D&D 5E Restoring Name Level to 5e

[LordEntrails]

Why are your squishes getting attacked so much and not your tanks? Is it your NPC tactics or your PC tactics? I mean if the PCs are putting their squishies in danger, then yea, they should be hit. But they should be smart enough not to do that. They should be using their spells to protect them as well as their tactics.

I just haven't seen this with my players. In fact, I often have to change up NPC tactics to go after the squishies in a concerted way or they never take any damage.

 

[NotAYakk]

Why are your squishes getting attacked so much and not your tanks? Is it your NPC tactics or your PC tactics? I mean if the PCs are putting their squishies in danger, then yea, they should be hit. But they should be smart enough not to do that. They should be using their spells to protect them as well as their tactics.

How are your tanks protecting your squishies?

I just haven't seen this with my players. In fact, I often have to change up NPC tactics to go after the squishies in a concerted way or they never take any damage.

If your default tactics is "move towards closest enemy, whack", yes, PC tanks will tend to be closer than the squishies are. If your default tactics is "go after most fragile-seeming foe that seems a threat", then squishies are going to drop far more often.

If your squishes are hiding inside wish-conjured tiny huts with tanks that use grappling and auras and zones to keep foes from safely breaking off, then even if the foes want to attack squishes they cannot. (OTOH, this ends up being close to a situation where removing the tanks entirely would still result in monsters unable to attack PCs)

 

[Pauln6]

How are your tanks protecting your squishies?

If your default tactics is "move towards closest enemy, whack", yes, PC tanks will tend to be closer than the squishies are. If your default tactics is "go after most fragile-seeming foe that seems a threat", then squishies are going to drop far more often.

If your squishes are hiding inside wish-conjured tiny huts with tanks that use grappling and auras and zones to keep foes from safely breaking off, then even if the foes want to attack squishes they cannot. (OTOH, this ends up being close to a situation where removing the tanks entirely would still result in monsters unable to attack PCs)

It may be that our Warlock/rogues are more melee focused. I think it is more fun to be more versatile so classes that would be insane to try a melee attack are not quite as much fun. We are quite traditional having started playing with 1e, so some of the crazier defensive tactics seem odd. My own PC can conjure Darkness but the rest of the group will be unhappy if I get in their way.

I don't think many of our tanks do much to protect the team other than the Sentinel feat. Monster tactics depend on how smart are the monsters. In the eighties it was a favourite PC tactic to aim for the guy at the back.

 

[LordEntrails]

How are your tanks protecting your squishies?

Usually with tactical postioning.

If your default tactics is "move towards closest enemy, whack", yes, PC tanks will tend to be closer than the squishies are. If your default tactics is "go after most fragile-seeming foe that seems a threat", then squishies are going to drop far more often.

Only if your tanks are not positioning themselves intelligently or your squishies are positioning themselves poorly. Why are your players engaging in combat locations that they can not use? Are they suddenly in an open field and surrounded on all sides? Or do your tanks open the door and the squishies stay back were they can be protected?

Of course the situations vary. And sometime squishies can be gotten too via melee, but when that happens my players work hard to re-establish a tactical posture ASAP. But with things like Misty Step, disengage, etc, the squishies can get out of harms way to somewhere they can be defended. At least most of the time.

If your squishes are hiding inside wish-conjured tiny huts with tanks that use grappling and auras and zones to keep foes from safely breaking off, then even if the foes want to attack squishes they cannot. (OTOH, this ends up being close to a situation where removing the tanks entirely would still result in monsters unable to attack PCs)

Nope, none of that crap is tried by my players, they find it as boring and uninteresting as I do.