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<blockquote data-quote="Gryph" data-source="post: 5851008" data-attributes="member: 98071">Most fights in my D&amp;D experience are fights to the death so I'm not sure how much you can accelerate that arms race <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />&nbsp;&nbsp;This makes sense, though I don't think its an effect of the current rules. Given an opportunity for 2 or 3 party members to hold off a greater number of opponents while the other 2 or 3 party members start slaughtering casters and other scary opponents; my group will jump on that every time. So maybe I've just been lucky in not experiencing the extremes of too much or too little focus fire, so I've never run into it as a problem.&nbsp;&nbsp;I would prefer more naturalistic positioning and facing rules (even as abstract as 1e was, if you ran past the fighter to hit the wizard you got hit in the back as a free attack with +4 on the attack roll) than the 4e style marking. I honestly don't think you can disincentivize focus fire enough to stop it, without making the combat rules seem arbitrary. Even little kids will adopt &quot;kill the guy with the ball&quot; playstyles almost instinctively.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;2 on 2 fights are almost as much a special case, tactically, as 1 on 1s. Probably better to start with at least 3 on 3 when evaluating the effects of focus fire on a combat scenario.&nbsp;That said, I think there are simpler ways to model the fighter/wizard scenario. Some simple facing rules would be a start. If the orc moves past the fighter in a fairly narrow corridor give the fighter a free attack with combat advantage. If only 1 orc goes past the fighter, then the fighter would have to make the choice between ganging up on the wizard's orc and getting hit in the back by the other orc, or accepting a pair of 1 on 1 fights and hoping the wizard can handle himself.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Gryph, post: 5851008, member: 98071"] Most fights in my D&D experience are fights to the death so I'm not sure how much you can accelerate that arms race :) This makes sense, though I don't think its an effect of the current rules. Given an opportunity for 2 or 3 party members to hold off a greater number of opponents while the other 2 or 3 party members start slaughtering casters and other scary opponents; my group will jump on that every time. So maybe I've just been lucky in not experiencing the extremes of too much or too little focus fire, so I've never run into it as a problem. I would prefer more naturalistic positioning and facing rules (even as abstract as 1e was, if you ran past the fighter to hit the wizard you got hit in the back as a free attack with +4 on the attack roll) than the 4e style marking. I honestly don't think you can disincentivize focus fire enough to stop it, without making the combat rules seem arbitrary. Even little kids will adopt "kill the guy with the ball" playstyles almost instinctively. 2 on 2 fights are almost as much a special case, tactically, as 1 on 1s. Probably better to start with at least 3 on 3 when evaluating the effects of focus fire on a combat scenario. That said, I think there are simpler ways to model the fighter/wizard scenario. Some simple facing rules would be a start. If the orc moves past the fighter in a fairly narrow corridor give the fighter a free attack with combat advantage. If only 1 orc goes past the fighter, then the fighter would have to make the choice between ganging up on the wizard's orc and getting hit in the back by the other orc, or accepting a pair of 1 on 1 fights and hoping the wizard can handle himself. [/QUOTE]

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