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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6693290" data-attributes="member: 6787650">Yes. Quantity has a quality of its own. A dozen hobgoblins is amazingly deadly in 5E, especially if they disperse so that one Fireball can't hit more than a few of them.When I want to give my players a fun but easy fight with a lot of XP and treasure attached, I prep an area with a tough but straightforward monster like a T-Rex, or a few Blue Slaads. When I want to give them something challenging but rewarding, I prep an area with some smart but limited creatures with brains but limited ranged capability and limited mobility, like beholders. When I want to give them something nasty and thankless (e.g. to highlight the consequences of previous mistakes they've made like accidentally destroying their homeland), I give them hobgoblins. An 8th level Death Cleric and his ten skeleton archers died to a dozen hobgoblins last session, and it would have been even worse except that the warlock baited the townspeople into staging a mass assault on the hobgoblins (Persuasion check), and while the hobgoblins were wasting time firing steadily into the raging mob's ranks (dropping several humans each round), the warlock infiltrated the mob and got close enough to Fireball the hobgoblins, catching 3d6 = 9 of them. After Medicine checks and death checks, they lost only two people to the hobgoblins arrows--a middle-aged man and a ten-year-old girl. This isn't the first time I've used hobgoblins (or drow) to kill PCs in a fight which technically isn't even Deadly, even though I routinely throw quadruple-Deadly fights of "big stupid T-Rex" variety at them, and occasional 10x-Deadly "twenty umber hulks and a neogi wizard" fights at them as well. TLDR; yes, regular opponents can be quite fearsome in 5E if you want them to be. And make sure they have enough brains to stage a tactical retreat when necessary instead of just attacking until they're all dead. There's nothing to make players nervous like "The other half of the hobgoblins whom you didn't kill appear to be shadowing you on their horses at a distance of a quarter mile. It looks like they're waiting for something."</blockquote>

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