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Ok, so the caster is using heavy tactics like the horribly broken dazing metamagic. I do wonder how much smart does a random monster have to be to eat that Dazing assault AoO.Slow, Black Tentacles, Cloudkill, Haste (making the meatshields into better meatshields), Sirroco (getting knocked on your ass while getting railed), normal fireball (oh look, most meatshields have bad Reflex saves) so you take damage while taking damage ('cause the brutes are going to be attacking you anyway, so why not let the artillery blast you too while we're at it), Summon Monster X, etc.
Standard spellcaster tactics, not sure how they justify getting crushed in the proccess of targeting the caster. Few conditiosn are strongert than "dead".
Mostly because I just don't believe you when you act like an AoO is going to be the end of the world. Unless your foe is so woefully beneath you, or you're at the 1st level rocket-tag stage then most enemies are going to have way too many HPs.
Why? Because as it has been pointed out hundreds if not thousands of times before, a warrior is strongest at 1st level when a SINGLE HIT has a good chance of instant-killing any foe that you face. However, SINGLE HIT gets weak...FAST.
Your average monster increases their HP by 4.5 per HD that they gain, not even counting Constitution modifiers (which are usually pretty good). Your damage will never increase that fast. Ever.
1st level: your greatsword deals 2d6+6 damage, your enemy has 4.5 Hp.
2nd level: your greatsword deals 2d6+6 damage, your enemy has 9 Hp.
3rd level: your greatsword deals 2d6+6 damage, your enemy has 13.5 HP
4th level: your greatsword deals 2d6+9 damage, your enemy has 18 HP.
5th level: your greatsword deals 2d6+9 damage, your enemy has 22.5 HP.
6th level: your greatsword deals 2d6+10 damage, your enemy has 27 HP.
7th level: your greatsword deals 2d6+10 damage, your enemy has 31.5 HP.
Let's tack a +3 Con modifier onto them (your Str mod-1). Suddenly we're looking at...
1st level: your greatsword deals 2d6+6 damage, your enemy has 7.5 Hp.
2nd level: your greatsword deals 2d6+6 damage, your enemy has 15 Hp.
3rd level: your greatsword deals 2d6+6 damage, your enemy has 22.5 HP
4th level: your greatsword deals 2d6+9 damage, your enemy has 30 HP.
5th level: your greatsword deals 2d6+9 damage, your enemy has 37.5 HP.
6th level: your greatsword deals 2d6+10 damage, your enemy has 45 HP.
7th level: your greatsword deals 2d6+10 damage, your enemy has 52.5 HP.
Every level means that your AoO damage on a successful hit is a smaller and smaller % of their overall health.
Ok, so the caster is using heavy tactics like the horribly broken dazing metamagic. I do wonder how much smart does a random monster have to be to eat that Dazing assault AoO.Slow, Black Tentacles, Cloudkill, Haste (making the meatshields into better meatshields), Sirroco (getting knocked on your ass while getting railed), normal fireball (oh look, most meatshields have bad Reflex saves) so you take damage while taking damage ('cause the brutes are going to be attacking you anyway, so why not let the artillery blast you too while we're at it), Summon Monster X, etc.
Standard spellcaster tactics, not sure how they justify getting crushed in the proccess of targeting the caster. Few conditiosn are strongert than "dead".
Mostly because I just don't believe you when you act like an AoO is going to be the end of the world. Unless your foe is so woefully beneath you, or you're at the 1st level rocket-tag stage then most enemies are going to have way too many HPs.
Why? Because as it has been pointed out hundreds if not thousands of times before, a warrior is strongest at 1st level when a SINGLE HIT has a good chance of instant-killing any foe that you face. However, SINGLE HIT gets weak...FAST.
Your average monster increases their HP by 4.5 per HD that they gain, not even counting Constitution modifiers (which are usually pretty good). Your damage will never increase that fast. Ever.
1st level: your greatsword deals 2d6+6 damage, your enemy has 4.5 Hp.
2nd level: your greatsword deals 2d6+6 damage, your enemy has 9 Hp.
3rd level: your greatsword deals 2d6+6 damage, your enemy has 13.5 HP
4th level: your greatsword deals 2d6+9 damage, your enemy has 18 HP.
5th level: your greatsword deals 2d6+9 damage, your enemy has 22.5 HP.
6th level: your greatsword deals 2d6+10 damage, your enemy has 27 HP.
7th level: your greatsword deals 2d6+10 damage, your enemy has 31.5 HP.Let's tack a +3 Con modifier onto them (your...
These numbers are a touch off as they assume no powerattacking, buffs, increased threat, etc.
That being said the point still stands. AoO's lose their luster as a defensive measure after a while.
So, the trick once AoO's get to a point where they don't massacre or are at least exceedingly threatening is to ensure that an AoO gets followed up by punishing full attacks along with rider effects, readied attacks (contingent action makes this a potential thing), maneuvers and such. Monsters as you have pointed out can already do this, but players can get them as well through some means or another.
Overextension is still very much a thing and a wizard holding a dagger is still a viable flanking partner even if they swing at -3 1d4-3.
And it helps that as you get higher in level means of evasion and getting into position also start to get better. A mummy can't do much more than glare angrily on the wizard mooning him while floating ten feet above his head.
It's a push and pull thing as I've pointed out. Players have the advantage in numbers, monsters often have the advantage in actions (sometimes positioning too which makes it an uphill battle often literally). So it often falls to the players to upend that action advantage and ruin positioning. Casters are totes best at this so it makes them target number one for the bad guy and worth defending for the players.
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I had a GM go after me (I was a wizard) in every encounter once I hit 3rd level. I was even making a major effort to not cast spells unless the encounter was quite tough. (I was playing a mage with an elminster type attitude of don't flaunt your magic, use it as a last resort, etc...). He seemed to get tired of me casting flaming sphere and moving it around the battlefield (in those tough encounters) and firing off my crossbow as my standard action.
I would say I used the flaming spheres approximately 5-6 times during my 3rd and 4th levels combined.
So when I started feeling super targeted by the gm, I took the heightened spell/preferred spell combo @ 5th and chose magic missile as my preferred spell. (I already had specialized spell: Flaming Sphere (and I changed it to magic missile @ 4th level), the toppling spell feat, and spell focus evocation). (I always had 1 toppling magic missile memorized (and I had the trait to lower metamagics on magic missile by -1 level).
Well, I stopped using flaming sphere and proceeded to keep 3 mirror images memorized, bought blur potions, and a displacement potion (just in case), crafted 6 scrolls of CL5 toppling magic missiles with the toppling spell metamagic in them and proceeded tripping his baddies over and over again.
Lets just say his baddies were not getting close.
On top of that, I worked it out with the Monk in our group to get adjacent to as many enemies as possible (because I asked him to take vicious stomp), and I would get him at least 1 extra attack a round if not two, or three.
8 encounters in on the first game after hitting 5th, we had a small argument at the table over this, and I simply said, "The battlefield tactics were changing. I adapted. Now its your baddies turn to adapt..."
@5th level I had a 20int, which game me (6) 1st level spells, which I could channel in to magic missiles and apply the toppling metamagic and the spell was still 1st level. I recall using 4 scrolls and all six of my 1st level spells to trip my gm's ass up in those 8 encounters. I casted 5x as many magic missiles that one game day as I had the entire campaign. The Players loved it, many saying out loud, "Its about F'ing time..."
the GM's face showed he was not liking it.
It was like my GM turned into the OP of this thread. Kobolds, humanoids of every kind, monsters, abberations, magical beasts... they all came after me even when I was last in the initiative. (and no, I was not dressed like a mage)
In a way, I felt very proud that I would be targeted like this, but I knew that I had been holding back so much in my magical damage output. I was essentially a crossbowman for levels 1 and 2. I didn't cast a magic missile till 3rd level, casting it only when I couldn't hit with the crossbow. I had not displayed any real threat over the first three levels. So why was I being targeted...?
Anyway, Back on point...
I only had to worry about mirror image once, and we waltzed through the 8 encounters like we were going against CR1's all day.
The monk player never had as much fun in a game and he told me, on numerous occasions, how thankful he was to actually have a player he could team up with like we were. He was the one doing the major damage. I was just hitting multiple opponents for 1d4+1 and tripping. (thank goodness the monk's build was combat reflex based.) Until 5th level, I would have to say that he got maybe 5-6 AoO's the entire campaign. Now He was getting 5-6 per encounter with my trip and the baddies getting back up. He twice used up all 5 of his AoO's in a single round. He was giggly. His d20 was starting to get worn down and I made the comment that the edges on that die were not as sharp as they were the previous week. :D
It wasn't long before every baddy the gm put out there had the feat that allowed them to stand up with out provoking an AoO, or their CMD was quite high. At that point all of us knew it was a game of us (players) vs. the GM, rather than a Roleplaying game. It was to bad because that GM had been so awesome for so many years. Oh well.
In closing, I must say that the OP can be cured of his meta gaming ways if he doesn't act like he is the DM god of the universe and really thinks things through with his NPC's and their combat tactics. I mean, if he can take anything from this thread, please don't attack the caster until he reveals himself as a caster, if your NPC's don't already know the players.
And yes, if a wizard walks around in a dunce cap with moons and stars on it and has a giant book at his side and 2-4 wands on his belt, assuming he is a wizard or sorcerer is justifiable. But if not, then all you will do is alienate your players and possibly make the wizard come out of his shell... literally.
We did finally end that game (the gm did) @lvl 10. His final argument was that he only did 32 points of damage to my character from 5th - 10th level. When he said that, I chuckled out loud, because he was right. I had just never thought of it. But I stopped playing the 'hide your magic' type personality because survival over rode everything else.
He didn't like my laugh so he ended the game.
I can say that the Fighter and the Barbarian in the group had adjusted their builds to take advantage of my tripping, so by level 9 we were a well oiled machine. But even at lvl 5 and level 7, it was getting to the point where we were controlling almost every combat in its entirety. Big bads hardly ever got off a full round action of attacks, minions were on their back the entire combat, and once I had lingering spells on tripped opponents, it was lights out in 2-3 rounds for most baddies, (if they made it past round 1), (yes, I had the lingering evocation power from the generation subschool...)
Lingering Evocations (Su): Any evocation spell you cast with a duration greater than instantaneous lasts an additional number of rounds equal to 1/2 your wizard level (minimum +1). At 20th level, any dispel checks made against your evocation spells must be rolled twice, and your opponent must use the less favorable result
I really have nothing to add as I think most of the salient points have been covered, but I felt like throwing this out there anyway.
If the monster has reason to believe that one of the PCs is a caster, and they're aware of what a caster can do, they would eat plenty of attacks to kill them.
That's fair. We have a mechanic for that. Have the monster roll Knowledge (Arcane) or Spellcraft.
...no? He doesn't have either of those skills and they cannot be used untrained?... Hmm...
. . . To always attack the casters might be the most strategically sound course, "and by all means some enemies can and will employ this strategy" but to do so every time is plainly meta gaming. . . .
I agree with this.
I would also add, though this is probably less important, that creatures like goblins and kobolds that breed like rats probably are more suicidal due to group mentalities. They are also generally function similarly to psychopaths and sociopaths, being neutral evil and lawful evil respectively.
So some creatures are somewhat suicidal... but that is far from being the average experience.
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Again, this is just tactics 101. Ever play Warcraft III?
This isn't Warcraft. It's PPathfinder. In Pathfinder each creature has a desire to live. They will act like living beings rather than tactical simulations.
As someone who has actually studied and trained combat troops on tactics and strategies I can assure you that there is not a single best move option. Each situation is different.
If you only see Pathfinder as a tactical simulator then you could be missing out on some of the best parts of the game. I prefer to have a wide variety of situations to deal with. This is especially true with combat.
If monsters are smart enough to charge through to attack the caster, why isn't the caster smart enough to put herself into a position where that's not a feasible or attractive strategy? In both my experiences as a player and GM, enemies wouldn't charge at the caster not because they were too dumb to recognize the caster as a threat, but because they recognized that it wasn't a workable strategy.
If single hit are weaks then not sure what the enemy is acomplishing by rushing toward the caster. I mean, if you have the means to kill/diseable the caster in one movement go for it, pretending that in every situation this will be the case is naive.
Look past the first round it happens. Consider all the possibilities and the difficulty the caster has getting out of the situation.
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Look past the first round it happens. Consider all the possibilities and the difficulty the caster has getting out of the situation.
If single hit are weaks then not sure what the enemy is acomplishing by rushing toward the caster. I mean, if you have the means to kill/diseable the caster in one movement go for it, pretending that in every situation this will be the case is naive.
Did the NPC survive the AoO attacks he took attempting to reach the caster?
Did he survive the following round of attacks from the melee who moved to protect the caster?
After reading through this thread and it's examples, I see that it is a poor idea for monsters to bum rush the caster.
It reeks of meta-gaming and could quite easily end your campaign, and even your place as GM in a group, and maybe even your friendships.
From an RP standpoint, no one here can tell me with a straight face that the Party DPR leader is not a threat. I can see the ranged enemy archers and casters going after the back-line, after they do something, but the melees really have no business there until the party's meatgrinder is dead.
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Wizard: I cast Scorching Ray take 4d6 points of damage.
NPC: Quick ignore the guys with swords and kill the wizard.
Fighter: . Fighter swings greatsword: take 2d6+17 damage.
Which one are you more afraid of now?
*LoL, both attacks came up dead on average values.
At the level where a martial is doing that damage (+9 PA, +7 Str, +1 Enhancement it seems, so probably around 8th or higher, maybe 7th or a little lower if the martial is a glass cannon)... the wizard. Because the wizard actually did 8d6 damage if we're assuming both people hit (and the wizard is likely more accurate because touch attacks, and at CL 7 scorching ray fires two rays).
And even then, the wizard could do something a whole lot more dangerous than scorching ray, one of their weaker spells. Like cast web or create pit if we're going with 2nd level spells for some reason.
Edit: It's really disingenuous to compare damage with a wizard unless you're comparing it to a blasting focused wizard, which are the only ones that are going to actually be casting blast spells most of the time. A blaster wizard at 7th level is usually throwing CL 10 empowered fireballs for 15d6+3 (55.5 average) acid, cold, electricity, or fire damage. Or CL 10 dazing fireballs for 10d6+3 (38 average) plus three rounds of dazing. In a 20 ft. spread up to 800 feet away.
Wizard: I cast Scorching Ray take 4d6 points of damage.
NPC: Quick ignore the guys with swords and kill the wizard.
Fighter: . Fighter swings greatsword: take 2d6+17 damage.
Which one are you more afraid of now?
*LoL, both attacks came up dead on average values.
Let's try another example:
Wizard: I cast Fireball, oh look, an entire group of people takes 5d6 at once!
NPC: No, I'm going to stick with this one guy attacking me for more or less that much damage.
Or another one:
Wizard: I cast baleful polymorph. Look, your friend is now a kitten.
NPC: Well, I better just stick with this guy swinging a sword at me. There's no way he can do that twice, right?
If a barbarian hits you for 35 points of damage in one hit I can understand the reluctance for wanting to take an AoO. However, if you are also having to deal with him being buffed further, or your team getting debuffed by the guy with robes in the back, who might be doing worse things then the AoO might be the lesser of two evils.
One thing I have done in the past is have combat monsters, sometimes flyers park themselves away from the party. The melee types go out to fight them, and then the flyers go around the melee types to the unprotected casters.
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One thing I have done in the past is have combat monsters, sometimes flyers park themselves away from the party. The melee types go out to fight them, and then the flyers go around the melee types to the unprotected casters.
Lol...good one, ws. Dumb party is dumb.
The AoO is always the lesser of two evils from level 5 on. Unless you know you're up against someone who took transmutation as an opposed school you're looking at haste if you can't keep the caster too busy getting away to cast it.
In world where wizards are less than incredibly common (to the point that monsters can instantly know the best spells they're likely to deploy just by looking at them?!), this reeks of metagaming. I like to run cagey villains as much as the next guy, but you can't have every mook acting as though he knows the entire composition of the party as soon as the surprise round starts. Come now.
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Having been told rushing the caster is bad because meta gaming, then that rule needs to apply to the party as well.
If your group of murder hobos can do it, then there will be enemies that can do it as well. Not every enemy, but certainly some.
This is a world where creatures evolved with arcane and divine magic. Some of this behaviour will be instinctive.
If there is a reasonable in game reason why the enemies would consider casters big threats, then no one should be upset when the caster gets targeted. If it's constantly happening, there's a problem, unless of course you're always fighting the same enemies.
I don't think it's unreasonable for some things to attack casters, but dumb monsters probably shouldn't be ignoring the thing that just slashed them. I mean, a pack of wolves will use pack tactics, but they won't know that the big guy with the sword is hitting harder and faster because of the scrawny guy he's defending.
I don't think it's unreasonable for some things to attack casters, but dumb monsters probably shouldn't be ignoring the thing that just slashed them. I mean, a pack of wolves will use pack tactics, but they won't know that the big guy with the sword is hitting harder and faster because of the scrawny guy he's defending.But pack tactics against groups usually work out to distracting the strong and isolating a weak straggler for the kill.
Which works if you can actually pull it off. But if the Barbarian if the melee guys are doing their job right separating the caster is going to mean jumping into a blender of blades.
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I think the topic has gotten a little skewed, in so far that people are throwing up hypotheticals and "what if" scenarios. The thread has turned into a place for people to butt hurt about caster = win opinions. There are encounters where the enemy will use the tactic of "rush" or use assets on the arcane caster. By that same statement there will be times when healers will be targeted, or the archer that's raining death will, or the steal clad juggernaut cutting a bloody path will be the immediate target.
As a player and a DM/GM/Storyteller ect. I can honestly say every encounter should be handled like it's the first, at least in unconnected encounters. If you have a baddie that's had first hand experience with the pcs and knows the caster is a threat that needs to be addressed at once then the tactic has merit. Or if the enemy has reason to target the caster, meaning it's part of the story then do so.
If you are simply doing it to target a player that's proven to be very effective against the adventures enemy element then your meta gaming. It's wrong and at end of the day this is a game meant to be enjoyed. Pathfinder modules and AP's are constructed in a manner that an arcane caster shouldn't shut down your session. If you are home brewing a game and the caster is shutting down the session, well plan more completely and know your players. If the player is intentionally being disruptive you can take them aside and talk it out.
Targeting repeatedly builds resentment and kills adventures and possibly gaming groups and finally friendships. Do what best serves the story and keep the narrative rolling.
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Lets say a party comes across 4 drow. One is wearing plate and carrying a two handed sword, another has mace, is wearing chain and has a holy symbol on her shield, the third has two scimitars and is wearing leather and the last has a staff, a bat on his shoulder and is wearing everyday cloth.
Now who is the party going to try to turn into a pink cloud on turn one?
So should not the drow try the same thing if they get the drop on the party?
In APs arcane casters can very easily shut down sessions. Basically any of the party vs solo mage fights ends as soon as the PC caster gets some form of debuff on the solo mage. Enemy solo mage is staggered/stunned/etc and the fighter can immediately carve them up without resistance. Target saturation is a must to keep PC casters from completely dominating and even then might not be enough.
And there are manyways to get to the caster without going through thr meat shield.
Missile weapons are good just to start. And giving the bad guy a caster of their own is nice, not to mention mobs tnat fly or burrow. A barbarian or monk can often get to a caster on an open map because of tneir skills and abilities. One of the people I play with has a monk design just to take out casters and just slide past or around enemy meat shields
As a strategic NPC I target Casters first, as a GM i make sure that the caster knows or has it coming.
Example 1:
Caster flies invisibly ahead of the party during a diplomatic encounter. Blows up a wagonload of enemy militia volunteers, commoners with spears and crossbows.
Enemy boss, just spotted on the horizon, quickly drops onto the scene and bum rushes the caster to death. Peace talks break down.
Split party -> Mass murder -> Should have seen it coming.
Example 2:
Caster flies visible but buffed ahead of the party dropping electric death on one foe after another. Becomes exposed above an enemy lieutenant and his buds.
Enemy lieutenant takes flight and goes after the caster. The caster retreats back to the party full of arrows and deathly afraid of air elementals.
Split party -> Poke enemy army -> Army pokes back.
Example 3:
Caster from example 1 re-unites with said, now re-occurring, boss. Boss goes invisible and stalks the hated caster to the exclusion of all else.
Party protects caster, boss fades away.
Stay with party -> Try to outsmart enemy -> Not a scratch.
Example 4:
4 Assassins spy the party for an attempt to bump them. 2 Are wearing heavy armor, 1 shoddily trying to hide a chain shirt under his clothes and a final one with a shiny rod for a walking stick and a crazy scarf for protection.
When he was raised one day later the caster procured a magical disguise, problem went away.
Look totally caster-ific -> Murderized -> Learn from experience.
If the Caster gets targeted first for non-provoked reasons then its just par the course for opportunist, situational or smart opponents in general, and then in consrevative ways.
A martial boss wont bull down the frontliners just for a chance at possibly landing one hit on the caster.
A caster boss wont go for the caster if it leaves him open to the other players.
An archer wont go out of his way to pick at the mage if the other players look murder them in the next round.
So long as the NPC is intelligent enough or has seen evidence of the caster being a superior threat then the NPC may or may not try to get at the caster, but never if it leaves them vulnerable.
If you're a CR-appropriate monster and you run into the PCs, the smart thing to do is not to attack the caster. The smart thing to do is to run away as fast as you can because they're going to kill you using only about 25% of their daily resources. You're totally outclassed.
It's even worse if you're one of a band of monsters, because probably you're all relying on being a tough group to challenge the PCs. But they are going to focus-fire and kill you.
If you have no real chance of winning, running the gauntlet of martials to get to the caster really isn't a sane tactic. That's sacrificing your life on the off chance that it'll help a monster later that day because the party was more damaged. You aren't going to survive it.
Unless you're in an adventure like The Whispering Cairn, in which case the second encounter of the day can kill everyone. :)
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As a person who just started running his homebrew lvl 4-8 game, I sure am glad I don't have to deal with this bull. Our wizard is a non-traditional evocation specialist, doubling as a utility person, our hunter is mostly healing and having his big cuddly armoured bear maul people to death, and our barbarian is being dumb, big, blond and extremely stereotypical.
In short, in the lower levels, while a Colour Spray or a Slumber is quite unpleasant, so is an average of 16 damage on one of the Swashbuckler's or Barbarian's AoO's.
I personally don't target casters first, unless the group of people attacking them (Respect thy action economy) doesn't have a large number of ranged folk, since the guy not wearing visible armor, being a bear,or not being 7 feet tall, 7 feet wide and called Bjorn is the most obvious target.
I've actually had this happen. Half the bad dudes came to target my witch passing up like 3 dudes to get to me. I took care of them but I never went back to that table.Maybe they were just expressing their opinion on Maleficent.
"I EXPECTED BETTER!" *Slash*
"WHY WOULD THEY HAVE THE F!+~ING RAVEN TURN INTO A DRAGON AND MALEFICENT TURN INTO A PANSY?!" *Bash*"THE PRINCESS ACTED LIKE SHE HAD A HEAD INJURY!" *Bonk*
I've actually had this happen. Half the bad dudes came to target my witch passing up like 3 dudes to get to me. I took care of them but I never went back to that table.Maybe they were just expressing their opinion on Maleficent."I EXPECTED BETTER!" *Slash*
"WHY WOULD THEY HAVE THE F%@+ING RAVEN TURN INTO A DRAGON AND MALEFICENT TURN INTO A PANSY?!" *Bash*
"THE PRINCESS ACTED LIKE SHE HAD A HEAD INJURY!" *Bonk*
I gotta say, everything I've ever heard about that movie was terrible. Did anyone like it?
Eh, "terrible" is harsh. It was just really "eh". Some decent bits (like Jolie), but overall...
Well, I was expecting more. Tighter plot, better adaptation, less bizarre changes (like changing the three fairies' names and personalities but keeping their designs)...the movie was all over the place in pacing, emotion and just what the hell was going on.
I can't say it was bad, just not really that good. Didn't commit to what it wanted to be, so it just floundered like a trout in a Turgo turbine.
EDIT: Here's how I'll put it. I didn't hate the experience, but as time goes on, I remember less and less of what I liked and more and more of what annoyed me.
Well as a dm I tend to try and treat magic as special so I naturally do not default to the robe=mage idea and must defeat it first.
Unless a group knows the PCs and their skill sets I would not round 1 adopt that tactic. But this stems from my playstyle that views the sort of assumption that leads to this kind of thinking as metagaming or a world where mages are so common every group of for has one.
A foe stupid enough not to attack a caster first might include:
Low level foes, Inexperienced in combat altogether, regardless of intelligence. A low level means "Bad at fighting", a smart foe may have book smarts but he wont nessesarily have the combat experience to know how to prioritize his actions. A 4th level character should be reasonably smart while an 8th level one should know what to attack first even when theire stupid.
Bestial foes, creatures driven by madness or otherwise rendered foolish by some situational element such as "Pride", "Bravery" or "Hate".
Stupid foes, creatures not quite bestial but not intelligent enough to make a coherent desicion.
Immortal foes, creatures who prioritize things like life/death differently, outsiders who never truly die or viking fighters who would prefer to mash down with a worthy knight so they might find a good place in the afterlife.
A foe stupid enough not to attack a caster first might include:
...viking fighters who would prefer to mash down with a worthy knight so they might find a good place in the afterlife.
I would put people who don't consider a caster a worthy opponent in the "too stupid to live" category.
I think they'd see that as the equivalent of, "Okay, you guys fight the knights, I'll go beat up that guy with the keys to the cage full of rabid dire weasels."
Sure, he's a threat, but it's not exactly the same thing. You're preemptively killing the guy before he can do any damage. It's like shooting an unarmed man.
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I always go to movies trying to like them. I just wasn't really wowed by Maleficent. It refused to have sufficient levels of fun!
But that's, just, like, y'know, my opinion, man.
in my opinion, any group who has seen combat before, probably has at least one veteran who will shout out the moment he sees a fireball head out, that someone needs to kill that caster.
Look past the first round it happens. Consider all the possibilities and the difficulty the caster has getting out of the situation.
If single hit are weaks then not sure what the enemy is acomplishing by rushing toward the caster. I mean, if you have the means to kill/diseable the caster in one movement go for it, pretending that in every situation this will be the case is naive.Did the NPC survive the AoO attacks he took attempting to reach the caster?
Did he survive the following round of attacks from the melee who moved to protect the caster?
Did the AoO's hit?
Were you even in a position to do them?
What if instead of just beelining towards the caster he used acrobatics or the grace spell?
What if another guy saw you turn around to chase him and he hit you with a tanglefoot bag when you tried to get away?
Are nets involved?
What if the opposing spellcaster, realizing the pressure would be off him if only momentarily took the advantage and dropped a dominate on the fighter? Or a thorny entangle on the group as a whole?
Bob_boblaw is right in the sense that the argument that this is the only way this can happen in any given situation is false. Heck, some guys might just step out of your reach and with you out of the line of fire chuck a nice heavy javelin at the wizard.
Different situations call for different approaches and a good group has to be able to adapt to those approaches as they come. Some enemies will go for the caster, some enemies won't try, others won't have to. Going for the spellcaster is, however, a perfectly viable tactic and a tool in many many toolboxes.