Chase scenes can be even more exciting than combat. The speed of a chase can make the encounter cross a bunch of different locations very quickly and every round new things can happen. Here are some tips to make your chase scenes amazing!
1. Ignore the Rules - The Dungeon Master's Guide gives some great rules for how a chase can work mechanically… but they boring and do not create exciting encounters. When your character is in a life or death chase, doing math problems ruins the fun.
2. Improvise - It is hard to predict when your players will decide to run away or where a chase scene will happen. Be ready to improvise and make everything up on the spot. You will probably not have a map of the route or any idea what is down that back alley or in the marketplace. You will have to react quickly to what the players decide to do and create a lot of mini-encounters.
3. Raise the Stakes - A competitive race through town can be a fun encounter, but a chase scene is even better when life is on the line. Maybe the characters are running from a foe that wants to eat them - see Jurassic Park. Maybe the characters must rescue an NPC that the bad guy is carrying away - see The Two Towers. Maybe the bad guy is getting away with information that could lead to the characters death - see Return of the Jedi.
4. Everyone Goes At Once - The bad guy isn't going to run 60 feet and then stop and wait for the characters to show up and then start running again. That is silly. Everyone is running full speed and you are either gaining a little bit on the bad guy or falling back a few feet. Describe the chase in small bits instead of in full rounds.
5. Go Vertical - A chase over flat ground misses the highs and lows of the encounter. Make your chase scenes include some ups and downs. Climb a ladder... jump onto the balcony… up to the rooftops… down to the sewers… into a house and up the stairs… onto the shore of the lava field where you now have the high ground. Adding vertical parts to your chase gives you a chance for new skill checks and adds variety to the running.
6. Lots of Hazards - Running across an open field for miles on end is tiring and a bit boring. Ask Gimli. You need more sprints and lots of things in the way. If the chase is in the city, add carts and horses or crates or fruit stands or city walls. If it is in a forest add trees and roots and rocks and bushes and snakes and streams. Anything that gets in the way and makes the characters have to decide to go around or over or under.
7. Innocent People - This is a specific type of hazard that needs its own tip. People getting in the way is so much fun. Maybe there is a large crowd in the market. Maybe there are kids about to get run over by a horse. Maybe there are town guards trying to stop you because you are sprinting through town. Maybe there are goblins trying to help their king get away. Maybe there is a man yelling at a donkey in the middle of the road. Innocent people are great because normal players don't want them to get hurt and will slow down to help. Making your players decide on whether to help the innocent child or gain on the bad guy is good DMing.
8. Skill Checks - A chase should be a series of skill checks to see who is faster. It should be based less on movement speed and more on successfully making it through all the obstacles. Let your players decide what skills they want to try to use to chase down their enemy (or get away from their enemy). Are they using acrobatics to jump over a cow in the street? Are they using nature to know the best path through the forest? Are they using perception to keep an eye on the bad guys? Or insight to guess which way the bad guy will go next? Deception to throw off the pursuit? Animal Handling to spur their horse to epic speeds? Let them figure out how their character would engage in the chase. The more successful they are on the skill check, the faster they move.
9. Magic - Chases can get even more fun when you throw magic into the encounter. A flying wizard… a hastened barbarian… Boots of Speed… A broom of flying… dimension door or teleport… polymorph… disguise self… summoning a herd of elk. So many wild things can happen with magic that can make chases amazing.
10. Continue Until it is Boring - Let the chase go on as long as everyone is having fun and the tension is high. If things start to get boring, have something happen that ends the chase. The bad guy gets away (if the characters are not doing that well) or maybe the characters catch the bad guy. You don't have to fudge the rolls but have something happen that makes it really hard for one party. For example, have a cart of pumpkins be pushed out in front of the bad guy and they have to make a DC 20 Acrobatics check to avoid it. Or the PCs round a corner and the bad guy is no where to be seen and they have to make a DC 20 survival check to pick up the trail. If the tension picks back up again, you can start the chase over and do it all again.
Photo Credit – Big dog chasing a small dog in the park by wooof woof