Our group recently started Rise of the Runelords, and we had our second session today. Well, after quite a bit of sitting around town, doing some minor things but otherwise going a bit stir-crazy, we met Shalelu, who told us about the various goblin tribes around town.
We were supposed to stick around town, maintaining a presence as the town heroes. But...I mean, there are three goblin tribes in the area. How could we resist not going out there and slaughtering them? So our first move, we decide, is to go take out the Licktoads in the marshes.
One of our players is a GM who is currently running his other group through Jade Regent, and he just happened to have the first book on him...which just so happens to contain the Licktoad camp. So our GM gives the encounter a quick once-over, and we proceed to head out and, at level 1, take out the entire Licktoad camp. That was over 25 goblins, slain by a Hellknight-in-training, a not-Harsk dwarven ranger, a spelldancer magus, a brutish half-orc rogue, a halfling cleric of Desna, and a male Witch who INSISTS he's a Warlock (ME!). Much blood was shed, and many rockets were fired from goblin hands, but eventually we were victorious, taking home the gold, the magic arrows, and around 900 xp each. Also, we lit the whole damn thing on fire so that no one else could take over the encampment.
Did we completely remove an entire encounter from Jade Regent, should we attempt it at a later date? Maybe. Was it worth it? Hell yes.
We have yet to return to Sandpoint, but I have the feeling that we'll be double-heroes. Plus, there was a piggy at the camp that we took home. I think I'll take him home, name him, and then feed him to the people in a feast celebrating our victory.
Good Gaming.
...Catch Phrase,
-Chris
Goblins are presumed to be inherently vile unless there is evidence to the contrary. It makes the game more fun if there are some enemies you can be merciless towards.
(And the Licktoad village from Jade Regent was (a) responsible for bandit raids, and (b) without civilians - I think they'd lost them all during a recent battle with the undead.)
As for leaving the town undefended - any town that relies on half a dozen level one characters for its defences it is pretty much doomed anyway.
Lol welcome to the Internet Chris...
"Hey, I have this cool story about how we all had fun playing Pathfinder! So we..."
"Sorry son, you're doing it completely wrong. You're a bad person."
TvTropes says Goblins are always Chaotic evil! So it is okies.
Paizo has fairly well established that the are around Sandpoint is the effective Goblin Capital of Varisia at least, if not all of Avistan, population-wise at least. There are what, five named tribes there at least. Burning the Licktoad village down did nothing to guarantee there wouldn't be another village there in little more than a year.
Unfortunately, given the Sandpoint admins' published views on Goblins, why not wipe out a village or three. In Jade Regent, at the provocation of a few raids on caravans, where no-one actually died, they re-instate a bounty of 10 gold a head & if that isn't a gross over-reaction I don't know what is. At least when they attacked Sandpoint they managed to kill a few people...
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And also, in Burnt Offerings, it is mentioned that members of all of the goblin tribes took part in the initial raid on Sandpoint, so the attack on the Licktoads isn't really an unjustified attack. It is actually quite the opposite. A justified retribution. Particularly if they haven't played through Glass and Wrath yet, then they may not even know that the true threat is at Thistletop.
I repurposed a level 1 "raid a goblin camp" adventure I wrote years earlier to include in "Burnt Offerings" as a side-quest, with the hook given by Shalelu during the "Grim News from Mosswood" section.
It did a good job of letting the PCs take the offensive against the goblins earlier in the game.
I mentioned it here.