Had a chance to cross swords with the new Hobgoblin warrior and they can hit hard. Was that intentional or a typo? 2d10 for a single handed longsword seems a little much.
Veteran to Warrior Veteran has the new Heavy crossbow doing 2d10 damaged. Twice per round. Close fast, the Greatsword at 2d6 is preferrable.
For the Hobgoblin, note that they only get +3 to hit. For context, a typical level 1 PC has +5 to hit. They can be a threat if they swarm you and bring Pack Tactics in, thus encouraging counterplay of preventing that from happening or doing something about it when it does happen.
The hobgoblin has an AC of 18. That's higher than most PCs will have early on. So relative hit rates for and against are about the same for PCs that are lvl 3 or lower.
If you use the average damage, hobgoblins will one hit knock down most level 1 Artificers, Bards, Clerics, Druids, Rogues, and Warlocks. And many level 1 Rangers and Paladins will also go down to a single 12 damage hit.
12 damage per hit just seems too high for something that a level 1 party could encounter in multiples. Old modules for low level parties have become a lot more challenging if they include more than one hobgoblin at a time.
The hobgoblin has an AC of 18. That's higher than most PCs will have early on. So relative hit rates for and against are about the same for PCs that are lvl 3 or lower.
If you use the average damage, hobgoblins will one hit knock down most level 1 Artificers, Bards, Clerics, Druids, Rogues, and Warlocks. And many level 1 Rangers and Paladins will also go down to a single 12 damage hit.
12 damage per hit just seems too high for something that a level 1 party could encounter in multiples. Old modules for low level parties have become a lot more challenging if they include more than one hobgoblin at a time.
If you have one hobgoblin per player, that is a deadly encounter.
So, a party of 4 level 1 characters has a 300 XP budget for encounters. That comes out to 3 hobgoblin warriors. They have no saves higher than a +1, so save cantrips or AoEs are gonna carve chunks out of them pretty fast, and of the classes you describe, about half are gonna be working from the back row and the other half are gonna have ACs in the mid teens, giving the hobgoblins maybe 50% chance to hit unless Pack Tactics comes into play. Now, level 1 PCs are fragile enough that RNG can tip the scales fast, but that's true for most potential encounters at that point.
Had a chance to cross swords with the new Hobgoblin warrior and they can hit hard. Was that intentional or a typo? 2d10 for a single handed longsword seems a little much.
Veteran to Warrior Veteran has the new Heavy crossbow doing 2d10 damaged. Twice per round. Close fast, the Greatsword at 2d6 is preferrable.
On the hobgoblin, they were trying to make it worth its CR, and with a pathetic (+3) to hit and equally pathetic (11) hit points, they needed to do something -- put it at 1d8+1 and it's barely worth CR 1/4. I'm not sure why they didn't buff it in other ways, though.
The warrior veteran is +3 to hit with its crossbow. It's not more dangerous at range. Again, the odd damage is trying to make it worthy of its CR.
I have not run it or run into yet, but it does seem off kilter. I think a lot of the low CRs enemies are they scale insanely fast in power between 1/4, 1/2 and 1. That being said it drops fat loot for a level 1 party. Half Plate baby.
Yes its to hit is low, but at these levels a lot of the part is still getting hit often and since it gets advantage if any ally is within 5 feet of it, in groups of 2 that +3 to hit starts looking good. But like an ice mephit is the same CR it has 21 hit points a crap AC, but its break weapon does 3d4 and when it dies it explodes for damage. But the same Cr has like the tough which is just a sack of hit points or giant goat which is far weaker as well. Basically the CR system at low levels is pretty wide ranging.
I have not run it or run into yet, but it does seem off kilter. I think a lot of the low CRs enemies are they scale insanely fast in power between 1/4, 1/2 and 1.
They're supposed to -- each step is double the xp value, so it should be twice as scary. Based on the general way they seem to scale monsters, targets should be roughly
CR 1/8: attack +3, 4.5 damage, AC 11, 10 hp
CR 1/4: attack +4, 6 damage, AC 12, 14 hp.
CR 1/2: attack +4, 8.5 damage, AC 12, 20 hp.
CR 1: attack +4, 12 damage, AC 12, 28 hp.
The hobgoblin has +3 attack, but it does have pack tactics, which is quite powerful, particularly on low accuracy creatures. That puts its effective offensive CR at around 1. Its defensive CR, based on hit points, is only 1/8, but high AC pushes it up to probably between 1/4 and 1/2. That does average on the high side for its CR, but it's not grotesquely out of line.
If you want a somewhat less weird design that still fits the theme and is decently CR balanced, I would probably change it as follows:
Strength 14, Dex 14. Change armor to scale (no change in AC, but does nerf the rather excessive loot).
Longsword +4/1d8+4 (effectively, it has dueling fighting style).
Longbow +4/1d8+2+1d4 poison.
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Had a chance to cross swords with the new Hobgoblin warrior and they can hit hard. Was that intentional or a typo? 2d10 for a single handed longsword seems a little much.
Veteran to Warrior Veteran has the new Heavy crossbow doing 2d10 damaged. Twice per round. Close fast, the Greatsword at 2d6 is preferrable.
For the Hobgoblin, note that they only get +3 to hit. For context, a typical level 1 PC has +5 to hit. They can be a threat if they swarm you and bring Pack Tactics in, thus encouraging counterplay of preventing that from happening or doing something about it when it does happen.
The hobgoblin has an AC of 18. That's higher than most PCs will have early on. So relative hit rates for and against are about the same for PCs that are lvl 3 or lower.
If you use the average damage, hobgoblins will one hit knock down most level 1 Artificers, Bards, Clerics, Druids, Rogues, and Warlocks. And many level 1 Rangers and Paladins will also go down to a single 12 damage hit.
12 damage per hit just seems too high for something that a level 1 party could encounter in multiples. Old modules for low level parties have become a lot more challenging if they include more than one hobgoblin at a time.
If you have one hobgoblin per player, that is a deadly encounter.
On the hobgoblin, they were trying to make it worth its CR, and with a pathetic (+3) to hit and equally pathetic (11) hit points, they needed to do something -- put it at 1d8+1 and it's barely worth CR 1/4. I'm not sure why they didn't buff it in other ways, though.
The warrior veteran is +3 to hit with its crossbow. It's not more dangerous at range. Again, the odd damage is trying to make it worthy of its CR.
I have not run it or run into yet, but it does seem off kilter. I think a lot of the low CRs enemies are they scale insanely fast in power between 1/4, 1/2 and 1. That being said it drops fat loot for a level 1 party. Half Plate baby.
Yes its to hit is low, but at these levels a lot of the part is still getting hit often and since it gets advantage if any ally is within 5 feet of it, in groups of 2 that +3 to hit starts looking good. But like an ice mephit is the same CR it has 21 hit points a crap AC, but its break weapon does 3d4 and when it dies it explodes for damage. But the same Cr has like the tough which is just a sack of hit points or giant goat which is far weaker as well. Basically the CR system at low levels is pretty wide ranging.
They're supposed to -- each step is double the xp value, so it should be twice as scary. Based on the general way they seem to scale monsters, targets should be roughly
The hobgoblin has +3 attack, but it does have pack tactics, which is quite powerful, particularly on low accuracy creatures. That puts its effective offensive CR at around 1. Its defensive CR, based on hit points, is only 1/8, but high AC pushes it up to probably between 1/4 and 1/2. That does average on the high side for its CR, but it's not grotesquely out of line.
If you want a somewhat less weird design that still fits the theme and is decently CR balanced, I would probably change it as follows: