Welcome back for another Monster Monday, part of my regularly scheduled Pathfinder 2e content. Today we’re looking at one variant of a classic low level enemy. You know them, you love them, you’ve probably even played in a party with one. We’re talking about goblins—specifically, the goblin war chanter.
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Overview
A common creature type at the lower levels of play, and a commonly underestimated threat, goblins are a sapient race capable of many things. As enemies though, they tend to fill the role of comic relief foes for the party to roll over in what amounts to a tutorial. While they do tend to fit that bill when not playing to their strengths, a cunningly played goblin warband can bring a surprisingly difficult challenge to an appropriately leveled party.
Sporting a mostly balanced array of ability scores, the goblin war chanter’s physical stats all hover at or just around the Moderate levels for a level 1 creature, while its Intelligence and Wisdom are right around Low. Its Charisma is its saving grace, being High and keying to several skills it will want to make good use of as well as its spellcasting.
These skills include a modest Low Occultism score, not likely to be a centerpiece to the creature but narratively allowing it to fill the “smart one” role in its group. In combat, however, it will make good use of its just-below-Moderate scores in Acrobatics and Stealth quite well, and its Moderate Deception and Performance scores will let it attempt to trick or, as we see later, distract its foes.
Defensively, the war chanter is surprisingly resilient. Its HP is only Low, though admittedly the very highest number possible to remain in that range. And though it also suffers from a Low Will save, its Fortitude is Moderate and its Reflex sits 1 above Moderate. These saves are most commonly used to avoid damage, and combining them with the chanter’s AC—which sits at 1 higher than High—counterbalances the Low HP value nicely.
The war chanter needs this bulk, as even though it has a bow (and can use it rather well), its unique abilities often force it to be in the front lines. Though its offense rests mostly in the High-accuracy, Low-damage range, it is perfectly capable of taking potshots with a bow from stealth to capitalize on its deadly trait, or flanking with its allies to make use of its (and their) backstabbing dogslicers for extra damage.
Where it truly shines, however, is in supporting its allies. As you might expect of a war chanter, it has many bard-like abilities to empower its friends and hinder its enemies. Chief among these is the inspire courage cantrip, a potent buff to accuracy and damage to basically all of its allies. This, combined with its soothe spell to keep allies in the fight and its Goblin Song ability, which allows it to Perform against two creatures’ Will DCs to potentially distract them and lower both their Will saves (good for a Demoralizing goblin commando) and their Perception checks (great for any goblin, as they like to fight from stealth) makes the war chanter a powerhouse support character, all things considered.
Lastly, and further augmenting its durability (and the durability or even offense of any of its allies), its Goblin Scuttle reaction allows it and all of its goblin buddies to Step as a reaction when a goblin ally ends a move action adjacent to it. This lets the war chanter move away from a fighter as its commando ally moves in to fight, or even to move near a friend to let them Step into melee with an adventurer who Stepped away from it.
Recall Knowledge
When dealing with enemies in a family like the “goblin” enemies, especially humanoids who might all dress differently, one easy avenue for providing erroneous or false information is just in the misidentification of that type of goblin the players are seeing. With the possibility of a goblin warrior, war chanter, pyro, or commando, and the unique abilities of each type of creature requiring potentially different preparations, engaging with a player’s Dubious Knowledge feat can be as simple as:
True: Among the band of goblins, you spy a war chanter, a goblin capable of supporting its allies and distracting foes so they can hide in battle
Erroneous: The goblins’ armaments suggest they are all warriors and commandos, favoring straightforward martial combat
This gives less concrete information or misdirection than I normally put in these Recall Knowledge segments, but that’s okay. Players being able to know the composition of the enemies’ roles is an important part of gathering information as well, and for a RK check made as part of a sneaky scouting mission, getting accurate or inaccurate information seems to me to be a perfectly valid approach.
True: Goblin war chanters are known for their catchy, distracting songs, which they use to confound their opponents and cover the sounds of their allies’ sneaky approach…
Erroneous: …but they lack the spellcasting abilities of true bards.
This one’s more like my usual fare. It’s simple and straightforward, letting the player know what the chanter might do for its allies, hiding the fact that it might drop a healing spell on an injured friend, and it’s even phrased in such a way that a player might not even be able to discern that they failed and are getting some Dubious Knowledge.
Conclusion
Goblin war chanters are in no way a solo threat. As a level 1 creature, even against a level 1 party it would be nothing more than a slightly dangerous roadblock. What’s more, it wouldn’t be able to really make good use of its core unique abilities that set it apart from other goblins.
However, in a group of goblins portrayed and played as a cunning, dangerous warband, a war chanter effectively makes every one of its allies a higher-level threat with its buff spells and party debuffing, and a group of goblins holding attention in melee while a couple of warriors or commandos hide off to the side, taking potshots against flat-footed enemies with their shortbows, can threaten even a somewhat higher-level party.
It is perfectly valid to use weak enemies as a tutorial, or to give the party a sense of how powerful they are. It’s a great technique, and if you want to use goblins for that purpose, you can. But if you want them to be a bit more threatening, leaning into their strengths as guerilla fighters who attack en masse, targeting weak creatures and forcing the heroes to make difficult tactical and moral decisions, then a war chanter or two scattered about can serve as a priority target that forces the players to address it.
And that’s all for today! Come join us for another Workshop Wednesday where I create the Hero-God Devotee, a template for exceptional goblins who seek to emulate one of the four goblin Hero-Gods and have been granted a fraction of their might for their worship.
Sustain a Spell 