# The Focus Fire Problem



## Stalker0

If you watch any Superhero or fantasy movie nowadays, there's a consistent trend. In most fights, the second the combat starts....the heroes go their own ways. Legolas isn't back to back with Aragon and Gimli, they are off killing their own monsters. When the Justice League (both in movies and the cartoons) goes to take on the badguys, most of the time the heroes all split up into 1 on 1 type fights. Only when they are facing the "big boss" they all start attacking the same creature as a single unit. If we go more modern, Harry Potter often had the wizards split up into 2 on 2s or 1 on 1s, rather than have 1 pile of wizards go after the other.

Dnd players....do not work that way. They learn very quickly that the best way to be efficient in combat is to focus fire. Everyone pounds on one creature, then the next, then the next. Now while there are always exceptions to this, I have consistently seen this behavior time and time and time again among both my own players and other groups I've watched. Its just smart tactics....but it has a pretty strong narrative disconnect to a lot of the fantasy dnd tries to model.

While a DM can force this behavior through various narrative setups, the incentive is always working against him. Players are going to focus fire whenever they can, because its simply the best way to play.

I feel like when we talk 5.5 or 6e, this is an area that would be great to tackle. Mechanically, how do you incentive players not to all just pound the same monster with damage until its dead? How do you encourage them to spread out their attacks?


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## jgsugden

I don't think this is a problem, per se, so I wouldn't do anything to fight against it.  It has been there since the 1970s.  It is just good strategy.

If I were going to battle against it, I'd introduce more mechanics that give creatures advantages if they are not being fought:


If this creature is not threatened by a foe, their ranged attacks deal 1d8 extra damage.
If this creature has not been damaged since the start of their last turn, they gain a legendary action that they can use this turn.
If this creature is not within 15 feet of an enemy at the start of their turn, they may make 3 ranged attacks with their bow this turn with their multiattack ability instead of 2.

You can also use the tactic against the PCs at times.  For example, If you have a party of 6 PCs that include 4 melee PCs and 2 ranged and they all go after the burly giant on the first turn, there may be an opportunity for a spellcaster to drop a wall spell on the PCs and leave the burly giant and 4 melee PCs on one side of it, and the rest of the monsters and the 2 ranged PCs on the other side of it ...


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## DND_Reborn

It is a good strategy that, fortunately, the monsters can use against the PCs as well. 

But, I think part of this centers around the idea often gets overlooked: too many people can also get in each others' way. What if the following was the mechanic:

2 creatures attacking an opponent can gain advantage (via flanking or Help or whatever)
3 creatures attacking an opponent is possible, but no longer have advantage as this is cancelled by the disadvantage of possibly getting in the way
4 or more attacking an opponent suffer disadvantage due to "too many cooks in the kitchen".

That's my first thought anyway.


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## Charlaquin

jgsugden said:


> I don't think this is a problem, per se, so I wouldn't do anything to fight against it.  It has been there since the 1970s.  It is just good strategy.
> 
> If I were going to battle against it, I'd introduce more mechanics that give creatures advantages if they are not being fought:
> 
> 
> If this creature is not threatened by a foe, their ranged attacks deal 1d8 extra damage.
> If this creature has not been damaged since the start of their last turn, they gain a legendary action that they can use this turn.
> If this creature is not within 15 feet of an enemy at the start of their turn, they may make 3 ranged attacks with their bow this turn with their multiattack ability instead of 2.
> 
> You can also use the tactic against the PCs at times.  For example, If you have a party of 6 PCs that include 4 melee PCs and 2 ranged and they all go after the burly giant on the first turn, there may be an opportunity for a spellcaster to drop a wall spell on the PCs and leave the burly giant and 4 melee PCs on one side of it, and the rest of the monsters and the 2 ranged PCs on the other side of it ...



Good ideas, but for these sorts of mechanics to be effective at discouraging focus fire, the players need to know about them. So it’s important to stress to the DM to explain them to the players!


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## el-remmen

While I have seen players focus fire and as a player sometimes encouraged it, I personally have not seen it be go-to strategy in any D&D game I've ever run to the degree that I thought something had to be done about it.  Though I have to admit, "trying to emulate novels or comics or movies" is never been my primary goal in playing D&D.


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## Vaalingrade

Split the enemy objectives.

The reason heroes in the movies split up is because the writers have placed objectives at too much distance from one another to effectively move from one to another. You're not going to get players to do something like that on the same map where they can easily intervene in the actions of one monster or another.

So this ogre is going after the orphanage and these ghouls are heading for the old folk's home three blocks away, and these mind flayers are hitting the library where the players' favorite brainly librarian is studying. And maybe you spent time impressing on the players how cute the orphans are and one made them a paper unicorn, and Old Gammy Pegleg at the home tells the best stories and makes the best bathtub gin the barbarian's ever had... but Oh no! The barn's manor is being attacked by skeletons! And he hasn't paid you for your also adventure yet!

That, and build encounters to take into account 1vx fights. They're not going to split up if it's clear they're going to die for it. The heroes in the movies don't get offed for doing so unless the writer's a hack after all. And when that happens, they already killed Slipknot before the action began.


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## Leatherhead

Stalker0 said:


> I feel like when we talk 5.5 or 6e, this is an area that would be great to tackle. Mechanically, how do you incentive players not to all just pound the same monster with damage until its dead? How do you encourage them to spread out their attacks?




You could include riders on everyone's attacks that inflict some kind of penalty. The trick is, if you let that penalty stack too much, you fall back into the focus fire problem. So ideally the penalty is triggered once the enemy is engaged and falls off once a new primary target.

Alternatively, minions that provide buffs and/or heal would accomplish the same thing, but in reverse.


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## Reynard

I like to make sure the biggest monster is a mook, not the mastermind or the one with the actual goal. Sure, the PCs gang up on the ogre and it only takes three rounds to drop him, but by that time the goblin shaman has escaped with the Whatsit, so what did the PCs actually win?


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## Galandris

Big Boss has an attack that deals (X+minions)d6 damage, -minions penalty to his attack bonus, and has 2x(minions) AC and saves bonus. Narratively, he's tiring as the fight goes on... with the number of minions dropped a proxy for intensity of the fatigue. It also incentivize to start with low-powered attack to take down minions and keep the boss occupied, and use the big guns to finish him at the _end_ of the fight and not as an opening nova strike. It might emulates genre better than the current rules, who emulates a more realistic approach.

Regular fights can go as usual. If you want to increase genre emulation, signal boss fights by having them make a speech before the start of the battle.


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## payn

I do think the system could support this kind of thing, but ultimately that's going to be up to adventure writing and game mastering. I dont think you can "5.5" 5E and make it run like a movie script. That likely would be a 6E type of thing with heavy emphasis on it.


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## tetrasodium

I don't think it's a problem to stop, but there are a few caveats
 to that.

It winds up feeling like something is wrong & monsters are all braindead because if the monsters ever started doing it with competence it would make for a very fast TPK the GM would get blamed for.  This is a problem
Tools that used to mitigate that & encourage the PCs to focus on easily processed mooks or some kind of chess strategy to mitigate rather than trounce the big guy are no longer present & can not be added easily.



Spoiler: here is one



Behind the curtain: Spell Resistance & Damage Reduction
Too much spell resistance or damage reduction can' make a monster virtually unbeatable at the Challenge Rating you're aiming for. *Too little, and the monster might as well not: have any at all. Since any character will have the caster level or magic weaponry necessary to penetrate the creature's defense.*
Spell Resistance: If you choose to give your monster this ability. you'll probably want to set the resistance number equal to the creature's CR+11 Tim means that a character of a level equal to the creature's will have a 50%”: chance to overcome the monster's spell resistance (Barring  Spell Penetration Feat). For example. a 12th-levecharacter has a 50% chance to overcome spell resistance 23, so 23 is
a good spell res-stance number for a CR 12 creature.  You may need to adjust a creature's spell resistance number after
you ﬁnally settle on a CR {or the creature...
If you want a highly magic-resistant creature. set the monster's spell resistance higher than CR +11 For lesser resistance set the spell resistance lower. For each point of resistance. you'll change the change the chance of successfully overcoming spell resistance by 5%. For example. a 12tlevel caster has a 45% chance to overcome spell resistance 24. and no chance to overcome spell resistance 33
*Damage Reduction:* Assigning a damage reduction value can be tricky. Setting the value. too high can make a creature virtually immune
to physical attacks. On the other hand. most player characters carry some magic weapons. so setting the value too low can result in an ineffective ability.
Recommended
Target CR         - Recommended Damage Reduction
0~2                   - None
3—5                  - 5
6—13                  -  10
14-20                   - 15

Remember. even if player characters can hurt the monster. lesser creatures in the game world often cannot hurt the creature. nor can the
player character's cohorts or any creatures their summon.



Weapons like flametongue & such were important for regularly being able to do a guaranteed _something_ against high DR monsters not for their ability to mow through trash monsters & mooks.  SR:Yes/No spells had very different functions & bolting them on is not the sort of thing that even fits in what could be called a houserule doc that is merely large & things like spell penetration hasn't even been mentioned yet.  flat DR & flat resist has more complications of their own.

Adding old style flat DR & flat energy resist faces problems with needing to apply it (almost)everywhere or any tools given to players for dealing with it will light any hope of keeping player A & player B on a similar power scale of effectiveness to start but also comes with a secondary problem.  Players who started with 5e have no idea what is impeding them and get upset that it's still impeding them even though they have a magic weapon  or they ignore any attempt made to explain why other weapons are important & refuse to consider them if those other weapons are not immediately & obviously better in all situations.  Either way the result looks like a failure on the GM's part


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## toucanbuzz

In an ideal combat, everyone would surround an enemy and whittle them down one-by-one. In real life, there is a heavy price to pay for diverting your attention away from an enemy, exposing yourself, and realistically, more than two trained similarly-armed foes is a near impossible experience. D&D has never proposed to be a realistic combat simulation. However, in spirit of the thread, to accomplish this, I'd aim for a rule that doesn't tax the DM with a bunch of extra bookkeeping. 

1. Greater penalty for disengaging once in melee combat. Perhaps AoO gain Advantage and count as critical hits if they hit? You'd have a severe disincentive to flippantly moving from foe to foe. _This is beginning to encroach on the Sentinel feat, but you might simply do away with that Feat and simply make disengaging from a threatening opponent more meaningful. _

2. If a target is surrounded by 4+ foes, they all gain Advantage on the attack. There's just no way to defend. _This represents a threat of too many enemies, though one might not apply this to Huge + creatures as they're not disadvantaged in any way due to sheer bulk._

3. Remove the Disengage action. You can't safely get away from engagement. Or, modify it. Opponent can use its Reaction to move up to its movement speed after the disengaging target without provoking AoO. If you used Disengage, your next attack is with disadvantage.


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## Hussar

Perhaps a very simple answer - pooled hp?

In other words you can hang up on one critter all you like, but it won’t matter since the baddies don’t go down until they all go down.


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## overgeeked

Stalker0 said:


> If you watch any Superhero or fantasy movie nowadays, there's a consistent trend. In most fights, the second the combat starts....the heroes go their own ways. Legolas isn't back to back with Aragon and Gimli, they are off killing their own monsters. When the Justice League (both in movies and the cartoons) goes to take on the badguys, most of the time the heroes all split up into 1 on 1 type fights. Only when they are facing the "big boss" they all start attacking the same creature as a single unit. If we go more modern, Harry Potter often had the wizards split up into 2 on 2s or 1 on 1s, rather than have 1 pile of wizards go after the other.
> 
> Dnd players....do not work that way. They learn very quickly that the best way to be efficient in combat is to focus fire. Everyone pounds on one creature, then the next, then the next. Now while there are always exceptions to this, I have consistently seen this behavior time and time and time again among both my own players and other groups I've watched. Its just smart tactics....but it has a pretty strong narrative disconnect to a lot of the fantasy dnd tries to model.
> 
> While a DM can force this behavior through various narrative setups, the incentive is always working against him. Players are going to focus fire whenever they can, because its simply the best way to play.
> 
> I feel like when we talk 5.5 or 6e, this is an area that would be great to tackle. Mechanically, how do you incentive players not to all just pound the same monster with damage until its dead? How do you encourage them to spread out their attacks?



In stories, there are thematic reasons for this. In superhero fiction, team ups of good and bad usually have mirrors, opposites, and someone from the rogue’s gallery of every hero on the villain’s side. So the Super Friends have Superman and Batman and Aquaman and the Legion of Doom have Lex Luthor and Joker and Black Manta. The “best” person to fight them all is Superman or Flash, but because each hero knows a villain best, they square off.

Yet another way RPGs are not stories. In stories, the focus is on drama and conflict and pathos but in RPGs the focus is on tactics and optimization and efficiency. A storygame would do better in this regard. Not sure how to enforce this in D&D though. If you only offer carrots, the players can and will ignore them. WotC isn’t about to change design philosophy and offer anything like a stick. They can’t even have small PC races have less movement, to say nothing of actual drawbacks, they’re not going to penalize players for making tactical rather than story choices.


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## Oofta

I don't see the problem, nor do I want the heavy hand of rules throwing it's influence that much into forcing a specific style. 

If people want to gang up, great.  If I want them to split forces I'll set up scenarios where they have to engage different targets. In my experience just having enemies attack from different directions tends to split the party.


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## GSHamster

Hussar said:


> Perhaps a very simple answer - pooled hp?
> 
> In other words you can hang up on one critter all you like, but it won’t matter since the baddies don’t go down until they all go down.



Traditionally, the answer to this is to focus fire the target with the worst defense, while cleaving incidental damage onto anyone nearby. It won't give the desired results.


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## Mistwell

Stalker0 said:


> I feel like when we talk 5.5 or 6e, this is an area that would be great to tackle. Mechanically, how do you incentive players not to all just pound the same monster with damage until its dead? How do you encourage them to spread out their attacks?



Anything you do to "fix" this behavior will feel artificial. I'd rather not encourage spreading out fire through the rules because I am finding it difficult to imagine rules to encourage that behavior which won't also make it feel more like a board game than an RPG.


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## bedir than

Use those lesser enemies to break concentration, and the focus fire stops


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## EzekielRaiden

Just port over the 13th Age Escalation Die, and boost all monster ACs and saves by 1-2 points (unless you specifically want them to be weak to a particular form of attack.)

The Escalation Die is simple and incredibly straightforward, it's one and only one bonus on any given round, it helps speed up any fight that runs long while discouraging "nova"/"alpha strike" tactics, and requires literally nothing more than a single d6 (ideally a large one so people can read it) to implement.

For anyone unfamiliar: in 13th Age, when you start a combat, the Escalation Die starts at a value of 0 (meaning, it isn't on the table.) At the top of the 2nd round (meaning, after the first round is completed), you put a d6 on the table with the 1-pip face pointing up. All player characters (and only player characters*) add the Escalation Die to their attack rolls. Each round thereafter, the Escalation Die increases by 1 (rotating to the new face), to a maximum of 6 (because a d6 only has 6 faces) at the start of the 7th round.

This is one of several _brilliant_ pieces of game design from 13A. I genuinely, honestly think all fans of D&D should give 13A a read, and possibly see about playing a one-shot or the like. It has some genuine design delights in it, and can help almost anyone run better games.

*In 13A, there is one exception to this rule: _dragons_. Dragons add the Escalation Die to their attack rolls too. This makes dragons _scary_.


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## GSHamster

EzekielRaiden said:


> Just port over the 13th Age Escalation Die, and boost all monster ACs and saves by 1-2 points (unless you specifically want them to be weak to a particular form of attack.)
> 
> The Escalation Die is simple and incredibly straightforward, it's one and only one bonus on any given round, it helps speed up any fight that runs long while discouraging "nova"/"alpha strike" tactics, and requires literally nothing more than a single d6 (ideally a large one so people can read it) to implement.
> 
> For anyone unfamiliar: in 13th Age, when you start a combat, the Escalation Die starts at a value of 0 (meaning, it isn't on the table.) At the top of the 2nd round (meaning, after the first round is completed), you put a d6 on the table with the 1-pip face pointing up. All player characters (and only player characters*) add the Escalation Die to their attack rolls. Each round thereafter, the Escalation Die increases by 1 (rotating to the new face), to a maximum of 6 (because a d6 only has 6 faces) at the start of the 7th round.
> 
> This is one of several _brilliant_ pieces of game design from 13A. I genuinely, honestly think all fans of D&D should give 13A a read, and possibly see about playing a one-shot or the like. It has some genuine design delights in it, and can help almost anyone run better games.
> 
> *In 13A, there is one exception to this rule: _dragons_. Dragons add the Escalation Die to their attack rolls too. This makes dragons _scary_.



How does this mechanic affect Focus Fire, though? I agree it speeds up the fight, and makes the later rounds more deadly. But it still looks optimal to focus on one target at a time. Maybe even encourage you to focus lower AC first, because the bonus makes hitting higher AC more likely.


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## RuinousPowers

D&D favors that kind of tactic- monsters operate at 100% until they drop dead, and they can usually withstand the damage output from several PCs before dropping. In a system where one hit can disable an opponent, you would see PCs picking individual targets, only focusing fire on heavily armored or difficult to hit targets.


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## GSHamster

I think you could do it with a rule like:

"Every time a creature is attacked by an enemy, affected by an enemy spell, or forced to make a saving throw from enemy, she gains 5 points of damage reduction for future attacks. These points stack, but expire when it is the creature's turn to act."

There's no real non-mechanical justification for this rule, though.


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## Ancalagon

This is, in part, a ranged attack problem.

In a game I'm in, we have 2 tanks - yes they can focus fire a foe, but it's often better if they are apart to control more of the battlefield.  There is often a "cost" to focus firing for the tanks.

The 3 non tanks?  Artillerist, star druid, fathomless warlock.  We can focus fire _whomever we want_.


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## Chaosmancer

jgsugden said:


> I don't think this is a problem, per se, so I wouldn't do anything to fight against it.  It has been there since the 1970s.  It is just good strategy.
> 
> If I were going to battle against it, I'd introduce more mechanics that give creatures advantages if they are not being fought:
> 
> 
> If this creature is not threatened by a foe, their ranged attacks deal 1d8 extra damage.
> If this creature has not been damaged since the start of their last turn, they gain a legendary action that they can use this turn.
> If this creature is not within 15 feet of an enemy at the start of their turn, they may make 3 ranged attacks with their bow this turn with their multiattack ability instead of 2.
> 
> You can also use the tactic against the PCs at times.  For example, If you have a party of 6 PCs that include 4 melee PCs and 2 ranged and they all go after the burly giant on the first turn, there may be an opportunity for a spellcaster to drop a wall spell on the PCs and leave the burly giant and 4 melee PCs on one side of it, and the rest of the monsters and the 2 ranged PCs on the other side of it ...







Vaalingrade said:


> Split the enemy objectives.
> 
> The reason heroes in the movies split up is because the writers have placed objectives at too much distance from one another to effectively move from one to another. You're not going to get players to do something like that on the same map where they can easily intervene in the actions of one monster or another.
> 
> So this ogre is going after the orphanage and these ghouls are heading for the old folk's home three blocks away, and these mind flayers are hitting the library where the players' favorite brainly librarian is studying. And maybe you spent time impressing on the players how cute the orphans are and one made them a paper unicorn, and Old Gammy Pegleg at the home tells the best stories and makes the best bathtub gin the barbarian's ever had... but Oh no! The barn's manor is being attacked by skeletons! And he hasn't paid you for your also adventure yet!
> 
> That, and build encounters to take into account 1vx fights. They're not going to split up if it's clear they're going to die for it. The heroes in the movies don't get offed for doing so unless the writer's a hack after all. And when that happens, they already killed Slipknot before the action began.





Personally, I think these two ideas hit the best marks of how to incentivize splitting up. If engaging with an enemy prevents them from doing something "really bad" then at least one or two players are incentivized to do that thing. Meanwhile, if you have three goals to accomplish in a fight, or objectives to defend, then you will split to do so. 

Thinking on it, if the party has easy enough access to forced movement, another good thing is to prevent the enemy from comboing with each other. If you have a rogue-y enemy who dishes out poisoned sneak attacks, who is working with a guy who has a 10 ft aura of vulnerability to poison, then you want those two far apart, and they want to be together. So you have to split up and fight them separately, because focusing on one just lets them super-combo you in the meantime.

Obviously you can't do this every single time, but this would be a fun way to run a set-piece finale.


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## Hussar

GSHamster said:


> Traditionally, the answer to this is to focus fire the target with the worst defense, while cleaving incidental damage onto anyone nearby. It won't give the desired results.



Granted, I was assuming 5e where you generally have groups of pretty similar defenses.  It's not like 10 orcs or 3 hill giants (or whatever the group is) has differing defenses.  

Or, another simple answer.  Any enemy not attacked gains +1 on attacks, cumulative for each round not attacked.  Note, only attacked, not necessarily damaged.  Missing them also resets the +1 count.  In other words, make it worth the party's while to spread attacks around.

Heck, you could simply do both.  Pooled group HP and each enemy not attacked in a round gains +1 to attacks.  

In other words, I think you need to grant baddies some sort of bonus if they are ignored.


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## EzekielRaiden

GSHamster said:


> How does this mechanic affect Focus Fire, though? I agree it speeds up the fight, and makes the later rounds more deadly. But it still looks optimal to focus on one target at a time. Maybe even encourage you to focus lower AC first, because the bonus makes hitting higher AC more likely.



While its primary effect is on the "alpha strike," it has a secondary effect on focus-fire. Namely, you want to try to _size up_ opponents before you drop your heavy hits on them. Consequently, you need to poke at a few, which disperses some of the initial damage, which makes people more likely to consider hitting secondary targets over primary targets because those secondary targets have already lost some health and thus may be closer to death.

That said, if you want more spread-out damage, there is another relatively simple rule you can port over, but it would require you to use a 4e-ism. Specifically, minions. Minions are worth 1/4 the XP of a normal equivalent creature, but die the instant they are hit with any form of damage. (Technically speaking, minions didn't even have HP at all, but you could effectively treat them as being creatures with 1 HP.) Because they're worth only 1/4 the encounter budget of a full, regular creature, despite having all the same offensive and defensive capabilities as a regular creature,* you can field 4x as many of them. This _vastly_ encourages players to use area-of-effect attacks or to distribute their Extra Attack damage to multiple targets.

Alternatively, you can use the 13th Age "mook" rules, though those don't strictly deal with focus-fire either, because they have spillover from one creature to the next (that is, you use five "mooks" to be equivalent to one regular creature, each mook having one-fifth normal HP; swings that take down one mook but have leftovers carry over to the next mook.) You might be able to finagle it by having the carryover only work _once_, e.g. you can cleave from Mook #1 to Mook #2, but nothing beyond that, or something of that nature.

*Technically minions were usually designed to be simpler than regular creatures, so they wouldn't have as many _active_ offense abilities. But in terms of raw stats they were equivalent, other than being "always dies in 1 hit."


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## Sorcerers Apprentice

Focus fire isn't the problem, focus fire is the solution to the problem that monsters and PCs in D&D have huge pools of Hit Points that need to be whittled down to 0 before any of the attacks that hit actually matter.

If you want to encourage spreading attacks around, give them more effects than plain damage, so that attacking multiple targets can actually be useful in controlling the battlefield.


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## UngeheuerLich

This is where ranged weapons become overpowered.


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## Horwath

UngeheuerLich said:


> This is where ranged weapons become overpowered.



working as intended.


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## Horwath

One solution for this might come from PF1 Unchained Rogue section:

Debilitating injury:

sure, those penalties might me too much for 5E and to be usable by all, but what if every attack that deals damage or failed save that deals damage inflicts one of the following for one round:

1: -1 to AC
2: -1 to attacks and all DCs
3: -10ft speed and AoO are made with advantage

no one can suffer more than one of those penalties and they only last one round.


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## Hussar

Morale rules might also be a solution here as well.  In the old AD&D morale rules, any critter that hit half hp started making morale checks on each subsequent hit.  There were also other triggers like losing half your forces (and losing 3/4 IIRC) plus some other odds and sods.  I found in 5e, that a simple DC 10 Wis save (or pick a different stat if you like) worked really well here.  Suddenly spreading fire around made a bit difference because you could literally win the encounter without actually fighting the majority of the baddies.  Add in a save every time a baddie fails a morale check and you can have a sort of route situation where it chain reacts.  One baddy loses morale and runs, triggering morale checks from others, and then you hit a situation where you're triggering all sorts of morale checks, even though you aren't dealing significant damage.

Totally bypasses the "must do as much damage as possible to a single target" because killing one baddy without making it run away doesn't really help you anywhere near as much as damaging a bunch of baddies and then making them run en masse. 

4e had an additional little goodie where you could trigger a morale check with a Charisma check (IIRC).


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## UngeheuerLich

Horwath said:


> working as intended.




I don't like that intention. This is why I houseruled no dex bonus beyond 30ft.


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## Horwath

UngeheuerLich said:


> I don't like that intention. This is why I houseruled no dex bonus beyond 30ft.



better way would be to teach players/npc's to search for cover/breaking line of sight.

In one dungeon, we advanced toward a kobold bunker with a dinning table in front of us for total cover so we could avoid ranged attacks while we closed distance.


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## Shiroiken

One thing that helps is encounter design. If you split up the enemy into two groups, the melee characters will generally split as well. The ranged characters then have to either leave one PC to handle a group by themselves or split their fire as well. If the melee characters don't split, the second group will force the ranged characters into melee. If the ranged characters continue to focus fire, the lone PC needs to be a badass to keep standing. In case the party decides to stay put, you need to have ranged attackers and have the melee enemy move to attack the squishiest PC.


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## Tales and Chronicles

MY main trick is:
1) Give monsters more forced movement, dragging the PCs left and right to split the group and butcher them each in their corner.
2) Give your BBEG a mass attack so that if the PCs group around it, they all get smashed. You can also give them a Charge Through feature that let them disengage with a big damage bonus if they are overwhelmed. Or a Frenzy feature that let them gain more Reactions + a Retaliation the more PCs there is around them. Or a Burning/Acidic wounds, making that each it is hit, all PC within X takes Y damage.
3) Make sure your other minions have minimal HP yet deal a good amount of damage, so that they are hard to just ignore.


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## UngeheuerLich

Horwath said:


> better way would be to teach players/npc's to search for cover/breaking line of sight.
> 
> In one dungeon, we advanced toward a kobold bunker with a dinning table in front of us for total cover so we could avoid ranged attacks while we closed distance.




Or both.


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## Ruin Explorer

Mistwell said:


> Anything you do to "fix" this behavior will feel artificial. I'd rather not encourage spreading out fire through the rules because I am finding it difficult to imagine rules to encourage that behavior which won't also make it feel more like a board game than an RPG.



I mean, the focus-fire behaviour _is _board game behaviour. It's entirely artificial. Focus fire isn't a real thing in real person-level combat , because in actual combat, if you all try to kick one guy in, you get stabbed in the back and die. D&D 5E has no simulation of the latter, having abandoned flanking, firing into melee, and similar rules.

It's not even viable in most videogames except those distantly derived from D&D (like most MMORPGs).

Basically the issue is two-fold, and mostly about monster design:

1) Enemies gain no meaningful benefits in 5E when "left alone". In 3E, because you got AoO'd if you tried to cast or shoot ranged attacks whilst engaged, there was at least a reason to engage people and spread out melees (though ranged/casters still typically focus fire'd). Most enemies in 5E will do exactly the same thing whether someone is in their face or not - Ranged enemies often get Disadvantage but they tend to be pretty nasty in melee (sometimes truly unnecessarily so), or have ways to get away (if they're serious), so it's not a big deal.

2) D&D 5E is about giant "bag of HP" enemies, moreso than any other edition (yes including 4E). Even relatively low-end enemies can have high double-digit HP, and triple-digit HP come in surprisingly early.

It's worth noting 5E has the "focus fire" issue worse than any previous edition (including 4E), and I think most of that is down to "bag of HP" factors, but also players are just smarter tactically (not strategically, tactically) now than they were twenty years ago - I think this is largely down to videogames derived from D&D (all of which rely on "bag of HP", none of which really penalize enemies for being in melee) teaching them to play that way.

A lot of the "solutions" people are proposing are hilariously unrealistic, I note. This isn't a melee thing, and punishing melee characters further in 5E is incredibly silly. Focus-fire is from melee and ranged working together. If it's just melee there are tons of simple issues it creates, like enemies just dropping AOEs (esp. CC) on them. But in the actual game it's usually the ranged working with the melee - or only the ranged focus-firing because the melee are trying to tank (something no-one is all that great at in 5E, given the lack of Feats at low levels). Indeed, in the games I play in this is what we usually see - the melee split up a bit to try and tank and/or harass enemy ranged whilst the ranged just systematically kill everything.

Re: using it on the PCs, you absolutely can and it's extremely effective, but it feels like absolute crap for the player being subjected to it, esp. if you do it repeatedly, esp. if they're not a "tanky" PC. So that's a great way to make your game un-fun, but not a real solution. It was a legit tactic in 4E where there were counters and other issues, but there aren't many counters in 5E (and the few that there are for casters only), so if you have a fair few ranged and just have them "focus down" the PCs it's probably going to work great. Hope you enjoy murder-eyes from your players and them probably stopping coming to your sessions if you keep doing it repeatedly (DMs have a massive advantage here in that they can freely plan encounters and if their monsters get killed, well, that's what's supposed to happen).


----------



## Horwath

UngeheuerLich said:


> Or both.



I prefer penalties if ranged in melee combat not reducing ranged damage to next to nothing.


----------



## DEFCON 1

RuinousPowers said:


> D&D favors that kind of tactic- monsters operate at 100% until they drop dead, and they can usually withstand the damage output from several PCs before dropping. In a system where one hit can disable an opponent, you would see PCs picking individual targets, only focusing fire on heavily armored or difficult to hit targets.



This was going to be my answer before I saw @RuinousPowers answered it for me.

Only way to get rid of focus fire is to reduce target effectiveness as they get more hurt.  But that creates more bookkeeping for everyone and also creates the dreadly "death spiral" everyone's always going on about.

This situation is one of those times where D&D has been designed to highlight the _game_ rather than the _story_.  The story of a more "real-to-life" group battles would have everyone splitting off.  But that is not how D&D combat has ever been built to truly replicate.  It has been built for a more easily-run system.  I mean heck... there used to be people complaining all the time in previous editions about the game grinding to a halt when PCs ost levels or STR points or CON points or whatever during a battle (due to monster abilities) and they were forced to try and recalculate their character sheets in the middle of combat.  So adding those same sorts of recalculations into 5E to make players want to target more enemies at the same time to reduce their effectiveness just seems a lot of work for what would probably end up being little gain.

Focus fire is a game convention we've always accepted.  And while spreading out might be nice from a narrative perspective... I don't think the rules needed to do so would be worth it, personally.


----------



## Laurefindel

Focused fire is something that used to annoy me, but I mostly made peace with it. Focused fire is made possible mostly because of two things:

1) enemies are easy to ignore
2) ranged attacks can be made in melee with impunity. In that I include the fact that AoO spells like fireball can be positioned with precision, affecting enemies but not allies.

If one sees this as a problem, it is further exacerbated by that fact that characters tend to be hyper-specialized: the archer will still want to shoot in melee because that’s the thing their character is made to do and are suboptimal in other domains (such as melee combat). Few characters are made to be flexible and adapt to different strategies (and those that are tend to be spellcasters, but that is another issue).

Therefore, the answer to focused fire would be rules that give some kind of advantage to enemies that are « ignored » and some kind of disadvantage or risks for firing in melee. This would tie-in well with some sort of easily avoidable flanking rules which mostly would come into effect if you ignore enemies and allow them to flank you.


----------



## Swarmkeeper

Horwath said:


> I prefer penalties if ranged in melee combat not reducing ranged damage to next to nothing.




Cover rules help here.  Ranged attacks into melee can easily be ruled as the target having half cover (+2 AC).


----------



## Ancalagon

Swarmkeeper said:


> Cover rules help here.  Ranged attacks into melee can easily be ruled as the target having half cover (+2 AC).



This is what I've done - that and while I normally don't use fumbles, a nat 1 in this situation means the attack hits the ally.


----------



## MarkB

Ruin Explorer said:


> I mean, the focus-fire behaviour _is _board game behaviour. It's entirely artificial. Focus fire isn't a real thing in real person-level combat , because in actual combat, if you all try to kick one guy in, you get stabbed in the back and die. D&D 5E has no simulation of the latter, having abandoned flanking, firing into melee, and similar rules.
> 
> It's not even viable in most videogames except those distantly derived from D&D (like most MMORPGs).
> 
> Basically the issue is two-fold, and mostly about monster design:
> 
> 1) Enemies gain no meaningful benefits in 5E when "left alone". In 3E, because you got AoO'd if you tried to cast or shoot ranged attacks whilst engaged, there was at least a reason to engage people and spread out melees (though ranged/casters still typically focus fire'd). Most enemies in 5E will do exactly the same thing whether someone is in their face or not - Ranged enemies often get Disadvantage but they tend to be pretty nasty in melee (sometimes truly unnecessarily so), or have ways to get away (if they're serious), so it's not a big deal.
> 
> 2) D&D 5E is about giant "bag of HP" enemies, moreso than any other edition (yes including 4E). Even relatively low-end enemies can have high double-digit HP, and triple-digit HP come in surprisingly early.
> 
> It's worth noting 5E has the "focus fire" issue worse than any previous edition (including 4E), and I think most of that is down to "bag of HP" factors, but also players are just smarter tactically (not strategically, tactically) now than they were twenty years ago - I think this is largely down to videogames derived from D&D (all of which rely on "bag of HP", none of which really penalize enemies for being in melee) teaching them to play that way.
> 
> A lot of the "solutions" people are proposing are hilariously unrealistic, I note. This isn't a melee thing, and punishing melee characters further in 5E is incredibly silly. Focus-fire is from melee and ranged working together. If it's just melee there are tons of simple issues it creates, like enemies just dropping AOEs (esp. CC) on them. But in the actual game it's usually the ranged working with the melee - or only the ranged focus-firing because the melee are trying to tank (something no-one is all that great at in 5E, given the lack of Feats at low levels). Indeed, in the games I play in this is what we usually see - the melee split up a bit to try and tank and/or harass enemy ranged whilst the ranged just systematically kill everything.
> 
> Re: using it on the PCs, you absolutely can and it's extremely effective, but it feels like absolute crap for the player being subjected to it, esp. if you do it repeatedly, esp. if they're not a "tanky" PC. So that's a great way to make your game un-fun, but not a real solution. It was a legit tactic in 4E where there were counters and other issues, but there aren't many counters in 5E (and the few that there are for casters only), so if you have a fair few ranged and just have them "focus down" the PCs it's probably going to work great. Hope you enjoy murder-eyes from your players and them probably stopping coming to your sessions if you keep doing it repeatedly (DMs have a massive advantage here in that they can freely plan encounters and if their monsters get killed, well, that's what's supposed to happen).



Yeah, the fact that enemies gain no particular benefit from being left alone during combat is an issue. How about this as a solution:

*Focus*: Any participant in a combat gains a property called Focus at the end of their turn. Focus is lost when a creature is attacked, when it takes damage, when it makes a saving throw, or when it gains a negative condition.

If a creature still has Focus at the start of its next turn, it may expend it to do one of the following: Gain advantage on one attack; impose disadvantage on a saving throw made against one of its abilities or spells; or take the Help action as a bonus action.


----------



## Shardstone

Ruin Explorer said:


> I mean, the focus-fire behaviour _is _board game behaviour. It's entirely artificial. Focus fire isn't a real thing in real person-level combat , because in actual combat, if you all try to kick one guy in, you get stabbed in the back and die. D&D 5E has no simulation of the latter, having abandoned flanking, firing into melee, and similar rules.
> 
> It's not even viable in most videogames except those distantly derived from D&D (like most MMORPGs).
> 
> Basically the issue is two-fold, and mostly about monster design:
> 
> 1) Enemies gain no meaningful benefits in 5E when "left alone". In 3E, because you got AoO'd if you tried to cast or shoot ranged attacks whilst engaged, there was at least a reason to engage people and spread out melees (though ranged/casters still typically focus fire'd). Most enemies in 5E will do exactly the same thing whether someone is in their face or not - Ranged enemies often get Disadvantage but they tend to be pretty nasty in melee (sometimes truly unnecessarily so), or have ways to get away (if they're serious), so it's not a big deal.
> 
> 2) D&D 5E is about giant "bag of HP" enemies, moreso than any other edition (yes including 4E). Even relatively low-end enemies can have high double-digit HP, and triple-digit HP come in surprisingly early.
> 
> It's worth noting 5E has the "focus fire" issue worse than any previous edition (including 4E), and I think most of that is down to "bag of HP" factors, but also players are just smarter tactically (not strategically, tactically) now than they were twenty years ago - I think this is largely down to videogames derived from D&D (all of which rely on "bag of HP", none of which really penalize enemies for being in melee) teaching them to play that way.
> 
> A lot of the "solutions" people are proposing are hilariously unrealistic, I note. This isn't a melee thing, and punishing melee characters further in 5E is incredibly silly. Focus-fire is from melee and ranged working together. If it's just melee there are tons of simple issues it creates, like enemies just dropping AOEs (esp. CC) on them. But in the actual game it's usually the ranged working with the melee - or only the ranged focus-firing because the melee are trying to tank (something no-one is all that great at in 5E, given the lack of Feats at low levels). Indeed, in the games I play in this is what we usually see - the melee split up a bit to try and tank and/or harass enemy ranged whilst the ranged just systematically kill everything.
> 
> Re: using it on the PCs, you absolutely can and it's extremely effective, but it feels like absolute crap for the player being subjected to it, esp. if you do it repeatedly, esp. if they're not a "tanky" PC. So that's a great way to make your game un-fun, but not a real solution. It was a legit tactic in 4E where there were counters and other issues, but there aren't many counters in 5E (and the few that there are for casters only), so if you have a fair few ranged and just have them "focus down" the PCs it's probably going to work great. Hope you enjoy murder-eyes from your players and them probably stopping coming to your sessions if you keep doing it repeatedly (DMs have a massive advantage here in that they can freely plan encounters and if their monsters get killed, well, that's what's supposed to happen).



While I agree with most of this, I don't agree with the last paragraph. Honestly, I'm a little tired of having to use kid gloves tactically with my players. With dynamic arenas for combat that encourage movement, and a slew of tools I give players in my games, they should accept the fact that the enemies will use actual tactics and focus fire them too if they can. Then I made a fleeing rule so you don't have to fight to the death all the time but...even with all this, players still don't like to be pressured. I get its a game, we're all here to have fun, but I have a lot more fun when NPCs and PCs actually fight like people wanting to WIN and NOT die, instead of just doing the absolute bare minimum in combat.


----------



## Horwath

MarkB said:


> Yeah, the fact that enemies gain no particular benefit from being left alone during combat is an issue. How about this as a solution:
> 
> *Focus*: Any participant in a combat gains a property called Focus at the end of their turn. Focus is lost when a creature is attacked, when it takes damage, when it makes a saving throw, or when it gains a negative condition.
> 
> If a creature still has Focus at the start of its next turn, it may expend it to do one of the following: Gain advantage on one attack; impose disadvantage on a saving throw made against one of its abilities or spells; or take the Help action as a bonus action.



Add, being in threat area of melee weapons also breaks Focus.

But I agree, good rule, but all usages should cost a Bonus action.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

Stalker0 said:


> If you watch any Superhero or fantasy movie nowadays, there's a consistent trend. In most fights, the second the combat starts....the heroes go their own ways.






Stalker0 said:


> Dnd players....do not work that way. They learn very quickly that the best way to be efficient in combat is to focus fire. Everyone pounds on one creature, then the next, then the next.






Stalker0 said:


> How do you encourage them to spread out their attacks?



I sometimes have issues with this, but the way my group we just talked about how we want games to go... sometimes we play SUPER efficient characters and focus fire, and sometimes we play more cinematic ones and split up. 

the important thing is that the DM and Player BOTH play by the same rules... if 3 combats in a row the PCs focus fire on casters first, they can't complain if a squad of trained hobgoblins have 1 swordsman charge the wizard then 3 archers fire 2 arrows each into him (remember that bonus 2d6) and drop the wizard before they can act... then when someone heals teh wizard they rinse and repeat but targeting the healer instead. 



If a DM wants to force it the best way I have seen is just have the monsters split up and engage the players... it's hard even in a game to not want to attack back the guy that just hit you

as for rules... I don't know (although I haven't read other responses) what I would do.


----------



## tetrasodium

Shardstone said:


> While I agree with most of this, I don't agree with the last paragraph. Honestly, I'm a little tired of having to use kid gloves tactically with my players. With dynamic arenas for combat that encourage movement, and a slew of tools I give players in my games, they should accept the fact that the enemies will use actual tactics and focus fire them too if they can. Then I made a fleeing rule so you don't have to fight to the death all the time but...even with all this, players still don't like to be pressured. I get its a game, we're all here to have fun, but I have a lot more fun when NPCs and PCs actually fight like people wanting to WIN and NOT die, instead of just doing the absolute bare minimum in combat.



I disagree and am glad @ruinexplorer. Brought it up again since the one way use of focus fire is caused by so many of 5e's design choices .   5e is not made so pcs can  survive competition focus fire  because in combat healing is almost pointless without deathsave's absorb shield & yoyo healing to make up the gap. Monster design exacerbates that because every monster is a giant bag of hp unless they are too weak to have any chance of reliably hitting the players  and are effortlessly ignored as a result unless they are in the way physically.

Edit: I had forgotten how much the shooting into melee rules made a difference compared to cover till seeing them mentioned


----------



## Shardstone

tetrasodium said:


> I disagree and am glad @ruinexplorer. Brought it up again since the one way use of focus fire is caused by so many of 5e's design choices .   5e is not made so pcs can  survive competition focus fire  because in combat healing is almost pointless without deathsave's absorb shield & yoyo healing to make up the gap. Monster design exacerbates that because every monster is a giant bag of hp unless they are too weak to have any chance of reliably hitting the players  and are effortlessly ignored as a result unless they are in the way physically.
> 
> Edit: I had forgotten how much the shooting into melee rules made a difference compared to cover till seeing them mentioned



This is only true in a white room scenario. Focus fire can't exist if you have a dynamic arena and actually move around, making use of the cover. I know this is outside of the main game, but no, if there is one clear bigger threat, enemies ought to try and take them out, and its on the player to find a way to survive.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

MarkB said:


> Yeah, the fact that enemies gain no particular benefit from being left alone during combat is an issue. How about this as a solution:
> 
> *Focus*: Any participant in a combat gains a property called Focus at the end of their turn. Focus is lost when a creature is attacked, when it takes damage, when it makes a saving throw, or when it gains a negative condition.
> 
> If a creature still has Focus at the start of its next turn, it may expend it to do one of the following: Gain advantage on one attack; impose disadvantage on a saving throw made against one of its abilities or spells; or take the Help action as a bonus action.



The problem there is that just means any time the PCs are outnumbered (which means, 90% of the time), even if the party divides up, they'll be dealing with loads of monsters getting Focus and nothing they can really do about. Also if it applies to PCs you handed yet another advantage to casters and ranged, who will get it pretty often! I guess you're envisioning an "equal numbers" scenario, but that's actually pretty rare in my experience. It would also be a ton of extra book-keeping.

Conceptually it's not a bad idea to be clear, it just applies poorly to D&D 5E as a generic rule.

I do think there is something in it, like, it would definitely make the game more about spraying around abilities to keep enemies on their toes and so on, I just think it's going to work poorly when most groups are 4-5 PCs, 2-3 of which may be melee, who are often facing 8+ monsters.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Shardstone said:


> This is only true in a white room scenario. Focus fire can't exist if you have a dynamic arena and actually move around, making use of the cover. I know this is outside of the main game, but no, if there is one clear bigger threat, enemies ought to try and take them out, and its on the player to find a way to survive.



No, it's true in real D&D. I've seen it happen regularly, and it's not unique to 5E, it's just 5E "drops the barriers" to doing focus fire to much lower levels than any other edition. Having a "dynamic arena" absolutely does not eliminate focus fire, and it's pretty funny to hear you claim that, when so many D&D-derived games have ultra-dynamic arenas (video games particularly) but still the goal is focus-fire. Dynamic arenas make it tougher, but they don't eliminate it.

The problem you're describing is that you essentially don't want to play D&D 5E, you want to play something more tactical and dynamic, and where players are more honestly "captain of their own ship" (where in 5E they're at the mercy of limited options and heavy RNG). 4E sounds like it would work much better for what you want, like drastically so.

And your suggestions don't account for the fact that monsters have both more HP than PCs in many cases, and often more numerous (particularly where they even have slightly less HP). On top of all the focus-fire is metagaming (as  you seem to acknowledge?) and you're a DM, so you perfectly well know that when the DM metagames, it's easily 100x more obnoxious than when a player does, in D&D (less so in some other RPGs), given the vast power they hold.

(4E isn't the only game like that, I note - Lancer, Icon, possibly Gubat Banwa are also options, and even PF2E is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more tactics-y than 5E is. Interestingly despite being PF-derived it feels like it many ways it learned more from 4E than 5E did.)



Shardstone said:


> even with all this, players still don't like to be pressured. I get its a game, we're all here to have fun, but I have a lot more fun when NPCs and PCs actually fight like people wanting to WIN and NOT die, instead of just doing the absolute bare minimum in combat.



This is what is telling you are playing the wrong game, btw, to be clear.

4E let you play that way and it felt good for both the players and the DM, because it was so tactical, and the PCs had so many responses, counters, and options, and the DM was essentially playing a tactical game against 3-5 opponents at once, so it worked out.

5E is based around 6-8 "medium" encounters/day. Medium == easy - literally!!! As per discussion thread on the famous "Last minute change". 5E is not about tactical combats. It's classes don't possess the abilities you need for that. The rule-set doesn't have inherent options to support that. 4E is.

This is one big thing we miss from 4E. I could play "hardball" in 4E, but in 5E if I play "hardball", I'm the DM so I'll just win, no question (just like in 2E barring something like me failing a save vs a save or die spell), because the system is designed on the assumption I'm not pushing it that hard, and doesn't provide the tools for PCs to play that way.


----------



## Laurefindel

Ruin Explorer said:


> The problem there is that just means any time the PCs are outnumbered (which means, 90% of the time), even if the party divides up, they'll be dealing with loads of monsters getting Focus and nothing they can really do about. Also if it applies to PCs you handed yet another advantage to casters and ranged, who will get it pretty often! I guess you're envisioning an "equal numbers" scenario, but that's actually pretty rare in my experience. It would also be a ton of extra book-keeping.
> 
> Conceptually it's not a bad idea to be clear, it just applies poorly to D&D 5E as a generic rule.
> 
> I do think there is something in it, like, it would definitely make the game more about spraying around abilities to keep enemies on their toes and so on, I just think it's going to work poorly when most groups are 4-5 PCs, 2-3 of which may be melee, who are often facing 8+ monsters.



I do have a sci-fi game (that I based on The One Ring's system) where PCs can only occupy so many enemies before getting swamped. There are actions you can take to occupy multiple enemies (cover/suppression fire, overwatch and whatnot) but otherwise "unassigned" enemies are free to do as they please, including blocking the way or finding an unobstructed line-of sight to shoot you point blank.

In D&D, that would translate in unassigned enemies having advantage on attack rolls. It's easy to do there because the system has a baked in semi-theatre-of-the-mind semi-tactical-board where players and enemies are matched up, but it could work in D&D given on how this "unassigned" condition is granted.


----------



## Shardstone

Ruin Explorer said:


> No, it's true in real D&D. I've seen it happen regularly, and it's not unique to 5E, it's just 5E "drops the barriers" to doing focus fire to much lower levels than any other edition. Having a "dynamic arena" absolutely does not eliminate focus fire, and it's pretty funny to hear you claim that, when so many D&D-derived games have ultra-dynamic arenas (video games particularly) but still the goal is focus-fire. Dynamic arenas make it tougher, but they don't eliminate it.
> 
> The problem you're describing is that you essentially don't want to play D&D 5E, you want to play something more tactical and dynamic, and where players are more honestly "captain of their own ship" (where in 5E they're at the mercy of limited options and heavy RNG). 4E sounds like it would work much better for what you want, like drastically so.
> 
> And your suggestions don't account for the fact that monsters have both more HP than PCs in many cases, and often more numerous (particularly where they even have slightly less HP). On top of all the focus-fire is metagaming (as  you seem to acknowledge?) and you're a DM, so you perfectly well know that when the DM metagames, it's easily 100x more obnoxious than when a player does, in D&D (less so in some other RPGs), given the vast power they hold.
> 
> (4E isn't the only game like that, I note - Lancer, Icon, possibly Gubat Banwa are also options, and even PF2E is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more tactics-y than 5E is. Interestingly despite being PF-derived it feels like it many ways it learned more from 4E than 5E did.)
> 
> 
> This is what is telling you are playing the wrong game, btw, to be clear.
> 
> 4E let you play that way and it felt good for both the players and the DM, because it was so tactical, and the PCs had so many responses, counters, and options, and the DM was essentially playing a tactical game against 3-5 opponents at once, so it worked out.
> 
> 5E is based around 6-8 "medium" encounters/day. Medium == easy - literally!!! As per discussion thread on the famous "Last minute change". 5E is not about tactical combats. It's classes don't possess the abilities you need for that. The rule-set doesn't have inherent options to support that. 4E is.
> 
> This is one big thing we miss from 4E. I could play "hardball" in 4E, but in 5E if I play "hardball", I'm the DM so I'll just win, no question (just like in 2E barring something like me failing a save vs a save or die spell), because the system is designed on the assumption I'm not pushing it that hard, and doesn't provide the tools for PCs to play that way.



Nah def don't want to play 4E, I am very happy with my 5E + homebrew.


----------



## MarkB

Ruin Explorer said:


> The problem there is that just means any time the PCs are outnumbered (which means, 90% of the time), even if the party divides up, they'll be dealing with loads of monsters getting Focus and nothing they can really do about. Also if it applies to PCs you handed yet another advantage to casters and ranged, who will get it pretty often! I guess you're envisioning an "equal numbers" scenario, but that's actually pretty rare in my experience. It would also be a ton of extra book-keeping.
> 
> Conceptually it's not a bad idea to be clear, it just applies poorly to D&D 5E as a generic rule.
> 
> I do think there is something in it, like, it would definitely make the game more about spraying around abilities to keep enemies on their toes and so on, I just think it's going to work poorly when most groups are 4-5 PCs, 2-3 of which may be melee, who are often facing 8+ monsters.



Yeah, anything you try to retrofit to 5e at this point is going to be at least somewhat awkward. But if you're going to add something, it needs to be just as available to the players as the opposition, otherwise it will feel both artificial and punitive.

Ultimately, the focus-fire issue doesn't bother me. Players will play tactically, and inevitably some of those tactics will be dictated more by the rules than the fiction.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Shardstone said:


> Nah def don't want to play 4E, I am very happy with my 5E + homebrew.



You're literally telling us that your players _aren't_ happy, which is my point, and everything you're describing worked vastly better in 4E, so I mean, okay but... 



MarkB said:


> Ultimately, the focus-fire issue doesn't bother me. Players will play tactically, and inevitably some of those tactics will be dictated more by the rules than the fiction.



Yeah what stops this being bad enough for me to personally consider rules solutions (though if I'd designed 5E it would have looked different) is the fact that whilst the groups I play with do focus-fire, there are enough "agent of chaos" and "serious roleplayer"-type players in them that it doesn't get obnoxious and regularly people are doing something in combat that doesn't actually make a lot of sense.

I do think monster design is most of the problem.

5E could really use more "I'm charging my lazor!!!"-type monsters (there are a handful, but they're mostly obscure-as-heck). Honestly, PC spellcasters should have a "charge my lazor" option spell-wise too. I notice Icons has a couple of classes which do this (whilst also carefully working them so they aren't doing nothing at all on that turn).


----------



## Shardstone

Ruin Explorer said:


> You're literally telling us that your players _aren't_ happy, which is my point, and everything you're describing worked vastly better in 4E, so I mean, okay but...
> 
> 
> Yeah what stops this being bad enough for me to personally consider rules solutions (though if I'd designed 5E it would have looked different) is the fact that whilst the groups I play with do focus-fire, there are enough "agent of chaos" and "serious roleplayer"-type players in them that it doesn't get obnoxious and regularly people are doing something in combat that doesn't actually make a lot of sense.
> 
> I do think monster design is most of the problem.
> 
> 5E could really use more "I'm charging my lazor!!!"-type monsters (there are a handful, but they're mostly obscure-as-heck). Honestly, PC spellcasters should have a "charge my lazor" option spell-wise too. I notice Icons has a couple of classes which do this (whilst also carefully working them so they aren't doing nothing at all on that turn).



Oh, that was only players a couple years back, I wasn't speaking clearly hahaha.

My players now are actually pretty tactical and "serious roleplayer," so it makes for fun games. They use the battlefield, and they make use of their options in a pretty good manner. My comments were more about the general 5E playerbase, where I really think the attitude my players have should be more widespread. It is possible to have engaging tactics with 5E. Yes, I have homebrewed, but my homebrew is basically magic items or stealing the new conditions from Adventures in Rokugan, etc. But even with vanilla, I've found that with a good arena, playing theater of the mind even (which I usually run), you can still have an engaging combat. It isn't that focus fire is to be prevented, but making it harder adds tension to combat for me, because it can happen.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

RuinousPowers said:


> D&D favors that kind of tactic- monsters operate at 100% until they drop dead, and they can usually withstand the damage output from several PCs before dropping. In a system where one hit can disable an opponent, you would see PCs picking individual targets, only focusing fire on heavily armored or difficult to hit targets.



funny thing is what makes and doesn't make such a system is weird...

Many years ago a GM sold me on deadlands on being WAY more realistic on damage... so my quick gun quick fire two gun gun slinger 1st time 5 guys jumped us made called shots to the legs (knock them down and out of the fight but maybe not kill) and spread my attacks out... 1 on each. I hit each did minimal damage to most of them (but enough to apply penalties) and then said "So now surrender" and they just kept fireing... 3 of them from prone 1 that now missing a right leg... so from that point forward I would put all my shots into 1 target takinng them down... and he HATED that. he wanted to know why I didn't spread my damage more... I had to explain "You taught me that wasn't worth it"
in a related note they have a mechanic to negate damage by spending fate pts (called fate chips cause poker analogy is strong) and the GM got 1 big pile to use on any NPCs and then named npc could at GM wish have there own as well... so the GM used to not chip damage to minions and helpers but always would on the big named bad guys (basicly giveing them double or tripple the chips) so we would all focus fire on the big guy to use up all the chips as fast as possible...   again that is what he taught us.


----------



## Laurefindel

Shardstone said:


> ...or stealing the new conditions from Adventures in Rokugan



I don't want to derail the thread, but I'm curious about these!


----------



## GMforPowergamers

Sorcerers Apprentice said:


> Focus fire isn't the problem, focus fire is the solution to the problem that monsters and PCs in D&D have huge pools of Hit Points that need to be whittled down to 0 before any of the attacks that hit actually matter.



yeah the HP increase in WotC D*D over TSR is pretty big... I would love to front load more HP but to overall have less over 20 levels if I could... and the same with monsters less hp more cool ways to do things


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## tetrasodium

Shardstone said:


> This is only true in a white room scenario. Focus fire can't exist if you have a dynamic arena and actually move around, making use of the cover. I know this is outside of the main game, but no, if there is one clear bigger threat, enemies ought to try and take them out, and its on the player to find a way to survive.



That works great with a small group and totm.... Not so much with a big group & grid (chessex /online vtt/offline vtt+tvbox/etc). With a big group and grid combat statements like "use cover" and "plan bdtter/more dynamic encounters"  are pretty much just empty buzzwords amounting to little more than "you're the gm,  you fix it".


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## el-remmen

5E doesn't need specific rules for firing into melee or allies inadvertently providing cover for opponents (or vice-versa), if just makes sense that that'd be more difficult and the DM can rule it that way depending on the conditions on the field.

In my games, shooting into melee is done at disadvantage to represent trying to be careful to not hit a friend - and if an ally provides cover, there is a chance of hitting them on a miss. I never considered doing it any other way based on the rules as they exist.


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## billd91

Sorcerers Apprentice said:


> Focus fire isn't the problem, focus fire is the solution to the problem that monsters and PCs in D&D have huge pools of Hit Points that need to be whittled down to 0 before any of the attacks that hit actually matter.



I don't think it's literally the pool of hit points, per se. Rather, it's the high degree of defenses before the unit targeted, whether PC or monster, can no longer take actions on the battlefield. Those defenses could be a lot of hit points, a high armor class, high saves, lots of STUN with high PD/ED, etc. Pretty much any defense that requires multiple attacks to either ablate those defenses or pierce those defenses with multiple attempts, barring a lucky initial shot.
And, honestly, that's pretty hard to design away, for most RPGs. And that's assuming we even want to do so since a whole lot of people also seem to want to avoid taking out BBEGs with a single shot, so they need some kind of ablative defenses.


Sorcerers Apprentice said:


> If you want to encourage spreading attacks around, give them more effects than plain damage, so that attacking multiple targets can actually be useful in controlling the battlefield.



I think there is some potential here. And I think making sure that all units on the board pose some degree of threat helps as well. Bounded accuracy has been helping me with that because the PC ACs in the groups I'm running for are all in reach for most of their opponents. They don't post *strong* threats, but they do wear the PCs down and are worth taking out. They also don't necessarily go down in one hit, meaning they can keep the attention of the players longer.


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## Ruin Explorer

el-remmen said:


> In my games, shooting into melee is done at disadvantage to represent trying to be careful to not hit a friend - and if an ally provides cover, there is a chance of hitting them on a miss. I never considered doing it any other way based on the rules as they exist.



Okay, but that's totally not what the rules say, and if you go watch other people play D&D, you'll see that's not even a slightly common take.

I mean, that's fine, it's your home game, run it how you like, but that's not even hinted at by the rules, I'd suggest.


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## Ruin Explorer

billd91 said:


> And, honestly, that's pretty hard to design away, for most RPGs. And that's assuming we even want to do so since a whole lot of people also seem to want to avoid taking out BBEGs with a single shot, so they need some kind of ablative defenses.



You're accidentally illustrating the real problem.

Only BBEGs _need_ to not _sometimes_ die in a single round or a single flurry of blows.

Yet D&D 5E applies gigantic amount of HP to all monsters. It doesn't have monsters who have distinctly lower amounts of HP but are still a threat other ways. It doesn't have various different defences you describe. It just has "bags of HP". Even lower-end monsters typically can't be one-shot by higher-end PCs, because they just have so many HP (barring flashy high-level spells).


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## el-remmen

Ruin Explorer said:


> but that's not even hinted at by the rules, I'd suggest.




I'd say the "rulings, not rules" philosophy suggests it.


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## Ruin Explorer

el-remmen said:


> I'd say the "rulings, not rules" philosophy suggests it.



Sure, that's viable, I just think it's a bold ruling, given it's sort of flipping RAI. It also means that, playing tactically, you just get two focus-fire targets instead of one - melee burn-down target, and ranged burn-down. Don't cross the streams.


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## billd91

Ruin Explorer said:


> You're accidentally illustrating the real problem.
> 
> Only BBEGs _need_ to not _sometimes_ die in a single round or a single flurry of blows.
> 
> Yet D&D 5E applies gigantic amount of HP to all monsters. It doesn't have monsters who have distinctly lower amounts of HP but are still a threat other ways. It doesn't have various different defences you describe. It just has "bags of HP". Even lower-end monsters typically can't be one-shot by higher-end PCs, because they just have so many HP (barring flashy high-level spells).



But if they can be one-shot, that just defers the focus fire for what? A round? Then it's right back to the focus fire. 
Back to the OP, one of the aspects of the superhero genre with characters facing off into individual fights is that most of them *don't* go down in a single exchange of blows. They tie the various members of the hero team up while BBEG Doctor Apocalypse monologues to the hero who engages him and doesn't get overwhelmed by numbers.


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## Shardstone

Laurefindel said:


> I don't want to derail the thread, but I'm curious about these!




Bleeding. A creature that is bleeding takes 1d4 piercing damage at the start of each of its turn. This condition ends when the creature regains hit points, or after the listed duration ends.
Distracted. A creature that is crippled can only take actions or bonus actions on its turn, and not both. This condition ends when the creature regains hit points, or after the listed duration ends.
Disoriented. Can’t make opportunity attacks.
Staggered. Creature has -2 to its armor class. This condition ends after an attack hits the creature, or when the listed duration ends.
Maimed. Creature lowers its speed by -10 and has disadvantage on Dexterity saving throws. This condition ends when the creature regains hit points, or after the listed duration ends.
Marked for Death. A creature that is marked for death takes an additional 1d8 force damage the next time the creature that marked it for death hits it with a weapon attack. This condition ends after the bonus damage is dealt, or after the listed duration ends.
Provoked The creature has disadvantage on all attacks except the creature that provoked it. The duration depends on the ability that applies it. 
Weakened. This creature's resistances are removed, and its immunities are treated as resistances. (least fave)


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## el-remmen

Ruin Explorer said:


> it's sort of flipping RAI.




As in interpreting literature, the intention of the creator (if you can even ever know it or trust their claims as to what it is) is just one frame of interpretation that has no more value than any other contextualized interpretation of the text.


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## Ruin Explorer

el-remmen said:


> As in interpreting literature, the intention of the creator (if you can even ever know it or trust their claims as to what it is) is just one frame of interpretation that has no more value than any other contextualized interpretation of the text.



Alright Barthes, steady on!


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Shardstone said:


> Weakened. This creature's resistances are removed, and its immunities are treated as resistances. (least fave)



Least fave? Really? That actually mirrors a ton of fantasy fiction. Just tie the weakening to certain specific substances, places, people, spells.

Generically applying it would be pretty lame I admit unless you had some kind of "Executioner" or "Judge"-themed class.


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## toucanbuzz

GMforPowergamers said:


> "You taught me that wasn't worth it"



This quote caught my attention. If you read @GMforPowergamers's post, his DM conditioned players to focus fire by ensuring that enemies didn't surrender/flee even when critically damaged. There was no benefit "spreading the love" of damage. 

So, what about greater use of *morale?*

D&D provides loose guidance for morale whereas in AD&D it was very mechanical. An enemy might break ranks on taking its very first hit! There was a great incentive in AD&D to tag foes with damage because you were likely to trigger a morale check. D&D leaves it up to the DM, but I can very well see DMs conditioning themselves to encourage focus fire by having combats go to the death. 

Yet, not everyone or thing wants to fight to the death. Beasts especially adhere to this. Not every soldier or bandit is a fanatic. Once the ambush fails and the bandits are subject to real harm, why would they fight to the death? Flee and live to fight another day is likely the motto of a robber.


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## Chaosmancer

Ruin Explorer said:


> The problem there is that just means any time the PCs are outnumbered (which means, 90% of the time), even if the party divides up, they'll be dealing with loads of monsters getting Focus and nothing they can really do about. Also if it applies to PCs you handed yet another advantage to casters and ranged, who will get it pretty often! I guess you're envisioning an "equal numbers" scenario, but that's actually pretty rare in my experience. It would also be a ton of extra book-keeping.
> 
> Conceptually it's not a bad idea to be clear, it just applies poorly to D&D 5E as a generic rule.
> 
> I do think there is something in it, like, it would definitely make the game more about spraying around abilities to keep enemies on their toes and so on, I just think it's going to work poorly when most groups are 4-5 PCs, 2-3 of which may be melee, who are often facing 8+ monsters.




Well, what if instead of making it something that every single creature has, it was a special trait, maybe representing increased military training. 

Now the mooks outnumber you, but the elites are getting bonuses if you only focus on one elite? 

///////////////////////

Also, again as a general statement to the thread. I do think that trying to do this for every single combat is unrealistic. This is best for the occassional more tactically challenging fight.


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## Shardstone

Ruin Explorer said:


> Least fave? Really? That actually mirrors a ton of fantasy fiction. Just tie the weakening to certain specific substances, places, people, spells.
> 
> Generically applying it would be pretty lame I admit unless you had some kind of "Executioner" or "Judge"-themed class.



Ya but I mean, maimed just sounds so visceral. Not mechanically, just in name. WEAKENED? Cmon. That fire elemental isn't weakened its...idk...crippled? Dunno.


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## Shardstone

Ruin Explorer said:


> Least fave? Really? That actually mirrors a ton of fantasy fiction. Just tie the weakening to certain specific substances, places, people, spells.
> 
> Generically applying it would be pretty lame I admit unless you had some kind of "Executioner" or "Judge"-themed class.



The Shinobi in AiR gets a stronger sneak attakc, but its based on how many conditions the enemy has. So, these are used a lot throughout the book, but especially with the shinobi


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## Chaosmancer

GMforPowergamers said:


> yeah the HP increase in WotC D*D over TSR is pretty big... I would love to front load more HP but to overall have less over 20 levels if I could... and the same with monsters less hp more cool ways to do things




You know, I get that people say most monsters are just "bags of hit points" but frankly... they kind of have to be. 

A 5th level character can put out a minimum of 2d8+8 damage, and I've seen fighters who are 5th level put out 5d8+20. So, between 17 and 42 damage? From one character. Even if you take the low end, if only two of the 4 to 6 players target the same enemy, that is 34 damage on the low end, which means if that enemy is supposed to last at least two rounds, it needs 70 hp. 


Sure, you could slash every single enemies hp in half, but that is only going to lead to spreading damage because players will kill their enemies mid-turn and move on. People have trouble keeping a vampire alive in a party with a paladin already, who if boosted by a wizard with haste can drop 3d8+10d8+12 or 70 damage in a single turn. That is a level 5 character dropping a CR 13 creature by 50% of its health in a single turn of combat. And it is burning a lot of resources, but if you are a 5th level character fighting a CR 13 vampire, you'd better be dropping those resources!

So, yeah. Monsters have a lot of HP. They have to have a lot of hp, otherwise they won't survive the first round of combat to actually hit the PCs.


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## Micah Sweet

el-remmen said:


> While I have seen players focus fire and as a player sometimes encouraged it, I personally have not seen it be go-to strategy in any D&D game I've ever run to the degree that I thought something had to be done about it.  Though I have to admit, "trying to emulate novels or comics or movies" is never been my primary goal in playing D&D.



I really wish that weren't the goal of so many D&D players (and the designers that cater to them), but it seems that ship has sailed.


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## Micah Sweet

Sorcerers Apprentice said:


> Focus fire isn't the problem, focus fire is the solution to the problem that monsters and PCs in D&D have huge pools of Hit Points that need to be whittled down to 0 before any of the attacks that hit actually matter.
> 
> If you want to encourage spreading attacks around, give them more effects than plain damage, so that attacking multiple targets can actually be useful in controlling the battlefield.



I don't know...seems like that would require innovative design. You'd have to rewrite the Monster Manual and the classes that don't rely on spellcasting.


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## Brotton Goodfellow

Mobs of Minions
Each mob starts with a +5 to hit and +5 to damage. The amount of minions in the mob is abstract, but each time the mob takes any damage, it’s bonuses to hit and damage are reduced by 1. The mob dies when reduced to +0. 

Couple this with a big bad and the PC’s will find out very quickly that mobs of mooks aren’t to be left alone, especially if there’s 2 or more, thus giving your big bad some much deserved breathing room.


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## ehren37

I've found solo bosses need about 10hp per party member per level to be worth a damn. So a first level Boss needs 50Hp, a 5th level boss needs 250 hp or so. 5E's monsters are pretty pathetic in general. Looking at you Strahd, you one thump chump.


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## Mistwell

Ruin Explorer said:


> I mean, the focus-fire behaviour _is _board game behaviour. It's entirely artificial. Focus fire isn't a real thing in real person-level combat




Yes, it is. You take out the gun emplacement first. Or the tank. Or whatever the largest threat is. And then when everyone else is equal, when your foes are mostly just "they go down if you hit them even once" it's no longer effective to focus fire. But absolutely in any circumstance where multiple hits would be needed to take out the greatest threat, that's what people do. 

Sorry, anything you do about this "issue" will feel artificial to me. If it makes sense to gang up on the biggest threat, using the rules to change that won't feel natural to me.


----------



## Celebrim

Stalker0 said:


> If you watch any Superhero or fantasy movie nowadays, there's a consistent trend. In most fights, the second the combat starts....the heroes go their own ways. Legolas isn't back to back with Aragon and Gimli, they are off killing their own monsters. When the Justice League (both in movies and the cartoons) goes to take on the badguys, most of the time the heroes all split up into 1 on 1 type fights. Only when they are facing the "big boss" they all start attacking the same creature as a single unit. If we go more modern, Harry Potter often had the wizards split up into 2 on 2s or 1 on 1s, rather than have 1 pile of wizards go after the other.




The appropriate response to this is that movies are terrible at displaying realistic combat.  Movie combat is based entirely on narrative concerns and is often heavily divorced from reality such that if you analyze it, there are usually a lot of ways one side or both could have more easily won the fight.  For example, in fights between a hero and a group, the group almost always stands back and takes turns fighting the hero.  They don't really team up and attack together.  Realistic fight combats rarely happen.

That said, part of this a feature of D&D in that D&D unlike some other systems doesn't make you pay any price for ignoring a potential attacker.  In say D6 Star Wars, if an NPC has reason to believe they won't get attacked, they can decide not to spend a dice on defenses and therefore become a more effective attacker.  Covering fire to force NPCs to reserve defensive actions is important in a way that it isn't in D&D.

In my 3.X game, I deal with this by having fighting stances - offensive, balanced, and defensive.  If an NPC feels like they aren't going to be attacked, they can adopt an offensive fighting stance and trade AC for an attack bonus.  This can be used to punish PC's for focusing entirely on the obvious target, which of course can also adopt a defensive fighting stance to resist the PC's attacks.  It doesn't negate focusing fire as a strategy, but does make the decision more complicated (at the cost of making the game more complicated since PC's can declare stances as well).

That being said, lots of things that occur in fiction are difficult to model in RPGs because PCs aren't protected by power of plot and rule of cool at all times, so the PCs generally have to adopt more "boring" realistic strategies most of the time.  You could give the PCs plot protection and access to rule of cool at all times, but that turns to not work out either without a lot of work as things that are cool once are less cool the second time.


----------



## Micah Sweet

Ruin Explorer said:


> Okay, but that's totally not what the rules say, and if you go watch other people play D&D, you'll see that's not even a slightly common take.
> 
> I mean, that's fine, it's your home game, run it how you like, but that's not even hinted at by the rules, I'd suggest.



That is a great house rule though.  That's what we did before 4e.


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## Ruin Explorer

Micah Sweet said:


> That is a great house rule though.  That's what we did before 4e.



I feel like it would be solid if the game was designed around it - i.e. certain classes/specs got ways to get around Disadvantage for firing into melee, or people counting as cover (and using both is hilarious overkill for 5E rules lol) without taking a single specific Feat (which might not even be available). But because that's not integrated this is just one of those classic house rules that like screws over one whole bunch of people in the game (usually melees, so it's refreshing that it's ranged this time!). I will say this is relatively fair in a PCs vs Monster sense at least because it will impact both sides pretty seriously. In fact it might impact monsters slightly more.


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## Ruin Explorer

Mistwell said:


> Yes, it is. You take out the gun emplacement first. Or the tank.




I was very specific for a reason.

"real person-level combat".

I didn't type those words idly. In real melee/arrow combat, you simply cannot behave like this. Casters standing at a distance might sometimes have the luxury to target specific people who they thought were threats, but they'd often be mistaken or operating on extremely limited information, or make very serious errors because they underestimated or overestimated people (this is down to the DM RP'ing them right of course - some DMs are clinically incapable of it).

A tank or pillbox can be "taken out" because it's not that capable of movement (we're assuming the tank isn't in an open field, because you're just stuffed). That's obviously not an equivalent situation. IRL, if you're armed with a sword, you can't just ignore another guy with a sword and go chase whoever you want. 5E doesn't have mechanics for that, though. No flanking, no firing into melee penalty, at most one AoO/turn, etc.

In reality, if you ignored a bunch of men with swords to try and chase down a wizard, you'd die with a bunch of swords in your back (or even just one). And indeed, anyone who has played a videogame that leans a bit more realistic absolutely knows this.

It's an absolutely unrealistic thing D&D does, that 5E makes far more extreme and obvious by removing all barriers to it and putting in "bag of HP" enemies that kind of require it. On some levels that might be smart - leaning in to a characteristic the game has - but trying to pretend it's realistic and putting in laughable 20th World War examples instead of medieval examples or fantasy examples is just unhelpful to understanding the issue, like it or loathe it.


----------



## Ancalagon

Celebrim said:


> The appropriate response to this is that movies are terrible at displaying realistic combat.  Movie combat is based entirely on narrative concerns and is often heavily divorced from reality such that if you analyze it, there are usually a lot of ways one side or both could have more easily won the fight.  For example, in fights between a hero and a group, the group almost always stands back and takes turns fighting the hero.  They don't really team up and attack together.  Realistic fight combats rarely happen.




Very true, but, D&D combat has several unrealistic aspects to it as well - two weapons fighting doesn't work like it's portrayed in D&D for example.


----------



## James Gasik

When I first started playing D&D, you couldn't fire into melee without risking hitting allies.  In fact, the DM was instructed to randomly determine the target of the shot before we even find out if you hit or missed!

You couldn't fire a bow at all if you were in melee range-heck, in 2e, at least, you had to be a specialist to even fire from as close as 6' away!

If you were a spellcaster, you had virtually no defenses when casting, and so much as a thrown rock doing 1 point of damage made your spells fizzle.

In these days, nobody was a dedicated archer, as you could only employ archery once a melee wall was established, and Wizards basically hid out of sight on the first turn, only popping out to cast a spell once everyone else was engaged.

Now, people got tired of this sort of play, and I saw, even games I was playing at the time, that these restrictions were relaxed.  DMs stopped caring if you were shooting in melee range, and only made you hit an ally if you missed.  Wizards were allowed to make checks to keep their spells when they got hit (the most common I experienced was a Wisdom check, for whatever reason).

When WotC took over, they took note of this, and peeled back some of these restrictions.  Opportunity attacks from Players Option became the standard.  Now you could cast or use missile fire in melee range, but you were immediately punished for doing so.  Now, firing into a melee was only a -4 penalty, but hey, 2 Feats and you could ignore this penalty!

But players still seemed to chafe at this, so over the course of the next two editions, these restrictions were further peeled back until we have the case that now, you might take disadvantage to fire at someone standing next to you.  But there's a Feat for that.

And allies might provide cover for enemies if you fire into a melee.  But there's a Fighting Style for that.  *And *a Feat, which turns the Fighting Style into a near permanent +2 to hit!

And yeah, you could lose a spell for being hit in combat.  But it's a Constitution save, there are ways to get proficiency.  A Feat that grants advantage.  And it's not like your AC is any worse for casting a spell- why, with a single one level dip or a Feat, you can be a Wizard in full plate armor, maybe with a shield!

Which is why I started to notice (and made a thread for it) that ranged attacks seemed awfully good in 5e.  And with Rogues being _specifically designed_ to focus fire targets, it seems like this is the playstyle the game is built around.


----------



## EzekielRaiden

GMforPowergamers said:


> spread my attacks out... 1 on each. I hit each did minimal damage to most of them (but enough to apply penalties) and then said "So now surrender" and they just kept fireing... 3 of them from prone 1 that now missing a right leg... so from that point forward I would put all my shots into 1 target takinng them down... and he HATED that. he wanted to know why I didn't spread my damage more... I had to explain "You taught me that wasn't worth it"



Many DMs simply refuse to recognize that their choices, and the underlying design of the game they choose to play, is what directly creates the incentives for player behavior. There _are_ rare circumstances (like that thread a long while back where players misinterpreted "DM took out a map" for "DM is forcing us into a fight") where the perverse incentives are accidental. But the vast majority of the time, DMs and the games they run teach players which behaviors are effective very quickly, and then DMs complain that their players misbehave or the like.

For example:

Can't count the number of DMs I've seen over the years who complain bitterly about their players being ruthless murder-hobos, and then when you dig in deeper, you find out that, _surprise surprise_, the DM runs a "realistic" world. By which they mean a _crapsack_ world where heroism is suicide, idealism is for losers, and mercy is a fool's errand. When the players are taught that it's a dog-eat-dog world, guess what? They'll learn to shoot dogs on sight!
The so-called problem of "whack-a-mole" healing directly derives from the rules design of 5e. It is intentional, and as Ruin Explorer noted, it's one of the few tactics PCs can exploit if NPCs actually play tactically. Same with focus fire and the other bits. The rules people asked for, like "bounded accuracy" (which forced almost all scaling to be in HP), movement throughout one's turn, Advantage, minimal in-combat healing, etc. all combine to encourage players to play this way.
Players disengaging. This one is less common but it still happens. Have seen more than a few DMs who clearly did not understand that when you shut down the things players get enthusiastic about, they will stop showing enthusiasm. All the gleeful talk of banning things or running so-called "realistic" racism (usually nothing of the sort, it's extreme xenophobia that was never so common even in the Medieval Period), for example: slap the players often enough for their genuine, heartfelt joy in things and they'll stop showing their joy to you. (This one is especially bad because Gygax himself advocated for it in IIRC the 1e DMG. He did not actually practice this at his own table, worth noting, but the fact it got printed at all is a travesty.)
I'm sure there are other examples too. Point being, if your players _consistently_ use tactics or evince behaviors you don't like, you should be asking yourself how much either you as DM are teaching your players to play that way, or how much your chosen game system is rewarding people who do.

There may not be simple fixes. I don't personally think there are simple fixes for this problem in 5e. It's just too biased toward focus fire, and most fixes that will be easy to implement will just feel annoying to play against or clash badly with other aspects of the rules. Like that "focus" rule above which guarantees much more difficult combats whenever the party is outnumbered...which they usually will be. The fundamental idea isn't bad, but contextually I don't think it will perform well.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Shardstone said:


> Ya but I mean, maimed just sounds so visceral. Not mechanically, just in name. WEAKENED? Cmon. That fire elemental isn't weakened its...idk...crippled? Dunno.



I guess I was taking it as supernaturally weakened, like a Fey exposed to cold iron, or a vampire to sunlight, or a ghost to exorcism/turning, etc.

In fact hell, if I ever make a D&D-style game, that's what turning will do - make creatures hesitate and become vulnerable - same with holy water. This boring-ass running like hell or just being deleted can go home.

Sheesh all this talk of issues 5E has is really making me want to come up with a questionable Fantasy Heartbreaker, now I know how all those guys in the '80s and '90s felt.


----------



## Micah Sweet

James Gasik said:


> When I first started playing D&D, you couldn't fire into melee without risking hitting allies.  In fact, the DM was instructed to randomly determine the target of the shot before we even find out if you hit or missed!
> 
> You couldn't fire a bow at all if you were in melee range-heck, in 2e, at least, you had to be a specialist to even fire from as close as 6' away!
> 
> If you were a spellcaster, you had virtually no defenses when casting, and so much as a thrown rock doing 1 point of damage made your spells fizzle.
> 
> In these days, nobody was a dedicated archer, as you could only employ archery once a melee wall was established, and Wizards basically hid out of sight on the first turn, only popping out to cast a spell once everyone else was engaged.
> 
> Now, people got tired of this sort of play, and I saw, even games I was playing at the time, that these restrictions were relaxed.  DMs stopped caring if you were shooting in melee range, and only made you hit an ally if you missed.  Wizards were allowed to make checks to keep their spells when they got hit (the most common I experienced was a Wisdom check, for whatever reason).
> 
> When WotC took over, they took note of this, and peeled back some of these restrictions.  Opportunity attacks from Players Option became the standard.  Now you could cast or use missile fire in melee range, but you were immediately punished for doing so.  Now, firing into a melee was only a -4 penalty, but hey, 2 Feats and you could ignore this penalty!
> 
> But players still seemed to chafe at this, so over the course of the next two editions, these restrictions were further peeled back until we have the case that now, you might take disadvantage to fire at someone standing next to you.  But there's a Feat for that.
> 
> And allies might provide cover for enemies if you fire into a melee.  But there's a Fighting Style for that.  *And *a Feat, which turns the Fighting Style into a near permanent +2 to hit!
> 
> And yeah, you could lose a spell for being hit in combat.  But it's a Constitution save, there are ways to get proficiency.  A Feat that grants advantage.  And it's not like your AC is any worse for casting a spell- why, with a single one level dip or a Feat, you can be a Wizard in full plate armor, maybe with a shield!
> 
> Which is why I started to notice (and made a thread for it) that ranged attacks seemed awfully good in 5e.  And with Rogues being _specifically designed_ to focus fire targets, it seems like this is the playstyle the game is built around.



The real problem is that WotC is afraid to penalize players for any action they want to take, either in character creation or in play.  This just a symptom.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Micah Sweet said:


> The real problem is that WotC is afraid to penalize players for any action they want to take, either in character creation or in play.  This just a symptom.



I think it's more a symptom of pushing so hard for simplicity/accessibility that they are outright opposed to _intentional _rules complexity, even though the game has plenty of unintentional rules complexity.

The reason I say that is that the same attitude you're describing applies to monsters/NPCs just as much to PCs. If it was just about "penalizing players" (or rather not wanting to), we wouldn't see that. We'd see monsters able to totally mess up - but they also cannot.


----------



## billd91

Micah Sweet said:


> The real problem is that WotC is afraid to penalize players for any action they want to take, either in character creation or in play.  This just a symptom.



How often do you see things like complications of shooting missiles into a fight do you see in the inspirational media? How often do you see wizards running out of spells and resorting to a crossbow or darts?
You see Legolas shooting in close quarters in LotR without hitting his companions. You see characters flinging around attacks in anime with extreme precision without hitting their companions. You see sorcerers like Dr. Strange constantly using spells even in a drawn out superhero fight in the comics without whipping out a crossbow.
So why should anyone be surprised when players want to play like the character they see in inspirational media?


----------



## James Gasik

billd91 said:


> How often do you see things like complications of shooting missiles into a fight do you see in the inspirational media? How often do you see wizards running out of spells and resorting to a crossbow or darts?
> You see Legolas shooting in close quarters in LotR without hitting his companions. You see characters flinging around attacks in anime with extreme precision without hitting their companions. You see sorcerers like Dr. Strange constantly using spells even in a drawn out superhero fight in the comics without whipping out a crossbow.
> So why should anyone be surprised when players want to play like the character they see in inspirational media?



This is pretty much it.  D&D is pushed as *the* fantasy TTRPG, where you can play out the kinds of stories and events you read in books or see in shows or movies.  If the rules don't reflect that fantasy in any way, that might be a problem for the audience WotC wants to woo.


----------



## Micah Sweet

Ruin Explorer said:


> I think it's more a symptom of pushing so hard for simplicity/accessibility that they are outright opposed to _intentional _rules complexity, even though the game has plenty of unintentional rules complexity.
> 
> The reason I say that is that the same attitude you're describing applies to monsters/NPCs just as much to PCs. If it was just about "penalizing players" (or rather not wanting to), we wouldn't see that. We'd see monsters able to totally mess up - but they also cannot.



Because they also want to make the game simple for the DM.  Simple and easy to get into (and buy product for) is practically the only thing they care about.  They assume DMs don't want to have keep track of much, so they remove all but the most obvious options for monsters.  They assume players don't want to have any downside to what they play or what they can do, so restrictions and penalties become a thing of the past, and struggle as a concept is reduced to lip service in the official text, in favor of guaranteeing every PC can have their personal "narrative" play out the way they want.


----------



## Micah Sweet

billd91 said:


> How often do you see things like complications of shooting missiles into a fight do you see in the inspirational media? How often do you see wizards running out of spells and resorting to a crossbow or darts?
> You see Legolas shooting in close quarters in LotR without hitting his companions. You see characters flinging around attacks in anime with extreme precision without hitting their companions. You see sorcerers like Dr. Strange constantly using spells even in a drawn out superhero fight in the comics without whipping out a crossbow.
> So why should anyone be surprised when players want to play like the character they see in inspirational media?



I see your point, but for my part, inspirational media and playing like my favorite character from TV or film are not my concerns in D&D.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

James Gasik said:


> that might be a problem for the audience WotC wants to woo



I don't think it's "might", I think it definitely would be.



Micah Sweet said:


> in favor of guaranteeing every PC can have their personal "narrative" play out the way they want



Except the problem with that is, it's not remotely true.

I'm not saying that to critique you, but it's not true. If it was a goal, they've failed, abysmally. D&D PCs have extremely little power, and very little narrative control particularly. That's as true in 5E as it was in 2E. There's not even a question. In 4E maybe they had a little more.

There are games where PCs do have more power, and players can "play out a personal narrative" (usually cooperatively), but D&D is definitely not one of them. D&D is more like, you get to build this character which PURPORTS to be this and PURPORTS to offer this narrative, but the rules don't actually allow, let alone force it - it's actually entirely up to the DM to support it, if they feel like it.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Micah Sweet said:


> I see your point, but for my part, inspirational media and playing like my favorite character from TV or film are not my concerns in D&D.



Yeah but if D&D was any less friendly to that, it wouldn't be looking at 30-50m players, it'd be looking at 3-5m (like PF1E had), or less, and a couple of other games would be in excess of 10m, most likely.


----------



## Micah Sweet

Ruin Explorer said:


> I don't think it's "might", I think it definitely would be.
> 
> 
> Except the problem with that is, it's not remotely true.
> 
> I'm not saying that to critique you, but it's not true. If it was a goal, they've failed, abysmally. D&D PCs have extremely little power, and very little narrative control particularly. That's as true in 5E as it was in 2E. There's not even a question. In 4E maybe they had a little more.
> 
> There are games where PCs do have more power, and players can "play out a personal narrative" (usually cooperatively), but D&D is definitely not one of them. D&D is more like, you get to build this character which PURPORTS to be this and PURPORTS to offer this narrative, but the rules don't actually allow, let alone force it - it's actually entirely up to the DM to support it, if they feel like it.



But the text encourages it, and so does the marketing.  When 5.5 rolls around, you can bet the game will lean more toward that style of play.


----------



## Helldritch

billd91 said:


> How often do you see things like complications of shooting missiles into a fight do you see in the inspirational media? How often do you see wizards running out of spells and resorting to a crossbow or darts?
> You see Legolas shooting in close quarters in LotR without hitting his companions. You see characters flinging around attacks in anime with extreme precision without hitting their companions. You see sorcerers like Dr. Strange constantly using spells even in a drawn out superhero fight in the comics without whipping out a crossbow.
> So why should anyone be surprised when players want to play like the character they see in inspirational media?



In Super Hero movies? Never.
In war movies, friendly fire is a thing.
In good novels and movies we often see the heroic sniper calling: " I can't get a free shot!"
In good realistic movies and novels, we often see the police officer failling to get to his/her gun because the vilain got too close.
In good fantasy novels, we see the hero get in close combat with the evil wizard and that means that the wizard is done for.
In good novels and movies, heroes can run out of ammo (or even spells/power etc...)

But...
Super hero movies are especially bad at making heroes look bad. Especially Marvel (and I am a Marvel Fan, own all movies). DC is a bit better about that (but not by much).

And need I remind you that Legolas missed that big torch bearing orc when it was most inappropriate...


----------



## Micah Sweet

Ruin Explorer said:


> Yeah but if D&D was any less friendly to that, it wouldn't be looking at 30-50m players, it'd be looking at 3-5m (like PF1E had), or less, and a couple of other games would be in excess of 10m, most likely.



You're probably right.  Even so, the game catering to that 30-50m is not really the game I want.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Helldritch said:


> In war movies, friendly fire is a thing.



Not in a "constant problem" way, though, that's just wrong.

Friendly fire is only ever an issue in war movies when it's Very Dramatic. It's huge deal when it comes up, whatever the cause. A whole scene will pivot on it. But most of the time? Not an issue.



Helldritch said:


> In good novels and movies we often see the heroic sniper calling: " I can't get a free shot!"



Examples?


Helldritch said:


> In good realistic movies and novels, we often see the police officer failling to get to his/her gun because the vilain got too close.



No, in bad and unrealistic movies we see that constantly. That's absolutely classic trope of '80s-style action. Don't pretend this is a "good" or "realistic" thing. In "realistic" stuff it'd much harder for people to lose their weapons (certainly trained professionals rather than beat cops). You're calling Supernatural and the A-Team "realistic" here, dude.


Helldritch said:


> In good fantasy novels, we see the hero get in close combat with the evil wizard and that means that the wizard is done for.



No we do not. If you disagree provide examples. Usually this is only the case if the Good Guy has the Magic Sword or whatever that counters the Bad Guy, and that's why it's bad for the Bad Guy.


Helldritch said:


> In good novels and movies, heroes can run out of ammo (or even spells/power etc...)



Examples? I've seen plenty of terrible movies where people ran out of ammo, and plenty of good and even great ones where they didn't. This is just silly nonsense that has no bearing on whether a movie is good/bad, and it's easy to show.


----------



## MarkB

billd91 said:


> How often do you see things like complications of shooting missiles into a fight do you see in the inspirational media?



Pretty much any time there's a designated one-on-one fight while there's an ally present with a ranged attack, it suddenly turns out that they're shifting position too much for a clear shot. That bit in Avengers when Captain America first tussles with Loki and Black Widow is hovering there in the Quinjet waiting for an angle, for example.


billd91 said:


> How often do you see wizards running out of spells and resorting to a crossbow or darts?



Gandalf spends most of his time rocking his sword-and-staff dual-wield combo.


----------



## James Gasik

MarkB said:


> Pretty much any time there's a designated one-on-one fight while there's an ally present with a ranged attack, it suddenly turns out that they're shifting position too much for a clear shot. That bit in Avengers when Captain America first tussles with Loki and Black Widow is hovering there in the Quinjet waiting for an angle, for example.
> 
> Gandalf spends most of his time rocking his sword-and-staff dual-wield combo.



Gandalf though, as has been long pointed out, is definitely not a D&D Wizard, lol.


----------



## billd91

Helldritch said:


> And need I remind you that Legolas missed that big torch bearing orc when it was most inappropriate...



Legolas didn't actually miss. He hit. Twice. He just didn't drop the orc.


----------



## James Gasik

billd91 said:


> Legolas didn't actually miss. He hit. Twice. He just didn't drop the orc.



It was a 5e Orc, obviously.  A big bag of hit points!


----------



## ad_hoc

For those concerned about this are there 5+ PCs at the table?

5e is well designed for 4 PC parties but runs into issues like these with bigger ones.

If we are going to have a game with that many PCs there are some things that could be tweaked to make for a better experience.

Bigger spaces for combats with more stuff in them is one such change. If we increase the number of everything but we still have a 20x20 room then we're going to have a bad time.


----------



## Helldritch

Posted before I could answer... wonder what happened. Delete please


----------



## CleverNickName

"Problem"?  I'd do cartwheels if my players were coordinated and attentive enough to focus their fire (or their attention) on any one thing for any length of time.  No matter how carefully the players plan for battle, it always ends up looking like *that SNL Ninja Pep Talk sketch* from the 90s.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Helldritch said:


> Posted before I could answer... wonder what happened. Delete please



Happens to the best of us!


----------



## Ruin Explorer

CleverNickName said:


> I'd do cartwheels if my players were coordinated and attentive enough to focus their fire (or their attention) on any one thing for any length of time.  No matter how carefully the players plan for battle, it always ends up looking like *that SNL Ninja Pep Talk sketch* from the 90s.



Vimeo link here: 
Also the cast here is amazing.


----------



## Helldritch

Ruin Explorer said:


> Not in a "constant problem" way, though, that's just wrong.



Of course not, it was not my claim either.



Ruin Explorer said:


> Friendly fire is only ever an issue in war movies when it's Very Dramatic. It's huge deal when it comes up, whatever the cause. A whole scene will pivot on it. But most of the time? Not an issue.



This is a dramatic scene. So yep, it can. It is even talk about it documentaries. So yep, it can be an issue and it should it the game.




Ruin Explorer said:


> Examples?



Sniper, NCIS, CSI New York, Las Vegas and Miami, and soooo many others. 



Ruin Explorer said:


> No, in bad and unrealistic movies we see that constantly. That's absolutely classic trope of '80s-style action. Don't pretend this is a "good" or "realistic" thing. In "realistic" stuff it'd much harder for people to lose their weapons (certainly trained professionals rather than beat cops). You're calling Supernatural and the A-Team "realistic" here, dude.



Do you know the 10 feet rule? If a crook, opponent is within 10 feet of an officer. It is almost a 100% chance that the officer will not get its gun out in time and will be stabbed by the knife holding criminal.  



Ruin Explorer said:


> No we do not. If you disagree provide examples. Usually this is only the case if the Good Guy has the Magic Sword or whatever that counters the Bad Guy, and that's why it's bad for the Bad Guy.



Conan novels are such an example. Read them. Always Conan finally get to the evil wizard and Conan do not have magic sword. Legolas in the LotR running of arrow during the battle and so on. 



Ruin Explorer said:


> Examples? I've seen plenty of terrible movies where people ran out of ammo, and plenty of good and even great ones where they didn't. This is just silly nonsense that has no bearing on whether a movie is good/bad, and it's easy to show.



Mmm quite a few actually, usually used for dramatic effect. And you also have the reverse where the hero will throw empty shells and kill a bunch soldiers at la "Hot Shot".

May be that instead of using good, I should have use "more realistic".


----------



## Mistwell

Ruin Explorer said:


> I was very specific for a reason.
> 
> "real person-level combat".
> 
> I didn't type those words idly. In real melee/arrow combat, you simply cannot behave like this. Casters standing at a distance might sometimes have the luxury to target specific people who they thought were threats, but they'd often be mistaken or operating on extremely limited information, or make very serious errors because they underestimated or overestimated people (this is down to the DM RP'ing them right of course - some DMs are clinically incapable of it).
> 
> A tank or pillbox can be "taken out" because it's not that capable of movement (we're assuming the tank isn't in an open field, because you're just stuffed). That's obviously not an equivalent situation. IRL, if you're armed with a sword, you can't just ignore another guy with a sword and go chase whoever you want. 5E doesn't have mechanics for that, though. No flanking, no firing into melee penalty, at most one AoO/turn, etc.
> 
> In reality, if you ignored a bunch of men with swords to try and chase down a wizard, you'd die with a bunch of swords in your back (or even just one). And indeed, anyone who has played a videogame that leans a bit more realistic absolutely knows this.
> 
> It's an absolutely unrealistic thing D&D does, that 5E makes far more extreme and obvious by removing all barriers to it and putting in "bag of HP" enemies that kind of require it. On some levels that might be smart - leaning in to a characteristic the game has - but trying to pretend it's realistic and putting in laughable 20th World War examples instead of medieval examples or fantasy examples is just unhelpful to understanding the issue, like it or loathe it.



We were discussing the tactics. And yes, tanks move. And militaries focus fire on them because they're a bigger threat.

In D&D, people focus fire on the rough equivalent of the tank while usually initially ignoring the infantry.

It's not about being realistic, it's about feeling artificial if you use rules to discourage that. And I find it very helpful to understanding the issue even if you do not.

It's also why I didn't much like "encounter" abilities as opposed to abilities which regenerate on a rest of some kind. It felt artificial. I don't like how they established rests in 5e, but I like the concept that time and rest are associated with recovering your endurance to do something strenuous again. I've always been fond of changing "recovering on short rest" to "you can do it a second time without a rest but it gives you a level of exhaustion" in addition to "recovering on short rest". That would feel less artificial to me.


----------



## Helldritch

billd91 said:


> Legolas didn't actually miss. He hit. Twice. He just didn't drop the orc.



Point given. Still the Orc went on with its business anyway and we all know how it ended up. Legolas can fail.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Mistwell said:


> It's not about being realistic, it's about feeling artificial if you use rules to discourage that. And I find it very helpful to understanding the issue even if you do not.



LOL!

This is like some guy who is eating Pringles with non-refrigerated spray-cheese on them walking up to me and telling me my burger is "processed food" and I shouldn't be eating it! Truly incredible.

Focus firing is 100% "artificial". It's absolutely Pringles + spray cheese. Sheesh it might even be Twinkie-level "artificial". Getting upset about rules that discourage it "feeling artificial" is just extremely extremely funny. All you're doing is saying "I'm totally used to this entirely artificial scenario, but this new thing is new and I'm not used to it, so I'm going to call it artificial!".

I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you're out of bounds, it's just really funny.



Mistwell said:


> And militaries focus fire on them because they're a bigger threat.



Also, no they don't. Because that's the whole point - tanks can't be taken small-arms fire (or, if they can, they're failing as tanks, let's not getting bogged down in arguments about detracking tanks). They require special tactics and weapons. So even the context of D&D, that doesn't fly.

In a D&D context, a tank is something like an Iron Golem in earlier editions. You can't "focus it down". You have get out special tools to deal with it.


----------



## billd91

Mistwell said:


> We were discussing the tactics. And yes, tanks move. And militaries focus fire on them because they're a bigger threat.



Tanks? I'm not so sure I'd consider drawing a parallel between concentrating fire on tanks with RPGs like D&D. Most PC equivalents on the field (the infantry), wouldn't have appropriate armor-killing weapons. 
Flamethrowers, though. Oh, yeah. I'm pretty sure any flamethrower troops identified on the battlefield drew extra fire.


----------



## Micah Sweet

Ruin Explorer said:


> LOL!
> 
> This is like some guy who is eating Pringles with non-refrigerated spray-cheese on them walking up to me and telling me my burger is "processed food" and I shouldn't be eating it! Truly incredible.
> 
> Focus firing is 100% "artificial". It's absolutely Pringles + spray cheese. Sheesh it might even be Twinkie-level "artificial". Getting upset about rules that discourage it "feeling artificial" is just extremely extremely funny. All you're doing is saying "I'm totally used to this entirely artificial scenario, but this new thing is new and I'm not used to it, so I'm going to call it artificial!".
> 
> I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you're out of bounds, it's just really funny.
> 
> 
> Also, no they don't. Because that's the whole point - tanks can't be taken small-arms fire (or, if they can, they're failing as tanks, let's not getting bogged down in arguments about detracking tanks). They require special tactics and weapons. So even the context of D&D, that doesn't fly.
> 
> In a D&D context, a tank is something like an Iron Golem in earlier editions. You can't "focus it down". You have get out special tools to deal with it.



I desperately miss monsters you had to get out special tools to defeat.


----------



## James Gasik

Micah Sweet said:


> I desperately miss monsters you had to get out special tools to defeat.



_Blessed _crossbow bolts!


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Micah Sweet said:


> I desperately miss monsters you had to get out special tools to defeat.



Weirdly I kind of do too, in fact, I think D&D has always been to kind of PCs using "the wrong tools for the job". Honestly if you're hitting a 14' tall giant with a goddamn longsword you should be doing basically no damage, even with a magic one. Climbing on them could make it work of course. Or leaping at them. But that's not what happens. Instead you just hack as their knees/ankles and they decide to die.

I mean I think there should be different approaches. An anime-esque Swordmage-type could doing incredible speed-slash leaps, whereas a "trad" Fighter could be pulling out a longspear and giving a giant a good stabbing, and a Psi-Warrior could also be leaping but in a more Jedi-like way and maybe landing on the giant, etc. etc.

But "I just whale on the giant" which is literally the rules here just doesn't seem right, and it helps to ensure people use a very narrow range of weapons.


----------



## Hexmage-EN

Ruin Explorer said:


> Weirdly I kind of do too, in fact, I think D&D has always been to kind of PCs using "the wrong tools for the job". Honestly if you're hitting a 14' tall giant with a goddamn longsword you should be doing basically no damage, even with a magic one. Climbing on them could make it work of course. Or leaping at them. But that's not what happens. Instead you just hack as their knees/ankles and they decide to die.



I always appreciate whenever this example comes up in regards to realism and D&D because it's so often overlooked (presumably because of how long it's been present in the game).

Personally I try to justify it as a PC's strikes hitting around the time that the giant swung down their weapon, but adding ways for PCs to climb or jump on on them is fun, too. In one campaign I represented an especially large colossus's shoulders as a platform with the head in the center; during the fight one PC jumped off a roof onto the shoulders, ran across the shoulders, and leapt off the other side onto a rooftop where an ally was making death saves.


----------



## Helldritch

About the giant thing...
My old master in 1ed had the more intelligent giants use leg armor (be it bronze, iron or whatever to protect their legs.) The AC of the giant was quite hard to hit unless the character could either get an enlarge spell or a reach weapon such as a polearm. Arrows in 1ed were not the incredible damage dealers they are now (no dex bonus to damage, which is why both bow bonuses and the missile bonuses would add up, 5ed continues this even today which it should not. Only the best of the two should apply). 

But yeah, damaging a giant should be a bit more complicated than just hitting the legs...


----------



## Vaalingrade

The solution is simply take proficiency in siege weaponry.


----------



## jgsugden

Charlaquin said:


> Good ideas, but for these sorts of mechanics to be effective at discouraging focus fire, the players need to know about them. So it’s important to stress to the DM to explain them to the players!



Which you could either do for each encounter, or explain as a global 'many creatures have abilities they can use if they're not engaged during combat'.


----------



## MarkB

Ruin Explorer said:


> Weirdly I kind of do too, in fact, I think D&D has always been to kind of PCs using "the wrong tools for the job". Honestly if you're hitting a 14' tall giant with a goddamn longsword you should be doing basically no damage, even with a magic one. Climbing on them could make it work of course. Or leaping at them. But that's not what happens. Instead you just hack as their knees/ankles and they decide to die.



At those relative heights you're pretty much ideally placed to attack at groin level, unless you're a hobbit. And there's plenty to damage there - aside from the private parts, one good slice to the femoral artery will take down anything roughly human-shaped.

And even if you're only at ankle level, a few hits to the achilles tendon will literally bring them down to your level.


----------



## Chaosmancer

EzekielRaiden said:


> There may not be simple fixes. I don't personally think there are simple fixes for this problem in 5e. It's just too biased toward focus fire, and most fixes that will be easy to implement will just feel annoying to play against or clash badly with other aspects of the rules. Like that "focus" rule above which guarantees much more difficult combats whenever the party is outnumbered...which they usually will be. The fundamental idea isn't bad, but contextually I don't think it will perform well.




This is why I am much more interested in rules or ideas that can be used to reduce focus fire in a single combat, not every combat in the game. 

Ideas like having multiple enemies attacking multiple objectives, or enemies which are more powerful if you ignore them in combat, really help with that, while certainly not working for every single fight you will ever have.


----------



## DrunkonDuty

Only read first page of the thread, so sorry if I'm going over old ground.

I don't see focus fire as a problem. I rarely see focus fire full stop. If it happens then great work, PCs.

Of course in some games focus fire is a poor tactical choice. Games with death spiral mechanics for example. In those games spread out the pain!


----------



## Horwath

jgsugden said:


> Which you could either do for each encounter, or explain as a global 'many creatures have abilities they can use if they're not engaged during combat'.



This could be another usage for paladins(and possible warlord) auras.
You are considered engaged while in paladins aura.


----------



## nevin

Stalker0 said:


> If you watch any Superhero or fantasy movie nowadays, there's a consistent trend. In most fights, the second the combat starts....the heroes go their own ways. Legolas isn't back to back with Aragon and Gimli, they are off killing their own monsters. When the Justice League (both in movies and the cartoons) goes to take on the badguys, most of the time the heroes all split up into 1 on 1 type fights. Only when they are facing the "big boss" they all start attacking the same creature as a single unit. If we go more modern, Harry Potter often had the wizards split up into 2 on 2s or 1 on 1s, rather than have 1 pile of wizards go after the other.
> 
> Dnd players....do not work that way. They learn very quickly that the best way to be efficient in combat is to focus fire. Everyone pounds on one creature, then the next, then the next. Now while there are always exceptions to this, I have consistently seen this behavior time and time and time again among both my own players and other groups I've watched. Its just smart tactics....but it has a pretty strong narrative disconnect to a lot of the fantasy dnd tries to model.
> 
> While a DM can force this behavior through various narrative setups, the incentive is always working against him. Players are going to focus fire whenever they can, because its simply the best way to play.
> 
> I feel like when we talk 5.5 or 6e, this is an area that would be great to tackle. Mechanically, how do you incentive players not to all just pound the same monster with damage until its dead? How do you encourage them to spread out their attacks?



as others have said this has been an issue since the beginning but it's not a problem just a fact.   Smart and /or organized monsters will do the same.   If you want them to spread out thier attacks then you'll need to get creative.  Say monsters attack in a city. Well then do they go after one at a time to make it quicker or do they split up and try to save the populace?   If you want your players to act a certain way you have to make it about them.    Hero's that do that will be remembered.  the min maxers who take the monsters down one at a time will get to see the results of thier strategy all around them and may find the populace isn't really happy that they are there.  Everytime they show up stuff happens and people die.


----------



## Art Waring

It really depends on your perspective.

From the perspective of a GM who mainly plays with people completely new to the ttrpg hobby to get their unbiased opinions of the game I am designing, brand new players without extensive gaming experience don't focus fire by default. 

They tend to focus on the problems directly in front of them, sometimes branching off to fight their own enemies they deem a worthy target. In retrospect, when they do team up and focus fire, say on a BBEG, it feels more rewarding to them because they are working together.


----------



## Willie the Duck

Re: Focus Fire -- As others have pointed out, it makes a lot of sense to take down one enemy and thus remove someone attacking your side, and it is generally a reasonable course of action unless the other enemies can use their not-being-targeted to exceptional effect (this later part being the unrealistic part, as IRL those other combatants will be circling around you or attacking things you are defending or otherwise do need consideration, if nothing else some shots in their direction keeping them hunkered behind cover). Unfortunately, most of those things you can do to make one not want to ignore some enemies to finish off others are hard to model or draw out combat. 

Others have mentioned previous editions where you couldn't necessarily choose your target for ranged attacks. I think another way of doing this would be to just have a greater difference in to-hit chance vs enemies 'in the front' vs. 'in the rear.' This would mean that if you wanted to focus-fire on the enemy glass cannon on an injured fighter, you would have significantly less likelihood of effect compared to taking on one of the front-liners the other side wants you to engage. This, to my mind (so, haven't playtested or anything) might go a long way to bring back some more varied and difficult tactical decisions without grievously effecting combat lengths.


Ruin Explorer said:


> Weirdly I kind of do too, in fact, I think D&D has always been to kind of PCs using "the wrong tools for the job". Honestly if you're hitting a 14' tall giant with a goddamn longsword you should be doing basically no damage, even with a magic one. Climbing on them could make it work of course. Or leaping at them. But that's not what happens. Instead you just hack as their knees/ankles and they decide to die.
> 
> I mean I think there should be different approaches. An anime-esque Swordmage-type could doing incredible speed-slash leaps, whereas a "trad" Fighter could be pulling out a longspear and giving a giant a good stabbing, and a Psi-Warrior could also be leaping but in a more Jedi-like way and maybe landing on the giant, etc. etc.
> 
> But "I just whale on the giant" which is literally the rules here just doesn't seem right, and it helps to ensure people use a very narrow range of weapons.




There's a fundamental issue/tension with fantasy settings ('like medieval times, but with real magic and monsters') where you want knights and horses and swords and castles (or whatever trappings of the medieval world drew you to the setting in the first place), but those might not make the most sense in a world with actual magic and monsters. Do you put domes over your castles, since open-sky courtyards are defeated by flying enemies? Do your troops fight in formation, since that makes sense IRL, or spread out to avoid AOE spells? Do you fight giants (or dragons, or iron golems) with swords and spears or with qwertys and asdfgs (what are qwertys and asdfgs? why the weapons that would have been developed in a world full of dragons and giants)?

Back when there weren't any combat maneuvers and the combat was most abstract, I definitely did imagine that the fighters were climbing on the giants or leap-attacking or running under their legs and stabbing them in the butt when they squatted to smash them (my mental image of giants at the time were more 25-40', not sure what the rules said at the time). 

Right tool for the job is an interesting issue in D&D. Specific Weapon vs. Specific Armor makes all the sense in the world for Chainmail, but I get why it didn't see much play in oD&D/AD&D. 'Can't even hurt' without silver or magic works to make some monsters scary, but often can reduce people to just their handy +2 silver hammer, since it always works. 3.5's different resistances worked, but that level tended to either incentivize a golf bag of +1-specificalignment-specificmaterial-specificB/P/S, or just saying screw it and powering through the resistance with high damage. It's a balancing act in trying to get the preferred playstyle to be incentivized.


----------



## James Gasik

I used to have to struggle to get my players to focus fire.  Every combat with multiple enemies, I'd have several actively beating up the party, with damage on them.  I'd be like "guys, uh, you do realize putting one of these down first would be a good idea, right?".

So I was quite happy when they started thinking tactically.  Now if your encounter design is one real opponent and a bunch of mooks, and the party takes the real threat down, and all that's left is mop up, I can understand the frustration, as that's barely an encounter at all.

But that means you might want to take a second look at your encounter design.  I know having a big, marquee monster is exciting, but instead of having the villain show up with his mooks, maybe send in the waves before the villain ever makes themselves a presentable target.  If the villain steps out from behind cover on round 2, once the party is engaged with the extras, it might be less efficient for them to suddenly switch gears to the new guy.

I like using encounters that have stages, where enemies attack in waves.  Also, giving your main villain spellcasting mooks makes things a lot more complicated as well, as anyone who can throw out a hold person, web, sleet storm, etc., is a primary target, no matter what the big guy can do.

Use cleric type mooks who can heal, and watch what happens if players ignore them. Put traps, difficult terrain, and lots of cover on your encounter spaces.  Pillars, stairs, areas at different elevations, and so on.

Make getting at the main enemy harder to do.  Use enemies with reach who can attack over minions, or have skirmisher type abilities so they can disengage behind a wall of mooks.  Have hidden enemies pop up to attack the back line to pressure your ranged characters.  

Keep the tactical situation changing.  One thing I really like to do is run adventures with rival enemy factions.  A three way brawl between two groups of enemies and the players is wildly entertaining as they try to figure out how to weaken their foes without being declared as the common enemy!


----------



## Micah Sweet

Willie the Duck said:


> Re: Focus Fire -- As others have pointed out, it makes a lot of sense to take down one enemy and thus remove someone attacking your side, and it is generally a reasonable course of action unless the other enemies can use their not-being-targeted to exceptional effect (this later part being the unrealistic part, as IRL those other combatants will be circling around you or attacking things you are defending or otherwise do need consideration, if nothing else some shots in their direction keeping them hunkered behind cover). Unfortunately, most of those things you can do to make one not want to ignore some enemies to finish off others are hard to model or draw out combat.
> 
> Others have mentioned previous editions where you couldn't necessarily choose your target for ranged attacks. I think another way of doing this would be to just have a greater difference in to-hit chance vs enemies 'in the front' vs. 'in the rear.' This would mean that if you wanted to focus-fire on the enemy glass cannon on an injured fighter, you would have significantly less likelihood of effect compared to taking on one of the front-liners the other side wants you to engage. This, to my mind (so, haven't playtested or anything) might go a long way to bring back some more varied and difficult tactical decisions without grievously effecting combat lengths.
> 
> 
> There's a fundamental issue/tension with fantasy settings ('like medieval times, but with real magic and monsters') where you want knights and horses and swords and castles (or whatever trappings of the medieval world drew you to the setting in the first place), but those might not make the most sense in a world with actual magic and monsters. Do you put domes over your castles, since open-sky courtyards are defeated by flying enemies? Do your troops fight in formation, since that makes sense IRL, or spread out to avoid AOE spells? Do you fight giants (or dragons, or iron golems) with swords and spears or with qwertys and asdfgs (what are qwertys and asdfgs? why the weapons that would have been developed in a world full of dragons and giants)?
> 
> Back when there weren't any combat maneuvers and the combat was most abstract, I definitely did imagine that the fighters were climbing on the giants or leap-attacking or running under their legs and stabbing them in the butt when they squatted to smash them (my mental image of giants at the time were more 25-40', not sure what the rules said at the time).
> 
> Right tool for the job is an interesting issue in D&D. Specific Weapon vs. Specific Armor makes all the sense in the world for Chainmail, but I get why it didn't see much play in oD&D/AD&D. 'Can't even hurt' without silver or magic works to make some monsters scary, but often can reduce people to just their handy +2 silver hammer, since it always works. 3.5's different resistances worked, but that level tended to either incentivize a golf bag of +1-specificalignment-specificmaterial-specificB/P/S, or just saying screw it and powering through the resistance with high damage. It's a balancing act in trying to get the preferred playstyle to be incentivized.



I'd be fine with the golf bag, personally.  It encourages PCs to know how to use different weapons.


----------



## tetrasodium

Willie the Duck said:


> Re: Focus Fire -- As others have pointed out, it makes a lot of sense to take down one enemy and thus remove someone attacking your side, and it is generally a reasonable course of action unless the other enemies can use their not-being-targeted to exceptional effect (this later part being the unrealistic part, as IRL those other combatants will be circling around you or attacking things you are defending or otherwise do need consideration, if nothing else some shots in their direction keeping them hunkered behind cover). Unfortunately, most of those things you can do to make one not want to ignore some enemies to finish off others are hard to model or draw out combat.
> 
> Others have mentioned previous editions where you couldn't necessarily choose your target for ranged attacks. I think another way of doing this would be to just have a greater difference in to-hit chance vs enemies 'in the front' vs. 'in the rear.' This would mean that if you wanted to focus-fire on the enemy glass cannon on an injured fighter, you would have significantly less likelihood of effect compared to taking on one of the front-liners the other side wants you to engage. This, to my mind (so, haven't playtested or anything) might go a long way to bring back some more varied and difficult tactical decisions without grievously effecting combat lengths.
> 
> 
> There's a fundamental issue/tension with fantasy settings ('like medieval times, but with real magic and monsters') where you want knights and horses and swords and castles (or whatever trappings of the medieval world drew you to the setting in the first place), but those might not make the most sense in a world with actual magic and monsters. Do you put domes over your castles, since open-sky courtyards are defeated by flying enemies? Do your troops fight in formation, since that makes sense IRL, or spread out to avoid AOE spells? Do you fight giants (or dragons, or iron golems) with swords and spears or with qwertys and asdfgs (what are qwertys and asdfgs? why the weapons that would have been developed in a world full of dragons and giants)?
> 
> Back when there weren't any combat maneuvers and the combat was most abstract, I definitely did imagine that the fighters were climbing on the giants or leap-attacking or running under their legs and stabbing them in the butt when they squatted to smash them (my mental image of giants at the time were more 25-40', not sure what the rules said at the time).
> 
> Right tool for the job is an interesting issue in D&D. Specific Weapon vs. Specific Armor makes all the sense in the world for Chainmail, but I get why it didn't see much play in oD&D/AD&D. 'Can't even hurt' without silver or magic works to make some monsters scary, but often can reduce people to just their handy +2 silver hammer, since it always works. 3.5's different resistances worked, but that level tended to either incentivize a golf bag of +1-specificalignment-specificmaterial-specificB/P/S, or just saying screw it and powering through the resistance with high damage. It's a balancing act in trying to get the preferred playstyle to be incentivized.



It's already been mentioned that the golf bag encouraged players to learn/remember/know how different weapons worked.  By y extension that improved the game in that it required players to put in some thought beyond 5e's "I showed up [_and swing my magic weapon]_".  That also had the secondary benefit of allowing me the GM to provide a wider range of treasure for players to get excited about other than 5e's objectively better in every way or bust.

If bob's +3 bow is going to mow through the mooks but to nothing against the big guy unless he switches to his +0 flaming bow it introduced some things a player needs to think about when a fight starts.


----------



## Willie the Duck

Micah Sweet said:


> I'd be fine with the golf bag, personally.  It encourages PCs to know how to use different weapons.



I mean, if it works. My point about 3.5 was that there were so many options for the good-against/bad-against comparisons (weapons could be magical or not; bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing; regular, silver, cold-iron, adamantine, or outlier/other; lawful, chaotic, good, evil, or potentially more than one), with so many types of weapons needed to cover all potential bases, that oftentimes people simply didn't. Either they sought out/spent the money on the omni-typed option ('sure-striking,' I think it was called); muscled  past the DR with 2-H uber-charging power-attacks; or found a method of attack which didn't interact with this system at all (spell damage, for instance). Mind you, a lot of this is system-specific (3e had DR rather than total-immunity, sure-striking was an option, uber-charging PA is a good option to begin with, non-weapon damage types are a thing), but the generalized point of needing to carefully balance X-required-for-Y effects to see that they actually incentivize the playstyle you were hoping to cultivate applies more universally.


tetrasodium said:


> It's already been mentioned that the golf bag encouraged players to learn/remember/know how different weapons worked.  By y extension that improved the game in that it required players to put in some thought beyond 5e's "I showed up [_and swing my magic weapon]_".  That also had the secondary benefit of allowing me the GM to provide a wider range of treasure for players to get excited about other than 5e's objectively better in every way or bust.



I mean, it _can/could_ do that, but I don't know that it _did_ (either with 3e's golf bag, or oD&D/AD&D's Weapon vs. Armor golf bag). It seems to me that at least part of the time, it encouraged people to figure out how to play golf with a pool cue, or to convince the group that they didn't want to play golf in the first place (or however you want to frame groups just ignoring the weapon vs armor tables).

Part of this is going to come down to other aspects of the given editions (and the consequences these had on the weapon-choice systems). I think WvsAC was doomed once the overall buyer for oD&D wasn't going to be wargamers. However, variable weapon damage (I'm not going to carry around this military pick to supplement my sword against low-ac enemies if it does 1d6/1d4 instead of 1d8/1d12') and magic items in general (which give pluses to hit at any AC and give damage bonuses) went a long way to finishing them off. For 3e, in addition to the issues I mentioned above , there's also the issue of magic marts (I know, in no way a universal thing). These could mean that, even if you were making the PCs fill a golf bag, most of it (minus the odd +1 axiomatic silver flail they picked up in-dungeon) could still be the same basic weapons type in which they were specialized. I think that's a big thing with 3e -- playing a martial was already enough of a challenge, and the best options were to generally to find a specialized build like 2H-weapon charger, 2-weapon fighting finesse crit-fisher, spiked chain trip-spammer, archer, etc. That really incentivized focus on, if not a specific weapon (excepting the spike chain builds), at least a narrow type (two-handers, dual-weildables, finessable, etc.).

I think the games/era where this worked best was 1e (pre UA, and with the apparent common pre-UA situation of the group ignoring weapon proficiencies), and BX/BECMI (pre- or without- BECMI Master Set weapon mastery rules). There was little in the way of PC builds, you weren't going to be str- or dex-focused (all fighters want as good as they can in both), you could switch from weapon-and-shield to bow to 2h melee as a strategy as you found cool weapons of said types, and you didn't have to wait 1-4 levels for a new proficiency when you did find a nice one. There also wasn't (much of any language encouraging the assumption of) magic marts, so you made do with what you found. Beyond that, there were several enemies where having B, P, or S weapon type mattered even without caring about enemy armor type -- skeletons where an arrow did 1 pt., oozes which would just split in half to a sword cut, etc.

5e (or a homebrew mod to it, where one adds back in extreme piercing resilience to skeletons, etc.) has some ability to capitalize on the same ideas. Less magic mart language. Sure there are 'builds,' but with the exception of Crossbow Expert and Polearm Master*, you don't really make weapon-specific builds. You do make attribute-specific ones, though, and fighting styles put you in the same 'narrow type' situation as 3e can. Also, like in all the WotC-era versions**, trying to change martial behavior by making them less effective in certain situations can have the potential effect of just encouraging people to play casters.
*which, maybe not getting to use the best new magic weapon is part of the opportunity cost for these rather powerful feats
**TSR era, even if the balance was imperfect, you still needed both fighters and MUs in the party

In general, though, I think you are right. 5e is well suited for this kind of modification, and it does address a real issue I've noticed where there isn't any treasure I want to give out (as in, won't destabilize the game) that the PCs will actually look forward to getting.


tetrasodium said:


> If bob's +3 bow is going to mow through the mooks but to nothing against the big guy unless he switches to his +0 flaming bow it introduced some things a player needs to think about when a fight starts.



or +0 flaming slingstones (ammunition is great as a treasure find, and slingstones means you aren't just using them with the +3 bow).


----------



## tetrasodium

Willie the Duck said:


> I mean, if it works. My point about 3.5 was that there were so many options for the good-against/bad-against comparisons (weapons could be magical or not; bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing; regular, silver, cold-iron, adamantine, or outlier/other; lawful, chaotic, good, evil, or potentially more than one), with so many types of weapons needed to cover all potential bases, that oftentimes people simply didn't. Either they sought out/spent the money on the omni-typed option ('sure-striking,' I think it was called); muscled  past the DR with 2-H uber-charging power-attacks; or found a method of attack which didn't interact with this system at all (spell damage, for instance). Mind you, a lot of this is system-specific (3e had DR rather than total-immunity, sure-striking was an option, uber-charging PA is a good option to begin with, non-weapon damage types are a thing), but the generalized point of needing to carefully balance X-required-for-Y effects to see that they actually incentivize the playstyle you were hoping to cultivate applies more universally.
> 
> I mean, it _can/could_ do that, but I don't know that it _did_ (either with 3e's golf bag, or oD&D/AD&D's Weapon vs. Armor golf bag). It seems to me that at least part of the time, it encouraged people to figure out how to play golf with a pool cue, or to convince the group that they didn't want to play golf in the first place (or however you want to frame groups just ignoring the weapon vs armor tables).
> 
> Part of this is going to come down to other aspects of the given editions (and the consequences these had on the weapon-choice systems). I think WvsAC was doomed once the overall buyer for oD&D wasn't going to be wargamers. However, variable weapon damage (I'm not going to carry around this military pick to supplement my sword against low-ac enemies if it does 1d6/1d4 instead of 1d8/1d12') and magic items in general (which give pluses to hit at any AC and give damage bonuses) went a long way to finishing them off. For 3e, in addition to the issues I mentioned above , there's also the issue of magic marts (I know, in no way a universal thing). These could mean that, even if you were making the PCs fill a golf bag, most of it (minus the odd +1 axiomatic silver flail they picked up in-dungeon) could still be the same basic weapons type in which they were specialized. I think that's a big thing with 3e -- playing a martial was already enough of a challenge, and the best options were to generally to find a specialized build like 2H-weapon charger, 2-weapon fighting finesse crit-fisher, spiked chain trip-spammer, archer, etc. That really incentivized focus on, if not a specific weapon (excepting the spike chain builds), at least a narrow type (two-handers, dual-weildables, finessable, etc.).
> 
> I think the games/era where this worked best was 1e (pre UA, and with the apparent common pre-UA situation of the group ignoring weapon proficiencies), and BX/BECMI (pre- or without- BECMI Master Set weapon mastery rules). There was little in the way of PC builds, you weren't going to be str- or dex-focused (all fighters want as good as they can in both), you could switch from weapon-and-shield to bow to 2h melee as a strategy as you found cool weapons of said types, and you didn't have to wait 1-4 levels for a new proficiency when you did find a nice one. There also wasn't (much of any language encouraging the assumption of) magic marts, so you made do with what you found. Beyond that, there were several enemies where having B, P, or S weapon type mattered even without caring about enemy armor type -- skeletons where an arrow did 1 pt., oozes which would just split in half to a sword cut, etc.
> 
> 5e (or a homebrew mod to it, where one adds back in extreme piercing resilience to skeletons, etc.) has some ability to capitalize on the same ideas. Less magic mart language. Sure there are 'builds,' but with the exception of Crossbow Expert and Polearm Master*, you don't really make weapon-specific builds. You do make attribute-specific ones, though, and fighting styles put you in the same 'narrow type' situation as 3e can. Also, like in all the WotC-era versions**, trying to change martial behavior by making them less effective in certain situations can have the potential effect of just encouraging people to play casters.
> *which, maybe not getting to use the best new magic weapon is part of the opportunity cost for these rather powerful feats
> **TSR era, even if the balance was imperfect, you still needed both fighters and MUs in the party
> 
> In general, though, I think you are right. 5e is well suited for this kind of modification, and it does address a real issue I've noticed where there isn't any treasure I want to give out (as in, won't destabilize the game) that the PCs will actually look forward to getting.
> 
> or +0 flaming slingstones (ammunition is great as a treasure find, and slingstones means you aren't just using them with the +3 bow).



Minor quibble...  Spells didn't interact with damage reduction but they absolutely did get impacted by spell resistance for sr yes spells (mostly big nukes and top shelf save or lose stuff)  and resist x.   Scorching ray might be 3x(or more) 2d6 fire rays but resist fire 2/3/5or more was going to nullifymuch if not most  of each Ray & make almost any other spell a better choice & the fact that it was a sr yes spell meant that sr having monsters required the caster to beat their SR with a spell craft check before they even got to see if a ray could hit.


----------



## James Gasik

tetrasodium said:


> Minor quibble...  Spells didn't interact with damage reduction but they absolutely did get impacted by spell resistance for sr yes spells (mostly big nukes and top shelf save or lose stuff)  and resist x.   Scorching ray might be 3x(or more) 2d6 fire rays but resist fire 2/3/5or more was going to nullifymuch if not most  of each Ray & make almost any other spell a better choice & the fact that it was a sr yes spell meant that sr having monsters required the caster to beat their SR with a spell craft check before they even got to see if a ray could hit.



Yeah even when you thought spells would, like when Ice Storm did physical damage and cold damage.


----------



## NotAYakk

The core of the idea is "nothing makes you keep your head down like being attacked".  Ie, if you aren't attacking something, they are far far far more deadly.

Now, when you are way more competent than your foes, you don't want all of them to be equally threatening; rather, some pseudo random subset should be threatening, and attacking them should disrupt the threat.

Here is a stab at it:

*Threat*: If you hit a creature with an attack on your turn, you have Threat on them.

If you have Threat on a creature and take damage, you lose your Threat.

If you have Threat on a creature at the beginning on your turn, your attacks on the creature you have Threat on have advantage, and become critical hits if they hit.

---

This should discourage focus fire.  Any monster who hits a PC needs to be attacked back to clear the Threat.

The same is true of team monster (tm) -- any PC that hits a BBEG needs to be tapped in order to clear *their* Threat on the BBEG.

High-AC, and hit+cover+attack tactics become useful offensively.  AOE effects that tap everyone for damage are also very useful.


----------



## Willie the Duck

tetrasodium said:


> Minor quibble...  Spells didn't interact with damage reduction but they absolutely did get impacted by spell resistance for sr yes spells (mostly big nukes and top shelf save or lose stuff)  and resist x.   Scorching ray might be 3x(or more) 2d6 fire rays but resist fire 2/3/5or more was going to nullifymuch if not most  of each Ray & make almost any other spell a better choice & the fact that it was a sr yes spell meant that sr having monsters required the caster to beat their SR with a spell craft check before they even got to see if a ray could hit.



Well, yes (is it a quibble if I never said otherwise?). Spells (absolutely) could be resisted by SR*, and creatures could have resistance to the damage types of the spells**. Those might be contravening/counteracting influences pushing the incentivization math back towards martials (or just towards spells which don't trigger SR or elemental resistance). Much like the sure-striking weapon, I found SR to be a situation where they set up a structure, but then immediately provided a loophole. There were feats, PrCs, spells, and magic items which all helped punch through SR, and it was a big enough threat (especially at high levels, when you might be facing lots of outsiders) that most casters seemed to take them, where possible. This is what I mean about the specifics of the system effecting trying to incentivize certain gameplay types, and how it is a challenging balancing act. I can certainly envision a version of 3e without the options which let people circumvent weapon-type DR, and without ways to punch through SR. And maybe that's what you want for 5e.
*minus, for whatever reason, conjuration spells which I guess summoned non-magical fire, acid, etc.
**which weapons might also include, as add-ons.



NotAYakk said:


> The core of the idea is "nothing makes you keep your head down like being attacked".  Ie, if you aren't attacking something, they are far far far more deadly.



Suppression fire (or the low-tech equivalent, archers waiting until you stick your head up to shoot you) are another system I haven't seen done well in most RPGs. Usually, it is just better for the firer to shoot at someone with a penalty than wait for them to jump up and give them a clearer shot. With D&D it also runs into that on the suppressed person's side, a single shot isn't going to deter them from getting up and rushing the firer, since they are likely to survive it and it is better to eliminate the threat than wait for an opening which might not come or try to slowly inch around looking to flank or something.


----------



## James Gasik

Willie the Duck said:


> Well, yes (is it a quibble if I never said otherwise?). Spells (absolutely) could be resisted by SR*, and creatures could have DR to the damage types of the spells**. Those might be contravening/counteracting influences pushing the incentivization math back towards martials (or just towards spells which don't trigger SR or elemental DR). Much like the sure-striking weapon, I found SR to be a situation where they set up a structure, but then immediately provided a loophole. There were feats, PrCs, spells, and magic items which all helped punch through SR, and it was a big enough threat (especially at high levels, when you might be facing lots of outsiders) that most casters seemed to take them, where possible. This is what I mean about the specifics of the system effecting trying to incentivize certain gameplay types, and how it is a challenging balancing act. I can certainly envision a version of 3e without the options which let people circumvent weapon-type DR, and without ways to punch through SR. And maybe that's what you want for 5e.
> *minus, for whatever reason, conjuration spells which I guess summoned non-magical fire, acid, etc.
> **which weapons might also include, as add-ons.
> 
> 
> Suppression fire (or the low-tech equivalent, archers waiting until you stick your head up to shoot you) are another system I haven't seen done well in most RPGs. Usually, it is just better for the firer to shoot at someone with a penalty than wait for them to jump up and give them a clearer shot. With D&D it also runs into that on the suppressed person's side, a single shot isn't going to deter them from getting up and rushing the firer, since they are likely to survive it and it is better to eliminate the threat than wait for an opening which might not come or try to slowly inch around looking to flank or something.



I think you mean resistance.  Damage Reduction doesn't work against spells, even if it deals non-elemental damage.

Damage Reduction​A creature with this special quality ignores damage from most weapons and natural attacks. Wounds heal immediately, or the weapon bounces off harmlessly (in either case, the opponent knows the attack was ineffective). The creature takes normal damage from energy attacks (even nonmagical ones), spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities. A certain kind of weapon can sometimes damage the creature normally, as noted below.


----------



## Willie the Duck

James Gasik said:


> I think you mean resistance.  Damage Reduction doesn't work against spells, even if it deals non-elemental damage.



Right. Got my terminology wrong. edited.


----------



## Stormonu

Focus fire isnot just limited to D&D either.  A lot of games use a framework of ”the enemy is fine until they’re suddenly not”, and it’s usually a factor of the most efficient means of limiting an enemy is to take out their wound points.

But the game would be a lot more complicated with tracking the sort of conditions that would make spreading attacks around the better call - things like suppression, pain, staggered or even death spirals.  Mostly because they could be applied to the PCs, and there’s generally more of the enemy than the PCs to inflict those conditions.


----------



## tetrasodium

Willie the Duck said:


> Well, yes (is it a quibble if I never said otherwise?).



It's a quibble over " or found a method of attack which didn't interact with this system at all (spell damage, for instance)".  There were vanishingly few spells that dealt B/P/S so resistance is what would hit them & SR piled on for other reasons



Willie the Duck said:


> Spells (absolutely) could be resisted by SR*, and creatures could have resistance to the damage types of the spells**. Those might be contravening/counteracting influences pushing the incentivization math back towards martials (or just towards spells which don't trigger SR or elemental resistance). Much like the sure-striking weapon, I found SR to be a situation where they set up a structure, but then immediately provided a loophole. There were feats, PrCs, spells, and magic items which all helped punch through SR, and it was a big enough threat (especially at high levels, when you might be facing lots of outsiders) that most casters seemed to take them, where possible. This is what I mean about the specifics of the system effecting trying to incentivize certain gameplay types, and how it is a challenging balancing act. I can certainly envision a version of 3e without the options which let people circumvent weapon-type DR, and without ways to punch through SR. And maybe that's what you want for 5e.
> *minus, for whatever reason, conjuration spells which I guess summoned non-magical fire, acid, etc.
> **which weapons might also include, as add-ons.



You are expecting SR to do too many things, it was one tool among many just as spell penetration was. Flat resistance stomped death by a thousand cuts spells like scorching ray & various DoT spells that might not have much cost to a spellcaster without stomping their limited big guns like 5e's resistance. SR forced casters to build differently in spell/feat/prc choices for blasters  & controllers or buff/debuff types rather than being able to do all of them by swapping spells like 5e.  A pc who doesn't expect to make blasting evocation spells where you find the big damage their bread & butter is going to make choices that help them in other ways & vice versa. Yes conjuration spells were usually sr:no, but they were also usually lower in damage than equivalent level SR:yes evocation spells and/or came with other drawbacks


----------



## James Gasik

tetrasodium said:


> It's a quibble over " or found a method of attack which didn't interact with this system at all (spell damage, for instance)".  There were vanishingly few spells that dealt B/P/S so resistance is what would hit them & SR piled on for other reasons
> 
> 
> You are expecting SR to do too many things, it was one tool among many just as spell penetration was. Flat resistance stomped death by a thousand cuts spells like scorching ray & various DoT spells that might not have much cost to a spellcaster without stomping their limited big guns like 5e's resistance. SR forced casters to build differently in spell/feat/prc choices for blasters  & controllers or buff/debuff types rather than being able to do all of them by swapping spells like 5e.  A pc who doesn't expect to make blasting evocation spells where you find the big damage their bread & butter is going to make choices that help them in other ways & vice versa. Yes conjuration spells were usually sr:no, but they were also usually lower in damage than equivalent level SR:yes evocation spells and/or came with other drawbacks



Except maybe in later 3.5 when they decided Conjuration was awesome and Evocation was for losers, with Orb spells and the like...


----------



## bloodtide

This has a lot to do with the set up and how the DM makes and runs encounters.  If you make an easy target for the players to focus fire on....then that is what they will do.  

In action movies the group of heroes splits up to fight the group of villains that oppose them.  OR the heroes split up to each take on enemies (tailor) made for them.  An perfect example: The Avengers movie.  Thor and Hulk go after the space worm dragon things, Iron Man zooms around with the battle skiffs, Hawkeye takes out targets of opputrunity at a distance, and Cap and Black Widow are on the ground, hand to hand fighting.  You might notice the clever writer gave each character enemies made just for them.....


When making an encounter, it's easy to make two or more main foes.  Even with two foes, the players would be a bit foolish to attack only one and leave themselves open to the other.  Also, you might want to add foes of different types...made for each character.  Large masses of foes work too.  

Lots of monsters have abilities that can be useful.  A flock of preytons, for example, are silly to ignore to 'focus fire' on the naga.


----------



## Micah Sweet

bloodtide said:


> This has a lot to do with the set up and how the DM makes and runs encounters.  If you make an easy target for the players to focus fire on....then that is what they will do.
> 
> In action movies the group of heroes splits up to fight the group of villains that oppose them.  OR the heroes split up to each take on enemies (tailor) made for them.  An perfect example: The Avengers movie.  Thor and Hulk go after the space worm dragon things, Iron Man zooms around with the battle skiffs, Hawkeye takes out targets of opputrunity at a distance, and Cap and Black Widow are on the ground, hand to hand fighting.  You might notice the clever writer gave each character enemies made just for them.....
> 
> 
> When making an encounter, it's easy to make two or more main foes.  Even with two foes, the players would be a bit foolish to attack only one and leave themselves open to the other.  Also, you might want to add foes of different types...made for each character.  Large masses of foes work too.
> 
> Lots of monsters have abilities that can be useful.  A flock of preytons, for example, are silly to ignore to 'focus fire' on the naga.



It should also be noted that, in the Avengers movie, civilians were in danger from all those things.  Heroes generally choose to do something about that, even if they have to attack separate targets.


----------



## dave2008

Nevermind. My question was already asked and responded too.


----------



## dave2008

Stalker0 said:


> I feel like when we talk 5.5 or 6e, this is an area that would be great to tackle. Mechanically, how do you incentive players not to all just pound the same monster with damage until its dead? How do you encourage them to spread out their attacks?



I do not want a mechanic to specifically deal with this issue as it seems to contrived to me.  However, some rules changes that have broader applications might work:

 I would like to see reduced HP and possibly a wound/vitality system.  The reason PCs can focus fire on one baddie is they don't really fear the attacks of the other baddies.  With less HP (and/or a vitality system) the PCs are less likely to ignore other baddies.  
Add the "Distracted" condition: There could be a bonus to hit or damage "distracted" creatures and perhaps a PC is considered "distracted" if it is focusing on one target. So if the PCs focus one target they are considered "distracted" and all other creatures get advantage or bonus damage or something.


----------



## Horwath

Willie the Duck said:


> or +0 flaming slingstones (ammunition is great as a treasure find, and slingstones means you aren't just using them with the +3 bow).


----------



## Ruin Explorer

dave2008 said:


> I would like to see reduced HP and possibly a wound/vitality system. The reason PCs can focus fire on one baddie is they don't really fear the attacks of the other baddies. With less HP (and/or a vitality system) the PCs are less likely to ignore other baddies.



I think it's more like reduced HP _for the monsters_ is what's needed.

The PCs dying more easily won't fix the problem, in fact it'll exacerbate it. The PCs can't actually significantly reduce the damage they're taking by "not ignoring" other baddies, can they? There's no mechanic which supports that in 5E (as I've illustrated, there were a number in 3E).

5E's problem is that monsters are giant bags of HP. Even relatively minor monsters have enough HP that they typically take multiple attacks to take down. And whilst they're alive, they're doing damage, inflicting conditions, buffing each other, and so on. If the PCs have less HP and take injuries, it becomes even more important to kill monsters ASAP.

So either way in 5E the only rational strategy is to drop them as fast as possible. If more monsters could get "one-shot" or just generally killed by a single PC in a single round, picking different targets and/or spreading out would make a lot more sense.


----------



## dave2008

Ruin Explorer said:


> I think it's more like reduced HP _for the monsters_ is what's needed.
> 
> The PCs dying more easily won't fix the problem, in fact it'll exacerbate it. The PCs can't actually significantly reduce the damage they're taking by "not ignoring" other baddies, can they? There's no mechanic which supports that in 5E (as I've illustrated, there were a number in 3E).
> 
> 5E's problem is that monsters are giant bags of HP. Even relatively minor monsters have enough HP that they typically take multiple attacks to take down. And whilst they're alive, they're doing damage, inflicting conditions, buffing each other, and so on. If the PCs have less HP and take injuries, it becomes even more important to kill monsters ASAP.
> 
> So either way in 5E the only rational strategy is to drop them as fast as possible. If more monsters could get "one-shot" or just generally killed by a single PC in a single round, picking different targets and/or spreading out would make a lot more sense.



It is both IMO.

FYI, when I was talking about HP &  vitality/wounds I did mean for both monsters and PCs.

Though I disagree that 5e monsters are just bags of HP.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

dave2008 said:


> It is both IMO.
> 
> FYI, when I was talking about HP &  vitality/wounds I did mean for both monsters and PCs.
> 
> Though I disagree that monsters are just bags of HP.



If you make PCs easier to kill, then they have to focus on survival more.

Without other rules changes, that means sticking with focus fire as the best tactic, because it's factually the best tactic for survival.

The issue you're not addressing is that there's no real mechanical upside to spreading out/engaging multiple targets in 5E. In 3E, there was, with stuff like firing into melee, AoOs from people trying to cast or make ranged attacks whilst in melee, and so on. So if you just reduce HP for PCs and monsters, it still makes sense to focus fire, as the situation remains essentially the same.

The other issue is that CC spells are generally less effective in 5E, so you can rarely rely on those to temporarily stop enemies. AoEs are much less likely to actually kill enemies, too, in 5E as compared to 3E.


----------



## dave2008

Ruin Explorer said:


> If you make PCs easier to kill, then they have to focus on survival more.
> 
> Without other rules changes, that means sticking with focus fire as the best tactic, because it's factually the best tactic for survival.



To be clear, in my original response, I said I was not in favor of rules that target focus fire. I was suggesting general rules that I would like to see, that may affect focus fire too.


Ruin Explorer said:


> The issue you're not addressing is that there's no real mechanical upside to spreading out/engaging multiple targets in 5E.



Again that was never my goal.  I was not making a suggestion to specifically address focus fire.


Ruin Explorer said:


> In 3E, there was, with stuff like firing into melee, AoOs from people trying to cast or make ranged attacks whilst in melee, and so on.



And I could be fine with those.  In fact, we already use AoO for casting and ranged attacks in melee (but for fighters only). But again, it wasn't to address focus fire. We don't have many spellcasters or ranged attackers so I don't tend to think of those first. My group prefers melee focused martial characters.


Ruin Explorer said:


> So if you just reduce HP for PCs and monsters, it still makes sense to focus fire, as the situation remains essentially the same.



Not completely. If damage is not reduced then the game becomes more deadly. Damage wasted on focus fire becomes a liability that could have been used to take down another foe. Therefor you are not maximizing reducing damage if you focus fire (and making it more likely you will die).  This is less of an issue when you have lots have HP. It is more of an issue when you have a lot less.


Ruin Explorer said:


> The other issue is that CC spells are generally less effective in 5E, so you can rarely rely on those to temporarily stop enemies.



I don't know what you mean by CC spells.


Ruin Explorer said:


> AoEs are much less likely to actually kill enemies, too, in 5E as compared to 3E.



Doesn't that change if monsters and PCs have less HP relative to the damage of the spells? I am only talking about reducing HP, not damage.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

dave2008 said:


> Not completely. If damage is not reduced then the game becomes much more deadly. Damage wasted on focus fire becomes a liability that could have been used to take down another foe. Therefor you are not maximizing reducing damage if you focus fire. This is less of an issue when you have lots have HP. It is more of an issue when you have a lot less.



Disagree.

People aren't morons. Once an monster is dead they stop attacking it, and they plan ahead for what they'll do next. Little more damage is "wasted to focus fire" in your scenario than the normal scenario - and leaving a monster alive on 3hp because you don't want to "waste damage" is _often_ outright stupid, tactically brain-dead (depending on initiative order - if another low-damage high-reliability character will get it before it gets another turn, sure, otherwise no, kill it!), because in D&D (unlike many RPGs), a monster on 3hp is operating at 100% capacity (in a few cases, more than 100% even!) re: damage and abilities.

As soon as a monster drops though, the focus-fire moves to the next target. That doesn't change.


dave2008 said:


> Doesn't that change if monsters and PCs have less HP relative to the damage of the spells? I am only talking about reducing HP, not damage.



It'd have to drastically less, like, what half as many? I mean, an Orc in 3E had 4hp. In 5E he has 15. This sort of HP relationship holds pretty firmly.

But in 3E, Burning Hands (for example) did 1d4 damage per caster level - so on average a level 2 caster casting it would kill an orc. A level 3 or higher pretty much definitely would. Whereas in 5E, Burning hands does 3d6 damage, which sounds like an upgrade until you consider that averages at 11.5 damage. Meaning it's unlikely it_ kills_ any orcs at all (admittedly in 3E, if kills one full-health orc, it kills all the ones who don't save, because of the "roll damage once" thing lol).


dave2008 said:


> I don't know what you mean by CC spells.



Crowd control - it's a fairly ancient MMORPG term - spells like sleep, colour-spray, entangle, etc. - any spell which primarily incapacitates or slows down enemies rather than primarily damaging them.


----------



## Willie the Duck

Horwath said:


>



Can't watch at work, but I assume that it's someone shooting a slingstone out of a bow. As always, take it up with your DM (they're the one handing out the bow and ammo in the first place).


----------



## dave2008

Ruin Explorer said:


> Disagree.
> 
> People aren't morons. Once an monster is dead they stop attacking it, and they plan ahead for what they'll do next. Little more damage is "wasted to focus fire" in your scenario than the normal scenario - and leaving a monster alive on 3hp because you don't want to "waste damage" is _often_ outright stupid, tactically brain-dead (depending on initiative order - if another low-damage high-reliability character will get it before it gets another turn, sure, otherwise no, kill it!), because in D&D (unlike many RPGs), a monster on 3hp is operating at 100% capacity (in a few cases, more than 100% even!) re: damage and abilities.
> 
> As soon as a monster drops though, the focus-fire moves to the next target. That doesn't change.



That is not how we play. You declare your action and if your target "dies" before your action, your action still target's that creature. That is the only way that makes sense to us from a simultaneous actions standpoint. We have played that way since 1e. Now we have adopted the rule that you can use your reaction to change your target. So in theory that is an option, but I don't actually narrate the death until the end of the round, so the PCs are not usually 100% sure who took it down if they focus fire.


Ruin Explorer said:


> It'd have to drastically less, like, what half as many? I mean, an Orc in 3E had 4hp. In 5E he has 15. This sort of HP relationship holds pretty firmly.



I don't have a set rule yet. Thinking about it for my next campaign.  However, it is contingent on our BHP (vitality/wounds) houserule that it is not really applicable to general play.  However, yes I was thinking about 1/2 the current HP, but weighted more to lower levels so you get less HP after level 10 or so.


Ruin Explorer said:


> But in 3E, Burning Hands (for example) did 1d4 damage per caster level - so on average a level 2 caster casting it would kill an orc. A level 3 or higher pretty much definitely would. Whereas in 5E, Burning hands does 3d6 damage, which sounds like an upgrade until you consider that averages at 11.5 damage. Meaning it's unlikely it_ kills_ any orcs at all (admittedly in 3E, if kills one full-health orc, it kills all the ones who don't save, because of the "roll damage once" thing lol).



And if you reduce the orcs hp by 1/3 (to 9 HP) then burning hands kills the orc.  Seems to work like 3e then.  Not sure if that really matters much in this overall discussion  though.


Ruin Explorer said:


> Crowd control - it's a fairly ancient MMORPG term - spells like sleep, colour-spray, entangle, etc. - any spell which primarily incapacitates or slows down enemies rather than primarily damaging them.



OK (I've never played a MMORPG and I haven't played any video games in years*).  Well sleep (and power words) would be more effective!

*This got me thinking about how long has it been.  IIRC the last video game I played was Tekken or Resident Evil sometime around 2002 (+/-). So around 20 years - yikes!


----------



## GMMichael

Stalker0 said:


> Mechanically, how do you incentive players not to all just pound the same monster with damage until its dead? How do you encourage them to spread out their attacks?



Active defense.  Solved.


----------



## dave2008

GMMichael said:


> Active defense.  Solved.



How do you think this solves the problem?


----------



## GMMichael

PCs will be less likely to ignore opponents (to focus on one) if it means the PCs can't defend against those opponents.  D&D assumes that no matter what you're doing, you can always defend (passive defense).


----------



## glass

dave2008 said:


> That is not how we play. You declare your action and if your target "dies" before your action, your action still target's that creature. That is the only way that makes sense to us from a simultaneous actions standpoint. We have played that way since 1e.



It was the way the rules actually worked in 1e (AIUI - certainly in 2e). It is very much not how the rules work in any WotC edition - and if you have a houserule that completely upends the entire initiative and action declaration system, that makes your observations rather inapplicable to anyone else's table.

_
glass.


----------



## dave2008

GMMichael said:


> PCs will be less likely to ignore opponents (to focus on one) if it means the PCs can't defend against those opponents.  D&D assumes that no matter what you're doing, you can always defend (passive defense).



So what are you proposing then? I don't understand.  To my mind, whether a defense is active or passive doesn't matter (if the numbers are the same).


----------



## dave2008

glass said:


> It was the way the rules actually worked in 1e (AIUI - certainly in 2e). It is very much not how the rules work in any WotC edition - and if you have a houserule that completely upends the entire initiative and action declaration system, that makes your observations rather inapplicable to anyone else's table.
> 
> _
> glass.



How does it work now then?  That is just how we have always played D&D (including 5e). I don't actually ever remember reading a rule about it, we just play that way.  However, even if it is a "houserule" it is still applicable. This is a thread about rule changes after all!


----------



## glass

dave2008 said:


> How does it work now then?



You roll initiative at the start. When your turn comes up, you take your action(s), choosing any particulars there and then. The details of what action you get (and your options for messing with the initiative order) vary a bit from edition to edition, but that much has been consistent for the last 22 years.

So you've got one for the pile next time one of those "accidental houserule" threads rolls around. EDIT: Or this one.

_
glass.


----------



## dave2008

glass said:


> You roll initiative at the start. When your turn comes up, you take your action(s), choosing any particulars there and then. The details of what action you get (and your options for messing with the initiative order) vary a bit from edition to edition, but that much has been consistent for the last 22 years.
> 
> So you've got one for the pile next time one of those "accidental houserule" threads rolls around.
> 
> _
> glass.



I just started to look into it, but I don't see how what we are doing is a houserule.  Here is the combat order in the PHB:






It doesn't say anything about how I (DM) narrate their actions or how we adjudicated the simultaneous combat that happens each round. I feel like what we are doing is within the RAW of this sequence of events. This is further supported by the "How to Play" section.





I (DM) narrate the results of the actions.  That is how we did it in the 80's and how we do it now.  How is what we are doing different from what you describe or what is in the rules? Should I be looking somewhere else in the PHB or DMG?

EDIT: I understand your issue now. It is the action declaration on turn instead of that beginning of the round.  I will point out though that really doesn't change anything if I only narrate the action after everyone has taken their turn! I mean we only really strict about initial action declaration at the start of combat. After that it is pretty chaotic. And how I narrate the action, at the end of the round is still by RAW as far as I can tell.


----------



## Mistwell

Ruin Explorer said:


> *LOL!*
> 
> This is like some guy who is eating Pringles with non-refrigerated spray-cheese on them walking up to me and telling me my burger is "processed food" and I shouldn't be eating it! *Truly incredible*.
> 
> Focus firing is 100% "artificial". It's absolutely Pringles + spray cheese. *Sheesh *it might even be Twinkie-level "artificial". *Getting upset* about rules that discourage it "feeling artificial" is just* extremely extremely funny*. *All you're doing is saying "I'm totally used to this entirely artificial scenario, but this new thing is new and I'm not used to it, so I'm going to call it artificial!".*
> 
> I mean, don't get me wrong, *I'm not saying you're out of bounds, it's just really funny.*



6 people have agreed with my view on this so far. Demonstrating, in the least, my view was not extreme or out of line with common views.

You say I am "getting upset" about it. I wasn't. All I said was I'd find it artificial. That's not a description which should lead you to conclude I am upset.

I am however raising my eyebrow over your over the top antics regarding my view, which I bolded in the quote, complete with the "all you're doing is saying" and then putting words in my mouth which do not match my view along with false quotes. 

If my saying a proposed rules change would seem artificial to me makes you laugh out loud and have this level of reaction which, in your words, you found "extremely extremely funny," because apparently one "extremely" was insufficient, I'd suggest it might be you having the overly emotional ("upset") reaction here, not me. Maybe see a comedy show, if you're that easily triggered to go for double-extreme funny over a simple rules view that is contrary to your own?

If this doesn't strike you as artificial, that's fine. But maybe tone down the other stuff? It's neither informative or persuasive, but strikes me as rude and intentionally inflammatory.


----------



## Jer

bloodtide said:


> This has a lot to do with the set up and how the DM makes and runs encounters.  If you make an easy target for the players to focus fire on....then that is what they will do.
> ...
> When making an encounter, it's easy to make two or more main foes.  Even with two foes, the players would be a bit foolish to attack only one and leave themselves open to the other.  Also, you might want to add foes of different types...made for each character.  Large masses of foes work too.



I agree with this - in fact I haven't seen "focus fire" as a problem at all in 5e with any of the groups I play with.  Mostly because all I've needed to do is threaten the characters who are focusing fire by getting a melee threat right next to them that they can't really ignore.  And I haven't had a problem doing that in 5e combats - threatening the wizard with a guy with a pointy stick is a good way to get him to stop beating on the guy the fighter has engaged and start getting him screaming for help IME.

I guess focus fire is a problem when there are only a couple of bad guys on the table, but even then if they're focusing their attacks on one guy the other guy is able to move in and mess them up nicely and start drawing at least some of their attacks to him.

 Do I not see this because I tend to favor melee threats over ranged threats in my encounter design?  Or is this more because my players are likely not playing tactically optimally and there's some strategy they should be using to foil the "melee guys maneuver in to threaten as many of the party as they can get to" tactic?


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Mistwell said:


> 6 people have agreed with my view on this so far.



Bro, if we're going to play THAT game, I got bunches of posts on here where like 15+ people agreed with me. Doesn't mean I'm right! Just that my ideas are popular with certain people. It's not a democracy (for better or worse). Sheesh on reddit I was once completely factually wrong about something (I only found this out about a month later) and had like 600 upvotes (net). People are like that.



Mistwell said:


> If my saying a proposed rules change would seem artificial to me makes you laugh out loud and have this level of reaction which, in your words, you found "extremely extremely funny," because apparently one "extremely" was insufficient, I'd suggest it might be you having the overly emotional ("upset") reaction here, not me. Maybe see a comedy show, if you're that easily triggered to go for double-extreme funny over a simple rules view that is contrary to your own?
> 
> If this doesn't strike you as artificial, that's fine. But maybe tone down the other stuff? It's neither informative or persuasive, but strikes me as rude and intentionally inflammatory.



I feel like all you're doing here is proving my point and engaging in very obviously hypocritical behaviour. You're can't attack someone for laughing at you on the grounds that it's "neither informative nor persuasive", then make sneering humorous comments at them, especially using dog-whistles like "triggered" lol.


----------



## Mistwell

Ruin Explorer said:


> Bro, if we're going to play THAT game, I got bunches of posts on here where like 15+ people agreed with me. Doesn't mean I'm right!




Nope. That is not a paragraph you quoted. The entire quote was relevant and answers what you are responding with, showing that was an intentional misrepresentation on your part when you cut the second sentence and then re-characterized it claiming I was trying to prove my opinion was "right." You knew I was not saying that to claim I was "right," but just to say, "it was not extreme or out of line with common views." Knock it of RE. Please stop being intentionally inflammatory over my just saying in my opinion I'd find a rule change to feel artificial.


----------



## Umbran

Ruin Explorer said:


> LOL!
> ...
> 
> I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you're out of bounds, it's just really funny.




This is a ways back in the thread, but bears mentioning.

The level of disrespect you are showing for someone's honest and politely stated feelings on the matter is, unfortunately, not a goodness.  You are actively making the discussion unpleasant for folks.

You seem to have fallen in to the idea that things you don't agree with can be mocked, if you feel your reason is good enough.  Please allow me to disabuse you of that notion.  This behavior creates arguments, so please don't do this.


----------



## Umbran

Mistwell said:


> 6 people have agreed with my view on this so far.




It isn't a contest.


----------



## glass

dave2008 said:


> It doesn't say anything about how I (DM) narrate their actions or how we adjudicated the simultaneous combat that happens each round. I feel like what we are doing is within the RAW of this sequence of events. This is further supported by the "How to Play" section.



See that list of steps you quoted; notice how "declare actions" is not one of the steps?

_
glass.


----------



## dave2008

glass said:


> See that list of steps you quoted; notice how "declare actions" is not one of the steps?
> 
> _
> glass.



Yes, did you read my full comment? I said the following, at the end, when I realized what you stated above and then also pointed out that it does not make a big difference in my argument:


dave2008 said:


> EDIT: I understand your issue now. It is the action declaration on turn instead of that beginning of the round.  I will point out though that really doesn't change anything if I only narrate the action after everyone has taken their turn! I mean we only really strict about initial action declaration at the start of combat. After that it is pretty chaotic. And how I narrate the action, at the end of the round is still by RAW as far as I can tell.


----------



## clearstream

Stalker0 said:


> If you watch any Superhero or fantasy movie nowadays, there's a consistent trend. In most fights, the second the combat starts....the heroes go their own ways. Legolas isn't back to back with Aragon and Gimli, they are off killing their own monsters. When the Justice League (both in movies and the cartoons) goes to take on the badguys, most of the time the heroes all split up into 1 on 1 type fights. Only when they are facing the "big boss" they all start attacking the same creature as a single unit. If we go more modern, Harry Potter often had the wizards split up into 2 on 2s or 1 on 1s, rather than have 1 pile of wizards go after the other.
> 
> Dnd players....do not work that way. They learn very quickly that the best way to be efficient in combat is to focus fire. Everyone pounds on one creature, then the next, then the next. Now while there are always exceptions to this, I have consistently seen this behavior time and time and time again among both my own players and other groups I've watched. Its just smart tactics....but it has a pretty strong narrative disconnect to a lot of the fantasy dnd tries to model.
> 
> While a DM can force this behavior through various narrative setups, the incentive is always working against him. Players are going to focus fire whenever they can, because its simply the best way to play.
> 
> I feel like when we talk 5.5 or 6e, this is an area that would be great to tackle. Mechanically, how do you incentive players not to all just pound the same monster with damage until its dead? How do you encourage them to spread out their attacks?



The FASA tactics game Battletech showed one way to do. Essentially, you create a category of crits that have a non-cumulative but reasonably decisive effect. That encourages strategies that land hits on many different foes. For example, a crit that does reasonable damage and prevents a foe attacking for a round. Once a foe isn't attacking for a round, landing another hit on them won't add to that.

You can see how that helps overcome longstanding principle of wargaming (to reduce the number of incoming attacks as quickly as possible through focus fire on highest-damage-dealing foe first.)


----------



## clearstream

Jer said:


> I agree with this - in fact I haven't seen "focus fire" as a problem at all in 5e with any of the groups I play with.  Mostly because all I've needed to do is threaten the characters who are focusing fire by getting a melee threat right next to them that they can't really ignore.  And I haven't had a problem doing that in 5e combats - threatening the wizard with a guy with a pointy stick is a good way to get him to stop beating on the guy the fighter has engaged and start getting him screaming for help IME.



That works well. I find that combining foes that have different capabilities and choose inconvenient targets can bring players to need to split their attention - just as you say.


----------



## GMMichael

dave2008 said:


> So what are you proposing then? I don't understand.  To my mind, whether a defense is active or passive doesn't matter (if the numbers are the same).



I was hoping two words would be enough...  

Proposing a minor (ha) rules change: characters get no armor class or saving throw bonuses unless they use an action or reaction to activate them against one attack.  Using the Dodge action activates all defense bonuses for the full round (no advantage).

See if PCs still focus fire after that.  All enemies not under focus fire are free to do their own focus fire against lowered PC defenses.


----------



## dave2008

GMMichael said:


> I was hoping two words would be enough...
> 
> Proposing a minor (ha) rules change: characters get no armor class or saving throw bonuses unless they use an action or reaction to activate them against one attack.  Using the Dodge action activates all defense bonuses for the full round (no advantage).
> 
> See if PCs still focus fire after that.  All enemies not under focus fire are free to do their own focus fire against lowered PC defenses.



OK, that seems like a major rules change. Also, wouldn't that encourage focus fire as you can only react to one attack, so all other attacks would be much easier to hit?  What am I missing here?


----------



## GMMichael

dave2008 said:


> OK, that seems like a major rules change. Also, wouldn't that encourage focus fire as you can only react to one attack, so all other attacks would be much easier to hit?  What am I missing here?



Mmmmm...major or minor seems subjective in this case.  It would encourage focus fire as long as you don't mind being an easy target.  I don't know that all characters want to fight with their pants down.

It's a more obvious improvement if you just say: attacks automatically succeed if you don't parry.  But, well, passive defense is a secret D&D sacred cow, so I didn't tip it.


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## pemerton

dave2008 said:


> So what are you proposing then? I don't understand.  To my mind, whether a defense is active or passive doesn't matter (if the numbers are the same).



I think the idea is that if you're not actively engaging a foe, then they can cream you because they can allocate all of their "oomph" to attacking rather than needing some of it to defend. Rolemaster would be an example.


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## dave2008

pemerton said:


> I think the idea is that if you're not actively engaging a foe, then they can cream you because they can allocate all of their "oomph" to attacking rather than needing some of it to defend. Rolemaster would be an example.



That clears it up for me - thanks!


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## rmcoen

pemerton said:


> I think the idea is that if you're not actively engaging a foe, then they can cream you because they can allocate all of their "oomph" to attacking rather than needing some of it to defend. Rolemaster would be an example.



"Reroute power to the phasers, Scotty, we don't need the shields!"

This seems like it is easily simulated with the reverse of the Total Defense move from 3e (-4 Attack, +2 AC, IIRC), Total Attack: -4 AC, +2 attack.  If no one is attacking you, why not?


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## rmcoen

IMC, we use "injury effects" in two ways, which (a little bit) encourage spreading some attacks.

First - Wound Levels and Penalties.  I never state HP, and I don't allow the players to do so either.  You can only say "Fine", "Bruised" (lost 25% of MaxHP), "Bloodied" (lost 50% of MaxHP), "Battered" (lost 75% of MaxHP), or "Crippled" (lost 90% of MaxHP).  (0 is "dying", but you can't speak!)  Bloodied inflicts -1 penalty to attacks and skills; each level below that is an additional -1 cumulative - Crippled is thus -3.

Second - which 90% of the time only impacts PCs - any critical hit and/or hit that does 25% of your MaxHP in a single hit causes Lingering Damage.  In combat, each LD is a -1 penalty to magical healing or regeneration.  [More rules than this, but this is enough for this discussion.]

So tossing a _fireball_ into a bunch of mooks to soften them up, followed by a barrage of arrows to knock them all Bloodied makes for good play - all the foes are now -1 to hit you.  Yes, focus-firing the BBEG down to Battered is nice, giving him -2, but it makes sense to weaken the others too while you're doing so.

In play, I have seen the PCs leave off attacking weakened foes because at -2 or -3, they just aren't really a threat anymore; it's more valuable to attack the next enemy.  Also, as DM, most foes think about fleeing at Bloodied, and nearly all run at Battered.

Combined with @pemerton 's idea (and my answer to it) of "Focus Attack: -4 AC, +2 accuracy" as a combat move, the PCs will be _highly_ encouraged to spread out and occupy/eliminate as many foes as possible.  (Makes the "Hordebreaker" ranger ability and that weak d4+0 TWF offhand strike actually really useful, too!)

I _don't_ think allowing "Focus Attack" to the ranged PCs is a great idea, though, and there are probably many other unintended consequences.  I'd probably throw on at least "requires Concentration"; I want to say it doesn't work outside of combat, too, because Snipers are powerful enough as it is, but maybe that's a "feature", not a "bug"!


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## GMMichael

rmcoen said:


> First - Wound Levels and Penalties.  I never state HP, and I don't allow the players to do so either.  You can only say "Fine", "Bruised" (lost 25% of MaxHP), "Bloodied" (lost 50% of MaxHP), "Battered" (lost 75% of MaxHP), or "Crippled" (lost 90% of MaxHP).  (0 is "dying", but you can't speak!)  Bloodied inflicts -1 penalty to attacks and skills; each level below that is an additional -1 cumulative - Crippled is thus -3.



If my hit points are behind the (PC) curtain, it's too easy for me to conveniently forget that I've gone down to the next wound level.  Until I "catch my mistake."  But it's good to see someone using progressive wounding/death trees.


rmcoen said:


> Combined with @pemerton 's idea (and my answer to it) of "Focus Attack: -4 AC, +2 accuracy" as a combat move, the PCs will be _highly_ encouraged to spread out and occupy/eliminate as many foes as possible.  (Makes the "Hordebreaker" ranger ability and that weak d4+0 TWF offhand strike actually really useful, too!)



Pemerton was restating my idea - that PCs will change their behavior if defenses are limited like offenses.  But Total Attack (not one that I remember from 3e) might accomplish the same goal.  Anything to change the PC mindset of "I can focus my attention on one opponent and worry about his three allies later."


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## MGibster

Stalker0 said:


> I feel like when we talk 5.5 or 6e, this is an area that would be great to tackle. Mechanically, how do you incentive players not to all just pound the same monster with damage until its dead? How do you encourage them to spread out their attacks?



One of the problems you're facing is that combat is fairly abstract.  In the real world, if I'm concentrating my efforts on stabbing Baron Zemo through his black, black liver, then one of his underlings will have an easier time flanking me and stabbing me through my righteous gallbladder.  But in D&D, little things like facing, or even the number of opponents attacking you, don't really matter (except when they do because of special circumstances).  And let's face it, hit points are part of the problem.  Combat is designed to be settled by the attrition of hit points and if you spread your attacks around it takes longer to defeat enemies and results in PCs getting attacked more often.  As the rules are written, it just makes more sense to concentrate attacks, except for maybe some situations where your goal is to control movement or other aspects of the board.  

I don't know of a good solutation that wouldn't require a lot of house rules and making combat overly complicated.


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## Micah Sweet

MGibster said:


> One of the problems you're facing is that combat is fairly abstract.  In the real world, if I'm concentrating my efforts on stabbing Baron Zemo through his black, black liver, then one of his underlings will have an easier time flanking me and stabbing me through my righteous gallbladder.  But in D&D, little things like facing, or even the number of opponents attacking you, don't really matter (except when they do because of special circumstances).  And let's face it, hit points are part of the problem.  Combat is designed to be settled by the attrition of hit points and if you spread your attacks around it takes longer to defeat enemies and results in PCs getting attacked more often.  As the rules are written, it just makes more sense to concentrate attacks, except for maybe some situations where your goal is to control movement or other aspects of the board.
> 
> I don't know of a good solutation that wouldn't require a lot of house rules and making combat overly complicated.



Yeah, there are a lot of things D&D just doesn't model very well, that would be better served by playing a different game.  Too bad the current edition of D&D is all the vast majority of gamers want to play.


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## Bill Zebub

I haven't really thought of focus fire as a problem, but just to make things fun you could invent some cool abilities. 

Ideas:
 - Increased AC (or other numbers) per foe within reach
 - When taking damage, resistance to that damage type until start of next turn
 - Shared hit point pool between multiple creatures


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## beancounter

I agree with the idea someone mentioned above, but a slightly different solution. Any monster ignored by the players while they focus fire on one monster, gains advantage on their next attack.


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## James Gasik

Watching some action movies, I noticed today that in a fight with real enemies (not ones that you can one shot like minions), you beat up one guy until they are temporarily rendered unconscious or out of it for a few seconds, then switch to someone standing, giving the first guy time to maybe recover.  So maybe what's needed is a stamina/hit point system.  You can temporarily wind a guy, at which point you could keep beating on him, but it would be more beneficial to switch to someone with more stamina who is still acting.


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## rmcoen

GMMichael said:


> If my hit points are behind the (PC) curtain, it's too easy for me to conveniently forget that I've gone down to the next wound level.  Until I "catch my mistake."  But it's good to see someone using progressive wounding/death trees.
> 
> Pemerton was restating my idea - that PCs will change their behavior if defenses are limited like offenses.  But Total Attack (not one that I remember from 3e) might accomplish the same goal.  Anything to change the PC mindset of "I can focus my attention on one opponent and worry about his three allies later."



So far, thanks to COVID and adulting, we've been exclusively playing 5e on Roll20 (minus one glorious in-person session).  So I mark the figure/icon's damage as they inflict it right in icon, and then add a colored dot as it passes a threshold.  Blue for Bruised, Red for Bloodied, Purple for Battered, and Pink-ish for Crippled.  We do the same for the PC's icons (they are supposed to, but I help/remind them occasionally).  It also serves a nice piece of information to the PCs without me describing every cringe or wince to convey rough injury status.  (There are even some little house rules for concealing or exaggerating your actual injury status that rarely get used.)

Sorry for misallocating the idea credit... I admit I started to skim the pages after Page 3!


----------



## rmcoen

MGibster said:


> One of the problems you're facing is that combat is fairly abstract.  In the real world, if I'm concentrating my efforts on stabbing Baron Zemo through his black, black liver, then one of his underlings will have an easier time flanking me and stabbing me through my righteous gallbladder.  But in D&D, little things like facing, or even the number of opponents attacking you, don't really matter (except when they do because of special circumstances).  And let's face it, hit points are part of the problem.  Combat is designed to be settled by the attrition of hit points and if you spread your attacks around it takes longer to defeat enemies and results in PCs getting attacked more often.  As the rules are written, it just makes more sense to concentrate attacks, except for maybe some situations where your goal is to control movement or other aspects of the board.
> 
> I don't know of a good solutation that wouldn't require a lot of house rules and making combat overly complicated.



So that sounds like the "solution" is "facing".  Bonus to hit the guy in front, flanking from (non-shield, if you have one) side, wide open from rear.

Buuuuut, this line of thought _encourages_ focus-fire.  We have to strike a balance in this idea that encourages PCs to strike/engage multiple foes without accidentally writing a rule of "or else they focus fire you" that just ends us back at "everyone should focus fire".

Unless we cheat and use a "monsters only" rule.  Which I'm against in principle (just like I'm against 6e's "only PCs can crit")... combat should work the same way for everyone.  If 10 goblins against 4 PCs have an advantage... then 4 PCs against on goblin chief have an advantage.  and that advantage is called... focus-fire.  (and flanking, usually)


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## kigmatzomat

Someone said this earlier: players learn the lessons the GM gives them.  "None of them stop hitting us until we kill them. Ergo, we need to kill faster."  So...why do your foes keep fighting until dead? 

Isn't *that* the unrealistic behavior driving all of this?  Why not modify *your* behavior before you modify the rules?

Seriously, have monsters run away.  But do it in an appropriate fashion.  Different kinds of monsters can have different thresholds. 

Dumb undead fight to the final-death. Vampire? Runs when they take 2 solid hits (and plans to harass you for the next week so until you are exhausted to near death. )

Wolves flee if most of the pack is injured (or if a fifth are killed). They may then stalk you for days. One of your horses may die of exhaustion from not getting sleep from the intimidating howling. They will then leave you alone because a horse is good eating.

Goblins?  Any seriously injured goblin (dead if they take another round or two of damage) will flee if given an opportunity. Goblins will flee en masse when their numeric superiority goes down by a full integer (4:1 -> 3:1) without a motivator like a boss goblin.  Maybe they got to a fallback position or just scatter. 

Ta-da! The unrealistic aspect is fixed and players start learning to spread out damage.

Or, you know, you keep going as you are and they learn the lesson you insist on teaching.


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## tetrasodium

kigmatzomat said:


> Someone said this earlier: players learn the lessons the GM gives them.  "None of them stop hitting us until we kill them. Ergo, we need to kill faster."  So...why do your foes keep fighting until dead?
> 
> Isn't *that* the unrealistic behavior driving all of this?  Why not modify *your* behavior before you modify the rules?
> 
> Seriously, have monsters run away.  But do it in an appropriate fashion.  Different kinds of monsters can have different thresholds.
> 
> Dumb undead fight to the final-death. Vampire? Runs when they take 2 solid hits (and plans to harass you for the next week so until you are exhausted to near death. )
> 
> Wolves flee if most of the pack is injured (or if a fifth are killed). They may then stalk you for days. One of your horses may die of exhaustion from not getting sleep from the intimidating howling. They will then leave you alone because a horse is good eating.
> 
> Goblins?  Any seriously injured goblin (dead if they take another round or two of damage) will flee if given an opportunity. Goblins will flee en masse when their numeric superiority goes down by a full integer (4:1 -> 3:1) without a motivator like a boss goblin.  Maybe they got to a fallback position or just scatter.
> 
> Ta-da! The unrealistic aspect is fixed and players start learning to spread out damage.
> 
> Or, you know, you keep going as you are and they learn the lesson you insist on teaching.



The trouble is that wotc borked the math that allowed that to result in anything but a useless waste of time.  PCs are too insulated from risk of attrition(both resource & hp) on top of excessively trivialized recovery & a budget that assumes an extreme 6-8 encounters.  Having monsters get in a couple wacks & run had a big impact in the past, but in 5e that impact is effectively  zero.


----------



## rmcoen

kigmatzomat said:


> Someone said this earlier: players learn the lessons the GM gives them.  "None of them stop hitting us until we kill them. Ergo, we need to kill faster."  So...why do your foes keep fighting until dead?
> 
> Isn't *that* the unrealistic behavior driving all of this?  Why not modify *your* behavior before you modify the rules?
> 
> Seriously, have monsters run away.  But do it in an appropriate fashion.  Different kinds of monsters can have different thresholds.
> 
> Dumb undead fight to the final-death. Vampire? Runs when they take 2 solid hits (and plans to harass you for the next week so until you are exhausted to near death. )
> 
> Wolves flee if most of the pack is injured (or if a fifth are killed). They may then stalk you for days. One of your horses may die of exhaustion from not getting sleep from the intimidating howling. They will then leave you alone because a horse is good eating.
> 
> Goblins?  Any seriously injured goblin (dead if they take another round or two of damage) will flee if given an opportunity. Goblins will flee en masse when their numeric superiority goes down by a full integer (4:1 -> 3:1) without a motivator like a boss goblin.  Maybe they got to a fallback position or just scatter.
> 
> Ta-da! The unrealistic aspect is fixed and players start learning to spread out damage.
> 
> Or, you know, you keep going as you are and they learn the lesson you insist on teaching.



I do have monsters run, but that has been an exceptionally long thread here on EnWorld before too - most players refuse to _let_ foes run, for many reasons.  In my case, most foes think about running at bloodied, based on how the combat overall is going; any "damage" up to that point has been "close calls" and "stamina" and whatever rationalization works at your table for sack-o-hit-points.  At bloodied, per the name, you have taken your first real, impairing body blow.  [our Lingering Damage rule aside] You realize this is a fight that could really kill you or inflict [Story] long-lasting injury.  How are your friends doing? how does the enemy look? Is it time for "the better part of valor", or a "strategic relocation"?  And then, yeah, different creatures have different reactions to that.  90% of my BBEG-type foes actually start running here, for example, because they are very aware that FOCUS FIRE could drop them from "just under half" to "dead" in the next round!


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## kigmatzomat

tetrasodium said:


> The trouble is that wotc borked the math that allowed that to result in anything but a useless waste of time.




Depends. 

From a "train the player to behave different" standpoint, it can have a big impact.

On a random encounter? No, but you don't expect those to be super impactful. They are flavor, to establish the risk in the world (and to let the barbarian roll some dice).

In a larger, planned encounter? It should be part of the overall encounter design. "Goblins running away from the main entrance" should be the trigger for "Trogdor the Oblivious" to see what is going on.   A bandit clan may use the wolf howls to track groups of travelers small enough to risk attacking.

And sometimes, the foes just run away, never to be seen again with no impact on the game.  Other than to train the players that "defeat an encounter" doesn't require "slaughter the encounter".


----------



## tetrasodium

kigmatzomat said:


> Depends.
> 
> From a "train the player to behave different" standpoint, it can have a big impact.
> 
> On a random encounter? No, but you don't expect those to be super impactful. They are flavor, to establish the risk in the world (and to let the barbarian roll some dice).
> 
> In a larger, planned encounter? It should be part of the overall encounter design. "Goblins running away from the main entrance" should be the trigger for "Trogdor the Oblivious" to see what is going on.   A bandit clan may use the wolf howls to track groups of travelers small enough to risk attacking.
> 
> And sometimes, the foes just run away, never to be seen again with no impact on the game.  Other than to train the players that "defeat an encounter" doesn't require "slaughter the encounter".



That's a nice theory but think of the flavor only goes so far.  At some point flavor alone without risk or consequence needs to admit that it relegates the gm to wish fulfillment for a no risk no consequence power fantasy.


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## Micah Sweet

kigmatzomat said:


> Depends.
> 
> From a "train the player to behave different" standpoint, it can have a big impact.
> 
> On a random encounter? No, but you don't expect those to be super impactful. They are flavor, to establish the risk in the world (and to let the barbarian roll some dice).
> 
> In a larger, planned encounter? It should be part of the overall encounter design. "Goblins running away from the main entrance" should be the trigger for "Trogdor the Oblivious" to see what is going on.   A bandit clan may use the wolf howls to track groups of travelers small enough to risk attacking.
> 
> And sometimes, the foes just run away, never to be seen again with no impact on the game.  Other than to train the players that "defeat an encounter" doesn't require "slaughter the encounter".



Random encounters are not just flavor, they're supposed to drain resources.


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## kigmatzomat

Micah Sweet said:


> Random encounters are not just flavor, they're supposed to drain resources.



The poster I was responding to has the thesis that they do not.

I will quote:
"PCs are too insulated from risk of attrition(both resource & hp) on top of excessively trivialized recovery & a budget that assumes an extreme 6-8 encounters."

If you disagree with that thesis, design an encounter that achieves your goals. You want them to use 15% of resources? Set up a "flee" condition that should happen when that's met.   Use 50 wolves. That should panic the PCs into throwing fireballs or other spells. Have the  25 survivng wolves run away.

Do that enough times and they may learn to try intimidation through force. That means they will burn highly visible spells to end fights quicker.


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## James Gasik

I wonder if there would be more incentive to spread out attacks if suppressing fire was a thing.  In real life, if someone is shooting at you, you obviously want to find cover and not retaliate when you might get shot.  In D&D, people don't really care if they take a little hit point damage, and they will rush towards you at first opportunity.

Thus focusing all your fire on one guy to reduce enemy action economy is the best strategy. 

But what if shooting at a guy actually slowed his advance, and made him less effective?  Then maybe spreading out your ranged attacks would be a viable strategy?


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## rmcoen

James Gasik said:


> I wonder if there would be more incentive to spread out attacks if suppressing fire was a thing.  In real life, if someone is shooting at you, you obviously want to find cover and not retaliate when you might get shot.  In D&D, people don't really care if they take a little hit point damage, and they will rush towards you at first opportunity.
> 
> Thus focusing all your fire on one guy to reduce enemy action economy is the best strategy.
> 
> But what if shooting at a guy actually slowed his advance, and made him less effective?  Then maybe spreading out your ranged attacks would be a viable strategy?



Remembering that the PCs are usually outnumbered by the foes, how would you implement this in a way that was _effective_, that didn't also drastically cripple the PCs when a few goblins each are shooting at _them_?


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## MGibster

James Gasik said:


> I wonder if there would be more incentive to spread out attacks if suppressing fire was a thing. In real life, if someone is shooting at you, you obviously want to find cover and not retaliate when you might get shot. In D&D, people don't really care if they take a little hit point damage, and they will rush towards you at first opportunity.



D&D is a heroic fantasy game, and I don't know if hiding from suppresive fire is in line with those aesthetics.  D&D is also a relatively simple game, and I'm not sure adding a lot (more) rules for combat will make the game even more fun for most people.


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## James Gasik

rmcoen said:


> Remembering that the PCs are usually outnumbered by the foes, how would you implement this in a way that was _effective_, that didn't also drastically cripple the PCs when a few goblins each are shooting at _them_?



No clue really, I guess it would be limited to people who can make multiple ranged attacks each turn.  It just occurred to me as being one reason you might not want to focus fire.  Whether or not it'd still be a good enough reason depends on the penalty imposed for not looking for cover or going prone to avoid said fire.


----------



## James Gasik

MGibster said:


> D&D is a heroic fantasy game, and I don't know if hiding from suppresive fire is in line with those aesthetics.  D&D is also a relatively simple game, and I'm not sure adding a lot (more) rules for combat will make the game even more fun for most people.



Maybe not, but it seems like if you don't like focus fire strategies, you're going to have to be very careful with encounter design or add rules to combat to avoid it to begin with, adding to the game's complexity.


----------



## GMMichael

rmcoen said:


> Remembering that the PCs are usually outnumbered by the foes, how would you implement this in a way that was _effective_, that didn't also drastically cripple the PCs when a few goblins each are shooting at _them_?



Focus fire is mainly a problem when the PCs aren't outnumbered.  Otherwise, the enemy would be able to focus fire back, and it's no longer a problem (because both sides are doing the unrealistically weird tactic).



MGibster said:


> D&D is a heroic fantasy game, and I don't know if hiding from suppresive fire is in line with those aesthetics.  D&D is also a relatively simple game, and I'm not sure adding a lot (more) rules for combat will make the game even more fun for most people.



So house rules are forbidden?

Suppressive fire is a very good consideration for the focus fire problem, because it points at the heart of the issue: the minimal effect of damage and the ability of all characters to constantly defend lead to some very strange behaviors in D&D.  Like focus fire.


----------



## rmcoen

James Gasik said:


> No clue really, I guess it would be limited to people who can make multiple ranged attacks each turn.  It just occurred to me as being one reason you might not want to focus fire.  Whether or not it'd still be a good enough reason depends on the penalty imposed for not looking for cover or going prone to avoid said fire.



Part of why suppressive fire works in RL is that one bullet will kill you, and modern weapons put a _lot_ of bullets in the air.  (Yes, you can suppress with non-automatic weapons too, generally requires a semi-auto though.)

And reality check, being outnumbered often does mean you lose.  In D&D - "heroic simulator" I think someone called it - the heroes are generally meant to be standing against long odds, with the occasional 4-on-1 boss fight.  But one hit doesn't kill them, and they have many ways to overcome being outnumbered (usually magic).  So it's hard to imagine a system that would work that combines the mental fear of getting hit and the game-mechanics that "the hit doesn't matter".  _And_ make it not overwhelming to the BEEG when the PCs outnumber it.

Despite all that, I'm gonna just throw out an idea, no idea if it's good...
Suppressive Fire: requires multiple attacks, either from the same source or multiple sources acting in concert.  Suppressive Fire fills a 5' square with multiple incoming ranged weapon attacks (and uses 3 times the ammunition of a "normal" attack).  Any creature not in Total Cover in that square during its movement (or ends its turn there not in Total Cover) must make a DEX saving throw to avoid being hit.  (DC = 8+ lowest attack bonus of the participating creatures).  Failure = the target takes 1 hit; for each additional 2 points of failure, the target takes another hit, with a maximum number of hits equal to half the number of "attacks" dedicated to Suppressing that square.  Any attacks made from a square that is begin suppressed suffer -2 accuracy, plus Disadvantage if the attacker is hit by the suppressing fire.  If any Suppressing source takes a critical hit, they cease participating.

So Legolas (attack bonus +10) with 4 arrows per round Suppresses the doorway the orcs have to come through.  He spends 12 arrows, firing as fast as he can.  The first orc tries to dash across the opening... DEX Save DC 8+10=18, rolls a 12, and gets hit by 2 (half the 4 "attacks") arrows.  The next orc, a raging orc barbarian, braves the doorway (DEX save... 17!), takes an arrow, and stays in place to give his allies cover... new DEX save... 5, and takes two more arrows.  Now with some cover against the Suppression, a third orc tries to fire back against Legolas (DEX save 16, +2 for cover from the barbarian), gets hit, but shoots back.  He has -2 for being in the Suppression, and disadvantage because he got hit... he misses, and ducks back out of cover.


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## MGibster

GMMichael said:


> So house rules are forbidden?



Yes.  WotC hired me to enforce their ban on house rules in the contiguous United States (Alaska,  Hawaii, and US Territories are contracted out on a case-by-case basis).  Anyone who uses a house rule may find me suddenly bursting into their gaming area, slapping the books out of their hands/off the table, and bellowing "No!" while wagging my finger in their face.  (I really, really need to be careful when I do this in Texas.)


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## Lojaan

This is a feature not a bug. PCs are supposed to team up and co-operate to defeat enemies.

If you want fights to be more cinematic, try the mook rules from MCDM. 

Remember - the reason fighting like this makes sense in movies is because the heroes take out each enemy in a single attack. Replicate this and PCs will behave the same.


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## MGibster

Lojaan said:


> Remember - the reason fighting like this makes sense in movies is because the heroes take out each enemy in a single attack. Replicate this and PCs will behave the same.



This is true.  In games like Savage Worlds where most bad guys can be defeated with one hit, the PCs don't tend to gang up on them.  Though they do gang up on the big bad evil villain leader dude.


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## CubicsRube

I haven't seen all the replies in this thread so I apologise if this has already been suggested.

If you want to incentivise any kind of behaviour, in my opinion having a simple mechanic to incorporate that has the most effect.

Most tools boil down to a carrot or a stick. Which one you prefer is up to you.

If I were to do this, I would propose a house rule I will call the Too Many Cooks rule. That is, after a creature or a PC has been attacked once in a round, every other attack from a different creature has disadvantage.

This represents your allies getting in the way so you can't get a clear shot/stab/swing/wiggly finger pointing. I have no experience in combat, but from group martial arts sparring it holds true in my experience. I imagine with most weapons it'd be worse (except some like spears). So the idea doesn't break my immersion.

I am now interested to try it out to see how it works. Has anyone tried something like this?


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## Clint_L

Why not let the players handle combat in whatever way they come up with? Focus fire doesn't seem like a problem, it just seems like the players not doing what this DM wants. Trying to control player behaviour looks like a DM problem, not a player problem.

That said, one thing we don't like at my table is players meta gaming and telling each other what to do on their turns. So if the focus fire is happening because of that, then that would be a problem. But if it is just players being strategic...it's their game.


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## pemerton

Clint_L said:


> Why not let the players handle combat in whatever way they come up with? Focus fire doesn't seem like a problem, it just seems like the players not doing what this DM wants. Trying to control player behaviour looks like a DM problem, not a player problem.
> 
> That said, one thing we don't like at my table is players meta gaming and telling each other what to do on their turns. So if the focus fire is happening because of that, then that would be a problem. But if it is just players being strategic...it's their game.



The strategy is driven by the game design. If you change the design, the strategy will be different - and potentially produce more interesting game play.

In 4e D&D I didn't see the "focus fire" problem, because the players have an incentive to keep multiple foes marked so as to control (to an extent) where the damage lands. Because 4e also emphasises debuffs as well as hp attrition, it creates reasons to target multiple foes.


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## rmcoen

Had a thought on another site (DMDave, For More Entertaining D&D Battles, Stop Players From Focusing Fire):  What about if you were allowed – like in HEROsystems Champions – to “abort to Dodge”?: “What, eight goblin archers are all shooting at me? H3ll yes I give up my Action next turn to Dodge now!”

(Maybe this takes your Reaction now _and_ your Action next turn.) You put all the attackers at disadvantage, but lose out on next turn’s attacks or spell or whatever. You duck and cover! This gives an outnumbered hero a chance to survive unexpectedly being mugged… but, all’s fair, it also allows mobs to survive when PCs focus fire. If you spread out your attacks, are all the foes going to abort/dodge and thus give up their attacks? That’s a win [design goal] right there!


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## glass

dave2008 said:


> Yes, did you read my full comment? I said the following, at the end, when I realized what you stated above and then also pointed out that it does not make a big difference in my argument:



I did, but it does not change anything. You referred to "my issue", but it is not my issue it is yours. I know how the rules work. _EDIT: Also, apparently you quoted me nearly a month ago; how come I got the notification today?_



GMMichael said:


> But Total Attack (not one that I remember from 3e) might accomplish the same goal.



It is not (by default) an option that exists in 3e (although it could come about by the interaction of Power Attack and IIRC Shock Trooper), but Total Defence did (although Fighting Defensively, which gave an attack penalty for an AC bonus, would be a better analogy).


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## dave2008

glass said:


> I did, but it does not change anything. You referred to "my issue", but it is not my issue it is yours. I know how the rules work. _EDIT: Also, apparently you quoted me nearly a month ago; how come I got the notification today?_



Ya, I have not idea what we were talking about back then.  Sorry, just assume you are correct I have no desire to even look up what this discussion is about.


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