DM Advice: Am I being to cruel to my players?

[blackbloodtroll]

Well, Goblins have no penalty to intelligence.

[Jack Rift]

No they don't, just penalties to Cha and tendency towards insanity.

[iammercy]

With only 3 PCs it seems a bit much.
However.. having been up against NPCs I (and most of the group) could only hit on a 20 and survived, there is a way.

Take the biggest hitting PC. Everyone Aid Anothers him. Even with the -1 a GS Paladin should be hitting for somewhere around 2d6+6 or dropping one with each hit. A d8 PC should have around 11 hp with the negative level. Taking 4 hits from the gobbos to drop him.

Assuming 4 PCs the Paladin should be attacking at around:
BAB 2 - 1 Neg Level + 4 Str + 2 Flank + 6 Aid another + 1 MW weapon = 14
Still tough but doable.

Figure the players have AC's in the 17-20 range the Goblins attacking at +4 are going to hit a good deal less than the Paladin.

It a teamwork encounter. Maybe not the thing to throw at them the first time out but a well coordinated group could take them.

[Deadalready]

If you're teaching players then they won't know the tricks required to beat these guys. Nor is it likely that they'll have the optimised characters that will be able to hit these guys below a natural 20.

If you're throwing this at them as a first encounter then they will just swing at the monsters not knowing any better until they roll natural 20s or more likely the goblins will kill them. The goblins have near impossible to hit AC, have an equal chance to crit the PCs and are swinging at players that have a way lower AC than them.

There's a reason why every adventure path starts with <CR1 encounters, it's so players can learn how to play and gain some confidence with the system. Traditionally the first encounter is always the easiest and assumed beatable by players.

This is a seriously broken encounter and there's no way your players will want to go into session 2 with something like this thrown at them. You do not have the luxury of alienating your first players as it's unlikely anyone else will join your games hearing about game 1.

~

If you're attached to these Goblins, make one of them a boss later on but only one and without minions. Remembering this is a CR5 encounter with official GM rules stating that CR+1 recommended and CR4 being EPIC.

[Lamontius]

I stopped reading after you called your players victims.

[Heimdall666]

Goblin Junk Mail plus they can only attack every other round like a slow spell. Reduce the piecemeal AC to 20ish. Make the GJM ablative so it falls apart (-1) ac everytime a pc hits it for more than its hardness. Its like cracking lobsters. Easy-peasy. Never give the monsters expensive gear that will immediately out-monetize your campaign, ie 1700 gp rewards per goblin, thats a lot of cash at level -1.

Goblins are the vicious mini-clown posse comedy troop of Golarion, no reason not to use them as a "non-serious" encounter.

[bfobar]

Well, if you wanted to balance your goblins out according to CR (by dropping equipment to broken quality and picking splint mail so its less uber) this encounter could still be interesting.

If there are only a few of them and nothing else pressing to fight, then it could be a good exercise with new PCs in the art of combat maneuvers and positioning. Just make sure they have combat maneuvers rules handy. Also, this encounter could be beaten by backpedaling and using a firing squad tactic. Throw enough rocks and some will get through.

With new PCs, Id only use an encounter like this if I warned them in advance that they were getting an encounter with monsters that would be resistant to standard melee attacks and that I wanted them to try out some of the different rules and get creative to learn the system.

Also, I'm not sure what kind of theme requires a negative level or calling your PCs your victims. Remember that players won't play in games that aren't fun.

Back to the encounter, 4 tanked out goblins should have a CMD and movement that is so bad that just getting an improvised reach weapon and using it to disarm, sunder, and trip them should be effective. Have some alchemist fire, longspears, and ropes and nets nearby that the PCs are aware of could make this educational instead of a s!!~ty encounter.