Retreat

Retreat or retreating, is a tactic that some monsters implement when their Hitpoints falls below a certain level, at which point they try to run away. This behaviour makes safespotting less than ideal for these monsters. Most monsters will also retreat if you walk out of their roaming area and attack them with a long-ranged weapon, even if they otherwise wouldn't retreat at a certain amount of health.

Mechanics

The max range of a Falador guard.

There are two forms of retreat ranges that come into play: the officially-calculated retreat max range, and the retreat interaction range, which is the max range plus eleven additional game tiles.

The retreat max range is the area in which the NPC is confined to when it is in retreat mode. Retreat mode is initiated by attacking an NPC from outside the aggression range. This behaviour can also be initiated for certain NPCs like chickens and seagulls by being in combat with them when they reach a critically low hitpoints value. The max range is almost always seven tiles.

The retreat interaction range of the same guard.

The retreat interaction range is the area in which the player can cause an NPC to start retreating. Consequently, it is also the area in which the player must constrain its movement to for the NPC to still remain in retreat mode. Given that the max range is almost always seven, and the retreat interaction range is usually an additional eleven tiles, the retreat interaction range is typically eighteen tiles altogether.

The origin of both of these ranges is the static spawn point of the NPC.

• Monsters that retreat

The following monsters are known to retreat when they reach low health:

• Drunken man
• Chicken
• Seagull
• Unicorn
• Soulless
• Ghoul
• Werewolf
• Wallasalki
• Giant Rock Crab
• Bandit (Pollnivneach)
• Ugthanki
• Monk (Kandarin Monastery)
• Thief

Furthermore, the following monsters are known to retreat or stop attacking at any amount of health:

• Agile Scarab
• Imp
• Chompy (does not attack)
• Jubbly (does not attack)

There are several other NPCs that retreat outside of combat, for example:

• Hans, when the player tells him they will kill everyone
• Stray dogs, when shooed away by the player
• Banner carrying goblins in the God Wars Dungeon, which will run way when approached even before being attacked
• The undercover penguins posing as a sheep at Fred's farm, who will run away when the player attempts to shear them
• Implings fly away when the player attempts to catch them

Changes

Date	Changes
[[{{#explode:10 December 2015| |0}} {{#explode:10 December 2015| |1}}]] [[{{#explode:10 December 2015| |2}}]] (update)	To prevent some unwanted behaviour where NPCs neither retaliate nor retreat, there has been a change to how NPCs decide whether they retreat or retaliate. In particular, this affects how monsters such as Callisto and Vet'ion will behave when lured to the limits of their wander range. This change applies to all monsters with long range attacks.