[coronatiger]

In one of our campaigns, I would classify Mattea and Ilzo as combat monsters by this time. We just had a big fight, and on most of her attacks, Mattea had Bow-33 including Acc (28 on Move and Attack), before taking penalties for range and darkness. (She could take -3 in addition, to be able to shoot every second.)

Ilzo held off the main charge single handedly for most of the fight, while Mattea returned fire on the opponent's archers, as well as keeping climbers from reaching our ridge top.

Even though Leopold and Va'lyndra have put lots of points in non-combat related skills and abilities, they were crucial to our success. They helped keep the ridge top clear, and Lyn even picked off a couple of archers.

Mattea depends on her mobility. If Lyn and Leo hadn't been there, she would likely have joined Ilzo for back-to-back fighting, losing the advantage of holding the high ground, as well as being stuck in melee range.

So, my point is: Even though Ilzo and Mattea at times got kills every round, and none of us expected Leopold and Va'lyndra to be nearly as efficient, our two less combaty friends had important tasks during the fight.

And to generalize, having a high-skill fighter ensures that the party has someone to occupy the opponents while the rest do something important, such as unlocking the gate so everyone can escape, solving the riddle to deactivate the constructs trying to kill them, or just watch the fighter's back so he doesn't get swarmed.