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.

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 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.

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
• Forgotten Soul (Soul Wars)
• Oryx
• Scorpia's offspring

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 away 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
• Kalphite larvae flee from the player in the Kalphite Hive

v t e Combat Mechanics
Combat	Attack range Attack speed Auto Retaliate Autocast Combat triangle Special attacks Hitsplat Tanking Magical melee Magical ranged Ranged magic Ranged melee Typeless
Maximum hit	Maximum magic hit Maximum melee hit Maximum ranged hit Monster maximum hit
Damage per second	Damage per second/Melee Damage per second/Ranged Damage per second/Magic
Mechanics	Aggressiveness Buffs Elemental weakness Flinching Hit delay Retaliation Retreat Safespot Spawning Successful hit Maximum damage cap Flat armour Tolerance Wander radius PJ timer Red-X Line of sight
Other	Single-way combat Multicombat area Singles-plus combat Player killing