The very first encounter in Lost Mine of Phandelver, the popular first-ever published adventure for 5th Edition, which came out before even the Player's Handbook as part of the first Starter Set, is against a group of goblins in the forest.
And this is pretty traditional. Many, many a D&D adventure starts with a fight against Goblins, who are sort of your classic, standard, not-terribly-threatening but still nasty creatures who aren't going to get along with established society.
Interestingly, their alignment has been changed from Neutral Evil to Chaotic Neutral - and I actually really like this, as I think it matches the image most people have of goblins - chaos, mayhem, and mischief are all key to the goblin identity, but they need not be overtly malevolent. (I'm reminded of the "Goblin's Code" created by Brennan Lee Mulligan for his character in A Court of Fey and Flowers, which includes such verses as "A true goblin never does as he's told, never tells as he's done, and never follows a rule - least of all this one."
While goblins have often been inducted into the ranks of playable species/ancestries of a lot of RPGs, probably just as often as they are with other classically villainous creatures like Orcs, the new monster manual pushes them a bit farther from humanity, making them Fey rather than humanoids.
As such, Goblins actually become the perfect rank-and-file fey creatures, beings that aren't quite the pretty fairy-folk that Sprites and Pixies are. This association makes them obvious minions for monsters like Hags, but you can also, of course, continue using them in their traditional D&D role as being warriors worshipping Maglubiyet. It's just that they, like elves, have origins in the Feywild.
Still, they should continue to work quite well as "baby's first combat encounter." (Though Kobolds also share that role quite well.)
Given their primarily low-level role, goblins aren't terribly complex. I would still probably treat them as the kind of creature you could easily use with the various humanoid statblocks, though, and would simply change the creature type to Fey, if you wanted more powerful goblins.
Goblins' Bugbear and Hobgoblin cousins were also changed to Fey, but while these can also be fought at very low levels, I want to focus on these little green guys.
The standard Goblin is now named the Goblin Warrior, and the Goblin Boss makes a return. Joining them are the lower-CR Goblin Minion, as well as the CR 3 Goblin Hexer.
Comparing the Goblin Warrior with the 2014 Goblin, which are both CR 1/4 (and the former meant to be the update of the latter,) the Goblin Warrior has 10 HP, up from 7. The only other change is that they do another d4 of damage with their attacks if they have advantage (for example, from hiding - both versions have +6 to Stealth, reflecting expertise). Essentially, they're vaguely Rogueish.
So, well and truly, the Goblin Warrior serves the same role as the old Goblin, but it will take slightly more damage to take them down (3 HP isn't much even at level 1, but it could mean the difference between hitting them twice and three times) and they can deal more damage.
A Goblin Warrior will want to use their Nimble Escape as much as they can to Hide, though they might find themselves using it more to get out of melee. Given that a party could easily find themselves fighting multiple Goblin Warriors at level 1, it could be quite risky if they get an attack off with advantage - 1d6+1d4+2 is an average of 8 damage, which could very easily take down a 1st level Wizard or Sorcerer in a single hit, and with a higher roll, could take down any 1st level character.
If you want the minimum-threat goblin, there's the Goblin Minion. These things are CR 1/8, and have only daggers, and no bonus damage if they get advantage. Their AC is only 12, and they have only 7 HP. They still have their Nimble Escape bonus action. But outside of a crit, their maximum possible damage is 6, so they won't be taking down a PC in a single hit.
But you can also use about twice as many of these in a fight as you can use Goblin Warriors, so if you want a true swarm of foes, you can use them (honestly, I think two Goblin Minions are more dangerous than a Goblin Warrior).
The Goblin Boss returns, being CR 1. The Goblin Boss' old disadvantage on its second attack has gone away, and it can also use a Shortbow instead of Javelins (which are also allowed with its Multiattack). Like the Goblin Warrior, they also get an extra 1d4 damage if they have advantage. Redirect Attack now works on any ally that's Small or Medium, rather than only other Goblins. Otherwise things are unchanged. Oh, and they have a 15 Dexterity, up from 14, which does essentially nothing.
Again, this will be a little deadlier, and the Shortbow has much better range than the Javelin.
The Goblin Hexer is basically a brand-new stat block (unless it's an adaptation of something from Volo's/MPMM). At CR 3, this can start to be either a dangerous boss in tier 1 or a serious minion for a boss in tier 2. Other than expertise in stealth, the Hexer doesn't have the Nimble Escape or the bonus damage from attacking at advantage. This is your spellcasting goblin, which has a hybrid melee/ranged attack in their Hex Stick, which deals an average of 12 psychic damage. They can multiattack with the stick twice, or they can replace one of the attacks with a spell, which includes Minor Illusion at will, or Blindness/Deafness, Faerie Fire, or Grease once a day each - all of which are fun, mischievous spells that feel very Goblin-ish, as each feels like it could be a prank pulled on the party. Finally, they have a defensive reaction, Jinx, which lets them cancel out a successful attack against them if the attacker fails a DC 13 Wisdom saving throw.
This reaction is a fun way to increase their survivability, especially if you cancel out a critical hit, but the DC is low enough that it won't always work (if it worked too often, it'd get extremely annoying).
I will say that if you really have your party fight a bunch of goblins as their very first encounter of a campaign, be aware that things could get pretty dire with some unlucky rolls. Even an easy encounter can afford to have one Goblin Warrior, or two Goblin Minions per player character at level 1.
Past level 1, I think I'd feel far less worried about these things taking characters down before they can have a turn.
But hey, every 1st level fight is potentially deadly.
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