What does /tg/ think of kobolds and how are they handled in your campaign?
Have you ever played one and would you?
>>44894346
http://tuckerskobolds.com/
>>44894346
hm odd normaly /tg/ loves to talk about kobolds
One of my characters had the choice of banging a girl-kobold as her brothers/friends watched and walking out of their lair with a new weapon picked at random; or resisting and have the rest of the party attempt a rescue mission.
He did the deed and walked away safe and with a useless new whip. Girl-kobold kept popping out in other parts of the campaign to offer free items and give pro-tips.
In a campaign I was in they were generally sewage rats in towns, regular miners out of towns.
Most of them had their own tunnels in backwater mines where their only influence with the outside world is the occational gnoll raid and merchant / traders coming to peddle wares for gemstones.
In town, the few that broke apart from the mines worked the low end jobs that no one else wanted to do;
Had a kobold character once in this campaign. Son of a merchant pair of 'bolds. Turned out to be a dragonwrought kobold (no filthy age shenanigans). Elf wizard in the first town over decided to buy the kobold kid for several gold pieces to use as magical experiment focus which later ascended into being an apprentice due to talent within cantrips.
Later evolved into fullblown wizardry and ended the campaign blackmailing gods into attaining divinity.
It was a fun campaign.
Is there anywhere that sells good looking kobold minitures?
>>44894346
i ran a game where there was an iron shortage, and due to the actions of a few of the party memebers, the kingdom may have started using kobolds as weapons. think labyrinth, where the goblins attacked ludo with those baby monsters on sticks.
I usually run them as being industrious like dorfs, but inventive and curious, with a sort of savage screechy simplemindedness.
They stick to their warrens, but will deploy for trade and reconnesance as necessary.
If they engage in combat it'll be as pragmatic as they can manage, using whatever viable guerilla tactics available. Punji pits, brush fires, bear traps, mines, turn and burn qmbush fire.
I usually feature them as hoplites in melee, but otherwise they prefer sapper, bushwacker loadouts.
I had a friend play one in PF, he wad a screechy little bushwacker, and it was hilarious.
>>44894346
They do not exist in my world.
Trying to draw kobold, halp
I was married to one once.
Mostly they horrible little monsters that need to be put down quickly due their trap making nature and murderous mentality, however, one was special.
She still is.
>>44897789
If there be any drawfags prowling, do me a solid and hook me up with a picture of kobold wearing make-up but they are terrible at applying it.
Think Ganguro or how a 3 year old might apply make-up.
I've seen them handled badly, seen them handled well, seen them handled magical realm.
I generally like them, and my favorite character ever was a kobold. It can be hard though and come off as a special snowflake, since usually I see them handled as just a "completely evil race" where every single one is just an evil little lizard, and all found underground. If you aren't able to find even rare non-evil or surface-dwelling ones in the game, then playing a non-evil kobold who adventures on the surface feels like a special snowflake.
I fecking love Kobolds. Most of my settings have them as a prominent race to some degree.
Last time I played one was in a one-off. He was a PF Psychic Warrior named Shemp Rockhat. He slew a mighty boar, and was then punched out on accident by the Monk. So ends his story.
>>44897789
Not bad
>>44894346
Definitely Tucker-inspired. The players think they're up for an insultingly easy task, end up getting their asses kicked by creatures who make up for their physical weakness by playing smart.
>>44894346
They're neat, and underrepresented. I hope to change that giving them hives based around a dragon queen, turtle-ships and fire-arrow cannons.
My brother had a kobold sorcerer with a howdah on the back of a big gatormen. Greedy and arrogant too. His goal was to become a dragon.
>>44899145
Every kobold wants to be a dragon
>>44900466
So?
>>44894346
How many thousands of times have we had this thread?
>>44900502
So nothing. I didn't mean to imply anything more in the comment then thastatemeat simple fact
>>44896852
>They do not exist in my world.
same
Cute but annoying
>>44894346
They're small monsters which attack in numbers. D&D has way too many monsters so they're basically just goblins but not.
>>44901487
Never played that. It's it any fun?
>>44901487
They can be, unless they get some of that weird 'magic'.
![Kobold%20Wraith[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/fImWZn2.jpg "Kobold%20Wraith[1].jpg")
I took a line from tucker's Kobolds (look it up) to make my players scared out of their boots whenever they encounter them.
In my world, they're sadistic little fucks who will fight so dirty it's a completely new realm. You think biting and kicking balls is dirty? They'll make you crawl through a tunnel (only way through) high enough for kobolds but not humies, then block both exits with heavy rocks and poke spears through wall holes. They put sort of "ducts" that fit kobolds but not big folk everywhere through their caves to be able to ambush invaders from all side, or just drop poison gas or nasty stuff or just shoot arrows out of.
They're not smart by any means, but they're cunning and crafty and endlessly vicious. Oh, and they're the masters of creative trapping. Plus, they happen to be very territorial and don't travel at all (and if they did, they'd be exterminated by other races 5 steps out of their dens. Everybody hates them), so when you encounter them, it's always on their home turf, which is of course booby-trapped to the best of their ability, meaning in the most vicious and deadly ways you can't imagine, and usually in ways where trap-spotting checks are only marginally useful. And it's also where they're the most aggressive.
Last time the party encountered kobold, it was in a cave with a Elder Red Dragon which the kobold served as end boss. The party were more scared of the Kobold than the dragon. at least a dragon fight is fairly straightforward. Which is a shame since kobolds helped the dragon during the fight anyway.
Nobody in the group would ever think of playing a kobold. There's an unspoken agreement that kobold are off-limits. Play a drow if you want to, an angel or demon or even a tiefling edgelord for all they care, but never a fucking kobold.
In the setting I'm currently working on, Kobold are a fairly major power. Despite black powder / simple firearms being available, these Kobold don't trust such things as the flash is blindingly bright to them and mishaps can cause cave-ins. They are downright devious with clockwork mechanisms though, and to keep pace have built fully automatic repeating crossbows. Higher maintenance than guns by a large margin, more complicated to load, etc., but they don't give away one's position when fired in darkness, and guns can't keep up with their blinding 4-shots-per-second rate of fire. Sure, they can only shoot for five seconds before needing an elaborate reload, but it means a group of Kobold can maintain suppressing fire in a good tunnel choke point.
Since I'm running my game in GURPS, I had to come up with a new stat block for Kobolds. Had fun with it, wound up giving them crazy good vision- they don't even lose the ability to see colour in pitch blackness.
Still trying to come up with a cool, thematic vehicle for them to use, though. Gnolls have bigass combat motorbikes, but I don't know what to give Kobold that would be optimized for underground / cavern usage.
>>44894346
>nearly 30 posts in
>no Lewd'bolds
I'm proud of you, /tg/.
Let's assume that Kobolds are up there with Humans, Elves, and Dwarves as a major sapient race in a setting (perhaps they replace Gnomes). Preserving their natural skills at invention and "outside-the-box" solutions (namely: Trap fucking everything), how do you think they'd stack up to the generic versions of the other 3 races?
I remember a few threads ago there was a discussion about roman-manipular Kobolds who fought in squads of 15 or so, with some carrying shields; others spears; and others crossbows.
Assuming that Kobolds reproduce quickly and are able to trained to high enough standard, would this work on a civilization-wide scale for dealing with more physically imposing species?
>>44906173
>They don't even lose the ability to see colour in pitch blackness
I've always wondered why that was always a thing in DnD/Pathfinder
As far as I know it doesn't have any basis in reality, and I don't think I've ever run into a situation where it made much of a difference, but it seems they always make a point to mention it
Where the cutebolds at?
Put your cutes in the air!
>>44906781
Most things lose color vision in darkness because darkvision is usually produced by other sources even when noted as an eye property, like heat-sensing or vibration waves, that detect bodies/objects and can be precise enough to see a face, but don't rely on any kind of pigment-detection. So, it's usually Base Color for empty background and Object Color for anything else. It's easy to see how black/white is the easiest to imagine. Mechanically, it's to limit their recognition skills at least a bit, so you can't say if an elf running around is a jolly elf or a backstabbing drow.
>>44906244
They'd end up being way less expansionist and way more territorial.
Humans would be everywhere in small numbers due to the colonialist spirit and their capitals would be massive cities. Dwarves would expand underground, making big numbers harder to achieve, but being by far the strongest nations defensively. Elves would... populate the forests and do their elf stuff, which ranges from absolutely nothing to building a nature-friendly empire, depending on your version of elves.
But Kobolds don't have good solo survival skills and rely on their traps to protect their territory, which are hard to expand in a large space on top of all the remodelling other races already do. They're fucked if they divide in small numbers, so they stick together in giant hive-like structures and expand only when needed, creating a tight community and a great sense of pack preservation. They'd be kinda like bees, you could say they'd end up being more selfless and focused on the survival of the group. That, on top with their natural affinity with invention, makes them a great race for technological advancement, as all knowledge is shared and we don't end up with real human history (everyone developing their own thing alone and wasting years to test the basics someone else already figured out).
That's if they're a big group, instead of your usual small cave-family thing.
>>44908027
Makes me imagine kobolds as the lizard equivalent of a naked mole rat for some reason.
>>44910425
They're not that far apart. Most underground life acts kinda in the same way. Hell, some people joke that a dwarf's beard is actually as sensitive as a cat's whiskers, and that's how they see in the dark. They're basically humanoid naked moles.
>>44906822
Did a cutebold rpg, or just rules for them ever get made? I vaguely recall something like a CuteBold Quest.Kutebold Kwest?
>>44910758
I know that/mlp/ran a cutebold quest for a little while, two if you count the other another guy ran in thread waiting for the primary ones updates.
>>44894432
I am actually staring to get sick of that portrayal of them at this point. At first the traps could be a bit clever, but now its played out and there is never a good, clever way for the players to get around the traps other than to check every item,and every square foot of wall, floor,and celling. It turns the entire encounter in to an algebra problem ( each trap has X% chance of inflicting Y damage, the party has Z HP in total, solve for the minimum number of traps to ensure the traps will kill the party 95% of the time.)
Plus I'm weird and like there being a point of power the PC can reach that good tactics can't overcome.
>>44911905
Such point does exist. It's when the wizard get his special spell to distort space and bend the dungeon walls at his will. It happens pretty soon with most TTRPGs, it's just that most only use it when needed instead of breaking the GM's work all the time. For a later checkpoint, when the big guy learns to punch through walls. On both these scenarios, the well-thought tunnel system with multiple corridors become just a different kind of difficult terrain.
Also, when something gets popular, it's bound to attract shitty ways to apply it. It's not the idea's fault, it's just that people are stupid in general.
Has anyone done anything with nautical kobolds? I'm picturing kobold pirates in adorable little ships.
>>44894346
>furry/scalie fetish bait
>special snowflake underdog race
>munchkin's delight
>meme race as seen in >>44894432 and cutebolds
I like the designs of AD&Dbolds, Dogbolds, and MTG Kobolds but not enough to include them in a campaign. They don't really have a good "character".
>>44906173
Depends on the cavern, lots of stalactites and stalagmites, crevasses and sudden drops? Or mostly smooth sloping relatively even flooring?
>>44894346
>>44894346
In my campaign Kobolds are an old and proud race, they live to serve their god Kurtulmak the chromatic dragons and sometimes Tiamat.
They are a highly militarized culture, great builders, inventors and hard workers.
Based on the "Tucker's Kobold" story. I like to protrait my kobolds like The Roman empire under the mountain. But a little less organized.
>>44912592
If it's a major power, we can assume they'll populate any cave they can, so it's not a one-kind-scenario. As a major power, they can even develop enough skills to fully remodel their caves and go with whichever style is best.
played as one the one time we ran dungeons the dragoning, now i try to recreate him in every game that comes up. kobolds are fun
>>44912489
How are they a munchkin's delight? Their stats are shit.
Creepy small reptillian things. You can't tell what emotions they're having since their faces are expressionless like a reptile. They're also incredibly tricky and deadly like chicken sized raptors.
>>44912840
Either referring to Pun-Pun or the trap abuse.
>>44912894
>Creepy small reptillian things. You can't tell what emotions they're having since their faces are expressionless like a reptile.
Just gotta look harder, bro.
>>44913147
No no, I mean sure today we can tell by studying them but i'm talking in a non-mammalian way. Mammals can express much with their faces, reptiles don't really. They stare, they open their mouths, but you can't tell if it's fear, joy, sadness. They are other to us mammals. We attribute them as cold.
>>44913260
>but i'm talking in a non-mammalian way.
So? I'm sure, given time and practice, one can learn to read a reptillian sapient as well as one can read a mammalian sapient. Perhaps their faces are more subtle than lesser reptiles, and have muscled scales for emoting?
>>44913310
No, I like it strange and alien. Whether pleased or angry they look the same. Their bulbous eyes moved and blink seperately, swering around in their skulls instead of pivoting their head. It makes them weird and dangerous. If someone learns to communicate as they do, they too would look strange and weird. With staring eyes, subtle movements, and weird hissing.
>>44913387
Maybe, I like my sapient species (if they're all from the same world) to have similar-esque base body language, or at least movements that can be easily understood and redefined.
>>44912840
In 3.5 there's Pun-pun, free sorceror levels, and dragonwrought feats
>>44913444
I find that rather boring.
>>44913447
Pun-pun obviously violates rules-as-intended and isn't something you can play even with the most lenient DM. I'm not sure why people think dragonwrought kobolds don't get age penalties, and I've never heard about the free sorcerer levels. How does that work?
>>44913543
dragonwrought kobolds explicitly don't get penalties for aging. It says so in the feat. There's also a feat that gives them +1 sorceror spellcasting level - that's right, spellcasting, not caster, so it increases spell levels known and such too.
Both of these things are explicit and don't require any cheesing of rules.
>>44913543
Dragonwrought kobolds are particularly broken because they have the dragon type. There's a lot of feats in 3.5 which have prequisite: dragon type that are totally fucking broken because they assume PCs won't have access to them.
>>44911905
Tucker's kobolds aren't all about traps, they're about using good unit tactics to wreck unread players.
>>44913975
I somewhat get that, the problem is I never hear about those tactics that can counter the myriad of traps that kill the players if they go fast, plus the murder holes that let the kobolds attack without retaliation with spears and boiling oil if they take their time with the traps. What way is there to get past that without most or all of the party dying, without abusing summoning spells to out-attrition them by sending wave after wave of summons to trigger all the traps?
>>44914215
How effective counter tactics can be is ultimately up to how much of a dick the DM might be, but good coordination and refusing to let each other fall for their bullshit's really the way to go. "Oh, they're using shield walls and pikes? do we want to just rush it? do we want to engage the push of pikes?" Probably not. Does firebombing them work? Can I use horn of blasting on their well-laid defenses? Maybe. Good dungeons generally have alternate paths, and players accumulate all sorts of bullshit magic items/powers. There is plenty of ways to bypass this crap. Also, it's D&D. And if it's newer D&D, the players have all sorts of feats and abilities that can cheese this shit easily enough, which just lets dumb players do dumb things and win. Tucker's kobolds were from an earlier time, when players weren't so shielded from common sense. They're a moot point these days, unless a DM is disguising its fiat behind the name, then it's just a shit DM.
>>44912272
I actually did indeed once play in a game with kobold pirates. No tiny ships though, they were mixed in with other races as crew on full-sized ships. The party consisted of two humans, and two kobolds.
Unfortunately, it kind of fell apart only a couple sessions in, so we never really got into the real meat of the campaign. Did have a really fun digression where my beguiler and the other kobold in the party (a rogue) went off to go rob some random noble's house. Ended up accidentally recruiting one of the maids to run away and join our crew.
>>44894346
Kobolds are rad as shit and are second only to humans. People without keep bolds in their games live sad lives.
What kind of person would your kobolds be in a modern setting
>>44914815
Chinese.
>>44914403
That makes sense, but it seems to bring out the worst, adversarial, impulses in GMs judging by all the comments that the players and PC would rather take on a full grown dragon than delve into a kobold lair.
Clever tactics should make the PC play smarter and extend the kobold's viability as an opponent for a few levels. It should not make literally going to Hell look like an appealing alternative.
>>44914815
The ultimate business kiss ass.
Smoozes up to the boss at all times, takes the credit for other people's work, and nearly breaks down when he actually had to do work on his own and can't just pawn it on someone else.
>>44894346
I made a kobold cave-druid. Never got a chance to play him, cuz forever-DM. He has a dire bat for a animal companion. He rides the bat.
Anyone here prefer the old "dog-like" kobolds?
>>44914815
Well, they're people, and I'm not too into leaning on the prejudice plot, so I'm sure you get all kinds in all kinds of places. But the stereotype would definitely be mechanics (particularly in the military) and low-level office workers.
>>44913665
>>44913709
as much as races of the dragon went overboard crunch wise i really loved the kobold fluff.
and i really miss the old style dragonborn the new dragonborn are shit
>>44894346
tucker style all the way maybe not to quite the extent tucker did but still a fair bit
not even so much the traps as being well prepared for battle and other basic things one of my favourites is when they manage to hear the party coming they will stay silent so that the party does not realise they word heard or even make a little noise so the party knows there behind there
they go in expecting a surprise attack and bam motherfucker 6 spears thrown at you at once backed up by kobolds ready to fight with a trip wire in the doorway.
>>44894346
Usually fill the same general role as goblins, just subterranean instead of above ground.
That being said, the campaign I'm currently planning has a group of not-evil kobolds that are being harassed by ogres.
And there's a kobold bard as a brief comic relief character. He has a crush on an NPC sorcerer. Or 'scary fire lady' as he calls her.
>>44894346
YOU NO TAKE CANDLE!
kobolds are for vicious cunning goblins are for slaughter fodder
>>44915217
of course that only works when nobody in the party knows draconic then the kobolds plans are known to all
its surprising how many people dont take draconic to be honest
>>44915184
>old style dragonborn
The werid body-horror dragonborn? They've always been my dragonborn no matter the edition. The stories about dragon gods making them is partially true. The first Dragonborn were of other people, who through a magic body horror ritual were remade into Dragonborn. Since then Dragonborn breed true, making more dragonborn as if the blood of dragons is incredibly potent, say in half-dragon things or draconic sorcerers all about.
angry little subterranean communists where charismatic and bombastic leaders can take power when a dragon's not nearby directing things
>>44896726
Bumping for interest.
>>44896726
>>44915920
Reaper Bones if you want them on the cheap. They sell packs of three and packs of six. Look up some photos since everyone seems to paint them differently.
>>44918883
And if you're willing to shell out a bit more for pewter minis, I really like these by Otherworld Miniatures.
They have the classic dog-face look, which might not be for everyone.I prefer more lizardy kobolds, these minis just have personality to them.
>>44894346
Played a NG kobold monk who was a servant of a Human gold Dragon-sorc noble.
It was pretty fun.
>>44918914it looks like their junk is hanging out
>>44919103
Sweet Christ.
>>44919135
Glad i could do that for you
>>44920354
>>44914815
>>44914895
Not quite modern, but I'm working on a setting based on 1930s pulp and the kobolds are modeled after Chinese immigrants. Two kobold NPCs that I've fleshed out are the owner of an opium den and shopkeeper beset by Elvish mob enforcers.
>>44922229
Big trouble in little Warren
>>44901717
It's meant to be played drunk. As a straight comedy game it has a few to many public shaming/embarrassing moments, so I can see why the book itself says drinking is a requirement. It's a really fun read though, if nothing else.
>>44895047
So he just gave you a kobold waifu?
>>44913709
that, and not taking aging penalties so you can make a venerable kobold and get +3 to mental stats
>>44894346
When I DM Kobolds are like little rat people.
I never knew they were supposed to be dragons.
It never occurred to me. So they are still rat people who mine and eat jewels.
What do you call a kobold hobo?
>>44929447
I don't know. What do you call a kobold hobo?
>>44929886
Easy EXP.
>>44930176
That probably depends on how many Rogue levels they have.
>>44918883
btw, reality update
NOWHERE TO BE FOUND ONLINE.
if you want Bones Kobolds, better hope they are for sale locally.
unless every last nigger on this thread went and bought every last one online.
in which case, the moment you nigs go socialism, i will audit your ass and re-appropriate them.
>why can't reaper be in stock anymore on the good shit?
>>44906173
Clockwork spider/beetle tanks
Giant blind domesticated toads
Dire bat mounts
Spherical gyro cages
Giant goddamned centipedes (mechanical or otherwise)
>>44923884
>a few to many public shaming/embarrassing moments
Huh?
What's that supposed to mean?
>>44926797
The DM? Yeah he did, even if his original intention was to mock me by having a gross lizard woman following me around.
Later on I found out that he created kobold girl as a parody of the girlfriend I had at the time, he was gay for me and he was jelly of her, so portraying her as a clingy iguana was his way of getting back at her.
>>44894346
In my campaign most kobolds have abandoned their monster ways and are more or integrated into society. Other races will look down on them and they tend to be poor and live in ghettos but they aren't slaughtered at first sight. Kobold adventurers are pretty common with my players. too.
>>44937019
Pic related, a kobold guard from my setting. I'm not a drawfag so please don't bully.
I like them. Personally just about every D&D based system has them actually fuck over the non sverfneblin gnomes and take their place.
Garl Glittergold's analogue is usually the god of sverfneblin and Chaotic Evil, while the Kurty analogue usually mellows and goes toward LN.
Basically the rest of the gods see right through Garl's "just joking bro" shit and slap him and his people down.
>>44894865
and Kobolds LOVE how /tg/ talks about them!
>>44894346
I don't give two shits about kobolds in general. If they're friendly, good for them. If they're hostile, well... bad fucking luck, guess I'm gonna kill whoever of them gets too close or whichever one of them shoots at me from range.
>>44937111
Ah, so he's the god of Kenders, then.
>>44906244
>no Lewd'bolds
I'll put a stop to that
>>44938211
okay that's all I had.
>>44937695
May as well be working the how he's been portrayed. Also the god of frat bros.
>>44894346
They need to be even more varied.
