Sometimes it’s okay to fudge the numbers to benefit your players. If you have to, pull something weird including having the monsters retreat due to something happening elsewhere or whatever. You can totally just make stuff up to preserve the party and advance the story if needed.
Having enemies retreat is the opposite of fudging, it is having monsters react to the world around them instead of being bags of hit points that always fight to the death. Fudging is ignoring the random chance rolls.
Sometimes it’s okay to fudge the numbers to benefit your players. If you have to, pull something weird including having the monsters retreat due to something happening elsewhere or whatever. You can totally just make stuff up to preserve the party and advance the story if needed.
Having enemies retreat is the opposite of fudging, it is having monsters react to the world around them instead of being bags of hit points that always fight to the death. Fudging is ignoring the random chance rolls.