Homebrew - Abstracted Chases
Chasing creatures is difficult. First, initiative might mean that the quarry doesn’t even get a chance to run and the pursuers immediately catch them, making a chase completely null. If you have enough distance between the two, it’s hard to imagine that the pursuer is going to catch the quarry due to the official source materials having you keep track of everyone’s individual position and if everyone moves at 30 feet… well, not much changes. At this point, you also have to feel bad for the halflings, gnomes, and dwarves that will inevitably fall behind due to their speed of 25 feet.
Chases can be predictable affairs, especially if you focus on the specifics. This bit of homebrew is focused on abstracting out the chase and allowing it to be more dynamic. It’s not guaranteed the monk with 40 feet of movement is immediately going to catch the fleeing thief, just as it isn’t guaranteed that the halfling thief with 25 feet of movement is caught easily by the party.
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Why use this system?
What makes this system so special is that actual distance isn’t the focus of this. Instead, participants in a chase pick a creature and that is their quarry. They are assumed that they are immediately running and trying to catch up to their target, but instead of worrying about actual distance covered, it is abstracted out into a check-called a Speed Check.
As they make successes on a Speed Check, they get closer and closer to their quarry. As they fail, they get further and further away. A pursuer needs to get enough successes to equal the quarry’s Dexterity modifier, and the number of successes and failures a pursuer gets is cumulative, meaning that if they succeed once but have failed twice, they have a total of -1, when they need 3 successes.
This is an improvement on the normal chase mechanics because specific distances aren’t as important and gives the chance for an, especially speedy thief to make off into a crowd and be harder to catch then a normal chase would allow for. This prioritizes the chase and makes it more difficult for it to end than in a simple handwave of hold person as the spellcasters must get enough successes to do so.
Due to this, it can be difficult for the less Dexterity-focused individuals to catch up to a target, or for a low Dexterity target to actually run away, but that is just when those with good, or at least average Dexterity, get a chance to shine.
How to use the system?
When the DM decides that a chase is about to begin, they first determine who the quarry is and how the pursuers are. Then determines the quarry’s Dexterity modifier, which helps determine how difficult and long this chase will last. If it’s an especially wily thief with a lot of tricks up their sleeves, it could be a long chase through the city streets, whereas a slow brute trying to make off with the party’s client would be an easier chase to catch up to if not stop completely.
Once the two sides are determined, and there could easily be multiple quarry and pursuers from multiple different sides, the DM then begins the first phase, the Quarry Phase. This phase allows the quarry to use their action to make it more difficult to catch up to them and allows the quarry at least a single turn to try and get away from the pursuers. They can use a normal action or attempt to create a distraction in a bid to make the pursuers stumble and fail to catch up to them.
The next phase is the Pursuer’s Phase and they are responsible for reacting to the quarry. They can use one of their normal actions to stop their target or try to catch up to their quarry. At the end of their turn, they must make a Speed Check.
Speed Check
A Speed Check is the main bread and butter of this system, most things that a participant in a chase will do will affect their Speed Check in some way. To make a Speed Check, the creature must first determine their Dexterity Score and then roll a d20.
If they roll below their Dexterity Score, they make 1 success in catching up to their quarry.
If they roll their Dexterity Score or above, they make 1 failure and fall back from catching up to their quarry. If they roll a 20 on a d20, they automatically fail regardless of their Dexterity Score.
If a creature fails their Speed Check, the DM then rolls a Setback for them and they must overcome the Setback or take a penalty on their next Speed Check or take damage from their environment.
Ending the Chase
Once the pursuer has enough successes to equal the Dexterity modifier of their quarry, or if they need fewer successes to cast a spell like hold person, they can attempt to stop them. The only way for a chase to end is that the quarry’s speed is reduced to 0, they are knocked unconscious or somehow immobilized and unable to continue moving. This might be through grappling them, catching in a spell or simply shooting enough arrows into the fleeing creature’s back.
Of course, if a character grabs on to their quarry, it might result in a fight. In which case, the DM should call for initiative, and then anyone who hasn’t made enough successes to catch up to their quarry must continue to make progress toward the fight and make their Speed Checks at the end of their turns. Once they have enough successes, they emerge near where the fight is taking place at the end of their turn.
This means that a party needs to work together if they hope to catch and bring down a powerful thief and they just can’t rely on their wizard to do all the work for them.
Actions in Combat
Creatures in a chase have their normal actions available to them that they can use to help them, and while I don’t go over every available action to everyone involved in a chase, a few of them are touched on.
Attacks
Making an attack against a fleeing target can be difficult, especially in a system that abstracts distances. A small chart is provided with rough distances assigned to each value. It may not always be the case that a creature that is 4 successes away from reaching their quarry is 500 feet away, especially at the beginning of the chase, but those range bands are merely for providing some context to how difficult it is to catch the quarry. The range bands could represent actual distance, the density of the crowd in the way, the number of buildings and food stalls blocking your path, and anything else that would make it tricky to line up a shot or cast a spell.
Casting a Spell
Spells are the great equalizer. If you hand a spell to a commoner, they suddenly can bend the world to their will, and the same goes for chases. A caster can augment their movements, teleport, or stop their quarry from moving. These all have different effects on how a chase might develop and, due to the large variability in spells, the DM may have to think on their feet as to how it might affect a chase. A grease spell could slip up the quarry and provide a bonus to the pursuer’s Speed Checks, just as the quarry casting dimension door might suddenly make it almost impossible to catch them.
Different types of spells can provide a penalty, boost or automatic successes during a chase, all depending on how they are used and specific circumstances happening.
Creating a Distraction
This action is specific for the quarry and is one of the main ways that they can affect the Speed Checks of their pursuers, especially if they lack access to spells. The quarry gets to be creative and uses one of their skill checks to create a distraction, then rolls their check, creating a DC for the pursuers to overcome.
The pursuers must then react to the event and come up with their own skills to avoid the new distraction. They then roll their checks, if they beat the DC of the quarry, then they are not penalized, otherwise, they take a penalty to their Speed Checks.
This could be anything from the quarry decided to knock over a food stall, to running into a dead-end alley and running up the wall to the roofs. These are moments for descriptive moments and cinematographic sequences.
Dash
Another mainstay of a chase is the ability to double your movement and move faster. While dashing is still important in this system, it does not provide a set bonus to movement but rather gives a pursuer the chance to roll their Speed Check twice and take the better result. This is especially handy for those characters that are built more like tanks with lots of Constitution but low Dexterity so that they can keep up in a chase. They barrel through obstacles and call on their inner reserves to keep them lumbering closer and closer to their quarry.
Grapple
Once you finally reach your quarry and want them to stop, grappling is a non-magical way of stopping them from moving without murdering them in a crowd. Once a quarry is grappled, meaning their speed is reduced to 0, the chase is over. The DM can decide if the quarry tries to escape the grapple, in which case a new chase might begin with the pursuers spread out through the city, or that the quarry wants to now fight while everyone else is still trying to catch up.
The Basics of Chasing
That’s the basics of chasing in this system. It is meant to simulate the abstract nature of chases and make it more than just a numbers game, leaving the smaller creatures in the dust. It’s about speed and using a new mechanic, rolling under an ability score, to make it unique and interesting for the table. When you talk about chasing a creature, it shouldn’t devolve down into a game where the participants repeat the phrase “I dash.” “I dash.” “I dash.” “I dash.” over and over and the only interaction with the chase is to roll a random complication.
While there are complications, called Setbacks, in this, they only happy when the pursuer fails a Speed Check and is a moment for them to describe how they overcome this momentary setback and then you jump back into the chase as the group tries to catch their quarry… or outrun their pursuers!
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