For quite some time, as in 20+ years, I have been disappointed with how chases were handled in RPGs. When Pathfinder came out I was excited because they gave some chase rules that seemed to work and were close to ideas I had derived after using the Hot Chase rules.
Unfortunately I found the Pathfinder chase rules too linear. 10 cards, most with obstacles summed up into make one of 2 checks. There is no room for tactical thinking, no room for options, just pick which you are better at. This was the burr in my saddle with 4th ed D&D skill checks as well so I have finally sat down and tried to design my own cards to work with the Pathfinder rules.
They aren't that different than the normal Pathfinder rules, rather I have tried to add a little bit of choice. Each card has obstacles broken into 3 categories by level - brown for street level, green for 2nd story, balconies, etc. and red for the roofs.
There will be two decks - street cards and alley cards. These cards are fairly preliminary - a few of you will see them in this week's playtest, but essentially the alley cards allow for more twists and turns as well as a better chance of ditching the opponent.
Broadly speaking the cards will be divided into
Obstacles - a skill check or decision must be made to pass to the next card
Options - a choice is available - intersections, alleys, courtyards, etc. If pursuers are out of sight these cards may end the pursuit if the followers fail a track or random guess.
Encounters - People who may react to the chase or present the opportunity to recruit help.
Dead Ends - These block movement on one or more levels.
Corners - may have an obstacle as well, but they block line of sight. More common in alleys, they can shut down the long range snipers.
Essentially the deck then becomes a map that may either be preplotted by the GM or random. Each card will also be numbered to make pre planning easier.
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