My point was that most games don't even give you the option of anything but death when you hit zero HP, so you're already ahead in D&D.
Are you referring only to pen and paper, or are you including videogames in that statement? Because dying in pen and paper is a lot more punishing than hitting "load last save".
Ideally, AI should use tactics a human would. Creatures don't go unconscious, but if they did, you know we likely wouldn't leave them there to finish them off after the fight, lest they get revived.
We would if there were still other, more immediate threats. Now, if we knew that they would be revived back to full health, then we'd finish them off. But healing brings someone back wounded, and easy to knock back down.
As for having to waste your turn or whatever to tend to someone who went down because they are going to get killed very soon if you don't, I don't see the problem. In fact, I think it lends a lot of excitement. You need to adjust your plan for the unexpected. Getting to someone's defense, whether that means leaving off your present opponent to take on others, navigating to avoid attacks of opportunity, using spells or scrolls you didn't intend to have to use, or any number of things is just part of the overall experience.
That's fine, if it happens.
The issue is the AI priority seems out of whack. It's still apparently using D:OS 2's AI 2.0 , which was programmed to ignore high AC targets and go for squishy characters. However, D:OS 2 and BG 3 have very different action economies. D:OS 2 was classless and let any character use healing spells and scrolls, and healing spells were both more powerful than they are in BG 3, and limited only by cooldowns. In addition, there was resource and time-free full healing for all living characters out of combat using bedrolls. Different gameplay styles should have different AI styles.
