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.

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

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)

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

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?

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.

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.

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

Oh thank you, I really needed this one!