Goblin 9
Goblin 9 — The Encounter
Crouching marksman of the goblin warren, patient at the kill · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Goblin 9
They call him the Patient One in the warren-tongue, though every camp keeps three or four of his kind and the name belongs to whichever still draws breath. Where common goblins shriek and swarm, the marksman does the opposite: it goes still as a stone behind a log or barrow-lip, slows its breathing the way the old hunters taught, and lets the war-band do the screaming. Its craft is the long bolt loosed before the foe even knows a fight has begun, aimed at the one who carries the torch, the staff, or the healer's satchel. Camp lore holds that a marksman who has killed forty enemies earns a notch filed into the crossbow's tiller and the right to choose its own perch. Such a goblin is no champion and knows it; left alone it flees. But salted among a press of snarling kin or perched above a chieftain's hall, it turns a brawl into a slaughter, one careful shot at a time.
Run Goblin 9 in Sixty Seconds
- Hold, don't open hot: the goblin's first round should be a Deadeye Crouch shot from cover at the party's caster or healer, not a charge. If it moves, it loses the +2 and the cover-piercing.
- Kill-priority: it always shoots the most fragile high-value target it can see, the one with a staff, satchel, or focus, ignoring tanks.
- When bloodied: it stops trading shots, uses Nimble Escape to Disengage and Hide, and relocates to fresh cover rather than dying in place.
- Three ways to run it: as a lone scout that snipes once and flees; as a firing line of three behind a melee wall; or perched above a boss fight, taxing the party's positioning every round.
- Don't run it solo: this is an add-on. Pair it with brutes or a flagship boss so the party can't simply rush the sniper down.
Goblin 9
Small humanoid (goblinoid), neutral evil
CR 2 · 450 XP · GUIDELINENimble Escape. The goblin can take the Disengage or Hide action as a bonus action on each of its turns.
Deadeye Crouch. Signature. If the goblin does not move on its turn, its ranged attacks gain a +2 bonus to the attack roll and ignore half cover and three-quarters cover. While crouched and stationary it is treated as having taken the Hide action against creatures it has not yet fired upon this round.
Actions
Multiattack. The goblin makes two attacks with its heavy crossbow, or one heavy crossbow attack and one scimitar attack.
Heavy Crossbow. Ranged Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, range 100/400 ft., one target. Hit: 9 (1d10+3) piercing damage. On a critical hit, the target also has its speed halved until the end of its next turn (a bolt through the leg).
Scimitar. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d6+3) slashing damage.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Fade to Cover. When a creature ends its turn within 30 feet of the goblin, the goblin can use its reaction to move up to half its speed toward cover without provoking opportunity attacks.
A wiry goblin sniper hunkers on its haunches, cheek pressed to a worn heavy crossbow, a fan of fletched bolts bristling from a back-quiver. It picks a target, holds its breath, and waits.
Goblin 9, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINESpotter's Mark (signature). As a bonus action, the companion marks one creature it can see within 100 feet. The next ranged attack an ally makes against that creature before the start of the companion's next turn has advantage.
Actions
Heavy Crossbow. Ranged Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, range 100/400 ft., one target. Hit: 9 (1d10+3) piercing damage.
Reactions
Cover Me. When an adjacent ally is hit by a melee attack, the companion can use its reaction to move up to half its speed and shove the attacker, ending the ally's grappled or threatened state if it then moves away.
Bound to a patient hand, the marksman becomes the eyes of the party: it names the target, and the party's arrows find it.
Guideline numbers — formula-tuned and read from the miniature's design, not yet table-proven. Tell us how it ran in the comments.
How It Fights — by Tier
Same creature, scaled threat. The traits never change; only the numbers move.
Open from cover and stationary so Deadeye Crouch lands the first bolt on the squishiest target the party reveals (caster or healer). Kill-priority is whatever can heal or buff. Pair it with melee goblins or a hobgoblin captain so the party must choose between the wall in front of them and the sniper picking them apart from the rear.
Same play, scaled: post it on a balcony or ridge and have it Nimble Escape to a new perch each round so melee never closes. Run two or three of these as a firing line behind a brute. When bloodied it Disengages and flees to fresh cover rather than trading blows.
Use it as an elite sharpshooter in a goblin lair or warren ambush, never alone. Stack it with a bigger threat (an ogre, a goblin king, a bound fiend) so the party's casters are forced under cover while the brute advances. It opens on spellcasters, fades between shots, and only melees if cornered.
Put Goblin 9 on the table
Download the presupported STL and run the fight tonight — the model, and the encounter that comes with it.
Get the STL on MyMiniFactory →Clay Cyanide Companion Rules v1
How a bound creature acts
- A companion acts on its owner's initiative, immediately after the owner.
- It uses the Companion block above — roughly ×0.6 HP and damage, no recharge abilities, and at most one reaction trait.
- It moves freely; it takes its Action only while its owner is conscious.
- At 0 HP a companion is broken, not dead — restored on a long rest unless your table rules otherwise.
Original Clay Cyanide material © Clay Cyanide LLC — explicitly not the non-SRD official sidekick rules.
Questions, Asked at the Table
What CR is Goblin 9?
Its home tier is CR 2 (450 XP), tuned for a level 1-4 party as a ranged skirmisher. The tier table also gives scaled CR 6 and CR 11 versions for level 5-10 and 11-15 tables, with identical traits and only the numbers raised.
Can Goblin 9 be a companion or ally?
Yes. As The Patient One, Bound it becomes a spotter-sniper companion (AC 14, 27 HP) that marks a target for the party's ranged attackers with Spotter's Mark and lays down covering fire. It is best for a martial-leaning party that wants a designated marksman rather than another front-liner.
Why isn't it solo_capable?
It has no legendary actions and no punishing reaction loop, so a four-PC party out-acts it instantly. It is built as an add-on, deadly when salted into a mob or posted above a flagship boss, but trivial on its own.
Tell Us How It Ran
This work includes material taken from the System Reference Document 5.1 ("SRD 5.1") by Wizards of the Coast LLC and available at dnd.wizards.com/resources/systems-reference-document. The SRD 5.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.
Clay Cyanide Miniatures is not affiliated with, endorsed, sponsored, or specifically approved by Wizards of the Coast LLC. This content is compatible with the fifth edition of the world's most popular fantasy roleplaying game. Companion rules, lore, names, and original mechanics © Clay Cyanide LLC.
Technical Specifications
32mm, 75mm
STL, Pre-supported STL
Standard or ABS-like resin, 0.05mm layer height
Yes — ready to print, optimized supports included
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