Dungeon Master: Chase Scenes

If you have a campaign involving any kind of hunt, chase scenes are almost sure to follow. It could be investigating vampire attacks, trying to track down a werewolf in the forest, or chasing after a thief that broke into a noble's house. Regardless, chase scenes can be one of the harder situations to handle in a satisfying way. And for this reason, I hope to provide some of my input on how to run it well.

Rolls

It'll be a series of athletics checks most likely. The Dungeon Master's Guide also has rules for handling a chase. However, in general I recommend looking at the situation high level and letting reason prevail. If you start a parkour chase across the roof tops of building in a city, acrobatics starts to make a lot of sense instead of athletics. If the scene takes place at night, the person running doesn't need to outrun their pursuers, they just need to be able to break line of sight and slink away. Maybe in this case they can try to use a stealth roll to see if they can escape if they are far enough away, or use the broken sight to expand their lead.

Tiredness

Constitution generally should play a role in a chase scene. Also, if the creature is undead, they won't tire. A common rule I've seen employed is that after a total number of checks equal to their con modifier, subsequent rolls have disadvantage. Alternatively, it can be used as a time limit. Whoever gets tired drops out of the chase.

Time Limit

You do not want your chase scene to drag. Rolling over and over and not getting anywhere doesn't help anyone, and generally isn't fun. I find that a chase shouldn't last longer than roughly 5 rolls. The good thing is that if we use the con modifier to tell us how many rolls people can make before getting tired, we have a natural ending point if one group has more endurance. The trouble comes from ties, and generally, I elect to end things in favour of the person running if a tie is reached. You can also make the two sides who tied to a roll for sudden death. Winner takes all. Whether you want to use a stat for this or just luck (since the chase until now used stats) is up to you.

Other Factors

Embrace other factors. Maybe one group tries to jump across a wide creek to escape their pursuers. Maybe the pursuers try to shoot arrows at the legs of the people who are escaping, while they shoot back to slow down their pursuers if on horseback. Maybe the people running away knock over objects as they go, forcing their pursuers to acrobatically jump over it. Embrace the chaos and spontaneous ideas. And of course, things won't always be the same. If they are running indoors through a kitchen, it'll be easier to knock stuff on the ground than if they are running through a crowded street. A pursuer on a horse may need to make animal handling checks while going through the forest.

Different Speeds

Even with different speeds, rolls should be made. One common thing I've seen is to give advantage to the characters who have a higher speed than who they are chasing/who they are running away from. To apply, it should be a reasonably large difference. I normally wouldn't apply if it was only a 5ft difference in these sequences. I mean, they catch them in that case unless they were able to create another obstacle or distraction. However, if the pursuers are on a horse, things become different.