Chase Mechanics for D&D 5e 

I like this trend of people reading all the rules laid out in the Dungeon Master's Guide and being like, "Hey did you know that there are really cool rules in here!"

May want to have the exhaustion levels fade after a short rest or something, because otherwise it could take multiple days to fully recover from 1 chase sequence, which does not make any sense.

Fun little story: First campaign I've DM'd was Dragon of IceSpire Peak. The book has a table for the DM to roll on to determine the Dragon's location each time the party travels, which is a brilliant way to instigate/improvise a chase. My players had been super lucky so far in avoiding the dragon who I'd been inadvertently hyping up out of game by saying "I'm super nervous about how the last fight will go. This thing can pump out some seriously high numbers" (which was true. A high damage roll on breath weapon would 1 shot them). One night they had been sent to clear out an abandoned fortress, and the dice gods blessed me. Immediately set up a chase scene where the fortress was their only means to escape the dragon. Gave em a set number of turns to get past the barred entrance before they got blasted (dragonborn acid breath did the trick), and they got locked in after the dragon froze the entrance. That chase scene and the resulting fight with a squad of ghouls (angry that their home had been invaded and frozen shut) turned out to be one of their favorite moments from the campaign. edits: clarified some wording

One of my favorite chases was my glamour bard alone, completely out of spell slots, riding her magical secrets-summon greater stead griffon, chased by an ancient dragon AND an entire enemy party trying to kill us. It was right after another big battle with the enemy party. It had been a super close fight so we decided to cut our losses and just run away with the maguffin they wanted. With a few polymorphs (and my griffon), we managed to get some distance but it had been established that the party could track the item we’d stolen. Because I had the griffon, I decided to take the item and lead the enemy party away from our party. I chose to go past a conveniently nearby dragon’s lair that we’d encountered earlier in the campaign, thinking that I could busy the enemy party with the dragon while I reconnected with my party who were still running on foot in the opposite direction. Rolled low on the stealth past the dragons lair and the dragon started chasing after me too. Ancient dragon fly speed: 80 ft Griffon fly speed: 80ft God bless the Mantle of inspiration ability to use a bardic inspiration to have your ally (or pet griffon) move half its speed as a reaction without opportunity attacks. God bless my dumb ass for forgetting to use any of my bardic inspiration in the previous fight. God bless my til then mostly unused Mounted Combatant feat. God bless my DM rolling low on breath weapon recharge

great stuff as always! I've always liked the idea of giving the "environment" a turn in combat after each character in a chase scene, and the environment would have things you have to dodge or bypass. Works against the players and against their opponent!

I'd never considered just making a list of locations and distances beforehand. It's so simple yet works really well

0:55 I've done full out runs, and to explain this; when you build up enough endurance to keep a consistent speed because the idea is to keep a good speed, the main problem is having to get over spots, so vaulting, going under, above, etc. Your heart will feel as if it's in your throat as you're trying to keep up pace the faster the speed is that you're running at.

Chases are great, but be aware that it can easily result in a split party, and that can result in PC death... which is why they're great.

Thanks for the vid, got a bit of a conflicting message from it though. 4:12 "this does not have to be a literal map" 4:35 An example with mapless locations that are related to a town 4:55 "If your chase is going to take place in a city or dungeon, you should try to have a full map with scaled distances prepared"

You could have a chase that results in another chase! The players pursue a monster, which ends up in a cave system, as they get deeper into the cave, they might see the monster get annihilated by the lightning breath of a Behir. One arcana/history check later and a player is screaming at his companions to hoof it, and thus the second chase begins. You could have the Behir stop pursuing at a certain point based on territory, or could even decide it can't be bothered to continue chasing when it already cooked up a meal just moments ago.

0:26 "How am I in trouble with the law *already*?" is every campaign I've ever been in in a nutshell (In our first real session, the rogue was the only one who didn't get arrested)

What a coincidence! I just started working on a short campaign today that has a lot of chases in it. So thanks for the tips, they were really helpful

When I'm running a chase a good thing to do is to put all their tokens/minitures next to each other next to a ruler to gage how far they are from their target. It works wonders :3

How do you not have more subscribers?

I have recently found your channel and have just been watching all of your videos. You do a great job with both the art and explaining stuff. Keep up the good work!

I LOVE this, the way you explain things is very digestible, with a nice simple art style. All while peppering in seeds for ideas! Can't wait for more of your tips

I didn't know that. Thx

My DM ran a chase for us by the rules of the DMG and it did _not_ go well. We felt like there were no options besides just dashing over and over again, the complications ended up being too much (though that was his fault for throwing too many at us), the rules neutered the rogue's Cunning Action dash ability because only one action and no bonus action are allowed, and it just in general didn't feel like there was any strategy or tactics that made a difference. I have yet to figure out a better way, but I think something closer to a contested skill challenge would work better-putting the Athletics and Acrobatics skills to better use, keeping track of the number of steps of distance to the quarry the pursuers need to get (rather than exact numbers), and making sure the complications of the chase make sense and are predetermined (instead of randomly rolled) would be a good start. I've been playing Assassin's Creed lately, and there's just got to be a way to mimic that amazing heart-pounding feeling of being chased in the streets and finally escaping.

Great vid! The problem I have with chase sequences in D&D is accounting for different characters' speeds. Unless you have a massive grid map, how do you track the relative distance between the gnome with 25ft speed, the monk with 45ft speed, and their quarry with 30ft speed?

As a DM, a way I once started a successful chase was by having an NPC they loved trying to turn them in to the guards. They couldn't get caught, but also refused to hurt the NPC, so the chase felt very dramatic and even emotional. As a player, I once ended a chase with a whole military battalion going for us by using entangle which stopped the large carts that had been in front of them in a tangled mess, and then casting fog cloud as they struggled to get through so they couldn't track which way we went from there.

I love the chase rules. When I ran the Death House in Curse of Strahd, I turned the end of the mini adventure into an escape scene, and used the chase rules (customized for the environment and threat) to determine if the party escaped before or went all Monster House and imploded upon itself (I, uh, also customized the outcome). Of course, they survived. Good times!

Great video and very well illustrated. Keep up the excellent work.

Great coverage of the mechanics and awesome advice. Thanks!

Was just planning on using these mechanics for tonights session. Nice Edit: The session was really fun, when they realized the machine that was chasing them down the tunnel was faster than them and they were running out of free bonus dashes, they climbed the machine and kicked the butts of the kobolds that were operating it.

I really like your drawings and descriptions! I'm subbing.

I'm glad to have stumbled onto such a well illustrated and voiced D&D video. Awesome work by all (3 I think?) of you working on these videos.

Oh thank you, I really needed this one!

"But I am le tired" @5:13 now that is a blast from the past. Jesus, that reference is old enough to most of the world!

3:36 that little pouch is adorable.

Great stuff! I also loooooove the art in your videos, the characters all look expressive and interesting. Definitely subbing.

Such a well made video. Filled to the brim with tips and tricks :D

this channel is quickly becoming one of my favorite dm resources, great stuff ❤️

Wow! Your videos just keep getting better & better! I'm about to run a timed scavenger hunt [thing] in two sessions from now. PERFECT TIMING!

You have no earthly idea how much I needed this. There has been no information across any source I could find, in books or searches online, none, zero, zilch. Thank you so so much!

Literally just found this channel by way of this video… Subscribed I’ve been reading the rules on Chase several times today; I love how genius this game is The part re: the distances… seemed a bit overwhelming but I’ll figure it out 😓 Thank you; about to go through the rest of the videos on your channel

I think the reason why exhuastion is so underused, is because it punishes you hard for days. A deadly encounter with a dragon, where 3 of the 5 players a knocked unconcious, one of them 3 times because he keeps being healed. 1 died and got ressurected, and the las players only had 2 and 5 hit points remaining respectively. Long rest and we are fine. A chase after a thief, if you use the exhastion mechanic could take up to 5 days to fully recover from. Even with magical aid like the greater restoration spell, it quickly becomes expensive. DnD is designed to be high fantasy, where the story doesn't grind to a halt over something as silly as being wounded, but exhaustion works differently. My suggetion. Exhaustion reduces by 1 level with a short rest, and fully with a long rest. Lesser restoration might also cure a level of exhaustion. If you implement these rules, you can throw exhaustion around much more librally, and it won't grind your adventure to a halt.

I love this video so much! I can't believe I've never seen anything from this channel before. Easy subscribe! I'm telling everyone!

Great video, love your art style.

How have I never seen your channel before? This is GREAT! Insta-sub! Thank you!

Love your illustrations!

I actually ran a chase where one of the party had been separated from the rest and was being chased while the rest of the party was rushing to group up with him. Further complicating matters was spider webs that’s slowed the party down but not the pursuing monster. It made for a tense but fun encounter and when the party finally grouped up they were able to drive off the monster. It made a monster that was fairly take-able into a dangerous threat.

There's also the Complications tables. Dragon Heist includes a chase but it hamstrings the rules by trying to railroad the players into failing and even then my group caught them pretty fast.

I realized I've been watching your vids as they've been recommended to me. So, after sporadically watching a number of your vids out of order... Here's my sub!

As someone who is constantly running from combat, this is very useful

I'm dming my first campaign, and I have a plan to have the group investigate a massive ship high in the tree tops, with a solid tree trunk piercing through the hull. They'd gradually climb the tree, fight some harpies, and reach the ship full of treasure! Oh, and there will be a huge Roc nest built within it. So being chased down a tree and throughout a forest and plain is gonna be fun

i like running chases as a skill challenge personally. i think it lets a player get creative with their abilities instead of just rolling a con check every so often

Just came here to say that the thumbnail was absolutely golden lmao

'But I am le tired' Ah, I see you are a fellow veteran of the Internet. Great video as always

I like your art. This was fun

Something I like to do is have a NPC who's entire purpose is to die. I establish that they are much stronger than the any of the characters in the party, it works well going on monster hunts. Once the monster is found it easily murderers the NPC, who may even give the command to flee. This immediately let's the party know they are out matched. The chase after wards is usually exilerating and brutal if a character is caught and most likely killed. Having the party separated and lost in the wilderness while a great beast haunts them is also a fun consequence of a good chase. If the party survives, they become absolutely hell bent on killing the thing which makes for more fun quests as they learn about the monster, what's it's weaknesses are and how to stalk and kill it. Makes good use of the rangers underused tracking skills as well.

Just found this channel and you guys are honestly a god send for a new DM like me xdd

This is incredibly helpful

Excellent explanation!

I really like how you go beyond what's on DMG and covered the bases you need, but I still have no idea how to integrate them in my game.

I have a set of rules I found and modified that I find fairly fun to use and make interesting chase scenes, its specific enough to account for mechanics, but vague enough for all the flavor you need.

I feel like having the pc’s just pure SPRINTING for it is funnier or more intense

Goliath with the athlete background *I'm 100 meters from your location and approaching rapidly*

2:26 the transition got me

Love this kinda content, I'll have any creature on low health start going for reckless attacks if theyre backed into a corner

How to instigate a chase scene: "As you enter the clearing you happen to see a chameleon, lying there in the sun." *cue music*

Good inspiration from this!

Great summary

This is great to think about. I might do - like a list , like ranks .. where the more times it happens the more tired they get ..

"Sprint to the fountain!" "But I am le tired."

The hands are gorgeous. I'm so jealous

My current Table started with theater of the Mind so it used to feel like roleplay all the time in those days we just had fun and people trusted me to keep track of things. Eventually only one player was annoying enough to want to change that. She didn't like theater of the Mind because it was too dependent on the dungeon master. Which eventually meant that I had to map everything out, which further limited our playgroup because now the players just play Within the context of the map and they don't want to leave the map until they're done with a quest or something. She really limited the group for everybody. I'll give you an example. When we were using theater of the mind the party purchased two horses and they immediately decided to start racing them. Two players on each of the horse and they decided to go racing down the busy streets of the city they were in. We gave them a series of animal handling checks for the player characters, or dexterity or Athletics for the horse depending on what they wanted to do. They raced neck-and-neck with animal handling for the first round, and then the second round they began to trip people and try to throw them in front of the horse behind the lead horse. The third-round somebody failed on their animal handling check causing their horse to Wipeout into a cabbage shop which eventually got the guards riled up and started having them start running up trying to grab these people and rip them off the horse. It was good fun. They managed to handle writing the one horse out most of the way because they stop racing recklessly to beat each other and started racing away from the guards in a more safe manner. One of the two on the main horse failed his dexterity save us the gate was closing and got cracked on the face with it. He fell off the horse but the horses momentum carried him outside before he fell off and he had to go to run after the other horse in a comedic fashion

We had a dm for a oneshot that didn't use the chase mechanics for a chase scene. We spent there easily 6-7 hours instead of the expected 4 and I've avoided them since. The NPC turned invisible, but since we could still spot him (different abilities that cave us his general direction) he had to sprint to not get caught. So he did. For over 2 hours.

There are 4 potential problems with running,which can be addressed, but must be consciously addressed to prevent from happening; 1) Opportunity Attacks. If someone leaves your melee range, you can attack them unless they use an action to disengage. If you aren't a rogue, it's difficult to be able to disengage AND dash in the same turn. If you don't dash, then unless your speed is higher than your pursuers, they can simply catch up to you and take swings again, essentially just getting free hits. If you dash instead of disengaging, then you take an opportunity attack, but your pursuer can still catch up by dashing, and be back in range to take ANOTHER opportunity attack if you attempt to run without disengaging again. Unless you can break out of this failure loop, it's not even worth treating this as a chase. In order to break away, something must happen to break visual, (opportunity attacks can't be taken without seeing targets) allowing no opportunity attacks to be taken even while dashing. 2) With speed differences of certain races and classes, the outcome of a chase is often generally known as soon as it begins. Providing means of obstacles and unexpected shortcut gambles are important to throw uncertainty in the mix, which is important for making the chase worth attempting at all. 3) Spells/Ranged Attack distances are significantly higher than what any creature can move, often making the easier option to keep pace as much as possible, while also taking potshots even as they lag behind. It's important to remember to encourage creatures to run before they reach the point where they can't take any more hits at all, as between opportunity attacks and ranged attacks, they might still have to take more hits before they can manage to make a clean break. Having obstacles and many opportunities to turn corners and break line of sight is also important. Don't forget that crowds DO technically count as partial or even half cover. (and in many cases can wind up hitting the crowd if you miss by too little) 4) Exhaustion is worse than damage. 6 hits of exhaustion kill you outright. Needing to rest for an entire week because you ran too hard in the span of 5 minutes is downright INSANE, and many players don't realize how insane until too late. Try to avoid chases where getting caught is certain death, so that "giving up" is actually a feasible course of action. I personally recommend homebrewing that chases only induce "Temporary Exhaustion" that stacks on top of regular exhaustion (count both, and if it totals to 6, you're dead) but can have one level removed on a short rest, provided you make a con save during the short rest. A long rest provides 8 opportunities to make the same con saves to reduce exhaustion, with any temporary exhaustion levels remaining at the end of the long rest becoming regular exhaustion levels (which will have 1 automatically cleared each long rest, no con save required)

One major part of chase sequences that weren't covered here are complications. After each chase participant's turn, they roll a d20 to determine what happens to the next player in the initiative order based on a random roll table. Lots of things can happen, like a street carriage cutting you off, running into a pack of stray dogs, or even stepping on a wasp nest. The DMG has tables for chase complications in urban and wild environments. In my experience, it's best to have the DM roll for chase complications. My players figured out the roll table pretty quickly.

Recently, my charcter ran into some shenanigans. She wanted to read from a cursed tome that made you obsessed by it, but only was understandable if you were cursed. She got the party's cleric to stand next to her, and to be ready to cast Remove Curse after a while. While cursed, my DM informed me that I now saw my cleric friend as a danger, since she wanted to separate me from the sweet, sweet knowledge contained in the book... And that's when I remembered that I had Misty Step prepared. Cue desperate chase in the city streets. After a few turns, someone mentionned the official chase rules (which I didn't know existed), and we hastily implemented them to spice up this impromptu, improvised chase scene worthy of a Loony Tunes cartoon. Fun times...

I completely forgot about chase mechanics. Might have to give this as an option for my players next time they are faced with overwhelming odds.

I've only experienced this feature once in a game and it was short lived but fun.

Excellent! I love chases and i never actually thought about putting a limit on how many rounds of dashing a creature can go without running out of constitution but i love that this gives healthier actors an advantage due to their physique. Id also say that a creature with a higher speed gets a bonus on their chase roll, +1 per every 10 feet faster

I love this video! it is incredibly helpful! I've tried running chase scenarios before but they always turned out a bit janky.

Thanks for the video/advice. It just happens to be i was planning to have my players try to escape a sinking ship from the lower decks to the top deck. As extra incentive to run the ship is being consumed by a giant slime monster.

Thanks!

I had a chase planned into a session which worked really well. rather then a full map I created 6 sections with different hazards to deal with that ended in the 5th section after some clever use of spells and a flaming badger.

Great drawings

5:20 But I am le tired - Zhen have a nap... ZHEN FIRE ZE MAGIC MISSILE

As a starting DM (all my players are also new) I am actually going to start the game with a chase my Warlock Goblin was messing with people in the forest for fun (backstory) so when the game starts a Satyr Ranger on a mount fox and a Draconic Paladin (protector of the nearby settlement) are going after him, the ranger is mounted so he can shoot arrows (with disadvantage cause of the movement) if within range and since the mount fox is faster than a goblin so my PC will probably be forced to hide or fight, once caught I'll bring him to a tavern for a bounty where he'll meet the other characters. I think the 3 man chase start is a good way to give everyone a feel of how battles go, cause it got a little of everything

Good chase mechanics (and players who remember that fleeing is an option) is great for dungeons / encounters where traps or other effects remove someone from the party and he or she must now deal with proceeding alone until he/she can find their party members again.

This will be fun

I have some concerns about the realism that happens during chases, and it mostly concerns with the movement speed versus max speed of certain creatures. If you divide your movement speed by 9 you have a good estimate of what your speed in miles per hour is, within about 10% of the actual value. So a character moving with 90 movement speed is really only going 10 miles per hour. For a player class designed for speed, like the rogue or monk, achieving 15 to 20 miles per hour of movement is pretty accurate to real human movement speeds. The problem comes whenever you try to create realistic monster movement speeds. A lot of creatures can move at 30 to 40 miles per hour. To estimate the needed movement speed, simply multiply the mph by 9. That means that they need to move 270 to 360 ft in a round in order to have an accurate representation of their speed. The fastest creatures in the game are things like quicklings and wind elementals. I'm not even sure if they can keep up with the natural movement speed of a horse or gazelle, not to mention creatures like cheetahs and peregrine falcons! The fastest a person can move outside of teleportation in the game is with the wind walk spell, which essentially speeds you up to 60 miles per hour: inner city highway speeds.

So I've done some chasing and being chased during games of humans versus zombies and I think, while these mechanics can work for a short chase, I think there might need to be some additions for a longer one. Especially for chases that don't just end the instant the chasers catch up or they lose track of the chasee. There might be some attacking and dodging followed by a continued chase, you can get a second wind, or, if someone hides, they're not just gone, they'll have to somehow get out of their hiding spot without being spotted.

"ok then take a nap... THEN SPRINT TO ZE FOUNTAIN!"

I like the battle worn idea. I might want to run a one shot were taking the dash action, attack, or Casting a Spell action does the same thing. You can only use any combination of these actions 3 plus your constitution modifier times in a row before you must start making constitution checks of DC 10 or take a point of exhaustion. I might do a short rest reduces exhaustion by 1. And a long rest recovers all levels of exhaustion. Might make combat a bit faster and more nuanced.

My players are currently about to head into essentially a moving hedgemaze, keeping the pace to get to the end before the path gets lost would be an amazing use of this mechanic. Especially once the deer find them..

One of the easiest ways to keep track of a chase, IMO, is to put everyone's name in the initiative order, as you do, and write a number next to everyone's. The number next to the chasee is how far the chase is to the next location and the number next to the chaser is how far you to the chasee. When the chasee moves decrease his number and increase everyone else's, when the chaser moves decrease there number. This also allows, for example, a chasee to knock over a cart of cabbages, force everyone to make dex saves and determine how much they are individually slowed down by.

"But I am le tired" well, have a nap - THEN RUN TO THE FOUNTAIN!

I'd recommend using a Skill Challenge for chase sequences, see Matt Colville's video on skill challenges. :)

Ok, Thats the most cute RPG channel i ever see, Great animation and direct speech, Pretty good job

I ran a chase seen in an underwater air tunnel. Tunnel was littered with dark tentacles that what try to attack the party. They had to make DEX saves while running and if failed they got hit for 1d4 necrotic damage and their movement speed slowed by 5ft giving the monster the ability to gain on them quicker. It was fun and intense.

Brilliant. I've had enemies with the ability to reason fleeing from bad and counters for a while now but always just had them get away when they reach the edge of the map. Max I make tend to be larger so it works, but I've never been satisfied with it. This is much better. I tweaked the exhaustion some though. It's much too punishing for someone just running for a few rounds. Especially since by-the-books, you'd run yourself to death unreasonably quickly.

I'd say you don't necessarily even need exact distances. Just decide on how many rounds you really want the scene to last (Or even just 'how long'). Play it by ear. You can get quite abstract with it. I've run quite a few chase and 'moving combat' scenes (On horse/wagon back, ect). An exact distance can be useful if you have a failure plan (IE the party should have X rounds to do this, if success, do A, if fail, do B). I've got a whole houseruled system I won't get into here, all I'll say is when you're planning out this encounter, really play it out in your head, and think about what it will be like.

For covering, you can just use a big piece of paper with an appropriate hole in it Paper isn't heavy, so most of the weight would be the tape, if such is needed

...Tabaxi monks, rogues, and barbarians are so ridiculously OP in this context... :P

More of a little story I have that involved a good chase. Note beforehand: the party is on riding lizards that have a movement of 60 feet. The party also started off with four important and extremely sought out for objects. Anyways. The area the party started to settle down in was enough to set everyone on edge as it was. The mist settling into the trees gave a view of 30 feet, and it was mostly dark aside from the moonbeams. My ranger and fighter manage to see *something* jumping between the trees at a fast pace. My party hears something rattling in the bushes, and, being paranoid as they are, attack it. Two arrows, an eldritch blast, and a falling barbarian against this single cat. That’s when they realize one of their important items has gone missing. The entire party jumps onto their riding lizards. My ranger, druid, and barbarian manage to stick together. My warlock fails his animal handling check, so his lizard breaks off from the main group in panic. My fighter chases off after the warlock. My fighter succeeds on a dex save, and dodges a branch. My warlock however, doesn’t. He gets clotheslined, knocked prone, and his lizard runs off into the forest, never to be seen again. The fighter picks him up, and they start riding. My warlock takes a glance behind them, and sees a humanoid figure standing on a branch above the area they got clotheslined. (The figure does not move towards them nor attacks. Is just there) The warlock screams, and queue the party being paranoid for the rest of the session even after things have calmed down (and them reaching what was stated as a safe spot). Safe to say- I successfully traumatized my ranger and warlock, and severely spooked the rest of my party.

>Exhaustion is critically underused [Everyone will remember this.]

Something that I didn't feel was mentioned and felt it should've been addressed: let's say our players are running from a threat in some setting that isn't a town, say a general wilderness, maybe through a jungle or an open plain, settings that could offer different obstacles that are not solid shaped constructs but natural terrain, like jungle vines, steep inclines, or rocky terrain. I suppose you could just make your own designated table based off of the ones presented in this, but I would have liked to see this specific scenario explored in this video as I don't see chases just happening in just a town setting. Let's say the chase is like a modern Sonic level, specifically when you're running from something. Let's specifically say it's like the Sonic Adventure level where you're running from a semi-truck about to run you over in this chase scene scenario. You're typically running in a straight line away from danger with some deviations of basic dodging (left, right, jump, taking different turns, etc.) This type of chase scene sequence where you only focus on the end goal of avoiding the immediate danger seeking you seems to open itself up to more of a "theater of the mind" aspect of DMing which I've always used as a guiding point for me and how I form encounters with my players, and I plan on using this type of encounter with my players in session 1 for them which is why I watched this video. I guess my gripe then is, do I use this specific situation with just the generated table you've laid out for obstacles and such, or do I use more to fill in that aspect of painting a picture in the player's mind's?

Me and my friends are playing our new d&d campaign today. Our characters are going to start on a heist mission for gold and magic items. We then will start a chase scene where the characters will have to run away from the guards and police and will have to use their wits and abilities to evade, distract, and defeat the guards. The characters goal is to make it to the nearby forest and escape through a tree portal to my character’s master’s house. My character is a wizard/Artificer who is a apprentice to a grand wizard craftsman who lives on the river Styx.