I'm curious, is it better to take out the weenies before the larger, nastier enemies when they are in a group, or the other way around?
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Some attacks you really should shut down as soon as possible. If the nastier enemies are not too much nastier and you think the party can deal with them before they kill you, it can be smart to thin out attacks, open flanks on the worse threats and prevent them on your party or just hit the enemies you think you can hit.
See, that's the thing. I always wanted to know what the prime targets should be when starting a combat.
Say, for example, you have an ogre who has a whole lot of orc buddies with him. Do you take out the orcs first, or the ogre?
Orcs are pretty darn deadly for their CR, plus they're not as stupid. So I'd take them out first.
The specifics of a encounter are important. So are the tools you have prepared.
From a pure tactical stand point (which doesn't always pan out with what a given character might actually do), it is better to take out the weakest (i.e. most easily taken out) enemy first.
There are only two circumstances in which that is not the case:
1) If the weakest enemy is no threat, or so little of a threat that they can be safely ignored (despite providing flanks)
2) If one of the stronger enemies has a save or lose ability or a huge AoE attack or something else that can hurt the party more than the weaker guys combined.
Not a rules question.
But, mpl has excellent advice.
In our party our sorcerer and barbarian will frequently gang up on the big nasty while my druid takes out the mooks to keep them off our backs.
The logic behind the tactic has to do with average rounds to defeat an opponent and how much damage each character can do in a round. Since the barbarian can do as much damage in one round as my druid usually does in two (barring exceptional dice rolls) having the druid take out the mooks usually doesn't reduce the number of rounds the barbarian/sorcerer's target is up, but reduces the number of rounds for mop up.
Well, time and again, I've noticed that packs of crappy combatants tend to get lucky and roll 20's sooner or later, and thus do a lot of damage even if it takes a 20 to hit. Then again, that single buff cream puff hits easily and hard per shot.
So, is it better to prevent as many enemies from getting a roll at all, therefore killing off the weenies, or is it better to go after the big mook first so he doesn't cream anyone with a shot or two?
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Personally i go after the small fries 1st. Though the small guys might not be that strong alone they can easily use aid another and rank up there to hit chances and ac or do the same for the big guy. Not to mention that they can cut ur escape wrought and force ur positioning if there is enough of them. Pretty much zerg rush but with tactics is a scary thought and is best to be dealt with. At the same time though it does not mean u should ignore the big guy. Have front line melee deal with small fries as they charge in and what not and have back line ranged focus fire the big guy is usually a decent strategy depending on terrain it becomes a great way to take thing on.
The other day for the group im in had to fight a small horde of kobolds and there leader a Half-Dragon. We opened up with an aoe fireball and presumed to run back to the start through the coradores leading to a room forcing the kobolds to leave there wide open area and get into smaller areas. By doing this we cornered our selves in a room admittedly giving us no escape wrought but it also gave us a position were we could nto be flanked. We forced the fight to were it was 4 kbolds at any 1 given time that were able to act. True the fight lasted a long time but we were clearly out numbered and if we fought in the big room we could of easily been surrounded and out matched especially since these kobolds were fighting in formation of short sword front line spear back line using aid another to increase there to hit chances. The kobolds were actually tough because of there formation tactics that our party fighters were forced to Total Defense the entire time in the room's doorway to act as a wall for the 2 ranged guys in the party that were doing all the attacks. Btw party composition is 2 fighters sword and board, a ray sorcerer, my fighter archer, and a bard buffer/healer.
The cool part though is we all went from level 2 to 5 that night just because of the sheer numbers of things we fought. Im so glad the Ray mage took point bland shot because that dude's Jolt spell was finishing off all the targets i did damage to (was not rolling good on damage that night but at least all attacks were hits).
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Action economy tends to be really important in Pathfinder. The sooner you can turn it into a many-against-few battle, the better. But some things can be extremely disruptive to your best-laid plans.
If the strong enemy is using controlling, or area effects, then I would make him a priority.
If the strong enemy is just tough, or hard-hitting, then I would try to delay him or keep him occupied while clearing out the mooks.
Although my next session will probably show me why I am wrong.
From what I am reading here, if it's possible to one shot the little ones while delaying or fouling up the big guy, do so. Numbers of enemies mean more than strength overall. If you have an archer, or a fireball spell, use it first to narrow down the weak enemies before you go after the big guy.
Now, if the big guy seems to be really kicking your butt, then by all means take him out first, but that's special circumstances.
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Personally i go after the small fries 1st. Though the small guys might not be that strong alone they can easily use aid another and rank up there to hit chances and ac or do the same for the big guy. Not to mention that they can cut ur escape wrought and force ur positioning if there is enough of them. Pretty much zerg rush but with tactics is a scary thought and is best to be dealt with. At the same time though it does not mean u should ignore the big guy. Have front line melee deal with small fries as they charge in and what not and have back line ranged focus fire the big guy is usually a decent strategy depending on terrain it becomes a great way to take thing on.
The other day for the group im in had to fight a small horde of kobolds and there leader a Half-Dragon. We opened up with an aoe fireball and presumed to run back to the start through the coradores leading to a room forcing the kobolds to leave there wide open area and get into smaller areas. By doing this we cornered our selves in a room admittedly giving us no escape wrought but it also gave us a position were we could nto be flanked. We forced the fight to were it was 4 kbolds at any 1 given time that were able to act. True the fight lasted a long time but we were clearly out numbered and if we fought in the big room we could of easily been surrounded and out matched especially since these kobolds were fighting in formation of short sword front line spear back line using aid another to increase there to hit chances. The kobolds were actually tough because of there formation tactics that our party fighters were forced to Total Defense the entire time in the room's doorway to act as a wall for the 2 ranged guys in the party that were doing all the attacks. Btw party composition is 2 fighters sword and board, a ray sorcerer, my fighter archer, and a bard buffer/healer.
The cool part though is we all went from level 2 to 5 that night just because of the sheer numbers of things we fought. Im so glad the Ray mage took point bland shot because...
BTW vergot to mention the Fireball was off a single charge wand we found in the last adventure we were in that our bard used. Thank god we did not use it any time earlier then we did because that literally 1/2ed the thing we had to fight.
"Nothing is worse than getting bogged down with the weaklings only to fight the boss at half your strength. The first thing you should do is go straight for the strongest opponent and bring him down right away. That way, even if you use up half your strength on him, what remains is enough to clean up the weaklings. It doesn't usually work the other way around."
This only works if you deplete your offense by fighting--the vast majority of characters will only be depleting defense (mainly HP).
Actually, the fact that offense is not depleted by damage is exactly the reason that you should kill the weak enemies first. Dealing partial damage to the big boss is pointless because it will still hit you at full strength. Nothing can hurt you when it's dead, though, so if you can kill the mooks quickly, it's usually better to take them out first.
Depends on if the weaklings have to make a morale check when the boss goes down
Strong and weak are relative terms. If the weaklings are barely easier to kill than the strong one but are considered weak because they can barely harm the party, while as the strong one is considered such due to his devastating offense... you absolutely go after the strong one first.
If the weak ones are glass canons, go down fast but hit hard... you probably want to take them out first.
It mostly comes down to a threat ratio of enemy offense : defense.
On the defense end, squishy targets are prime targets due to reducing the enemies' collective action economy by killing off their numbers. On the offense side, a really dangerous attack might mean focusing on a foe that can't be taken down quickly is more important because you really can't afford to have him around for long.
Just one example... last fight our level 9 party had, DM threw 4 basilisks and a CR 8ish dragon at us. The dragon was flying, basilisks on the ground. Technically the basilisks were "only" CR 5 (what a joke the CR system is!), but... not surprisingly, we considered their flurry of save or dies every round to be a far more pressing threat than ANYTHING the dragon could possibly do, and tried to eliminate them as fast as freaking possible.