Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 6487754" data-attributes="member: 58197">While I mostly agree with your post, I would add a caveat to this: Whether hobgoblins give the extra stab or not should depend on how common battlefield clerics are in your world. Remember that the hobgoblins do not know they are fighting Player Characters(tm). They are accustomed to fighting NPCs or other monsters. Ask yourself: When the PCs face a group of NPC warriors, how often do the NPCs have a healer along?If the answer is &quot;often,&quot; then it should be standard practice to give that extra stab and the hobgoblins will do it. Even if they haven't seen any of the PCs casting healing spells, they assume there's a high likelihood at least one of them can.If the answer is &quot;seldom,&quot; then the hobgoblins should not normally give the extra stab. That's an attack that could have been used against an active threat; there's a significant opportunity cost. If the hobgoblins see magical healing going on, the leader will yell &quot;CLERIC!&quot; and everyone will go after the healer. If they can't get to the healer for some reason, only then will they start delivering coups de grace.If the answer is &quot;never&quot; or &quot;almost never,&quot; then the hobgoblins won't ever give the extra stab, and they won't target the cleric specially. Battlefield healing is so rare that they don't have a standard response to it.(Another way to approach this is to observe the tactics favored by the PCs. In your campaign, do experienced PCs take time in combat to give the extra stab to fallen NPCs? Or do they not bother? If they don't bother, the hobgoblins won't either.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Dausuul, post: 6487754, member: 58197"] While I mostly agree with your post, I would add a caveat to this: Whether hobgoblins give the extra stab or not should depend on how common battlefield clerics are in your world. Remember that the hobgoblins do not know they are fighting Player Characters(tm). They are accustomed to fighting NPCs or other monsters. Ask yourself: When the PCs face a group of NPC warriors, how often do the NPCs have a healer along? If the answer is "often," then it should be standard practice to give that extra stab and the hobgoblins will do it. Even if they haven't seen any of the PCs casting healing spells, they assume there's a high likelihood at least one of them can. If the answer is "seldom," then the hobgoblins should not normally give the extra stab. That's an attack that could have been used against an active threat; there's a significant opportunity cost. If the hobgoblins see magical healing going on, the leader will yell "CLERIC!" and everyone will go after the healer. If they can't get to the healer for some reason, only then will they start delivering coups de grace. If the answer is "never" or "almost never," then the hobgoblins won't ever give the extra stab, and they won't target the cleric specially. Battlefield healing is so rare that they don't have a standard response to it. (Another way to approach this is to observe the tactics favored by the PCs. In your campaign, do experienced PCs take time in combat to give the extra stab to fallen NPCs? Or do they not bother? If they don't bother, the hobgoblins won't either.) [/QUOTE]

Verification