Goblins Need Love Too?

[Jyokage]

Hello there Playgrounders,
I've recently had the wild idea of making a tall lanky goblin character for dnd 3.5. Any thoughts on how to accomplish this? Any sources of info on goblinoid society and life styles? I'm open to any gobling related discussion as well.

P.s. By tall and Lanky I meant Medium sized. :-) So much for being precise.

[Greenish]

Hobgoblin?

Sadly, WotC never got around publishing a Races of book for goblinoids.

ECS and PGtE have some goblinoid fluff, but it's obviously setting specific and doesn't translate that well to settings where they're "walking bags of exp for newbie adventurers".

[Urpriest]

If you want to be a Medium Goblin, rather than a Hobgoblin, may I suggest being Half-Ogre (the Dragon template version)? Or Half-Minotaur if you're cool with having horns. Either would increase your size one category.

[Jyokage]

I was under the impression that half-minotaur was basically considered uber cheese even by lenient Dm's? Because you get something like +12 str from it?

[Greenish]

If you want to be a Medium Goblin, rather than a Hobgoblin, may I suggest being Half-Ogre (the Dragon template version)? Or Half-Minotaur if you're cool with having horns. Either would increase your size one category.

Heh, half-minotaur goblin and hobgoblin are both technically +1 LA.

[Jokes]

There's also Bhuka goblins from Sandstorm. Medium sized, -2 str, +2 dex, no LA. Downside is racial traits that are focussed on desert survival, which will probably never come up in most games.

[FMArthur]

Isn't small size a mixed bag anyway? Most races that have it don't seem to treat it as being either positive or negative. Why not just remove it in this one instance? Tell your DM you are unusually big for a goblin, or unusually weak for a hobgoblin.

[Devils_Advocate]

Yeah, Medium-sized goblins are hobgoblins. (There are other Medium goblinoids, but hobgoblins are the ones that are basically just big goblins.) See if you can get your DM to reduce their Level Adjustment to 0; they're really not any more powerful than dwarves.

They have a +4 bonus to Move Silently, so the obvious route is to go with something sneaky. Although an ordinary goblin would be better for that... Frankly, if you just want a tall goblin, you could just play a non-freakishly tall goblin. Being Small is an advantage for Rogues, you know? And goblins, unlike the PHB Small races, get a 30 foot movement rate. Plus Darkvision, in addition to an array of other bonuses ideal for stealthily stabbing people repeatedly in the dark so that they die before they knew what hit them and then taking all of their shinies mwahaha yesssss.

Goblinoids of the generic, walking-bags-of-XP variety are briefly detailed in Races of Faerun.

Goblin love!

[Jyokage]

Ha! Thanks for the link to all that goblinoid homebrew! Some of it was very interesting. I even found a new prc I want to have evaluated on the homebrew section. (The psycho prc. I thought it was an interesting take on barbarians.)

[Reis Tahlen]

Medium-sized Goblin?

HERESY!!! Heresy, I say!

It is a well known fact the the greater the size, the longer it takes for the blood to make a full cycle troughout the body, and therefore longer time to fuel the brain. Ergo, Medium-sized creatures are cretinoids, stupid dumb-faces. They also are ugly, due to the simple axiom: "The shorter, the cuter". We are short, therefore we are ubber-cute, and others are just dirty monkeys.

GOBLIN POWER!!!

[Soranar]

http://www.goblinscomic.com/

goblins have their own comic

they also get great riding bonuses (and being small they get access to the best mounts since they fit in dungeons)

plenty of love imo (just disregard the LA +1, if whisper gnomes don't get one I don't see why they should)

check crystalkeep for goblin races

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Maybe take a look at the feats Willing Deformity and Deformity: Tall in Heroes of Horror. Ask your DM about making a variant of Deformity: Tall for small size characters, since it's normally only available to medium creatures. Maybe it could make a small character count as medium size whenever it would be beneficial, similar to the powerful build trait of some races. The feat would still impose its normal penalty to attack rolls and hide checks, but keep in mind you would still gain bonuses to both of those for being small size. Any effect which causes you to increase to medium size such as Enlarge Person would make the feat's effect for the character switch to how it's printed. It would cost you two feats, but there's no level adjustment and it's definitely not something that could be game breaking. A reasonable DM is likely to agree to an elegant solution like this for making a flavor-oriented character.

[Greenish]

plenty of love imo (just disregard the LA +1, if whisper gnomes don't get one I don't see why they should)

Standard goblins have LA +0. Blues and hobgoblins sport the wholly unearned +1.

[Morty]

Yes, the +1 LA for hobgoblins is among the least justified level adjustments, if not the least justified. They wouldn't be overpowered at all if you were to remove the LA, because although two stat bonuses with no penalties are nice, they don't really get anything else. You might want to check these versions of savage races.
Also yeah, there's not much support for goblin characters out there. Except for Eberron books that is, I don't play in this setting but there's some neat stuff for all goblinoids in them, from what I've heard, since they actually have some culture and backstory there.

[IdleMuse]

I think Air Goblins (UA) are the only ECL 0 humanoid race in 3.5 with +4 dex. So they do get one special at least :P

I believe there is one Goblin-only PrC in RoS.

[Lord Loss]

I'm a fan of the Bhuka myself. Although Air goblins are also nice.

[Greenish]

Yes, the +1 LA for hobgoblins is among the least justified level adjustments, if not the least justified.

I think the aforementioned blue is a strong contender in that race, too.

[FMArthur]

I think the aforementioned blue is a strong contender in that race, too.

Oh wow. That has literally nothing from even the original designers' own messed-up conception of what things deserve level adjustment. Actually, I think the designer who said those things about Str being worth every mental stat was out of the loop; Int and Cha bonuses have been very rare and treated as kind of a big deal even as early as core. I think someone knew what spellcasting actually did, and he made races.

[pffh]

I think the aforementioned blue is a strong contender in that race, too.

Wait what? How do they... what? He has -2 stat adjustment and +1 pp at first level (alright also darkvision and +4 move silently and +4 to ride but still). Where does the +1 LA come from?

[Morty]

I think the aforementioned blue is a strong contender in that race, too.

True. Int bonus is nice and so is an extra power point but other than that... yeah. I'm think "monster races" might be intentionally weak, honestly.

[Greenish]

I'm think "monster races" might be intentionally weak, honestly.

No kiddin'?

[Marnath]

Basically you need to completely rework every monster race to make it usable. A good start is lowering all the LA values by at least one point. The designers didn't know the difference between LA and ECL, so most of the monsters have LA enough to make them available only at levels where a PC can use the analog to their special abilities...but then they tack on a whole pile of RHD too which means by the time you run into the monster, your PC's have been treating that ability as something a child would do.

[Morty]

No kiddin'?

Well, it's either "Let's make monsters weak so players don't want to play them" or "Who cares, let's slap some stats on them and call it a day".

[LibraryOgre]

Every time I've proposed a book or article on goblinoids to Wizards, they've said no. I think they're just generally anti-goblin.

[Jyokage]

Well that's just unfortunate, since goblins really have a lot wiggle room in regards to lore, and their lore is still stuck in the 90's....Also they are due for a graphical update...But that just might be fandom of small angry people.

[Telonius]

If they're comparing Blue to Elan it's a bit closer of a call.

Elan:

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* -2 Charisma.
* Medium size.
* Elan base land speed is 30 feet.
* No darkvision.
* Naturally Psionic: Elans gain 2 bonus power point at 1st level.
* Special Qualities (see above): Repletion, resilience, resistance.
* Automatic Languages: Common.
* Favored Class: Psion.
* Level Adjustment: +0.

Blue:

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* -2 Strength, +2 Intelligence, -2 Charisma.
* Small size: +1 bonus to Armor Class, +1 bonus on attack rolls, +4 bonus on Hide checks, -4 penalty on grapple checks, lifting and carrying limits ¾ of those of Medium characters.
* Blue base land speed is 30 feet.
* Darkvision out to 60 feet.
* Naturally Psionic: Blues gain 1 bonus power point at 1st level.
* Racial Skills: A blue character has a +4 racial bonus on Move Silently checks and Ride checks.
* Automatic Languages: Common, Goblin. Bonus Languages: Draconic, Elven, Giant, Gnoll, Orc.
* Favored Class: Psion.
* Level Adjustment: +1.

Blue pros: Darkvision, +4 to Move Silently, +4 to Ride, bonus to Int synergizes with Favored Class (and is totally worth -2 to Cha and Str), automatic language: Goblin. (Possible pro: small size).
Elan pros: Repletion, Resilience, Resistance.

I don't think Blue gets enough to merit a +1LA, but if they're pegging it to Elan (rather than human etc) it's a bit easier to see why they did it.

[Greenish]

Elan pros: Repletion, Resilience, Resistance.

…Racial feats, aberration type. Immortality, though that doesn't come up too often, I should think.

LA is harsh.

[Urpriest]

…Racial feats, aberration type. Immortality, though that doesn't come up too often, I should think.

LA is harsh.

Aberration type is the big one here. There's a reason why Hengeyokoi went down to +0 when the Shapechanger type was eliminated.

[Shademan]

may I present my homebrew goblins?
"
goblins, as usual apart from these additions: +2 wis(they carefully weigh their actions and are always on high alert) +2 to fort vs poison and rotten/spoiled food, +2 to ride,animal empathy or diplomacy when used on wolves, worgs, winter wolves or werewolves. "
Note that I also have no dwarven bonuses vs goblins.

[Endarire]

Why not be a tall goblin who's a Medium creature instead of a Small? Your stats are otherwise the same.