Once you’ve compartmentalized all the DM knowledge and have reduced things to “what the snipers know” - and given that they’re Malkavian, they know some darn scary things! - in a tactical minis environment, you’re left with a certain number of options from which you can either choose the one you think is most likely to lead to you achieving your objective or choose something else.
That you can’t have the snipers aim for Achilles’ heel because they don’t know it’s the sweet spot just reduces your options. Nothing else has changed.
Also: The trees in my games are now all going to do 1d6 damage. I’ll direct any complaints the players might have Darthwards …
What they think would help to achieve their objective best is what the DM thinks would help to achieve their objective best, minus DM-exclusive knowledge.
If I would dm a game with players that know me well, and
if they actively persue a TPK-ish situaltion, and
if I gave them a check to see if their characters might realize that this would be a TPK-ish situation
then I would not insta-mod the enemies less effective than they are
Does that then imply that if they’re not actively pursuing a TPK situation, let’s say in a “balanced encounter,” you’d play the enemies as less effective than they are?
no … unless it evolves into a TPK-ish situation and they stlll want to press on
then I might give them a free check,
e.g. to realize that running away in this situation might be the best option
or that they could still negotiate (out of a weakened position)
etc. etc.
in the 1st RPG session in summer after the 1st lockdown-waves
the party fighter (level 2) wanted to duel a mindflayer
I made his character realize that this might be a fight too tough for him,
but he had very lucky rolls, so he still pressed on
let’s say it did not end well
and the entire group got captured
so everyone made new characters and their job was to rescue the old group
after the adventure they could choose which of those two characters to keep
(except of the fighter, whose got eaten)
we kept the other characters around as friendly NPCs
and those saved characters they did not want to play anymore,
had been taken over by intelect devourers
That is a good example for why critical fumbles should not be a thing in my opinion. Regardess of whether it is in combat or out of combat . I have quite a few experiences of games that were ruined by critical fumbles (although, admittedly, not by running into a tree due to a fumble…)