How to avoid killing your player characters as GM

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

As long as we're talking about 3.x and retreating we should mention the way "Attacks of Opportunity" complicated retreating. AoO actually discouraged many kinds of imprecise swanning about in combat ("Roll for Initiative." "What do you do for your first action?" "I climb a tree.") but it was triggering an AoO by trying to break off combat that fixed in people's minds that it could be very difficult to do this successfully.

How's this supposed to work? For the first turn, starting in an enemy's reach would be unusual and decidedly not a situation where vague swanning about makes sense. For general withdrawal, there's a perfect solution named...Withdraw. Prevents the AoO and gives you full double movement.

Now, if you're white-rooming there is something that makes it hard to back off, but that's Charge, not AoO. (If you're not white-rooming, any kind of obstructive terrain can block the charge.)

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Gurps can make it pretty difficult too. Burning those 3 movement pts to spin around so you can run away full speed will generally give your opponent an attack you can't Parry or Block. Sometimes yu have to do something like encouraging disengagement by taking a Retreating Defense when you think the enemy is ready to flee.

Turning your back on an enemy in melee range to run away is a terrible idea unless you have reason to believe they're happy to let you run. Opening space by backing up with defensive maneuvers or Wait, that's a much more sensible approach. (Then you can take to your heels once you're not in reach.)