I’m DMing a campaign on 5e with a group of four players. We’re all experienced in RPG in general but not specifically on 5e.
Players are Level 4. Wizard, Fighter, Rogue and Druid, Circle of the Moon.
My players have come to the conclusion that, given the mechanics of the game, is much more effective to focus all the fire power on a creature at a time and avoid spreading damage. Their logic is it really doesn’t matter if a creature has 1 or 80 HP left, as longs a it has over 0, he has all capacity to do damage. In effect, creatures are binary, they are either alive and therefore have full capacity to act, or death, in which case they don’t.
Unfortunately I agree with this assessment but I feel it makes the game less fun. Not because I’m looking for super realistic combat but because it limits the combat strategy to “drop them one at a time”.
As such, they tend to not distribute their efforts or engage separately but, instead, swarm into a single enemy, concentrate all the attacks and then move to the next. This feels to me like the more effective tactic but also the least “fun” and role playing way of doing combat.
Is my players interpretation wrong or am I handling the combat in the wrong way? What am I missing?