I think the most efficient strategy is to eliminate as many incoming attacks as possible. If you can take the paladin out of the combat with that first attack, give it a shot. But I would say killing and damaging everyone is better then damaging just the paladin. Besides, if they didn't want a quick and pointless death, they shouldn't have become minions in the first place.
Note: Every situation is different, this isn't some kind of tactical rule or anything.
There are too many tactical variations for one answer.
Can the big bad cast "protection from arrows?" That alone could neutralize an entire group of archers. Then who cares if you kill them or not, they aren't part of the battle any longer.
Then there are terrain options. Lance implies a mount. Kill the mount.
What minions does your BBEG have? What spells, spell-like abilities, etc.
All of that factors in. If your BBEG truly is tactically aware, he won't be thinking in terms of killing the enemy, he'll be thinking in terms of outmaneuvering the enemy.
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How they get so many minions? Leadership? I guess it depends on the weapons at hand. If the BBEG has a better chance of wiping out a bunch of minions off the bat then shutting down the pally go that route. If he has a way to hinder or control the pally give that a shot. It would be easier to advise if we knew what the BBEG is working with.
Side note: Starting two levels below the next guy sucks. I know you are on the fast XP scale but you may want to re-think that unless your players are cool with it. I would hate it myself. YMMV
Avoidance is the key, the bbeg doesn't need to kill all the archers or the paladin, he needs to negate their attacks. If he has prot arrows and no way to negate the charging paladin he needs to kill the paladin. If he's flying but about to get shot he needs to kill the archers.
I'd wall of force between the paladin and the archers then torment the paladin by teleporting through and killing his followers lazily while he watches through the wall of force powerless to stop me, muhahahaha... But thats just one option, alternatively you could demoralise the followers by embarrasing the paladin, colour spray him and his mount if your dc's are decent one will fail, web everything, use minions of your own to combat his minions, trapped room splits people up (i love the balancing floor trick to cut down on the numbers, npc minions tend to get boned by simple skill checks).
Its all very situational but after a certain level the minions will need a straight to hit the bbeg anyway and eventually won't penetrate dr.
Sun Tzu would say to always go straight to the leader.
personally, i think that spellcasters are generally going to get priority. once they're neutralised then deal with the other threats in order of priority. if the greatest threat is the archers then throw some smokesticks their way or put up a wind wall, effectively eliminating them from the fight. then, focus on the paladin with attacks he can't easily counter or retaliate to... i'd suggest fly and ranged attacks. if you can then feed the paladin one minion at a time until you're ready to deal with him then that feels like it may be a good idea.
its really easy to complicate the question with a whole lot of what ifs and cute ideas.
but if I take into account simply the information given by the OP i get this.
Im a bad guy facing down a charging paladin, 10 bow wielding fireball bait and 2 other unknown combatants.
its not likley that anything i do will stop the paladine in one hit.
but its possible that my AOE attack can drop some or all of the bow wielding guys and possibly the 2 unknowns.
on the other hand the charging paladin is likley to bring the pain when he gets to me while the bow wielders and other guys may be largely ineffective.
with no other information such as terrain, available spells and possible allies I would say AOE the minions first. as a bad guy i want to show my power and tactically i would rather take out as many enemies as possible knowing that no matter what i do I will have to focus a lot of effort on the paladin so why not get the small fry out of the way first.
as a GM I would want to impart on my players that this bad guy is truely bad ass by letting him wipe out a bunch of the players NPCs making the after battle story line more interesting.
grim narration voice
"13 entered the domain of the evil overlord and only 3 walked out alive."
....
of course if the opportunity presents itself the bad guy can take out the horse then fireball the minions while the paladin picks himself up (of course in my game people in heavy armor require special rolls to stand while wearing heavy armor.
It's worth pointing out that at a certain point, in Pathfinder, minions aren't as real a danger anymore. Surrounded a guy by 5 venomous snakes in the Mwangi yesterday night game. The stealthy snakes got the drop on him in the surprise round. He had a 15 AC and they had +2 hit. Four snakes missed, one hit and did 3 points of damage. When he got initiative, his AC went up to 19 and they had to roll 17 or higher.
Statistically, if you put in enough minions, some of them are bound to hit, but their damage will be paltry unless they get lucky, there are a real lot of them, and a whole bunch hit. It can stack up... but the likelihood of it compared to that Paladin hitting you like a holy freight train?
Grant you, minions working together with aid other works wonders (I'm not sure snakes are smart enough for that,) but that Paladin is made of pain... your pain.
Sun Tzu would say to always go straight to the leader.
Sun Tzu would say to always do the unexpected.
If asked how to cope with a great host of the enemy in orderly array and on the point of marching to the attack, I should say: "Begin by seizing something which your opponent holds dear; then he will be amenable to your will." Rapidity is the essence of war: take advantage of the enemy's unreadiness, make your way by unexpected routes, and attack unguarded spots.
- Sun Tzu
Maybe your big bad should kidnap the paladin's sister...
Good point. Hug the paladin great them as friends and treat them to cake and ice cream... drug the cake and ice cream... then delayed fireball blast the little buggers.
I think the most efficient strategy is to eliminate as many incoming attacks as possible. If you can take the paladin out of the combat with that first attack, give it a shot. But I would say killing and damaging everyone is better then damaging just the paladin. Besides, if they didn't want a quick and pointless death, they shouldn't have become minions in the first place.
Note: Every situation is different, this isn't some kind of tactical rule or anything.
Normally I would be inclined to agree with you as that's certainly how my group approaches battles - concentrated fire to eliminate threats as quickly as possible. After all, 10 half-dead foes are just as big a threat as 10 fully alive foes, but 5 completely alive and 5 completely dead are another story.
In this instance I would have to disagree however - it really depends on the level of threat the 'leader' poses vs. his minions. Let's assume the big baddie is evil, has a good armor class and has some low-level damage resistance (like 5/magic which is pretty generic). Those minion level archers would be a nuisance at best that could be cleaned up at leisure... but a Paladin who's likely Smiting would be seen as a much, much greater threat, as the only threat really.
Really, for any intelligent evil creature, its take out the Paladin first or run.
It would depend on how threatening the minions are, as said earlier archers can do a lot of damage if left alone. Flanking also sucks if you don't dwindle the numbers. Casters also add an unexpected element.
any minions betwixt you and the big bad guy.
that way the minions learn to move out of your way.
Sun Tzu would say to go for the leader true but if the real leader is the players so thats not a real option.
In Pathfinder or any d20 game. The only commodity more valuable than the gold piece is the action.
If the minions can cause damage or disrupt they are targets. Generally they will be less resilient than players. Removing them will proportionately reduce damage/disruption and remove actions.
Its always better to kill what is easy to kill first to remove enemies than to try to focus characters (be they BBEG's or Players) that will have higher defenses.
If your looking to really sock it to them look for spells that alter the terrain, especially if they all cannot fly. A grease spell works great as does entangling roots or spike stones. Slow down the melee and have a wizard ready to counterspell the casters or cast wind wall for the ranged.
I don't look at it from the perspective of minion versus BBEG. I look at it from the perspective of enemy damage output versus party damage output. If you can neutralize all the bad guys before any members of your party get killed, you're doing it right. Therefore the goal is to maximize your own damage output while minimizing enemy output. The most efficient way to do this is to kill an enemy, but reducing an enemy's output drastically (save or suck) is almost equivalent.
Most of the time it's easier to focus damage to one target for many classes, particularly a small number of flanking melee classes. Therefore, melee classes typically should focus on the biggest single threat. That biggest threat is typically a BBEG.
An AoE effect that either kills or disables a significant number of enemies is pretty strong at minimizing enemy damage output. In terms of pure survivability, it's typically better to shoot for reducing enemy damage to zero while maintaining some level of damage output. That increases the overall efficiency of healing and minimizes the amount of actions taken to heal.
Note: with the CR pumps in Pathfinder (challenging CR = APL + 1 in PF, challenging CR = APL in 3.5), damage spells don't scale as well unless your character heavily focuses on spell damage output. Therefore AoE save or suck seems to be much stronger than AoE damage. Partially dead enemies are much more lethal than disabled full health enemies.
Sun Tzu would say to go for the leader true but if the real leader is the players so thats not a real option.
In Pathfinder or any d20 game. The only commodity more valuable than the gold piece is the action.
If the minions can cause damage or disrupt they are targets. Generally they will be less resilient than players. Removing them will proportionately reduce damage/disruption and remove actions.
Its always better to kill what is easy to kill first to remove enemies than to try to focus characters (be they BBEG's or Players) that will have higher defenses.
If your looking to really sock it to them look for spells that alter the terrain, especially if they all cannot fly. A grease spell works great as does entangling roots or spike stones. Slow down the melee and have a wizard ready to counterspell the casters or cast wind wall for the ranged.
Sun Tzu would make the determination on the threat he was facing rather than adhere to any rigid doctrine.
Seriously - let's say that you're the big bad guy, you're evil and you have some minor common DR (like 5/magic).
Now let's say that you are being charged by a Paladin who can Smite Evil, bypass damage resistance, deal tremendous amounts of damage to you and poses a very real and immediate threat. Meanwhile, you're also being peppered by many arrows from archers who will be lucky to penetrate your armor class and if they do will have pretty much all of their damage nullified by your damage resistance.
Who do you want to spend your time taking out? Its either take little to no damage from the archers while you deal with the Paladin or take tremendous amounts of damage from the Paladin while you deal with the archers. Seems like a no-brainer to me.
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Sun Tzu would say to go for the leader true but if the real leader is the players so thats not a real option.
In Pathfinder or any d20 game. The only commodity more valuable than the gold piece is the action.
If the minions can cause damage or disrupt they are targets. Generally they will be less resilient than players. Removing them will proportionately reduce damage/disruption and remove actions.
Its always better to kill what is easy to kill first to remove enemies than to try to focus characters (be they BBEG's or Players) that will have higher defenses.
If your looking to really sock it to them look for spells that alter the terrain, especially if they all cannot fly. A grease spell works great as does entangling roots or spike stones. Slow down the melee and have a wizard ready to counterspell the casters or cast wind wall for the ranged.
Sun Tzu would make the determination on the threat he was facing rather than adhere to any rigid doctrine.
Seriously - let's say that you're the big bad guy, you're evil and you have some minor common DR (like 5/magic).
Now let's say that you are being charged by a Paladin who can Smite Evil, bypass damage resistance, deal tremendous amounts of damage to you and poses a very real and immediate threat. Meanwhile, you're also being peppered by many arrows from archers who will be lucky to penetrate your armor class and if they do will have pretty much all of their damage nullified by your damage resistance.
Who do you want to spend your time taking out? Its either take little to no damage from the archers while you deal with the Paladin or take tremendous amounts of damage from the Paladin while you deal with the archers. Seems like a no-brainer to me.
I love how you quote me saying, "If they can deal damage or disrupt." and then counter my argument with my own caveat clause. Very good reading comprehension there.
Generically speaking, is there anything high level characters can do to draw fire? Lets say the party paladin, or any other high level character who is adventuring with a bunch of weaker ones, wants to take all the hits so no one else dies. How does he go about doing that?
Is there a way to force this issue RAW or is it just a role playing issue?
The easiest way to "draw fire" is to simply negate enemy attacks. Save or suck is the way to go.
Another too-obvious way to draw fire is to make teammates invisible while making the focus character visible. That technique has worked for me several times.
For a paladin, the typical way to strategically lure fire is to charge in. Most enemies spend their initial round hitting the "weakest" target, which -- assuming ACs were all equal in the party -- the charged paladin would be the worst. The charged paladin is also more isolated from his teammates, so focusing on her -- particularly with armor-ignoring, saveless attacks -- could be an optimal enemy strategy.
Then there's Antagonize. . . .
Sun Tzu would be turned into a burning skeleton by the bbeg and used to body block the paladin while the bbeg kills all the minions...
However in rpg's killing the paladin is the most sensible option, however the big bad will probably die to the gunslinger hidden in the minions, but then again the bbeg's job is to cause some damage then die and provide the party with xp and loot, so all is right in rpg world.
Generically speaking, is there anything high level characters can do to draw fire? Lets say the party paladin, or any other high level character who is adventuring with a bunch of weaker ones, wants to take all the hits so no one else dies. How does he go about doing that?
Is there a way to force this issue RAW or is it just a role playing issue?
By RAW there is Antagonize, but that isn't a very popular part of the game apparently.
I had a similar issue with a tower shield fighter in a campaign I was GM'ing. Basically the way he would draw attacks was to get in the monster's faces, and swing around a heavy pick. That was kind of tough to ignore. Once you have a creature based, it is unlikely that they are going to provoke an AoO in order to go attack someone else.
"Sun Tzu would say to always go straight to the leader."
I don't think he ever wrote anything like that. There was stuff about creating discord among leaders and generals before a battle, but almost everything in The Art O' War was about strategy, not tactics. If there is a Paladin about to charge your ass, it is a little late for strategy.
Depends on the BBEG.
If brute, I'd have him go after the most visibly threatening (in this case the charging knight) later rounds whoever did him the most harm (if he can tell).
If stealthy dude, I'd have him sneak around and backstab the support characters (bards, clerics, etc...).
If clever caster, I'd have him put up a barrier to slow the knight (of fly so not threatened), fireball the minions, then start casting at the ones that can still hurt him.
My first step would be to tactically avoid the charging paladin. A spellcaster or character with a wand of Fly and a few ranks in Use Magic Device should be able to accomplish this. If the Palie can also fly, well a tactically aware BBEG would probably know this and choose another option to get out of reach or gain some sort of tactical advantage, such as miss chance from displacement, blur, blink, or even invisibility.
Any BBEG worth his salt should also be able to withstand at least a few attacks from low-level minions via high HP, AC or common DR. If for some reason he is still being pegged and it gets annoying, that is the point when he should worry about taking out the minions using an AoE attack (though even then, against a group I would select a spell like Confusion which is likely to cause the minions to turn on each other).
Of course, if he is truly tactically aware, he should have already buffed with spells like Stoneskin or the above mentioned miss chance spells, and as such shouldn't even have to worry about the minions for at least a couple rounds, by which he would have evaluated their effectiveness.
If he was expecting more powerful minions which might give trouble anyway, he should probably have pre-selected and scouted the encounter field and laid a couple nasty traps for the minions, either mundane or magical, and used illusions such as Silent Image and Magic Aura to hide them more effectively.
All that preparation taken, he may easily, after the first round or two avoiding the paladin and evaluating the ranged combatants, be able switch to handing his steel-plated behind back at him.
He may reasonably not have noticed the backup PC's, or just left them until they became a nuisance, but if this group really does work like a party he should have some means of eliminating them as a threat. If the BBEG is high enough lvl casting or having someone else cast Control Winds with Windstorm or better force winds (CL 9+, though it takes a druid or character with a staff and UMD to cast it) will effectively eliminate all threat of ranged attacks, allowing the BBEG to focus on one PC at a time.
It's worth pointing out that at a certain point, in Pathfinder, minions aren't as real a danger anymore.
Our tenth level party took ten 3rd or 4th level archer minions to a certain very tough fight in our Savage Tide campaign. We gave them a few buffs (haste, bard song, good hope, hunter's bond and maybe one other I don't remember) and they ended up dealing roughly 500 points of raw damage in two rounds. Far more than any single party member - our 2h buffed-to-gills fighter/barbarian dealt 2-300 IIRC.