Useful things

Goblin society outside room 9 has never been particularly commerce minded, and inside the dungeon currency is an abstract concept, so barter and trade are the norm. The basic unit of trade is the 'useful thing', and on occasion spare or rare useful things, and plausibly unique useful things.

Some useful things might have a material characteristic e.g. useful thing (wood), or useful thing (iron), which mat be relevant in making items out of useful things - see below.

Typical useful things might include a short length of rope, a solid (ish) plank of wood, a shaped piece of stone, half a dozen nails, a broken bottle, a slightly mouldy melon, a door handle, several pages from a book with illustrations, a shard of a mirror, a bucket lid etc etc

For ease of play a useful thing, no matter what material, has the trading power of a gold piece in the rulebook. It is however more normal for goblins to make their own items, weapons and armor - well kind of weapons of armor out of useful things.

Making things
Gobline like to make items out of useful things, and at worst they will be armed with improvised weapons and (most of) armor. With an interesting story, or description from a player, they can make almost any item from the main rulebook - albeit it with a -4 attack / skill modified ala the Improvised Weapons rules on p144.

Goblins with appropriate skills and/or feats can make almost decent weapons, (sort of) armor, traps and tools - although again the story / description is important. Some special items might require specific useful things to make similar to the crafting of magic items p538 - 553. The idea of goblins actually finding magic items or useful things (magic) and then making other items and devices out of them is kind of terrifying.

Image above found here; Wizard of the Coast - ten things you might not know about goblins.

Spawning Goblins

Paizo publishes a reasonably strong guide - the Goblins of Golarion which in the absense of anything else seems like a good place to start. Or in essence;

Goblin racial traits
Goblins are defined by their class levels—they do not possess racial Hit Dice. All goblins have the following racial traits.

–2 Strength, +4 Dexterity, –2 Charisma: Goblins are fast, but weak and unpleasant to be around.

Players start with base attributes at 10, modified as above, with an additional 10 points to spend - no one said you were heroes.

Small: Goblins are Small creatures and gain a +1 size bonus to their AC, a +1 size bonus on attack rolls, a –1 penalty on combat maneuver checks and to CMD, and a +4 size bonus on Stealth checks.

Fast: Goblins are fast for their size, and have a base speed of 30 feet.

Darkvision: Goblins can see in the dark up to 60 feet.

Skilled: Goblins gain a +4 racial bonus on Ride and Stealth checks.

Languages: Goblins begin play speaking Goblin. Goblins with high Intelligence scores can
learn additional languages as the campaign progresses.

Players start at 1st level, with skills and abilities of a 1st level warrior - hey noone said life was easy at the bottom. i.e.

• Hit points 5 + Con mod
• Base attack +1
• Saves - Fort +2, Ref +0, Will +0
• Skill ranks 2 + Int
• Base skills - Climb, Craft, Intimidate and as per feats below.
• Proficiency with simple & martial weapons, and all armor and shield - but no you've not got any of these things.

Players get one standard feat and one unique bonus goblin feat - which replaces any arguing about traits from the AdvPhb or the Goblin book.

Please upload your newly spawned Goblin as a Google doc (or is that a Goblin.doc) here, for when you revert to your Goblin roots and forget to bring your character sheet along to a session. There is a template document you can use here.

And don't worry you're going to either advance quickly or die young. But maybe, just maybe, you'll get to advance to one of the heroic classes - like fighter or rogue or something bigger. More likely you'll get fed to the Ochre Jelly in room 15.