it's widely known that Larian actually lowered enemy AC because they thought people missing was unfun. However, they increased enemy HP to compensate, which ALSO lead to a new balancing problem with how cantrip damage is less impactful than they normally are
I really wish this myth would die, because its not (and has never been) true. It was started because someone on reddit looked at one or 2 goblins, noticed that they don't have 15 AC and 7 HP and decided that because a goblin in tabletop has 2d6 hp, of which the average is 7 and has 15 AC, that the reason must be because Larian changed Goblins because "missing is not fun." At a very vague, surface level analysis, this seems like a fair assumption, except it does not hold up to any substantive level of analysis. For reference,
here is a goblin.To begin with, where does that 15 AC come from? 11 from the Leather Armor, 2 from Dexterity and 2 from a Shield. Great. This means that if a Goblin is not wearing Leather Armor, or has lower Dexterity, or does not have a Shield, they will not have 15 AC. If you believe that the world of Faerun is in any way realistic, you will find it possible to believe that not all Goblins are identical and all wearing the exact same gear, ergo, the equipment lineup for Goblins can vary. This is, by the way, exactly where most of the Goblins who are missing AC, are missing AC from. They do not have a shield equipped.
Well, how about HP? Some months ago I got into an argument with someone on these forums about this very topic and I went to the effort of recording the HP of all the Goblins in the EA and averaging their HP. That includes the HP of boss Goblins, which have HP >20. So, including Goblins which were specifically designed to be bosses, the average HP for Goblins turned out to be 11.75. 11.75, happens to be a value within the 2d6 range. There are many Goblins with 3-4 HP, there are also a couple with 15 HP or higher values. 2d6 happens to be a range, not a fixed value, so even if you look at just the smaller pleb tier goblins, you can expect some to be at the lower end of that range and others to be at the higher end, with some deviation.
So, what really happened? What I think happened is Larian decided to try and make the Goblins "believable," and gave them some character, by making them not all identical, although there is some symmetry in how they are set up. There are Goblins which use bows and they have a set of gear and a set value of HP. There are Goblins who fight in close combat and they have a different set of gear and a different value for HP. Larian created a bunch of Goblin archetypes, each of which had a different equipment and HP total, to reflect a believable "character" for that Goblin. Basically, they tried to give the Goblins a bit more depth than just being something that you kill. Some of these Goblins, have 15 AC and above 12 HP, because it fits with the character. Basically, what Larian did was what you could imagine a DM doing if they were trying to create an immersive world, creating backstories for random enemy Goblins.
And as far as encounter design goes, does it really matter if its a goblin with 12 HP and 13 AC, or some other creature that has those stats. What matters is they are trying to tell a story, using a particular monster group and for the purposes of the fight they want an enemy with a particular stat block. Does it make more sense to just modify a Goblin to the stats you need and then justify it in the story by giving the Goblins a bit more character, or should you just scrap the encounter entirely because the enemy type you want doesn't have those stats in the player handbook. I suspect many of the people complaining about this and requiring a strict 7 hp 15 ac goblin, aren't spending much time thinking about this from the mindset of a designer and are putting too much emphasis on a strict adherence to an arbitrary stat block. When designing an encounter, your first focus should be on what it takes to challenge a player from a mechanics pov and from a story pov, the first thing you should think of is what type of enemy matches the type of story you are trying to tell. If the type of enemy you need for your story is a Goblin, but the player happens to be a bit strong when encountering them, you either have the choice of scrapping your story and going with something else, or modifying that goblin's stat block.
