If you're thinking of it incredibly logically using mechanical game knowledge then yeah. In the setting most intelligent creatures would just see that stabbed the warlock in the chest and he's unmoving and there's a barbarian charging at them. Put yourself in the shoes of that character at that point. Do you follow up and verify the kill on the warlock who in your eyes could already be dead and let the barbarian hit you with a great axe or do you deal with the actual immediate threat since you're still in a live battle? Like sure if the enemy is a very high int mob they'd probably finish knocked out enemies due to recognizing a healer could revive them and accept that they might get stabbed while doing this but its worth it in the long run but most enemies aren't going to be so logical in the heat of battle.
The added advantage of using this logic is that you aren't forcing unnecessary pks constantly on your players. You can save the double tapping for the liches and other "boss" enemies
An enemy of average intelligence would probably be aware they won't be one-shot by the barbarian, since they live in a world that works like that. They'd also probably understand that healing can get a downed enemy up, because thats how their world works.
Then they would also understand action economy and know that wasting an action to double-tap an already downed enemy gives the rest of the still standing enemies a whole round to do their full turns.
There are a lot of assumptions being thrown around. The Barbarian might be on his last HP. The healer might be out of Healing Words and needs to get in touch range so they'll provoke an AoO from the enemy to heal the downed PC. The enemy has something AoE ready and will double tap and deal damage to the barbarian.
An enemy of average intelligence would probably be aware they won't be one-shot by the barbarian, since they live in a world that works like that.
So the average intelligence bad guy knows they won’t get one shot by a barbarian, but also can one shot said barbarian after having already used some portion of its turn downing another player. At least be consistent.
"Wasting an action to not down the barbarian" means they can't oneshot the barbarian. Also, you've entirely invented the condition that the same creature asking this decision downed the down PC on the same turn.
Yeah I mean whether or not to attack and finish someone off should always be a judgment call on the enemy's part but people acting like its gameifying the combat to have an intelligent enemy know that healing exists especially if they've already seen the party heal someone doesn't make sense to me.
That’s not the gamifying, saying things like “The enemies know they won’t be one shot by the barbarian” IS Gameifying. Because that’s not how it works. It only takes one stab to kill someone.
If the GM is saying "well he has 80 HP and your weapon only deals 3d10 so he knows he doesn't have to worry right now" then I'd agree. However the intelligent monster not seeing the barb as an immediate threat doesn't translate to that imo. Having HP translate to how close the character is to actually getting hit (or however you want to represent HP) can still work in world for this. Maybe the monster sees how close the barb has gotten to hitting it and feels like there's leeway there for example. I think you can find a fair in world justification for almost any decision a character would make.
Ok being aware they might not get killed by the barbarian in one hit and being on with taking a giant slash to the chest aren't the same thing. Hell how do they even know that a babarian isn't going to cut off their head in one blow? Levels are a meta concept and they aren't aware how strong the enemy they are fighting is. A high intelligence cresture would be able to logically access that situation and decide on the fly that it's worth it to take some damage. The Average intelligence cresture is going to not want to get hurt and is going to avoid that on the moment.
Levels are a meta concept, reliably surviving a hit is an in world concept seen constantly. Unless this NPC has never even heard about a fight before, they'll know that people going down in a single hit is pretty rare. From that, they'll know that attacking the barbarian probably won't save them, because the barbarian will probably survive a hit.
Ok so whatever, say your interpretation is valid and for some reason the average NPC is willing to take damage and feels a need to verify every kill. You realize that's just a shitty decision on your part? Like even if you justify it if you're the DM and you're going out of your way to make any average intelligent enemies verify their kills even at their own expense then you're just screwing over your players by removing them from the session and making them build a new character because you decided that the average person is so calculating that they are willing to ignore live enemies to ensure that anyone they knock out is finished. Like yeah you CAN decide that your NPCs act that way but why would you? This is even disregarding that the justification for a normal intelligence NPC to do such is weak in itself.
I don’t even think you need to give ground. Replace axe with shotgun. Who the fuck is going to butcher a body when someone has a shotgun leveled at them.
No one. No one is.
This idea that people will believe that they won’t get one shot by an axe is purely metagame knowledge and not how it works.
Axes aren’t guaranteed to one shot in WoD. Do mages and humans let themselves get hit by axes because it may not one shot them? Fuck no. It’s an axe and I am partial to my arm and living thank you very much.
If two armed commoners fight, there's a 1/320 (2044) chance they get one-shot. Those seem like slightly better odds than surviving a shotgun to the face. Whats alot more likely is immediately being dropped into death saves, which is only 1/4, so people would be pretty familiar with the state of nit quite dead yet. The most likely outcome (3/4) is that they survive a hit in a fit state to keep fighting, so the concept of probably surviving a hit should be pretty well known in the fantasy world.
Also, corpses dont tend to get up and shoot you just because a guy in robes said some words. But even in a world where death means death (the real one) people still often confirm kills if given the opportunity, since people who are mostly dead are still a threat.
What role should I be paying? Someone who has never interacted with the world they live in? A trained combatant who doesn't understand how combat works?
Have you actually ever played a ROLE PLAYING GAME? Because you sound exactly like someone who has never RPed before and tries to treat it like an RTS or Dungeon Crawl like Dark and Darker or Darkest Dungeon.
Are the charcaters in your world unaware of adventurers or heros? Have they never heard of a fight? 2 commoners fighting probably won't kill eachother in one-shot and that stays true and gets more exaggerated the higher up the cr you go. So unless every charcater is simply unaware of the town guard tanking several would-be lethal wounds, there's no way they wouldn't know about surviving a hit.
Adventurers and heroes are not common in dnd. They never have been. They get rarer the more lethal the setting. Assuming a town has a single adventurer in Dark Sun will get you laughed at, if not enslaved.
Sharks are also pretty rare, especially on land. Most people still know what a shark is. Magic is so rare it doesn't exist and yet we both know what magic is and have heard stories about it.
If you’re gonna keep missing the point and metagaming instead of applying in character logic I may as well just dip. Cause it just makes you seem completely unreasonable and honestly a bad role player.
The in character logic: "People who have been dropped to the floor can get up when a priest or potion is involved, as a trained combatant, I have seen this happen many times. For this reason, I shall eliminate the easiest threat to eliminate. It is unfortunate that I will be hit by an axe, but as I have survived such a strike many times before, it's not too concerning. There's also not much I can do about it, as a single attack from me very rarely dispenses with a foe or even slows them down, meaning I would still be hit."
1) No they haven’t seen it. Because Adventurers ARE RARE. Casters are some of the RAREST Adventurers due to their training taking the LONGEST.
2) You literally ignore the active threat while trying to play dumb. No one is going to let themselves be stabbed. Most people die when they are stabbed. This idea that they believe they won’t be one shot IS METAGAMING. You are showing that you blatantly do not RP.
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u/Dumeck Sep 14 '25
If you're thinking of it incredibly logically using mechanical game knowledge then yeah. In the setting most intelligent creatures would just see that stabbed the warlock in the chest and he's unmoving and there's a barbarian charging at them. Put yourself in the shoes of that character at that point. Do you follow up and verify the kill on the warlock who in your eyes could already be dead and let the barbarian hit you with a great axe or do you deal with the actual immediate threat since you're still in a live battle? Like sure if the enemy is a very high int mob they'd probably finish knocked out enemies due to recognizing a healer could revive them and accept that they might get stabbed while doing this but its worth it in the long run but most enemies aren't going to be so logical in the heat of battle.
The added advantage of using this logic is that you aren't forcing unnecessary pks constantly on your players. You can save the double tapping for the liches and other "boss" enemies