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Your party is almost guaranteed to run into a goblin at some point in theirDungeons & Dragonscampaign. They are a staple of not just the fantasy genre as a whole but definitely as D&D. With avery low challenge rating, these are some of the first creatures that could appear in your world for your party and potentially be what introduces them to your world. It is important tomake this moment memorable.
With very basic statistics of15 Armor Classand justseven hitpoints, many player characters can take these little guys out with asingle blow. However, perhaps combatisn’t always the best way to introduce goblins.After all, you are the Dungeon Master (DM). You’re in charge!
Intellectual Goblins
Far too often, goblins arerepresented as small humanoid creatures who live in disgusting settingsand can’t tell a bear apart from a lion. However, something that stood out to us was that theirIntelligence score is actually higher than their Strength score and the same as their Constitution.
While goblins gather in numbers to make up for their strength, could they gather innumbers to try to read and write?They absolutely could in your campaign.
By taking something as simple as a goblinand flipping it on its head, you could create anincredibly memorable experience for your party. Goblins are already capable of speaking Common,the mostcommonlanguage among players in most campaign settings, so why not make the encounter a more intellectual one?
Perhaps the group of goblins that yourparty runs into are actually in the middle of their book clubor reading on how to harness magic.Not every creature you run has to be cannon fodder for your party, and goblins are no different. Just think of the interesting conversations your party could have with the goblin leader.
They may start to see goblins differently and explain to the mayor of the next town over that theselittle creatures are just trying to live their best life.
Goblin Raiders On Mounts
Let’s put aside the goblin stereotypes again for a moment as we shape and mold a new goblin raider encounter. So, you want to have a goblin battle, butlet’s toughen things up a little bit for the new adventurers.
As we mentioned,goblins are relatively weak, even with a shield and armor. So, how can we beef them up a little? Simply bygiving them some mounts. Not only do weincrease their movement speedand allow them to move around the battlefield more easily, but that gives them more hit points to hit away and more monsters to think about.
Worgs are the typical go-to for goblin mountsand are a bit beefier with26 hitpoints, even knowing the goblin language. However, let’s make the encountermore terrifying and add another element to the battle. Flight.
Aerial combat can be a daunting endeavor at first, but one that willabsolutely make your party enjoy the battle a little bit more and add more dynamics that weren’t there. Imagine a horde ofgoblin raiders swooping down from a mountainside cavern on a giant bator fighting inside an enormous cave with these things flying around.
It’s not going to be the first thing people imagine when you say goblin raider, but they will definitely be talking about that fight months down the line.
There areseveral beasts and monsters that a goblin could ride with their small stature. Find the one thatmakes the most sense in your campaign settingand create a lore that would tie them together.Why would the goblins be riding bats? How did they tame them?
Small details like this help build the campaign, and we all know there will be that one player who is dying to know.
Goblin Rebellion
It may come as first nature to want to fight goblins.They’re always described as terrible creatures who have nothing but evil in their heart.However,what if they’re just misunderstood?
Could you find yourself on their side and helping them? This is exactly what you could do with goblins who arerebelling against their oppressive leaders. They would be seeking allies, so who better to stroll by than your party?
While the goblin tribe has lived in their village for hundreds of years, a new warlord in the territory is attempting to take the land for himself. Now,a brave group of goblin rebels are rising to the challenge to bring freedom to their people. After all, what’s worse than a warlord? Surely not some peaceful goblins trying to live off the land.
By partnering with the goblin tribe, not only could the party create allies, but finding someone else to join in the battle against the warlord could prove valuable. Of course, the party could always stick to the status quo and go against the goblins, but then they’re left alone against the warlord.
This could prove to be a pivotal moment for a young party asthis allegiance or betrayal could greatly shape the way of the campaignfor many sessions to come.
Goblin Pirates
What makes everything cooler?You said it: pirates!Taking a larger leap from the typical goblin lore,putting them on a ship in the middle of the water plundering and pillagingcould be a welcomed change of pace and lead to a funny and interesting encounter.
While a young party finding a ship may be more difficult, this could be geared more toward thosespecial seafaring campaigns.
Armed with stolen ships and salvaged weapons, these goblin pirates would go from port to port, looting and causing mayhem wherever they went. Finding most of their solace on remote and uninhabited islands where they could live without fear of repercussions.
Perhaps your young party wakes up, shipwrecked on a strange island, and finds themselves face-to-face with the pirates.Will they make a deal with them while they have a rusty rapier to their neck, or will they fight back against the horde of goblin pirates, commandeering their ship and sailing away into their adventure?
Super-Goblins
Want to really scare the pants off of your party? Remind them that they are in afantasy world of magic, potions, and enchantments. While the base goblin is, as we mentioned, very weak. That’s just a suggestion—a guideline.you’re able to superpower these little guys to become walking tanks or cannons.
By simply addingsome unique abilities to the goblin or making them a bit bigger, you can create a battle that your party remembers being challenged by and realizing that this world is now what they thought it was.
Simply add a potion that the goblins found while raiding a traveling salesman or equip them with an uncommon magic item for a statistical boost to their stature.
You can get really hectic bysimply doubling their hit points, giving them more damage on their attacks or magical spells.If these super-goblins were experimented on by a malevolent sorcerer, perhaps some of that magical energy got passed down to them and they can now cast Thunderclap as a result.
By adding magic to a goblin, it catches the players completely by surprise.Even if we try our best not to meta-game(knowing mechanics that our player characters would not know), it’s difficult not to know a typical goblin stat block.
However,by simply adding in a few cantrips or 1st-level spells to a few goblins, players will enjoy the surprise and realize that everything they think they know about Dungeons and Dragons may be useless in this campaign.
By mixing and matching some of these tactics, you can turn your run-of-the-mill early campaign goblin encounter into something more special and memorable. And perhaps the decisions that your party takes early will affect the story itself.
By incorporating unique elements like these into your goblin encounters, you can provide your players with fresh and engaging challenges thatthey’ll remember long after the game is over.
