Emergency Retreats

During moments of true desperation, or when lady luck has has turned against them, a party of characters may wish to flee from a combat that they have found themselves in. They may, choose to do so, using the following Emergency Retreat rules. Such a retreat is dangerous, chaotic, and comes with great consequences. However, doing so does guarantee the survival of the entire party, albeit at potentially high costs.

A party can decide to perform an Emergency Retreat at any time during combat. To do so: finish the currently active combatant's turn (Friend or Foe); combat then ends and the party performs their retreat. Every retreating character must roll a d10 and compare the result to the following Retreat Table in order to determine the consequence they suffer as an outcome of their withdrawal from combat.

d10 Result:	Consequence:
1–2	The character suffers a Serious Injury.
3–5	The character suffers a Minor Injury.
6–8	The character suffers a Setback.
9–10	The character takes Attrition Damage.

Unconscious and Dying Characters

If a character is already at 0 Hit Points when an Emergency Retreat is called instead or rolling for a consequence they must immediately continue roll death saving throws until they have rolled three total successes or failures. Based on the number of successes take the following actions:

If they rolled a natural 20 during the course of their death saving throws; they regain 1 Hit Points and then roll on the Retreat Table as normal.
If they succeed three times, they may then immediately roll on the Retreat Table as normal.
If they failed three times instead they do not die. Instead, they suffer a Serious Injury and then immediately roll on the Retreat Table twice, taking the worse of the two results.

In the case where a character would suffer from two Serious Injuries, the same attribute cannot be reduced twice. Randomly determine a different attribute to be reduced.

Serious Injuries

When a character suffers a Serious Injury perform the following steps in order:

Randomly determine one of the character's ability scores. The injured character suffers a -5 penalty to that score (down to a minimum of 1), and all d20 tests using it are made at disadvantage.
Then, roll one-half of the character’s maximum hit dice. The character takes that much damage and their maximum Hit Points is reduced by the same amount. This damage may reduce them to 0 Hit Points but, they automatically stabilize. Their maximum Hit Points cannot be reduced to less than 1.
The character suffers 2 levels of exhaustion, up to a maximum of 5.
The character cannot regain hit dice, remove levels of exhaustion below level 2, or restore the affected attribute until they are healed.

In order to heal from their injury the character must be able to undertake one full week of bed-rest or a greater restoration spell cast at 9th level.

Minor Injuries

When a character suffers a Minor Injury perform the following step in order:

Randomly determine one of the character's ability scores. All d20 checks using this ability suffer a 1d4 penalty to the result.
The character loses one-half of their current hit dice (rounded down). For each hit die lost the character takes 1d4 damage and their maximum Hit Points are reduced by that amount. This damage may reduce them to 0 Hit Point but, they automatically stabilize. A character's maximum Hit Points cannot be reduced to less than 1.
The character suffers 1 level of exhaustion up to a maximum overall total of 2.

In order to heal from their injury the character must undertake three sequential long rests in a safe location. The DM is the final arbiter on what is considered a safe location.

Setbacks

When a character suffers a Setback roll on the following table to determine what type of Setback they suffer:

Dice Result	Setback
1–3	The character suffers 1 level of exhaustion; up to a maximum of their 5th total level.
4–5	The character drops 1d3 pieces of worn equipment (DM’s choice).
6–7	The character is separated from the party and must reunite with them.
8–10	The character is disoriented and suffers disadvantage on both Perception and Investigation checks until they complete a long rest in a safe location.

Attrition Damage

When a character suffers Attrition Damage that character takes 1d6 damage per class level. This may reduce them to 0 Hit Points, but they automatically stabilize in this case. Additionally, the character also loses half of their current hit dice.