The following contains minor spoilers for LMoP.
I am preparing to DM my first-ever game, which is the published adventure Lost Mine of Phandelver. I'm looking at the very first encounter, the
Goblin ambush on the Triboar Trail.
I will have four players, two of whom have never played a tabletop RPG before, with brand new level-one characters.
Due to the wooded location and
the Goblins' racial feature, it won't be very difficult for a Goblin to make a ranged attack from the woods and then immediately Hide as a bonus action (even if, as the book says, only two of the four Goblins make ranged attacks). My PCs' passive Perception scores will probably all be 12 or 13. If I have the Goblins Hide as a bonus action every chance they get, will that make the encounter too difficult for these four brand-new first-level PCs, some of whom are controlled by first-time players?
Or should I not worry about the encounter being too difficult, because the book says that
if the Goblins are victorious, they just loot the PCs and leave them unconscious?