Making a low level encounter as realistically lethal as possible

[PurpleSocks]

I'm currently writing a one shot adventure for a level 3 party, (as a guest DM in a friends campaign) where the PC's will have to attack a Goblin camp and I want to make the goblins a challenge. I dont want to just up the levels of said Goblins as my players's have shown me time and time again that if it has stats they can kill it, and giving them extra xp for being combat munchkins isn't my style.

I'm away from my books at the moment, so I'm asking you the playground how would you make a group of organised and paranoid goblins prepare for an inevitable attack? They've had a few weeks to prepare, are located atop an old ruin in a forest, and have access to whatever resources would be reasonable.

[Red Fel]

I'm away from my books at the moment, so I'm asking you the playground how would you make a group of organised and paranoid goblins prepare for an inevitable attack?

Tucker's Goblins? (http://tuckerskobolds.com/)

[StoneCipher]

Archers in the most inaccessible place they can find that can also provide them cover to pop in and out of. If the PCs have limited ranged capabilities, this will be a near death sentence.

[ace rooster]

+1 on inaccessable archers, but also remember that they are a small race with a racial bonus to ride checks and darkvison. A 2HD eagle is a valid mount for them, and can fly if they have very little gear. How remote is this camp, and why are the PCs attacking it? I think I would probably have the camp be fairly easy, and then have a hunting party that was out during the raid harrassing them all the way home. Night attacks are powerful. Give them a level 1 sorceror with dancing lights and they can illuminate the party from 110ft, at which point the rest of the goblins open fire with crossbows from a nearby firing position (300ft away is about ideal). Possibly have a level 1 warrior use that racial bonus to move silently to get close enough to use a flask of oil to turn the lookout into a 'light source'. If the party finds a cave to spend a night in then on top of the bear that lives there they have to deal with the goblins waiting for them at the entrance. At least they might be able to get rest that way, though the goblins will do what ever they can to prevent it. Remember that lack of rest prevents casters from preparing spells, as well as causing characters to be unable to run or charge.

Target mounts and guard dogs first, slowing the party and forcing at least one of them to be on guard duty. The main thing to remember is that once the party is in a position to counterattack the goblins run, holding back until they are at an advantage again.

[Blackhawk748]

Seconding everything said so far and adding Mounted Archers. Theres a reason that Goblins ride wolves and there is a reason most people are concerned with goblin raiders. Also is the remote camp in some steep rocky hills? If so there is probably only one obvious way in and it should be booby trapped to the nine hells and back. Falling rocks, rolling log traps, oil and torches, caged bears, the whole nine yards. This is their base and by Maglubiyet, they will pay dearly to get in.

Also, one Goblin Druid or Spirit Shaman can seriously screw them up, even if hes only level 1, Entangle is nasty when combined with archers.

[Yael]

Tucker's Goblins? (http://tuckerskobolds.com/)

Seconded, lots and lots of minis can be a threat.

[calam]

You can abuse the difficult terrain rules, making it take twice as long to actually reach the goblins. Goblins are are just as fast as medium creatures but are only 3 feet tall so short passages can allow them to move normally while giving most PCs half speed and AC penalties. Zigzags make it difficult for fighters to charge and reach weapons can allow goblins to hit opponents from a greater distance and even from the top of a 10 foot wall.

At this level the climbing rules can be pretty bad, wooden walls are a DC 21 climb check while a good climb check would be +9. This will leave the PCs flat footed and being damaged while climbing forces them into more rolls that can make them fall off the wall (with the +9 bonus the PC will still have a 35% chance of falling off). Depending on the how permanent the camp is it could be more like a bronze age fort (built on a hill with a trench and wall) to a camp on a hill that's sheer enough to require climb checks.

Some simple traps might be useful and if this is pathfinder fire bombs and tar pits can be very thematic. However most materials that a camp can be made of are flammable so the traps might be turned against the goblins. Guerrilla tactics might work well for defenses away from the camp, with traps and goblins skirmishing invaders.

This may be a bit harsh but you asked for the most realistically lethal encounter.

[Flickerdart]

Make them Warlocks and have them fly around while shooting touch-attack lasers, or rogues throwing alchemical items from hiding. Death by a thousand cuts!

[Brendanicus]

These mounted archer ideas are awesome, however, be sure that the goblins aren't too coordinated in squad tactics; they are still goblins, and tend to be jittery even when they have properly prepared for a fight.

Throw some bear traps haphazardly around the field. For extra fun, have one of the riders accidentally trigger one. Also, be sure to have Goblin sentries hidden in foliage/crevices o the way to the goblin village. That way, they can alert the main group that the PC's are coming.

[Crake]

Well, goblins seem to have a CR equal to NPC class level -2. Since normally, NPC classes are level -1 CR and PC classes are level=CR, goblis with PC classes would have a CR of level -1, right?

That would mean that you could have 1st level PC class goblins with the elite array (because PC class levels grant a creature the elite array for free) for a measly CR 1/2. A wardrum bard could be using inspire courage on all the goblins in the camp from somewhere nice and safe, giving +2 to attack/damage if the goblin gets inspirational boost and that, which at early levels is a pretty significant bonus. If you make the bard level 3 instead, you could get song of the heart to up it to +3.

A bunch of level 1 rangers on riding wolves thanks to wild cohort, maybe give them all the pathetic feat for charisma or something, letting them also pick up weapon focus for shortbow and with the bard, a 1517* in dex (elite array) and a short bow, they'll be getting +6 7 8 to hit for 1d61d4+3 damage, 1d61d4+5 if the players happen to be their favoured enemy. That's a pretty significant chunk of damage per shot and if you give the wolves the quick trait plus the dash feat (representing the goblins breeding the wolves for speed, and then training them for even more speed), the wolves would be moving 65ft per round, enough to outrun even someone trying to charge them. Don't forget to give the wolves leather barding for +2 AC at no penalty to the wolf whatsoever.

So to sum up, each level 1 ranger would have 8+con mod hp (presumably 14, so 10 hp), would have +6 7 8** to attack for 1d61d4**+3 damage, +5 if favoured enemy, with a wolf companion that moves at 65 feet, has 11 hp and 16 AC.

All for a measly CR1/2 each for the combined package, plus the CR2 drum bard

Add in a sprinkling of sorcerers and/or druids and you've got a pretty mean encounter there that wont net the players a tonne of xp per goblin

Edit: *Forgot that goblins get +2 dex

Edit2: According to the DMG, level 1 rangers should have a masterwork ranged weapon, studded leather, and a mundane melee weapon, so their shortbows should be masterwork, allowing for +89 to hit overall. With attack bonuses like that, they should be hitting a significant portion of the time.

Edit3: the Bard could actually pick up wild cohort too, and get something like a riding boar with drums on the side, so he can accompany them on their raids, hanging back and buffing all his friends

Edit4: **Forgot that goblins are small and get +1 to hit/AC, but smaller weapons, so 1d4 instead of 1d6 for a shortbow

[Seruvius]

I Agree with most of the fun stuff already said, and would like to add another little idea that could be fleshed out into a whole campaign (especially RHoD, love me that one), add some Hobgoblins as the Leaders behind the whole thing. Make them the reason these goblinsa re organised etc. and hobgoblins are pretty militaristic and disciplined so you can throw say hobgoblins warblades (heck one of the 9 paths was invented by hobgobs, Iron Heart i believe) or some hobgoblin duskblades or similar for a surprisingly nasty bossfight. Make them veyr roganised as a clear difference to the gobos, say having a leader with some warrior buddies and the warriors all have the Phalanx fighter feat (bonus to ac for wielding light weapon+shield and bonus to hit and ac for evyer adjacent mate who also has it).

[Threadnaught]

Once they make it to the goblins' base, have the goblins block their escape, force them toward a mass graveyard filled with the bones of the goblins' enemies.
If you kow racist humans/elves like murdering goblins because they're goblins, then it's not enough to scare them away, if they run, they'll just bring more of their kind and be better prepared for slaughtering goblin children. Especially those filthy murderous paladins.

The PCs should have to fight an overwhelming force directlly, just to have the chance to escape. Then they'd have to watch their backs on their way out and potentially run into an overwhelming group of goblins watching each possible escape route.

This entire scenario, realistically, is completely unwinnable for your players. The PCs die with no real chance of meaningfully contributing to their own survival. As for your players, they'd feel rather annoyed at you for playing a game they can't win.


Yes it is possible to "win" while playing D&D, though it isn't really possible to win at D&D.
Successful quest and challenge completion is the "winning" I'm referring to as possible.

[ExLibrisMortis]

With the goblins' high dexterity, you can make goblin fighter 1s with Evasive Reflexes (make a 5-foot step in place of an AoO) and Hold the Line (charging enemies provoke an AoO), and have them wield longspears or glaives (damage > trip, in this case). Put a pair or group of spear-goblins at each entrance (choke point means you must provoke to move through). The archers do the damage from atop the wall and from trees, Crake's outriders charge at the most opportune moment and harass the players even if when they flee.

[graeylin]

Toss a couple simple traps here and there, to slow down the party approach. Deadfall with boulders or logs. Pit trap. simple rope across the trail. the trick is not to kill the party, but to either annoy them or wear down some hitpoints/use up some resources. Heck, go old school, and post some explosive runes on parchment, nailed to the trees for them to read. An illiterate goblin nailed them there.

When they slow down, harass them... archers are good, bomber/sappers are too. anything ranged works. again, harass, whittle, retreat. Harass, whittle, retreat.

if the party slows down too much to deal with finding traps, they get stuck in worthless fights against a sniping, retreating enemy. If they chase the enemy too far afield, they get stuck in more traps, or difficult terrain. Just find the right balance to slow them down, wear them out some, make them respect the enemy, and let them achieve their goal slowly.

[ericgrau]

Clever tricks are wonderful and keep things interesting, but you don't need to make every goblin into Sun Tzu either. A simple ambush behind trees is a good start. Ranged weapons are good. Climbing is good. Mounted ranged attacks was a great idea, they could strafe. Tight spaces, secret passages and traps are likewise standard. These should all be par for the course. Rarely should they fight out in the open in empty plains. Then you can build on it here and there for individual encounters. Vary the terrain, the dungeon layout, constructions, lighting since goblins have darkvision, include 1 or 2 of the major specialized tricks mentioned so far, etc.

Watch the CR of these encounters. Strategy should effectively raise the difficulty, so you don't want to TPK. Only annoy a great deal with weak but clever foes, until finally they have great satisfaction over killing the bastards. Whether or not any player died in the process.

[atemu1234]

Small archers, inaccessible and with a lot of ranks in hide and move silently.

[Crake]

Small archers, inaccessible and with a lot of ranks in hide and move silently.

Oh, mentioning small, i forgot to include that in my post, so those goblins should actually have +9 to hit thanks to being small, although their shortbows would be 1d4+3/5 not 1d6

[atemu1234]

Oh, mentioning small, i forgot to include that in my post, so those goblins should actually have +9 to hit thanks to being small, although their shortbows would be 1d4+3/5 not 1d6

Immaterial. 1d4 v 1d6 is one point of damage average, while high dexterity being far more useful.

[Crake]

Immaterial. 1d4 v 1d6 is one point of damage average, while high dexterity being far more useful.

yeah, and with the bard buffing them, the +3 damage, and +2 from favoured enemy if the players are more standard races, would more than make up for it. I'm actually really happy with myself at those goblins, and I'm kinda wishing I had a low level campaign of my own that I could use them in. Sadly, my current game is level 14 or so, so no fun to be had there. This thread has kinda inspired me to start running a new game so I can have fun designing lower level encounters again.

[DoctorGlock]

Trench warfare: have the gobs dug in with perfect cover unleashing a hail of crossbow fire while the player have to cover a few hundred feet of difficult but still open terrain. If D&D has a barbed wire equivalent, use that, otherwise an abbatis of light trees will do. Have half the gobs have readied actions for when the players try to use cover between moves to advance--readied actions open fire when the players hit open ground. Supressing fire, old world style. Deny them mobility and they are screwed

Have mages paint the players with any light spell, now they can't even hide. Have some outriders flank and mop up the leftovers

[Flickerdart]

Trench warfare: have the gobs dug in with perfect cover unleashing a hail of crossbow fire while the player have to cover a few hundred feet of difficult but still open terrain. If D&D has a barbed wire equivalent, use that, otherwise an abbatis of light trees will do. Have half the gobs have readied actions for when the players try to use cover between moves to advance--readied actions open fire when the players hit open ground. Supressing fire, old world style. Deny them mobility and they are screwed

Have mages paint the players with any light spell, now they can't even hide. Have some outriders flank and mop up the leftovers
Trench warfare works great against other armies on a frontline stretched hundreds of miles across. Not so much against a 4-man group that can scout the area, and go around from the back. Even if they do decide to rush it, the goblins can only ready one attack per goblin, and in that round the PCs could have crossed 120ft of ground. 20ft/second is a much livelier sprint than your average trench rat could muster.

Plus, the D&D equivalent of tanks costs 30gp - lines and lines of crossbowmen are powerless against a single crummy tower shield. Also, smokescreens (Obscuring Mist, Fog Cloud) work great for filling in the gaps between cover.

Light is touch-range, so it's useless for marking.

[Fouredged Sword]

Goblins are also really light. A goblin (30ish pounds) riding a wolf (50is pounds) can ride accross a pit trap with a 100lb trigger without worry. The human chasing them, not so much.

The pit is filled with pitch. It means you don't take damage from falling it, you just have to climb out of the waist deep muck (full round action, DC 5 climb check). They are not so stupid that they would leave lethal traps in their own camps after all.

They then throw a lit torch at you. You are now on fire. Then they hit you with a lasso and use their wolves to drag you back into the pit.

In fact, ditches filled with pitch make GREAT barricades that can be lit while running back to avoid attackers. The ditch can circle around

[Flickerdart]

a wolf (50is pounds)
Where did you find a wolf like that, the nursery? An adult male wolf weighs between 40 (female) to 50 (male) kilograms, which is 88-110 pounds. Plus the weight of equipment for both the goblin and the wolf.

[Fouredged Sword]

Where did you find a wolf like that, the nursery? An adult male wolf weighs between 40 (female) to 50 (male) kilograms, which is 88-110 pounds. Plus the weight of equipment for both the goblin and the wolf.

Bah, mixed up units when reading a wiki and I was thinking more along the lines of timber wolves. Grey wolves are very large animals, some other wolf breeds are as light as 50-60 lbs for a male. Still, even if a wolf weighs around 100lbs, an adventurer rarely weighs less than 175 with gear, so set the trap at 170 and even a heavy goblin can pass over mounted without setting it off.

[StoneCipher]

Bah, mixed up units when reading a wiki. Still, even if a wolf weighs around 100lbs, an adventurer rarely weighs less than 175 with gear, so set the trap at 170 and even a heavy goblin can pass over mounted without setting it off.

I would venture to say that goblins don't have quite the prowess to set up weight specific traps. That's the way I'd play them anyways.

[ericgrau]

Lots of clever ideas for many many encounters. I'd showcase 1 or 2 per encounter, on top of the basic ambushy stuff for every encounter. Stealth and range can be re-used.

The thing to remember with stealth is that there is a -20 to hide checks when sniping. After all shooting gives away your position. You can try to force interpret that as well I'll just use a move action to hide after shooting without penalty, but I don't think that's RAI at all. When you shoot you get noticed. And once you get noticed you can't hide afterwards. Or basically monsters use stealth to sneak into strategic position but then attacking breaks stealth. Almost always, unless the -20 is overcome. At a long enough range the distance penalty could however cancel out the -20 making sniping feasible until the PCs get closer. Maybe they can't be sure where the attack came from, but the back end of the arrow should at least point to a general direction for them to head towards. I've had DMs run it without the -20 and besides being rules-questionable it's more frustrating than anything. In general with clever setups never make it impossible, nor should there ever ever be a single pre-determined solution. Even if you drop hints PCs should expect multiple ways. PCs aren't psychic.

[Fouredged Sword]

I would venture to say that goblins don't have quite the prowess to set up weight specific traps. That's the way I'd play them anyways.

For a lot of stuff I would agree with you. For pit traps, it's just a matter of finding branches of the right thickness and testing them before filling the pit with tar.

[StoneCipher]

For a lot of stuff I would agree with you. For pit traps, it's just a matter of finding branches of the right thickness and testing them before filling the pit with tar.

True enough, but they'd likely only make it so that they were safe in a predetermined scenario, such as riding over it with full gear and barding. PCs would likely be around the same weight or less as dog+goblin except if they were wearing heavy armor. So if the goblins wanted their riders to be safe, the PCs would likely be safe. Goblins also likely would not test the excess weight a trap can handle, only that it lets them cross safely.

However, this leads to the added benefit of if say the PCs KNOW there are traps, they will be slower and more cautious, giving the archers more time to bear down on them. If there is anything that's mean at super low levels, it's that guy with a bow.

[ace rooster]

Trench warfare works great against other armies on a frontline stretched hundreds of miles across. Not so much against a 4-man group that can scout the area, and go around from the back. Even if they do decide to rush it, the goblins can only ready one attack per goblin, and in that round the PCs could have crossed 120ft of ground. 20ft/second is a much livelier sprint than your average trench rat could muster.

Plus, the D&D equivalent of tanks costs 30gp - lines and lines of crossbowmen are powerless against a single crummy tower shield. Also, smokescreens (Obscuring Mist, Fog Cloud) work great for filling in the gaps between cover.

Light is touch-range, so it's useless for marking.

120ft is only 1.5 range increments of a light crossbow, and only 1 of a heavy one. If the goblins are waiting till the PCs are within one range increment before opening fire then they deserve to be slaughtered. If we add on a 40ft bog between the PCs and the camp suddenly the PCs are taking 3 rounds to get through it. You are right that trench warfare is not really what is meant, but basic fortifications (or a smart choice of campsite) can make the assault considerably more difficult.

A 4 minute mile is 22ft/s apparently, and while I would struggle to come close to that pace over a mile I like to think that my sprint would be in that ball park.

The tower shield thing is very powerful, (and is a reason to be a fighter at this level! Gotta love the roman tactics) but at 45lb is a big investment in terms of encumberance, and will probably mean that most of the goblins could just run away from you, preventing you from achieving whatever you need to achieve. It is also vulnerable to a goblin with a greataxe coming out and attempting to hack it to bits, though the goblins might struggle to find a volunteer (It is debatable whether to regard it as a sunder, or an attack on an object that the PC is hiding behind). To attack him you need to come out of cover, at which point the crossbow goblins attempt to turn you into a pincusion. Very tough for the goblins to deal with this though, so I would probably have them withdraw and target the pc's support.

Smokescreens are also very useful, but at level 3 fog cloud is a large investment. Smokesticks are generally too small to have much of an impact.

I also assume they meant the light subschool, rather than spell. Dancing lights is a cantrip that can illuminate to medium range, and a light spell cast on a crossbow bolt can do something similar out to 1200ft (though with very questionable accuracy at that range).



While I might rule that goblins could set up a trap that could hold their weight and no more, there is no way that any of the goblins would actually trust each other's engineering enough to actually ride over it. :smallbiggrin:

[Flickerdart]

120ft is only 1.5 range increments of a light crossbow, and only 1 of a heavy one. If the goblins are waiting till the PCs are within one range increment before opening fire then they deserve to be slaughtered. If we add on a 40ft bog between the PCs and the camp suddenly the PCs are taking 3 rounds to get through it. You are right that trench warfare is not really what is meant, but basic fortifications (or a smart choice of campsite) can make the assault considerably more difficult.
Are the goblins now clearing hundreds of feet of wilderness just so they have a clear shot at a bunch of dudes? There aren't a lot of situations in the wilds where you have that much visibility with absolutely no cover (don't forget that underbrush and tall grass makes great cover for a prone human). Also remember that Spot gets a -1 penalty per 10 feet, and Goblins have a +2 Spot check - they can't see the PCs beyond 220ft, and only have a 50% chance of doing so at 120ft if the PCs make absolutely no effort to conceal their location. If they're taking 10 on Hide checks and have no other modifiers, you're looking at hilariously low chances that the goblins ever spot anything.

[DoctorGlock]

They have had a few weeks to prepare, clearing a fair distance around the ruins is conceivable. I admit the strategy tends to work better with artillery and machine guns

[Flickerdart]

They have had a few weeks to prepare, clearing a fair distance around the ruins is conceivable. I admit the strategy tends to work better with artillery and machine guns
Goblins, who have access to practically stone-age tech, clearing hundreds of feet of virgin wilderness in "a few weeks"? If there's enough of them to get that kind of thing done, they don't need strategy - they can just swarm the PCs and crush them under their mass.

[DoctorGlock]

Why are they stone age in a borderline Renaissance setting?

[Flickerdart]

Why are they stone age in a borderline Renaissance setting?
For the same reason the Aztecs were? For the same reason the average peasant's life wasn't actually affected by all of that technology? Goblins are a savage races that don't have the same knowledge, resources, societal organization, or most other things that dwarves and gnomes and so forth do. Just because the technology exists somewhere doesn't mean everybody suddenly has it.

[StoneCipher]

Why are they stone age in a borderline Renaissance setting?

Goblins are simple folk. They hammer together cheap solutions to problems because they are always on the run from pretty much anything that has an intelligence score above 3. They have no time to set up intricate contraptions and don't usually live long enough to figure out how to make them. Pretty much everyone wants to kill or enslave them.

[Fouredged Sword]

Goblins, who have access to practically stone-age tech, clearing hundreds of feet of virgin wilderness in "a few weeks"? If there's enough of them to get that kind of thing done, they don't need strategy - they can just swarm the PCs and crush them under their mass.

Slash and burn, you can be done in week with only a few days actual work with nothing more than knives, hatchets and shovels if you are not trying get any wood out of it.

[Flickerdart]

Slash and burn, you can be done in week with only a few days actual work with nothing more than knives, hatchets and shovels if you are not trying get any wood out of it.
Again, how many people do you need for this? We're talking "enough goblins to be a reasonable challenge for a 3rd level party" which is like a dozen guys at best. Clearing everything down to brush, and then erecting trenches and traps and so forth.

Plus, setting the forest on fire seems like a great way of attracting pesky humans, so you're probably spending half your time either fighting them off or licking your wounds.

[StoneCipher]

Slash and burn, you can be done in week with only a few days actual work with nothing more than knives, hatchets and shovels if you are not trying get any wood out of it.

This also has the problem of them being noticed while they are doing this. It's going to be loud, smokey and unless they are in the middle of a forest miles wide they are going to notify nearby villages who will naturally investigate. Soon they will be found and have to deal with more than just some PCs.

[Bucky]

Who says the goblin snipers need to stand still? You can have them fork-kite instead; split the snipers into two groups, at a ~60 degree angle with respect to the party. When the party moves towards one group, it flees in a circle around the other group, while the second group snipes freely. If the party switches targets, the groups reverse roles. The correct answer is for the party to split up as well, at which point the goblins can scatter their own groups, and as long as they outnumber the PCs at all, they should still have one sniper free at any given time until the PCs start seriously coordinating. Of course, they try to disengage once they no longer have a numerical advantage.

Incidentally, crossfire also makes tower shields less effective.

[Flickerdart]

Who says the goblin snipers need to stand still? You can have them fork-kite instead; split the snipers into two groups, at a ~60 degree angle with respect to the party. When the party moves towards one group, it flees in a circle around the other group, while the second group snipes freely. If the party switches targets, the groups reverse roles. The correct answer is for the party to split up as well, at which point the goblins can scatter their own groups, and as long as they outnumber the PCs at all, they should still have one sniper free at any given time until the PCs start seriously coordinating. Of course, they try to disengage once they no longer have a numerical advantage.
Seems like "run around a bunch" goes completely against the trench warfare strategy.


Incidentally, crossfire also makes tower shields less effective.
No it doesn't. Tower shield cover isn't directional because 3.5 has no facing rules.

[ace rooster]

Are the goblins now clearing hundreds of feet of wilderness just so they have a clear shot at a bunch of dudes? There aren't a lot of situations in the wilds where you have that much visibility with absolutely no cover (don't forget that underbrush and tall grass makes great cover for a prone human). Also remember that Spot gets a -1 penalty per 10 feet, and Goblins have a +2 Spot check - they can't see the PCs beyond 220ft, and only have a 50% chance of doing so at 120ft if the PCs make absolutely no effort to conceal their location. If they're taking 10 on Hide checks and have no other modifiers, you're looking at hilariously low chances that the goblins ever spot anything.

Not exactly, they have chosen a spot with no easy concealed approaches for their camp. The only direction in being through a clearing the size of a football pitch is not a coincidence. Apart from anything else it gives a good view of any game passing through. Remember that once the goblins have spotted you you cannot rehide while they can see you, and the undergrowth that was concealing you is also difficult terrain.

Ah, that old spot check debate. Per the DMG, spotting something easy to see does not need a spot check, and creatures need concealment to make a hide check. While cover and concealment would exist, the goblins automatically spot you while you move between areas of undergrowth, and they would know where any intruders would have to reveal themselves. Meeting a random group in the woods when you are both wandering is very different from trying to approach a fortified position, where preperations have been made. We cannot assume the rules to use are the same.

[Flickerdart]

Ah, that old spot check debate. Per the DMG, spotting something easy to see does not need a spot check
Shame that people hundreds of feet away don't really fall under that definition. Remember that Spot isn't just looking, it's also seeing (which is why it's keyed to Wisdom) - at that distance, the cripplingly nearsighted goblins are likely to see lots of shapes and motion of all kinds, and so it makes sense to call for a Spot check.

In addition, Spot checks are also used to determine encounter starting distances, which is the relevant use here, and explicitly includes the distance penalty.