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John E. Raymond wrote:

> >>They have the villians lay off someone with a lot of wounds, when
> >>natural selection dictacts to all by instinct to kill the wounded, the
> >>weakest link in the chain, especialy if they are a contantly high damaging
> >>fighter. No Mercy to the PCs : )
>
> Ok...I suppose I have my opinion...to start with...most DM's don't follow
> one of the major rules of combat...perhaps they don't know what it is...but
> the first thing you do is make sure you take out the most powerful opponent
> first...and then work your way down to the weakest...that way...when you are
> at your strongest you are fighting their strongest...and as you get
> weaker...you are fighting weaker opponents...however...once someone is
> weakened...sometimes it makes more sense to change targets...depending on
> perceived threat...
>

Actually, I have found that there is a slight alteration, in general, to that
rule. It's all a matter of ratios, actually. The first one to fall is the one
with the highest ratio of offense to defense (that is, the character that can
inflict the most damage compared to his hitpoints). IMC, one of the characters
had the capacity to inflict enormous amounts of damage (something like 2d4+10 in
a hit), but could also take huge amounts (due to certain magical factors, he had
equivalent hp of around 170. [Yeah, I know, you guys have no respect for my
DMing skills now. But really, it all works in the context of my campaign...
really]. The next biggest threat could inflict less damage per round, but only
slightly less. The thing is, he had far fewer hit points, and so it was worth it
to try to get him out of the fight as quickly as possible. That's why the mages
are usually attacked as quickly as possible. They usually have a very high
damage:defense ratio. OK, just my $.02
Thx,
Alaric

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John E. Raymond wrote:
>>They have the villians lay off someone with a lot
of wounds, when
>>natural selection dictacts to all by instinct to kill the wounded,
the
>>weakest link in the chain, especialy if they are a contantly high
damaging
>>fighter.  No Mercy to the PCs : )
Ok...I suppose I have my opinion...to start with...most DM's don't follow
one of the major rules of combat...perhaps they don't know what it
is...but
the first thing you do is make sure you take out the most powerful
opponent
first...and then work your way down to the weakest...that way...when
you are
at your strongest you are fighting their strongest...and as you get
weaker...you are fighting weaker opponents...however...once someone
is
weakened...sometimes it makes more sense to change targets...depending
on
perceived threat...
 
Actually, I have found that there is a slight alteration, in general, to
that rule. It's all a matter of ratios, actually. The first one to fall
is the one with the highest ratio of offense to defense (that is, the character
that can inflict the most damage compared to his hitpoints). IMC,
one of the characters had the capacity to inflict enormous amounts of damage
(something like 2d4+10 in a hit), but could also take huge amounts (due
to certain magical factors, he had equivalent hp of around 170. [Yeah,
I know, you guys have no respect for my DMing skills now. But really, it
all works in the context of my campaign... really]. The next biggest threat
could inflict less damage per round, but only slightly less. The thing
is, he had far fewer hit points, and so it was worth it to try to
get him out of the fight as quickly as possible. That's why the mages are
usually attacked as quickly as possible. They usually have a very high
damage:defense ratio. OK, just my $.02
Thx,
   Alaric

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