This enemy is one of the factors that make Guardians of the Abyss hard. Not the biggest of course but it has 5 HP and it can potentially spawn very first round and dealing 5 dmg is not an easy task in the early stages of the scenario. It can be evaded, sure but that requires investigator with at least decent evade.
I'm not sure if I understand forced ability correctly. If I attack it with a knife then it immediately attacks me back and by doing that it gets exhausted afterwards and does not attack during enemy phase? Or it does not exhaust?