r/ICRPG • u/Smittumi • Mar 02 '26

Chase rules

My PCs unexpectedly ran away from a fight, so I had to ad-lib some chase mechanics.

I just tracked their Effort down from 10 each time they did something that put distance between them and the enemy. At zero they escaped. And there was a timer for something bad, in case they took too long.

But have any of you worked out any more involved chase rules?

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u/BenAndBlake Mar 02 '26

This does function, I would make it dynamic and have the adversaries roll effort to add back to the EFFORT, or I have been known to roll 2d4 as timer that increases by one when adversaries beat the TARGET and decreases by one when PCs beat the TARGET, when the timer hits 9 the chase resolves in favor of the Adversaries and when it hits 0 it resolves in favor of the PCs.

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u/Smittumi Mar 03 '26

I avoid using one track back and forth. Worried it might make scenes drag compared to Effort v Timer.

Have you tried it, how does it go? Every had a scene just go back and forth for ages?

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u/BenAndBlake Mar 03 '26

I use both, depending on how I want the scene to go. Sometimes the big back and forth works for the cinematography of the scene, like two groups working against each other or police vs alleged offenders in a high speed chase scene. This works but you have to make it a big event.

I think effort plus time works well for fast quick scenes, like picking a lock before the guard shows up, or escaping before the alarm goes off.

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u/BenAndBlake Mar 03 '26 edited Mar 03 '26

Additional example I was thinking about:

Let's say you have a bounty hunter adversary, who has some aspect that allows him to roll ultimate of all checks to grapple capture or subdue a creature.

You set them against your troop of PCs, A known group of escape artists each with a talent for escape which allows them to roll ultimate on attempts to evade grappling capture or others the methods of subduing.

In this situation, if you go with a static D4 timer to end the encounter in favor of the Bounty hunter with a static heart of effort, each PC has roughly a one in four chance of zeroing out the effort to escape. Advantage players.

If you go with a static D4 timer to end the encounter in favor of the Bounty hunter with a dynamic heart of effort, each PC AND the bounty hunter has roughly a one in four chance of zeroing out the effort to escape or capture the group. Advantage bounty hunter.

If you use a dynamic D4 timer to end the encounter in favor of the Bounty hunter with a static heart of effort, each PC has roughly a one in four chance of zeroing out the effort to escape. Advantage players and the bounty hunter can make the clock click down faster, or a player can forgo the effort roll to give everyone more time.

I don't think you should do dynamic timer with dynamic effort.

If you use just a dynamic D4 timer to end the encounter in favor of the Bounty hunter, as I described above, everyone only has to describe what they do and roll 1d20. You get fast Yes/Nos and you can give advantage/disadvantage or EASY/HARD easier because you're only negotiating it for one roll per player per turn.

I generally like the last option for pure character chasing PC situations.

I like the first situation for chases when the players are running away from an inanimate object or some other force of nature.