I played around with agro more (deliberately). The extreme agro seems to affect the range NPC's only. Melee NPC's and melee critters agro seems fine.

I know for us, we target our kill and if within range, we are allowed to attack.
Ranged NPC's seem to be able to attack just by being able to target (regardless of range).

It does annoy me that I don't see the others posting about the agro issue allowing me to stand here looking stupid

A question for players: Anyone notice a much higher DPS by ranged NPC's? My son is a BH and experienced higher damage as if he had no armor on at all.

As to the other player, I got 14 health 8 action wounds unknown battle fat after fighting a few spawns of NPC's at a Rori city (northern one). Black bar forming so fast caught my attention, I will pay attention to battle fat and report.