Shattered Kingdoms

I did not see anything in the forum addressing this, but I can't be the only one..

There are some NPCs that show up in a room as 'A guard.'
So I target them with a spell, intent to cause damage. And -
instead what happens is I'll attack the guard in the party,
and chaos ensues.

This is more of a building anomaly as opposed to a bug, I wager;
I could see it as either -

1) Bug fix suggestion: check for non-group target if an offensive
skill/spell/song/prayer is being used first, and a group target if
it is defensive.

2) Building fix suggestion: add an adjective to anything called just
'a guard' so it is clear there is something else to target.
Then shame on us players for getting it wrong.

Aware I don't need to specify a target aiming from second row once
engaged with something. But in the back row, it's a necessity, and
I'm just 'lucky' I only threw a training group into chaos, and not some
PVP. Meh.

It has to do with the order of NPCs checked. The last NPC to enter the room with the keyword in question is the one targeted. I.E., because you walked into the room with the "guard" after the "guard" in the room had popped, then the one you brought with you automatically becomes the first "guard" in the room. Just something you get used to working with as you gain experience playing the game. The same thing happens if you're spamming, say, magic missile from the back row on, say, "mino" and a repop happens that spawns a new "mino." You'll now target the most recently popped NPC instead of the "mino" you were originally targeting.

Being in the back row of a group affords you the time to be a little more selective and careful as you "overwatch" the battle. There has to be some drawbacks to having that much meat shield in front of you, and I see this as one that is handled effectively, if coincidentally, by the code.

If a fix would be done for this, I would prefer it to be just like most of the shops, where every char/NPC has a number on it so you can just c spell #