Slayer's Guide to Hobgoblins
The Slayer's Guide to Hobgoblins is the first product from d20 publisher Mongoose Publishing. The book is part of a series called the Slayer's Guides, each such guide covering a monstrous race featured in the standard D&D set of creatures.
When I first heard of the Slayer's Guide series, the concept seemed very interesting to me. I run my own game world, but sometimes little details fall by the wayside. These books could be used to fill in blanks about the cultures of races that I use but dedicate little time to, which seemed like a concept that I would get more mileage out of than a published adventure.
In the case of this book, the creature is the hobgoblin. In the D&D game, hobgoblins are relatives of goblins, the same size or slightly larger than humans; they are orderly and warlike in nature. The book covers a variety of topics concerning the race: physiology, society, warfare, role-playing, adventure hooks, rules for PCs, and a fort inhabited by these brutal creatures.
A First Look
The Slayers Guide to Hobgoblins (SGH) is a 32-page, full-size booklet. The cover is color and has a nice picture of a hobgoblin decked out in plate armor standing in front of a hobgoblin standard bearer and a variety of hobgoblin troops.
The interior is black and white. The interior artwork is appropriate, but not necessarily keyed to depict the topic at hand. The artwork is average to excellent. I found the work by illustrator Chris Quilliams especially good, including some nice facial sketches of hobgoblins, a nice anatomy sketch on the interior cover, and some well-done scenes featuring hobgoblins.
I do have some concerns about the use of space. The margins and the font size seem about average for the industry, and the inside covers are utilized; however, header text was done in a very large font, and the paragraph spacing is rather wide on some pages.
Most surprising, though, is that the book dedicates a whole page to a copy of the d20 license. This is strange because there is no requirement for d20 publishers to include the d20 license with their products, only the Open Game License. I am uncertain whether they did this out of confusion over the requirements or to pad the book.
A Deeper Look
SGH leads off with an introduction, stating what the book--and the Slayer's Guides in general--is all about. The introduction describes hobgoblins as a "worthy foe," a dangerous martial race worthy of respect. That concept fits well with the depictions in my campaign and the D&D game in general.
The next section discusses the physiology of hobgoblins. In addition to some exposition regarding the hobgoblin' s physique and senses, the section discusses the relationship of the hobgoblin to the other goblinoid races, the possible origins of the hobgoblin race, diet, life cycle, and psychology. As would be expected, the hobgoblin's warlike attitude pervades their makeup.
The next section, already lightly touched upon, is the society of the hobgoblins. This section describes how the hobgoblins are divided into tribes; how their tribal command structure works; and how challenges are used to resolve disputes within the tribe, the disposition of wealth, military structure, mercenary bands, and religion.
The section describing the system of resolving challenges is interesting. The tribal challenge method fits the nature of the hobgoblins well and presents interesting plot possibilities. As good as it is, I had hoped to see more of this sort of thing. A more developed code of honor for such an orderly militant race seemed natural to me and could be used to give them even more flavor.
After the section on society, a section is dedicated wholly to how hobgoblins conduct warfare. This includes a discussion of troop types, the use of ambushes, and how combat against hobgoblins is likely to run.
One page is spent discussing the roleplaying of hobgoblins. The primary points touched upon are the intelligence and martial nature of hobgoblins.
A little over a page is devoted to adventure ideas involving hobgoblins. I honestly cannot say I am all that impressed with these. For example, the first adventure suggests that the players investigate disappearances along a well-traveled caravan route that is being raided by hobgoblins. I would be surprised if most GMs could not come up with that one on their own.
A small section is devoted to playing hobgoblins as player characters. This section seems rather odd to me and deviates from standard D&D / d20 conventions in a number of ways. First off, their ability score modifiers do not match the ones provided for hobgoblins in the DMG. Since those modifiers are not balanced like other PC races, it may not be surprising that they changed them. The modifiers that they did assign, however, are allocated in odd increments, which deviates from the conventions used by all other races, monstrous or not. They are given save modifiers, which the DMG hobgoblin does not have, and access to extra class skills, which is not done for any other 1 HD race.
A few pages are dedicated to the Graven Hill border fort, a well illustrated hobgoblin lair, complete with a nice map and picture, tribal structure, and stat blocks for leaders.
The last section (aside from the licenses in the back) is a "hobgoblin rules reference." It includes some standardized, ready-to-use hobgoblin stat blocks. It also includes two new hobgoblin spells: fortitude (which reduces damage inflicted to nearby hobgoblins in combat) and vengeance of the mighty one (which gives hobgoblins within 25 feet of the warband's banner bonuses in combat).
Conclusions
Alas, I was a little disappointed by this book. It struck me as rather vanilla. It does not make a bad starting point for a hobgoblin culture in a game. Yet, for the most part, it seemed like fairly straightforward extrapolations from the existing material on hobgoblins. While on a basic level that is a good approach--I much prefer that to outlandish extrapolations--I would have liked to see more creative takes on hobgoblin codes of honor and characters.
Another problem with SGH is that it does not appear to use the d20 rules well. Since the book seemed primarily concerned with exposition, it did not utilize highly mechanical constructs like prestige classes to expand upon hobgoblins. Even its treatment of basic classes, though, felt rather uninspired.
For example, SGH implies that an overwhelming majority of hobgoblin PCs and NPCs are warriors, fighters, adepts, rogues, and clerics. Although it mentions hobgoblin scouts, it does not even consider the possibility that hobgoblins might be rangers. Even the fairly dry NPC generation tables in the DMG imply that many hobgoblins are monks and wizards, as well as the occasional barbarian, druid, or sorcerer. Those charts inspired me to imagine hobgoblin war wizards wearing rune-covered robes and strange fetishes. Alas, SGH presented nothing so unique and interesting.
Yet he book is not all that expensive and is rather well laid out and attractive. It still may prove a worthwhile investment for someone who intends to use hobgoblins in their game, but it can probably afford some sprucing up.
-Alan D. Kohler
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