One odd idea I’ve had is to make a bestiary for a 5e campaign that caps out at 10th level. In order to maintain the variety of monsters available, I would take the full range of monsters and cut their Challenge Ratings in half. This would solve a couple of personal quibbles with the game as written, such as gnolls and orcs being absolute murderers of 1st level characters. If you also slowed the rate of advancement, you could pack a lot more potential adventure into those lower levels and give those lower powered characters more to do than fight rats.

The one trick is what to do about monsters that already have low CRs. Standard goblins are only CR 1/4, but even at that level, they can wipe out a 1st party if they have hot dice and places to hide. Tuning them down to CR 1/8 involved ditching their shields (I wonder how many DMs remember to adjust the AC of monsters that have a choice between shields and bows?), losing a hit die, and dialing down their Dexterity a notch. The Dex adjustment carries over to their armor class, to-hit bonus, and damage. I didn’t think that going from CR 1/4 to 1/8 would make that much of a difference, but I really like it. Most of these lesser goblins are going to die from one solid hit, and they’re less punishing to squishy player characters. They feel like proper goblins to me, and they can do double duty as 4e style minions when the characters reach higher levels.

Thinking this through the other way, I also made the greater goblin. They got an extra hit die, a bump to their Constitution, and Sneak Attack. And that’s it! That’s all they needed to make a big jump from CR 1/4 to CR 1. These are killer goblins who didn’t want to go into management and become goblin bosses. I like them too. I was tempted to go even farther and make a CR 2 or 3 goblin, but things get silly quickly when the numbers exceed the story. I think if you wanted to make a higher CR goblin, a humanoid rogue template with multiple levels would better serve your needs. Maybe I’ll make one of those at some point too. I was tempted to make a CR 4 fiendish goblin, but that would involve more proper monster building, so it will have to wait until another day.

My plan is to keep at this project weekly and collect these in PDF at some point. Stay tuned for more weird weak monsters.

Lesser Goblin

Small humanoid (goblinoid), neutral evil

Armor Class 12 (leather armor)

Hit Points 3 (1d6)

Speed 30 ft.

STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA

8 (-1) 12 (+1) 10 (+0) 10 (+0) 8 (-1) 8 (-1)

Skills Stealth +4

Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 9

Languages Common, Goblin

Challenge 1/8 (25 XP)

Nimble Escape. The goblin can take the Disengage or Hide action as a bonus action on each of its turns.

Actions

Scimitar. Melee Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 4 (1d6 + 1) slashing damage.

Shortbow. Ranged Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, reach 80/320 ft., one target. Hit: 4 (1d6 + 1) piercing damage.

Greater Goblin

Small humanoid (goblinoid), neutral evil

Armor Class 15 (leather armor, shield)

Hit Points 13 (3d6 + 3)

Speed 30 ft.

STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA

8 (-1) 14 (+2) 12 (+1) 10 (+0) 8 (-1) 8 (-1)

Skills Stealth +6

Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 9

Languages Common, Goblin

Challenge 1 (200 XP)

Nimble Escape. The goblin can take the Disengage or Hide action as a bonus action on each of its turns.

Sneak Attack. Once per turn, the goblin deals an extra 3 (1d6) damage when it hits a target with a weapon attack and has advantage on the attack roll, or when the target is within 5 feet of an ally of the goblin that isn’t incapacitated and the goblin doesn’t have disadvantage on the attack roll.

Actions

Scimitar. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d6 + 2) slashing damage.

Shortbow. Ranged Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 80/320 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d6 + 2) piercing damage.