Focus fire - how to get rid of it?

[Toadkiller]

So, the PCs should always, or almost always anyways, take each of the baddies under fire in turn. This is a basic concept of the game. But I happen to hate it.

It just feels like a bad TV show or movie where each of the bad guys waits to attack the hero one at a time. How do we get rid of this?

Sometimes you can create a goal that the bad guys are trying to get to that makes engaging as many as possible at once sensible. But usually not. Has anyone developed a house rule? Hopefully I’m not the only one bothered by this.

I’ve thought about that if everyone attacks one enemy then the others get advantage on their attacks. But that seems a bit much, and would have to apply to the PCs too of course, which means more to manage for the DM.

[Aaron Underhand]

Two things that help with this are adjusting the percieved threat level, and varrying resistances.

Firstly, if one minor enemy (or enemy type, say attack dogs) is know to wail on downed enemies they can safely be ignored, until someone goes down. Equally an enemy with sudden advantage, or a suddenly revealed new attack mode...an enemy caster now concentrating...

Secondly, consider the evoker and archer pair facing a monster resistant to piercing and another resistant to fire....

[Chaos Jackal]

I'm not sure how the bad movie comparison works here, obviously they're not fighting enemies one at a time. Focus fire is generally a good strategy in... anything, really. Aoe is nice and all, but when faced with a number of big enemies, in whatever sort of game, you usually wanna take them out one at a time, for obvious reasons. It's just good tactics.

But seeing as you dislike it... well, one thing you could do is tweak the initiative system to be less rigid and more spontaneous. That won't entirely stop focus fire but perhaps it will help with your sense of immersion a bit and limit your whole bad movie experience.

Otherwise, it's a question of why focus fire happens. Answer's obvious of course; fighting five enemies over five turns is worse than fighting five enemies for one turn, then four enemies for one turn, then three, then two, then finally just one. Fight lasts for the same number of rounds, but in one case you get beaten up in return by all enemies all the time. Evidently worse.

You can avoid or lessen the impact of this in a number of ways.

You could use lots and lots of glass cannons, enemies that are dangerous offensively but not so much defensively. You can't really focus fire those; at most, if you manage to hit your attacks/abilities, you might be able to take down one in a turn, but what does it matter, there's fifteen more. Requires different tactics and approach.

To have bigger and fewer enemies and still avoid focus fire, you could have them protect/cover for each other. Shared health pools. Different resistances. A magical shield or ability or something that activates every time one of them takes more than X damage and stays there until next round, forcing the players to choose different targets every time or risk having very diminishing rewards. A buff/blessing/last breath that empowers allies upon death, making it risky to down them one at a time, as the last one might be way too big. It's basically what's happening in a lot of council-style boss fights in MMOs, so it might feel video gamey to you or something, but they're all options.

Or perhaps you could have various enemies undertaking important tasks at periods, like attending to a ritual or activating some item or preparing a special spell/ability. Better to stop them instead of carrying on with the target of choice, right?

Another idea is to introduce a wounds system. Part of the reason taking down enemies one at a time is ideal is because, no matter how many HP a creature has left in D&D, in most cases it doesn't make a difference. You have the same combat ability at 1 HP as you do at 100. So if you reduce all enemies to 80 HP you'll still get smacked by all five at full offensive power, while if you just deal 100 to one of them you'll only get hit four times in return. So change that. Have creatures take penalties to their numbers as their HP drops. Maybe compensate for that by giving them bigger numbers out of the box, or just have it apply to PCs as well if they don't mind. It won't always replace focus fire as the optimal strategy, but it will offer an alternative. Sometimes an enemy is too tough to burst immediately. Or maybe you don't wanna risk misses and bad rolls and waste a turn. Better to try and chip at everyone, weaken them somewhat.

There are other ways too. But don't expect any of them to not add more for the DM to manage. You wanna inherently alter the game's tactics and replace or at least weaken the primary option, you're bound to have more work in your hands.

[Warder]

It really stems from D&D having no penalties from being wounded, really. Because an enemy at 1 hp left fights just as well as the enemy with 70 hit points left, focus firing is the single best decision a party can make to increase their staying power in combat. But I agree, it doesn't really feel good and doesn't translate over across media borders at all. It's a very gamey visual image.

I guess you could try to work in some sort of bloodied penalty into the game that kicks in when monsters (and PCs!) are below 50% health, but 5e really wasn't built for that. The game has such a loose design so usually it's easy to just rip things out wholesale and it won't really have much of an impact, but I think this could be pretty difficult to do and make feel good.

An easier (but more bandaidy) solution would be to borrow minion monsters from 4e and shift the perspective a little. If players know that the "chaff" of most encounters will go down in one hit (because minions have 1 hit point), suddenly taking out those feels way better and is way more effective in terms of strategy.

[Pex]

Focus fire is sound strategy. Defeating one bad guy means that bad guy is not attacking the party when their turn comes up vs damaging two bad guys such that both are still up on their turn they both attack the party. There is merit to attacking more than one bad guy. Area effect attacks like Fireball do matter. Damaging everyone makes it easier to plink them off one by one. Control effects that take multiple foes out of the picture, like Hypnotic Pattern, makes focus fire easier on the ones not affected.

It's also fine to split focus fire depending on situation. This is where half the party attacks one foe and the other half attacks another. It could result just based on positioning rather on purpose strategy. Sometimes the PC meat shields are battling the big brutes so the party squishies are free to range attack the opposing range attackers - the wizard and cleric attack the mind flayer while the barbarian and paladin battle the fire giant thrall. Sometimes there are two powerful beings in the fight the players can't afford to ignore one to focus on the other.

[Unoriginal]

I have several thoughts on this topic, but not the time to write a lot right now, so I'll just note:


- For a melee PC, having one enemy grapple them and drag them away from the focus fire's target will likely end or limit their contribution in the focus fire. Shoving then grappling them can also work.

- For a ranged PC, having one enemy shove them prone will likely do the same, especially if other foes can then target the PC. Shoving then grappling will almost certainly change their priority.

- For both, an enemy disarming them then grabbing their weapon will generally divide their attention. Some PCs are imune to that, though.

[Cass]

There are many ways you could achieve that with creature specific features but if you want to make it a general rule then something like this is the best way I can think of:

"If a creature was not the target of attacks, spells or other features for a whole round/since their previous turn then they have advantage on melee attacks"

to elaborate further on possible tweaks and adjustments:

Being a target of attacks is clear and it doesn't have to hit, spell and features can become arbitrary/at DM discretion (does Hunter's Mark alone apply although it doesn't do much to justify having the same impact of an attack?)

Tracking this should be easy for PC but idk how much you can count on your players, tracking it for NPC can become a hassle

I purposely avoid it being applied to ranged attacks as it could become the buff melee needs

Is it too strong for PCs? Tbh I think this would give me as a DM a general justification to spread the damage as well and if they manage take advantage or it then the "tank" might feel more rewarded for "pulling aggro"
While advantage to attacks is strong because of consistent and reliable damage it's not THAT big of a deal when compared with what spells can do. If you still think it's too much you can do something else like: double the damage, advantage to rolling damage or +1 damage dice.

[Chronos]

If the rules were such that focus fire wasn't the best strategy, then we'd need a houserule to make it so it was. Because those cinematic scenes where all of the enemies are exactly paired up and everyone just attacks only their own distinct opponent are unrealistic and cheesy as heck. In a real fight, you're going to make sure to get enemies out of the fight as quickly as possible, precisely because they're not waiting turns for you to fight them all.

[Gryndle]

So, the PCs should always, or almost always anyways, take each of the baddies under fire in turn. This is a basic concept of the game. But I happen to hate it.

It just feels like a bad TV show or movie where each of the bad guys waits to attack the hero one at a time. How do we get rid of this?

Sometimes you can create a goal that the bad guys are trying to get to that makes engaging as many as possible at once sensible. But usually not. Has anyone developed a house rule? Hopefully I’m not the only one bothered by this.

I’ve thought about that if everyone attacks one enemy then the others get advantage on their attacks. But that seems a bit much, and would have to apply to the PCs too of course, which means more to manage for the DM.

What are your other monsters/enemy npcs doing while the party is focus firing one target?

What I find is that when the entire party is focused on one enemy, the rest of the baddies are pretty much free to harass, focus fire or otherwise screw over the party in whatever manner is appropriate to the scenario.

Currently I am playing instead of DMing. The tactic we've settled on is that two or three of us gang up on one target, while the others control or delay the rest of the enemy. Usually the offensive group is my fighter, one of the rogues and occasionally the sorc (sometimes he is more useful in the delaying/control group, tactics change as required).

I don't think you need to set up some arbitrary rule that mechanically screws over the party, just because you don't enjoy their tactics. That would bother me as a player. Kinda has the vibe of Cartman changing the rules to a game just because he's losing.

Instead, adjust your monster's tactics. The simplest way is to return the favor; while the party is focusing on one target, have the other baddies pick a pc at the edge of the fight to focus fire on. The party will then have to adjust tactics.

[BerzerkerUnit]

You could introduce an escalation system where any creature that isn’t targeted by an attack or spell adds a d4 to damage to a limit of 5d4 until you are attacked or forced to make a saving throw.

Add a feat called “steal momentum” where whenever you drop a foe that has that bonus damage you get to add the damage to your own attacks. No stacking, only the highest bonus is retained.

Add a bit to Charger and a couple other feats and features that adds momentum to your damage when you use those features or get to do your schtick.

Add a Barbarian Subclass whose momentum dice are d12s while raging.

This means it behooves the party to flip at least an attack at every target, every round, but at higher levels, half of all attacks can be focused and the rest spread out, so focus fire isn’t eliminated entirely, built multiplayers are lowered.

It also cuts down on some of the usefulness of wall off tactics. Walling off is good if you plan to bug out, or the wall is a permanent solution, or at least long enough to where the enemies will drop out of initiative, but walling them off for 5 turns is just letting them come back screaming.

[Corran]

You could introduce an escalation system where any creature that isn’t targeted by an attack or spell adds a d4 to damage to a limit of 5d4 until you are attacked or forced to make a saving throw.

Heh, I had the same thought. Give some advantage to a creature that was not attacked for a whole turn. I'd restrict this though only to creatures fighting in melee (for fighting in range I might even go the opposite route, ie throw some sort of disadvantage when engaged). I like your idea of it scaling over time, my idea was something like advantage or gaining an additional attack.

[Keravath]

Focus fire - in a game or in real life - is almost always an optimal strategy. Consider real battles where the attackers focus fire on the machine guns or armor to either take them out or suppress them. Taking out the most dangerous opponents first, if you can do so, always makes the most sense. So, personally, I don't really find it either unrealistic or gamey. The "unrealistic" aspect if you like is that the party is often more coordinated than might be expected.

There are several different ways to deal with this either from the DM side or if you are desperate from the mechanics side.

If you want a mechanics option then require a combatant to make an intelligence or wisdom check if they want to target a creature that is not within reach or move to attack a different target (doesn't apply if no target is within reach - then they get to choose since they aren't under immediate pressure). Set the DC appropriately for how challenging you want this to be and if you think a skill like perception might be useful then use that. Success on the check allows the character to think tactically and move/attack a more optimal target. This mechanic wouldn't apply to characters using the disengage action. This would allow characters to choose their targets initially but make it a bit harder to switch as the fight develops.

However, I don't think it is really needed. Focus fire usually only happens like that when the DM allows the party to dictate the setup. The bad guys just attack the front line, leaving the ranged characters unhindered. This allows the front line to focus on one target immediately in front of them and the ranged characters to do the same.

The DM can break this up in several ways -
- make sure to use the cover rules for ranged attacks at opponents on the other side of your party members. The ranged attackers should have to move if they want a clear shot at the opponents in the front line or behind another party member or another bad guy. Firing at a target with another creature/character in the way gives the target a +2AC for half cover and +5 if there are enough creatures in the way to give 3/4 cover - if there are even more creatures then the DM can easily say the ranged attacker doesn't even have a shot (like firing up a narrow corridor filled with creatures from the back of the party).
- use opponents with a mix of melee, ranged and spell attacks if appropriate. It is usually not easy to identify the toughest threat or which target should be focus fired. In this kind of situation, the PCs may have to take opportunity attacks, lose a turn repositioning, or even wind up surrounded by opponents if they decide to move to attack a more "opitimal" target behind the front lines of the opposing side.
- have some of the opponents move past the character front lines to engage ranged attackers and casters. Ranged attackers have disadvantage on any attack rolls against any target if there is an opponent adjacent. The ranged attacker has a choice of attacking the target next to them in melee, disengaging, or firing at disadvantage. In each case, this breaks up the "focus fire" mechanic by making it less than optimal for that character.
- sometimes have the opponents use similar tactics.
- one last technique is to use intelligent opponents. If your party likes to use yo-yo healing - waiting until a party member goes down then bring them back up with a couple hit points - then the opponents ARE going to notice. What do they do then? Do they just let it happen over and over? If they are intelligent that doesn't make much sense. What the opponents would do is make sure that when a target goes down they stay down. Considering that a single melee attack within 5' against a target with 0 hit points will cause 2 failed death saves - it only takes a couple of hits to ensure that character is unlikely to get up and fight again in this fight. Intelligent opponents will do that. However, this also means that, in terms of focus fire, the most dangerous opponent is the one that can attack your downed friend and not the necessarily the biggest threat out there. As a result, the party is forced to change their focus fire strategy to deal with saving party members.

Anwyay, there are so many DM techniques that can be used to break up a repetitive focus fire tactic that I've never found it an issue or required extra mechanics to force characters to have less coordination of actions.

[stoutstien]

Look for or homebrew NPCs with better active defensive abilities so the effectiveness of rocket tag is reduced to a point where it's at least an active decision. Works for PCs so why not team monster.

[Mastikator]

Give some enemies Shield 1/day which can only be used if there are at least another ally within 30 feet. That would make tactically best to switch target, but only after one or more attacks have been delivered on the shielded target, thus breaking up the attacks into 2 targets. This only happens once per combat, which is enough to keep it fresh but also enough to have an impact.

A stronger option might be shield for someone else, like the psi knight's defense or rune knight's cloud rune reaction.

[Zhorn]

I don't think that is a case where homebrew rules are needed, nor special custom monsters.

Simple fix to cut down on focus fire is have combat environments that don't allow for everyone to see the same targets at the same time.

Terrain, obstacles, corridors and tight corners.
My players are finding in white room scenarios they are having a lot easier of a time fighting high CR creatures than they are at fighting lower CR creatures in confined spaces.
Any environment that block that line of sight so not everyone in the party is able to see all opponents (or even all party members) at the same time is a big tactical shift.

"Don't split the party" isn't just a mantra about keeping players in the same scene, it's about the survivability that comes from coordinating as a group. a character that is separated from the party is in much greater danger with how the action economy works.
Split the party up, even if only superficially with a blind corner and a door, and suddenly the focus fire strat is off the table for the party.

[da newt]

I'm not sure I agree that FF is a bad thing, but the simplest house rule I can think of is to take the cover rules and create the house rule:

'When you attack a creature that has already been attacked this round by another creature they gain 1/2 cover (+2 AC/+2 saves). When you attack a creature that has already been attacked by 2 or more creatures they gain 3/4 cover (+5 AC/+5 saves).'

It's a pretty simple mechanic and most are already familiar with cover so it should be no big deal to implement. That's as elegant a deterrent as I can think of, and of course it would need to apply to team PC and team bad guy equally (and really nerf hoards and piles of summons).

[Sorinth]

I do like the ideas for giving bonuses if someone wasn't attacked as they not only help with focus fire but also makes being outnumbered more of a problem which is another thing that always seemed a bit unrealistic.

Though stealing a page from the "Swarm of ..." monster and having a lower prof bonus and damage when below 50% health also has it's merits.

Both of those could just as easily be applied to PCs as well. The "bloodied" mechanic also helps popup healing being less good which is a nice side benefit.

One thing I would add is morale checks, if after a certain damage theshold monsters start making checks to see if they run away or not then then it would also encourage spreading the damage.

[Cass]

In a real fight, you're going to make sure to get enemies out of the fight as quickly as possible, precisely because they're not waiting turns for you to fight them all.

I don't think so, while it is preferably to "get enemies out of the fight as quickly as possible" that's not always possible when numbers are similar because if you don't engage all enemies/directions you will be hit from the back. In DnD there's no facing direction to account for that so that's why it's not a factor in the game.

[Doug Lampert]

If the rules were such that focus fire wasn't the best strategy, then we'd need a houserule to make it so it was. Because those cinematic scenes where all of the enemies are exactly paired up and everyone just attacks only their own distinct opponent are unrealistic and cheesy as heck. In a real fight, you're going to make sure to get enemies out of the fight as quickly as possible, precisely because they're not waiting turns for you to fight them all.

No, actually, in a real fight you make absolutely SURE that everyone on the other side has something to worry about. That's what suppressive fire is all about, and MOST fire in modern combat is suppressive.

Ancient warfare was much the same, you thinned your lines if necessary to make sure that everyone on the other side was facing someone, because an unengaged enemy unit with room on the front to engage == the enemy WINS and your side gets to experience the joys of being pursued.

Real people don't have ablative HP, so there's no advantage in real combat to giving one guy 4 minor wounds. Giving 4 different guys one minor wound each is VASTLY better in actual combat. Because most wounds that don't take someone out by immediate shock have no immediate effect in combat, each wounded guy is out of action in the mid-term for treatment and requires help to the rear after the adrenaline wears off, and the FIRST wound is far and away the most likely to cause shock (physiologically there's a big difference between "I'm unhurt" and "I'm hurt"; and almost no difference between "I'm hurt 3 times" and "I'm hurt 4 times").

D&D concentration of fire is a pure game artifact due to the way HP work. It's "realistic" to EXACTLY the same extent that a guy who's been shot in the chest 5 times and keeps coming keeling over dead because a cat scratches his big toe for 1 more HP in damage is realistic. It works because damage accumulates in D&D in a way that it almost never does in real life. Cumulative blood loss might justify HP, except that blood loss is a continuing effect of wounds, not an instant effect that happens once per wound and then stops.

If you want to get rid of concentration of fire being the best tactic, you need a more realistic damage mechanism, this does NOT necessarily mean wound penalties (there is pretty much 0 evidence for wound penalties that apply in the same fight that you take the wound, the Pentagon has done studies, if they're not down, they're not all that impaired).

But HP damage is pretty fundamental to D&D combat.

Advantage for anyone not attacked has problems on the first round and for PCs vs. horde of monsters scenarios. Both of which I think would be bad. So, reverse it: Anyone not "exceptional" has disadvantage on the round after they take damage (define exceptional to include all PCs, all "bosses", anything with legendary or lair actions, and anyone else the GM wants the PCs to all beat on as a group).

Edited to add: note that NPCs know how combat "normally" works, and thus know that people who are attacked are less effective, they'll accordingly spread their attacks unless they know that PCs are different and know how they are different.

[Sorinth]

Advantage for anyone not attacked has problems on the first round and for PCs vs. horde of monsters scenarios. Both of which I think would be bad. So, reverse it: Anyone not "exceptional" has disadvantage on the round after they take damage (define exceptional to include all PCs, all "bosses", anything with legendary or lair actions, and anyone else the GM wants the PCs to all beat on as a group).

I'm not sure this would actually be a a problem. It makes Initiative even more important but that's not really a bad thing, in general fights would be faster which is good, and PCs having more difficulty vs a horde of monsters would also be a good thing for me.

The only downside is that there are some abilities that utilize the 1st round of combat which would have to be reworked. But that seems less of a problem and just a question of a bit more work.

[Segev]

Enemies that are Concentrating on something will encourage targeting them to break Concentration; more than one doing so will require splitting focus. Grappling enemies that have rules about releasing targets if they take a certain amount of damage will also encourage shifting focus when they are holding someone. Really, anything that makes either regular damage to a creature good will encourage it.

On the homebrew side for PCs, you could introduce a rule that grants +d4 damage if they attack a creature that hasn't been damaged since the PC's last turn, but you probably want to make that a spell effect or magic item effect rather than a general house rule. Fair play would make it a general house rule for the monsters, too, after all.

[loki_ragnarock]

I came here to bring up Exalted and L5R health levels where wounds could really mitigate the combat effectiveness of participants pretty severely. Killing someone is still *better* because being unable to take an action is superior to being able to take an enfeebled action, but it definitely has to be weighed against participants who would otherwise be taking shots at you with full capacity. You could do this pretty simply by creating hp threshholds where x% of hp - maybe influenced by con mod, for added depth - loss = x levels of exhaustion applied. You'd ramp up the lethality of the system considerably that way, especially when made into universal system that also applies to players, which might not be what you want.
Others have already brought up wounds systems, though. The particulars can be whatever so long as the idea is floated.

But what I haven't seen so much of in the thread is bring back an old D&D standard:

A morale system.

Players don't *have* to kill everything they see. Sometimes creatures should really be running from the steel clad, fire spewing, murderous invaders after they bust down the door and start doing what they do. And if you don't have to kill everything by dragging its hp from full to zero, you can give yourself some incentive to engage multiple creatures.
Set the morale - say 10 for something not so brave (say, a kobold), 18-19 for something generally fearless (like, say, a shadow dragon), or 20 for something immune to fear (like an ultroloth) - and then roll a d20 against their morale score after certain events in combat. Make a list as comprehensive as you feel like rolling, but here's some examples:
- First instance of the creature taking damage
- Creature takes a critical hit
- Creature has taken 1/2 of it's hp in total damage
- Creature has taken 3/4 of it's hp in total damage
- Ally has died
- 1/2 of total force has fled or died
- A spell is cast
- Leader has died (I'd avoid this one, specifically, as it would only encourage focus fire.)

When the condition triggers, roll your d20 - if the result is over their morale score, then a negative happens. What that negative is can be as complicated or simple as you'd like to make your system. They might try to immediately flee the scene if they fail such a check. They might gain the frightened condition for the rest of the combat. They might go berserk and just lay into what's next to them, friend or foe. Or they might be stunned for a round as they or overwhelmed. Or forced to do nothing but take the dodge action. Pick one. Or pick all of them and go old school with some percentage chance for each outcome laid out on a table. Or add outcomes, one for each percentage on a d100, and simulate playing Hackmaster, if you really wanted to.
The advantage of the morale system is that it doesn't apply to players, and just gives you as a DM a quick way to gauge whether things like a little or alot of damage is enough to have a meaningful impact on the *behaviors* of a creature. If attacking them can change their behaviors, then you have a real incentive for attacking them.
Say you have a shadow dragon and a pack of supporting kobolds, or something. You could focus fire on the shadow dragon to bring it down, and with its epic morale you'd be unlikely to make it break, so that's likely to be what you eventually wind up doing. But the X number of kobolds lobbing necro-grenades will be a real thorn in the side while doing it. You could clear the room, burning through every kobold hp in the process... or, you could hit a kobold here, kill a kobold there, and just have them run when they've actually been challenged.
You don't *need* a randomized system for this, of course. You could just say, "Upon getting attacked kobolds flee the scene." If you do it that way, you have to create conditionals like that for every encounter you make or your players will be unlikely to grock what you've got going on. If it's a set of randomized outcomes that they actually know about - "Hey guys, I put in a morale system" - then they're much more likely to exploit it.
If you want players behaviors to change, you have to change the monster behaviors. This is an easy, mostly fair way to do it.

EDIT:
(Introducing a morale system like this can give minor buffs to things like the Champion's Improved Critical or the Ranger's Conjure Barrage - if doing a little bit of damage to *alot* of creaturesis enough to change their behaviors, the calculus for the value of Conjure Barrage shifts considerably. Likewise if crits can force morale checks; even if they don't do beaucoup damage, they might force a behavior change, increasing their value. Just an aside to consider before slapping your homebrew morale system together.)

[TyGuy]

Instead of doing a bunch of work to disincentivize a logical tactic of a combat simulation game, maybe work on your perception of the non-issue.

You say it feels odd like the opposing sides are squaring off and taking turns. First, you realize that despite calling them "turns" everyone is narratively acting simultaneously. Turns are the way to organize the combat simulation. But a three round combat is narratively a brisk 18 seconds of combat.
If thinking of it that way doesn't help, then maybe just try one of the variant rules like shuffling initiative each round. That's something I wouldn't consider with pencil and paper, but if you're running a virtual table top, some systems make initiative fast and easy.

[Xervous]

If it feels like an open field fight where everyone can trivially pick the same target to focus that’s because it is (an open field). Add cover, add choke points, have the enemies focus fire and then everyone will be playing the cover game rather than blindly leaping at non trivial opposition.

[Hootman]

Assuming part of the issue is that the bad guy that was damaged a bit on Round 1 is still being targeted on Round 2 (as the players are trying to remove the now-wounded threat before moving on to the next target)...why not just have them Dodge?

It's something any creature can do, and that all varieties of creature can benefit from at least somewhat. It doesn't interrupt Concentration, it doesn't prevent them from making Attacks of Opportunity, and it doesn't prevent them from still blocking movement through their space(s). Seems like a perfect simple solution to me, without adding all of these "bonus damage for pedantic bookkeeping", or "the players get extra wrecked, for free, if they are out-numbered", or whatever other solutions everyone else is kicking around.

Not that those solutions couldn't work, potentially, with a bunch of playtesting and a group that was on board, and all the usual caveats. I just think it might be easier to...you know...do something simple that already exists within the rules, so you don't have to graft on any new sub-systems, or remember anything fiddly.

My players, especially clerics using Spirit Guardians, or anyone holding the line in a really narrow space, use Dodging all the time to keep enemies from breaking through, or knocking out their spell. Why not have enemies use the same tactic? I've generally found that if even medium-AC enemies use Dodge strategically, I can convince my PCs to go after different targets for a round--or they double down, keep attacking the Dodging guy, and fail to take him out because he didn't get hit as many times as he otherwise would have. And since the bad guys are destined to lose anyways, it's fine that they THEN get clobbered the round after (or the mage drops a Shatter spell on them with a "Fine! Let's see you dodge THIS!"), because my mission as a DM succeeded: Get the players to shift their Standard Operating Procedure, or expend a few extra resources, or spend another round or two in combat so that attrition has a chance to whittle them down enough for the Final Battle to be more dramatic.

[strangebloke]

So, the PCs should always, or almost always anyways, take each of the baddies under fire in turn. This is a basic concept of the game. But I happen to hate it.

It just feels like a bad TV show or movie where each of the bad guys waits to attack the hero one at a time. How do we get rid of this?

Sometimes you can create a goal that the bad guys are trying to get to that makes engaging as many as possible at once sensible. But usually not. Has anyone developed a house rule? Hopefully I’m not the only one bothered by this.

I’ve thought about that if everyone attacks one enemy then the others get advantage on their attacks. But that seems a bit much, and would have to apply to the PCs too of course, which means more to manage for the DM.

If the monsters are clever, they will find ways to make this harder to accomplish, using the same tools that player characters use. Ranged enemies and spellcasters should take cover at the end of their turns if they can. Aggressive melee enemies should seek to get next to ranged enemies to apply disadvantage/force them to disengage/force them to switch to melee weapons. The enemy wizard might cast shield and thus stop any aggression against them until the end of their turn.

Focus fire is the optimal strategy, but the PCs can only go for it if their choices are unrestricted, and the enemies should be attempting to restrict the PC's options if they care about winning, which... yeah, it feels like that's just realistic for intelligent enemies?

Beyond this, I have been meaning for a while to talk about how a (portion of why) melee characters can feel so much worse than ranged characters comes from standard assumptions in encounter design. Cover tends to be pretty scarce, as one example. This relates to the topic of focus fire because, yeah, focus fire is a lot easier for ranged characters, but this probably needs its own thread.

[Warder]

Beyond this, I have been meaning for a while to talk about how a (portion of why) melee characters can feel so much worse than ranged characters comes from standard assumptions in encounter design. Cover tends to be pretty scarce, as one example. This relates to the topic of focus fire because, yeah, focus fire is a lot easier for ranged characters, but this probably needs its own thread.

I think a lot of groups tend to gloss over that creatures provide cover too, including allied melee characters.

[strangebloke]

I think a lot of groups tend to gloss over that creatures provide cover too, including allied melee characters.

Or unallied creatures. According to RAW, if you're attacking a group, everyone except the creatures in the very front have half cover, which is +2 to AC. Its not a huge amount but it does take the gas out of a lot of theoretical DPR calculations.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Or unallied creatures. According to RAW, if you're attacking a group, everyone except the creatures in the very front have half cover, which is +2 to AC. Its not a huge amount but it does take the gas out of a lot of theoretical DPR calculations.

Or makes SS all that much more necessary. Personally, I think the cover ignoring bullet point there is among them most distortionary effects. Extra damage, meh. Extra range, meh. Not worrying about cover, especially with the fighting style reducing even 3/4 cover to nothing (in conjunction with the feat)... That's an issue (relative to other styles and feats in the martial domain).

[strangebloke]

Or makes SS all that much more necessary. Personally, I think the cover ignoring bullet point there is among them most distortionary effects. Extra damage, meh. Extra range, meh. Not worrying about cover, especially with the fighting style reducing even 3/4 cover to nothing (in conjunction with the feat)... That's an issue (relative to other styles and feats in the martial domain).

The range effect is also completely stupid whenever it comes up, and since I run combat-as-war, it comes up all the time. And I'll even say that the damage IS disruptive, mostly because of how bad it makes melee options look by comparison (though there are powerful ranged builds that don't use it). SS is on the short list of things I ban in my campaigns, alongside mass conjuration spells.