Making combat less lethal.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Axly Suregrip

Another thought on lethality.

Self preservation should be a motivation of most creatures. When they take too much damage they should be looking to disengage and run.

This runs into the same problem as the PCs running: a lot of creatures lack a convenient capability to run away. A monster that's winning is probably much safer taking the additional injury and killing the PCs than retreating -- though if the PCs flee it may well not follow.