Okay one thing I suspected, and I think is the case, is that quite a lot of the Goblins don't actually use goblin entries.
I can't remember which goblins all there are in what locations, but I checked all the goblins in luculla and they were all using other entries except for a couple.
Do you have the editor installed and working? Or are you trying to just use the .txt files? If you don't want to use the editor, tell me which goblins or other enemies you are editing and I can tell you which character entry to edit.
Quite a few of the goblins use "Goblins_Special_Asleep" though. A number of the others use "LucullaS_LowExpSneaking_Warrior" and "LucullaS_LowExpSneaking_Ranger"
Since your changes in the hardcorenpc entry work, I'm quite sure you're files are working and that isn't the issue. So it's possibly just the illogical character entries larian used for shortcuts that's throwing the wrench in it for you.