D&D 5E 5e Hobgoblin stat block

[Remathilis]

A couple of thoughts.

1.) If you want weak, safe creatures that your PCs can beat up, try normal goblins. Hobgoblins should be SCARY. A hobgoblin barking orders can turn a bunch of normal goblins into a dangerous fighting force. They aren't just tall goblins.

2.) We need to get out of this "oh, monsters will only take 1/4 of my resources" mentality. Until your third level, hobgoblins can murder you.

3.) They're glass cannons: 11 hp is easy to work through. Take them down quick.

4.) Use missile weapons. Cast spells on them. Use that second wind or action surge!

 

[Mistwell]

Obviously weird monsters aren't familiar humanoids who have just gained a massively powerful new ability, so that's not what's being discussed.



Sure, but this is bad design, even accounting for that.



That's the precise opposite of this. The natural assumption, having played 3E, would be that high-level fighter-like monster WOULD have multiple attacks.

Here, the natural assumption is that ganging up on a PC might gain Hobbies some minor advantage. Not that it would MORE THAN DOUBLE their average damage, or take it to the point that they are virtually certain to down most PCs in a single hit!



This is just condescending nonsense. The Hobbie ability is virtually pure metagame. The answer to it is metagaming (tight focus fire, particularly - not something real people use in medieval-style combat, typically - it's extremely dangerous, because IRL, you have to concentrate less on defence to attack someone who isn't threatening you when there are other threats to you - I'd have no problem if this required the other Hobbie to be un-threatened, btw).

EDIT - In fact I might well use that as the fix - Require the Hobgoblin to have another Hobgoblin adjacent to the target and for that Hobgoblin to have no enemies adjacent to him other than the target. I'd still re-name it from the vague-as-heck "Martial Advantage".



What am I wrong about? You've failed to specify.

Your premise is that this is an ability that makes no sense and is impossible to explain.

Someone earlier already explained it and made perfect sense out of it. It read great, I think everyone who read it would think it makes fine sense, and that ended that.

So your premise was already blown before the rest of this series of rants you've gone on even took place.

Once you have a rationale explanation for the ability, how it would make sense, how it can be explained to people, then you're down to simply "but this humanoid creature from prior editions didn't do that thing for those prior editions".

To which I, and many others, say so friggen what?

It's a new edition. Things you are familiar with from prior editions might do different things in this edition. That's OK. There is no long and storied history concerning hobgoblins in D&D that runs through all the editions in such a strong and iconic way that changing how they can attack in groups somehow blows everyones notions about the iconic traditional hobgoblin. It's just a hobgoblin, and now in this edition they have a slightly different way of doing things. Big whoop. Not the end of the world, and not a strong argument to freak out about bad design and impossibilities and all that hyperbolic nonsense.

It's not like they now have tentacles coming out of their forheads and they lick you to death while secreting acid from their eyesockets or something - they just attack better while in formation groups. Attacking better while in a formation group is not some bad design bizarre concept that nobody can get their arms around. It's been in D&D before for other things, it's been in wargames before, real world history shows that formation groups can be more effective than non-formation individuals attacking, there just isn't anything weird here.

 

[Cyberen]

In my opinion, this is the most offensive piece of 5e design i've ever been exposed to.
Mechanically, it's a mix of soldiery defence (18 ac), strikery offence (the special ability *more than doubles* its average dpr) and lousy hp. It makes the fighter in me sad and wanting to take rogue levels. It makes AoE dealers shine quite a bit too brightly to my taste. It says CR 1/2, but I've got a feeling a fight against those hobbies could go any way for a long time. Their design make me think of high level soldier minions from 4e, which is not really appropriate for low level challenges. I see my hobgoblins as favouring a phalanx formation, in a riot police style, and I don't think a damage spike gives them the proper feel (which is quite established since 1e and Dragonlance). The ability we've been shown is a better fit for an elite soldier than for a private, and I guess I will have to write my own basic hobgoblin (which is not a big deal anyway).

 

[Nebulous]

Well i'm reserving a final opinion until i see it in play. From long term DM experience, my gut instinct is that the 2-12 bonus damage is too swingy, and a fight against hobgoblins can obliterate a party, especially low levels ones who can't even hit AC 18. I don't think the mechanic is broken, i think it works fine and just needs some massaging. At the very LEAST, hobgoblins can be scaled from +2 to +12 damage formation fighting to represent escalating elitism. Hobgoblins are armed-to-the-teeth professional warriors and the stats do represent that.

 

[FireLance]

sneak attack in the last playtest was +1d6 at first level. Too little in my opinion. It may now be a bonus action to sneak attack once per turn that deals an extra +2d6 damage for all we know.
Sneak attack used to be +2d6 damage in a former playtest which felt right. So I am crossing my fingers for +2d6 sneak attack early on (maybe from level 2). Makes the rogue scary.

Well, if a 1st-level rogue sneak attacks for +2d6 damage, I would have less problems with the hobgoblin ability. A fight between 1st-level characters and two hobgoblins is still likely to be swingy, but the monster/PC disparity would not be so stark.

In fact, given that two hobgoblins are worth 200 xp, it is quite likely that they would be considered a tough encounter for a 4-person, 1st-level party. Although the xp scales have probably shifted since then, based on the Sep 2013 playtest document (the last one I downloaded), 80 xp of monsters is an "average" encounter for a 4-person, 1st-level party, while 160 xp of monsters is a "tough" encounter. I'm guessing, based on this previous metric and eyeballing the hobgoblins' damage numbers, two hobgoblins are probably at the "tough" end of the encounter scale.

That said, a party with a wizard has a good chance of dropping one hobgoblin on the wizard's turn, with magic missile, burning hands or sleep (all of which are on the sample wizard's spell list, and assuming they work as described in the Sep 2013 playtest).

 

[Klaus]

Being CR 1/2 means that a 1st-level party with four characters will be squaring off against two hobgoblins. Well, four-against-two means that the hobgoblins will have a difficult time using Martial Advantage (they won't be able to spare their attacks for the PC facing off against their buddy). So they'll be dealing just the regular damage, which is entirely appropropriate. Their high AC means that they'll stay in the fight long enough to deal some damage to the PCs.

As the party gains levels and the encounter XP budget increases, more hobgoblins can appear in a single fight (or perhaps a trained wolf), and then Martial Advantage becomes a real possibility. And by this time, the hobgoblins need it to deal enough damage to the PCs, who will have far more hp.

 

[ExploderWizard]

2.) We need to get out of this "oh, monsters will only take 1/4 of my resources" mentality. Until your third level, hobgoblins can murder you.

In sufficient numbers, they can still murder you at higher levels too. That is one aspect of this game that appeals to me. Creatures remain vaild sources of threat longer meaning a much wider variety of things to include at various levels in the campaign. Even an 8th level party needs to be wary of a company of over a hundred hobgoblin heavy infantry.

 

[FireLance]

Being CR 1/2 means that a 1st-level party with four characters will be squaring off against two hobgoblins. Well, four-against-two means that the hobgoblins will have a difficult time using Martial Advantage (they won't be able to spare their attacks for the PC facing off against their buddy). So they'll be dealing just the regular damage, which is entirely appropropriate. Their high AC means that they'll stay in the fight long enough to deal some damage to the PCs.

That assumes the PCs are just fighting hobgoblins, though. If goblins are CR 1/4, it could be one hobgoblin and two goblins against the PCs. The hobgoblin could still use its ability against a PC in melee with a goblin. (Although it is also possible that two goblins will be easier to incapacitate than another hobgoblin.)

EDIT: By the way, is there anything in the rules that would prevent two hobgoblins from ganging up on one of the PCs in the party, or are we leaving it up to the DM to decide to be nice and downplay the hobgoblins' tactical abilities?

In any case, I was under the impression that the CR is a measure of what level the PCs need to be to take on the monsters, while the XP total (relative to number and level of PCs) is a measure of encounter difficulty? Did I misunderstand or has the system been changed?

 

[Nikosandros]

Being CR 1/2 means that a 1st-level party with four characters will be squaring off against two hobgoblins.

Isn't the number of monsters supposed to be determined by the XP budget? I thought that Mike Mearls had stated that CR was an indicator of the level at which you can start to use a certain creature. I admit though, that CR 1/2 doesn't make too much sense under this interpretation.

 

[Klaus]

That assumes the PCs are just fighting hobgoblins, though. If goblins are CR 1/4, it could be one hobgoblin and two goblins against the PCs. The hobgoblin could still use its ability against a PC in melee with a goblin. (Although it is also possible that two goblins will be easier to incapacitate than another hobgoblin.)

EDIT: By the way, is there anything in the rules that would prevent two hobgoblins from ganging up on one of the PCs in the party, or are we leaving it up to the DM to decide to be nice and downplay the hobgoblins' tactical abilities?

In any case, I was under the impression that the CR is a measure of what level the PCs need to be to take on the monsters, while the XP total (relative to number and level of PCs) is a measure of encounter difficulty? Did I misunderstand or has the system been changed?

Isn't the number of monsters supposed to be determined by the XP budget? I thought that Mike Mearls had stated that CR was an indicator of the level at which you can start to use a certain creature. I admit though, that CR 1/2 doesn't make too much sense under this interpretation.

In the Q&A focused on CR, Rodney explained that CR is a measure of overall creature power, compared to the level of a 4-PC party (essentially, a "you must be this tall to ride" sign). Actual encounters would still be build through the use of XP budget.

Re: hobgoblins ganging up on a single PC: yes, they're very much capable of that. But a party of four PCs have enough manpower to keep the hobgoblins occupied and separate them from each other (and nothing stops the PCs from ganging up on a hobgoblin).