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TheHobgoblin, what's wrong with making Hobgoblin wizards? Wizards tend to boost Int/Dex/Con, and you're getting bonuses to two of the three. You can pick up Net proficiency so you have some way besides spamming cantrips to spend your off-rounds, and maybe heavy crossbow proficiency too to give you something to do at long range (cantrips rarely exceed 120' range). Saving face is a quasi-substitute for Resilient(everything) and can help you keep concentration and/or avoid critical save failures like a surprise Banshee wail. You aren't going to intentionally risk those saves more than 1/short rest anyway.
It's not terrific, but it's not terrible either, and unlike a variant human at least you get darkvision. Hobgoblin wizards appear to be 100% reasonable.
Amusingly, Hobgoblins would make pretty decent Bladesingers if such a thing were possible, maybe better than High Elves. (The High Elf cantrips are a waste for a wizard.) Con instead of Dex is a significant change and would incline Hobgoblin bladesingers more toward spell-chucking than melee, but then that is already one of the top recommended usages of Bladesingers already.
Hobgoblin Fighter/Abjurors might also reasonably become a thing, even though that makes the martial weapon proficiency a waste.
Obviously, Hobgoblin NPCs will benefit more from Saving Face than many PCs will--but don't underestimate the number of allies in a typical party! Once you finish up adding up all the PCs and hirelings/other NPCs, the various familiars, and the Paladin's intelligent steed, that +5 may turn out to be the most common bonus.
I wonder if Saving Face is usable for initiative. Can initiative checks ever be said to "fail"?
Well, the same thing that is wrong with crating a High Elf Barbarian or a Dwarf Wizard... its not what any of the story of what the race is supposed to be good at.
Hobgoblins are meant to be primarily Fighters. After that Warlord/Captain (if you allow such a thing to exist), Paladin (if you allow evil ones), Cleric, Ranger, Rogue, Monk and possibly Bard, Druid (i.e. "Shaman") and/or Barbarian depending on the particular tribe.
They have always been depicted as lagging behind everyone else in terms of both magic and technology. And psionics too. And I suspect that nothing about how they are described in this book is going to change that. Given the only thing we have seen in the previews is the Monk, I am pretty sure it is not going to totally reinterpret Hobgoblins as some sort of burly wizard race.
I highly suspect that the only reason Int was chosen at all is because the designers wanted to fill in their "grid" and didn't have +2 Con, +1 Int on any race and decided to force it onto the race that was on the very bottom on their priority list.
So to say they are okay because they might be decent at the class that is the most opposed to their very concept while being thoroughly subpar in all the classes they are supposed to be as they offer absolutely nothing of value and bring nothing to the table for any of them.
I need to see that the race can actually be remotely as interesting or competitive in the classes it is supposed to be good at as a High Elf or Mountain Dwarf can be. Trying to make a big deal out of the "turn one slightly failed roll into a success" as though that alone is supposed to make up for everything you don't get seems ridiculous to me. It does not make up for getting a +1 to all your combat and important skills, getting a bonus skill, and either the Cantrip or the advantage against all poison saves.
Arcana checks (You see a magical symbol, what does it do?)
Investigation Checks (Is the Door trapped?)
Religion or Nature or History checks (How do you not offend the powerful entity standing in front of you)
Ah, but you may say that if only one person passes it is fine. Which isn’t really always the case. You check the door for traps, fail, you don’t think the door is trapped…. So why would Jim, Bob, Steve, Gary and Amanda all check for traps as well, there are no traps.
Sure, only one person needs to pass the nature check to understand how to not offend the powerful wolf spirit…. But all that means is that one guy might not offend him, the rest of you did, which may cause problems.
And there are spells and monsters that require Intelligence saves, they aren’t common but they exist and if a group showed up to my table, bragging about how they don’t need Intelligence scores and had scores under 10 across the board… Well, I’d finally get a chance to run that Intellect Devourer cave encounter I’ve been toying with… and that is probably all bad for that party.
I think you are being highly dismissive of political intrigue campaigns. A good plan and a few social rolls can finish a mission quicker than pulling out sword and spells to torch a thing.
Also, have you heard of Treamont’s God Wizard, highly respected wizard build. Does zero damage. So… ignores DPR and focuses on Intelligence.
Skipping the rest of your post because it is late and jumping down to
I do not call for Perception when a player needs to use Investigation. I may sometimes allow them to substitute, but if I say Investigation, I mean Investigation.
In case you can’t tell, I’m the DM, and sure, anecdotes are nearly worthless, but from the way you are going about this rhetoric it sounds like you are focusing almost entirely on combat and hp damage… that isn’t the entirety of the game and plenty of tables play differently.
Plus, having a 16 in a primary stat isn’t worthless. It is decent. So Hobgoblins aren’t terrible at everything, they make very decent builds. Int and Con make for a great wizard, Arcane Trickster, or Eldritch Knight, all of whom can use the Int and the con not only helps with frontlining but helps keep concentration.
As for my player, it is a slight homebrew situation. I am running a steampunk game with Gunslingers and Gun makers.
He wants to make things with his Tinker’s Tools, but those are normally Intelligence Proficiency Checks, and he has a +0 Int, meaning that he often struggles to beat the DC required to make the complex items he requests. He also tried to show off his ingenuity to a Cloud Giant, and rolled poorly on Int meaning that the plans he presented were of average quality, not as great as he had claimed.
Also, my players just entered a heavily trapped filled dungeon. Only one of them has a high Intelligence, so the Investigation checks are hurting some of them. Lucky for them at least 2 of my 3 rogues took expertise in Investigation so they are getting by, but it makes it hard for the group at times when the person trying to check for traps isn’t as good at it.
Okay, breaking this down....
1) As I said, all of your examples are ones where it is fine if only one person in the party passes the test. If the Arcane symbol means something, you only need one person to make the roll. They can pass the information along to everyone else if there is anything they can glean from Arcana, History or Nature. Even if one can use Intelligence to know the etiquette of something non-human, social rolls are still dictated by Charisma.
2) Your player who is "struggling" from having a low Intelligence is a result of you heavily homebrewing the game in a way that no one else does.
3) While
YOU may make it an big point to keep Perception and Investigation separate, the average DM does not. And generally speaking Perception is called for 10x as often as Investigation. Even in situations where you would call for Investigation, it is common for the DM to call for the use of Perception and the person with Investigation having to speak up and ask if they could apply it. Remember that Perception is awareness of your environment at all times and allows you to react to it immediately. Investigation is awareness of your environment only when you actively choose to use it and spend time. PCs generally want to keep moving and so wasted perception don't "take time", in fact since it is a passive skill the DM will automatically call for it if there is something to be found. Investigation checks are on the player's initiative and 99 times out of 100, there will be nothing to find if you use them because DMs literally cannot give extra detail to every single object and every single area the PCs come across and even if they do-- it will just be a more verbose manner of saying "you find nothing of interest".
Moreover the PHB describes Investigation in such a way that you have to be so damn specific about it-- "I check the bottom of the second drawer of the dresser"-- so that it is rather silly that you are making any sort of check at all, you as a player clearly already know exactly where what your PC is looking for is located that it is utterly impossible for them to miss it. Imagine losing your keys in your house and having to shout out loud precisely every location you will check before you check it and knowing that you need to spend 5 minutes searching each specific location before maybe deciding that they aren't there.
This is why virtually no DMs use Investigation. It is the only check that players have to choose to use. Except unlike every other ability where PCs choose when to use it, there is generally no particular indication WHEN it should be used and players may not have a specific end-game in mind when using it-- the result of using it is virtually always going to be "congratulations on wasting all of our time". You look through the rest of the skill list and there will be a specific situation that will trigger the use of each of them-- the player will know they are trying to be successful at something fruitful when calling to use them. Not so with Investigation-- Investigation's only trigger is that something exist in the world and either the DM didn't mention it or it is secretly dangerous. And the later is going to be true only 1/100 times so unless you read the adventure in advance and know this is the one time you are supposed to use it, then you have just pissed everyone off the last 99 times you searched for nothing and by now know not to further test everyone's resentment by searching for nothing... particularly when the party is trying to hurry to do something and may be ambushed or allow the hostages to be killed because you waste a ridiculous amount of time searching every door, every wall, every chest, every statue, every object the DM mentions which the only possible way there is any chance you are going to use it at the "right" time. Again, unless you read the adventure ahead of time and already know the trap or danger is there.
Now, one could invent a situation where you can make absolutely clear to the PCs that there is something of value or interest to be found if they just search hard enough-- but those situations tend to be fairly rare in the grand scheme of things. They are the exception, not the rule. Far more often you have situations like in Tyranny of the Dragon where you are walking through the Dragon Cult lair and just one of the passage ways between rooms is trapped and so if you search it you can avoid the first person going through from taking damage-- but if you checked every single other passage, then you would have wasted everyone's time 8x before avoiding that damage and likely caused your party to be ambushed and take far more damage than they would have from that one trap.
This is why in most games even if one has Investigation, it is rarely used when it is supposed to be used and instead the DM will call for people to make Perception checks to notice traps or objects of interest-- because that works infinitely better for gameflow and economy of time. Plus, it is quite difficult to deny that it is still applicable-- why would you need to "search" rather than simply notice that the wall has a bunch of holes that look like they might fire arrows, there is a pressure plate on the floor or there is a giant rock or blade hanging above your heads right now ready to fall down on a particular spot? Those are things you would probably be aware of if you are paying attention to your surroundings and you don't have to actively choose to search for them to notice that they are there.
4) If in any event that the outcome of the adventure is predicated on the PCs making an arcane, nature or religion check to know something or that they make an Investigation check at some time that they either didn't or they failed... well rather than deciding to wrap it up and call it a game there, the DM will virtually always end up giving the PCs that vital piece of information as to where to go or what to do next. So in essence the only thing gained is to know the information a bit sooner before the DM gives in and just hands it over so the game doesn't screech to a halt. This
might mean that the PCs face a slightly harder battle, get less gold or an NPC dies as a result... but generally the cost of failing any Intelligence skill check is far less than failing any other skill check.
5) I don't disvalue social skills, but no social skills are tied to Intelligence. All social, intrigue, political skills are tied to Wisdom or Charisma. A 20 Intelligence and 10 Wisdom and Charisma is going to leave you dead in the water and incapable of contributing anything to those situations. Meanwhile a 20 Charisma and 10 Intelligence is going to see you push through any such situation with relative ease, and any setback you might incur because of not being able to ask the DM for elaboration or advice and reliably getting that information, you are almost certainly going to be able to overcome with sheer charm.
Yes, there are a FEW creatures in the vastness of the game that might call for Intelligence saves. The amount that call for any other saves and inflict far worse effects if those saves are failed? Yeah-- those vastly, VASTLY outnumber those Intelligence saves. So if you have the choice between two attributes, Intelligence is still far worse even if there is a rare situation when it might be useful.
Again, best you seem to do is to indicate that Intelligence could possibly, remotely be useful if you heavily homebrew your game and do not play it in the way majority of players play it. It is still the worst and most useless of all the attributes on the list by a very big degree.
You keep accusing me of only caring about combat, but you have failed to indicate that Intelligence is particularly useful either in or out of combat-- unless you are using your own homebrew rules... to allow people to use Intelligence to craft superior weapons to be used IN COMBAT.
And, really, the first thing on my list of things that would fix this Hobgoblin racial stat block would be a skill. After all, a skill is something that every class can benefit from! Even if the skill is on the list of ones your class can choose from, it just means when you pick your class you choose something different instead. And a skill can be used even if you are by yourself. And it is something you can actively CHOOSE to use-- unlike anything tied to Constitution which is completely passive and gives you no options to exercise in the game, either in or out of combat.
Look, as big of a deal as I am making of this, it isn't even that far off from my own last version. What I wrote
Hobgoblin
+2 Constitution and +1 Wisdom or Charisma (your choice)
Medium Size
Dark Vision
Proficient in Athletics
1 Martial Weapon of your choice
1 Manuever (Maneuver DC equals 8 + Proficiency Bonus + Strength or Dexterity Modifier)
1 Superiority Die of d6, increases to D8 at level 3, d10 at level 10 and d12 at level 18
(+1 Initiative that i felt could/should be dropped)
Even this probably doesn't quite keep up with the main PC races, but it is at least close. In fact, what I wrote is actually ridiculously close to what they put in Volo's. Its almost like they took it and just made it crappy to the point of being practically unusable.
See how it actually grants you some bonus or option if you are playing any sort of class that you should be playing the race as but is actually viable for other classes as well? And the abilities are things that a player on their own initiative actually gets to choose to use and actually contribute to the game rather than passively sitting on their hands and maybe, possibly helps them avoid what others do to them.
As opposed to what we got in Volo's guide which gives you damn NOTHING if you are playing any of the classes you are supposed to be except the "save face" ability, which I highly suspect that they think is way more powerful and useful than it actually would be during actual gameplay.
Even if maneuvers are off the table for being used (and not sure why they should be since Cantrips are things PC races can have and Dragonborn get the equivalent of 2nd level spell at first level) and Save Face replaces the maneuver and superiority die, switching the attribute from a choice of a useful one to the absolute most crap attribute in the game-- one that doesn't remotely suit or fit the race-- and switching a skill proficiency to another martial weapon proficiency-- which is the equivalent of replacing it with absolutely nothing because hardly any class in the game doesn't get every weapon proficiency that could possibly make good use of and any class you would expect Hobgoblin to be automatically gets all the martial weapon proficiencies automatically-- it just indicates pretty clearly to me that the Volo version is just absolute crap, unless you are playing the #1 class you would never expect the race to be.
Finally, not only is the race absolute crap, it gets bundled into this group of "monster races"... along with the insanely, brokenly overpowered Bugbear. A category that is absolutely going to immediately get banned from play at all tables at all events, justified simply because it contains insanely, brokenly overpowered races like the Bugbear and whatever else is going to come in the future where they just shrug their shoulders and say "let's just give it all the most powerful combat stuff" and then call it a day.
This is a clear case where the person writing the stats not only failed to be competent, but they made up terminology in order to opt out of competence and excuse themselves for doing so. "Hey, they are just 'monster races' there is no need for them to be remotely balanced or playable because we aren't going to allow anyone to play them anyway"
And since they have now done this, they will check it off their list as "done" and just move on and never look back and never fix this mistake. This isn't a UA article where they are going to do revisions down the line and realize "well, damn-- turns out 'save face' wasn't the super powerful ability we thought it was without ever bothering to playtest it and giving a race stealth proficiency, extra damage on the first turn of combat and especially additional reach which stacks with other ways of increasing reach is ridiculously overpowered-- let's see if we can't fix these."
Just like the functionally broken Ranger where you are offered a bunch of options but only 1 of them remotely keeps up with the other PCs and contributes meaningfully to the success of the adventure... once something is put out as official, it never gets revisited.
So even when it comes time to do say... an Ebberon guide where Goblinoids are supposed to be a major presence in the world and a likely heroic PC race... they will tackle Shifters, Warforged, etc.... but they aren't going to revisit this and say "okay, here are the 'non-monster' PC versions of these races" even as some addendum in the back. Instead, they will just refer back to the big steaming dump they took here and say that this was already finished and done and doesn't need to be fixed, but also that these are "Monster Races" and so are therefore banned from play regardless.
