Everyone, maybe I just suck as a DM. But, I have a bit of a problem. I am running ToA, with a tremendous amount of Homebrew in it. I have a group of about 6 players (which to me is rather large.) Most of the games seem enjoyable to all players. As always some characters like to do specific things over others. I have one character who is just a min max beast for combat. This makes combat nearly impossible for the other group. The character in question has high AC/health, can do extreme amounts of damage in one round (50 plus), and with high to hit stats rarely misses.
I know everyone will be like well, just throw more things at the group. Combat as you guys should know, takes a min. If I throw three combat encounters a session at this group all we will do is combat, which honestly is boring.
Looking for options. Anything. I can go into specifics if desired. I just don't really like talking extreme smack about players publicly.
If they go against a magic user, target the tank with holds and fear spells. Or, use illusion to have them attack nonexistant foes covering some sort of trap. Use their aggression against them!
Kinda hard to help if you don't tell us what makes this character so strong and what exactly "a tremendous amount of Homebrew" entails. It's probably the homebrew that's causing the imbalance. Either way, you're probably going to have to take back some of the things you've agreed to previously to put everyone on a more even playing field.
Everyone, thank you for the quick responses. I am truly grateful. I should have clarified. When I say home brew I mean the story. All characters are made using the DnD Beyond and none of the sliders allowing "homebrew" content have been activated.
I like the idea of the spell slinger, just there is a bit of a problem. The wrecking ball being a level 6 Pally gets +4 on all saving throws. Most DCs for saving throws are around 14. Even assuming the wrecking ball has no modifier, just being a Pally give his a +4 which is around 50% of making it. Sorry about all the hole poking. Again just looking for ideas.
Paladins are really good at melee combat and not so good at anything else. They're not particularly mobile, they don't have crowd control abilities, and their ranged abilities are limited.
Sounds like the issue here is the way you're designing your encounters. If you just throw one or two monsters at the party and the Paladin can easily walk up to them and smack them around without worrying about the other party members, then naturally they're going to dominate every fight.
As a rule of thumb if you want a fight to be challenging you either want a legendary monster or the players shouldn't greatly outnumber the enemies.
InquisitiveCoder, thank you for the update. The character is a multi-class Pally lvl 6 and hex blade warlock lvl 1. That gives him Eldritch Blast as a can-trip with 2 blasts. He could literally (and has done this) sit back and become a weapons platform. In the future, I am not going to allow for this meshing of multi-classing. I do hear everyone, saying that I need to add more creatures and diversify.
That seems a bit of an overkill to have a legendary monster to make a fight challenging.
It just seems odd that DnD has the ability to max/min in such a way. Maybe I just need to get more imaginative.
You could go at it from the role playing side. Maybe the warlock patron and the paladin's oaths/god come into conflict. Not knowing what they are, I'm not sure exactly how that would work, and probably wouldn't do much for any given combat, but it could really take the wind out of his min-maxing sails if he has to face consequences for his choices.
InquisitiveCoder, thank you for the update. The character is a multi-class Pally lvl 6 and hex blade warlock lvl 1. That gives him Eldritch Blast as a can-trip with 2 blasts. He could literally (and has done this) sit back and become a weapons platform.
He can't do that effectively if there's an enemy standing next to him, which is part of why using a larger group of enemies every now and then is a good idea if you want combat to be difficult. The more enemies there are, the harder it is for the players to keep them all under control and use their preferred strategies undeterred. If there's a couple of monsters next to both the paladin and a squishy spellcaster, Eldritch Blast is not going to fix that situation, and now the paladin has a couple of options, all of which suck:
move next to the wizard without disengaging and eat some opportunity attacks
lose a turn disengaging
try to Eldritch Blast the monsters next to the wizard with disadvantage
try to kill his own monsters with melee attacks while the wizard tries to stall somehow
More enemies also means you can place some of them between the paladin and the other party members, or you can use them to grapple or shove prone the paladin.
That seems a bit of an overkill to have a legendary monster to make a fight challenging.
Legendary creatures are designed to challenge a full party on their own. It's not overkill if their CR is appropriate for the party. Granted, there's very few legendary creatures below CR 10 in the Monster Manual, but if you're using a homebrew setting and homebrew monsters there's nothing stopping you from creating your own.
6 characters is a powerful party. I've learnt that with 6 players, you can throw staggeringly large amounts of foes and they will handle it. I've hit 6-player parties with combinations of monsters over twice the "deadly XP" rating, and the players just handled it. So, don't worry too much about overpowering them.
Paladin / hexblade is considered to be one of the more powerful multiclasses. As you say, you will have to get creative to challenge this player. I suggest an escort quest.
As always, the advice is, "lots of mixed foes". Always have some melee fighters backed up with some ranged fighters and a few skirmishers.
For example, some armoured goblins to stand next to the tanks and take the Defend action, while some goblin archers harass everyone (especially the caster and archers). Wolves run around fast (getting up close to the archers and casters to give them disadvantage on ranged attack rolls). If anyone goes down, a wolf tries to drag their body away.
Foes with Hide as a Bonus Action are nasty. Archers who shoot (with poisoned blowguns for extra jungle-ness) and then fade away into the undergrowth. The charactes will have to use readied actions, which loses them features like Extra Attack. If they ar readying spells, then that uses concentration.
Specifically regarding your paladin warlock, note that he or she cannot use divine smite on eldritch blast. Also note that the damage for eldritch blast does not get an ability score bonus (it's a common mistake for players to incorrectly add the CHA bonus to it).
Finally, enforce the concentration rule and don't let them rest after every single fight.
Yeah for the Eldridge blast if he is within 5ft of an enemy I think he gets disadvantaged on the attack roll even if the target is further than 5ft away. These are per the ranged attack rules. Also if he’s fine rolling the d10 raw, as oppose to doing most his major damage with the normal attack. Because he doesn’t get the charisma bonus for warlock on eldritch blast until I think he hits level 5 in warlock.
Yeah for the Eldridge blast if he is within 5ft of an enemy I think he gets disadvantaged on the attack roll even if the target is further than 5ft away. These are per the ranged attack rules. Also if he’s fine rolling the d10 raw, as oppose to doing most his major damage with the normal attack. Because he doesn’t get the charisma bonus for warlock on eldritch blast until I think he hits level 5 in warlock.
The charisma boost to damage on eldritch blast is due to the agonizing blast invocation which is available at level 2 when the warlock gets their first invocations. In the present case, the paladin has only one level of hexblade so they won't have agonizing blast yet and can't add their charisma to damage caused by eldritch blast.
Also, the paladin only has ONE one-handed weapon to use with their hex warrior feature. Using any other weapon means attacking using strength or dex depending on whether the weapon has the finesse property or not.
You haven't mentioned their other stats. Presumably they have at least the minimum strength of 13 allowing them to multiclass as a paladin? (also, if you rolled stats then this can skew the effectiveness of a character by a significant amount).
However, I don't see how the paladin can regularly do 50+ damage in a round.
A level 6 paladin/1 hexblade has 5 first and 2 second level spell slots. Each first level slot can be spent for a 2d8 smite and each 2nd level for a 3d8 smite. Let's say they are swinging a long sword with two attacks/turn and they use 3d8 smites on both using both their 2nd level slots.
(4d8 + 4) x 2 = 22 x 2 = 44 average damage but they have used up all of their level 3 slots in one round. The next round they could blow two first level slots for (3d8 +4 ) x 2 = 35 average damage. They can do that one more time then they will have one more slot left. So for three rounds of combat, assuming they hit, they will do more damage (the average is never as high as 50). After that, they will have no more spell slots for smiting and will be doing (d8+4) x 2 = 17 average damage which is typical/low for tier 2.
Their eldritch blast does 2d10 or about 11 hit points on average if it hits.
As a hex warrior using their designated weapon they use charisma to hit which is +4 and add proficiency which is +3 at 7th level for a total of +7 to hit. This is typical for any mid tier 2 character since most should have 16 to 18 in their primary attack stat by this point. Everyone should be hitting about as often as the paladin does unless they intentionally started with a 14 in their attack stat and haven't increased it.
The paladin's AC should also be about 18 which is pretty typical for heavy armor + shield. It could be 19 if they took defensive fighting style (but they may have taken dueling to boost damage with their 1 handed weapon for the hex warrior feature - which would increase the average damage above by +4 in each case).
Anyway, ToA is deliberately a very low magic setting. Unless your homebrew included adding all sorts of over powered magic items then there shouldn't be anything wrong or unbalanced about the paladin. Yes, they can smite a few times for additional damage but if they do that they aren't casting bless, they aren't casting healing spells, and they very quickly run out of resources.
If you find the paladin using all their slots on smites in the first fight and then insisting on stopping for the day, perhaps use the time pressure of the death curse to get them moving. Make them realize that they don't have the time to inch across the map resting as soon as one character runs out of spell slots by blowing them all in one fight.
On the other hand, if you have added magic armor, shields, weapons, and other items ... then these will affect the balance and will help martial characters more than their caster counterparts typically.
If it's mostly this Paladin/Warlock who is wrecking your combat encounters, consider terrain effects to separate him from the rest of the party. The aura effect is powerful indeed, but has a very limited range. Create scenarios where he is likely to rush in, then separate him using things like Wall of Force, an avalanche, or some kind of large trap. Aim for the party's weak point rather than it's strong one.
In addition to Greenstone's suggestion about archers who take the Hide action, also consider giving more archers 1/2 and 3/4 cover. Give some of them the Sharpshooter feat and have them strike from beyond the range of the Paladin's Eldritch Blast. If the Paladin tries to close distance without the rest of the party, spring a trap on him.
i really do think it's also about the action economy, more bad guys = more actions. or more creatures with multiple attacks, you want the character to feel as though he isn't the only one in the party in combat. maybe use creatures with some sort of pack bonus..if i remember correctly wolves get an attack advantage when they're grouped up, so they have a decent chance of hitting him.
i would also second spells that have position effects...ie. moving him out of the way etc.
also here is a good resource for figuring out what monsters might do in combat
Yeah for the Eldridge blast if he is within 5ft of an enemy I think he gets disadvantaged on the attack roll even if the target is further than 5ft away. These are per the ranged attack rules. Also if he’s fine rolling the d10 raw, as oppose to doing most his major damage with the normal attack. Because he doesn’t get the charisma bonus for warlock on eldritch blast until I think he hits level 5 in warlock.
The charisma boost to damage on eldritch blast is due to the agonizing blast invocation which is available at level 2 when the warlock gets their first invocations. In the present case, the paladin has only one level of hexblade so they won't have agonizing blast yet and can't add their charisma to damage caused by eldritch blast.
ah thanks...i knew it came at some point, i was trying to think of warlocks i have created and when they got the bonus.
In my experience DMing ToA, most encounters will take place is a quickened "highlight reel" moment during the exploration of the jungle. If you have three combat encounters each day, you're right, it would slow everything down and not be fun. But this also allows for your paladin to go nova, to blow his load of Divine Smites in one go because he's not fighting anything else that day. Swarms of undead can be a possibility, he can only hit one at a time. Upping enemy HP is also an option. If you haven't yet, Valindra Shadowmantle could be an interesting encounter, as she would most likely know how to deal with a paladin.
ToA kinda falls apart here for this kind of thing, but it will come back once they reach significant areas, like Hrakhamar or Omu or even the Tomb.
This might be a jerk thing to do. But after having experience with Out of the Abyss, I do not let players long rest in dangerous wilderness like the Underdark or zombie infested jungles of Chult. The rest rules are a little fuzzy so basically I rule it that there is no long enough period of time for them to rest in safety and regain those abilities. Sleeping overnight to avoid exhaustion is only a short rest in terms of game mechanics.
I find this helps with adventures that lean on daily random encounters so that as others mention the party is less inclined to just fire off all their abilities since they will only fight once (maybe twice RAW) per day. It also seems to enhance other aspects of gameplay. Making those safe outposts where you can get a real Long Rest suddenly very important. As well as making allies, planning etc etc
Make it so that combat is only one part of the puzzle. The opponent has placed a powerful fiend to slow the group down while they finish their nefarious business. Make it beefier than anything the less fighty group members can handle, but suitable to engage your bruiser for maybe six or seven rounds*. Then make it obvious that the group has something like one or two rounds to stop the opponent, say they are one round from disappearing out the door in the next room with the hostage/macguffin/etc. Then ask your character with the highest perception what their passive perception is. Whatever the answer is, tell them they spot an opportune hole or blind spot in the monster's defense, just enough for the group to get by IF the Warlockadin engages the beast and keeps it busy.
Yes, this is encouraging a split screen, but sometimes it's necessary. The bruiser gets to do what they built their character to do, and the rest of the group doesn't get sidelined.
You could go at it from the role playing side. Maybe the warlock patron and the paladin's oaths/god come into conflict. Not knowing what they are, I'm not sure exactly how that would work, and probably wouldn't do much for any given combat, but it could really take the wind out of his min-maxing sails if he has to face consequences for his choices.
That is a great idea, in my experience, the most memorable combats are when they win a very dificult encounter, or when there is a lot of roleplay involved with the combat.
You can throw some goblins scouting the area fthey are heading for them to fight, but before they kill all of them a goblin child jump from a bush beggin for them not to kill its parents, or something like that.
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Everyone, maybe I just suck as a DM. But, I have a bit of a problem. I am running ToA, with a tremendous amount of Homebrew in it. I have a group of about 6 players (which to me is rather large.) Most of the games seem enjoyable to all players. As always some characters like to do specific things over others. I have one character who is just a min max beast for combat. This makes combat nearly impossible for the other group. The character in question has high AC/health, can do extreme amounts of damage in one round (50 plus), and with high to hit stats rarely misses.
I know everyone will be like well, just throw more things at the group. Combat as you guys should know, takes a min. If I throw three combat encounters a session at this group all we will do is combat, which honestly is boring.
Looking for options. Anything. I can go into specifics if desired. I just don't really like talking extreme smack about players publicly.
If they go against a magic user, target the tank with holds and fear spells. Or, use illusion to have them attack nonexistant foes covering some sort of trap. Use their aggression against them!
Kinda hard to help if you don't tell us what makes this character so strong and what exactly "a tremendous amount of Homebrew" entails. It's probably the homebrew that's causing the imbalance. Either way, you're probably going to have to take back some of the things you've agreed to previously to put everyone on a more even playing field.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
Everyone, thank you for the quick responses. I am truly grateful. I should have clarified. When I say home brew I mean the story. All characters are made using the DnD Beyond and none of the sliders allowing "homebrew" content have been activated.
I like the idea of the spell slinger, just there is a bit of a problem. The wrecking ball being a level 6 Pally gets +4 on all saving throws. Most DCs for saving throws are around 14. Even assuming the wrecking ball has no modifier, just being a Pally give his a +4 which is around 50% of making it. Sorry about all the hole poking. Again just looking for ideas.
Paladins are really good at melee combat and not so good at anything else. They're not particularly mobile, they don't have crowd control abilities, and their ranged abilities are limited.
Sounds like the issue here is the way you're designing your encounters. If you just throw one or two monsters at the party and the Paladin can easily walk up to them and smack them around without worrying about the other party members, then naturally they're going to dominate every fight.
As a rule of thumb if you want a fight to be challenging you either want a legendary monster or the players shouldn't greatly outnumber the enemies.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
InquisitiveCoder, thank you for the update. The character is a multi-class Pally lvl 6 and hex blade warlock lvl 1. That gives him Eldritch Blast as a can-trip with 2 blasts. He could literally (and has done this) sit back and become a weapons platform. In the future, I am not going to allow for this meshing of multi-classing. I do hear everyone, saying that I need to add more creatures and diversify.
That seems a bit of an overkill to have a legendary monster to make a fight challenging.
It just seems odd that DnD has the ability to max/min in such a way. Maybe I just need to get more imaginative.
You could go at it from the role playing side. Maybe the warlock patron and the paladin's oaths/god come into conflict. Not knowing what they are, I'm not sure exactly how that would work, and probably wouldn't do much for any given combat, but it could really take the wind out of his min-maxing sails if he has to face consequences for his choices.
He can't do that effectively if there's an enemy standing next to him, which is part of why using a larger group of enemies every now and then is a good idea if you want combat to be difficult. The more enemies there are, the harder it is for the players to keep them all under control and use their preferred strategies undeterred. If there's a couple of monsters next to both the paladin and a squishy spellcaster, Eldritch Blast is not going to fix that situation, and now the paladin has a couple of options, all of which suck:
More enemies also means you can place some of them between the paladin and the other party members, or you can use them to grapple or shove prone the paladin.
Legendary creatures are designed to challenge a full party on their own. It's not overkill if their CR is appropriate for the party. Granted, there's very few legendary creatures below CR 10 in the Monster Manual, but if you're using a homebrew setting and homebrew monsters there's nothing stopping you from creating your own.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
6 characters is a powerful party. I've learnt that with 6 players, you can throw staggeringly large amounts of foes and they will handle it. I've hit 6-player parties with combinations of monsters over twice the "deadly XP" rating, and the players just handled it. So, don't worry too much about overpowering them.
Paladin / hexblade is considered to be one of the more powerful multiclasses. As you say, you will have to get creative to challenge this player. I suggest an escort quest.
As always, the advice is, "lots of mixed foes". Always have some melee fighters backed up with some ranged fighters and a few skirmishers.
For example, some armoured goblins to stand next to the tanks and take the Defend action, while some goblin archers harass everyone (especially the caster and archers). Wolves run around fast (getting up close to the archers and casters to give them disadvantage on ranged attack rolls). If anyone goes down, a wolf tries to drag their body away.
Foes with Hide as a Bonus Action are nasty. Archers who shoot (with poisoned blowguns for extra jungle-ness) and then fade away into the undergrowth. The charactes will have to use readied actions, which loses them features like Extra Attack. If they ar readying spells, then that uses concentration.
Specifically regarding your paladin warlock, note that he or she cannot use divine smite on eldritch blast. Also note that the damage for eldritch blast does not get an ability score bonus (it's a common mistake for players to incorrectly add the CHA bonus to it).
Finally, enforce the concentration rule and don't let them rest after every single fight.
I LOVE THIS THREAD!
There has been some great advice tossed around.
Yeah for the Eldridge blast if he is within 5ft of an enemy I think he gets disadvantaged on the attack roll even if the target is further than 5ft away. These are per the ranged attack rules. Also if he’s fine rolling the d10 raw, as oppose to doing most his major damage with the normal attack. Because he doesn’t get the charisma bonus for warlock on eldritch blast until I think he hits level 5 in warlock.
The charisma boost to damage on eldritch blast is due to the agonizing blast invocation which is available at level 2 when the warlock gets their first invocations. In the present case, the paladin has only one level of hexblade so they won't have agonizing blast yet and can't add their charisma to damage caused by eldritch blast.
Also, the paladin only has ONE one-handed weapon to use with their hex warrior feature. Using any other weapon means attacking using strength or dex depending on whether the weapon has the finesse property or not.
You haven't mentioned their other stats. Presumably they have at least the minimum strength of 13 allowing them to multiclass as a paladin? (also, if you rolled stats then this can skew the effectiveness of a character by a significant amount).
However, I don't see how the paladin can regularly do 50+ damage in a round.
A level 6 paladin/1 hexblade has 5 first and 2 second level spell slots. Each first level slot can be spent for a 2d8 smite and each 2nd level for a 3d8 smite. Let's say they are swinging a long sword with two attacks/turn and they use 3d8 smites on both using both their 2nd level slots.
(4d8 + 4) x 2 = 22 x 2 = 44 average damage but they have used up all of their level 3 slots in one round. The next round they could blow two first level slots for (3d8 +4 ) x 2 = 35 average damage. They can do that one more time then they will have one more slot left. So for three rounds of combat, assuming they hit, they will do more damage (the average is never as high as 50). After that, they will have no more spell slots for smiting and will be doing (d8+4) x 2 = 17 average damage which is typical/low for tier 2.
Their eldritch blast does 2d10 or about 11 hit points on average if it hits.
As a hex warrior using their designated weapon they use charisma to hit which is +4 and add proficiency which is +3 at 7th level for a total of +7 to hit. This is typical for any mid tier 2 character since most should have 16 to 18 in their primary attack stat by this point. Everyone should be hitting about as often as the paladin does unless they intentionally started with a 14 in their attack stat and haven't increased it.
The paladin's AC should also be about 18 which is pretty typical for heavy armor + shield. It could be 19 if they took defensive fighting style (but they may have taken dueling to boost damage with their 1 handed weapon for the hex warrior feature - which would increase the average damage above by +4 in each case).
Anyway, ToA is deliberately a very low magic setting. Unless your homebrew included adding all sorts of over powered magic items then there shouldn't be anything wrong or unbalanced about the paladin. Yes, they can smite a few times for additional damage but if they do that they aren't casting bless, they aren't casting healing spells, and they very quickly run out of resources.
If you find the paladin using all their slots on smites in the first fight and then insisting on stopping for the day, perhaps use the time pressure of the death curse to get them moving. Make them realize that they don't have the time to inch across the map resting as soon as one character runs out of spell slots by blowing them all in one fight.
On the other hand, if you have added magic armor, shields, weapons, and other items ... then these will affect the balance and will help martial characters more than their caster counterparts typically.
If it's mostly this Paladin/Warlock who is wrecking your combat encounters, consider terrain effects to separate him from the rest of the party. The aura effect is powerful indeed, but has a very limited range. Create scenarios where he is likely to rush in, then separate him using things like Wall of Force, an avalanche, or some kind of large trap. Aim for the party's weak point rather than it's strong one.
In addition to Greenstone's suggestion about archers who take the Hide action, also consider giving more archers 1/2 and 3/4 cover. Give some of them the Sharpshooter feat and have them strike from beyond the range of the Paladin's Eldritch Blast. If the Paladin tries to close distance without the rest of the party, spring a trap on him.
i really do think it's also about the action economy, more bad guys = more actions. or more creatures with multiple attacks, you want the character to feel as though he isn't the only one in the party in combat. maybe use creatures with some sort of pack bonus..if i remember correctly wolves get an attack advantage when they're grouped up, so they have a decent chance of hitting him.
i would also second spells that have position effects...ie. moving him out of the way etc.
also here is a good resource for figuring out what monsters might do in combat
http://themonstersknow.com/
ah thanks...i knew it came at some point, i was trying to think of warlocks i have created and when they got the bonus.
In my experience DMing ToA, most encounters will take place is a quickened "highlight reel" moment during the exploration of the jungle. If you have three combat encounters each day, you're right, it would slow everything down and not be fun. But this also allows for your paladin to go nova, to blow his load of Divine Smites in one go because he's not fighting anything else that day. Swarms of undead can be a possibility, he can only hit one at a time. Upping enemy HP is also an option. If you haven't yet, Valindra Shadowmantle could be an interesting encounter, as she would most likely know how to deal with a paladin.
ToA kinda falls apart here for this kind of thing, but it will come back once they reach significant areas, like Hrakhamar or Omu or even the Tomb.
Thank you everyone for the great sage advice. I will attempt to go forth and do great things with it.
This might be a jerk thing to do. But after having experience with Out of the Abyss, I do not let players long rest in dangerous wilderness like the Underdark or zombie infested jungles of Chult. The rest rules are a little fuzzy so basically I rule it that there is no long enough period of time for them to rest in safety and regain those abilities. Sleeping overnight to avoid exhaustion is only a short rest in terms of game mechanics.
I find this helps with adventures that lean on daily random encounters so that as others mention the party is less inclined to just fire off all their abilities since they will only fight once (maybe twice RAW) per day. It also seems to enhance other aspects of gameplay. Making those safe outposts where you can get a real Long Rest suddenly very important. As well as making allies, planning etc etc
But then again maybe I'm just extreme :)
Make it so that combat is only one part of the puzzle. The opponent has placed a powerful fiend to slow the group down while they finish their nefarious business. Make it beefier than anything the less fighty group members can handle, but suitable to engage your bruiser for maybe six or seven rounds*. Then make it obvious that the group has something like one or two rounds to stop the opponent, say they are one round from disappearing out the door in the next room with the hostage/macguffin/etc. Then ask your character with the highest perception what their passive perception is. Whatever the answer is, tell them they spot an opportune hole or blind spot in the monster's defense, just enough for the group to get by IF the Warlockadin engages the beast and keeps it busy.
Yes, this is encouraging a split screen, but sometimes it's necessary. The bruiser gets to do what they built their character to do, and the rest of the group doesn't get sidelined.
*Edit: Maybe 3 or 4.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
That is a great idea, in my experience, the most memorable combats are when they win a very dificult encounter, or when there is a lot of roleplay involved with the combat.
You can throw some goblins scouting the area fthey are heading for them to fight, but before they kill all of them a goblin child jump from a bush beggin for them not to kill its parents, or something like that.