Goblin Defense (5e) (OOC)

[Bobthewizard]

Fire STR save (1d20)[10]

[Bobthewizard]

Messed up my code

(1d20+6)[16]
(1d20+6)[22]

[J-H]

Pacing
The adventurers were to appear at a general spacing of 1d3+1 days at first, from the village of Nearb, and then at 6th level adventurers or above, at 1d6+2 days’s spacing (from the city of Generica). This gave a range of 2-8 days between attacks in general. Go too long and there's too much prep time, and too short and it'd feel unfair. At higher levels, the party gets more time to prep for tougher attackers.

Is this a good time period?

Contingencies
I included this section, which didn't come up much:
If the players manage to bargain in good faith with adventurers, count it as a success! However, other adventuring groups may hear about this and come to claim the seemingly more difficult or prestigious bounty on them – especially groups of opposing alignment.

If the players repeatedly raid the village for food and tools, they are now a major threat! Up the difficulty of the attacking groups, and have them come back to back as they search out this persistent threat.

If the PCs decide to try to proactively attack incoming adventurers, assume the adventurers have taken reasonable precautions (someone on watch, Alarm spell, etc.). They are more likely to escape to warn others when confronted in the forest.

Setting Traps & Secret Doors
Players will no doubt want to set traps for incoming adventurers. The DMG does not contain rules for this to refer to, but does contain sample traps that can be reviewed for comparison. In general, a trap should not do more damage than 1 PC for 1 round, unless it is extremely complex or deadly (ie, a 100’ deep pit trap).

For un-concealed traps, assume they will be visible. For concealed traps or secret doors, compare adventurers’ passive perception (or active, if searching) versus a trap concealment DC. The trap concealment DC is equal to 10 + the intelligence modifier of the goblin who set the trap up, which will typically produce a concealment DC of 10-15. It will then be up to the players to funnel the less perceptive enemies into the trap. Traps with a magical component require someone to expend a spell slot to cast the appropriate spell daily for 3 days, plus material components (gold, herbs, or other special materials) equal to 100gp x the level of the spell.

Does this look about right? I understand wanting to make un-spottable traps, but super high DC traps are probably not possible with just tools and limited resources in a goblin lair

Digging
Mold Earth can be used to dig tunnels much faster, but it doesn’t reinforce them to keep them from collapsing easily. Also, stones still have to be pried out of the way by hand. Mold Earth tunnels can be made at a speed of 15’ of tunnel per day, or 20’ with proper digging tools available. Generally, 3x-4x the speed it digging would normally take.

If the tunnels are left as easily collapsible, 60’ per day.
I know Bob said it was maybe too easy, but you had the one specific non-combat cantrip that would do this

Sarcophagus: Are you sure you want to do that?
Anyone who touches the sarcophagus feels an aura of dread and evil, and must make a DC 10 Wisdom save or use their action to run away in fear for 1 round. The room is unsuitable for resting. It can be opened with a DC 12 Athletics check, and contains the restless body of a mighty spellsword. If opened, it will attack the nearest living creature and continue until no living creatures are in sight, then return to its sarcophagus.
Use the statistics of the Oni (MM pg 239), except that it is undead and thus immune to poison, exhaustion, unconsciousness, and charm. It is medium-sized, and wields a +1 scimitar that deals 2 extra points of cold damage on hit.
Cunning PCs might lure enemies here and hope to unleash the inhabitant as an emergency measure.
This was a pretty substantial threat to a group or 4th or 5th level and below. Aside from just opening it and having a fight, I assumed the other main use would be to lure adventurers to it, and then use some pre-set ropes to open it while escaping. Walling it off from the rest of the lair made it safe, but also meant that there was no interaction with it, unless the invaders found it and decided to open it before dealing with the goblin lair they were there to attack. This and the Frostbrand are the only +damage weapons available, and it's the only finesse one.
How could this be better?

Bailing Out
I did include a section on leaving the lair rather than staying and being attacked, although I haven't completed the event tables for it yet.

Spoiler: Length

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Departure
The party decides to leave the area and find a newer lair in the Ogrespine Mountains. This should be an arduous and risky journey, where the players have to guard the caravan. Have the players describe what sort of lair they are looking for (ruins, cave, hidden valley, etc.). Roll Survival checks each day as they travel (using the highest Survival score in the party). When the party reaches a total of 100 on their checks, they find their goal and can settle in peace. In the meantime, they will have to subsist on hunted food, which may require stops en route.
In the meantime, roll on the Complications table below twice during the day and once at night for each day they travel. Feel free to combine rolls for more interesting encounters!

Day
1 Human bandits (MM ??) accost them and demand gold.
2 3 Perytons hunt the caravan
3 druids?
4 Wildfire
5 Thunderstorm
6 Owlbear
7 Wyvern
8 2 Hill Giants demand ??

Night
1 A ?? stumbles into their camp
2 Elven patrol?
3 Owlbear
4
5
6

Day To Day Event Table
Here's the table. There were 15 rolls made on this d20 chart. Unfortunately, you never got a 20.

Spoiler: long

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1. A Hunting goblin is bitten by a poisonous snake. Unless someone hunting with him has a healing ability or item that heals 8hp or neutralizes/cures poison, he dies.
2. Two different goblins complain of nightmares about the sarcophagus, but can’t remember any details. One squad starts the next fight with two levels of Exhaustion.
3. A goblin argues he should be the leader instead. If the PCs go along with it, replace every PC’s chosen Day with a randomly rolled choice for one day, and this event may recur.
4. One of the noncombatants has a difficult birth. A DC 12 Medicine check causes it to succeed, giving +1 noncombatant; on a failure, the mother dies. The Help action may only be used by proficient characters.
5. One of the goblin children, Quickfeet, steals a dagger and begins playing with it and practicing. If the PCs take it away from Quickfeet, nothing happens. If Quickfeet is allowed to keep it or trained, then if an enemy makes it to the noncombatant area, Quickfeet may make 1 attack at +4 to hit for 1d4+2+1d6 sneak attack damage to try to kill that enemy as a last ditch effort.
6. A forager named Pebbles finds some sweet fruit. It can serve as components for brewing 2 healing potions at once, or she can bake it to make a dessert for the tribe. The dessert ends up being a sweet jam-like sauce that goes well on meat, bread, and mushrooms.
7. While digging, Pyrite finds a shiny gemstone. He wants to stop work and polish it. If allowed, it’s an emerald worth 120gp.
8. A tunnel collapses, trapping two goblins (DM chooses type). Unless magic is available, a Day action is lost retrieving them.
9. A skunk gets into the food storage area. A DC 12 Animal Handling check is required to safely remove it. On a failed check, 2 days’ worth of food is ruined and there are many complaints about the room being stinky for the next two weeks.
10. A noncombatant named Ironbelly finds some poisonous mushrooms the hard way, and doesn’t survive because he ate most of them in one sitting. There are enough left that one day of Brewing work can turn them into 3 doses of poison that can be applied to weapons, or an ingested poison sufficient to affect up to 5 people. Applying poison takes an action. On hit, the target must make a DC 12 Constitution save or be Poisoned. The target may save at the end of each turn to end the effect; otherwise, it lasts for one minute. Alternatively, you can keep the mushrooms and try to use them as food-borne poison. In that case, anyone who eats a full meal prepared with them must make a DC 12 Constitution save 30 minutes after the meal, or be incapacitated by nausea and vomiting for 1 hour.
11. Head Scout only – a large herd of aurochs are travelling through the region. You can gain +1 food per day of hunting, but they’re far away and it’s a lot to haul back. If you commit to a 3-day hunt, you’ll gain 9 food instead of 6, but you won’t benefit from your chance to spot incoming enemies.
12. Chief only – Some of your warriors get discouraged at continually fighting more powerful enemies. How do you choose to motivate them? If fear, they each gain 3 temporary HP at the start of the next battle. If inspiration, they each get +1 to hit at the start of the next battle.
13. Shaman only – Your dreams are odd for several nights. You feel like you’re seeing someone else’s memories. They involve lots of fighting, and betrayal. A few stray symbols of some old form of writing catch your eye as being similar to those on the sarcophagus. Will you try resting in the sarcophagus room? If yes, your next dreams are clearer. You can tell that a malevolent spirit of power rests uneasily, desiring to kill the living… but you are also certain that Protection from Evil will render you invisible to it, at least for a little while, and that it will not stray far unless the living are in front of it.
14. Battle Champion only – Magic items are a big part of hitting hard for your skill and size. You realize one day that you can, just barely, feel magic auras on items. Choice: You can either try to handle it like a spellcaster would by making it systematic, or you can go with your instincts. If the Champion chooses to make it systematic, the Champion may cast Detect Magic once per day. If the Champion chooses to follow gut instincts, the Champion may attune to one additional magic item.
15. Loremaster only – A potion being brewed begins to fizzle and bubble unexpectedly, shaking the container. The loremaster can choose to dampen the reaction, destroying the potion, or let it go. If it is allowed to continue brewing, roll 1d20. On a 1-8, the potion explodes, giving off reactive gasses that destroy all Herbs in store. On a 9-12, the potion becomes a Potion of Poison. On a 13-16, it becomes a Potion of Stone Giant Strength. On a 17-20, it becomes a Potion of Supreme Healing.
16. One of the hunters gets lost. He doesn’t make his way back until the next morning, arriving just one round before the adventurers who have been chasing him since they woke him up in the middle of the night. They have deliberately left him alive to follow him back. Having a Head Scout negates the negative effects.
17. A withered old crone of a goblin, Mypot, steals a spellbook you’ve looted from wizards, and claims it as hers. If anyone enters the Noncombatant room, they will get one casting of Magic Missile (1d4+1 x 3) to the face.
18. Someone gets sick. Disease spreads unless party has a way to contain it. Make a hidden Medicine roll for every proficient PC. If it’s under 10, the disease is spotted when there are 8 sick; 10-14, the disease is spotted when there are four sick individuals; 15+, two. Sick individuals remain ill for 1 week and double their numbers each day. If spreads for 3 days, then on next combat, roll 1d3-1 (0-2) for each squad, and that squad starts with that level of exhaustion from feeling cruddy.
19. Some of your warriors have started gambling, wagering food, chores, pretty rocks, and trinkets. Several fights have broken out, resulting in a few lost teeth and other minor injuries. How do you respond?
20. Maglubiyet blesses the tribe for their success, IF they have completely wiped out the last two adventuring groups. If so, he appears in a vision to the priest/shaman and encourages them to continue what they are doing. Each PC gains 3hp permanently. Each squad member gains 1hp permanently.
If they have not, he encourages them to do better at killing weakened enemies, and enchants one pair of boots to give +10’ speed.

Animal Taming
I wasn't expecting this originally. Here's the table I came up with.

Spoiler: length

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Animal Taming
Goblins often seem to be found in association with other creatures that they have tamed or partnered with.
If your party tries to find something, here’s a random table to roll on. These creatures were selected to be weak enough to not be overpowering, but still fun and potentially useful to have.
Finding them requires the Scout or Hunt action with a specific goal of looking for pet-suitable animal, and usually takes 2-3 days (not necessarily contiguous).
Beasts will not fight to the death unless cornered.
They will attack opportunistically when safe to do so, depending on the specific creature.
Persuading them to attack when outnumbered or charge into dangerous situations requires an Animal Handling check as an action, typically DC 15. The DC is lowered to 8 if a character they have interacted with a lot is in danger.
Beasts require a den at least 10sqft in size, with a single entrance.
1. 5 Giant Fire Beetles (MM pg. 325)
2. 1d6+2 Weasels (MM pg. 340)
3. 3 wild Mastiffs (MM pg. 332)
4. 3 Giant Rats (MM Pg. 327)
5. 1 Panther (MM pg. 333) – has a 50% chance of being present in the lair for a fight
6. 2 wolves (MM pg. 341)
7. 2 Giant Weasels (MM pg. 329) roughly equivalent to 1 melee squad of goblin warriors
8. 2 Giant Badgers (MM pg. 323)
9. 1 Black Bear (MM pg 318)
10. 2 Crocodiles – will live in the lake nearby and attack anyone who enters the water. Note: 10% chance of losing a noncombatant between each fight if the goblins are fishing.
11. 1 Rust Monster (MM pg. 262). Must be fed 10lbs metal per day.
12. 1 Orange Faerie Dragon. Requires pay of 50gp per fight in shiny coins or gems, which it takes to a hidden cache nearby, and may lodge a claim to shiny magical items. It will depart if it is unpaid, or if the cache is located.

The Map
How was the map? We ended up with a lot (too much) happening in Hall 1, because you made it into a kill zone. How should it be changed? Should there be a second (hidden) entrance somewhere that needs to be watched?

I based it off a map I found online (which I can't use when publishing), but scaled so all the corridors were at least 10' wide to allow for maneuvering and to make movement between areas actually meaningful. Some areas only got used once or twice.

Class Restrictions
Was there anything restricted that shouldn't have been?
I think Paladin would have been a big boost in terms of saving throws, although it would require you to group up... which you never, ever did.

Roles
Did all the roles feel meaningful and somewhere around equally useful or powerful?

[J-H]

Feedback shared w/ comments
Pyro/Big Head/Gobblehop
+ It's a really fun perspective change
+ Base defense is an underutilized mechanic in most games
+ The teamwork aspect has been grandiose and very rewarding
+ It was very motivating to play
Great! It's been interesting to run as well, as you guys were very creative and really stymied what should have been some effective characters.
O I would have preferred playing Kobolds - trap building, mining and base defense are canonically what they do. I started with Goblins due to the Wandering Inn I think; also, kobolds are more "accepted" these days than goblins thanks to dragons, Deekin, etc. Kobolds would give pack tactics, which is a pretty big deal, and also the Grovel/etc. action. Lots of advantage. On the other hand, the Cackling Moon clan made heavy and extensive use of the bonus action Disengage/Hide. I think a lot of the fights would have been stickier without that.
O The module would have profited from more social interaction beyond the few events we had. Those were by no means bad, but didn't feel as impactful as they could have. Some of that may be my DMing style. What would you suggest adding?
- fixed goblin stats are pretty detrimental for diverse character classes. As a low level experience you feel those missing stat boosts extremely - a bonus feat would help here tremendously I don't view this as a negative, life is hard as a goblin
- No trade, no diplomacy and no non-violent solutions limit this scenario severely. Yes. "Made a peace agreement" would kind of break it, though. How would you suggest adding trade in a plausible way? There's no thieves guild in the middle of the forest to deal with, and the tribe was recently raiding independent traders. I couldn't come up with much.
- After the first three times, the assault schedule became too predictable and reduced our drive to try new things. Noted the dice above, any suggestions?
- likewise our inability to improve our DCs of traps and secret door vs. The ever improving heroes limited our drive to improve our cave in that way.
- the undead in the crypt should present itself more as a risk/reward to be distributed. The way we handled it was sensible but boring.Details above on this, thoughts?

All in all it was a great game 👍👍👍
Thanks!

Amnestic/Manyteeth/Not A Pet
I really enjoyed this as a different perspective/playstyle to normal adventures.
To do some pros/cons/general feedback of my own:
+ I liked getting control of a little gobsquad of my own. Rotating in warriors felt both thematic and fun, getting to go through all the little names was a treat.
+ While I didn't participate much in the actual base-crafting (Bob did a great job of it!) I did enjoy seeing the lair 'evolve' over time with new modifications.
+ I really liked the pace of the group itself. Getting out sometimes 1-2 rounds in a day was really refreshing, and I expect part of this is due to it being a very simple and set list of what you can do.That, plus the Discord, and a smaller set of players (3) who I knew could be counted on to post pretty promptly.
O 90% of the loot we got was fluff which feels somewhat appropriate but it was difficult to know what was worth tracking and what wasn't. This might tie into the lack of opportunity to trade, but I don't feel too bad about no trading chances personally, so long as it's more "up front". On the other hand, it was nice to see our own hoard steadily grow as we added more and more things to it. Aside from magic items, the main relevant things seemed to be tools. I made sure to include some of those early on, but after that, it's hard to identify any meaningful non-magic loot that adventurers would carry. Any suggestions?.
O I'm not sure how many punches were pulled overall, but generally it felt like our team had a decent grasp of the system and could suss out what the enemies were after a turn or two, which helped target choices. If a player team was less knowledgeable I fear they'd struggle with just a team of 3 gobs more than we did. If you're looking to publish this for future use, I'd definitely include a section on difficulty tweaks.I made sure to now have any Fireball-level AOEs until the players hit 5, and I sometimes but not always ignored unconscious enemies.
- As it stands the Raid action never got used and as written it's too risky to try it just for some extra food. It either needs a higher reward or a lesser risk, but with only a 60-80% success chance at best meaning a 20-40% chance of losing goblins, it's hard to justify over just going hunting (which would also let you spot incoming adventurers).Yeah, the idea was "you can get tools" but tools ended up being not as important as I thought.
- Ditto for Toughen. Three days for 3 hp total on a gobsquad is a big ask, and it felt like it only got used when I had run out of other things to do with them.
On the note of difficulty, both NAP and Gobblehop were very 'resilient' due to rage+wild shape HP buffer. If a party had some squishier classes (eg. rogue, monk, sorcerer, warlock) I imagine they'd have struggled a lot more, but that's just hypothetical. I wasn't expecting to end up with a bunch of heavily armored AC 15-18 minions either.
Oh, another +: I liked the little events, and think it would be neat if there were a few more of them with diverse rewards.Open to suggestions for more! I could take the role-specific ones and make them a subset to bump it up to 23-24 events.

Thanks!

Bob/Boomfizzle
I loved this campaign. I love playing goblins anyway and this may have satisfied my need to play them for a while. I agree with most of the comments above.
- I liked the theme's you gave the parties. It kept it lighthearted.
- I would actually make digging harder. Change the lair to stone and make excavating take 2 days for 5 feet with mason's tools. It would have pulled more fights into the kitchen, which I thought turned out to be more interesting than the front hallway.Do you think you would have ended up with a lot fewer tunnels as a result of this?
- I would scale the goblins. They were too powerful at first and too weak later. I felt like levels 3-4 were the sweet spot. So maybe each goblin gets 5 plus leader's level of HP. Then give them +1 to hit and damage at level 5. At levels 1 and 2, maybe only let the players have 2 goblins. The scaling is partly a result of consistent party investment in training, plus gaining proficiency bonus to hit pretty fast. This really showed off the bounded accuracy features of 5e and just how relevant a bunch of CR 1/4-1/2 goblins with +4 to hit were. Light crossbows were also a big damage and range bump. In the first fight, I think smaller goblin squads could have resulted in a TPK. It was pretty touch and go despite stealing their light sources.
Going with 5+leader level HP would make them range from 6hp (a bit fragile) up to 12hp each, which is a 50% hp bump for the squads by the end. Not sure they should get that tough.
- It would have been cool to have more social interactions with the tribe, and a more clear way to interact with the town beyond the Raid day action.
As noted above, that may have been me. Beyond the day events, I wasn't sure what to do.
If the tribe makes peace with the town the whole thing kind of breaks down. What would you suggest?
But even if you didn't change anything, I would definitely recommend this to other players. Great job!
Thanks!

[Amnestic]

Pacing

I wouldn't have disliked if it had been more random personally, as long as that possibility was communicated at the start of the game so the expectation is set. Getting caught with a partial gobsquad or items still unidentified sometimes, while other times having two weeks between fights? Works just fine for me, as long as there's only one fight a day. Getting caught unprepared because you've only had a single day of rest helps drive home the "goblin life is brutal" stuff.

Contingencies

Personally it never really occurred to me to bargain with the adventurers - it never struck me as "that kind" of game, and likewise with raiding the way it is currently (see below) there was never much of a chance of the other stuff coming to light. It doesn't hurt to include this section for the final product, I just don't think it'll see much use if the DM tells the players about the kind of game they're playing.

Traps/Secret Doors

I think basing it on intmod alone limits its viability due to a) goblin stats and b) only two int-classes, of which one is restricted in subclasses (see below). Recommendation: Make it based on Intelligence (Survival) instead, so you can at least get a PB on there. Since PB never goes above +3 for this game, it won't change much, but will give a slightly higher chance for them to be insane.
Alternatively: Make it Intelligence ([Relevant Tool] eg. Mason for a hole) to put tool proficiency to work. Same deal as above, but expands their options to get PB on the check.

Digging

I have no strong comment on this since Bob did all the real digging. If you've got a wizard/sorc/druid (or anyone who can grab one of their cantrips) Mold Earth is a very obvious pick for a player, if they're aware of it.

Sarcophagus

I thought we did try to lure enemies towards it by making an extra tunnel but they never ended up taking the bait - if upgrading all the walls to stone it would be harder to make that tunnel too. I guess we could've tried just blocking off our entire entrance (or making it Tiny to squeeze through goblin-only). Locking ourselves in the cavern with goodberry would've worked, I suppose, but it kinda goes against the spirit of the game.

Oni are super dangerous (Cone of Cold!) to the goblins so I'm glad we never did open it, since I'm pretty sure it would've wiped us out any time prior to maybe 6-7th level. Improvement suggestions? I dunno honestly. The place it is on the original map is at the 'back' of the lair, so it seems really hard to lure PCs to it as-is. It'd feel like a bit of a "gotcha!" if you got to level 3-4 and opened it only for the oni to destroy you. It might just be a non-starter concept wise and not worth including, but others might feel different.

Kind of out of left field suggestion:- Minor dimensional rift instead of a sarcophagus. Interacting with it could spawn a variety of things, some hostile (but appropriately leveled?) and some friendly (eg. planar traders like djinni). Give it a "cooldown" (eg. 1 week) so not being used constantly but if the party want to do an extra fight for maybe loot, at the cost of perhaps some consumables, they can do, but also gives an opportunity to trade, and give the party another thing to plan around instead of just invasions.

Don't know if it seems too game-y though.

Bailing Out

I never even considered this honestly. Its a goblin defense game so I'd hope all the players would be on board with defending instead of uprooting. Hopefully would be the sort of thing addressed in session 0.

Day Events

These are fine, though the Battle Champion one is real disparate on its effects. Detect Magic 1/day is way worse than an extra attunement slot, even if the slot only got filled in the latter third of the game. Could add something like force damage resistance to the Detect Magic one to help balance it out. Might only come up rarely, but it'd be something.

Animal Taming

Seems fine, not a bad way to fill out battle power.

Map

I think if there were an extra entrance one of the first things the party would do is close it off. When NC were on the field, limiting enemy movement as much as possible is important. The only way I could see us not trying to box them in is if there were more traps lining their paths. Otherwise I think it's fine. Feels like the sort of crypt/forgotten area a goblin tribe might nest in.

Classes

Artillerist artificers use magic sticks (wands) which feels on brand for scrappy goblins, so I'd have liked those on the list personally, but I understand why they weren't.

Paladins of Conquest and Vengeance would both have been thematic for the game we're in, but I fear that the limited stats would've actually made them not terribly viable. They're also a bit of a slow starting class and it takes a while for them to really hit their stride, though they would have done well with the "nova" style gameplay.

Sorcerers can come about from not just crossbreeding but interacting with magical events/pacts too, so strictly they could've been on the table too. I didn't mind their exclusion though.

Roles

With the changes mid-game (eg. letting Battle Champion use heavy weapons) I think they all saw decent use and none felt "required" per se. We got to experience all of them. As we saw, training the gobsquads really helped, so if the party ends up somehow going shaman/loremaster/scout they're missing out on training at all. You could consider adding Training available to the other three roles, but have it takes twice as long (so 4 days per squad instead of 2). This isn't an issue if the party size is 4 or 5 though.

Loot

My only suggestion on this one is that if you're up front with the players they can see the loot they're getting but can understand they don't need to track it all if they don't want to and can just focus on the important parts (tools, consumables, magic items, weapons/armour) and not worry about the rest.

Raids

One suggestion is to make a successful raid inspire the tribe. In addition to food, you might get one of the following:-
An extra (untrained) gobsquad in the next invasion to help defense as some of your spare warriors are drawn to fight.
An extra day action, due to your goblins working harder from the inspiration.
Recruit some additional NCs/warriors who hear about your raid and want to join.
An extra wandering NPC (similar to animal taming) like a half-ogre or a hobgoblin joins up?

Just some thoughts.

[Pyrophilios]

Pacing
The adventurers were to appear at a general spacing of 1d3+1 days at first, from the village of Nearb, and then at 6th level adventurers or above, at 1d6+2 days’s spacing (from the city of Generica). This gave a range of 2-8 days between attacks in general. Go too long and there's too much prep time, and too short and it'd feel unfair. At higher levels, the party gets more time to prep for tougher attackers.

Is this a good time period?

I'd go and say that at the beginning the frequency should be low and escalating as the goblins gain more and more wealth in their hoard. That gives the players time to create some stockpiles and a chance to actually use them.
You could use a notoriety system, where every repelled attack, raid or other contact adds a point. Something like

Points | next attack occurs in x days
1 | 12+1d12 days
2 | 10+1d10 days
3 | 8+1d8 days
5 | 6+1d6 days
8 | 4+1d4 days
13| 3+1d3 days
21| 2+1d2 days

(I like Fibbonacci sequences)

Contingencies

Having some engagements outside the cave would be a nice diversion - I missed the opportunity to use some of the more nature oriented spells like call lightning in our confined environment. Trees could also add some verticallity to the battles.

Setting Traps & Secret Doors
Does this look about right? I understand wanting to make un-spottable traps, but super high DC traps are probably not possible with just tools and limited resources in a goblin lair

Damage is fine, but yeah, having some means to actually improve the DC would be really good. Doesn't have to be damage traps. Punji traps to reduce or take away movement would have been of tremendous value against some of our tougher opponents. Tool proficiencies would be a great way to go here.

Sarcophagus: Are you sure you want to do that?
This was a pretty substantial threat to a group or 4th or 5th level and below. Aside from just opening it and having a fight, I assumed the other main use would be to lure adventurers to it, and then use some pre-set ropes to open it while escaping. Walling it off from the rest of the lair made it safe, but also meant that there was no interaction with it, unless the invaders found it and decided to open it before dealing with the goblin lair they were there to attack. This and the Frostbrand are the only +damage weapons available, and it's the only finesse one.
How could this be better?

Being able to communicate with the restless spirit would be one way to add a social element (should someone want to play a goblin bard). Also, putting the crypt further to the front would give the adventurers more chances to interact with the undead. We probably should have advertised the tunnel to the crypt more, but no adventurer ever seemed to care about the seeming second entrance.

Day To Day Event Table

The table is fine - we just didn't have much luck with it

Animal Taming

Again, the table is fine - I should have persisted in finding more animals

The Map
How was the map? We ended up with a lot (too much) happening in Hall 1, because you made it into a kill zone. How should it be changed? Should there be a second (hidden) entrance somewhere that needs to be watched?

Especially on mobile I had trouble getting the correct coordinates - but that's a typical online play problem. We had a second entrance built, but it was ignored in favor of the obvious door. Though having enemies sneak in and kill the non-combatants would have resulted in a quick game over, so no, better not add that option from the start. As mentioned above, I'd place the crypt to the East at the end of the long corridor for more interaction.

Class Restrictions
Was there anything restricted that shouldn't have been?

Sorcerers should have been included and if you have wizards, there is nothing preventing you from having artificiers as a whole. Mad bomber goblins are staple of the genre, so artillerist at the least should have been included.

Roles
Did all the roles feel meaningful and somewhere around equally useful or powerful?

Since we all ended changing character and role once, I'd say yes. It was pretty ballanced.
Though I realize now, that the chief should have the equivalent to the leadership feat and provide temporary hp to the gobsquads - that would make them a lot more useful in the later part of the game. (Also, it should take three attacks or an AoE to take down three individual goblins, even if they act as a unit)

Feedback shared w/ comments
Great! It's been interesting to run as well, as you guys were very creative and really stymied what should have been some effective characters.

Yeah, it proved to me, that buffs and tricks are in the end just not a substitute for the raw staying power of a lot of hp. Despite Gobblehop being the more effective character than Big Head, I never really got warm with it.

I started with Goblins due to the Wandering Inn I think; also, kobolds are more "accepted" these days than goblins thanks to dragons, Deekin, etc. Kobolds would give pack tactics, which is a pretty big deal, and also the Grovel/etc. action. Lots of advantage. On the other hand, the Cackling Moon clan made heavy and extensive use of the bonus action Disengage/Hide. I think a lot of the fights would have been stickier without that.

Yes that mechanic was very important for our hit-and-run tactics, though it discouraged me from taking the rogue class. But in the end it's just a matter of taste. I think any GM could easily adapt the module to run with kobolds.

O The module would have profited from more social interaction beyond the few events we had. Those were by no means bad, but didn't feel as impactful as they could have. Some of that may be my DMing style. What would you suggest adding?

A hobgoblin trader for starters. Other druids, intelligent monsters. Or even an infiltrator with alter self that we have to expose, before he can call down reinforcements on us. If Big Head had survived longer, I'd have tried to negotiate with some of the adventurers to just pay them off to leave.

- fixed goblin stats are pretty detrimental for diverse character classes. As a low level experience you feel those missing stat boosts extremely - a bonus feat would help here tremendously I don't view this as a negative, life is hard as a goblin

But feats are fun You could tie one feat each to the roles: Chief: Inspiring Leader, Shaman/Priest: Healer, Scout: Observant, Battle Champion: Athlete, Loremaster: Telepathic

- No trade, no diplomacy and no non-violent solutions limit this scenario severely. Yes. "Made a peace agreement" would kind of break it, though. How would you suggest adding trade in a plausible way? There's no thieves guild in the middle of the forest to deal with, and the tribe was recently raiding independent traders. I couldn't come up with much.

As mentioned before: Smugglers, bugbear or hobgoblin traders would be my go to. Druids and other forrest dwellers like other tribes of goblins, kobolds, orcs etc.
The way it was presented felt as if we were the only organized society for miles and miles. Adventurers had to go out of their way to actually find us.

[J-H]

Thanks everyone. Here's my list of changes to make.

Ready to Implement
address doing it with Kobolds
Specify brewing healing potions and add the "Hunt" action to get components for 2.
Move Sarcophagus to somewhere closer to front, maybe off Hall 1 / round room area.
Class restrictions: Allow sorcerer, artillerist artificer.
Make sure everyone can train, just not as well.
Discuss: How much does the party need to track for loot?
Squads: Non-AOE attacks can only kill max 1 squad member per hit.

Need to figure out exactly what to do
Improve Raid benefits (Inspiration? extra day actions? more goblins?)
Starting feats?
Chief: Inspiring Leader OR Skill Expert
Shaman/Priest: Healer OR War Caster
Scout: Observant OR Alert
Battle Champion: Athlete OR or Crusher, or Slasher, or Piercer
Loremaster: Elemental Adept OR Poisoner

Needs feedback
Add trade:
-When Scouting, look for other groups to trade with. Success on a 15+: Other goblin tribes, hobgoblins, ogre, fey, etc.
What items would you have wanted to trade for? You already end up pretty rich, and I don't want to open it up to "everybody gets Gauntlets of Ogre Power because they're only Uncommon."

Squad HP
How about PB x 3 for squad goblins? They'd start at 6 each, but then bump to 9 each at 9... and remove the toughen action.

How would you do it with 4 players?
Going from 3 PCs + 3 squads of 3 to 4 PCs & 4 squads of 2 seems like a power bump. Training has less value, but there are more resources to train with. Even cutting goblin hp to 6 in this case would hurt.

Pacing. Should we go to 2d6 for more variation?

Change traps to make Int(Survival) or Int(Stealth) or Int(Deception) or Int(Tool); possibly allow two characters to team up for a day, improving the result by +PB? With a 14 INT and 2 characters working together at 5th level, you could get 8+2int+PB+PB = DC 16
I think that's a satisfyingly high number that can't scale too out of whack, right?

Consider changing undead, as Oni Cone of Cold is very all-or-nothing.
It needs to be a very deadly threat to goblins solo, and also something that can seriously threaten a party of adventurers that get tricked or trapped into opening it. Suggestions in the CR 5-10 bracket? Trying to stick with MM monsters.

[Amnestic]

Trader Items

Three Four options I see.
1) Predetermined item lists. I don't recommend this one because it'll take up a lot of text space and means if the trader shows up again their inventory doesn't change. Not terribly interesting. It would mean you'd get to list item costs though.
2) Inventory made up of [X] rolls on [Y] treasure table. Puts some of the onus on the DM and they can choose to tweak it if they want (eg. changing a +1 halberd into a +1 shortbow).
3) Let the players roll. It's something I've toyed with - the party wants a specific magic item, they make a roll, and if they hit it's available for purchase. Typically I tier this by rarity with a cap (eg. Roll 6 on a d6 for uncommon, 8 on a d8 for rare). If stat-setting items are a concern I would just say they're excluded from availability (except from treasure table rolls?)
4) A combination of 2+3. They've got their treasure table loot plus the party might get lucky with rolling for something they're specifically seeking. Adds a bit of direction to the randomness.

Since gobsquads can use magic items I wouldn't be surprised if the players sought out more wands or other "charge" items to help offset their otherwise low stats.

Gobsquads
Scaling the HP by PB works for me.

I think 4 PCs+2 per squad would probably be fine. It drops the gobs deployed from 9 to 8 per map but spreads them out more, and an extra PC is definitely worth more than a gob. If the party aren't a bunch of optimisers this would probably work pretty well.

Pacing/Traps

Both seem good to me.

Alternate Coffin Suggestions
Barbed Devil
Wraith
Flesh Golem
Vrock

(assuming you turn them undead).

They're a little chunkier than the oni due to damage resistances but have less one shot nuke potential.

[Bobthewizard]

This all looks good. I would allow WIS (survival) or Dex (Sleight of Hand) and maybe Cha (Deception) for making secret doors so it's not just INT. If you do that, you wouldn't need the help PB. I'd use the same formula for traps or secret doors.

I'm not a big fan of a static DC vs. passive perception. There's no roll there. So I'd have intruders roll when they enter instead of using passive. No action required though.

[Pyrophilios]

Yeah, rolling on loot tables for specific items is a good way to go. You'd need to spend quite a few days searching to get what you want, so that's a good trade off for the power gain through magic items.

With the provision, that one hit can't kill the whole squad anymore, the new HP rule should work nicely

Yeah 2d6 sounds better - you still get about a week on average

Traps at DC 16 vs. rolled perception sounds fair

Revenant is my go to opponent if you want a tough undead. Or a vampire spawn - those also are easily modified to punch above their weight class by tweaking their attributes and AC.

[J-H]

I decided to go with a Cambion (CR5), with the following modifications:
• It is undead and thus immune to poison, exhaustion, unconsciousness, and charm.
• Its speed is 30’ fly as it hovers just above the ground.
• In melee, it wields a +1 scimitar that deals 2 extra points of cold damage on hit. (+8 to hit, 5’, 1d6+5 slashing damage + 2 cold damage)
• Instead of Fire Ray, it fires Grave Bolts that each deal 2d8 cold damage and prevent healing until the start of its next turn.
• In place of the Fiendish Charm, it may deal 4d6 cold damage to all living creatures within 15’ of it, Con DC 14 half. This may only be used once per day.

With 82hp and 19 AC, it's the equal of any of the adventurers up to about 7th level, won't go down too easily, has a limited AOE ability, and is slow enough that goblins can run away from it if they Dash.

[J-H]

How does this look?

Scout action, revised:
Scout: Watch for incoming adventurers, or search for animals or trading opportunities. 40% chance to identify attackers before they reach the lair. 70% chance if Head Scout is involved. If adventurers are not spotted in time, Scouting PCs arrive 3 rounds into the battle, or 1d2 rounds late if under the command of the Head Scout.

Trading
The goblin clan defending this lair isn’t the only one of its kind. Other bands of goblins, hobgoblins, kobolds, orcs, ogres, pixies, and the like are in the area. They aren’t interested in helping, or taking over the lair of some smelly goblins, but they will be interested in trading for magical items. As Scouting for Trading opportunities is likely to be done by only one PC, trading or selling items in this module is mostly abstracted, so that one player’s character doesn’t end up being the only one having something to do for half an hour.
When a player chooses to Scout for Trading opportunities, have the player roll a Survival check to represent the difficulty of locating other groups of creatures who are themselves trying to conceal their lairs. On a 13 or above, the player locates a group that would be willing to trade.

Nobody out in the wilderness has everything that the players may want. Instead, what they have for trade is rolled randomly on the DMG tables on a like-for-like basis. For each item of a given category, roll the number of times specified below on the loot table. When in doubt, look at what DMG loot table an item is in, and use that table.

These are the items that the group the Trading player has found may be willing to trade. If they aren’t a good fit, try again tomorrow somewhere else. A maximum of 3 trades may be made per day.

Important note: All item trading is at the DM discretion. A few items, such as those that fix a stat to 19, should be treated as one level higher than they actually are. It may be safe to assume that some exploitable items, such as Wands of Magic Missile, Paralysis, or Web are too valuable to trade. Imagine what a group that arms two squads with 6 such wands could do... in those cases, re-roll to select a new potential item.

Basic magic consumables (healing potions up, scrolls up to 2nd level): Magic Item Table A, 4 rolls
Greater potions, consumables, and utility items: Magic Item Table B, 2 rolls
+1 equipment and basic items: Magic Item Table F, 2 rolls
+2, Weapons with a damage bonus, elemental resistance, etc.: Magic Item Table G, 1 roll

[Pyrophilios]

Sounds good 👍

I don't know if the enhancement items will be that dangerous for the game (at the end of the day it's +1 to hit and damage above the max level), but it can't hurt to make the GM aware of them.

[J-H]

I don't know if anyone's still subscribed to this thread, but I only ever got 1 review out of 3 on the DM's Guild. I'd appreciate it if those who didn't could go back and rate/review.

[Bobthewizard]

I don't know if anyone's still subscribed to this thread, but I only ever got 1 review out of 3 on the DM's Guild. I'd appreciate it if those who didn't could go back and rate/review.

I thought I did, but do you have the link again

[J-H]

https://www.dmsguild.com/product/435799/Goblin-Defense
You should have received a review copy via e-mail, enabling you to post a review.

[Bobthewizard]

That was not my review. I am so sorry. I can't find the email, but I just bought the adventure, so I can review it tomorrow. It looks great.

[J-H]

Oh, I can send a no cost review copy if I have your e-mail address. You may be able to refund the purchase price...not sure, never tried it.
Edit: Found where you PM'd me your email address.
If it doesn't show up in your inbox, check to see if you have a Promotions folder that it's hidden in. Had someone else have that issue recently.

[Bobthewizard]

It was only $3. I'm happy to donate that.

[Pyrophilios]

My review is online

[Bobthewizard]

Mine's in now. Sorry again for the delay.

[J-H]

Init
Perrin (1d20)[18]
Hadril (1d20)[1]
Mug (1d20)[9]
edit wrong thread