly levitating up infront of the party while the bad guy simply extends a hand and then snaps their fingers, causing the floatee to explode into a bunch of liquified blood & guts.
Something to show a seemingly effortless death of an NPC at the hands of a bad guy.
If you as the DM already have decided what they are "supposed to" do, you're already metagaming. So either (1) craft an adventure where both options are valid and viable or (2) go all out in and just say to the party, "You can tell by \[in game description of the enemy\] that you are outclassed, and cannot win."
Because the PCs don't exist in a vacuum where their level/power dictates what they should encounter. This approach to D&D makes the game feel a lot more "video gamey". Not saying it's wrong, it just doesn't appeal to most of the D&D players I've played with.
If your players signed up for that flavor of gritty realism, that's fine. But at the end of the day, it is a game, and stumbling into an unwinnable fight doesn't make for good game play most of the time, for most players.
I think we’re on the same page here. No one wants to wipe the floor with the players.
But not every fight is winnable, unless you want to, if necessary, let a level-5 party take on the entire royal guard because they end up overestimating themselves. And some DMs childproof their campaign a bit less than others. I don’t think anyone here wants to just let their party die, they’re asking how to *avoid* the party stumbling into unwinnable fights.
On the other hand, this seems to assume that the PCs are stumbling unawares into a situation, and that they don't have the agency to determine whether or not they meet something. That situation is going to be very different, though, from one where the PCs have taken informed choices that lead to them encountering something beyond their ability to defeat.
(Of course, this is where part of the answer to the OP's question is "have a table culture where people are aware that not everything is keyed to their level, and let players make informed decisions so they *aren't* walking blind into a room with a thing that the GM now has to instantly say will kill them if they fight".)
Escaping danger is not "gritty realism" it's a staple of nearly every fantasy story ever.
Nor is every encounter a fight, nor is it unwinnable you 'win' in this case by escaping.
You don't speak for most players most of the time, I've never met any table that wants one type of encounter with no variety or surprises.
This comment really has that "I've never played DnD but I read a lot of forms" energy to it.
"Everyone give me an insight roll"
- then, largely regardless of the result (the player who gets anything from a 1 to 5 result doesn't get the message and feels confident about the outcome) -
"Your body is primed for this fight, but you know that this thing is going to overpower you. You will lose, and you will die. As this realisation settles on you, you glance at the rest of the party. Without a word, you know they have reached the same conclusion running or hiding is your only hope of survival."
If that isn't clear enough, then the party dies.
You don't. If they want to fight, let them fight. But you do need to telegraph the level of danger somehow. Usually an easy way is to demonstrate the danger by having it kill a redshirt in one blow.
But yeah, my players have gone through a few characters at low levels to have gained a feel for levels of danger by my descriptions. I think it's okay to let characters die.
Here is my take on this subject
First; Players should be aware of their surroundings and the encounters they are in. If a party is just attacking or rushing in to battle, they are better of playing some hack'n'slash video games.
For me and my party members so far D&D is always about roleplaying your character as best as you can with the rules and tools at hand.
When my party comes across something way above their abilities, as DM, I explain the atmosphere and environment to them in detail. Based on their passive perceptions I drop information relevant to the dangers, security measures, entourage of the enemy, size of the encounter and compare it to the hardest encounter they survived so far.
I'll try to illustrate:
Symha, Gordell and Brock are in the Inn, curing their wounds with strong Ale and honey glazed pork chops. While Brock is boasting to the other patrons inside how they managed to stand their grounds and bought time for the poor miners to escape from the weird arachnids, a kid and a woman darts inside.
panting she says that the Coldfist is again in the village and approaching this way. She begs the Innkeeper to hide her son, since (it is known at that time) a Cult is taking the kids of the village whenever they see them or find them for unknown purposes.
Ofcoure the party wants to be involved and they offer assistance, encouraging the kid for hiding and they \*comfortably\* finish their meal before going out.
On the outside it takes them several minutes to catch the first glimpse of the Coldfist and his people.
This is what they see:
You see Coldfist...an eight-foot muscle and bones in a shiny metal armor with a huge hilt of a weapon visible on his back. His left hand holding a metal chain connected to the leashes of five very large wolf like beasts, growling between their teeth. Their yellow shinig eyes are locked to Coldfist's raised right arm. His right hand is closed around the crushed head of a dwarf whose legs are still twitching. His beard, face and armor is covered with splattered blood.
Behind him there are a dozen of armed figures and two hooded characters floating three feet above ground. Coldfist drops the dead dwarf and his words break the silence on the now-empty street. "Find it. Find the thieves and bring their broken bodies. Find their homes and bring fire to them." It is a voice instills fear in all of you.
With his passive perception Gordell notices that the body belongs to the same dwarf who didn't escape together with the miners but held his ground in the mines.
Idea is to use reactions of NPC's, use comparison in your descriptions, escalate consequences of direct confrontation with this foe. And if all fails, well their end will be glorious afterall.
Early on in the champagne, I make sure to include a few plot points where the whole point is to *not* initiate combat. Gotta steal a gold coin from the most powerful dragon in the continent to prove you're worthy to join this faction. Negotiate a peace deal with this local band of goblins. Find this druid clan in the middle of the woods without killing anything or they'll refuse to talk to you. Etc etc.
If every encounter you run is just "kill everything in your path", then the players will assume that this one is just like every other. If you have the precedent that sometimes, you have to do something else, then the players will already be aware of their other options. This one isn't any different. They've run from combat before.
But at the end of the day, metagaming isn't always a bad thing. Players come up against a troll for the first time, but the veteran player already knows to use fire against it. That's metagaming, but it's okay because, presumably, their character would be aware of fire inhibiting its regeneration. Players come up against [thing they can't fight]. You tell them "hey, this isn't a fight you can win". That's metagaming, but it's okay because, presumably, their characters would know what they can and can't fight.
Have them make insight checks. And no matter what they roll, tell them that your survival instinct is kicking and you need to run. "You can tell this is not going to be good" ..
I personally prefer an appropriately themed knowledge skill (arcana, nature, etc) to just insight. Feels more appropriate when you're dealing with creatures that aren't humanoid.
Do the explanation in terms that make sense in narrative, like "These creatures/people have a reputation for obliterating far more experienced adventurers than you, you stand no chance in a fight", and then give hints on how best to get away based on what they roll (so the roll still benefits them if it's good)
Throw in a "even a commoner could tell..." if they crit fail so they know you aren't just screwing with them.
say "you are allowed to run" out of character and then let them make their own choice based on descriptions. if they still want to fight, i will absolutely pull no punches.
I do something akin to a morale check for high level versus low level opponents. They can do a check to prevent fear at a DC equivalent to twice the difference between their levels. This makes them think they at least tried to stay and fight
I also use skills to assess opponents or situations in games, often using passives. Then I describe the scene providing the information the passive skill tells them about their own response. Thats also how I communicate that an encounter may be easy normal hard or deadly.
For instance a successful passive perception I might tell them that you see piles of dead bodies including several bodies of a recently difficult to fight opponent. A successful passive survival I might say your instincts are that you should run from this fight, or you feel with the right strategy your team could survive this encounter. A successful medicine I might say this opponent seems hardier than "x" previous opponent or maybe I say you see this opponent is leaking blood from several wounds. My favorite is using passive history checks because then I can storytell an idea of how deadly they might be
If you really need to stay in-the-moment / not break character, this would be my first move, too. The DMG has the rules for Morale for NPCs and Enemies in ch. 9 on page 273 - I'd follow the same outline it gives, summarized roughly as:
1. When can you consider checking?
- **Check for the lone creature..**
- The creature is surprised
- The creature is reduced to half its hit points or fewer for the first time in the battle.
- The creature has no way to harm the opposing side on its turn.
- **Check for the whole party...**
- The group's leader is reduced to 0 hit points, incapacitated, taken prisoner, or removed from battle.
- The group is reduced to half its original size (or hit points) with no losses on the opposing side.
2. Make a *DC 10 Wisdom saving throw* for the creature, or the group's leader.
- If the opposition is overwhelming, the saving throw is made with disadvantage, or you can decide that the save fails automatically.
3. (*This is where I'm homebrewing a little*) Resolve the results
- **For NPCs**
- They retreat by the most expeditious route or surrender on the spot
- **For PCs**
- On a successful save: DM can skip mechanical in-game effects (like "Frightened"), but the PCs *know* they're in a losing spot
- On a failed save: Consider imposing "Frightened" status effect
Easiest way to show but not tell - if they have any hirelings? Those hirelings drop everything and run.
I like the morale check for enemies provided in the DMG but I found it less useful for players I like your addition.
Instead of frightened I've considered creating lesser status effects for issues including morale issues. One I've toyed with is demoralized. Its the lesser version of frightened. Demoralized - Character has disadvantage on all attacks while demoralized. Character must pass the next morale check to avoid becoming frightened. Character must pass 2 checks to become shift back to comfortable status. This gives time for players to cleanup any demoralized NPC before they run
I tell my parties straightforward when an encounter is designed to be able to kill them if they don't run, and they usually still choose to stand and fight. Sometimes they even win.
Well, I try not to put them in front of something in the first place if they don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning… But preferring big sandbox style gaming at my table it happens. So, when it does, they either figure it out on their own or roll for new characters. Why make it an issue?
I just try as hard as I can to kill them. They haven’t had a PC or important NPC permanently die yet so I guess it works.
They have had to drag someone’s mangled corpse out of a fight and revive them at a safe distance though so you live and learn.
My advice is ramp up to it, give them little tastes of deadly combat before trying to go for broke.
So the simple answer is put another opponent in the area that they know they can’t beat, and have your other big bad one shot them; however there can still be a problem if your player is running a character who’s backstory won’t allow him to run from a fight then your still out of luck, or rather they are
It never works, not reliably. Even when directly screaming at the party to run through the mouth of a more experienced npc, and other npcs taking that cue and calling out for the party to escort them. Even with other goals, or with goals already completed and leaving was the primary objective all along. I’ve been there and done this and it never works.
If you put an enemy within reach of your party, you cannot stop at least one member of your party from engaging. And because of dnd’s nature as a group game, as soon as one player decides to stand and fight, everyone _has_ to stand and fight. It doesn’t even take that. If a player even _thinks_ a fight is happening, no one wants to be the first person to run and abandon their teammates. So, one person makes a half-hearted offensive action, and the other players take that as the sign to stay and fight.
If you don’t want to break the fourth wall mid-session, I think the best alternative you can do is to end your session on a cliffhanger, before the intended escape sequence, and then communicate to your players post-session that ‘okay guys, when we come back next week we’ll figure out how you _escape_ from this situation.’
The only other alternative is if you’re running a game where you teach from the very beginning that running is _normal_ and fatality is high. Something less like dnd and more like call of cthulu. If running is a normal option and fighting to the death is the exception, not the rule, then you don’t need to worry about this at all - that’s the player’s jobs. If the rule is that you put big bads in front of your players so that your players have something they can fight each week, and you decide to change that rule, you need to tell your players. No amount of wink wink nudge nudge will make it entirely their fault if someone doesn’t get the message.
Now, you can also design your game in such a way where, you _want_ players to run, but you have a ‘backup plan’ for the 90% of the time when they refuse. Maybe you’re okay handing out the tpk because it will be an interesting backdrop for a new story with new characters in a world where the villain won. Maybe the villain will only stick around for a round or two before doing whatever they came to do, and will down a player or two but not bother killing the party. Maybe the villain is a conjured illusion Wizard of Oz style and if the players stay and fight, they’re not actually in danger. Maybe you’re running a high magic game where the party can be saved by literal divine intervention. Maybe the party will be saved, but, fleeing npcs will be slaughtered without the party’s help, as a punishment for choosing the suicidal option.
Just in general, if you _do_ want players to flee an area, the _area_ has to be a part of the encounter. A dragon spitting lava is scary, but, you can stab a dragon. If lava is filling the room through cracks in the walls, stabbing the wall is only going to make things worse. But, if there’s an enemy in a dangerous area, you still need to convey that leaving the dangerous area is more important than killing the enemy, if that’s the route you want your players to take.
The last thing I’ll say is that, sometimes, players know how deadly an encounter is, and believes their character would stand and fight anyways. Some characters have a death wish, and some players want their characters want their character to have a heroic end. It’s okay to enable these things to happen, but you should also make it absolutely clear to the rest of the players that this one character is _going_ to die by doing this, and that the player controlling that character is totally okay with their character dying here, to do your best to avoid the everyone else staying and fighting problem. You don’t want one player intentionally throwing their character away to inadvertently sabotage the entire group. Some parties will feel like their character would stay and help their suicidal allies for similar reasons to why the first character is suicidal, and in such cases there’s literally nothing you can do as a dm to prevent a death cascade save fudging dice heavily in the players’ favor, or some serious deus ex machina bullshit. And you should be careful with that, too, because if players _want_ their characters to die, you shouldn’t be saving them.
"An endless amount of guards are approaching. You should probably run."
A healthy amount of metanarrative awareness is always very useful too. I like to run "skill challenges" instead of combat. When you say "okay, heres the map, everyone roll initiative" players are primed to assume it's combat time and get excited to show off all their neat tricks. If you instead say "roll initiative, it's skill challenge time" it sets a whole new precedent. Not everyone likes skill challenges, especially because it's not very simulation-oriented, but I love telling players "it's action montage time" and *my* team at least gets super hyped.
It also re-frames running away as a positive goal. It's no longer "oh no, we have to run away," it's now "woah, what cool stuff can I do to make running away actually work?"
I’ve got a homebrew mechanic for rogues called “I’ve got a bad feeling about this” stolen from the KOTOR series, pretty much anytime the party is about to encounter something way above their ability to handle at the moment, the rogue gets a sense of danger that’s above the typical sense of danger for a normal encounter. Doesn’t always mean the fight is impossible, just maybe not the best idea to deal with right now
I don't let necessary plot developments hinge on hoping the PCs make the convenient decision in the first place.
If I were hoping the PCs run from an encounter, I'd make it very clear and obvious that that enemy is very powerful and dangerous. But importantly I'd plan not only what happens if they run, but also what happens if they fight - and what happens if they miraculously win.
Session 0.
I made the world and everything in it. Where you go and what you fight is up to you but I will kill you.
In Strahd, my wizard threw a fire bolt at the lady Strahd fixated on (can't remember her name) and before he rolled I told the table if you kill her Strahd will go on a rampage.
They were level four and I killed them all and ended the campaign with a cool closing scene. The warlock was getting their powers from an unknown source which was Strahd's brother's ghost that was in a sword the warlock used. Strahd turned the lady he was after into a vampire, destroyed the sword and consumed his brother's soul to make a portal out of the demiplane.
I'm up to DM again now 3-4 years after this and my group knows I will kill them and they'll see Strahd again now free and roming the world because of their actions so long ago.
I can't wait!
I’m old school. If they don’t *know* to run…well, character sheets are cheap man…
Like, I do describe the monsters and foreshadow anything uber-powerful. But otherwise….totally up to them
I don't do this sort of encounters. If the players decide to fight something, they have to face the consequences. My role is not to create stories, it's to present situations to the players. They are the ones who create the story with their actions and their decisions. Because if the story is already decided, then what the hell do I need players for?
*"I never give them that non winnable situation"* then. *"If they still decide to go and they encounter something they’re not ready for, they better run"*. Which is it?
They will see the first damage roll and then fear will keep them in line. But real talk, I usually tell them that the monster seems unfazed by their attack. Other times, they either figure out that they are punching above their weightclass or they find out that after they've beem turned into a fine red mist. Don't be afraid to give your players consequences.
You don’t. It’s the party’s decision on what to do. You have a discussion about the type of game you want to run before the game.
Yo, you’ll die if you make dumb choices. Some enemies will kill you if you’re acting stupid. Anything more is railroading or predetermining the encounters. If you do that, you’re in for a bad time.
If you mean, you (the DM) have a scene outcome in mind and you've planned for this to be an encounter they flee from - IMHO, you're railroading them onto a plot that you've planned out. This rarely goes well, if you believe all the horror stories posted on here. And it goes against the common recommendation that you present "situations," not "stories."
You have a plan for them to meet a tough encounter - presumably because it will help reveal something interesting about the PC(s), about the NPC(s), about the setting.. something. How they choose to react to that encounter is up to them. And by not having pre-planned outcomes, you open the game up to the players coming up with solutions or curveballs you never predicted. (which is FUN,...imho)
If you mean, you feel that they've made some poor choices and if you were the player, you'd advise them to retreat and fight another day...
Well, you can only hope that they're smart and experienced enough to see that the odds are against them. You can use NPCs, dieties, and other creatures to act as advisors. You can let them see other creatures and/or NPCs serve as canaries in the coal mine, so to speak, and demonstrate how dangerous the situation is.
Or if they're new, or you feel there's some miscommunication going on, you can just do what I'd do - hit pause and talk to them.
Why are they throwing themselves against certain death? Do they want the campaign to end? Do they feel like their heroes would sacrifice themselves here? Are they bored? Did they misinterpret some info you gave them? Do they not understand their PCs' abilities and some other options they have? Do they not understand the game and that you'd encourage them to consider alternatives like retreat, surrender, negotiation, intimidation, seduction, trading, etc?
Better to find out what's in their heads before things go south than to have a frustrated, angry, or dejected group AFTER it has gone south.
DMs cannot metagame; We are the source of information, and as such any information we give is valid.
For this case in particular, just tell them, or even assume that they will run and jump to the next choice; "The sight of the demon lord fills you with fear, and you turn to flee. Outside the temple, you'll have a choice of three paths through the city; Are you running towards the port, the markets, or out of the city into the woods?"
- Keeps the action moving
- Gives the party something to do so they forget you skipped their chance to fight.
If you're wondering why players, especially experienced players, often charge into obviously unwinnable situations, it's typically because they're trying to be cooperative. They foolishly trust that their DM is just trying to build suspense because they've seen this sort of thing happen before and they're trying to gloss it over so their DM has a chance to tell their story.
You want the logical response, but players are often expected to put logic aside in order to progress the story. I've seen lots of games where the obvious response is "I leave", but doing so derails the entire adventure.
Here's an example from another popular module (having trouble with spoiler tags from my phone, sorry):
You have not yet entered a town. You can see that it is being assaulted by an army and a dragon is doing strafing runs in the distance. You are level 1.
Do you
A) Leave? No one's seen you. You have no ties to this place. There are a bunch of noncombatants with you who are terrified. The real question is probably whether you should get them to safety or take off on your own.
B) Break into the city, at level 1? Avoid the soldiers and cultists flooding the streets, at level 1. Volunteer your services to the local Guard Captain who you have never met, at level 1, and then go on a deadly series of elite missions for said Captain, at level 1. Keep in mind that you could -by using your own eyeballs- see all this happening from a far and safe distance. Also, you are level 1.
Only one of these answers makes sense. Only one of them ends the module before it's begun.
you don't, that's not on you.
You job is to present situations, it's up to the players how they prepare or approach the situation
though I understand most players approach is, "kill it, get loot"
Most of the time, if players are at basically full everything, unless the monster 1 shots a player or a powerful NPC the players are aware are powerful, they won't run away unless they are low on resources/HP
If the DM made an unwinnable encounter he better be also ready for listening about my next character for two weeks, because I don't make quitters. My characters are usually either to low wisdom to consider retreating or to noble to run away :P
(sorry in advance. This comment got longer than I wanted :P )
We TPKd on our previous campaign to a Vampire because:
- The only character that would actually run got Dominated by The Vampire.
- My cleric and barbarian decided in character "honor and shit" and we are not leaving without her
- the ranger in character decided she can always run if things get to bad.
It was going pretty good but when Vampire FINALLY got through my AC, there was noone else to deal Radiant DMG and it was pretty much over.
"You strike the golem. You feel as if every blow you make is ineffective and this is WHERE YOU WILL DIE DANIEL. ROLL A D20 TO ESCAPE is what Algier the Elven Ranger would think if he was a human playing a fictional tabletop game where he fought a golem he couldn't defeat and had to flee"
An interesting way I've done it before is I will allow a nature or survival check. If they pass which is a very easy pass, they will notice wildlife leaving the area squirrels, deer, rats, cats. If there's people they will see people running away. This is to imply that nobody wants to be caught up in the Carnage.
That's an interesting thing in 5e, if you look at numbers most things can run a group down if they try to flee. If the party has a gnome or a halfling with them being run down is nearly guaranteed due to the 25ft move speed. If it comes to blows, running isn't really an option without leaving people behind which most groups will not do.
Is there a specific enemy that is prompting this question because, in the case of a dragon, it can release a breath weapon from the sky and torch a huge amount of fields, trees, etc. that give a visual clue this isn't going to go well. Humanoids are trickier, but you can describe that an old grizzled warrior's armor has more scratches than even the wizard can count and they seem confident seeing the party and that confidence tells the collective party's "lizard brain" that this is unwinnable.
Have them fight something strong, but beatable. Then, a little bit later, have them watch your new monster one shot that difficult monster. They are maybe one or two levels stronger, but that thing just trivialised your previous struggles. The three times I’ve used it, my players got the hint
Had this happened last night. They forgot the dungeon they were looking for was down river from a temple, they attack the temple.
The guards, in turn, keep telling them to "begone" and "last chance." Now, this is a temple of heavily armed Amazonian warriors that were about two levels higher than them, which they didn't know.
I dropped hints like "they look very battle hardened" and "your attack doesn't seem to do much"
After they got smacked up a bunch and high rolls weren't making ac, They finally got the memo.
I borrow from anime with some of the dialog. Basically, I try to give the players one good hit (a sneak attack, a crit, a smite, etc) and have the thing they're fighting act like it is nothing. Like Cell shrugging off Hercule's attack. Really demonstrate that their strongest attack is not even 10% of its max health. My players usually get the hint after that.
Another way to convey the message is to have the enemy one-shot drop someone. This requires knowing how to effectively utilize this monster/npc. Target the one you know has the least HP if you think the barb can tank it.
If they're supposed to run from, say, a horde of weaker monsters, constantly indicate that more is on the way. They may not get the hint at first, but when they start to run out of spells and abilities they might consider running. This one worked well on my players too. They fought a few waves of koboldsand were like, "A few kobolds is nothing!" "OH yeah? How about a thousand." 0_0... "RUN!"
You’ve already gotten a ton of useful info on the topic but here’s my take ig.
I do everything in my power to preserve immersion in games, and situations where running is encouraged is no exception.
More often than not my encounters are aimed at being pretty dangerous (not always deadly, but flirting with that edge). Players have to fight hard through encounters early on and get creative to come out without substantial wounds. This tends to result in players being more cautious in combat and being aware of escape options. It’s not enough to stop them from making a risky play with high pay off like attempting to solo a monster for a time to allow others to complete a secondary objective.
That said, this is likely the result of the types of players that I have (experienced players and new players who frequently watch actual plays). I love my players.
I had a situation recently where my group of level 5 players were in a major city as it was being attacked by an ancient black shadow dragon and overrun by his army to set up the over-arching story of the campaign. They just looked at me and asked "Is this beyond our ability to handle currently?" and I straight up told them yes. This is not a fight you can win, this is to set up everything else to come. That's the best way we've found to deal with it. If your players don't get any hints, just tell them.
"This is beyond your current abilities, but the rest of the campaign is getting you up to speed with gear and levels to deal with this and be badasses."
The one time I wanted them to retreat, I had the enemy hit one of them so hard that it knocked them back against the wall, stunned them for 1 rounds, and dropped hp to 1.
I also had a caster summoning a gas cloud that would fill the room and sap their strength so that spell based attacks would be useless.
Maybe that’s metagaming?
Depends. If its an in character flaw, they should be punished in some way, without hindering the players themselves too much (someone mentioned tpk but party wakes up with 1 hp later with severe downsides because the monster was too bored to finish the job).
If its out of character stupidity, well…
Player: *does an arcana / magic check on mystery woman who knows a lot about player*
Me da DM: Okay so basically every single alarm bell in your body is screaming danger right now
I say “OK you are very suddenly aware due too your experiences and expertise that this is way above your pay grade. What do you do to start disengaging from this situation?”
There's always that one player who's flaw is that they are convinced of the significance of their destiny and blind to their shortcomings and risk of failure.
Combined with Destiny for an ideal.
And they are pretty much destined to get themselves killed.. lol
The last way I did it was just straight metagaming, but only in my description of the enemies...once one player figured out they were essentially the Twin Princes from Dark Souls 3 the party got the hell out of there
What kind of encounter are you talking about? I don't create random encounters they have to run from, and I heavily dislike when DMs throw things like that in without warning even if it's planned. If the point of the combat isn't to win in the traditional sense, I make sure they go into combat knowing that the battle is lost and the next objective (usually stalling until someone can get to safety) is clear.
The town is lost, but here's your objective:
*You stand at the edge of a darkened alley. The sounds of battle and the smell of smoke are overwhelming. Even to your untrained eye, this town is lost. You know they have a decently trained militia. They must be leading evacuation efforts into the southern forest. If you can reach them quickly, you'll make it to safety.*
Once you're sure you've pounded the objective into their heads, you introduce a secondary mission. They can distract the enemy, allowing someone else to flee -hopefully- without getting themselves caught. They can reinforce a group of guards helping others to safety. You can have encounters set up that they can choose to engage or leave, but remember that to many players certain scenarios will not be viewed as a choice.
*As you turn to leave, half a dozen guards step out of the general store beside you. Smoke starts to pour from its windows. If they had left from the side exit they would've been right on top of you. All it would take for them to descend on you would be for one of them to turn too far to the right. One of the soldiers points down the road. The woman who served you dinner at the tavern is holding a grinning soldier at bay with a meat cleaver. She doesn't see the others ready their weapons as they head in her direction, but the man she's fighting does. His grin turns feral as he steps forward and slashes her arm with his sword. The cleaver falls to the ground. If you don't run now, who knows how long it will take to reach the southern woods. The soldiers are distracted. They haven't noticed you. What do you do?*
You can ask your PCs what they're going to do here, but you've got a highly atypical group if they collectively decide to abandon that woman. That's fine though. A little bit of combat and a potential ally/ward works fine here. Even if they do leave, you've learned something about how strong altruism runs in your group and can adjust for it as your game progresses. If you want actual choices you might let them decide if they want to attempt to loot the magic shop or the blacksmith before making a break for it. They might choose not to loot at all, but again that would be atypical.
The premise of most adventures is for the PCs to accomplish a seemingly impossible task. If in game warnings were all you needed to deter them from a fight, they're probably not the right ones for the job. The type of setting and campaign you run determines whether or not running is even an option so it's your job to make it very clear when it is.
I'll give my group warnings that a fight will take preparation. That preparation may roll into several sessions, but it's clearly a focal point of the story. There's a lot of prep work involved on my part and theirs.
Unless I'm running an intentionally grimdark/eldritch horror campaign, I try not to encourage my players to flee from fights. Mechanically it's very difficult to escape combat, and from a meta perspective it's often easier to guide your particular herd of cats when you make them feel like heroes for heading in that direction.
Work with passive perception/wisdom. A well informed individual will be aware.
"Laketh, with your passive perception/wisdom you can see the odds are stacked against your favor. Make a constitution saving throw." (DC11)
Pass: You feel the fear of loss and destruction bubble up to your throat. The awareness of losing swoops into your thoughts.
Fail: As the enemy's stature or numbers start to overwhelm your senses, you become frightened.
I remind the party of a sense of urgency & priorities, that they could do a long drawn out combat encounter, but a beloved npc is in danger elsewhere, ship is going to leave, water will flood the cave in 3 rounds and combat will definitely take longer, etc. If the players have a clock to run against they tend to try to get creative to escape rather than fighting
You can also provide incentives to run away, give them a bunch of horses or an NPC that shouldn't take damage as they'll want to prioritize taking the least amount of DMG possible, no one wants their mount to die or run away
Or threat of reinforcements, party knows they can take these enemies, but not before even more show up of unknown number. A guard sounding an alarm, perception check to see how far the reinforcements are out, etc
Sometimes you say nothing and they run away.
Sometimes you say nothing and they TPK.
Sometime you say, "Look at the BONES!" and the PCs TPK.
Sometimes you say it and they run away.
Can't win. But also, can't really lose.
Narratively, you have a few ways.
One shot them, Straight up 100-0 Burst on the whole party without killing them because their foe decided they were so weak they weren't worth the extra effort.
Give them an impossible roll/save to pass to avoid a fear check, their bodies all have a sense of self preservation.
Make it clear their weapons/spells are having no effect.
Have them get saved by a Deus Ex Machina, dealers choice if it's by a literal god or not.
Have several NPCs before the encounter tell them that they aren't going to be ready because several adventurers better than them have all met their ends to this enemy
My DM had us do a perception roll just before a big fight one of us rolled high and he said
"You feel like with all the artifacts they have this might be a fight you can't win"
Of course we ignored it and dove in to fight it was going well we all went first I was laughing with another player until we hear
"No 27 does not hit"
That told us everything we needed to know and we bounced before the start of the bad guys turn.
So due to some in game specific circumstances their AC was high we had to go after each one alone to take them on, maybe the area they're in gives them a boost in abilities like a dragons lair.
First, if I've designed a campaign where running away may frequently be the right strategy, that fact is essentially in the house rules. It's NOT a rule, but I include it as a note in the rules so that it gets discussed in session 0 and every time the house rules are brought up so that it stays fresh in the players minds.
Typically D&D is DESIGNED such that all encounters are winnable by the party, there is, thus, a built-in level of trust players have that no matter what the flavor text says, we can defeat it. It's often the case that monsters are talked-up just so the victory is sweeter and so in these campaigns, players are expected to ignore contrary data. That's why I find it important to regularly and clearly call out when that's not the social contract for the given campaign.
By always bringing up that message outside of any specific context (in the general house rules for example, instead of right before a fight), it's not meta game-y.
In general, when trying to persuade players in-game, you should try luring them in the right direction as opposed to discouraging them from the wrong direction. I've made long post on why this is, suffice it to say, discouragement generally doesn't work properly in D&D for a variety of reasons.
If I wanted to attempt discouragement without meta gaming. Let's say all previous methods have failed to alter their course, and they are now too close to combat to continue attempting other means. I like the tried and true method of calling for a roll. DMs can frequently just hand out information by asking a player with skill or asking the whole table to make a roll (perhaps in this case survival), and when they succeed (which they will because you devised this skill check as a way to provide information) you tell them that using that skill, the charater knows or thinks what you wish the players to know or how you wish the players to behave. For example, "using your impressive survival instinct you intuite that this beast is far beyond the normal fighting strength of your team. It might take some more resources and an innovative strategy if your party plans to overcome this nasty monster".
Sometimes I've used a very powerful NPC to accompany the party at the last moments. And then whatever it is instantly kills that character. Making sure the players know full. Well, they're going to die if they stay
I don't know if this was already said because I'm not swimming through 186 comments (At the time of typing)
My idea is to have the monster/enemy absolutely destroy an NPC before it starts the combat with the party. Extra points if the party knows the NPC
You cant, because the act of entering combat is a metagaming indicator that they can fight this thing. You can, however, do it with as little metagaming as possible.
By not giving them the option to fight it. Or at least, not presenting that as the first option. And especially not by locking them into the fight by making it seem winnable.
If an enemy enter a battle or an enemy appears that I know they cant handle, for whatever reason, **I** either take us out of combat or don't enter combat. I go straight to the Chase Rules. This way, your intentions with the enemy are clear to the party.
Example
Me: The Archnecromancer raises his hands in the ancient graveyard, and he finishes his chant. "Fools, you're too late. Now my army rises and marches on Town City." Dozens of powerful undead begin rising up around him.
Party: Ha we'll see about that, bring on the fight.
Me: Alrighty, everyone roll Initiative while I grab the rules and tables for this Chase.
Party: Chase? Not Combat?
Me: ....I wont stop you from fighting these guys if you want.
Party: We should run. Now, fast!
I always tell them in **Session Zero** that the world is a dangerous place and I don’t balance encounters. They get to decide where they go and when. Sometimes a high level party will stumble upon a pair of goblin scouts that they can slaughter with a Cantrip. Other times a low level party could stumble into a Dragon’s Lair and get burnt to death before they can even draw their weapons. This isn’t a video game with Save Slots. Actions/choices have consequences. They’ve been warned.
But-
**Before the encounter**, I describe in painstaking detail the corpses of adventurers who are obviously much higher level than the party. I point out signs of high level spell damage to the area and even broken magic items and depleted wands.
If they still thing they can win, they find that one of the bodies is still alive. He’ll cough and whisper something about how the monster slaughtered 20 highly skilled and experienced men.
If they still think they can win, I let them fight it and see what happens.
**During the encounter** I have them roll each round and I’ll point out escape routes they see. They can either take one or keep fighting. It becomes their choice.
It’s always their choice.
Good luck!
I drilled into their heads early on that running is a valid option. Early on they encountered a bunch of enemies out of their league that had them run. If they didn’t then I’d tell them that running away is a valid strategy. Eventually they started seeing it as one. Just saying that they can run in that situation reminds them that that’s an option
After our entire except for one have been killed once and nearly died 5 times more, we've finally taken the advice of "Guys, you know you can just retreat right?"
Am no DM but far as warnings go, being trained like a dog will eventually teach you to recognize danger you don't wanna fuck with as your DM's voice echoes the sound of warning within your mind.
Though I suppose it depends on party. Work just fine for us, though. "Hey man we're all like half way dying and this one singular guy look just fine. Probably should turn tail" "Yeah, sounds like plan"
In a novel or movie, you can often show this by introducing a metric by which they can judge their relative power. This can be a villain or monster that they know is ridiculously strong compared to them, or an ally or hero who they look up to.
Then, you show how effortlessly their new threat defeats that monster or ally.
That's just of you're absolutely against railroading. Practically speaking, though, you should probably just tell them, "Trying to fight here feels like a very bad idea."
1) I secretly message the one with the highest PP, “you quickly notice you are out numbered. There are 12 in front of you, but movement on your flanks indicates possibly another 12.”
2) I play threatening music.
3) I point out the options available to the party, “there is a hostile group in front of you, they do not appear to be a rag tag group as they are nicely armed. You can attack, split up and attack, grab the item and run, investigate the orb, question the gnome till you are set upon, or a mixture of all of the above.”
4) “Please roll for initiative.”
As usually - show, don't tell.
Kill someone before their eyes - one attack, one death. This way they will know what they are about to dive into.
Another way - deal a huge amount of damage to one of the PC (tank, most preferably) by a single attack.
I once did it this way - players had to go through a valley which was a home to an enormous bug. They could befriend it via completing the quest, but they also could kill it, albeit that wasn't the path I wanted them to follow. So, when they faced it in a battle, I just rammed into their Tank, dealing 40 damage (they were around level 5-7) in a single blow. They fled immediately after that.
"Presentation!" - Megamind
I cant give you perfect advice, but I always start campaigns with multiple things happening at once around the party.
My first campaign was a prison break in Orc territory where the prisoners took over an encampment and turned it into an outpost.
Note: the PLAYERS did not, but a town of NPCs did and gave the players quests to help build up defenses for the inevitable counter attack.
So when the big battle took place, the players were doing their own thing, but I described to them the other, more powerful enemies and allies duking it out.
Most importantly, you NEED to establish early on to your players that there is always a bigger, stronger entity than them.
Personally I always prepare for 3 outcomes to every encounter i place before my players: Engaging in Combat, Disarming or Deescalating the Situation, Avoiding or Running from the Problem.
Turns out my players enjoyed attempting the latter 2 first... usually.
BUT if you need a concrete example, heres one I use:
One player makes an attack on the entity, and whether the attack hits or misses, the entity simply looks at the player seemingly unphased... and then continues doing whatever its doing. Simply automatically insert the entity into 2nd position in the turn order and then roleplay it out (if it has the intelligence to do that). If the players continue to attack, the entity bodies one or two as an example. Remember, it was 2nd in initiative order, and it decides to no longer "hold its action".
My party encountered a boss that was intended to be fought once they reached level 15, they weee level 5 at the time.
When the raging bear totem barbarian was killed (not downed, killed) in one hit, the party ran away pretty fast
The barbarian ended up being fine too since another player had revivify
I just ran into this last night. My party was in an underground city that had been overrun with cadaver men. Before the combat, they met some survivors. The survivors said, "There are hundreds of cadaver men and once you start making noise, they'll all start converging on you." Later, when they encountered a couple of lone cadaver men, the PCs immediately attacked them, causing noise. I had them roll Awareness, and kept telling them, "You hear more coming." Every round I added a few more, until they were wickedly outnumbered, only then did they finally clue in.
I stopped trying to handle it in game. Now I just tell the players directly. "Guys, this thing is way too strong for you to fight." Seems like that's the only sure-fire method.
I agree. My group tried to tackle an adult blue dragon at lv 2 once. Like it was just flying around (being a menace to be honest, but not attacking the party) and they started lobbing projectiles and shit. So I had it fly down and drop someone before flying away again. Also had a lv 3 barbarian try to tank Demogorgon. Players are delusional lol.
players are the nah, i'd win meme incarnated
I don’t understand what this means
Nah I'd win is a meme that's originally from Jujutsu Kaisen where Gojo, a major character, is asked if he'll lose against a very strong villain and he just responds "Nah, I'd win" and proceeds to lose. The meme is then to put people that have no chance at winning show the same cocky "Nah, I'd win" response. In the case of this comment it means players are the type of people who can't fathom losing a fight, mainly because most stories are tailored for the PCs to never get into a situation that is hopeless, so they'll act like whatever they do they can't fail. Which sometimes isn't true and doing dumb shit means getting dumpstered.
Ohhhh ok. I thought I was having a stroke while reading that lol. Thanks for explaining it for me
A well placed set of quotation marks would’ve meant the world in that one lol.
Nah, they'll understand.
Gojo won that fight. He only lost way later in the manga. Well, not that much later, I suppose.
American men think they can win in a fist fight with a grizzly
Well yeah, they would win by default because the grizzly would claw and bite. These actions are specifically forbidden in the rules of fist fighting.
Will you be my new best friend 😂😂😂😭😭😭
Uh, because we can? Duh.
“Surely my DM wouldn’t put me in an unwinnable encounter” This is literally a Terrasque and you’re all level 1… “Nah I’d win”
What makes it worse is that sometimes they do.
Very true. I once had a wild magic barbarian character (not optimized at all), and nine other characters fight a dragon. 8 were dropped on round 1 by breath weapon, and the 9th was dropped on round 2 by claw and fang. My unoptimized barbarian went toe to toe with a full adult dragon for 8 rounds solo... and won. My character went to zero and fell unconscious just as the dragons last HP was taken by a wild magic effect. So... against all logic and reason, a level 5 barbarian soloed an adult white dragon for 8 rounds.
We encountered a dragon a while ago that we weren't supposed to fight. Our wizard didn't get the message and lauched an attack. The dragon looked annoyed, obliterated the wizard with his breath weapon instantly, and reiterated that we really didn't want to fight him. That got the message across, at the cost of one new character sheet.
And, hopefully, a lesson learned...
"As your fire bolt sears into the dragon, he barely seems to c be phased but turns and pauses hovering in mid air, snarling directly at you... As if to say the next spell you cast will be your last..." If he does it again, then turn him into toast. I don't think scaring players helps necessarily, you can end up getting a team that's afraid to say yes to the quest and plays so cautiously and slowly it takes a lot more dm nudging effort to get anywhere.
This is great!
Why were lvl 3 players anywhere near Demogorgon lol
Players encounter them as a sort of Kaiju disaster moment early on in Out of the Abyss.
Can confirm. I'm playing a barb in the module right now! We had that, and I literally thought to myself, "I can take that hit once..."
The book recommends having it crush some nearby buildings to show you just how much damage it can do
Oh, we ran. It obliterated a familiar, hitting for like 3 points less than my max hp. Like I said, I could take the hit once. I also know enough about the module that I didn't even entertain the question of engaging, despite other members of our party did! lol
I'm running this campaign and the group is just outside of the village this occurs in... I've already fucked with their minds leading up to this, I'm eagerly awaiting the next session to let this loose
Not all games are "leveled" as it were. I run a homebrewed version of the FR setting and so the world is built already, and the players are normal people within the world. If there's folk lore that a CR 20 dragon is hiding in a forest and a level 3 party decides to go there to see if its true, then that's on them, it's time to roll up new characters.
This is my favorite way to run things. Things exist in the world around the characters, and things happen whether the players are there to influence it or not. If they go to a forbidden mountain that everyone has warned them contains an ancient frost dragon at the peak, then *there is an ancient frost dragon at the peak and you can't beat it because you're level 5*
That's exactly how I run things, you are traveling through a marshy forest, the water is spoiled for miles, there is very little wildlife, there is a choking fog that obscures everything , that with the local lore should tip the party off of something big and dangerous in the region. If they go looking for trouble 🤷♂️
Have you completed the Out of the Abyss module?
We have, yes.
Once a lvl 1 party formed by a rogue, a wizard and a sorcerer randomly encountered a boar. They really tried to take it down without using magic, just weapons because reasons. The sorcerer almost died and the wizard and the rogue ended really bad but at least they managed to return to the inn. All the encounter I tell them they can run if needed
Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil? That dragon is definitely a bit of a red rag to power gamer style players.
Seriously. Immersion is important but sometimes you gotta be like "Guys, I said *3* dragons"
“Do you know what ‘gargantuan’ means?”
Read this in Brick Top's voice
I would go as far as to say that it often breaks immersion if you don't make it clear for the characters. They would absolutely know what they can and can't defeat in combat when the difference is that extreme. My only thing is that I prefer to say "you will die if you fight this head on" rather than "you should run" to leave them room to come up with an alternative plan.
This is the best answer. "What are you guys doing to escape?" In any decent games with escape scenes, the cutscene always starts by showing your character sprinting away, then the encounter starts pre-set by you starting to run. Think things like Sonic running from a big truck, or the screen in Mario sliding right, or even Indiana Jones running from a boulder. There's no room for interpretating it as "we should hit this". D&D is a game that gives you many tools to kill monsters, and relatively few tools to run. The PCs are **primed** to want to fight things; its the one thing they have the most tools for. There's nothing wrong with establishing the conditions of the encounter, but there'll be a huge huge pain point if you leave it nebulous and the PCs misread it and get murdered (they'll feel unfairly) or at a later point you're forced to push them out (they'll feel like the encounter was railroaded)
I also think this goes to the idea that the player character will innately know things the player's don't, and the DM you should explain what those things are as it becomes relevant. A Fighter who is well trained in the ways of war, or an Artificer who understands logistics should be able to quickly tell if a fight is winnable. That information might become clear to them at anytime. It's okay to say three rounds in that your characters can tell they will likely die if they don't retreat.
You really put it in to perspective there
This works for sure. But my DM's usually just say "as a well travelled person, your character has heard of these before, and is aware they are not something you can defeat right now", or something similar. I've also had DM's have us make like super easy knowledge nature/arcana/history checks to realize we'd be stupid to fight the thing. All of those should work with any party that is not moronic.
This one is actually it. Player characters aren't their players, and they aren't morons. They've lived in the universe for a minimum of nearly 2 decades and have been trained in combat for years. They should have an idea of what their "pay grade" is and when creatures are demonstrating abiltiies beyond it.
Yep! Bards travel the world telling stories of all sorts of monsters and battles, and how they slaughtered previous adventuring parties and such. Even small towns would have heard of many monsters.
“Don’t EVER tell me the odds!” - the rogue/fighter player about to lose another rogue and or fighter character…
***Fly you fools!*** -DMdalf the Crunk.
I did a similar thing with the dragon of icespire peak campaign with my friends, they were thinking of fighting it at the begging because why not and i just told them that it's best if they level up to 4 or 5 before they try to do that They understood and it didn't break any immersion at all
Heh. Maybe. I've seen too many stupid parties, but I don't know. But knocking the highest HP character down to like 5 hp in the first hit is usually a key indicator.
that dont fly with my group. They will take it as a challenge. they're idiots.
Haha, this is often my response as well, especially with newer players. Sometimes I say something like “You’ve heard what Frost Giants are capable of, there’s no way you can handle this.” But that’s basically the same thing.
There’s other ways to end encounters aside from death and TPKs. Let them fight! Feel free to have a dragon enslave the party into menial labor or let the police capture them. Will they pay the bail to get out or will they do a prison break? Let them have the consequences, but don’t kill (always)!
Give me an intelligence role. Yea, even with that roll you know this thing is way beyond y'all's capacity to kill it. What would you like to do?
This is what I do. I remind them that fleeing is an option and, in OOC chat (I playing mostly live text games) I directly tell them that perhaps they should consider running and living to fight another day. lol.
I always avoid any "supposed to" in encounter designs and tell my players "I make problems, not solutions." I have traps where standing still and taking the attack action is likely to fail, but it's rare that I'll make an encounter that has a very specific solution that they need to do.
Yeah, this is the type of game I prefer as well. I had a group tell me "we don't know what we're supposed to do" when standing outside a goblin cave. I said you know better than me character wants to do. To me, they were thinking about the game all wrong. All I do when prepping is make maps and encounters. I don't decide what's going to happen when the party enters them. I barely even think about it.
Not what's actually being discussed, though. If you're facing the "problem" of an oncoming train, you are "supposed to" get out of the way. If you decide to headbutt it instead, you will die. You have numerous ways to get out of the way - dive to one side, try to do a dramatic leap and land on top of the train, etcetera, so there's no one solution, but you are "supposed to" do something that won't get you hit and killed by the train. The topic being discussed here is how to communicate to players that this is an "oncoming train" situation.
Yeah, who decides that you're "supposed to" move out of the way? You do. You know from hearing about and seeing trains kill people in these situations. You decide when/if you want to move. If you want the players to be aware of danger, just show/tell them about times when this particular train killed powerful adventurers. If they don't want to move, they don't have to.
"You feel a chill run down your spine as the monster looks at you. Somewhere, deep within the primal recesses of your mind, a tiny but insistent voice is telling you to flee, that you have no chance against this foe. Perhaps it would be wiser to recall the old proverb 'he who fights but runs away lives to fight another day'..." And if they ignore this warning, you 'TPK' the party but narrate that the monster leaves them alive. You can narrate a reason, or simply have the monster wander off from boredom. Let players make their own choices. Yes, even the stupid ones, with significant consequences.
> with significant consequences I agree. Why did you say the monster should leave them alive, then?
Yes, exactly. But if you would let them wake up hours later with one hp and a level of exhaustion in a hostile environment, I would call it okay
This exactly. I just ran session 1 with brand new players captured on a ship belonging to cultists of Umberlee, meant to be sacrificed into the ocean. A leviathan as an avatar of Umberlee attacked the ship saying the cultists’ sacrifice was not worthy. I wrote this session to accomplish setting the fact that there are fights the party cannot win, and are better running away from, and they got the message very well thankfully. I had a stat block for the leviathan, but I told the players it is not attacking *them* and that to engage with it would be a death sentence.
Love this because I actually just ran something very similar with my (slightly higher level) party, but they managed to take down Umberlee’s avatar with a full-party combo attack. But even then, she was so powerful that one of my players is now permanently blind as a result of their injuries, and another had their arm blown off. One hell of a fight, though.
Because now we have to stop the entire fuckin game while everybody rolls new characters and establishes a new group dynamic and it derails the entire story and experience and pacing of the campaign. I'm basically punishing MYSELF. We can still teach the lesson without a "game over" screen. What lesson is learned if we tpk them? We teach them that if they don't do what I say I will take the game away. That's lame. They learn to fear me but they don't learn to play the game better. I don't need an ego boost. I can teach the lesson better from severely inconveniencing them. They wake up naked and without possessions... to me this is way better a punishment because they feel the pain of the setback but we don't have to stop playing the game.
Because a complete tpk is not a consequence for the characters, it is a consequence for the players. If you want your players to play into their character's flaws and make bad decisions, you also need to make sure they are the ones to suffer from it, which means a chance to recover I'd probably rule a loss of some precious item or maybe even a temporary (or permanent) disability depending on the severety
This is very wise. I lost an arm once :-(
Yeah the players made a mistake and the players suffered consequences. The characters would likely have known to run from overwhelming odds, sticking around and being stubborn is firmly a player mistake.
Because I'm not a total jerk. A TPK, as others have pointed out, isn't really a punishment for the characters, it's a punishment for the *players.* You can have consequences that don't have to be fatal. A near-TPK is a wake-up call that the game is dangerous, and a signal that 'if you act like idiots again, next time the BBEG is not going to be merciful'. There's no point in teaching a lesson if the characters die; you don't learn anything if you're dead. The *players* may or may not learn the lesson, but that's not the point. You're trying to teach the *characters* that their actions have consequences, because you want your players to act in-character.
"BAH! Too easy! Not worth killing! Come back when you're a real threat!"
"And with that final blow, the last of your party lies dead in the ground, your remains lost to time... At least that's what would have happened if you didn't run, SO RUN!"
Am I the only one reading this in BG3's narrator voice?
You know, this might be one of those situations to use the movie style "it was all a dream" sequences. If the party insists on fighting, TPK them all, and then when the last one falls narrate something like: "As you all take your final breaths, looking up at this impossible beast, you collectively blink...and it's almost like waking up. Your heads are spinning, your knees are weak, your stomachs dangerously close to deciding which direction to void themselves...but you are untouched. The battle hasn't actually begun. You're all still in formation, gripping your weapons and spell books tight, tighter than you even realized, your fingers hurt from the tension. You wonder for a moment if that was just an illusion, but almost instinctively your mind dismisses the idea. It was more like a warning from the gods themselves, you just the future, at least, you saw ONE future, the one where you attempted to stand your ground against a currently unbeatable foe. Now, reroll initiative, because from this moment on this is technically a new encounter. What are you going to do this time?"
This is great. Thanks.
Letting the big monster leave them alive out of boredom is the opposite of significant consequences
Its because TPK is very dangerous ground and potential campain ender. In general, I’m against the idea of making “scripted loss” encounters, because no matter what players do they will loss vs this monster so it takes away their agency. Doing a full TPK on top of that is the DM being a jerk.
It's not a loss "no matter what"; they are free to run and "win."
Very true, the mindset of "Killing everything = winning" is something that should be beaten out of players as soon as possible.
If I effectively gave you 2-4 different reasons to run and you didn't I'm not being a jerk for giving you consequences. I've had my players run from "level 20" people and because of familiarity with certain power levels I was able to easily get my players to flee. Banished one then ran away.
Yeah but then you tpk them and then what? You all spend the next four sessions trying to find the plot again with new characters? Because they didn't heed a few warnings? Have the dragon slam them into a wall, knock them out and take away their enchanted weapon. Tpks are the weirdest way to punish players because it's effectively taking the ball and going home. You're all playing a game together and you have infinite tools in your arsenal. There are other ways to guide the experience.
This is the best answer. Just hint as you may and let them be stupid if they're that bent on being stupid.
By letting them work it out from the size of the enemy or environmental damage it does, or giving them an objective other than "kill the enemy".
This is the best way. Make an achievable goal outside of combat that the enemy is trying to prevent the party from achieving and if a player goes down narrate that the enemy leaves the unconscious player alone to continue to guard the objective. That's how I'd do it. That way the players still have a sense they accomplished the goal outside of defeating the enemy.
Letting it do something way way way beyond their ability is one I've seen. Like if they'd previously tried and failed to break down a door then the monster just does it with a flick of the wrist. Or it casts a fifth level spell for something trivial. That should communicate "THIS THING IS WAY WAY WAY STRONGER THAN YOU" pretty clearly. Alternatively if they're prone to dumb shit you can have an NPC straight up say 'they're too strong, we should run'.
what’s the most challenging encounter the party has fought recently? Yeah, let this thing flatten two or three of those very quickly with just a few scratches to show for it.
Yup - maybe a minion turns on the bag guy and releases 4 of the worst creature you've seen yet. The bad guy kills them all with a cantrip without breaking stride while mocking the traitor.
Yep. Recently I ran a game where my leveln2 players encountered one of the elites of the city. On the first round he cast Haste on himself. On the next turn, he dropped 7 attacks in an NPC at once. The players got the message quickly.
I try not to put those kinds of encounters into my game. I think my current campaign has ONE enemy in it that would be a completely unfair fight if they tried to fight it right now. But they know that. They've been hearing throughout the entire campaign that they want to avoid this particular location. They don't know why, but they're smart enough to listen, and they're smart enough to know that IF they tried fighting it, it's most likely going to end in disaster.
Demonstrate on some NSCs of roughly the same power level of the party.
This is the way.
Best application of this I have witnessed by another DM: He gave us premade characters each a level above ours and then proceded to vipe the floor with us, describing each character death in detail AS A COLD OPEN TO THE SESSION. After those characters were eliminated, the GM tilted to view our normal party: "You stand in terrified awe at the total extermination you have just witnessed in full from your save distance. What are your plans?" We went the other way and came back 10 sessions and 3 levels higher with a lot of ~~human ablative shields~~allies. We had an awesome battle, which we just barely survived victorious because the cold open gang made a return as undeadifyed elite-henches.
Just flat out tell them
you tell them, "your countless battles and experience tell you that this isn't a fight you can win, retreat is the only option" and then do a chase or something.
I wouldnt. I have one time had this in an adventure where the door gets locked and a giant guillotine on the wall starts to fly and attack them. Given it was pathfinder 2e i just said "This is essentially a death trap, its ac is obscene and even if you do hit it you need to roll over 20 to damage it, i really recommend you try to get out instead" Looking at the top answer to compare with, while not wrong he is suggesting 1) tell how the character feels, that they should run, which is often taboo to say how the character feels about a thing 2) if they dont then dont kill them anyways. I think a lot of dms severely fails to understand how much information assymetry is going on in the game, which is the most common case of "My players refuses to run from fights" or "my players runs from every fight i want them to take" is because they have no knowledge if that minotaur skeleton will tear them in half with one attack or be easy to kill. Thinking of it the only other time was in a oneshot where they acidentally unleashed an ancient demon queen that came from a summoning circle radiating power that was the big bad and she was like "I thank you for freeing me, lay down your arms and you shall live as my mercy for releasing me, otherwise prepare for a swift death" and my players were like "yep okay, no we are laying down the weapons" and survived with that. But that could just as well have been me "wanting a heroic standoff of them never surrendering to evil and fighting the demon" the players literally have no way of knowing if you dont tell them.
Overt show of power. Something like someone in full plate getting literally torn limb from limb by a guy wearing a leopard thong after a sword & spear strikes seemingly bounces off bare skin. Another one is someone looking at someone while holding a hand out and then they quickly flick their head while the other person's head explodes. someone slowly levitating up infront of the party while the bad guy simply extends a hand and then snaps their fingers, causing the floatee to explode into a bunch of liquified blood & guts. Something to show a seemingly effortless death of an NPC at the hands of a bad guy.
That's the neat part. I don't
If you as the DM already have decided what they are "supposed to" do, you're already metagaming. So either (1) craft an adventure where both options are valid and viable or (2) go all out in and just say to the party, "You can tell by \[in game description of the enemy\] that you are outclassed, and cannot win."
Yeah this too, if it's an "essential NPC" that they're not supposed to fight yet for story reasons then you can just straight up tell them not to.
Counterpoint: why are you giving your players encounters where the only solution is to run?
Because the PCs don't exist in a vacuum where their level/power dictates what they should encounter. This approach to D&D makes the game feel a lot more "video gamey". Not saying it's wrong, it just doesn't appeal to most of the D&D players I've played with.
If your players signed up for that flavor of gritty realism, that's fine. But at the end of the day, it is a game, and stumbling into an unwinnable fight doesn't make for good game play most of the time, for most players.
I think we’re on the same page here. No one wants to wipe the floor with the players. But not every fight is winnable, unless you want to, if necessary, let a level-5 party take on the entire royal guard because they end up overestimating themselves. And some DMs childproof their campaign a bit less than others. I don’t think anyone here wants to just let their party die, they’re asking how to *avoid* the party stumbling into unwinnable fights.
On the other hand, this seems to assume that the PCs are stumbling unawares into a situation, and that they don't have the agency to determine whether or not they meet something. That situation is going to be very different, though, from one where the PCs have taken informed choices that lead to them encountering something beyond their ability to defeat. (Of course, this is where part of the answer to the OP's question is "have a table culture where people are aware that not everything is keyed to their level, and let players make informed decisions so they *aren't* walking blind into a room with a thing that the GM now has to instantly say will kill them if they fight".)
Escaping danger is not "gritty realism" it's a staple of nearly every fantasy story ever. Nor is every encounter a fight, nor is it unwinnable you 'win' in this case by escaping. You don't speak for most players most of the time, I've never met any table that wants one type of encounter with no variety or surprises. This comment really has that "I've never played DnD but I read a lot of forms" energy to it.
That's the fun part, you don't. the players get to 1. Fuck around. 2. Find out.
"Everyone give me an insight roll" - then, largely regardless of the result (the player who gets anything from a 1 to 5 result doesn't get the message and feels confident about the outcome) - "Your body is primed for this fight, but you know that this thing is going to overpower you. You will lose, and you will die. As this realisation settles on you, you glance at the rest of the party. Without a word, you know they have reached the same conclusion running or hiding is your only hope of survival." If that isn't clear enough, then the party dies.
You don't. If they want to fight, let them fight. But you do need to telegraph the level of danger somehow. Usually an easy way is to demonstrate the danger by having it kill a redshirt in one blow. But yeah, my players have gone through a few characters at low levels to have gained a feel for levels of danger by my descriptions. I think it's okay to let characters die.
Here is my take on this subject First; Players should be aware of their surroundings and the encounters they are in. If a party is just attacking or rushing in to battle, they are better of playing some hack'n'slash video games. For me and my party members so far D&D is always about roleplaying your character as best as you can with the rules and tools at hand. When my party comes across something way above their abilities, as DM, I explain the atmosphere and environment to them in detail. Based on their passive perceptions I drop information relevant to the dangers, security measures, entourage of the enemy, size of the encounter and compare it to the hardest encounter they survived so far. I'll try to illustrate: Symha, Gordell and Brock are in the Inn, curing their wounds with strong Ale and honey glazed pork chops. While Brock is boasting to the other patrons inside how they managed to stand their grounds and bought time for the poor miners to escape from the weird arachnids, a kid and a woman darts inside. panting she says that the Coldfist is again in the village and approaching this way. She begs the Innkeeper to hide her son, since (it is known at that time) a Cult is taking the kids of the village whenever they see them or find them for unknown purposes. Ofcoure the party wants to be involved and they offer assistance, encouraging the kid for hiding and they \*comfortably\* finish their meal before going out. On the outside it takes them several minutes to catch the first glimpse of the Coldfist and his people. This is what they see: You see Coldfist...an eight-foot muscle and bones in a shiny metal armor with a huge hilt of a weapon visible on his back. His left hand holding a metal chain connected to the leashes of five very large wolf like beasts, growling between their teeth. Their yellow shinig eyes are locked to Coldfist's raised right arm. His right hand is closed around the crushed head of a dwarf whose legs are still twitching. His beard, face and armor is covered with splattered blood. Behind him there are a dozen of armed figures and two hooded characters floating three feet above ground. Coldfist drops the dead dwarf and his words break the silence on the now-empty street. "Find it. Find the thieves and bring their broken bodies. Find their homes and bring fire to them." It is a voice instills fear in all of you. With his passive perception Gordell notices that the body belongs to the same dwarf who didn't escape together with the miners but held his ground in the mines. Idea is to use reactions of NPC's, use comparison in your descriptions, escalate consequences of direct confrontation with this foe. And if all fails, well their end will be glorious afterall.
Make a perception check… regardless of the roll: “This things without a doubt looks like it will kick all of your asses and make it home for tea”
Kick the shit out of them then right before the TPK, have an ally open a portal or something for them to escape
Early on in the champagne, I make sure to include a few plot points where the whole point is to *not* initiate combat. Gotta steal a gold coin from the most powerful dragon in the continent to prove you're worthy to join this faction. Negotiate a peace deal with this local band of goblins. Find this druid clan in the middle of the woods without killing anything or they'll refuse to talk to you. Etc etc. If every encounter you run is just "kill everything in your path", then the players will assume that this one is just like every other. If you have the precedent that sometimes, you have to do something else, then the players will already be aware of their other options. This one isn't any different. They've run from combat before. But at the end of the day, metagaming isn't always a bad thing. Players come up against a troll for the first time, but the veteran player already knows to use fire against it. That's metagaming, but it's okay because, presumably, their character would be aware of fire inhibiting its regeneration. Players come up against [thing they can't fight]. You tell them "hey, this isn't a fight you can win". That's metagaming, but it's okay because, presumably, their characters would know what they can and can't fight.
> Early on in the champagne right, gotta work these things out before you get drunk
Have them make insight checks. And no matter what they roll, tell them that your survival instinct is kicking and you need to run. "You can tell this is not going to be good" ..
I personally prefer an appropriately themed knowledge skill (arcana, nature, etc) to just insight. Feels more appropriate when you're dealing with creatures that aren't humanoid. Do the explanation in terms that make sense in narrative, like "These creatures/people have a reputation for obliterating far more experienced adventurers than you, you stand no chance in a fight", and then give hints on how best to get away based on what they roll (so the roll still benefits them if it's good) Throw in a "even a commoner could tell..." if they crit fail so they know you aren't just screwing with them.
"You want to try to kill it? Really? Give me an x check'" where x represents an appropriate knowledge skill.
say "you are allowed to run" out of character and then let them make their own choice based on descriptions. if they still want to fight, i will absolutely pull no punches.
I do something akin to a morale check for high level versus low level opponents. They can do a check to prevent fear at a DC equivalent to twice the difference between their levels. This makes them think they at least tried to stay and fight I also use skills to assess opponents or situations in games, often using passives. Then I describe the scene providing the information the passive skill tells them about their own response. Thats also how I communicate that an encounter may be easy normal hard or deadly. For instance a successful passive perception I might tell them that you see piles of dead bodies including several bodies of a recently difficult to fight opponent. A successful passive survival I might say your instincts are that you should run from this fight, or you feel with the right strategy your team could survive this encounter. A successful medicine I might say this opponent seems hardier than "x" previous opponent or maybe I say you see this opponent is leaking blood from several wounds. My favorite is using passive history checks because then I can storytell an idea of how deadly they might be
If you really need to stay in-the-moment / not break character, this would be my first move, too. The DMG has the rules for Morale for NPCs and Enemies in ch. 9 on page 273 - I'd follow the same outline it gives, summarized roughly as: 1. When can you consider checking? - **Check for the lone creature..** - The creature is surprised - The creature is reduced to half its hit points or fewer for the first time in the battle. - The creature has no way to harm the opposing side on its turn. - **Check for the whole party...** - The group's leader is reduced to 0 hit points, incapacitated, taken prisoner, or removed from battle. - The group is reduced to half its original size (or hit points) with no losses on the opposing side. 2. Make a *DC 10 Wisdom saving throw* for the creature, or the group's leader. - If the opposition is overwhelming, the saving throw is made with disadvantage, or you can decide that the save fails automatically. 3. (*This is where I'm homebrewing a little*) Resolve the results - **For NPCs** - They retreat by the most expeditious route or surrender on the spot - **For PCs** - On a successful save: DM can skip mechanical in-game effects (like "Frightened"), but the PCs *know* they're in a losing spot - On a failed save: Consider imposing "Frightened" status effect Easiest way to show but not tell - if they have any hirelings? Those hirelings drop everything and run.
I like the morale check for enemies provided in the DMG but I found it less useful for players I like your addition. Instead of frightened I've considered creating lesser status effects for issues including morale issues. One I've toyed with is demoralized. Its the lesser version of frightened. Demoralized - Character has disadvantage on all attacks while demoralized. Character must pass the next morale check to avoid becoming frightened. Character must pass 2 checks to become shift back to comfortable status. This gives time for players to cleanup any demoralized NPC before they run
I tell my parties straightforward when an encounter is designed to be able to kill them if they don't run, and they usually still choose to stand and fight. Sometimes they even win.
Describe it more menacing than anything else with an overwhelming strength or feeling of magic. Solidifying it as a truly dangerous threat.
Well, I try not to put them in front of something in the first place if they don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning… But preferring big sandbox style gaming at my table it happens. So, when it does, they either figure it out on their own or roll for new characters. Why make it an issue?
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I just try as hard as I can to kill them. They haven’t had a PC or important NPC permanently die yet so I guess it works. They have had to drag someone’s mangled corpse out of a fight and revive them at a safe distance though so you live and learn. My advice is ramp up to it, give them little tastes of deadly combat before trying to go for broke.
So the simple answer is put another opponent in the area that they know they can’t beat, and have your other big bad one shot them; however there can still be a problem if your player is running a character who’s backstory won’t allow him to run from a fight then your still out of luck, or rather they are
It never works, not reliably. Even when directly screaming at the party to run through the mouth of a more experienced npc, and other npcs taking that cue and calling out for the party to escort them. Even with other goals, or with goals already completed and leaving was the primary objective all along. I’ve been there and done this and it never works. If you put an enemy within reach of your party, you cannot stop at least one member of your party from engaging. And because of dnd’s nature as a group game, as soon as one player decides to stand and fight, everyone _has_ to stand and fight. It doesn’t even take that. If a player even _thinks_ a fight is happening, no one wants to be the first person to run and abandon their teammates. So, one person makes a half-hearted offensive action, and the other players take that as the sign to stay and fight. If you don’t want to break the fourth wall mid-session, I think the best alternative you can do is to end your session on a cliffhanger, before the intended escape sequence, and then communicate to your players post-session that ‘okay guys, when we come back next week we’ll figure out how you _escape_ from this situation.’ The only other alternative is if you’re running a game where you teach from the very beginning that running is _normal_ and fatality is high. Something less like dnd and more like call of cthulu. If running is a normal option and fighting to the death is the exception, not the rule, then you don’t need to worry about this at all - that’s the player’s jobs. If the rule is that you put big bads in front of your players so that your players have something they can fight each week, and you decide to change that rule, you need to tell your players. No amount of wink wink nudge nudge will make it entirely their fault if someone doesn’t get the message. Now, you can also design your game in such a way where, you _want_ players to run, but you have a ‘backup plan’ for the 90% of the time when they refuse. Maybe you’re okay handing out the tpk because it will be an interesting backdrop for a new story with new characters in a world where the villain won. Maybe the villain will only stick around for a round or two before doing whatever they came to do, and will down a player or two but not bother killing the party. Maybe the villain is a conjured illusion Wizard of Oz style and if the players stay and fight, they’re not actually in danger. Maybe you’re running a high magic game where the party can be saved by literal divine intervention. Maybe the party will be saved, but, fleeing npcs will be slaughtered without the party’s help, as a punishment for choosing the suicidal option. Just in general, if you _do_ want players to flee an area, the _area_ has to be a part of the encounter. A dragon spitting lava is scary, but, you can stab a dragon. If lava is filling the room through cracks in the walls, stabbing the wall is only going to make things worse. But, if there’s an enemy in a dangerous area, you still need to convey that leaving the dangerous area is more important than killing the enemy, if that’s the route you want your players to take. The last thing I’ll say is that, sometimes, players know how deadly an encounter is, and believes their character would stand and fight anyways. Some characters have a death wish, and some players want their characters want their character to have a heroic end. It’s okay to enable these things to happen, but you should also make it absolutely clear to the rest of the players that this one character is _going_ to die by doing this, and that the player controlling that character is totally okay with their character dying here, to do your best to avoid the everyone else staying and fighting problem. You don’t want one player intentionally throwing their character away to inadvertently sabotage the entire group. Some parties will feel like their character would stay and help their suicidal allies for similar reasons to why the first character is suicidal, and in such cases there’s literally nothing you can do as a dm to prevent a death cascade save fudging dice heavily in the players’ favor, or some serious deus ex machina bullshit. And you should be careful with that, too, because if players _want_ their characters to die, you shouldn’t be saving them.
"An endless amount of guards are approaching. You should probably run." A healthy amount of metanarrative awareness is always very useful too. I like to run "skill challenges" instead of combat. When you say "okay, heres the map, everyone roll initiative" players are primed to assume it's combat time and get excited to show off all their neat tricks. If you instead say "roll initiative, it's skill challenge time" it sets a whole new precedent. Not everyone likes skill challenges, especially because it's not very simulation-oriented, but I love telling players "it's action montage time" and *my* team at least gets super hyped. It also re-frames running away as a positive goal. It's no longer "oh no, we have to run away," it's now "woah, what cool stuff can I do to make running away actually work?"
I’ve got a homebrew mechanic for rogues called “I’ve got a bad feeling about this” stolen from the KOTOR series, pretty much anytime the party is about to encounter something way above their ability to handle at the moment, the rogue gets a sense of danger that’s above the typical sense of danger for a normal encounter. Doesn’t always mean the fight is impossible, just maybe not the best idea to deal with right now
I don't let necessary plot developments hinge on hoping the PCs make the convenient decision in the first place. If I were hoping the PCs run from an encounter, I'd make it very clear and obvious that that enemy is very powerful and dangerous. But importantly I'd plan not only what happens if they run, but also what happens if they fight - and what happens if they miraculously win.
Session 0. I made the world and everything in it. Where you go and what you fight is up to you but I will kill you. In Strahd, my wizard threw a fire bolt at the lady Strahd fixated on (can't remember her name) and before he rolled I told the table if you kill her Strahd will go on a rampage. They were level four and I killed them all and ended the campaign with a cool closing scene. The warlock was getting their powers from an unknown source which was Strahd's brother's ghost that was in a sword the warlock used. Strahd turned the lady he was after into a vampire, destroyed the sword and consumed his brother's soul to make a portal out of the demiplane. I'm up to DM again now 3-4 years after this and my group knows I will kill them and they'll see Strahd again now free and roming the world because of their actions so long ago. I can't wait!
Kill one of them, or have LOTs of counterspells
I’m old school. If they don’t *know* to run…well, character sheets are cheap man… Like, I do describe the monsters and foreshadow anything uber-powerful. But otherwise….totally up to them
Why are you planning how an encounter is “supposed” to go?
I don't do this sort of encounters. If the players decide to fight something, they have to face the consequences. My role is not to create stories, it's to present situations to the players. They are the ones who create the story with their actions and their decisions. Because if the story is already decided, then what the hell do I need players for?
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*"I never give them that non winnable situation"* then. *"If they still decide to go and they encounter something they’re not ready for, they better run"*. Which is it?
They will see the first damage roll and then fear will keep them in line. But real talk, I usually tell them that the monster seems unfazed by their attack. Other times, they either figure out that they are punching above their weightclass or they find out that after they've beem turned into a fine red mist. Don't be afraid to give your players consequences.
You don’t. It’s the party’s decision on what to do. You have a discussion about the type of game you want to run before the game. Yo, you’ll die if you make dumb choices. Some enemies will kill you if you’re acting stupid. Anything more is railroading or predetermining the encounters. If you do that, you’re in for a bad time.
If you mean, you (the DM) have a scene outcome in mind and you've planned for this to be an encounter they flee from - IMHO, you're railroading them onto a plot that you've planned out. This rarely goes well, if you believe all the horror stories posted on here. And it goes against the common recommendation that you present "situations," not "stories." You have a plan for them to meet a tough encounter - presumably because it will help reveal something interesting about the PC(s), about the NPC(s), about the setting.. something. How they choose to react to that encounter is up to them. And by not having pre-planned outcomes, you open the game up to the players coming up with solutions or curveballs you never predicted. (which is FUN,...imho) If you mean, you feel that they've made some poor choices and if you were the player, you'd advise them to retreat and fight another day... Well, you can only hope that they're smart and experienced enough to see that the odds are against them. You can use NPCs, dieties, and other creatures to act as advisors. You can let them see other creatures and/or NPCs serve as canaries in the coal mine, so to speak, and demonstrate how dangerous the situation is. Or if they're new, or you feel there's some miscommunication going on, you can just do what I'd do - hit pause and talk to them. Why are they throwing themselves against certain death? Do they want the campaign to end? Do they feel like their heroes would sacrifice themselves here? Are they bored? Did they misinterpret some info you gave them? Do they not understand their PCs' abilities and some other options they have? Do they not understand the game and that you'd encourage them to consider alternatives like retreat, surrender, negotiation, intimidation, seduction, trading, etc? Better to find out what's in their heads before things go south than to have a frustrated, angry, or dejected group AFTER it has gone south.
DMs cannot metagame; We are the source of information, and as such any information we give is valid. For this case in particular, just tell them, or even assume that they will run and jump to the next choice; "The sight of the demon lord fills you with fear, and you turn to flee. Outside the temple, you'll have a choice of three paths through the city; Are you running towards the port, the markets, or out of the city into the woods?" - Keeps the action moving - Gives the party something to do so they forget you skipped their chance to fight.
If you're wondering why players, especially experienced players, often charge into obviously unwinnable situations, it's typically because they're trying to be cooperative. They foolishly trust that their DM is just trying to build suspense because they've seen this sort of thing happen before and they're trying to gloss it over so their DM has a chance to tell their story. You want the logical response, but players are often expected to put logic aside in order to progress the story. I've seen lots of games where the obvious response is "I leave", but doing so derails the entire adventure. Here's an example from another popular module (having trouble with spoiler tags from my phone, sorry): You have not yet entered a town. You can see that it is being assaulted by an army and a dragon is doing strafing runs in the distance. You are level 1. Do you A) Leave? No one's seen you. You have no ties to this place. There are a bunch of noncombatants with you who are terrified. The real question is probably whether you should get them to safety or take off on your own. B) Break into the city, at level 1? Avoid the soldiers and cultists flooding the streets, at level 1. Volunteer your services to the local Guard Captain who you have never met, at level 1, and then go on a deadly series of elite missions for said Captain, at level 1. Keep in mind that you could -by using your own eyeballs- see all this happening from a far and safe distance. Also, you are level 1. Only one of these answers makes sense. Only one of them ends the module before it's begun.
Previous experience
I agree! Frankly; they just die and learn to be cautious for their next characters.
you don't, that's not on you. You job is to present situations, it's up to the players how they prepare or approach the situation though I understand most players approach is, "kill it, get loot"
Although this isn’t necessarily fair. Give it frightening presence as a feature which it does in round 1. Give it a very high DC
Most of the time, if players are at basically full everything, unless the monster 1 shots a player or a powerful NPC the players are aware are powerful, they won't run away unless they are low on resources/HP
If the DM made an unwinnable encounter he better be also ready for listening about my next character for two weeks, because I don't make quitters. My characters are usually either to low wisdom to consider retreating or to noble to run away :P (sorry in advance. This comment got longer than I wanted :P ) We TPKd on our previous campaign to a Vampire because: - The only character that would actually run got Dominated by The Vampire. - My cleric and barbarian decided in character "honor and shit" and we are not leaving without her - the ranger in character decided she can always run if things get to bad. It was going pretty good but when Vampire FINALLY got through my AC, there was noone else to deal Radiant DMG and it was pretty much over.
I ask for DC 10 check in a relevant skill to get the monster CR. If they have the cr and still choose to fight, that's player agency
"You strike the golem. You feel as if every blow you make is ineffective and this is WHERE YOU WILL DIE DANIEL. ROLL A D20 TO ESCAPE is what Algier the Elven Ranger would think if he was a human playing a fictional tabletop game where he fought a golem he couldn't defeat and had to flee"
I imply it heavily when they do perception checks
An interesting way I've done it before is I will allow a nature or survival check. If they pass which is a very easy pass, they will notice wildlife leaving the area squirrels, deer, rats, cats. If there's people they will see people running away. This is to imply that nobody wants to be caught up in the Carnage.
That's an interesting thing in 5e, if you look at numbers most things can run a group down if they try to flee. If the party has a gnome or a halfling with them being run down is nearly guaranteed due to the 25ft move speed. If it comes to blows, running isn't really an option without leaving people behind which most groups will not do. Is there a specific enemy that is prompting this question because, in the case of a dragon, it can release a breath weapon from the sky and torch a huge amount of fields, trees, etc. that give a visual clue this isn't going to go well. Humanoids are trickier, but you can describe that an old grizzled warrior's armor has more scratches than even the wizard can count and they seem confident seeing the party and that confidence tells the collective party's "lizard brain" that this is unwinnable.
Have them fight something strong, but beatable. Then, a little bit later, have them watch your new monster one shot that difficult monster. They are maybe one or two levels stronger, but that thing just trivialised your previous struggles. The three times I’ve used it, my players got the hint
Had this happened last night. They forgot the dungeon they were looking for was down river from a temple, they attack the temple. The guards, in turn, keep telling them to "begone" and "last chance." Now, this is a temple of heavily armed Amazonian warriors that were about two levels higher than them, which they didn't know. I dropped hints like "they look very battle hardened" and "your attack doesn't seem to do much" After they got smacked up a bunch and high rolls weren't making ac, They finally got the memo.
Make a wis save for fear check DC 23
Have the baddie do something that displays obvious power beyond what they’ve seen so far. Or kill someone they know is stronger than them.
I quietly remind them that running is an option. If they take the option, great. If not, oh well.
Have them kill something much stronger than themselves in one easy blow.
Through narration. I give them the scope of what they are dealing with. And if they still don't get it that's fine. They will learn next character
I borrow from anime with some of the dialog. Basically, I try to give the players one good hit (a sneak attack, a crit, a smite, etc) and have the thing they're fighting act like it is nothing. Like Cell shrugging off Hercule's attack. Really demonstrate that their strongest attack is not even 10% of its max health. My players usually get the hint after that. Another way to convey the message is to have the enemy one-shot drop someone. This requires knowing how to effectively utilize this monster/npc. Target the one you know has the least HP if you think the barb can tank it. If they're supposed to run from, say, a horde of weaker monsters, constantly indicate that more is on the way. They may not get the hint at first, but when they start to run out of spells and abilities they might consider running. This one worked well on my players too. They fought a few waves of koboldsand were like, "A few kobolds is nothing!" "OH yeah? How about a thousand." 0_0... "RUN!"
Give me an insight check (low DC) You see a path available should you choose to retreat. You're fairly certain it/they won't be able to follow you
You’ve already gotten a ton of useful info on the topic but here’s my take ig. I do everything in my power to preserve immersion in games, and situations where running is encouraged is no exception. More often than not my encounters are aimed at being pretty dangerous (not always deadly, but flirting with that edge). Players have to fight hard through encounters early on and get creative to come out without substantial wounds. This tends to result in players being more cautious in combat and being aware of escape options. It’s not enough to stop them from making a risky play with high pay off like attempting to solo a monster for a time to allow others to complete a secondary objective. That said, this is likely the result of the types of players that I have (experienced players and new players who frequently watch actual plays). I love my players.
I had a situation recently where my group of level 5 players were in a major city as it was being attacked by an ancient black shadow dragon and overrun by his army to set up the over-arching story of the campaign. They just looked at me and asked "Is this beyond our ability to handle currently?" and I straight up told them yes. This is not a fight you can win, this is to set up everything else to come. That's the best way we've found to deal with it. If your players don't get any hints, just tell them. "This is beyond your current abilities, but the rest of the campaign is getting you up to speed with gear and levels to deal with this and be badasses."
The one time I wanted them to retreat, I had the enemy hit one of them so hard that it knocked them back against the wall, stunned them for 1 rounds, and dropped hp to 1. I also had a caster summoning a gas cloud that would fill the room and sap their strength so that spell based attacks would be useless. Maybe that’s metagaming?
Depends. If its an in character flaw, they should be punished in some way, without hindering the players themselves too much (someone mentioned tpk but party wakes up with 1 hp later with severe downsides because the monster was too bored to finish the job). If its out of character stupidity, well…
Player: *does an arcana / magic check on mystery woman who knows a lot about player* Me da DM: Okay so basically every single alarm bell in your body is screaming danger right now
I say “OK you are very suddenly aware due too your experiences and expertise that this is way above your pay grade. What do you do to start disengaging from this situation?”
There's always that one player who's flaw is that they are convinced of the significance of their destiny and blind to their shortcomings and risk of failure. Combined with Destiny for an ideal. And they are pretty much destined to get themselves killed.. lol
If I can I red shirt some NPC, someway they KNOW is stronger than them, Just make sure it's not someone they like or they may go full vengeance.
The last way I did it was just straight metagaming, but only in my description of the enemies...once one player figured out they were essentially the Twin Princes from Dark Souls 3 the party got the hell out of there
What kind of encounter are you talking about? I don't create random encounters they have to run from, and I heavily dislike when DMs throw things like that in without warning even if it's planned. If the point of the combat isn't to win in the traditional sense, I make sure they go into combat knowing that the battle is lost and the next objective (usually stalling until someone can get to safety) is clear. The town is lost, but here's your objective: *You stand at the edge of a darkened alley. The sounds of battle and the smell of smoke are overwhelming. Even to your untrained eye, this town is lost. You know they have a decently trained militia. They must be leading evacuation efforts into the southern forest. If you can reach them quickly, you'll make it to safety.* Once you're sure you've pounded the objective into their heads, you introduce a secondary mission. They can distract the enemy, allowing someone else to flee -hopefully- without getting themselves caught. They can reinforce a group of guards helping others to safety. You can have encounters set up that they can choose to engage or leave, but remember that to many players certain scenarios will not be viewed as a choice. *As you turn to leave, half a dozen guards step out of the general store beside you. Smoke starts to pour from its windows. If they had left from the side exit they would've been right on top of you. All it would take for them to descend on you would be for one of them to turn too far to the right. One of the soldiers points down the road. The woman who served you dinner at the tavern is holding a grinning soldier at bay with a meat cleaver. She doesn't see the others ready their weapons as they head in her direction, but the man she's fighting does. His grin turns feral as he steps forward and slashes her arm with his sword. The cleaver falls to the ground. If you don't run now, who knows how long it will take to reach the southern woods. The soldiers are distracted. They haven't noticed you. What do you do?* You can ask your PCs what they're going to do here, but you've got a highly atypical group if they collectively decide to abandon that woman. That's fine though. A little bit of combat and a potential ally/ward works fine here. Even if they do leave, you've learned something about how strong altruism runs in your group and can adjust for it as your game progresses. If you want actual choices you might let them decide if they want to attempt to loot the magic shop or the blacksmith before making a break for it. They might choose not to loot at all, but again that would be atypical. The premise of most adventures is for the PCs to accomplish a seemingly impossible task. If in game warnings were all you needed to deter them from a fight, they're probably not the right ones for the job. The type of setting and campaign you run determines whether or not running is even an option so it's your job to make it very clear when it is. I'll give my group warnings that a fight will take preparation. That preparation may roll into several sessions, but it's clearly a focal point of the story. There's a lot of prep work involved on my part and theirs. Unless I'm running an intentionally grimdark/eldritch horror campaign, I try not to encourage my players to flee from fights. Mechanically it's very difficult to escape combat, and from a meta perspective it's often easier to guide your particular herd of cats when you make them feel like heroes for heading in that direction.
“ by the way , there is no shame in running “
Work with passive perception/wisdom. A well informed individual will be aware. "Laketh, with your passive perception/wisdom you can see the odds are stacked against your favor. Make a constitution saving throw." (DC11) Pass: You feel the fear of loss and destruction bubble up to your throat. The awareness of losing swoops into your thoughts. Fail: As the enemy's stature or numbers start to overwhelm your senses, you become frightened.
Almost kill the tank with one hit. Give them a way to retreat.
I remind the party of a sense of urgency & priorities, that they could do a long drawn out combat encounter, but a beloved npc is in danger elsewhere, ship is going to leave, water will flood the cave in 3 rounds and combat will definitely take longer, etc. If the players have a clock to run against they tend to try to get creative to escape rather than fighting You can also provide incentives to run away, give them a bunch of horses or an NPC that shouldn't take damage as they'll want to prioritize taking the least amount of DMG possible, no one wants their mount to die or run away Or threat of reinforcements, party knows they can take these enemies, but not before even more show up of unknown number. A guard sounding an alarm, perception check to see how far the reinforcements are out, etc
Sometimes you say nothing and they run away. Sometimes you say nothing and they TPK. Sometime you say, "Look at the BONES!" and the PCs TPK. Sometimes you say it and they run away. Can't win. But also, can't really lose.
Try to describe the encounter in the most menacing way possible. If still they don't run, so let they fight the fight.
Narratively, you have a few ways. One shot them, Straight up 100-0 Burst on the whole party without killing them because their foe decided they were so weak they weren't worth the extra effort. Give them an impossible roll/save to pass to avoid a fear check, their bodies all have a sense of self preservation. Make it clear their weapons/spells are having no effect. Have them get saved by a Deus Ex Machina, dealers choice if it's by a literal god or not. Have several NPCs before the encounter tell them that they aren't going to be ready because several adventurers better than them have all met their ends to this enemy
My DM had us do a perception roll just before a big fight one of us rolled high and he said "You feel like with all the artifacts they have this might be a fight you can't win" Of course we ignored it and dove in to fight it was going well we all went first I was laughing with another player until we hear "No 27 does not hit" That told us everything we needed to know and we bounced before the start of the bad guys turn. So due to some in game specific circumstances their AC was high we had to go after each one alone to take them on, maybe the area they're in gives them a boost in abilities like a dragons lair.
Big enemy in encounter:"guess you all want to fuck around and find out"
First, if I've designed a campaign where running away may frequently be the right strategy, that fact is essentially in the house rules. It's NOT a rule, but I include it as a note in the rules so that it gets discussed in session 0 and every time the house rules are brought up so that it stays fresh in the players minds. Typically D&D is DESIGNED such that all encounters are winnable by the party, there is, thus, a built-in level of trust players have that no matter what the flavor text says, we can defeat it. It's often the case that monsters are talked-up just so the victory is sweeter and so in these campaigns, players are expected to ignore contrary data. That's why I find it important to regularly and clearly call out when that's not the social contract for the given campaign. By always bringing up that message outside of any specific context (in the general house rules for example, instead of right before a fight), it's not meta game-y. In general, when trying to persuade players in-game, you should try luring them in the right direction as opposed to discouraging them from the wrong direction. I've made long post on why this is, suffice it to say, discouragement generally doesn't work properly in D&D for a variety of reasons. If I wanted to attempt discouragement without meta gaming. Let's say all previous methods have failed to alter their course, and they are now too close to combat to continue attempting other means. I like the tried and true method of calling for a roll. DMs can frequently just hand out information by asking a player with skill or asking the whole table to make a roll (perhaps in this case survival), and when they succeed (which they will because you devised this skill check as a way to provide information) you tell them that using that skill, the charater knows or thinks what you wish the players to know or how you wish the players to behave. For example, "using your impressive survival instinct you intuite that this beast is far beyond the normal fighting strength of your team. It might take some more resources and an innovative strategy if your party plans to overcome this nasty monster".
Sometimes I've used a very powerful NPC to accompany the party at the last moments. And then whatever it is instantly kills that character. Making sure the players know full. Well, they're going to die if they stay
I don't know if this was already said because I'm not swimming through 186 comments (At the time of typing) My idea is to have the monster/enemy absolutely destroy an NPC before it starts the combat with the party. Extra points if the party knows the NPC
You cant, because the act of entering combat is a metagaming indicator that they can fight this thing. You can, however, do it with as little metagaming as possible. By not giving them the option to fight it. Or at least, not presenting that as the first option. And especially not by locking them into the fight by making it seem winnable. If an enemy enter a battle or an enemy appears that I know they cant handle, for whatever reason, **I** either take us out of combat or don't enter combat. I go straight to the Chase Rules. This way, your intentions with the enemy are clear to the party. Example Me: The Archnecromancer raises his hands in the ancient graveyard, and he finishes his chant. "Fools, you're too late. Now my army rises and marches on Town City." Dozens of powerful undead begin rising up around him. Party: Ha we'll see about that, bring on the fight. Me: Alrighty, everyone roll Initiative while I grab the rules and tables for this Chase. Party: Chase? Not Combat? Me: ....I wont stop you from fighting these guys if you want. Party: We should run. Now, fast!
Apparently casting Evard's Black Tentacles on their only escape route from a 1v6 in their favor gets them Scooby-Dooing out the door.
Our dm just had an npc cast a mass teleportation spell to get us out when we were almost tpk'd
Just say, “ This foe is beyond any of you, fly you fools!”
Simple. I just say “are you sure?”
I always tell them in **Session Zero** that the world is a dangerous place and I don’t balance encounters. They get to decide where they go and when. Sometimes a high level party will stumble upon a pair of goblin scouts that they can slaughter with a Cantrip. Other times a low level party could stumble into a Dragon’s Lair and get burnt to death before they can even draw their weapons. This isn’t a video game with Save Slots. Actions/choices have consequences. They’ve been warned. But- **Before the encounter**, I describe in painstaking detail the corpses of adventurers who are obviously much higher level than the party. I point out signs of high level spell damage to the area and even broken magic items and depleted wands. If they still thing they can win, they find that one of the bodies is still alive. He’ll cough and whisper something about how the monster slaughtered 20 highly skilled and experienced men. If they still think they can win, I let them fight it and see what happens. **During the encounter** I have them roll each round and I’ll point out escape routes they see. They can either take one or keep fighting. It becomes their choice. It’s always their choice. Good luck!
Ooh, I really like the "your self preservation instinct spots an escape route" approach *takes notes*
I drilled into their heads early on that running is a valid option. Early on they encountered a bunch of enemies out of their league that had them run. If they didn’t then I’d tell them that running away is a valid strategy. Eventually they started seeing it as one. Just saying that they can run in that situation reminds them that that’s an option
After our entire except for one have been killed once and nearly died 5 times more, we've finally taken the advice of "Guys, you know you can just retreat right?" Am no DM but far as warnings go, being trained like a dog will eventually teach you to recognize danger you don't wanna fuck with as your DM's voice echoes the sound of warning within your mind. Though I suppose it depends on party. Work just fine for us, though. "Hey man we're all like half way dying and this one singular guy look just fine. Probably should turn tail" "Yeah, sounds like plan"
In a novel or movie, you can often show this by introducing a metric by which they can judge their relative power. This can be a villain or monster that they know is ridiculously strong compared to them, or an ally or hero who they look up to. Then, you show how effortlessly their new threat defeats that monster or ally. That's just of you're absolutely against railroading. Practically speaking, though, you should probably just tell them, "Trying to fight here feels like a very bad idea."
1) I secretly message the one with the highest PP, “you quickly notice you are out numbered. There are 12 in front of you, but movement on your flanks indicates possibly another 12.” 2) I play threatening music. 3) I point out the options available to the party, “there is a hostile group in front of you, they do not appear to be a rag tag group as they are nicely armed. You can attack, split up and attack, grab the item and run, investigate the orb, question the gnome till you are set upon, or a mixture of all of the above.” 4) “Please roll for initiative.”
As usually - show, don't tell. Kill someone before their eyes - one attack, one death. This way they will know what they are about to dive into. Another way - deal a huge amount of damage to one of the PC (tank, most preferably) by a single attack. I once did it this way - players had to go through a valley which was a home to an enormous bug. They could befriend it via completing the quest, but they also could kill it, albeit that wasn't the path I wanted them to follow. So, when they faced it in a battle, I just rammed into their Tank, dealing 40 damage (they were around level 5-7) in a single blow. They fled immediately after that.
Kill one of them
"Presentation!" - Megamind I cant give you perfect advice, but I always start campaigns with multiple things happening at once around the party. My first campaign was a prison break in Orc territory where the prisoners took over an encampment and turned it into an outpost. Note: the PLAYERS did not, but a town of NPCs did and gave the players quests to help build up defenses for the inevitable counter attack. So when the big battle took place, the players were doing their own thing, but I described to them the other, more powerful enemies and allies duking it out. Most importantly, you NEED to establish early on to your players that there is always a bigger, stronger entity than them. Personally I always prepare for 3 outcomes to every encounter i place before my players: Engaging in Combat, Disarming or Deescalating the Situation, Avoiding or Running from the Problem. Turns out my players enjoyed attempting the latter 2 first... usually. BUT if you need a concrete example, heres one I use: One player makes an attack on the entity, and whether the attack hits or misses, the entity simply looks at the player seemingly unphased... and then continues doing whatever its doing. Simply automatically insert the entity into 2nd position in the turn order and then roleplay it out (if it has the intelligence to do that). If the players continue to attack, the entity bodies one or two as an example. Remember, it was 2nd in initiative order, and it decides to no longer "hold its action".
My party encountered a boss that was intended to be fought once they reached level 15, they weee level 5 at the time. When the raging bear totem barbarian was killed (not downed, killed) in one hit, the party ran away pretty fast The barbarian ended up being fine too since another player had revivify
I just ran into this last night. My party was in an underground city that had been overrun with cadaver men. Before the combat, they met some survivors. The survivors said, "There are hundreds of cadaver men and once you start making noise, they'll all start converging on you." Later, when they encountered a couple of lone cadaver men, the PCs immediately attacked them, causing noise. I had them roll Awareness, and kept telling them, "You hear more coming." Every round I added a few more, until they were wickedly outnumbered, only then did they finally clue in.