There is some kind of military theory that actually lends itself to this logic. Focusing on taking down the biggest target first usually eliminates the biggest threat, leading to less damage and an easier fight.
That's because by the 60s or 70s, advances in weapon technology meant that your chances of killing a target were more or less the same regardless of whether you were shooting at a main battle tank or a technical. So shooting the biggest, most heavily-armed target you could see first was always the best option. That's a pretty far cry from how combat works in D&D.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
It’s more that focused fire on single target can be more efficient than spreading out fire.
Basically, one dead enemy is better than a bunch of hurt but still combat capable enemies.
That depends heavily on the weapon being used. For assault rifles or machine guns, yes, focus fire. For guided missiles, shoot the target once and see if it's still functional before you fire a second one- those things are expensive.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Guided missiles are kind of a disanalogy to dnd though. If the party members kill the enemy on the first attack, they have no reason to keep hitting the dead enemy.
So for war games, this operates more on the assumption that one hit kills will be rare.
It’s more that focused fire on single target can be more efficient than spreading out fire.
Basically, one dead enemy is better than a bunch of hurt but still combat capable enemies.
Focused fire is more efficient if all you are doing is direct damage with no condition riders. There are plenty of spells and subclass abilities which reduce movement, visibility, or chance of hitting a PC in 5e. When you are adding in those attack-related riders or spells/abilities that primarily serve to isolate, immobilize or divide your enemies, it sometimes makes sense to spread out those effects. If you have an attack capable of inflicting the Poisoned condition, doesn't it make sense to spread out that attack to hit as many foes as possible?
This sounds, to me, like they're applying Videogame Logic to the game. In videogames it's often not worth the effort to kill all the little mooks...
My video game experience is that it's often worthwhile to deal with the mooks -- but that's what the people with area damage are for, single target attacks should focus on the main boss. In tier 2 and above that's mostly true for D&D as well, but tier 1 PCs tend to have very limited area damage.
If you're limited to single target damage, your goal is to reduce enemy damage output as fast as you can, so want to focus down the creature with the highest ratio of damage to hit points. As a dire wolf has a ratio of 0.27 (10/37) and a wolf has a ratio of 0.64 (7/11), you should target the wolves, but unless the PCs have been reading the monster manual, they have no real way of knowing that. In a fight against a horde of zombies (ratio 0.2) led by a ghoul (ratio 0.32) you should absolutely take down the ghoul first.
As a DM: you have the ability to after 1 round be like: "X (someone with a passive insight over 10/12/whatever) You notice the wolves are attacking as a coordinated group, like some kind of pack tactic". To try and hint to them, that it would be better to whittle down their numbers, or to spread them out.
Death is the most potent condition to impose on an enemy.
Conditions like poison can be good if they affect several enemies, but when it comes time to deal damage it is best to focus down one enemy.
Clearly if you are fighting 5 wolves all thisng being equal you should attack them one at a time (though it may be worth not doing this if to attack a hurt enemy you need ot either attack at disadvantage or risk an op attack). What was raised by the OP was a little different.
Fighting 1 boss and 4 minions should you focus on the minions first (one at a time) or the boss? If the boss has much more offensive power than the minions but the same or only slighty more defensive power you go for the boss, if they are much harder to kill but cause no more (or slightly more) damage eveve them to last.
For example you are a policman with a hand gun and there are 4 terrorists on a killing spree, 3 with knives and one with a machine gun you shoot the one with the machine gun first.
Death is the most potent condition to impose on an enemy.
Conditions like poison can be good if they affect several enemies, but when it comes time to deal damage it is best to focus down one enemy.
Clearly if you are fighting 5 wolves all thisng being equal you should attack them one at a time (though it may be worth not doing this if to attack a hurt enemy you need ot either attack at disadvantage or risk an op attack). What was raised by the OP was a little different.
Fighting 1 boss and 4 minions should you focus on the minions first (one at a time) or the boss? If the boss has much more offensive power than the minions but the same or only slighty more defensive power you go for the boss, if they are much harder to kill but cause no more (or slightly more) damage eveve them to last.
For example you are a policman with a hand gun and there are 4 terrorists on a killing spree, 3 with knives and one with a machine gun you shoot the one with the machine gun first.
If the boss is really that much stronger without any more defense, then it does make sense to focus the biggest threat first. I don't see how that scenario clashes with anything I've said.
My point is if the party needs multiple rounds to kill the boss anyways, and can take down the minions in one round, then killing the minions first can give a net benefit.
What it comes down to is this: do you want to take all the attacks/abilities of the boss and the attacks/abilities of all the minions? Or do you want to take fewer attacks/abilities on the chin?
To use the OP's example: lets say it takes 2 rounds to kill a dire wolf, but only one round to kill one or two of the normal wolves. If they spend 2 rounds killing the dire wolf, that is still 8 wolf attacks and 1-2 Dire wolf attacks for 2 rounds, and as many as 8 attacks the third.
Targeting those same normal wolves cuts the attacks coming at the party by 1/5th for each dead wolf. So 6-8 attacks the first round, then 4-6, etc. Less if a critical hit or a bad saving throw gets even more wolves killed.
My point is if the party needs multiple rounds to kill the boss anyways, and can take down the minions in one round, then killing the minions first can give a net benefit.
Let's say you can kill the boss in 2 rounds, or you can kill two minions in 1 round, and there is 1 boss and 4 minions. We'll also assume the PCs win initiative, meaning the PCs take 4 turns to defeat everything, but the NPCs only attack 3 times.
If the PCs kill the boss first, damage is:
Turn 1: boss wounded; boss and 4 minions attack
Turn 2: boss down; 4 minions attack
Turn 3: 2 minions down; 2 minions attack
Total damage: B + 10M
If the PCs kill the minions first, damage is
Turn 1: 2 minions down; boss and 2 minions attack
Turn 2: 4 minions down; boss attack
Turn 3: boss wounded; boss attack
Total damage: 3B + 2M
Thus, if 2B > 8M, you want to take the boss down, if 2B < 8M you want to take the minions down, if 2B == 8M it doesn't matter.
On average in 5e, durability and damage output are linked (for most CR 1+ creatures, dpr/hp is in the 0.25-0.4 range), so a boss that's 4x as hard to kill as the minions also does 4x the damage, and order doesn't matter. However, low CR (<1) has a bunch of monsters with high damage for their hit points, such as Bandit (damage ratio 0.5), Goblin (damage ratio 0.7), Kobold (damage ratio 0.9), Skeleton (damage ratio 0.42), Stirge (damage ratio 2.5), and Wolf (damage ratio 0.63), and CR 1 has a fair number of creatures with fairly low damage for their hit points, so typically you do want to clear out the low CR stuff first.
Not always, though. The most common tanky low CR monster is probably the Zombie, with a ratio of 0.2 (and undead fortitude makes it closer to 0.15); if you run into a mob of zombies protecting a priest you absolutely want to ignore the zombies and go after the priest.
Everyone is talking about tactics and strategy, and I think that misses a very human element. D&D is predominantly fantasy fulfilment, and everyone wants to enjoy a spotlight. If you have 6 identical monsters, but spend twice as long describing one of them, that's the only one anyone is going to care about. Whoever kills the shiny monster gets glory, everyone else becomes a footnote.
As a game, the players ought to learn what does and doesn't matter mechanically, but as a collaborative interaction, the DM should make an effort to narrate in a way that encourages players to pursue less traditionally cinematic paths by giving them more attention. The Dire wolf can be big, but the regular wolves are emaciated and eying [insert vulnerable character] ravenously. The Dire wolf becomes a flat feature, while the smaller wolves become characters with personalities.
Everyone is talking about tactics and strategy, and I think that misses a very human element. D&D is predominantly fantasy fulfilment, and everyone wants to enjoy a spotlight. If you have 6 identical monsters, but spend twice as long describing one of them, that's the only one anyone is going to care about. Whoever kills the shiny monster gets glory, everyone else becomes a footnote.
As a game, the players ought to learn what does and doesn't matter mechanically, but as a collaborative interaction, the DM should make an effort to narrate in a way that encourages players to pursue less traditionally cinematic paths by giving them more attention. The Dire wolf can be big, but the regular wolves are emaciated and eying [insert vulnerable character] ravenously. The Dire wolf becomes a flat feature, while the smaller wolves become characters with personalities.
I agree that what you call "human element" is more common than tactical planning. That said, communication and learning happens at both sides of the table. It's not 100% the responsibility of the DM if the players decided to send their PCs after the Dire Wolf and consequently got almost got their whole party killed. It also isn't 100% the responsibility of the players to know all the intricacies of how combat works when they are fairly new to playing the game. There is communication and learning necessary from both sides of the table.
One of the things we all tend to forget is the difference between what we, as players, and our characters, as living beings in their world, would know about the world and the creatures in it. Relatively common creatures like wolves and dire wolves basic abilities and relative strengths would be fairly common knowledge to most members of society and especially to any rangers in the party. However, to the players. - ven long term, multi diction players those details are far less likely to be known and DMs, who are looking at the stats setting up the encounter sometimes need to remind players of stuff their characters would/should know. As a DM, I often use knowledge checks to give out reminders of things the characters know that the players don’t or don’t remember.
It also sounds like the players in your game are not familiar with the concept of crowd control. Wizards, Sorcs, and Druids have a variety of crowd control options without even looking at subclass spells. The idea of crowd control is to diminish the ability of PCs' opponents to concentrate their force onto the PCs. Instead of putting all their eggs into the Big Damage basket when doing spell selection, it's often more powerful to include several spells that divide up, isolate, or disable key enemies. You might try recommending the following YT video from Treatmonk: Origin of the God Wizard. While the context for the "God Wizard" build started in D&D 3.5 edition, the same ideas still apply to 5th edition. The same principle of "divide and conquer" also applies to any spellcaster or other PC that has crowd control spells or crowd control abilities.
Remember that it is not your job to solve the partys problems - only to present them. If they got as beat up as you say, they will either learn from their mistakes or they will repeat them.
It's not your fault that they got beat down, unless you did it on purpose.
How seasoned are your players? Focus fire isn't inherently bad, but D&D combat is less about removing enemies from the board as it is removing the enemies' action economy from the board. All other things equal, the side that takes more actions will come out on top round-by-round.
I think you need to be careful with the conversation, though. You don't want to come off like you're telling them how to play. Unprompted advice is always criticism. If it seems like having so many close calls in combat isn't spoiling their fun, then there isn't necessarily anything wrong. After a session that seemed to go poorly for the group, it might be worth it just to ask them how they felt about that encounter. If they're down about it, ask them if there is anything they felt they could have done better. Let them come up with solutions instead of telling them what they "should" have done.
How seasoned are your players? Focus fire isn't inherently bad, but D&D combat is less about removing enemies from the board as it is removing the enemies' action economy from the board. All other things equal, the side that takes more actions will come out on top round-by-round.
In most cases D&D combat is not about removing actions from the board, it's about removing damage from the board (the exception is monsters that apply non-damage effects).
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That's because by the 60s or 70s, advances in weapon technology meant that your chances of killing a target were more or less the same regardless of whether you were shooting at a main battle tank or a technical. So shooting the biggest, most heavily-armed target you could see first was always the best option. That's a pretty far cry from how combat works in D&D.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
It’s more that focused fire on single target can be more efficient than spreading out fire.
Basically, one dead enemy is better than a bunch of hurt but still combat capable enemies.
That depends heavily on the weapon being used. For assault rifles or machine guns, yes, focus fire. For guided missiles, shoot the target once and see if it's still functional before you fire a second one- those things are expensive.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Guided missiles are kind of a disanalogy to dnd though. If the party members kill the enemy on the first attack, they have no reason to keep hitting the dead enemy.
So for war games, this operates more on the assumption that one hit kills will be rare.
I'm not the one who brought up modern military doctrine as an explanation for the players' behavior.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Focused fire is more efficient if all you are doing is direct damage with no condition riders. There are plenty of spells and subclass abilities which reduce movement, visibility, or chance of hitting a PC in 5e. When you are adding in those attack-related riders or spells/abilities that primarily serve to isolate, immobilize or divide your enemies, it sometimes makes sense to spread out those effects. If you have an attack capable of inflicting the Poisoned condition, doesn't it make sense to spread out that attack to hit as many foes as possible?
My video game experience is that it's often worthwhile to deal with the mooks -- but that's what the people with area damage are for, single target attacks should focus on the main boss. In tier 2 and above that's mostly true for D&D as well, but tier 1 PCs tend to have very limited area damage.
If you're limited to single target damage, your goal is to reduce enemy damage output as fast as you can, so want to focus down the creature with the highest ratio of damage to hit points. As a dire wolf has a ratio of 0.27 (10/37) and a wolf has a ratio of 0.64 (7/11), you should target the wolves, but unless the PCs have been reading the monster manual, they have no real way of knowing that. In a fight against a horde of zombies (ratio 0.2) led by a ghoul (ratio 0.32) you should absolutely take down the ghoul first.
As a DM: you have the ability to after 1 round be like: "X (someone with a passive insight over 10/12/whatever) You notice the wolves are attacking as a coordinated group, like some kind of pack tactic". To try and hint to them, that it would be better to whittle down their numbers, or to spread them out.
Blank
Death is the most potent condition to impose on an enemy.
Conditions like poison can be good if they affect several enemies, but when it comes time to deal damage it is best to focus down one enemy.
Clearly if you are fighting 5 wolves all thisng being equal you should attack them one at a time (though it may be worth not doing this if to attack a hurt enemy you need ot either attack at disadvantage or risk an op attack). What was raised by the OP was a little different.
Fighting 1 boss and 4 minions should you focus on the minions first (one at a time) or the boss? If the boss has much more offensive power than the minions but the same or only slighty more defensive power you go for the boss, if they are much harder to kill but cause no more (or slightly more) damage eveve them to last.
For example you are a policman with a hand gun and there are 4 terrorists on a killing spree, 3 with knives and one with a machine gun you shoot the one with the machine gun first.
This is why crowd control spells, while they usually don't do epic damage, can be a game-changer.
Bane makes it harder for the enemy to hit the party.
Entangle can shut down enemies not strong enough to break free.
Spike Growth is like Entangle, but it does damage.
Anything like this that can keep the enemy from rushing the party can save lives.
If the boss is really that much stronger without any more defense, then it does make sense to focus the biggest threat first. I don't see how that scenario clashes with anything I've said.
My point is if the party needs multiple rounds to kill the boss anyways, and can take down the minions in one round, then killing the minions first can give a net benefit.
What it comes down to is this: do you want to take all the attacks/abilities of the boss and the attacks/abilities of all the minions? Or do you want to take fewer attacks/abilities on the chin?
To use the OP's example: lets say it takes 2 rounds to kill a dire wolf, but only one round to kill one or two of the normal wolves. If they spend 2 rounds killing the dire wolf, that is still 8 wolf attacks and 1-2 Dire wolf attacks for 2 rounds, and as many as 8 attacks the third.
Targeting those same normal wolves cuts the attacks coming at the party by 1/5th for each dead wolf. So 6-8 attacks the first round, then 4-6, etc. Less if a critical hit or a bad saving throw gets even more wolves killed.
Let's say you can kill the boss in 2 rounds, or you can kill two minions in 1 round, and there is 1 boss and 4 minions. We'll also assume the PCs win initiative, meaning the PCs take 4 turns to defeat everything, but the NPCs only attack 3 times.
If the PCs kill the boss first, damage is:
If the PCs kill the minions first, damage is
Thus, if 2B > 8M, you want to take the boss down, if 2B < 8M you want to take the minions down, if 2B == 8M it doesn't matter.
On average in 5e, durability and damage output are linked (for most CR 1+ creatures, dpr/hp is in the 0.25-0.4 range), so a boss that's 4x as hard to kill as the minions also does 4x the damage, and order doesn't matter. However, low CR (<1) has a bunch of monsters with high damage for their hit points, such as Bandit (damage ratio 0.5), Goblin (damage ratio 0.7), Kobold (damage ratio 0.9), Skeleton (damage ratio 0.42), Stirge (damage ratio 2.5), and Wolf (damage ratio 0.63), and CR 1 has a fair number of creatures with fairly low damage for their hit points, so typically you do want to clear out the low CR stuff first.
Not always, though. The most common tanky low CR monster is probably the Zombie, with a ratio of 0.2 (and undead fortitude makes it closer to 0.15); if you run into a mob of zombies protecting a priest you absolutely want to ignore the zombies and go after the priest.
Everyone is talking about tactics and strategy, and I think that misses a very human element. D&D is predominantly fantasy fulfilment, and everyone wants to enjoy a spotlight. If you have 6 identical monsters, but spend twice as long describing one of them, that's the only one anyone is going to care about. Whoever kills the shiny monster gets glory, everyone else becomes a footnote.
As a game, the players ought to learn what does and doesn't matter mechanically, but as a collaborative interaction, the DM should make an effort to narrate in a way that encourages players to pursue less traditionally cinematic paths by giving them more attention. The Dire wolf can be big, but the regular wolves are emaciated and eying [insert vulnerable character] ravenously. The Dire wolf becomes a flat feature, while the smaller wolves become characters with personalities.
I agree that what you call "human element" is more common than tactical planning. That said, communication and learning happens at both sides of the table. It's not 100% the responsibility of the DM if the players decided to send their PCs after the Dire Wolf and consequently got almost got their whole party killed. It also isn't 100% the responsibility of the players to know all the intricacies of how combat works when they are fairly new to playing the game. There is communication and learning necessary from both sides of the table.
One of the things we all tend to forget is the difference between what we, as players, and our characters, as living beings in their world, would know about the world and the creatures in it. Relatively common creatures like wolves and dire wolves basic abilities and relative strengths would be fairly common knowledge to most members of society and especially to any rangers in the party. However, to the players. - ven long term, multi diction players those details are far less likely to be known and DMs, who are looking at the stats setting up the encounter sometimes need to remind players of stuff their characters would/should know. As a DM, I often use knowledge checks to give out reminders of things the characters know that the players don’t or don’t remember.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Outstanding video
Remember that it is not your job to solve the partys problems - only to present them. If they got as beat up as you say, they will either learn from their mistakes or they will repeat them.
It's not your fault that they got beat down, unless you did it on purpose.
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
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How seasoned are your players? Focus fire isn't inherently bad, but D&D combat is less about removing enemies from the board as it is removing the enemies' action economy from the board. All other things equal, the side that takes more actions will come out on top round-by-round.
I think you need to be careful with the conversation, though. You don't want to come off like you're telling them how to play. Unprompted advice is always criticism. If it seems like having so many close calls in combat isn't spoiling their fun, then there isn't necessarily anything wrong. After a session that seemed to go poorly for the group, it might be worth it just to ask them how they felt about that encounter. If they're down about it, ask them if there is anything they felt they could have done better. Let them come up with solutions instead of telling them what they "should" have done.
In most cases D&D combat is not about removing actions from the board, it's about removing damage from the board (the exception is monsters that apply non-damage effects).