In a fight you don’t think you can win? Here are a few things you can try so that you might live again to fight another day.
Sooner or later every adventurer ends up in over their heads. Whether it’s a couple of bad rolls at he wrong time, or just more kobolds than you thought, eventually you may find yourself four rounds deep into a fight you don’t think you can win. When that happens, here are a few ways to try to get out of combat in a hurry.
Run Away
Running away is baked into the game. And not just in the ubiquitous access to the Misty Step spell that everyone has. Though that’s a great way to start your escape once you realize you’re not gonna win that fight. As are any of the other teleportation spells. Or you can simply spend some time slowing your enemies down by knocking them prone or creating some difficult terrain and then running away.
But the real key here is to remind your DM that there are Chase rules in the book. The designers at WotC want to facilitate those dashes across rooftops and desperate scrambles through crowded marketplaces, and they’ve done so with a fun little mini game that you can play as you try to run away from certain death. So why not ask the DM if you can play it? Especially when you’re not able to make an attack roll to save your life.
Surrender
Sometimes it can pay to surrender. I know it might seem like the last thing you want, but especially if you’re outnumbered, but still capable of putting the hurt on your enemies, you might be able to convince them to stop fighting if it means you’ll come quietly.
This is something that happens in fiction all the time. In D&D? It can be a harder pill to swallow, especially because nobody likes to “lose.” But surrendering can often lead to your story deepening and new opportunities for adventures opening up. Or at least a jailbreak arc.
And for you DMs who have players that surrender – take note, it’s a rare enough occurrence that you don’t wanna just punish everyone needlessly.
Bribery
You could always try appealing to greed. Adventuring parties, past level 1 or 2, often have more money than they know what to do with. If you find yourself in a situation where you don’t know that you could win, you could always try bribing your enemies. Call it the Pokémon gambit. Just pay your enemies gold enough to go away and then you employ one of the other options, like running for it or hiding or whatever, while the kobold bandits consider what they’re going to do now that they’re rich as kings. Well. Kobold kings.
Hide
Can’t fight what you can’t see. At least most of the time. If your enemies have copious use of AoE spells you might want to try one of the other options. But hiding from your enemies can be a great way to get out of a fight. Often you do a little running away first, but sometimes you can hide in combat, and – if the enemy can’t find you, it gets a lot harder to target you with those attack rolls.
This strategy is where you might want to pay attention to your DM’s descriptions. Use the environment to disappear (or a spell like Rope Trick) and you have a hiding place that can keep you out of this unwinnable fight.
Charm
Then, of course, there’s being so charming that they don’t want to kill you. Sometimes you can talk your way out of a fight with copious use of the Influence action. Or maybe you use some kind of magical mind control, like a Charm spell or a Suggestion to convince your enemies to stop fighting you and reconsider their life decisions.
Happy adventuring!
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