Quote Originally Posted by Goober4473 View Post
I always hated in 3.x when I threw a group of monster at the party, and they all died in a couple rounds. In 4th Edition, a level 1 non-minion goblin actually has a chance to do something interesting, and a group of them can actually be a fun encounter, inctead of a couple rounds of the monsters dealing tons of damage and then dying, or even worse, the monsters doing nothing and then dying.

If a fight lasts 5-10 rounds, there's enough time for it to be good, and memorable, instead of blowing the crap out of your enemies and moving on.
I disagree that a fight with a single, level 1 goblin should last more than 2-3 rounds or be particularly memorable. Some fights exist for no other reason than to use up dailies and/or healing surges so the characters don't face the BBEG at 100%. The goblin should have just enough hp to deal enough damage to justify the use of a healing surge (~10 damage to a single combatant at 1st level) and then promptly die/bugger off.

Fighting the BBEG when you know that you're at 50% is much more climatic than fighting the same foe at full strength.