Kobolds as PCs...Why?!

[Runestar]

Races of dragon introduced a lot of options which made them viable as PCs. It is like the designer was practically begging you to play one when he decided that venerable dragonwrought kobolds would get +3 to all their mental stats, without the corresponding physical stat penalties. That and the dragon type opens up a lot of possibilities with alter self/polymorph.

Identify as SLAs without having to use material components, and free sorc spellcasting? Yes please.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

And they're waaaay cooler than elves.

And dwarves, too.


IME, it's definitely the "underdog" thing. Same deal for goblins. People either have fun with the inferiority or take it a a power gaming challenge to make a broken Kobold fighter.
In one case, a fellow player used the races of the dragon rules to play a dragonblooded Kobold Sorcerer and in turn got GREAT usage out of Alter Self... His size also helped. I was a wood elf ranger and the party melee guy. He'd go into combat on my shoulder and use wings of cover to save my ass. I'd let him treat me as a mount and duck behind me for cover, not to mention I could use "cure x wounds" items if he got hurt. It was a beautiful partnership.

 

[nightwyrm]

I played a dragonwrought kobold dragonfire adapt in a game once. It was the closest thing I've ever come to playing a dragon.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Because some people like playing the oddball races.

 

[SWAT]

Kobolds are excellent trapmakers, and in one 3.0 campaign my DM played them as the greatest trapmakers in the world. So they kept beating us in humiliating ways over and over and over...

Like the one-way exit portal they had discovered deep within some cave. Realizing that a reasonable amount of adventurer traffic came out of this portal, they built a structure around it. A structure they could seal off and fill with water...

I don't think any PC ever died, but we always felt we were lucky to be alive. The end result was a party of 20th level PCs that would run away at the slightest mention of Kobolds.

Years later that attitude is still present within the group. In a rotating-DM Eberron game, one player from the 3.0 game, when it was his turn to DM, decided to never again be a victim of Kobold violence, and on his first session had a ritual backfire and make every single kobold on Khorvaire dumb as a rock. Cathartic payback if I ever saw it...

Anyway, Kobolds have been a popular PC race choice for us every since that first 3.0 campaign.

 

[roguerouge]

how can you not love this face?

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/MM35_gallery/MM35_PG161b.jpg

You do realize what it looks like he's holding in his hand, don't you? Freud would find its size very revealing indeed....

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Because you don't always want to be the obnoxious half-orc barbarian that everyone always plays. Sometimes it's fun to make a character that ISN'T the stupidly rampant stereotype for a hero or anti-hero.

One of my characters was a kobold rogue/trapsmith. Optimal? God, no. Probably one of the most un-optimal characters I've ever made. But I had more fun with that character then I would ever have with a half-orc barbarian who smolders with generic rage, no matter how "optimal." Sure, lots of players have bigger numbers on their sheet, but I was smiling and laughing a lot more then they were. That makes me the winner.

Really, I think the real question is, why wouldn't anyone want to play a kobold? And why would anyone want to play an elf?

 

[roguerouge]

Check out: The Grand OGL Wiki: The Quintessential Kobold

 

[Aeolius]

Because some people like playing the oddball races.

I think the real question is, why wouldn't anyone want to play a kobold? And why would anyone want to play an elf?

And there's your answer. Why play a kobold as a PC? Because you can.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

They are the underdog. People root for the underdog.