Because targeting is the simplest form of verification within Macroquest? How else would you do it? There's no function, at least that I'm aware of, that retrieves HP information for an entity without a targeting method of some sort.

When you target someone, you're qerying the server for the hp. Your client is not notified of PC HP within a given radius. Actually, that's exactly what it does. Every second or so, your client retrieves HP updates for all NPCs and PCs within a given distance around you (I'm unsure of the actual di...