Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Better Goblins?

Aren't goblins suppose to be following Maglubiyet?

Dont get me wrong i get the idea of the Absolute being their new master. BUT! goblins, hobgoblins and bugbears all come from the feywild and thats where Maglubiyet pickthem up. MY POINT IS, shouldnt all those 3 have fey ancestry as they come from the feywild? Maybe if larian ended up adding them as a playable race ( MODELS AND VOICES ARE ALREADY DONE ) u buff them up so they have all their features.

Maglubiyet is in the game, as for Brakkal, the goblin prisioner at the goblin camp is an actual follower, its not that goblins, hobgoblins and bugbears came to this plane by other means so i dont understand why they dont have their racials.

IDK if changing goblins to make them as like they were with +2 dex +1 cons, their disengage and stealth being bonus actions and stuff will make them more of an actual enemy but in the game as for how they are, they seem as like a peace of meat that shoots and doesnt have an hp pool.


first forum post pls no hate i wanted to put my opinion idk how to write it down better

Yes they are supposed to, but the Absolute infiltrated them and established herself as their new Goddess through mind influence, will power and fear. Plus they actually can see and feel the Absolute's power, so it doesn't take much for them to convert. And they remain loyal out of fear mostly.

However there is an imprisoned goblin in the Goblin Camp who is imprisoned exactly because he refuses to follow the Absolute and worships exclusively Maglubiyet. And if you rescue him, he says he is going to find a tribe that actually respects the old ways and doesn't follow a false Goddess.

Did someone say GOBLINS? Ok you all get my shtick by this point.

The goblins are a foolish race, they glorify immediate power, and chaotic actions. A god that is silent and invisible is only popular to the goblins while they have no alternative. Once the absolute steps in, it grants goblins mind control powers and makes them stronger. Hence the goblins joined with them- a lot of goblins can’t leave as the mind control is like the imperious curse in HP.

On the topic of playable goblins, I think I would not work. Goblins are not always evil, but I can not think of any instance of games where goblins would be shown as good. Even Styx from Orcs and Men, is not good yet willing to work with humans. Maybe if you played a backstabbing wretch that only did it for gold? I also find it unlikely that a nobody goblin would be kidnapped by the mindflayers as we know they kept them where they did.

Goblins got simple decision ...
Convert, or be exterminated ... i believe i have seen this before somewhere.

I wouldnt be against playable goblins ...
But people should in my honest opinion accept risk, that if this will ever happen, it will possibly reach quality of mod that simply adds another race, and dont care about how odd it would look that nobody notice.

Let me actually rephrase my point:

As Maglubiyet exists in this game, is part of the story so, Maglubiyet in goblin lore was the one who took the goblins, hobgoblins and bearbugs from the FAEWILD.

Whatever Larian wants to do with goblins following the Absolute i dont really care, i know they are in good hands but goblins not having their racials puts me off, clearly because u can examine them and see that they dont have "Fey ancestry" or they use their Goblin barrage etc. Its like seeing an spider getting entagled with its own web OR A CAT WITH NIGHT VISION (bc in dnd they dont have it).

Well in Of Orcs and Men, the Humans are Straight up the Bad Guys so.......that's not a great Example. Goblins in Warcraft run the full Gambit of Morality, in particular Gazlowe is well liked among both his people and The Horde, often giving Discounts for his friends and paying life Insurance in full without haggling when workers are killed.
In Age of Wonders 3 in the Elf Campaign one of your heroes is a Goblin Theocrat whose entire shtick is helping protect the innocent.

But most importantly of all;
Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear has a True Neutral Goblin Companion, That's the same series as this.

While I don't think adding goblins as playable would work, I like idea of making goblins a little more challenging with your (lore-appropriate) suggestions. One might ask if this makes some fights too hard, like the very first time you encounter them when they attack the mercenaries in front of the grove. But Larian could change a couple goblins in that fight to "wounded goblin" to reduce their stats a bit and make the fight easier, or reduce amount of opponents.

Then, later in the game we could go up against (or ally with) a whole tribe of non-Absolute following goblins.

If you are hoping bg3 will follow the rules or conventions as written in 5th edition i have sour news for you

.........So anyone on the fact we had a Baldur's Gate Companion that was a True Neutral Goblin?

What do you want to know about her? It was a minor character in an expansion pack that barely related to BG1, and made by a totally different developer almost 20 years after the real Baldurs Gate. As many other Beamdog characters, she was pretty meh!, at least she wasn't god awful, as many of their other companions were.

I meant the fact a Goblin exists who doesn't act like any of the others, thus making companions or player race viable.

Goblins got Fey Ancestry as a racial ability in a very recent book called Monsters of the Multiverse. This game was already in production for over a year when it came out.

The racial abilities BG3 is using seem to mostly come from the Player's Handbook and Volo's Guide to Monsters. Larian likely didn't know that Wizards of the Coast were planning to throw Volo's Guide into the trash and replace it with an entirely new book with new racials.

As for playable goblins.. Of course it'd work. They're playable in 5e and have been playable since 1989, way back in First Edition. They player goblin would just be from a different tribe not connected to The Absolute. If we can have playable Drow, who are also connected to The Absolute and are traditionally evil, I don't see any good reason to entirely exclude goblins from a purely narrative point of view.

Including the risk that they wouldnt be threated (and maybe not even recognited) as Goblins by comoners?

At the very least, drows can pass as weird colored elves from afar. I don't know how racism works in DnD but I would more easily trust someone who looks somewhat like me rather than someone who looks like a tribalistic Gollum.

I think that just makes you a poster child for racism itself, Snowram ^.^

That's the Point.

Yeah, I know what I said may sound questionable. Thing is, Faerun is a world where death is there at every steps, manicheism is a feature and goblins often put heads on pointy sticks. I wouldn't risk it even from afar.

Read it again pal.
I believe the point is exact oposite.

Oops, you right.