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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Simon Collins" data-source="post: 2010632" data-attributes="member: 9860">This is not a playtest review.The Slayer's Guide To Goblins is another in the score or so of short explorations of various monsters and other less pleasant groups from Mongoose Publishing.The Slayer's Guide To Goblins uses a similar format to previous Slayer's Guides - it's a mono softcover 32-page product costing $9.95. The inside covers are used and are in colour. Whilst the front inside cover has the usual excellent depiction of skeletal and muscular build of the race, the back inside cover has an ad from Paizo for Dragon & Dungeon mags. Though there are no blocks of white space, the font, margins and space between paragraphs give the product a somewhat airy feel. The front cover by Anne Stokes shows goblins setting up an ambush along the walls of a gulley - it evokes a great feeling of depth and the animosity of goblins. The interior art is variable in quality and depicts the race in very different ways depending on the artist and are often not reflective of the surrounding text. The writing style is fairly standard. Spread throughout the book are various sidebars with flavour text, mainly showing the sly tactics that goblins can use against PCs. Editing seems good.Chapter 1: Goblin PhysiologyThis chapter expands upon the basic goblin traits and discusses such aspects as skin colour, ritual scarification, breeding and child development, their cannibalistic tendencies, and the goblin mindset, which is enhanced in its basic hatred of life and beauty by the tenets of their religion.Chapter 2: Goblin HabitatA very short section discussing underground lairs, and moving the tribe from one lair to another.Chapter 3: Goblin SocietyDiscusses leadership and goblins' brutal justice system, raiding and slavery (both their own and enslaving of others), and religion - these goblins worship The Mighty One, though no stat block or rules information is given on this deity. A new 5-level prestige class for goblins is introduced - the Skulk. The Skulk is a specialist in ambushing and gains abilities such as poison use, tracking, and various bonuses to hiding, spotting victims, and ambushing them. The Skulk gets a standard average BAB progression with good Ref saves. Oddly, has three ability score prerequisites and base 3 skill points per level. Four new spells are also presented: blood glyph (bursts blood vessels of targets in a warded area), extinguish light (non-magical only, Lvl 2 Clr spell), vision of the wolf (locates worg), and child of the mighty one (creates 'rage' with sigil marked on body).Chapter 4: Methods Of WarfareDiscusses goblin military units (such as goblin cavalry riding worgs plus a sidebar on the relationship between goblins and worgs), a brief section on goblin equipment (where we learn that the battleaxe is the favoured weapon of The Mighty One), fighting tactics such as ambushes and raids, and mass warfare.Chapter 5: Roleplaying With GoblinsA brief section discussing goblin behaviour (particularly in relationship to battle) and lone encounters with goblins, goblins and worgs, or perhaps a warren of goblins.Chapter 6: Scenario Hooks And IdeasSix short adventure ideas playing on the concept of surprising PCs who are used to viewing goblins as cannon fodder. The final adventure idea is, however, a basic discussion of a straight dungeon crawl through a goblin warren, and provides an introduction of sorts to the next chapter.Chapter 7: The Torn Heads WarrenProvides a brief history of this example goblin warren, some features (e.g. traps, vermin, filth), tactics used by the defenders, and a chamber by chamber guide to the fourteen locations within the warren, along with guidelines for combat tactics for the residents of each chamber where applicable. Accompanying this section is a useful map showing the layout of the warren, though the map gives no scale and no compass direction.Chapter 8: Goblin Reference ListProvides stat blocks for various classed goblins from 1st to 7th level, along with stats for goblin females and young.High Points:In my opinion, the most useful part of this product was the example warren, which would be very helpful if you wanted to run a session with the PCs waging all-out war on a goblin warren. Indeed, much of the rest of the information in previous chapters could be used to flesh out this example in terms of warfare tactics, the state of the goblin caverns, and possible linked scenarios.Low Points:For me, the Slayer's Guide To Goblins concentrated too much on warfare - even the roleplaying section seemed to contain little information on helping GMs to portray goblins from a roleplaying perspective. At the other extreme, there were not enough crunchy bits - more space could and should have been dedicated to goblin equipment, traps, poisons, disease, stats for the The Mighty One, perhaps another prestige class or a couple of ambush-related feats. Instead, I felt there was a lot of repetition of the idea that goblins are sneaky and evil, which I could have gained from the description in the Monster Manual, though there were some interesting and new pieces of information on aspects such as cannibalism and slavery, which balanced this out.Conclusion:If you want to challenge your PCs with goblins in combat, there are a number of tactical and atmospheric hints and tips to round out the useful example goblin warren. For me, it required more crunchy stuff and more help for the GM on roleplaying, rather than tactics, to reach beyond the average.</blockquote>

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