THE GOBWOOD
Goblin, Fantasy, and RPG Blog
Finally we’re gonna get some real content! This is going to be one of the goblin pre-made characters i offer for my players. I have lots of pre-mades but these are specifically for modules where goblins make sense such as in an evil campaign, or at least an evil setting. This character is not a fully-penned sheet but rather a set of plans which serve to give the character a mechanical identity befitting his narrative identity. Without further adieu, may I introduce Merek, the goblin barbarian.
Character
Merek’s cage broke when he was a child so he escaped the typical tortures of goblin youth only to face growing up in alone in the wilderness. Rather than learning to speak poorly, craft shoddy tools, or interact sociopathicaly with others he learned to hunt, endure, and struggle viciously for survival. His behavior tends to reflect his animalistic life experience thus far in that he is extremely hyperactive and easily agitated. Unbeknownst to him or his tribe he spent his entire childhood not more than 500ft from the rest but nobody ever thought to go looking for him until recently when he wandered into the communal junk heap. He tends to spend a lot of his time chewing on things or scavenging and he often brings back meals for the tribe if he manages to take down a big enough animal. Even for goblins merek is not impressively large or muscular but he makes up for this slight deficit in sheer ferocity. Merek is utterly reckless, easily distracted, and would be a liability if it were not for his bouncy resilience and endless energy. He doesn’t speak much and when he does he usually just makes passing comments about the obvious- “green rock, tasty bug, sky blue, orc dead”. He terribly distrusts both magics and mechanics or anything that he doesn’t understand- which is a rather broad spectrum. He is hesitant to allow helpful spells or gadgets to be used on him and his feelings grow ever more justified with every harmful spell or gizmo used against him.
Build
Goals:
To give mechanical reality to his character flavor we’re going to set some objectives which our build will, hopefully, accomplish in a timely fashion. Identity is the priority but we’ve also got to pull our weight so we can’t sacrifice too much power just to make a character as silly or unique as it ought to be.
- Unexpected combat style- rather than surprise or exotic martial arts we’re going to make use of improvised weapons for a fun silly character.
- Frontline durability- but not by being big and tough.
- Damage output- but in lieu of high STR, we’re going to aim for multiple attacks.
- Mistrust of magic- we’ll try to get some good saves and more but this can wait till later on in the build as caster enemies are not very common very early.
Traits:
Normally I’m not big on traits selected from a book but custom made ones can really give structure to ones vision of a character. A simple +1 to something small here or there is nickel and dimey to me and difficult to remember if situational but these here should solidify our #1 build goal by both making it difficult to keep manufactured weapons and easy to use improvised ones.
Neglectful (trait): Whenever merek takes ownership of a weapon, he neglects it terribly often stabbing it into the dirt at night, exposing it to rain, never polishing or sharpening it, and ultimately breaking or losing it. In one week’s time any manufactured weapon merek keeps gains the Fragile quality, breaking on a natural 1. Additionally, if not reminded by an ally merek must roll a wisdom check DC4 to remember his manufactured weapon each time he embarks on narrative travel else he leaves it behind.
Collector (trait): Merek also has a habit of collecting random objects which he finds visually appealing in some subjective fashion and he is known to carry clutter piled upon his backpack; picture frames, knotted branches, glass bottles, rusted spades, wagon wheels, and absolutely anything dense with a piece of cord tied to it can be found amongst his collection. Merek treats these treasures responsibly and has grown quite accustomed to hauling them around; until he smashes them upon a foe. His collectibles are not subject to his neglect and the first 20lbs of such objects do not count against his encumbrance.
Skills:
Acrobatics: Max this for fun and to make the most out of Roll with it.
Survival: Invest some in this because its part of the feral flavor, but its not a mechanical necessity.
Escape Artist: we need at least 1 rank to qualify for ankle biter.
Perception: every paranoid ought to be observant, but we’re not going to be an ideal scout either. Invest only if you can afford it.
Scores:
STR: More is better, naturally. We need at least 14 here to not suck and to get more damage from 2h weapons but we also plan to have multiple attacks, attacks of opportunity, and other fun sources besides raw STR. We will need to buy 16 just to have 14 which sucks but… so does buying 18 and only having 16; especially when odd bonuses round down.
DEX: since we only have light armor proficiency and we need high acrobatics this becomes extremely important. Good thing we’re a goblin. You can easily buy 14 here and have an 18, or even justify more.
CON: always helpful but roll with it and later DR should make even a 12 here go a very long way.
WIS: thematically you could justify dumping here but I’d like to keep it decent for the saves, survival, and perception.
INT: here is where we make our silliness happen. You can dump this. If you dump to 7 maybe spend a favored class point at level 1 to get that point in escape artist and still have enough to keep 2 other skills on par.
CHA: there is no reason to think that Merek isn’t charming, but he is indeed socially inept to the point that he can hardly communicate. Do what you want here.
Other:
Barbarian Favored Class Bonus: +1 to confirm critical with unarmed strikes or Natural Weapons. Increments every 2 levels, max +4.
Tree Runner (alt racial trait): +4 to acrobatics and Climb, no racial +4 to ride and stealth
Feats, Choices, and Features
1-Roll with it Feat, Savage bite, Rage
2-Impromptu Armament (throw anything, grab improv wep as free action), Uncanny Dodge
3-Ankle Biter Feat, Lockjaw
4-Catch Off Guard Feat for alt of Rage Power
5-Chair Breaker Feat, Improvised Weapon Mastery.
6-SuperStition Rage Power, Improved Lockjaw
7- Power Attack Feat, DR1/-
8-Unexpected Strike Rage Power
9- Extra Rage Power: Reckless Abandon, Greater Lockjaw
10-Magic Eater Rage Power, DR2/-
Exposition
Level 1:
Roll with it is not a fair feat. This thing lets you reduce incoming damage at the cost of getting knocked away- potentially really far with high acrobatics. For Merek, however, it is pretty necessary just to able to pull off any kind of build and it really fits with the crazy bouncy identity we’re trying to make. I’m sure it’ll lead to some great laughs in addition to the desired survivability.
Savage bite is what feral gnashers get instead of fast movement. While fast movement is always great, this bite attack is another damage source and it is a freebie! Though the bite is a primary attack we’ll be using it as a secondary, taking a -5 penalty and adding only ½ our STR bonus , in addition to our normal manufactured or improvised weapon attacks which are not penalized at all.
Rage is, of course, the staple of all barbarians and this build, especially, really wouldn’t even have a chance without it.
Level 2:
Impromptu Armament is another alternate archetype feature which replaces our rage power but isn’t a rage power itself. We get Throw Anything as a bonus feat allowing us to use improvised ranged weapons without penalty, we also get the ability to pick up any unattended 1-handable object as a free action (normally a move), and we get the option to later trade a rage power for the Catch off guard feat. Throwing improvised weapons isn’t that great but.. now its an option. The unnamed part of this is basically a better version of the quickdraw feat- unless your gm rules your own stuff as attended which I think would be silly.
Uncanny dodge is great for keeping that high DEX AC even when grappled/grappling which we may do some of soon.
Level 3:
Lockjaw adds the grab special quality to our bite attack instead of trap sense. Grab adds a free grapple attempt with a +4 bonus that does not provoke and this grab is usable on creatures up to 1 size larger than us (such as normal medium humanoids). We may not be the best at CMB but this bonus helps a lot and its free so why not? If we manage to start a grapple, the foe is now flat-footed but we are not thanks to uncanny dodge so we’ve just gained a pretty big advantage. It is important to note that you proceed with this as a normal grapple (i.e. using your hands) or you can just hold on with the bite taking a -20 penalty to maintain the grapple but you do not gain the grappled condition. I’ll have a section on grappling later.
Ankle Biter is a mostly flavorful defensive option that lets us use our bite attack against all combat maneuvers. This is really cool because it is in addition to your normal AOO if the maneuver provokes, and improved maneuver feats do not prevent this bite. Furthermore, if grappled or pinned you may Bite every round as a swift action AND you gain a bonus to break the grapple equal to the damage you dealt. Its all pretty situational and there is a clause stating that you can’t use any of these options as the aggressor but… how funny is this? The rules say the bite deals base damage for your size but that’s stupid since we already have a bite defined by other rules- though I might not add the grab quality from lockjaw to this.
Level 4:
Catch Off Guard can be taken here are as a feat, not as a rage power, thanks to our 2nd level archetype feature. This removes the normal -4 penalty for using an improvised melee weapons and lets us treat unarmed opponents as flat footed while we’re wielding them. So far we’ve only been able to throw improvised weapons but now we can melee with them as well. While this isn’t a huge deal, it is necessary to get something at next level.
Level 5:
Improvised Weapon Mastery is a bonus feat we get instead of improved uncanny dodge. We get to up the damage dice of any improvised weapon by 1 step, and we crit on 19-20 for x2. Bigger dice is always nice. It also states that we do not suffer any penalty for using improvised weapons, but for us that is redundant with Catch Off Guard and Throw anything.
Chair Breaker is a feat that lets us break our improvised weapons to deal an additional 1d4 damage, and gain a +4 to confirm criticals, and the extra damage is multiplied on a critical. Here we may need to get into a little philosophy over the rules- does a broken object being used as an improvised weapon count as a broken weapon and take the -2 penalty to attacks? Well, did a chair leg count as a broken chair before you picked it up to use it as an improv weapon? Or since the object is broken now.. is it just a smaller sized improvised weapon due to some pieces being lost? I imagine there could be heated debate over this but that’s not fun and this is a goblin and we’ve got 4 unique feats/abilities that cover improvised weapons which are far from unbalancing so at my table we’re just not going to worry about it at all until the object is destroyed. I hope your DM is chill about it too so you can have nice things.
Level 6:
Superstition is a rage power that will, at this level, give us a +3 to resist magic, but we cannot willingly be the target of any magic while raging. You always get the bonus, not just while raging, and you can accept friendly spells while not raging but you should roleplay much reluctance.
Improved Lockjaw is a not very clearly written ability that replaces trap sense +2. Remember when I mentioned maintaining the grapple with only our bite attack at a -20 penalty? This ability just says we can do that, but doesn’t mention a -20 penalty. Normally if something removes a penalty it also mentions that penalty, but maybe they just forgot? Anyway, that’s how I’m going to interpret it so now we if we grapple we can maintain it with both hands free, not be grappled ourselves, and do so with no penalty. Otherwise… what else would this be for?
Level 7:
Power Attack is power attack. Up until now we’ve been coming up with fun and interesting ways to keep our damage as close to relevant as possible but occasionally you just need to accept something bland and reliable. (unless your DM is cool AF and lets you use splintering weapon on improvised weapons)
DR1/- well who wouldn’t want to take less damage?
Level 8:
Unexpected Strike is a Rage Power that lets us take an attack of opportunity any time a foe moves into a threatened square- not out of.. into. Even if that movement wouldn’t normally provoke such as if they were 5ft stepping around you. How great is that? Enemy approaches to attack you and you get to attack first! It’s like winning initiative even if you lose initiative! Better yet, you can use your bite to make the AOO and possibly initiate a grapple stopping their entire turn! You can only do this once per rage so combat reflexes is not a necessary complement.
Level 9:
Reckless Abandon is a rage power that we’re taking a feat to get; it only works during rage but that’s ok. This lets us take a penalty to AC to gain an equal bonus to Attack rolls which means we can proactively manage our accuracy or simply move our power attack penalty into an AC penalty. By this level we’re probably facing things that our AC doesn’t do that much against anyway and we can probably rely on our DR and Roll with it against physical attacks well enough. More importantly… merek is a savage and doesn’t mind getting hit.
Greater LockJaw replaces trap sense +3 and lets us use our bites grab on large sized creatures. While such creatures are excessively difficult to grapple, we just picked up reckless abandon so that can help a little bit.
Level 10:
DR2/- take less damage more! Yay!
Eater of Magic is a defensive rage power that lets us reroll any failed save against magic, and if that 2nd save succeeds we get temporary hit points equal to the caster’s level or CR.
Combos and Strategies
Extra Attacks:
Savage bite gives us a natural attack to use in addition to our wielded weapon, which is like having iterative attacks right at the start. Ankle biter gives us a free bite against combat maneuvers in addition to any AOO at level 3 and a free bite while a foe is controlling a grapple. Unexpected Strike gives us an AOO on approaching foes at level 8.
Survivability:
Between our high dex, the tree runner racial trait, invested skill ranks, and the Roll with it feat we can pretty much decide when we want to take damage or not. We do become staggered but we can also choose where we roll to and possibly end up in a square from which we can threaten and still attack on our turn. If you have to do this it pairs well with a standard action to bite at full BAB once you get lockjaw.
Improvised Weapons:
At first you’ll only be able to make accurate use of thrown improv weapons. You could shuffle feats around to get it earlier but its not that great until you get chairbreaker and improv weapon mastery anyway. Once half-built, however, a chair could deal 1d10+1d4+str critting on 19-20 for x2 (multiply all of it)
It is important, however, to understand how much damage these weapons do. The handbook says you should refer to the weapons list, compare, and pick something equivalent but that’s a lot of work per item during gameplay so I made the following chart to help make snap judgments on the topic as it would pertain to a goblin. At level 5 your damage dice will get bigger for improv weapons so that’s what the 2nd chart is for. Light would be a mug, heavy would be a chair, stupid would be a table, 2h means the item is big enough that you need 2 hands to lift it with any deliberate control.
| 1-4 | Light | Heavy | Stupid |
| 1h | 1d4 | 1d6 | 1d8 |
| 2h | 1d8 | 1d10 | 1d12 |
5-10 | Light | Heavy | Stupid |
1h | 1d6 | 1d8 | 1d10 |
2h | 1d10 | 1d12 | 2d8 |
Grappling:
Now this isn’t a grapple build.. but getting some grapples in is definitely a staple. With lockjaw we get to start a grapple when we hit with our bite and, more importantly, improved lockjaw should let us maintain a grapple using our bite leaving both hands free without penalty! How awesome is that? Your foe is grappled and you aren’t! Lets go over our grapple options and how they’re different from normal grapples.
Drag- no difference.
Pin- even while pinning a foe we do not gain the grappled condition, and thanks to uncanny dodge we may also not lose our DEX bonus while pinning, depending on your DM’s interpretation.
Tie up- no difference.
Damage- we should use the Bite for this as it will get 1.5x our STR modifier.
Move actions- you can do things that require two hands.
Release- no difference, but this may be our best option in many cases. This is a free action so then we can full attack getting our weapon attacks and our bite, possibly starting another grapple, and probably ruining their action economy until your next turn. This is pretty much the ideal rinse and repeat strategy of the build.
Alternatives
The beast totem rage power tree is typically considered great for any barbarian. It is absolutely more effective than improvised weapons and frees up feats to spend on more damage sooner so if you’re playing in a higher power game, your dm doesn’t like the custom traits that support the improvised weapons, or you just can’t compromise on damage output- get all three of the beast totem rage powers as soon as they are available.
Hard Head Big teeth increases the damage die of your bite attack and so would the animal fury rage power letting you really amp up that bite to be pretty serious if you wanted. We’re already tight on rage powers, however, and we are really counting on tree runner for roll with it. Its an option, but I wouldn’t recommend it.
Splintering weapon instead of power attack. Ask your DM if a broken object could be considered a fragile object. If so then you could use chairbreaker to break it and later splintering weapon to destroy it dealing 1d4 bleed damage which would be pretty cool. I’d let it work and would totally prefer this over power attack but its totally not RAW so I didn’t put it in the build.
Savage dirty trick for your level 8 rage power. It lets you replace 1 melee attack (even as part of a full attack) with a dirty trick combat maneuver that does not provoke. You deal your STR damage, inflict a condition, and if they fail a fort save you inflict a more severe condition for 1 round. It’s a once per target per rage power but coupled with grappled from lockjaw this could really shut targets down. I think I’ll actually do this one when I play the character.
Anything you want for your level 9 feat. Really any of your level 7, 8, or 9 choices are pretty optional. Your character identity is pretty solid at this point so I made build choices that I felt would continue trends or help reach numerical breakpoints but really you have total freedom for those levels.
Roleplay
While others are looting equipment and treasure you should search for improv weapons/collectibles- actual weapons in broken or poor (fragile) condition are good enough. Try to maintain up to 20lbs of such objects as per your collector trait so you can keep enough improv weapons on hand to chairbreak without running out.
Forage/hunt – but only for barely edible things. Bugs are top priority, then fungi, then roots/tubers. Always attempt to share with the rest of the party no matter how many times they say no. Maybe even sneak some into their food because you know how important good nutrition is.
Damage random objects with your bite attack. Go under the bar table and chew on its leg, gnaw on the official’s door knob while others do the dialogue thing, or lockjaw and hang from a torch holder in the villains lair during his exposition. Find something silly to do while others be the face.
Drop 1-2-word bomb comments. To the veteran guard captain posturing superiority- <pointing to left nostril> “Booger.” To the luxurious noblewoman after returning her jewels- “feet HUGE!” To the village chief after the big rescue- <sniff> “smell… elderberry?”
With a normal character even if you’re not the “face” you still have options to move the narrative along or open up avenues for certain interests, like just talking normally, but a character like this almost seems designed to cut of you off from those options. To perform an entire dialogue in 1-2 word blurbs is nearly impossible and seems inorganic as well but… to say something profound or useful and then get immediately distracted while others continue the conversation would both fit and be a supportive action. Tug on your rogue’s cloak “want help.” Go to the Tanner, “Give Shell!” and when the npc asks wtf are you talkin about just look to the rogue again “You talk?” Don’t be afraid to help drive the narrative pursue your interests just because you’re roleplaying a non-talker.
Rage randomly, if you can afford to. Use it to break something into a collectible. Rage, dig furiously for 2 rounds, nap in the crater. Rage, climb a tree, sit on a robin’s nest for 15 minutes. Rage, do nothing in place while raging, rest. Be silly with it at the end of the adventuring day or in town. Don’t be overly obnoxious, which is easy to do and don’t be counter productive to the party’s goals but do try to walk the line. He should be almost a liability, almost.
Don’t forget to roleplay the superstition against magic and technology even before you pick up the rage power. If a party member casts a spell on you, you should immediately complain “WHAT DO!?”, “MAGIC OFF!!”, “AAAAAAGH!” or maybe rage prematurely in response. After the first few times they’ll have a new layer of meta-nuance trying to figure out the best way to buff or heal your character without causing too much hassle- like how the A-team tv show characters had to deal with Mr T’s character and his fear of flying in fun creative ways. Realistically you do need to be affected by helpful spells for the game to go well and you shouldn’t punish anyone for trying to be helpful; it is just roleplay. You can, however, have fun with it. Maybe keep an inaccurate count of how many spells touched you that day and respond with that many pranks at camp later, even if it was only enemy spells. Lockjaw someone’s bedroll until they apologize, bury their hygiene kit, add a few rocks or sticks to their pack, and you should absolutely have rifled through everyone’s gear already to compare their collections to yours.