One of my parties recently randomly encountered a basilisk. About 60% of the way down in its HP, I decided the basilisk was going to act like, you know, an animal and run away.
The party chased it into the woods and murdalized it.
Do you all generally have monsters fight to the death? Even more so, monsters that are sentient enough to know they're losing?
One of my parties recently randomly encountered a basilisk. About 60% of the way down in its HP, I decided the basilisk was going to act like, you know, an animal and run away.
The party chased it into the woods and murdalized it.
Do you all generally have monsters fight to the death? Even more so, monsters that are sentient enough to know they're losing?
No. Monster fights do not have to be to the death, and in many situations (especially with sentient enemies) it may be beneficial to let it live, or at least run away. Doing so saves the players hit points and possibly spell slots.
Normally the point where I have a creature realize its screwed is closer to 20% hp, but that's the sort of thing that each DM gets to choose for themself.
If you want the players to spare them (for story reasons), then surrender makes more sense (again, mostly for sentient enemies). A sort of "troops, drop your weapons. We're outmatched" moment that can make the combat more memorable than a murderfest.
If a monster has no reason to fight to the death (e.g. most predators) and reasonably thinks it can get away, I'll generally have it run away. However, monsters that don't have either high speed or unusual movement modes probably don't think that.
Could also relate to where it’s encountered. A monster foraging for food might have a very different reaction than one who’s in its lair or protecting its young.
I would recommend "the monsters know what they are doing" its a great set of tips for how to play certain creatures and often addresses whether they would be likely to run away, and when.
Actually, reading Keith Ammann's stuff is what made me think of this... previously, I was an always-fight-to-the-death guy.
With more complex baddies, this is an easier question, because I know their motivations to stay or go. But random animal-grade encounters actually made me think.
Now that I recall, in the past three encounters where this party has faced an enemy that ran away, they've chased it down and slaughtered it. Maybe I should think about that.
I've actually had humanoids attempt to run away or turn towards diplomacy more often than not if they were going to die. Unless they were some type of zealot.
I think it makes perfect sense to have animals or beasts run away. A lion is extremely cautious with a mongoose because it could lose an eye or otherwise suffer a lasting injury. It makes sense and in my opinion helps with immersion.
That being said, I guess read the room. If your players chased it down it seems they don't view animal retreat as a victory per se. So maybe it's more fun for them if the animals don't run.
Modern D&D doesn't have a morale check system, but back in the day all monsters had a morale score and there was a morale system which would dictate when monsters run away. I think monsters running away is absolutely vital to the game, its what makes dungeon crawls possible. The difference between a fight to the death and a fight in which someone flees is between 20-45 minutes of pointlessly wasted session time per fight.
Eh. something running away at 1/5 health is probably not more than a couple attack rolls from death. It's more relevant to large numbers of chaff monsters; after you've killed ten of the twenty goblins what's left isn't a realistic threat but it's still going to take a while to resolve.
Can I ask are you running an xp or milestone leveling system? Are your players trained to the idea that to gain xp for an encounter they have to kill the thing? Maybe talk to them and explain they will get rewarded even if it doesn’t die, or they don’t even fight it.
In terms of running away, it depends on the situation but I do story line every encounter in my head, just a few lines so I know why that creature is there, motivation and what it wants out of the encounter. That might be hunger, it’s protecting its teritory, it has no where to move to because other creatures would attack it, it has young. I never use random encounter tables mid game because I like to place everything in the world and give it a reason for being there.
This means that when the encounter starts I know, this monster will fight to the death, this one will try to escape if it knows it is losing etc. my players then understand
True but I think the idea of morale saves, though it was a time saver, was more about creating a believable fantasy. The idea was that you could be losing a fight but because the mage throughout a fireball and suddenly had one big impact round, it could trigger a morale save and fight that you might have otherwise lost is won not because you had any hope of winning it, but because you broke the enemy. This happened a lot in the old school editions that had morale systems. It was extremely rare for a fight to be executed to the bitter last enemy, fights ended when the enemy was broken and you could break an enemy even if they were winning the fight.
I don't really find that more believable; while morale failures by the side that's winning a fight might happen occasionally, it's not something that should happen frequently enough to materially affect the game, so if earlier editions resulted in that, I would consider that a flaw (I've never worked with AD&D morale, so can't say I know exactly how it works). 95% of morale failures should just be "outcome of fight is obvious, losing side runs".
Monsters fleeing combats can be good for narrative storytelling, or it can be a real pain. I tend to have a certain threshold for monsters who will run away. For example, I have an encounter planned where 10 Lizardfolk with 2 Allosaurus pets will ambush the PCs at a river crossing. If 6 Lizardfolk die, the remainder will try to flee. But I will have to bear in mind whether the lizardfolk who are still alive can even tell how many of their hunter-party allies have been killed - combat is chaotic. Creatures locked in mortal battle with a PC are dodging attacks, swinging their weapon, and generally won't know what's happening 30 feet away. The archers at the back are much more likely to! If any survive, then once they have fled they go back to their village and tell the queen and then the PCs will be hunted. This needs building into the potential narrative.
Fleeing into the world
When designing dungeons, you need to think about this carefully. The end dungeon in the adventure Frozen Sick on D&D Beyond has some good examples of "If the players do X in room Y, then creatures in Z hear them and come to look." If you are designing a castle, stronghold, lair or other type of dungeon, you have to ask yourself questions like this:
In room 3, there are 5 Drow and a Drow Elite Warrior on guard duty. When the players smash down the door, do all 6 creatures burst into action and attack? Or do 5 of them fight and one of them runs 3 rooms down into the foretress to grab the help of the Drow Mage and two more Drow? What is the breaking threshold for the Drow if they all decide to fight? If they see 2 of their 6 killed without hurting the PCs much, then they may all want to run away. Why don't they go all the way to the end of the dungeon to summon the Drow Priestess of Lolth to team up with the Archmage, get the 5 Drow Elite Warriors from area 12 and all go hunt them down?
You can make life easier on yourself with the following:
Mindless creatures / creatures that know no fear (oozes, some demons, constructs, plants etc)
Avoid giving the creatures an easy path out
Zealous fanatics who care nothing for their own lives
Give the creatures something they will die to protect
Also consider how reasonable it is for any creature to engage the PCs if it's not mindless. Giants are likely to be confident that they can just take down a few measly humanoids, but why would a chimera choose to attack 6 heavily armed creatures? Maybe its nest is threatened.
Disappointing your players
Unfortunately, whilst it may be realistic, for players it is often deeply frustrating when an enemy creature flees a combat rather than sees it out to the end, with the exception of major villains that they know they'll meet again. This is often exacerbated by:
A creature can opt to Dash away from the PCs, knowing that it can easily withstand the opportunity attack it might take, or maybe it was fighting from the backline, slinging spells. In this event, once the creature is 60 feet away from the nearest enemy, it becomes very hard to catch them at all if they just choose to Dash every turn. Melee characters can do almost nothing but dash back up to them and hope for opportunity attacks.
Battlemaps are rarely big enough that 3 Dashes won't get you off the table, and then the DM's work is harder. A lot of players will consider 'off the map' as 'gone.' You may need to implement the Chase rules from the DMG.
If there are other creatures still in the fight, chasing is not a great option much of the time
A spellcaster who can move away, suffering any opportunity attacks, then turn Invisible is a real pain
If you have monsters flee too regularly, your melee characters may end up feeling obligated to take the Sentinel feat.
Recurring enemies can be fun! ... but don't push it.
Despite all that, enemies who repeatedly pop up to get in your players' way can be fun for a while, but do be aware that the Greater Invisibility using creature that appears, slings some fireballs and then leaves will not be fun indefinitely (even if it's a viable strategy for the creature). But this means saving those fight-and-flight enemies for use only as the important enemy NPCs and maybe the big bad (Strahd does this throughout Curse of Strahd).
However, there is a difference between a Strahd like enemy who keeps coming back, building dialogue and fury, and a sub-quest enemy who poses a nuisance but whose defeat will ultimately achieve little but having her stop attacking you. Reserve this from vital NPCs.
Can I ask are you running an xp or milestone leveling system? Are your players trained to the idea that to gain xp for an encounter they have to kill the thing? Maybe talk to them and explain they will get rewarded even if it doesn’t die, or they don’t even fight it.
In terms of running away, it depends on the situation but I do story line every encounter in my head, just a few lines so I know why that creature is there, motivation and what it wants out of the encounter. That might be hunger, it’s protecting its teritory, it has no where to move to because other creatures would attack it, it has young. I never use random encounter tables mid game because I like to place everything in the world and give it a reason for being there.
This means that when the encounter starts I know, this monster will fight to the death, this one will try to escape if it knows it is losing etc. my players then understand
I don't know exactly who your addressing, but I personally use many different forms of XP. To me, XP is a reward for success, I use the literal term "Experience" which simply means that they get experience points for anything that can be linked to them gaining experience which really is just about everything. Milestone experience is the one thing I don't do, but that is because I want the experience rewards to be dynamic based on the players actions, rather then just a static reward that attempts to control their progress. This is a preference of both me and my players.
An encounter is considered "a success" aka worth its XP if its overcome, so killing everything is not necessary, if you beat a group of monsters, you get the full XP for doing so, whether that is because they were all slaughtered or they ran away, as long as they were defeated (meaning they permanently lose the will to fight the players) you get XP. There are circumstances where monsters run away and re-group and fight again, those cases you don't get the XP until you defeat them.
Apologies was addressing the OP if they are giving XP for killing then that is one reason they chase down and kill things, I have switched to Milestone levelling but when using XP I don't specifically give XP for killing things ever, what I will give XP for is handling each encounter, kill the goblins, great 100XP, negotiate with them and get them to let you through greta 150XP, scare them away so the route is clear, great 150XP. Fight them, become overwhelmed and retreat to lick your wounds and fight another day, you learnt something here is 100 XP.
Because my players learn that actually killing things does not always give the biggest reward, they will try and think of other ways to get through an encounter. Of course some encounters I just intend to be a fight to the death, this is where that 3-4 line explanation of the enemy goals, aims, and drivers comes in handy.
Recently though I have switched to milestone levelling I am interested to see how this affects the way my players approach things.
Honestly, I think the XP thing is just an excuse that some players still use to kill monsters, I don't think there are many DMs left who only attribute XPs by the book for killing monsters rather than defeating them or actually getting through the encounter (and that is on top of all the DMs who have switched to milestones and those who have gone even further who actually just makes the party get a new level when appropriate). And this especially since the DMG is clear about it, so new groups should know about it: " When adventurers defeat one or more monsters — typically by killing, routing, or capturing them — they divide the total XP value of the monsters evenly among themselves."
After that, good DMs indeed run their monsters intelligently and roleplay them, and this includes running away, surrendering, etc.
One mechanism that I even sometimes use, coming from Runequest where it's always been there as a very plain mechanic, is the concept of ransom. Most intelligent creatures in Glorantha have that concept (although creature of Chaos don't respect this and it makes them even more dangerous) and it encourages people to capture rather than kill.
I have found the last 10 years that a-lot of new players have to be taught that Killing monsters is not always necessary to gain XP and it is very much down to computer games, I DM'd for one group 3-4 years ago who are all WoW players and so had the mindset that you have to kill it to get the gold and the experience. I had to spend some time teaching them, both in and out of game, that you can approach encounters in other ways. Yes experienced DM's and players know this, but in answering the OP I am not sure how experienced their players are, or the background they are coming into Role-play from.
Good rule of thumb is that any creature that isn't operating under direction of a higher power (whether through social structure, fear, power of will, or anything else), and that has a biological imperative to reproduce (i.e. pretty much anything that's not undead or a construct), will absolutely run away when it thinks the fight isn't going its way. If they always fought to the death, then its species wouldn't last long. Any creature under the control of a BBEG that has intelligence enough to have self-interest, will constantly be assessing what they fear more - the characters, or the controlling BBEG. On becoming aware of BBEGs death, anything fighting purely out of fear of reprisal will instead run away or surrender.
My creatures stop fighting when it makes sense, and switch to survival mode - whatever behavior gives them the best chance of survival. The determination of when it makes sense, and of the particular survival behavior, depends on the individual creature. If they all run away at the same time, you might as well just give everything fewer hit points. Also if they all act the same way, it gets boring.
Example - The wizard in my party literally disintegrated three goblins outside Cragmaw castle with thunderwave. The other two goblins saw this happen, and decided that the wizard was way scarier than King Grol, said "screw this, we out", barricaded their doors and cowered. When the party broke down the doors, they found the goblins trying to squeeze themselves through the arrow slits. They caught one, but the other escaped. Just for a giggle, as the escaped gobbo ran from the castle, looking back at the party to see if they were chasing, Venomfang swooped down and grabbed him.
Your creatures don't just have to be cannon fodder. If they are sentient, they have a story and a personality. They want to get home to see their family. They will surrender, run away, hide, bargain, plead for their lives - whatever they have to do to not die. As DM, you have to decide what makes sense in the given situation and breath life into these creatures. Otherwise the party may as well play Skyrim.
Predator beasts, and monstrosities, will flee after fairly small amounts of damage. Lions and bears and carrion crawlers know not to get too injured in one fight. If they lose this fight, they still have to win the next fight or they don't eat.
Prey beasts will always flee, unless young are threatened, in which case they go all-out attack.
Aberrations are, well, aberrant. their behaviour is always unpredictable.
Sapient creatures have their own motivations, which will drive their behaviour. For example, mercenaries will flee or surrender faily soon, whereas fanatical servants (hi elemental evil cultists!) will never flee. Foes considered "monsters" by the dominant society (orcs in human lands, for example) would be less inclined to surrender, because they fear harsh treatment.
Prey beasts will always flee, unless young are threatened, in which case they go all-out attack.
"I'll do the maximum amount of damage possible before going down to discourage future predators" is a valid reproductive strategy (not on an individual level, but on a group level), and is probably what any slow prey beasts do.
I try to think through what the monsters want and what their motivations are. I avoid making any encounter a "combat encounter", where the encounter exists solely for the players to kill things. Killing things is an option, but it's not a necessity.
For an example, I have an encounter lined up for future use where the players will encounter a friendly ogre with a tame wolf. Their first visual of this will be the wolf running toward the party, followed by an ogre repeatedly shouting "Grah!" (the name of the wolf). The wolf wants to greet the party, and the ogre want his wolf to heel. The party sees an ogre and a wolf charging - and if they attack the wolf, the ogre will do what anyone would do if they saw someone stab their dog and murderise them to small pieces - specifically the person who attacked the wolf. If they remain peaceful, then the wolf will greet them playfully and the ogre will help them to cross the mountain pass, and offer some tricks on how to train wolves if the party talks to him on the journey (giving +1 to animal handling when dealing with wolves).
I find it's usually just BBEG's that need to be fought to the death - other monsters are usually either in the way (so can be gone-around) or are hungry or defending their young, which can all be avoided by careful roleplay and perhaps food offerings. I'd award as much VP for peaceably meeting the ogre and his wolf as I would for killing them, because I don't want the XP system to be an excuse for murderhoboism. Grah's a good pupper, and doesn't deserve to be killed!
Unfortunately, whilst it may be realistic, for players it is often deeply frustrating when an enemy creature flees a combat rather than sees it out to the end, with the exception of major villains that they know they'll meet again. This is often exacerbated by:
Why would it be frustrating to see a scene through? The point of a fight isn't to round everyone up and murder them just because they are monsters, like I think the frustrating thing would be if everyone in the group was on the murder hobo path like that trying to run down every monster in a complex.
To me speaking as a player, its frustrating when the DM makes decisions and runs a game in a fashion that is unbelievable as a way to control or contain the scenario within the confines of a pre-planned event that he wants to execute, rather then just playing out a scene based on the natural course of that scene.
Though I understand the idea of infusing the game with fun over reality, I do think a lack of this sort of rational or logical outcomes in favor of "making it easier" or ensuring the outcome is always "fun" doesn't really have the desired effect on players that are trying to play a role in a probable world. Like its a fantasy world and its a role-playing "game", but the thing can't be a He-Man cartoon where everything happens in a structured/predictable way just because that is the routine of the thing.
Ultimately, this kind of thinking means that your game should run like this:
Level 1 characters are completely useless. There will always be some level 5 NPCs around. They should do the quests instead. But actually, there are level 20 NPCs EVERYWHERE - see below.
Monarchs and rulers never change. Firstly, they are all elves, because why would you not have a 3000 year old ruler with all their expertise and wisdom? But secondly, the king employs all the high level clerics to cast Resurrection spells whenever someone in his family dies.
All national produce goes towards the quest for immortality.
Elves completely rule the world, and they should all be level 20 since if a human can achieve level 20 in an average lifespan of about 29 years (the average lifespan in a pre-industrial society) then all elves should do enough training within the first 200 years of life to be level 20.
The moment anyone tries to cause trouble in the world, a level 20 elf will teleport over, cast Meteor Swarm on the enemy home, and poof, problem solved.
The vocation of everyone in the land should be aspiring to be clerics or wizards because why the hell would you want to be anything else? Why be a farmer when someone can Create Food and Water? Curing diseases is also high priority.
With all this borne in mind, a DM should generally go for fun over realism :D
I'm curious how other DMs approach this...
One of my parties recently randomly encountered a basilisk. About 60% of the way down in its HP, I decided the basilisk was going to act like, you know, an animal and run away.
The party chased it into the woods and murdalized it.
Do you all generally have monsters fight to the death? Even more so, monsters that are sentient enough to know they're losing?
No. Monster fights do not have to be to the death, and in many situations (especially with sentient enemies) it may be beneficial to let it live, or at least run away. Doing so saves the players hit points and possibly spell slots.
Normally the point where I have a creature realize its screwed is closer to 20% hp, but that's the sort of thing that each DM gets to choose for themself.
If you want the players to spare them (for story reasons), then surrender makes more sense (again, mostly for sentient enemies). A sort of "troops, drop your weapons. We're outmatched" moment that can make the combat more memorable than a murderfest.
Proud poster on the Create a World thread
If a monster has no reason to fight to the death (e.g. most predators) and reasonably thinks it can get away, I'll generally have it run away. However, monsters that don't have either high speed or unusual movement modes probably don't think that.
Could also relate to where it’s encountered. A monster foraging for food might have a very different reaction than one who’s in its lair or protecting its young.
I would recommend "the monsters know what they are doing" its a great set of tips for how to play certain creatures and often addresses whether they would be likely to run away, and when.
https://www.themonstersknow.com/
Actually, reading Keith Ammann's stuff is what made me think of this... previously, I was an always-fight-to-the-death guy.
With more complex baddies, this is an easier question, because I know their motivations to stay or go. But random animal-grade encounters actually made me think.
Now that I recall, in the past three encounters where this party has faced an enemy that ran away, they've chased it down and slaughtered it. Maybe I should think about that.
I've actually had humanoids attempt to run away or turn towards diplomacy more often than not if they were going to die. Unless they were some type of zealot.
I think it makes perfect sense to have animals or beasts run away. A lion is extremely cautious with a mongoose because it could lose an eye or otherwise suffer a lasting injury. It makes sense and in my opinion helps with immersion.
That being said, I guess read the room. If your players chased it down it seems they don't view animal retreat as a victory per se. So maybe it's more fun for them if the animals don't run.
Eh. something running away at 1/5 health is probably not more than a couple attack rolls from death. It's more relevant to large numbers of chaff monsters; after you've killed ten of the twenty goblins what's left isn't a realistic threat but it's still going to take a while to resolve.
Can I ask are you running an xp or milestone leveling system? Are your players trained to the idea that to gain xp for an encounter they have to kill the thing? Maybe talk to them and explain they will get rewarded even if it doesn’t die, or they don’t even fight it.
In terms of running away, it depends on the situation but I do story line every encounter in my head, just a few lines so I know why that creature is there, motivation and what it wants out of the encounter. That might be hunger, it’s protecting its teritory, it has no where to move to because other creatures would attack it, it has young. I never use random encounter tables mid game because I like to place everything in the world and give it a reason for being there.
This means that when the encounter starts I know, this monster will fight to the death, this one will try to escape if it knows it is losing etc. my players then understand
I don't really find that more believable; while morale failures by the side that's winning a fight might happen occasionally, it's not something that should happen frequently enough to materially affect the game, so if earlier editions resulted in that, I would consider that a flaw (I've never worked with AD&D morale, so can't say I know exactly how it works). 95% of morale failures should just be "outcome of fight is obvious, losing side runs".
Monsters fleeing combats can be good for narrative storytelling, or it can be a real pain. I tend to have a certain threshold for monsters who will run away. For example, I have an encounter planned where 10 Lizardfolk with 2 Allosaurus pets will ambush the PCs at a river crossing. If 6 Lizardfolk die, the remainder will try to flee. But I will have to bear in mind whether the lizardfolk who are still alive can even tell how many of their hunter-party allies have been killed - combat is chaotic. Creatures locked in mortal battle with a PC are dodging attacks, swinging their weapon, and generally won't know what's happening 30 feet away. The archers at the back are much more likely to! If any survive, then once they have fled they go back to their village and tell the queen and then the PCs will be hunted. This needs building into the potential narrative.
Fleeing into the world
When designing dungeons, you need to think about this carefully. The end dungeon in the adventure Frozen Sick on D&D Beyond has some good examples of "If the players do X in room Y, then creatures in Z hear them and come to look." If you are designing a castle, stronghold, lair or other type of dungeon, you have to ask yourself questions like this:
In room 3, there are 5 Drow and a Drow Elite Warrior on guard duty. When the players smash down the door, do all 6 creatures burst into action and attack? Or do 5 of them fight and one of them runs 3 rooms down into the foretress to grab the help of the Drow Mage and two more Drow? What is the breaking threshold for the Drow if they all decide to fight? If they see 2 of their 6 killed without hurting the PCs much, then they may all want to run away. Why don't they go all the way to the end of the dungeon to summon the Drow Priestess of Lolth to team up with the Archmage, get the 5 Drow Elite Warriors from area 12 and all go hunt them down?
You can make life easier on yourself with the following:
Also consider how reasonable it is for any creature to engage the PCs if it's not mindless. Giants are likely to be confident that they can just take down a few measly humanoids, but why would a chimera choose to attack 6 heavily armed creatures? Maybe its nest is threatened.
Disappointing your players
Unfortunately, whilst it may be realistic, for players it is often deeply frustrating when an enemy creature flees a combat rather than sees it out to the end, with the exception of major villains that they know they'll meet again. This is often exacerbated by:
Recurring enemies can be fun! ... but don't push it.
Despite all that, enemies who repeatedly pop up to get in your players' way can be fun for a while, but do be aware that the Greater Invisibility using creature that appears, slings some fireballs and then leaves will not be fun indefinitely (even if it's a viable strategy for the creature). But this means saving those fight-and-flight enemies for use only as the important enemy NPCs and maybe the big bad (Strahd does this throughout Curse of Strahd).
However, there is a difference between a Strahd like enemy who keeps coming back, building dialogue and fury, and a sub-quest enemy who poses a nuisance but whose defeat will ultimately achieve little but having her stop attacking you. Reserve this from vital NPCs.
Apologies was addressing the OP if they are giving XP for killing then that is one reason they chase down and kill things, I have switched to Milestone levelling but when using XP I don't specifically give XP for killing things ever, what I will give XP for is handling each encounter, kill the goblins, great 100XP, negotiate with them and get them to let you through greta 150XP, scare them away so the route is clear, great 150XP. Fight them, become overwhelmed and retreat to lick your wounds and fight another day, you learnt something here is 100 XP.
Because my players learn that actually killing things does not always give the biggest reward, they will try and think of other ways to get through an encounter. Of course some encounters I just intend to be a fight to the death, this is where that 3-4 line explanation of the enemy goals, aims, and drivers comes in handy.
Recently though I have switched to milestone levelling I am interested to see how this affects the way my players approach things.
I have found the last 10 years that a-lot of new players have to be taught that Killing monsters is not always necessary to gain XP and it is very much down to computer games, I DM'd for one group 3-4 years ago who are all WoW players and so had the mindset that you have to kill it to get the gold and the experience. I had to spend some time teaching them, both in and out of game, that you can approach encounters in other ways. Yes experienced DM's and players know this, but in answering the OP I am not sure how experienced their players are, or the background they are coming into Role-play from.
Good rule of thumb is that any creature that isn't operating under direction of a higher power (whether through social structure, fear, power of will, or anything else), and that has a biological imperative to reproduce (i.e. pretty much anything that's not undead or a construct), will absolutely run away when it thinks the fight isn't going its way. If they always fought to the death, then its species wouldn't last long. Any creature under the control of a BBEG that has intelligence enough to have self-interest, will constantly be assessing what they fear more - the characters, or the controlling BBEG. On becoming aware of BBEGs death, anything fighting purely out of fear of reprisal will instead run away or surrender.
My creatures stop fighting when it makes sense, and switch to survival mode - whatever behavior gives them the best chance of survival. The determination of when it makes sense, and of the particular survival behavior, depends on the individual creature. If they all run away at the same time, you might as well just give everything fewer hit points. Also if they all act the same way, it gets boring.
Example - The wizard in my party literally disintegrated three goblins outside Cragmaw castle with thunderwave. The other two goblins saw this happen, and decided that the wizard was way scarier than King Grol, said "screw this, we out", barricaded their doors and cowered. When the party broke down the doors, they found the goblins trying to squeeze themselves through the arrow slits. They caught one, but the other escaped. Just for a giggle, as the escaped gobbo ran from the castle, looking back at the party to see if they were chasing, Venomfang swooped down and grabbed him.
Your creatures don't just have to be cannon fodder. If they are sentient, they have a story and a personality. They want to get home to see their family. They will surrender, run away, hide, bargain, plead for their lives - whatever they have to do to not die. As DM, you have to decide what makes sense in the given situation and breath life into these creatures. Otherwise the party may as well play Skyrim.
It depends.
Predator beasts, and monstrosities, will flee after fairly small amounts of damage. Lions and bears and carrion crawlers know not to get too injured in one fight. If they lose this fight, they still have to win the next fight or they don't eat.
Prey beasts will always flee, unless young are threatened, in which case they go all-out attack.
Aberrations are, well, aberrant. their behaviour is always unpredictable.
Sapient creatures have their own motivations, which will drive their behaviour. For example, mercenaries will flee or surrender faily soon, whereas fanatical servants (hi elemental evil cultists!) will never flee. Foes considered "monsters" by the dominant society (orcs in human lands, for example) would be less inclined to surrender, because they fear harsh treatment.
"I'll do the maximum amount of damage possible before going down to discourage future predators" is a valid reproductive strategy (not on an individual level, but on a group level), and is probably what any slow prey beasts do.
I try to think through what the monsters want and what their motivations are. I avoid making any encounter a "combat encounter", where the encounter exists solely for the players to kill things. Killing things is an option, but it's not a necessity.
For an example, I have an encounter lined up for future use where the players will encounter a friendly ogre with a tame wolf. Their first visual of this will be the wolf running toward the party, followed by an ogre repeatedly shouting "Grah!" (the name of the wolf). The wolf wants to greet the party, and the ogre want his wolf to heel. The party sees an ogre and a wolf charging - and if they attack the wolf, the ogre will do what anyone would do if they saw someone stab their dog and murderise them to small pieces - specifically the person who attacked the wolf. If they remain peaceful, then the wolf will greet them playfully and the ogre will help them to cross the mountain pass, and offer some tricks on how to train wolves if the party talks to him on the journey (giving +1 to animal handling when dealing with wolves).
I find it's usually just BBEG's that need to be fought to the death - other monsters are usually either in the way (so can be gone-around) or are hungry or defending their young, which can all be avoided by careful roleplay and perhaps food offerings. I'd award as much VP for peaceably meeting the ogre and his wolf as I would for killing them, because I don't want the XP system to be an excuse for murderhoboism. Grah's a good pupper, and doesn't deserve to be killed!
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Ultimately, this kind of thinking means that your game should run like this:
With all this borne in mind, a DM should generally go for fun over realism :D