How can a weaker team realistically take down a much more powerful foe?

I've often wondered what people's thought process here is. I have seen an abundance of answers like Palpatine being taken out by his apprentices collectively, or that Valkorion loses to a team of Revan, Outlander, and Vaylin, or something similar.

Yet I am often left wondering: how is that at all a likely outcome? Individually, the weaker combatants would be curbstomped in one or two attacks, so how does adding a few more people who are just as effortlessly disposed of by the stronger being increase the first guy's chances at survival? Do the others attack while their comrade gets slaughtered, trying to get close to cut their opponent down? But usually the more powerful being could just fire a lightning blast at each target in quick succession to prevent this, or just hurl them back with a Force push to create more distance. And if the lesser guys do manage to engage in melee, the stronger one is still usually the superior lightsaber duelist given how the Force works, and would be able to ward them off or outright outfence them, or at the very least be skilled enough to integrate a fatal Force attack in the middle of the saber sequence to dispatch one of the assailants, leaving the remaining one vulnerable.

Ultimately, I just see the stronger character edging out virtually every time. I don't understand how greater numbers can realistically make any difference if the opponent is so far beyond his adversaries individually that he can just kill them with one blow. Can some of you provide different perspectives to perhaps justify favoring large teams over singular powerhouses?

Force users aren't like DBZ characters, numbers can and will overwhelm even the best fighters in the Star Wars universe; Sidious took out 2 Sith at a time and 3 Jedi at a time but im sure if you up the numbers enough even he would fall

Depends

If 7 Agen Kolars charged towards Sidious they’d all die because none of them can even perceive him and there aren’t enough of them to surround Sidious

However if 17 Agen Kolars charged towards Sidious, Sidious would be dogpilled

Throughout the Bane novelizations it was reiterated that an over-abundance of Sith could enable multiple lesser beings to overthrow and kill a more powerful Master, which would subsequently allow a far weaker being to assume supremacy/leadership. That was one of Bane's primary motivations for killing-off the existing Sith of his era and establishing the Rule of Two again. So yeah, it's a thing.

That being said, the bigger the gap between the team and the individual, the more team members will obviously be required to win. 2 Kenobi's probably aren't beating Yoda, for example, but 20 Kenobi's might be a different story.

Basically, ask anybody with IRL competence in unarmed fighting or swordfighting about how insanely more difficult task it is to beat 2 guys instead of 1.

Originally posted by Azronger
Yet I am often left wondering: how is that at all a likely outcome? Individually, the weaker combatants would be curbstomped in one or two attacks

Originally posted by Galan007
That was one of Bane's primary motivations for killing-off the existing Sith of his era and establishing the Rule of Two again.

Revan had that philosophy in regards specifically to masters training apprentices, but never to the order as a whole, never as a mechanism around which the Sith Order operates.

Bane's Rule of Two was derived from more inspiration than just Revan.

There were four primary sources of inspiration Bane based his rule around.

1. The Sith of old, and the failure of their infighting.

2. Kaan's Sith, kept from greatness by an equality doctrine.

3. Of course, Revan with his idea of a master only training one apprentice.

4. Kas'im, telling Bane about how he killed his master to see if he had truly surpassed him.

Well it's not even something the lore is remotely consistent about.

ROTS makes it look like this isn't the case.

You have Mace and the B-team right, well the way that makes it look is as if the B-team's presence is utterly superfluous next to Mace, because anyone weaker than Mace can be handled by him solo, and against anyone stronger than Mace they're ****ed.

Same with Anakin and Obi-Wan vs Dooku. Anyone nearing Anakin's strength would just ragdoll Obi-Wan, and anyone beneath that would get soloed by Anakin. Makes the legendary duo look utterly superfluous anywhere except a large scale battle.

But then in TCW you have Ventress and Savage challenging Dooku at a point at which he would thrash either of them 1v1 in very short order.

In LOTF you have the strike team headed by Kyle Katarn posing challenge for Caedus.

In FOTJ you have Luke teaming up with much weaker characters like Ben, Vestara, and the Lost Tribe strike team to fight Abeloth.

Then you have TCW being really weird about it where Anakin and Obi-Wan both beat Ventress one on one and then she's holding them both off for some reason.

It really seems like whatever the plot demands tbh. If the plot itches for a 1v1 like Mace and Sheev or Anakin and Dooku, the lessers in the fight become worthless.

If the plot demands a strike team that needs to hold up, it works.

If the plot demands a character that should be realistically stomped by a team to actually seem like a credible antagonist/protagonist, then the teamwork becomes utterly useless.

Originally posted by NewGuy01
Have you considered that perhaps not everyone agrees with this premise?

This.

Originally posted by Galan007
Throughout the Bane novelizations it was reiterated that an over-abundance of Sith could enable multiple lesser beings to overthrow and kill a more powerful Master, which would subsequently allow a far weaker being to assume supremacy/leadership. That was one of Bane's primary motivations for killing-off the existing Sith of his era and establishing the Rule of Two again. So yeah, it's a thing.

That being said, the bigger the gap between the team and the individual, the more team members will obviously be required to win. 2 Kenobi's probably aren't beating Yoda, for example, but 20 Kenobi's might be a different story.

That doesn't tell us anything about the gap between the master and the weaker apprentices. It might not have been a one-shot, in which case a team of lesser people prevailing makes much more sense.

Originally posted by gold slorg
Basically, ask anybody with IRL competence in unarmed fighting or swordfighting about how insanely more difficult task it is to beat 2 guys instead of 1.

Are those IRL fighting aficionados also able to analyze how the Force factors into the equation?

Originally posted by NewGuy01
Have you considered that perhaps not everyone agrees with this premise?

Sure, but I'm asking more in general; I just cited a few prevalent examples.

Sidious has never lost a legit fight so its hard to imagine him losing a fight, I bet Sidious can't actually lose

Like remember every TCW episode, the person who is supposed to lose ALWAYS finds a way to escape death its bullshit, even Dooku in RotS might have escaped if he wasn't trapped on a ****ing ship in space, where can you run to from there?? in space? he cant breath space air

so imagine if there was even one time sidious was going to lose, he would just escape somewhere he can even breath space air like in dark empire when he was a gas being, sidous could beat probably the equivalent of 900 agen kolars easily

Originally posted by Azronger
That doesn't tell us anything about the gap between the master and the weaker apprentices. It might not have been a one-shot, in which case a team of lesser people prevailing makes much more sense.

Az think of it like this:

1 Revan vs 1 Darth Caedus

Now, we all know that's a slaughter - no one would say otherwise. However you can't just add infinite Jacen's and expect Revan to beat them all.

Where the biggest Darth Caedus fan in the world would be willing to say a single Revan kills around 50 Darth Caeduses; even the biggest Darth Caedus hater in the world would say that he probably stops under 100 Darth Caedusi. That's why the numbers are important.

A team will be able to accomplish something seen as impossible for one, two, or even three characters. Maybe they pool their powers together, maybe 1 capitalizes on a mistake made by the distraction of 49 others?

If you yourself went to the nearest playground of 6 year olds and started punching kids, sure you'd drop a couple, but eventually they would overwhelm you once you start nearing 4-5 or something. No matter how fast or hard you can swipe those kids, they'll keep coming and dividing your attention. Just like Star Wars. You will fall.

I dunno, man, four six year olds? Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it's easier said than done, but just four? Keep in mind that they're not just small, but also dumb.

At least make it, like, four adult midgets.

Originally posted by NewGuy01
I dunno, man, four six year olds? Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it's easier said than done, but just four? Keep in mind that they're not just small, but also dumb.

At least make it, like, four adult midgets.

:3

Because during a team fight 1+1=/=2 but 1+1= 3 (the power of the addition is above the addition of power).
In lightsaber fight (if the team worked as one) if enough people attacks at the same moment at a different point you can have the fastest lightsaber duelist against them he will loose after adding enough people because even though he is fast he still need a time to moove.
In a force fight just see what Dorsk 81 have been able to do with the help of his fellow jedi camrades. As a team they are far above what they can do if they just sum their power.

Now to precisely answer : how can a weaker team realistically take down a much more powerful foe ? They need to:
-> work as a team so not just as person near the other (what happened in Sidious vs the B-team)
-> being enough to compete in term of sheer power

Originally posted by gold slorg
Basically, ask anybody with IRL competence in unarmed fighting or swordfighting about how insanely more difficult task it is to beat 2 guys instead of 1.

tbf the gap between rl fighters is much smaller than the gap between Sidious lifting a star destroyer and some rando

anyway, usually you can't "effortlessly" get rid of a fighter, you have to expend energy, or at the very least you're distracting yourself while someone else can close in and strike, at close range they can hit you from too many angles for you to block, and from long range they can combine their powers or otherwise just surround you

numbers obviously matter

Because division of attention and power is a thing.