>Ugh, making these cages takes too much tiiime! Can't we just build like a cool knife or something instead? >>You know what- screw this, let's just do that. >>>What about the cages? >>WE HAVE SLAVES, Getsbackstabed! Just make _them_ do it! >>>Make the slaves make their cages? >Fuck yeah, that's a fucking great idea! Now let's make that knife already! I'm thinking we give it +5 damage on sneak attack! >>OOH! Nice! And for the hell of it, lets make it do bonus damage on goblinoids! >That'll never nip us in the back! >>Never nip _us_ in the back, _eeeeeey?_ >>>I hate you. I hate every one of you.
It's not necessarily that they suck at building cages, it's just that they're used to cobbling stuff together with literal junk. At least that's been my rationalization when doing goblin camps and such. Because of the way their stats and abilities work, they're great at taking stuff but complete dogshit at holding it. Now put them with some more warlike monsters (bugbears, hobgoblins, orcs, ogres, ogre-magi, etc.) to boss them around, add actual strategic thinking to their tactical genius and make them more ambitious, giving them access to better gear and raw materials through raiding and theft and you have the beginnings of your stereotypical great evil horde.
Im currently having a giant goblin army swarming the land (the players could have totally avoided it, but they neglected the plot so uhhh, oops), so this video was right on time ^^
@@ElRojo651 Haha I have given my players an opportunity to adopt an entire kobold civilization but they didnt bite. They do keep adopting random children npcs though...
For real, made a conjuration and transmutation wizard. Entire session the party was complaining that I made a useless rp character. Enter goblin den almost as elaborate as the ambush mentioned. 1 Tensers disk and Expeditious Retreat later, our half unconscious party got ambulanced out of that place. Didn't hear another complaint that whole time with that group.
@@trexdrew Yeah, I'll alway found that to be bull. I do not need to get down onto my knees and move that pile of leaves to see a little bit of rope in the pile.
@@trexdrew a highly perceptive person will notice that the ground has been altered, leaves gathered in a non logical location, wires or something similar. Same as people in real life can notice telltale signs of IEDs from placed rocks (that help time the detonation), distrupted earth, things in places they don't belong etc. In game terms (in my opinion) the player should be given the information on what is "off" or "funny" and a opportunity to act with the information. They can then then choose to ignore or not but the option is to be given when they meet the "requirements".
they're full of lies, hiding away in their little dens..OF LIES I'm not full of lies, i'm full of rage AND BEANS AND GRIT AND PRIDE AND HEART AND BEANS, SPICY BEANS
If Goblin afterlife is always hell, wouldn't they be inclined towards becoming undead? Like a group of vampire goblins led by a Lich goblin. Anything to avoid their afterlife, right? Would make for an interesting dungeon at least.
This is why I love (though sometimes hate..) the dnd community. Both interesting yet terrifying concepts, I love the idea some little green vampires and one bone goblin!
I just imagine goblins to have a great reason to become warlocks and make pacts with other creatures. I mean, the fellas won't suffer any troubles if their soul is under someone else's possession.
Goblins are big enough assholes that eating a baby or throwing a bus full of orphans into a vulcano isn't that bad to them. Also they are a lot smaller so you could get two goblin liches for the prize of one human lich
Ever hear the song Destroy the Orcs by 3 Inches of blood? I feel the goblins are a good stand in for the orcs. For the folks at home here are the lyrics : kill the orcs, slay the orcs, destroy the orcs ! x 4 you returned late home that night evidence all around you from the fight you see your familys blood spilled on the ground theres no trace of the orcs to be found take the broadsword in your hand follow the orcs to their camp you will have vengeance in blood with their heads they will pay the price spill blood x2 on their trail we hunt them tirelessly spill blood x3 bloodshed eases their loss spill their blood their decapitation leads to the cessation of the sadness, of the woe spill the blood
A piece of advice to DM’s making dungeons inhabited by monsters, specifically ones that have made the traps. Don’t put the traps in areas that the monsters will likely be very often. It doesn’t make a lot of sense for a small hallway to be trapped by something that goes through that hallway often. That only causes problems for the monster. This is its home, so it likely would want to be comfortable. The dungeon isn’t made for the party to be challenged by, it’s for the monsters to live in. The traps are only a line of defense. Other examples. A wizard’s chest that explodes when any creature gets within 5 ft of it. That could only cause the wizard issues. A small tunnel that is rigged to collapse if you breathe wrong that gets used by creatures often. A hallway with an unavoidable pressure plate that releases something bad (dealer’s choice) that monsters traverse often.
Tldr goblins are worse than displayed in Goblin Slayer. Minus the whole size variance & rape thing. That probably still happens but we get the niceness of ignorance.
Idk I think Goblin Slayer displayed them fairly. If it wasn't for him, his party would be dead. They almost died in the sewers with the goblin champion. Not to mention, if it wasnt for his tactics, alot more adventurers would have died. If they didnt defend the farm the town would have been overran or alot more adventurers would have died kicking them out of the farm.
@Caramel Johnson Which is why I would burn the entire camp down from afar, down to the point of melting stone. I don't need to be yet another idiot who gets captured trying to save someone from a goblin camp, and the loot that's actually worth something will most likely to survive a fire like that.
@@Stothehighest I'm actually non-aligned, as no planar alignment can handle me. The action I described is more like Nuetral Evil, since I'm potentially ending the lives of upwards of 80 some odd Innocents without a care, but at the same time, it's more a mercy that I burned them than dragging them out of one hell and forced them to re-acclimate to an uncaring world that most likely still has goblins, thus forcing them to live in fear of falling in again on top of having to deal with all the other crap life throws their way.
true story. I painstakingly made a grid with a sharpie on a whiteboard with the plan to use dry erase markers for making battle maps. My grid wore away pretty quickly...
One fun thing to do with goblins is to make them crazy as a bag of cats. Have them doing really unpredictable things, furthering the feeling that the goblin tribe is just trying desperately to kill them with weird and dysfunctional tactics. Most goblins have very little training and not enough patience for a well thought-out battle plan, so if the battle is going well the goblins might get overzealous and run into melee range of the big barbarian in the party, instead of playing it tactically.
My idea is put 4 goblins in a palanquin on the back of an elephant. They shoot their shortbows and gain 3/4 cover thanks to the fortifications. Suddenly it's a level 5 encounter. It also adds some room for creative strategy, as the party could attack the ropes instead, causing the goblins to fall off.
Mordenkainens has something called "Ogre Howdah", which is basically what you said, but with and ogre instead of an elephant. Its CR2 by itself and has room for 4 goblins that have 3/4 cover. I cant wait to have one of those breaking through a wall.
@@2MeterLP That's true, but 1) Elephants are way stronger than ogres, 2) Goblins are better at animal husbandry than ogre husbandry, and 3) I don't have Mordenkainen's Foam of Toes.
"Everything is trapped".... I'm not sure I would want to trap everything where I live. One misstep and you kill your buddies and yourself. You'd want to trap certain places that people/goblins will remember. You'd also want to trap any treasure horde you have. Having "everything" trapped is a sure way to not have fun as a goblin or as a player. Players will become snails, treating every single location as though it was the tomb of horrors. How would goblins remember all the traps? Would they have a poem? Would there be a symbol to see? Would there be a map on every goblin's person - like a pamphlet. Traptoberfest is fine if the place is designed to not have creatures in it (like a tomb, or a very protected section of a temple) - but if this is goblin sesame street - have fewer traps.
Pretty simple. Many traps like in the ambush got an manual trigger, so they will not affect your goblin-mates. And then build the other traps, that will only be activated by medium-sized and larger creatures. Now only other goblins, kobolds, gnomes and other stuff can attack you...
I want to highlight the whole 'hunting by trial and error' part: Don't just make a bunch of traps and place them down, instead start with one or two traps. Run a small group of adventurers through this ambush, watching what tactics the party uses. Then place a few more traps specifically designed to deal with these tactics and run a different group through. Rinse and repeat about three-five times, moving around traps and adding/removing some depending on each interaction. Not only will you have an 'organic' ambush, but you know how the goblins will react when it is foiled.
We rolled so many 1's, the five bats in room 1 dungeon 1 were meant to make is feel like big, bad, unstoppable level 3's but instead we nearly all died and took the entire rest of the dungeon very carefully instead of running through headfast like he thought we would
In defense of CR, the DMG _does_ say that environmental features and traps can create multipliers, adjusting the difficulty from what it would normally be if you just counted the monsters themselves. You're also supposed to add multipliers based on how many monsters are around, because Action Economy. That said, CR itself measures something very specific: how well the monster deals, and takes, damage. A Goblin's bonuses to Stealth, for instance, aren't measured by CR. If a monster has a spell that doesn't contribute to its damage output, it isn't measured. Which is weird, given what many of those spells can accomplish, when used correctly (Drow get Faerie Fire and Darkness, both of which can be used to gain Advantage and give Disadvantage). CR is also built for general encounters with adventurers, not ones where a particular loadout of PC abilities or spells is taken into account. The CR system CAN'T take everything into account, so it has to work for most cases. In practice, use discretion and common sense when formulating encounters for your party. Challenge Rating, when you get down to it, is a rough guide. It's not a mechanism for perfectly calibrating encounters. If you're the DM, while it can be useful to get familiar with how CR works, it's really so you can understand how stat blocks come together. That way, you know roughly how altering monster features can make them deadlier or easier. Eventually, you'll think of CR as mostly just a way to grab threats from the same ballpark as what's appropriate, and experience will let you judge encounter difficulty on the fly. (Also, it must always be remembered that players are simultaneously more or less competent than you expect them to be. Your results may vary).
Ye but CR is crap at predicting how strong a monster is Fighting 2 CR 1 Creatures is much harder than fighting 1 CR 2 creature, and 4 CR 1/2s is A LOT harder than that, even tough one would assume it should be similar
...for some odd reason, I now wish to create a Fighter who preferably tracks and kills kobolds. Perhaps obsessively. Maybe a dragon, if they mistake it for a kobold. I just need a name...Kobold Killer? Nah, bad alliteration...Kobold Hunter? Kobold Stalker? Kobold...Shikari? I'll workshop it.
You want to play a Fighter who prefers to track and kill a certain type of enemy? You mean you wanna play a Ranger but use an actually good class, right?
@DEEPFOXJUDE Basically imagine this, but written so predictably that my beta fish knew who was going to die, with a rape scene, and some guy comes in to kill all the goblins, and then the anime causes PTSD through whiplash by transitioning to slice of life. With poorly named characters like "guild girl" and "cow girl" no I'm not kidding about that that's their actual goddamn wiki page names.
@Goliath Online not a fan myself. The protagonist is not that interesting in my opinion, pretty standard and edgy if anything. I have not watched berserk. But I heard its legendary in story and gore.
@@0ctothorp the point is no one matters, that's why no one has names. It's actually one of the best written animes out there because it focuses on a lot of relevant and interesting topics. But I dont expect troglodytes to get it to be honest
One low-level mob I always loved is Gnolls. In a campaign I ran the party investigated some Gnoll attacks on local farm animals and found that a little war was happening between the Clan that had lived in the area for years without being noticed and another Clan that had moved in after being forced out of their homes, they managed to befriend the second clan and solved the problem by helping them drive the other clan out.
As a DM, I absolutely love this video. A lot of times guides tell you that [insert weak enemy types here] uses their numbers and traps to defeat enemies, but that does not really explain much. I could have figured that out on my own. Running through an encounter like this really explains **how** things like traps and stealth are used. I hope this becomes a new series.
I like Matt Mercer's homebrew goblin called the stabby stabber. It's pretty fun. If it successfully hits with an attack, it make another attack for free.
I mean so should everything. The DM is supposed to set up interesting situations and let the players experience them. That dosent mean everything they make has to re-invent the wheel because that would be ridiculous (plus being completely original is hard). At the same time the players have to interact with all of these things as well as not deral the game. Here's a story from my personal experience So they were going into a town and they see some goblin children playing in town with their parents close by Players: "Oh cool goblins, lets kill em." Me: "They are children, they've done nothing to you, and the villagers are being nice to them and their parents, it's as if they are accepted here" Players: "We kill them" Me: "In the middle of town where everyone can see you" Players: "Yep" 10 minues of arguing later Me: "Ok, they scream in terror and fury, some charge at you and others get the guards. You are now criminals that qualify for the death penalty and will be killed if you are caught" (they were) As you can see there is a balance to be struck here.
Goblins and kobolds seriously are nothing to underestimate. I took inspiration from the anime Goblin Slayer on building a goblin lair, and I nearly had a tpk on a party of five lv3 characters. None of them died, but they did lose pretty badly and barely managed to escape.
I must say that for beginner GM like me your videos are a real treasure. I just binge watched almost all of them and found myself really hyped up despite all of work thats waiting for me writing my first campaign.
This is Tucker's Kobolds just with Goblins...and i love it. I wonder how long DMs have been teaching Players that you face the encounter, not the enemy with stuff like this...
First, I love goblins. Second, this videos is awesome. My players have appeared in the deeps of a goblin lair...I can't give much more detail here as they could see it. So far they are facing a couple of goblins and a bunch of rust monsters the googling keep to use in battles ( the goblins have no metal with them so far because of that)...oh, and they allowed a goblin to run away, so an alarm could have been given ahead. Remember that they magically appeared at the "bottom" of the cave. I have some plans for this whole incursion, but I'd love to hear more nice ideas from you guys...
Yeah, I remember preparing to GM something, starting with level one characters and thinking "Goblins are a classic start". Then I actually looked at Gobllins and their abilities and tactics and realized I had to tone it down so I wouldn't TPK in the first encounter. Instead of it being an established Goblin camp, it was a new camp that hadn't had time to get developed, meaning there were only a few traps. And the Goblins tried running. They had a back entrance to their burrow that the remaining survivors fled from.
Its fun to do some homebrew and just bump up stats when you have players at high levels. It really screws with a party of level 15s when the first goblin they fight at the camp is a goblin champion and blocks all their attacks
Jon Laury Thus making their previous achievements irrelevant since a single goblin will still proof a challenge at level 15. All the epic loot they discovered? Doesn’t matter. All the quests they have finished? Doesn’t matter. Every single thing they did beforehand? Doesn’t matter. A single goblin is still a fiercesome opponent for them. You are a bad DM.
@@larzanthony2275 If PCs can get epic tier loot and goblins are a playable race, then it should within the realm of possibility. He isn't a bad DM. You're just a crybaby player.
I feel like the goblin would easily be fair, but only if it seemed obvious that he was something to be feared. Ex. Carries himself proudly, just finished off another party, has massive array of weapons similar to the pursuer from ds2.
I can agree to bumping stats up a bit. It makes things more challenging. I know many DM’s like to increase the dice for damage or add some hp. However, a level 15 character should basically never have trouble hitting any goblin unless they are extremely unlucky. It’s better to use stronger monsters than to make the extremely weak monsters be much stronger than they should be. All that does is make any sense of power increase non existent.
@@larzanthony2275 🤣🤣🤣🤣 if you say so. Or it shows that in an evolving world enemies grow stronger as the players do. In an immersive world not every goblin is a scrub and not every red dragon is a powerhouse
I remember in the first campaign I ever ran, the first encounter was a group of goblins, that for some reason the players couldn't hit, and half of the party was downed before they killed 5 goblins
Lol those first campaigns can be nuts. In college my first campaign with a new group went so sideways the DM had to completely rewrite the start of his campaign. We were level ones and the caravan we were traveling with was attacked. Our characters were supposed to be captured and that was how our characters form a party. Instead 4 level ones somehow took out a small bandit group lead by a level 15 berserker.(This was back in 3.5). Every one of us got insanely lucky with rolls while the DM kept flubbing his rolls and one guy was an elf archer who had min maxed to an ungodly extreme. It was literally the first encounter of the game and after it the DM had to stop the game for 30 min to rewrite the rest of that session.
Y'all in 5th I was doing the sunless citadel and when my party was at the beginning the rats killed the whole party due to their packs advantage. Edit: thanks for 100 likes you awesome people.
Milestone is inherently better for the DM, and makes more sense for the player. Exp: Pointless because levelling up provides no real advantage other than you can do cooler stuff; As you level up the enemies will still keep getting harder so if a DM is good at managing CR to Level, the challenge the party faces is always the same. Furthermore, if a dungeon is planned and players put it off, they can come back and if the DM hasn't reworked it 10 times every time the party levels up according to their new abilities and whatnot, it will be too easy, but doing all this can be tricky because there is really no telling when the party will reach the dungeon or what level they will be. Furthermore, progression happens no matter what the party does. Milestone: Indirectly incentivises the party to do things according to what the DM wants, and allows for more interesting scenarios. For example, Players have full capability to do things outside a main campaign, but doing so only grants items and monetary resources that can aid the party, and real progression is only made if the party gets back "on the rails" of the campaign. Furthermore, you can run the campaign the way I do, and not even run levels in a traditional way. You gain skills by completing milestones. Immediately after a milestone players are given a choice between increasing a skill by one point, increasing health by one hit dice, or saving the point for another dungeon when a feat can be unlocked. This can be altered depending on the length of the campaign and you can make that the reward to following the story, rather than potentially overpowered weapons and armours and spellbooks, or just gold. This means sidequests suddenly become the prime source of money, items, and other things and give the DM more flexibilty while allowing the players to decide when to help the locals a bit. Or you can just give EXP and level normally, but still do not have to use items to incentivise the player. This means powerful items can be rewards for difficult sidequests, because early in the game is when those items matter. By end game, end game items have less of an impact because the abilities the player knows makes the item less impactful.
Caleb Lee xp can also be used to incentivize players. The party starts heavily drifting from the story? Now there isn’t anything that gives them xp. It’s kind of like a video game in that sense. If you see enemies, you’re going the right way. Also, leveling up provides no real advantage? I guess the increase in health, gaining of feats, stat increases, very powerful abilities, and plethora of spells aren’t that great? Do you understand the difference between level 1 and level 20? It’s quite a significant one.
I'm a pretty new DM, running 2 campaigns in the same setting. I have one group on Milestone and the other on XP leveling. I'm starting to learn the pros and cons depending on the group of players I'm with. As a player, I'd like to experience milestone leveling sometime.
Goblin: there is only one adventure coming. what a dumbass Goblin Slayer: *sniffs* smells like... GOBLINS in here Goblin: do you here BFG playing in the cave
Love my goblins! Such an underrated enemy that you brilliantly illustrated. Also check out the Goblin Quest trilogy by Jim C Hines for some awesome novels told from the goblin POV, or the Goblins webcomic, which is also fantastic.
Aether Blackbolt well that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but after being completely decimated after having to retreat from the goblin den they literally went back more prepared than I expected and used both magic hand and a few perception checks every time they moved. I almost tpk’d five lv3 party members because I underestimated goblins when they have actual intelligence behind their actions. The five of them were all experienced too, with our longest player being 5 years and the shortest being a year of playing and apparently they’ve never run into anything but dumblins before.
David Potts lol that's how it is sometimes. For a bunch of people the only difficulty in encounters is the mechanics and numbers, not the actual strategy.
Aether Blackbolt yeah. I remember I was playing paladin in a party running Tomb of Annihilation and we went into the room that had a couple gray oozes in it. We all had metal slashing weapons, so I got the idea to smash the oozes with the tables in the room to inflict bludgeoning damage. Passed my strength checks and the battle was made easy since bludgeoning damage doesn’t make it split apart. We didn’t even lose any gear either. Using the environment to your advantage is one of the greatest things you can do in this game.
This is a very good channel. Most D&D related channels either end up boring me or can only really be listened to as background noise, but your videos are among those I never want anything distracting me from. Your current formula is perfect, hope you find further success
Has anyone ever looked at the Monster Trait: Nimble Escape in the DMG? If it's used every turn, it effectively gives the goblin a bonus of +4 AC and AB. It's no wonder they're little killing machines. (When that bonus is applied every round it actually turns them from CR 1/4 to CR 1 small beings of death) 😱
Hey logan, thanks for the great video, i was worried about a campaign ive been planning to run for a while since there are a lot of goblins and this info was invaluable.
I love Kobolds. Kobolds and Goblins are my favourites. In a homebrew campaign back a few years it was about the adventurers running into a city that has been utterly overrun with such an insane amount of goblins that there were too many to even try and count. They wanted to look for loot in the main Tower, but utterly failed to stealth next to the giant masses of goblins. Then got chased up the tower, tower started breaking apart, they kept climbing, tons of goblins, tons of loot, didn't want to lose the loot, were too slow because of it and them and a ton of goblins died when the tower crumbled and proceeded to then also explode.
My favourite goblin/kobold trick is that they have cockatrice feathers in blow darts (and obviously cockatrices in cages at camp) so they just blow dart the group from a distance. Bonus points for having a few rope snares that pull upwards, and then can also be pulled to the side, so that the petrified adventure becomes a makeshift swinging rock weapon.
This inspired me to come up with a battle plan for invading a goblin lair. Plan 1: Druid Caterpillar Step 1: Be druid. Ideally, be 2 druids. - Optional Step 1a: Use Wildshape to ambush and capture working goblin, interrogate for lair layout, use this information to seal other exits. Step 2: Druid 1: Produce Flame cantrip for light. If anything moves, throw fire at it and re-cast. Step 3: Druid 2: Mold Earth cantrip on all tunnel surface ahead (floor, walls, & ceiling) within range. This will close off hidden mini-tunnels and likely trigger or bury most traps. Step 4: Druid 1: Throw fire ahead. Step 5: Move forward to limit of cleared space. Step 6: Repeat steps 2-5. Step 7: Only use spell slots if under concerted attack. Step 8: If lair collapses, Wildshape into burrowing animal and leave. The Moral: Never play as anything that is not a Druid. Except maybe an Artificer.
I had an idea for a sidequest that I got from your sidequest video and it involved one of these goblin sneak attacks, so now I’m fully prepared to kick some goblin butt!
I remember there was an old WFRP adventure called Blood in Darkness which featured a ruined Dwarf shrine occupied by a band of Ogres. These Ogres had been part of a garrison left behind left behind by a goblinoid horde called the Bloodaxe Alliance, and when the Alliance didn't come back for them, and when the food began to run out, the Ogres turned to the most readily available food supply: their Goblin comrades. By the time the PCs arrive, the surviving Goblins have gone into full zombie-apocalypse mode, hiding out in parts of the shrine with tunnels too narrow for an Ogre to get through - either due to internal collapse or because the Dwarves built them that way - and fighting with frenzied fanaticism if cornered. They were a much more challenging foe than your usual WFRP Goblins!
Used the tactics suggested on the Level 4 party the other day. Five hobgoblins vs. a storm herald barbarian, glamour bard/warlock multiclass, artillerist artificer, and Arcane Archer fighter. The party killed one before a rock was dropped on the barb, who was still rolling death saves when the session ended. The hobgoblins didn’t even flee - they were the scouting party, they’re going back for backup.
>Very adept miners and crafters
>Slavers
>Suck at building cages
Wait, what
>Ugh, making these cages takes too much tiiime! Can't we just build like a cool knife or something instead?
>>You know what- screw this, let's just do that.
>>>What about the cages?
>>WE HAVE SLAVES, Getsbackstabed! Just make _them_ do it!
>>>Make the slaves make their cages?
>Fuck yeah, that's a fucking great idea! Now let's make that knife already! I'm thinking we give it +5 damage on sneak attack!
>>OOH! Nice! And for the hell of it, lets make it do bonus damage on goblinoids!
>That'll never nip us in the back!
>>Never nip _us_ in the back, _eeeeeey?_
>>>I hate you. I hate every one of you.
Don't forget the "trained" animals
It's not necessarily that they suck at building cages, it's just that they're used to cobbling stuff together with literal junk. At least that's been my rationalization when doing goblin camps and such.
Because of the way their stats and abilities work, they're great at taking stuff but complete dogshit at holding it. Now put them with some more warlike monsters (bugbears, hobgoblins, orcs, ogres, ogre-magi, etc.) to boss them around, add actual strategic thinking to their tactical genius and make them more ambitious, giving them access to better gear and raw materials through raiding and theft and you have the beginnings of your stereotypical great evil horde.
@@dogukantopal4809 I like your funny words magic man.
@@cheatcode436 wow, thanks for the comment somebody hacked my account I guess.
_"Using the power of statistical probably..."_
- The wizard, whenever they succeed on an INT check
My +3 intelligence, -1 wisdom wizard:
I have an idea...
It involves a fireball!!!
Rest of party: :I
@@kobalt-red5895 Fireball is the way.
"Hey, you! You're finally awake. You tried to cross the goblin territory. Same as us, and that thief over there"
That is a brilliant way to get all your players to meet and form a party
This is a great response
"The Bree Yark tribe."
Bree Yark is I surrender in goblin according to the monster Manual
I'm proud of the subtle jokes you sneak in man
I wish I could like your comment multiple times
Hey, I know Manuel and he is not a monster!
@@prestonjones1653 crap lol didnt even notice that 😅
It's an ancient in-joke. In a first edition module "bree-yark" means "alert! intruders!"
Or so they say
Im currently having a giant goblin army swarming the land (the players could have totally avoided it, but they neglected the plot so uhhh, oops), so this video was right on time ^^
Ironic my players are making a goblin army
@@ElRojo651 Haha I have given my players an opportunity to adopt an entire kobold civilization but they didnt bite. They do keep adopting random children npcs though...
@@Ashley-of6ro They're doomed. Children are useless, but kobolds will make a walk through the part feel like marching against the gates of hell.
@@Unanimoustoo they never took the children on adventures thankfully haha
That's what they get for neglecting the plot.
For real, made a conjuration and transmutation wizard. Entire session the party was complaining that I made a useless rp character.
Enter goblin den almost as elaborate as the ambush mentioned.
1 Tensers disk and Expeditious Retreat later, our half unconscious party got ambulanced out of that place.
Didn't hear another complaint that whole time with that group.
Wtf. Those schools are good.
Imagine not seeing a trap
This comment was brought to you by the High Wisdom Passive Perception gang
Extra credit though if you have Observant that boosts your passive perception AND investigation which would help you here
Allways be suspicious
What trap
@@trexdrew Yeah, I'll alway found that to be bull. I do not need to get down onto my knees and move that pile of leaves to see a little bit of rope in the pile.
@@trexdrew a highly perceptive person will notice that the ground has been altered, leaves gathered in a non logical location, wires or something similar. Same as people in real life can notice telltale signs of IEDs from placed rocks (that help time the detonation), distrupted earth, things in places they don't belong etc.
In game terms (in my opinion) the player should be given the information on what is "off" or "funny" and a opportunity to act with the information. They can then then choose to ignore or not but the option is to be given when they meet the "requirements".
The one member of the party that survives: I hate 'em! I hate GAWBLINS!
They deserve a bad time.
Vile creatures...I don't like 'em! HRRRRRGH!!
And thus a new Gawwwblin Slayer is born.
I love the big gawblins, fall over like humpty dumpty when you kill them.
they're full of lies, hiding away in their little dens..OF LIES
I'm not full of lies, i'm full of rage AND BEANS AND GRIT AND PRIDE AND HEART AND BEANS, SPICY BEANS
If Goblin afterlife is always hell, wouldn't they be inclined towards becoming undead? Like a group of vampire goblins led by a Lich goblin. Anything to avoid their afterlife, right? Would make for an interesting dungeon at least.
This is why I love (though sometimes hate..) the dnd community. Both interesting yet terrifying concepts, I love the idea some little green vampires and one bone goblin!
@@navilluscire2567 I'm sure someone is waiting for that.
I just imagine goblins to have a great reason to become warlocks and make pacts with other creatures. I mean, the fellas won't suffer any troubles if their soul is under someone else's possession.
@@lexcentrique2554 Fair point. If it's damned anyway might as well at least get something out of it. Maybe even negotiate for a better afterlife.
Goblins are big enough assholes that eating a baby or throwing a bus full of orphans into a vulcano isn't that bad to them. Also they are a lot smaller so you could get two goblin liches for the prize of one human lich
So, basically, you're the guy they wrote the Goblins in Goblin Slayer after.
Nice. I like your work.
Goblins are some dangerous shit! They chomp on yo cow!
Ever hear the song Destroy the Orcs by 3 Inches of blood? I feel the goblins are a good stand in for the orcs.
For the folks at home here are the lyrics : kill the orcs, slay the orcs, destroy the orcs
! x 4
you returned late home that night
evidence all around you from the fight
you see your familys blood spilled on the ground
theres no trace of the orcs to be found
take the broadsword in your hand
follow the orcs to their camp
you will have vengeance in blood
with their heads they will pay the price
spill blood
x2
on their trail we hunt them tirelessly
spill blood
x3
bloodshed eases their loss
spill their blood
their decapitation leads to the cessation
of the sadness, of the woe
spill the blood
They'd die to their own traps more then anything else. That shit don't recognize allies.
FerreusVir GAAWBLIIINS!!
A piece of advice to DM’s making dungeons inhabited by monsters, specifically ones that have made the traps. Don’t put the traps in areas that the monsters will likely be very often. It doesn’t make a lot of sense for a small hallway to be trapped by something that goes through that hallway often. That only causes problems for the monster. This is its home, so it likely would want to be comfortable. The dungeon isn’t made for the party to be challenged by, it’s for the monsters to live in. The traps are only a line of defense.
Other examples. A wizard’s chest that explodes when any creature gets within 5 ft of it. That could only cause the wizard issues.
A small tunnel that is rigged to collapse if you breathe wrong that gets used by creatures often.
A hallway with an unavoidable pressure plate that releases something bad (dealer’s choice) that monsters traverse often.
That doesn't hold true for kobolds. They love traps and feel safer when surrounded by them. Like barely being able to get out of bed surrounded.
So goblins are pretty much the Vietcong of D&D
With a bit of US trooper for the inevitable looting and burning
The US is the wizard fireball fireball fireball *US has run out of fireball*
Literally
NAPLAM TIME
"Why are the trees speaking goblin?
Goblin Slayer: Did someone say goblins!?!
(HEAVY BREATHING)
Tldr goblins are worse than displayed in Goblin Slayer.
Minus the whole size variance & rape thing. That probably still happens but we get the niceness of ignorance.
Idk I think Goblin Slayer displayed them fairly. If it wasn't for him, his party would be dead. They almost died in the sewers with the goblin champion. Not to mention, if it wasnt for his tactics, alot more adventurers would have died. If they didnt defend the farm the town would have been overran or alot more adventurers would have died kicking them out of the farm.
@Caramel Johnson Which is why I would burn the entire camp down from afar, down to the point of melting stone. I don't need to be yet another idiot who gets captured trying to save someone from a goblin camp, and the loot that's actually worth something will most likely to survive a fire like that.
@@nullpoint3346 Found the chaotic neutral.
@@Stothehighest I'm actually non-aligned, as no planar alignment can handle me.
The action I described is more like Nuetral Evil, since I'm potentially ending the lives of upwards of 80 some odd Innocents without a care, but at the same time, it's more a mercy that I burned them than dragging them out of one hell and forced them to re-acclimate to an uncaring world that most likely still has goblins, thus forcing them to live in fear of falling in again on top of having to deal with all the other crap life throws their way.
@Danny BRITZMAN Chill. Why though?
_"Harry potter and the goblet of goblins"_
Fucked up that a goblet is a cup and not a tiny goblin
*Larry* Potter
"DID YOU PUT YOUR NAME IN THE GOBLIN OF FIRE?!"
@@darkwraithraziel6362 omg I love that.
Harry Potter and the Goblin's (Kidney) Stone
Hey Logan, if you draw over the unerasable pen or whatever with an erasable one it'll most likely come off.
true story. I painstakingly made a grid with a sharpie on a whiteboard with the plan to use dry erase markers for making battle maps. My grid wore away pretty quickly...
Alternarively, hand sanitizer or nail polish remover work like a charm
You mean it'll cum off 😉
@@dustinbesser4780 This is sadly true.
Surprisingly WD-40 works pretty well too
This video is the leaked script for the next season of Goblin Slayer.
I'm running an adventure starting at level 1 starting on Sunday, so this is going to be useful!
If it's their first time do it easier (the point of D&D is that everyone enjoys the game) or explain them beforehand to use their head.
Dead. They are already dead
Yamcha Mode activated.
I've got a lvl one party on Wednesday. 1 vet player, 1 pretty experienced and one lightly experienced and 3 newbies. How hard should I be on them?
One fun thing to do with goblins is to make them crazy as a bag of cats. Have them doing really unpredictable things, furthering the feeling that the goblin tribe is just trying desperately to kill them with weird and dysfunctional tactics. Most goblins have very little training and not enough patience for a well thought-out battle plan, so if the battle is going well the goblins might get overzealous and run into melee range of the big barbarian in the party, instead of playing it tactically.
Sounds like a page out of the Tucker's Kobolds school of encounter building. Good stuff
My idea is put 4 goblins in a palanquin on the back of an elephant. They shoot their shortbows and gain 3/4 cover thanks to the fortifications. Suddenly it's a level 5 encounter. It also adds some room for creative strategy, as the party could attack the ropes instead, causing the goblins to fall off.
Mordenkainens has something called "Ogre Howdah", which is basically what you said, but with and ogre instead of an elephant.
Its CR2 by itself and has room for 4 goblins that have 3/4 cover.
I cant wait to have one of those breaking through a wall.
@@2MeterLP That's true, but 1) Elephants are way stronger than ogres, 2) Goblins are better at animal husbandry than ogre husbandry, and 3) I don't have Mordenkainen's Foam of Toes.
That still only counts as one.
@@beepboprobotsnot3748 1: "Foam of toes" XD
2: Just google "5e ogre howdah" to find the stat block.
@@unearthlyenemy That is definitely where I got the idea.
Completely unrelated but...
I just realized that UA-camrs are all warlocks making pacts with both UA-cam and with their vewers
BranTEM 《Б》 omg. someone should make a homebrew warlock pact of this please.
Pact of the UA-cam algorithm, or something.
@@remixtheidiot5771 the interesting part would be when your spells and abilities are randomized every session as the algorithm changes
@@samuelhagberg3694 😂😭😂😭
Hey, a D10 cantrip is totally worth that
I will never look at people playing warlocks the same again
"Everything is trapped".... I'm not sure I would want to trap everything where I live. One misstep and you kill your buddies and yourself. You'd want to trap certain places that people/goblins will remember. You'd also want to trap any treasure horde you have. Having "everything" trapped is a sure way to not have fun as a goblin or as a player. Players will become snails, treating every single location as though it was the tomb of horrors.
How would goblins remember all the traps? Would they have a poem? Would there be a symbol to see? Would there be a map on every goblin's person - like a pamphlet.
Traptoberfest is fine if the place is designed to not have creatures in it (like a tomb, or a very protected section of a temple) - but if this is goblin sesame street - have fewer traps.
Pretty simple.
Many traps like in the ambush got an manual trigger, so they will not affect your goblin-mates.
And then build the other traps, that will only be activated by medium-sized and larger creatures.
Now only other goblins, kobolds, gnomes and other stuff can attack you...
I want to highlight the whole 'hunting by trial and error' part:
Don't just make a bunch of traps and place them down, instead start with one or two traps. Run a small group of adventurers through this ambush, watching what tactics the party uses. Then place a few more traps specifically designed to deal with these tactics and run a different group through. Rinse and repeat about three-five times, moving around traps and adding/removing some depending on each interaction.
Not only will you have an 'organic' ambush, but you know how the goblins will react when it is foiled.
We rolled so many 1's, the five bats in room 1 dungeon 1 were meant to make is feel like big, bad, unstoppable level 3's but instead we nearly all died and took the entire rest of the dungeon very carefully instead of running through headfast like he thought we would
In defense of CR, the DMG _does_ say that environmental features and traps can create multipliers, adjusting the difficulty from what it would normally be if you just counted the monsters themselves. You're also supposed to add multipliers based on how many monsters are around, because Action Economy.
That said, CR itself measures something very specific: how well the monster deals, and takes, damage. A Goblin's bonuses to Stealth, for instance, aren't measured by CR. If a monster has a spell that doesn't contribute to its damage output, it isn't measured. Which is weird, given what many of those spells can accomplish, when used correctly (Drow get Faerie Fire and Darkness, both of which can be used to gain Advantage and give Disadvantage). CR is also built for general encounters with adventurers, not ones where a particular loadout of PC abilities or spells is taken into account. The CR system CAN'T take everything into account, so it has to work for most cases. In practice, use discretion and common sense when formulating encounters for your party.
Challenge Rating, when you get down to it, is a rough guide. It's not a mechanism for perfectly calibrating encounters. If you're the DM, while it can be useful to get familiar with how CR works, it's really so you can understand how stat blocks come together. That way, you know roughly how altering monster features can make them deadlier or easier. Eventually, you'll think of CR as mostly just a way to grab threats from the same ballpark as what's appropriate, and experience will let you judge encounter difficulty on the fly.
(Also, it must always be remembered that players are simultaneously more or less competent than you expect them to be. Your results may vary).
Traps also have a general CR by the way, per Xanathar's guide, so take that into account.
Either way, use XP budgets - so much better
Ye but CR is crap at predicting how strong a monster is
Fighting 2 CR 1 Creatures is much harder than fighting 1 CR 2 creature, and 4 CR 1/2s is A LOT harder than that, even tough one would assume it should be similar
...for some odd reason, I now wish to create a Fighter who preferably tracks and kills kobolds. Perhaps obsessively. Maybe a dragon, if they mistake it for a kobold.
I just need a name...Kobold Killer? Nah, bad alliteration...Kobold Hunter? Kobold Stalker? Kobold...Shikari?
I'll workshop it.
Kobold slayer....? Idk sounds familiar to me
You want to play a Fighter who prefers to track and kill a certain type of enemy? You mean you wanna play a Ranger but use an actually good class, right?
pathfinder has monster hunter class and sole survivor fighter variant coud work too
Dragonkin hunter
I am... Goblino Slayer
*[ first episode Goblin Slayer PTSD intensifies ]*
@DEEPFOXJUDE Yes
What means PTSD?
@DEEPFOXJUDE Basically imagine this, but written so predictably that my beta fish knew who was going to die, with a rape scene, and some guy comes in to kill all the goblins, and then the anime causes PTSD through whiplash by transitioning to slice of life. With poorly named characters like "guild girl" and "cow girl" no I'm not kidding about that that's their actual goddamn wiki page names.
@Goliath Online not a fan myself. The protagonist is not that interesting in my opinion, pretty standard and edgy if anything. I have not watched berserk. But I heard its legendary in story and gore.
@@0ctothorp the point is no one matters, that's why no one has names. It's actually one of the best written animes out there because it focuses on a lot of relevant and interesting topics.
But I dont expect troglodytes to get it to be honest
One low-level mob I always loved is Gnolls. In a campaign I ran the party investigated some Gnoll attacks on local farm animals and found that a little war was happening between the Clan that had lived in the area for years without being noticed and another Clan that had moved in after being forced out of their homes, they managed to befriend the second clan and solved the problem by helping them drive the other clan out.
As a DM, I absolutely love this video. A lot of times guides tell you that [insert weak enemy types here] uses their numbers and traps to defeat enemies, but that does not really explain much. I could have figured that out on my own. Running through an encounter like this really explains **how** things like traps and stealth are used. I hope this becomes a new series.
I like Matt Mercer's homebrew goblin called the stabby stabber. It's pretty fun. If it successfully hits with an attack, it make another attack for free.
Jake Laurence that's just a Pathfinder monster that he ported over. They really are terrible.
@@aetherblackbolt1301 Matthew Mercer or the Stabby stabbers?
This video was made possible by a contributor of the art of slaying.
Goblin Slayer
"Souka"
Thanks slayer-san, back to you tim.
I'm impressed that UA-cam knew to recommend my Goblin loving self this video :D
Goblins and Kobolds should be made interesting by Dms.
Edit: thanks for 301 likes , everyone now gets a domesticated kobold!
The Big Freindly Gaijin Taking20 has done good videos on both iirc
I mean so should everything. The DM is supposed to set up interesting situations and let the players experience them. That dosent mean everything they make has to re-invent the wheel because that would be ridiculous (plus being completely original is hard). At the same time the players have to interact with all of these things as well as not deral the game. Here's a story from my personal experience
So they were going into a town and they see some goblin children playing in town with their parents close by
Players: "Oh cool goblins, lets kill em."
Me: "They are children, they've done nothing to you, and the villagers are being nice to them and their parents, it's as if they are accepted here"
Players: "We kill them"
Me: "In the middle of town where everyone can see you"
Players: "Yep"
10 minues of arguing later
Me: "Ok, they scream in terror and fury, some charge at you and others get the guards. You are now criminals that qualify for the death penalty and will be killed if you are caught" (they were)
As you can see there is a balance to be struck here.
Zeto made some that were interesting, though simple. Either way they were mostly ignored by the PC's. 🙄
Goblins and kobolds seriously are nothing to underestimate. I took inspiration from the anime Goblin Slayer on building a goblin lair, and I nearly had a tpk on a party of five lv3 characters. None of them died, but they did lose pretty badly and barely managed to escape.
@@davidpotts7116 daaaaang
I must say that for beginner GM like me your videos are a real treasure. I just binge watched almost all of them and found myself really hyped up despite all of work thats waiting for me writing my first campaign.
This is Tucker's Kobolds just with Goblins...and i love it.
I wonder how long DMs have been teaching Players that you face the encounter, not the enemy with stuff like this...
This just gave me flashbacks of Goblin Slayer, Chapter 1/Episode 1
I will now use this knowledge for the next campaign i will run... he he he he he
fantastic! if you've got more ideas, a regular "tactics" series would be pretty awesome!
I completely agree with this. More more more more
I love a good complex encounter
Traps, terrain and enemy strengths being utilized to their best potential can make for some thrilling stuff.
To the uninitiated, I implore you to research “Tucker’s Kobolds”. Your players will learn fear.
First, I love goblins. Second, this videos is awesome.
My players have appeared in the deeps of a goblin lair...I can't give much more detail here as they could see it. So far they are facing a couple of goblins and a bunch of rust monsters the googling keep to use in battles ( the goblins have no metal with them so far because of that)...oh, and they allowed a goblin to run away, so an alarm could have been given ahead. Remember that they magically appeared at the "bottom" of the cave. I have some plans for this whole incursion, but I'd love to hear more nice ideas from you guys...
What was described in the Goblin lair, is very close to the first episode of Goblin Slayer...
I thought my boii Goblin Slayer was gonna stop by and drop a "Souka"
You could use clockwork birds from rock gnome or atomatons from artificer to scout ahead.
Michael walsh you could. No one will though
To be honest I would love to see more of these combat stories or scenarios you did here. It was entertaining.
nice vid as always. i wanted to make a goblin slayer reference but then i'm super tired and couldn't think of a way to make it funny.
This and the Kobold video are actually very useful; great work, thank you!
The writer of goblin slayer must have realized this as well.
Yeah, I remember preparing to GM something, starting with level one characters and thinking "Goblins are a classic start". Then I actually looked at Gobllins and their abilities and tactics and realized I had to tone it down so I wouldn't TPK in the first encounter. Instead of it being an established Goblin camp, it was a new camp that hadn't had time to get developed, meaning there were only a few traps. And the Goblins tried running. They had a back entrance to their burrow that the remaining survivors fled from.
Its fun to do some homebrew and just bump up stats when you have players at high levels. It really screws with a party of level 15s when the first goblin they fight at the camp is a goblin champion and blocks all their attacks
Jon Laury Thus making their previous achievements irrelevant since a single goblin will still proof a challenge at level 15. All the epic loot they discovered? Doesn’t matter. All the quests they have finished? Doesn’t matter. Every single thing they did beforehand? Doesn’t matter. A single goblin is still a fiercesome opponent for them. You are a bad DM.
@@larzanthony2275 If PCs can get epic tier loot and goblins are a playable race, then it should within the realm of possibility. He isn't a bad DM. You're just a crybaby player.
I feel like the goblin would easily be fair, but only if it seemed obvious that he was something to be feared. Ex. Carries himself proudly, just finished off another party, has massive array of weapons similar to the pursuer from ds2.
I can agree to bumping stats up a bit. It makes things more challenging. I know many DM’s like to increase the dice for damage or add some hp. However, a level 15 character should basically never have trouble hitting any goblin unless they are extremely unlucky. It’s better to use stronger monsters than to make the extremely weak monsters be much stronger than they should be. All that does is make any sense of power increase non existent.
@@larzanthony2275 🤣🤣🤣🤣 if you say so. Or it shows that in an evolving world enemies grow stronger as the players do. In an immersive world not every goblin is a scrub and not every red dragon is a powerhouse
I remember in the first campaign I ever ran, the first encounter was a group of goblins, that for some reason the players couldn't hit, and half of the party was downed before they killed 5 goblins
Lol those first campaigns can be nuts. In college my first campaign with a new group went so sideways the DM had to completely rewrite the start of his campaign. We were level ones and the caravan we were traveling with was attacked. Our characters were supposed to be captured and that was how our characters form a party. Instead 4 level ones somehow took out a small bandit group lead by a level 15 berserker.(This was back in 3.5). Every one of us got insanely lucky with rolls while the DM kept flubbing his rolls and one guy was an elf archer who had min maxed to an ungodly extreme. It was literally the first encounter of the game and after it the DM had to stop the game for 30 min to rewrite the rest of that session.
Y'all in 5th I was doing the sunless citadel and when my party was at the beginning the rats killed the whole party due to their packs advantage.
Edit: thanks for 100 likes you awesome people.
whole*
Had a hobgoblin one-shot the party's Monk good times Sunless Citadel good times
Tanner Schake hobs nearly killed the party warlock running lost mine of phandelver
Goblin is my favorite race in DnD, glad to see them get some respect
@@Liam_The_Great thank mate
This was my favorite series ease bring it back!
WHen you mentioned 4 kids in the back, i thought it was just going to be one long Goblin Slayer reference
This video got me to subscribe. Really well done, and fun to watch. Gobos should be MUUUUCH scarier than most DMs make them to be
Goblins are some of my favorites.
Always think DMs leave them underpowered and unconsidered.
Love this. I always love making the fodder interesting over just throuwing something bigger at them.
You should do a video milestone vs xp leveling
Milestone is inherently better for the DM, and makes more sense for the player.
Exp: Pointless because levelling up provides no real advantage other than you can do cooler stuff; As you level up the enemies will still keep getting harder so if a DM is good at managing CR to Level, the challenge the party faces is always the same. Furthermore, if a dungeon is planned and players put it off, they can come back and if the DM hasn't reworked it 10 times every time the party levels up according to their new abilities and whatnot, it will be too easy, but doing all this can be tricky because there is really no telling when the party will reach the dungeon or what level they will be. Furthermore, progression happens no matter what the party does.
Milestone: Indirectly incentivises the party to do things according to what the DM wants, and allows for more interesting scenarios. For example, Players have full capability to do things outside a main campaign, but doing so only grants items and monetary resources that can aid the party, and real progression is only made if the party gets back "on the rails" of the campaign. Furthermore, you can run the campaign the way I do, and not even run levels in a traditional way. You gain skills by completing milestones. Immediately after a milestone players are given a choice between increasing a skill by one point, increasing health by one hit dice, or saving the point for another dungeon when a feat can be unlocked. This can be altered depending on the length of the campaign and you can make that the reward to following the story, rather than potentially overpowered weapons and armours and spellbooks, or just gold. This means sidequests suddenly become the prime source of money, items, and other things and give the DM more flexibilty while allowing the players to decide when to help the locals a bit. Or you can just give EXP and level normally, but still do not have to use items to incentivise the player.
This means powerful items can be rewards for difficult sidequests, because early in the game is when those items matter. By end game, end game items have less of an impact because the abilities the player knows makes the item less impactful.
@@CharlesBalester I agree just want to see his thoughts
@@Qreaper Okay lol
Caleb Lee xp can also be used to incentivize players. The party starts heavily drifting from the story? Now there isn’t anything that gives them xp. It’s kind of like a video game in that sense. If you see enemies, you’re going the right way. Also, leveling up provides no real advantage? I guess the increase in health, gaining of feats, stat increases, very powerful abilities, and plethora of spells aren’t that great? Do you understand the difference between level 1 and level 20? It’s quite a significant one.
I'm a pretty new DM, running 2 campaigns in the same setting. I have one group on Milestone and the other on XP leveling. I'm starting to learn the pros and cons depending on the group of players I'm with. As a player, I'd like to experience milestone leveling sometime.
Amazing video, I already liked goblins and this makes them a worthy opponent on a higher lvl for an "easy" sidequest earning some "quick money".
*OR* Goblin Slayer shows up and saves your last surviving party member, killing EVERY SINGLE Goblin along the way.
I literally just got finished watching Goblin Slayer and this video pops up in my recommended feed.
That show is basically this video, but anime.
Goblin Slayer: **rage intensified**
Using a battle mat for this was incredibly helpful. Please continue doing so in the future.
12 seconds in and I already love the video because you used a picture of Mothra. 😁😁
these battle tactics videos are my favorite videos on this channel! Keep up the good work Runesmith!
Goblin: there is only one adventure coming. what a dumbass
Goblin Slayer: *sniffs* smells like... GOBLINS in here
Goblin: do you here BFG playing in the cave
Oh my god the level of effort this video must have taken to produce. Thanks dude, this was fun.
Is there a BIG goblin? There's always a BIG goblin.
Love my goblins! Such an underrated enemy that you brilliantly illustrated. Also check out the Goblin Quest trilogy by Jim C Hines for some awesome novels told from the goblin POV, or the Goblins webcomic, which is also fantastic.
I took inspiration from Goblin Slayer once... everyone hates me now and won’t move an inch without making 10 perception checks in a row X)
David Potts lol that sounds annoying as a DM. At that point I just ask for passive perception and use that.
Aether Blackbolt well that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but after being completely decimated after having to retreat from the goblin den they literally went back more prepared than I expected and used both magic hand and a few perception checks every time they moved. I almost tpk’d five lv3 party members because I underestimated goblins when they have actual intelligence behind their actions. The five of them were all experienced too, with our longest player being 5 years and the shortest being a year of playing and apparently they’ve never run into anything but dumblins before.
David Potts lol that's how it is sometimes. For a bunch of people the only difficulty in encounters is the mechanics and numbers, not the actual strategy.
Aether Blackbolt yeah. I remember I was playing paladin in a party running Tomb of Annihilation and we went into the room that had a couple gray oozes in it. We all had metal slashing weapons, so I got the idea to smash the oozes with the tables in the room to inflict bludgeoning damage. Passed my strength checks and the battle was made easy since bludgeoning damage doesn’t make it split apart. We didn’t even lose any gear either. Using the environment to your advantage is one of the greatest things you can do in this game.
What did you fucking do with your poor players???
I am so incredibly happy to have found this channel today.
Goblin Slayer: *goblin intensifies*
This is an awesome fountain of information! Great job and keep going with the cool d&d info and especially these ways for intelligent monsters to act.
And thus, Goblin Slayer was born...
Yes! I love seeing more tactics to use for my world! Keep up the great work.
Goblin Slayer searches through sub box and finds this (heavy breathing with rock music in background) it's goblin pp
This is a very good channel. Most D&D related channels either end up boring me or can only really be listened to as background noise, but your videos are among those I never want anything distracting me from. Your current formula is perfect, hope you find further success
Absolutely no one:
Runesmith: here's all the ways that goblins and kobolds can screw you over
@@InternetDrone Number Two: Get caught outside at night by a few dozen kobolds with bows, dark vision, and pack tactics.
Tucker's Kobolds is also a good read. ;)
@@InternetDrone Ayy - I see what you did there
Has anyone ever looked at the Monster Trait: Nimble Escape in the DMG? If it's used every turn, it effectively gives the goblin a bonus of +4 AC and AB. It's no wonder they're little killing machines.
(When that bonus is applied every round it actually turns them from CR 1/4 to CR 1 small beings of death) 😱
Is that an XP to level 3 cameo I hear
well yes, but actually no
Hey logan, thanks for the great video, i was worried about a campaign ive been planning to run for a while since there are a lot of goblins and this info was invaluable.
This is why we’ve got a man dedicated to slaying these mothafuckers. Anyone got the Goblin Slayer’s number?
I love Kobolds.
Kobolds and Goblins are my favourites.
In a homebrew campaign back a few years it was about the adventurers running into a city that has been utterly overrun with such an insane amount of goblins that there were too many to even try and count.
They wanted to look for loot in the main Tower, but utterly failed to stealth next to the giant masses of goblins.
Then got chased up the tower, tower started breaking apart, they kept climbing, tons of goblins, tons of loot, didn't want to lose the loot, were too slow because of it and them and a ton of goblins died when the tower crumbled and proceeded to then also explode.
These are basically Goblin Slayer level goblins
My favourite goblin/kobold trick is that they have cockatrice feathers in blow darts (and obviously cockatrices in cages at camp) so they just blow dart the group from a distance.
Bonus points for having a few rope snares that pull upwards, and then can also be pulled to the side, so that the petrified adventure becomes a makeshift swinging rock weapon.
*goblin slayer would like to know your location*
This inspired me to come up with a battle plan for invading a goblin lair.
Plan 1: Druid Caterpillar
Step 1: Be druid. Ideally, be 2 druids.
- Optional Step 1a: Use Wildshape to ambush and capture working goblin, interrogate for lair layout, use this information to seal other exits.
Step 2: Druid 1: Produce Flame cantrip for light. If anything moves, throw fire at it and re-cast.
Step 3: Druid 2: Mold Earth cantrip on all tunnel surface ahead (floor, walls, & ceiling) within range. This will close off hidden mini-tunnels and likely trigger or bury most traps.
Step 4: Druid 1: Throw fire ahead.
Step 5: Move forward to limit of cleared space.
Step 6: Repeat steps 2-5.
Step 7: Only use spell slots if under concerted attack.
Step 8: If lair collapses, Wildshape into burrowing animal and leave.
The Moral: Never play as anything that is not a Druid. Except maybe an Artificer.
Goblin Slayer taught us never to underestimate goblins.
@DEEPFOXJUDE A human in a goblin suit with cheat powers.
I really like the play by play part. More of that would be cool 👌
And you sit there in a cage wondering when goblin slayer is coming to save you.
Absolutely love the animated damage and arrows on this.
*goblin slayer has entered the game*
"Bree Yark" - Holy crap, I just flashed back to the early '80s with B2 Keep on the Borderlands.
Someone has been watching goblinslayer.
I just found your channel about a week ago and I love it! You are hilarious and have some awesome tips for DMs. Keep up the great work.
*Goblin slayer intensifies"
I had an idea for a sidequest that I got from your sidequest video and it involved one of these goblin sneak attacks, so now I’m fully prepared to kick some goblin butt!
2:34 goblin Slayer is still going to kill them
I remember there was an old WFRP adventure called Blood in Darkness which featured a ruined Dwarf shrine occupied by a band of Ogres. These Ogres had been part of a garrison left behind left behind by a goblinoid horde called the Bloodaxe Alliance, and when the Alliance didn't come back for them, and when the food began to run out, the Ogres turned to the most readily available food supply: their Goblin comrades.
By the time the PCs arrive, the surviving Goblins have gone into full zombie-apocalypse mode, hiding out in parts of the shrine with tunnels too narrow for an Ogre to get through - either due to internal collapse or because the Dwarves built them that way - and fighting with frenzied fanaticism if cornered. They were a much more challenging foe than your usual WFRP Goblins!
I learned nothing, Goblin Slayer already taught me this.
Used the tactics suggested on the Level 4 party the other day. Five hobgoblins vs. a storm herald barbarian, glamour bard/warlock multiclass, artillerist artificer, and Arcane Archer fighter. The party killed one before a rock was dropped on the barb, who was still rolling death saves when the session ended. The hobgoblins didn’t even flee - they were the scouting party, they’re going back for backup.