The Goblin Lived

[Pex]

One of my 5E groups just finished The Lost Mine Of Phandelver. Early in the module we befriended two goblins who joined our party. One remained a classic NPC as our chef, a protege of our Battle Master. The other goblin became my protege and a glorified NPC accompanying us on our adventures, helping us by translating when we heard bad guys speaking goblin, participated in combats, and gaining XP. He started as a regular goblin. When he leveled he became an official 1st level fighter. He gained another level for fighter 2. Upon finishing the module he earned enough XP to be level 3. The party is now level 4 almost 5.

A new player was to join our group and play the goblin as a full PC, but he backed out. The DM is allowing the goblin to be a permanent member of our party. I get to remake the character using Volo's Guide and run the character myself in combat akin to a cohort in 3E terms. The other players are ok with this.

The whole thing started because even though the entire party beat these goblins in initiative we all missed in our attacks, and they survived to round 2. This is so cool.

[pwykersotz]

That's pretty freaking awesome. I love that it started with a slew of misses. :smallbiggrin:

[Fishyninja]

Was it Droop?

[Pex]

Was it Droop?

It was the two goblins supposedly on guard hiding in a bush at the entrance to the goblin cave, presuming they were part of the module as opposed to a DM made-up thing. Their names are Glog and Sorg. Glog is the chef, and Sorg is the fighter.

[Fishyninja]

Ah I believe in LMOP there is an offical NPC goblin called Droop (well there was in ours) we fed and watered and clothed him.

[Arkhios]

This thread literally made me "smile out loud". We had a similar encounter in our homebrew campaign, where we snuck into a bandit cave, which turned out to be a massive underground complex - a fortress of some long lost civilization, now inhabited by a group of bandits - who turned out to be just the underlings of a small army of hobgoblins (or something, I've forgotten the minutiae).

Anyway, we managed to surprise their cook, who just happened to be a goblin. And I, playing an Ancients Paladin who generally values all life, including that of the goblin who hadn't done anything to harm us, and probably would've just died miserably if it tried to. So, instead of attacking it, I chose to use my turn - which I'm still surprised was before the goblin - to sneak behind it and grapple it to silence. We kept him as our prisoner, gagged so he couldn't warn any of the hobgoblins later, but otherwise unharmed. After we had cleared the fortress, I chose to let the poor little goblin go.

Lesson of the story? Not everything need to be put to the sword if it can be avoided.

I guess what I meant to say is that I approve your approach with the two goblins, past first round. Truly remarkable! :smallbiggrin:

[Fishyninja]

This thread literally made me "smile out loud".
You's got noisy facial muscles!

[Arkhios]

You's got noisy facial muscles!

Figure of speech. I would've laughed out loud if I could, but then I would've waken my better half. And that's something I'd rather not do! :smallbiggrin:

[Mith]

This reminds me of my own experience with LMOP. My group's campaign is based on The Adventure Zone podcast, which opens with LMOP and takes a very sharp deviation from the normal plot. We ended up sparing Neemeck (the goblin cheif) who has now become an NPC connection for our party at other times during the adventure.

[Finback]

Was it Droop?

My players rescued Droop, in particular the eladrin wizard. That player has had to step out of the game though, but I plan to have Droop appear as part of the party's "support crew". I'm even going to give him some wizard levels (he's a quick learner!)

[Cespenar]

Heh, good story. Funnily a similar thing happened in my Out of the Abyss game.

Out of the many colorful NPCs traveling with the party on default in that campaign, a rather brutal drow ambush ended in only one of them surviving -- the dwarf Eldeth. She then continued to survive combat after combat and even scored many kills on bosses or mid-bosses. In the end the DM just let us make her a sheet and tag along us as a full scale character. I helped make her into a Fighter/Rogue with Shield Master and Protection style who fought next to our Half-Orc Barbarian and contribute a lot to our fights, to such a degree that we began to joke about how Eldeth is the real PC in the group and all of us are her tag-alongs. :smallbiggrin:

[Fishyninja]

My players rescued Droop, in particular the eladrin wizard. That player has had to step out of the game though, but I plan to have Droop appear as part of the party's "support crew". I'm even going to give him some wizard levels (he's a quick learner!)

We rescued droop because he hit a Bugbear with a saucepan! That's the kind of grit we need on our team!

[NecroDancer]

Someday maybe my group will regain the trust in the NPCs....... Someday........