Hobgoblin

Medium humanoid (goblinoid), lawful evil

Armor Class
18
chain mail, shield
Hit Points
11
2d8 + 2
Speed
30 ft.
  • STR +1
  • DEX +1
  • CON +1
  • INT 0
  • WIS 0
  • CHA -1
Senses
darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 10
Languages
Common, Goblin
Challenge 1/2 100 XP · Proficiency +2

Traits

Martial Advantage

Once per turn, the hobgoblin can deal an extra 7 (2d6) damage to a creature it hits with a weapon attack if that creature is within 5 feet of an ally of the hobgoblin that isn't incapacitated.

Actions

Longsword

Melee Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d8 + 1) slashing damage, or 6 (1d10 + 1) slashing damage if used with two hands.

Longbow

Ranged Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, range 150/600 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d8 + 1) piercing damage.

How to run it

Martial Advantage is the reason hobgoblins are frightening and goblins are not. Once per turn, 2d6 extra damage against a target standing next to another hobgoblin. Two hobgoblins working the same character deal about 24 damage a round between them, which will drop most level 2 characters.

They fight in formation and hold the line. Hobgoblins do not scatter, do not flee early, and will deliberately move to set up each other's Martial Advantage. Play them like soldiers, because that is what they are.

Building the encounter

Four hobgoblins is a hard fight for a party of four at level 3, and considerably harder than the CR total suggests once they start pairing up.

They want a chokepoint or a formation they can hold, not a scattered ambush. A shield wall in a doorway with longbows behind it is the encounter this stat block was built for.

What to pair it with

Goblins as skirmishers in front of a hobgoblin line is the classic goblinoid warband, and it works because the goblins provide the bodies that make Martial Advantage trigger.

A worg cavalry element or a bugbear as a shock trooper both fit the same military logic. Hobgoblins pair well with anything that behaves like an army.

Reskins

Disciplined, armoured, drilled infantry. Legionaries, temple guards, a warlord's household troops, or an insect-folk soldier caste. The military framing is the whole identity; the goblinoid part is incidental.

AC 18 is the number that defines them at the table. Anything you reskin them into should look heavily armoured, or players will feel cheated by their miss rate.

Commonly played wrong

Martial Advantage needs an ally within 5 feet of the TARGET, not of the hobgoblin, and the ally does not have to be another hobgoblin. A party's own charmed companion, or a goblin, or a wolf will do.

It is once per turn, not once per round, which matters if a hobgoblin gets a reaction attack on someone else's turn. That is a real edge case and it comes up more often than you would expect.

Compared to others at this CR

At CR 1/2 the hobgoblin and the orc are the same rating and play nothing alike. AC 18 versus AC 13 changes the entire feel of the fight: the orc is a punching bag that hits hard, the hobgoblin is a wall that punishes bad positioning.

Against a level 2 party, four hobgoblins are meaningfully more dangerous than four orcs, because Martial Advantage scales with their numbers and the greataxe does not.

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