Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Help Tips & Tricks Why do enemies never flee battle?

That would make combat more "interesting," possibly a nice addition to Tactician difficulty too. Old gamers who have played a 90s PC game called "Heroes of Might and Magic" (which is also a turn-based, overhead-view strategy game) would remember that enemies would flee in that game, or at least attempt to. In that game, fleeing inflicts a penalty, such as loss of morale, or other stats. In BG3, maybe fleeing should make you lose charisma until long rest or something.

City of Heroes (an MMO) has a similar mechanic where mobs will run away when their health gets low enough. We're always chasing down runners.

Wow does it too.

I hate it.

Yeah, I love fleeing enemies. Especially fleeing enemies that throw a Grease bottle in a chokepoint and then go call their friends, get healed and come back (bonus points if they slip on their own Grease).

Am I masochistic? Maybe. But it just feels wrong that no one begs for mercy unless it's scripted, no one tries to flee (except that very intelligent scared boar in Act 1, RIP Scared Boar) or otherwise stay alive when they realize the murdermachine that is the Avatar and their party of misfits just cannot be stopped.

Humour us masochists on the highest difficulty level?

Fleeing enemies would be realistic, yes, but since they would just get hunted down anyway, it wouldnt make much of a difference.

Besides realism, in reallife enemies flee once they realize they stand no chance, not when they're already wounded.

If you're wounded, you're basically done. You can no longer flee anyway, due to blood loss etc.



Err ...

So Paladin, Sorcerer, Warlock and Bard would get a huge debuff, and everyone else will go "wtf lol whatever".

To me for most enemies it would seem very illogical if they flee.
Undead, constructs and similar enemies don't know the concept of death, so the won't flee.
Gith, all those religious fanatics and those sworn to defend something with their life will fight to death.
Creatures attacked in their lair generally don't flee either.
People who are in the only location that is somewhat save have no other choice than to fight.

The only enemies that come to my mind where flight would be a reasonable option are Lorroakan, the Zhentarim and some minor encounters.

That entirely depends on how the game would handle tactical retreats by the enemy. First, let's assume they are actually good at retreating. They cast expeditious retreat, they hide and become invisible and move directly afterwards. They dash and push sacrificial lambs towards you. They create obstacles to cover their retreat...

The effects on your side: frustration, no experience points, no bodies to loot.
The effects on their side: they learned how dangerous you are, so when they try again they will attack fully buffed, in bigger numbers, and from a better position.

Yes, retreating enemies good be a very nice thing to have, especially on Tactician difficulty.

Yeah, they kind of just commit suicide on you instead of fleeing which is a bit jarring.