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<blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5851038" data-attributes="member: 54877">My implications probably weren't clear on this. It is not that opponents never get held off. But what you get instead of &quot;you, me, and Fred&quot; doing the holding off is &quot;Sir Tin Can the Paladin&quot; goes and does the holding off while me and Fred go help Wizbang and Five O'Knives murder those scary opponents all the faster. In other words, the fall back from &quot;total focus fire&quot; is &quot;near total focus fire with the bare minimum detailed for other functions.&quot; This is because &quot;focus fire&quot; is disproportionally rewarded and ignoring other opponents is disproprortionally safe--a double whammy.&nbsp;It's true that you can contrive situations where the above isn't true. But you'll have to contrive them every time to get anything different--or do something such as have a social contract that max focus fire, all the time, is nonsense in character, with an agreement not to do it. &nbsp;Plus, remember we aren't saying no focus fire at all. It is still rewarding to get it. In fact, one of the reasons it takes so much extreme focus fire to put opponents down is that the designers know that focus fire will happen, and thus every viable combatant has to have at least some defense against it (such as lots of hit points) or attacks have to be muted somewhat. What really ought to happen is that if, despite dangers and hinderances to doing so, if the party manages to focus fire anyway, they should really hit hard.&nbsp;That's what I meant earlier about the &quot;arms race&quot;. Right now, focus fire is expected, and thus you are punished for doing anything else. In a system with more options, there are times and places to focus fire anyway, and picking well is a reward.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Crazy Jerome, post: 5851038, member: 54877"] My implications probably weren't clear on this. It is not that opponents never get held off. But what you get instead of "you, me, and Fred" doing the holding off is "Sir Tin Can the Paladin" goes and does the holding off while me and Fred go help Wizbang and Five O'Knives murder those scary opponents all the faster. In other words, the fall back from "total focus fire" is "near total focus fire with the bare minimum detailed for other functions." This is because "focus fire" is disproportionally rewarded and ignoring other opponents is disproprortionally safe--a double whammy. It's true that you can contrive situations where the above isn't true. But you'll have to contrive them every time to get anything different--or do something such as have a social contract that max focus fire, all the time, is nonsense in character, with an agreement not to do it. Plus, remember we aren't saying no focus fire at all. It is still rewarding to get it. In fact, one of the reasons it takes so much extreme focus fire to put opponents down is that the designers [B]know[/B] that focus fire will happen, and thus every viable combatant has to have at least some defense against it (such as lots of hit points) or attacks have to be muted somewhat. What really ought to happen is that if, despite dangers and hinderances to doing so, if the party manages to focus fire anyway, they should really hit hard. That's what I meant earlier about the "arms race". Right now, focus fire is expected, and thus you are [B]punished[/B] for doing anything else. In a system with more options, there are times and places to focus fire anyway, and picking well is a [B]reward[/B]. [/QUOTE]

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