D&D (2024) The Focus Fire Problem

[dave2008]

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]

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]

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]

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.

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]

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]

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]

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

It isn't a contest.

 

[glass]

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]

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:

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]

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.)