Kobolds: Too powerful?

[renau1g]

Trance hardly matters.

Unless of course that you ambush the PC's at night, losing one round of actions, while you wake up, could be deadly.

 

[Cirex]

PC Kobolds do not get dark vision.
It says "Vision : Normal".

Drows do though.

 

[Aservan]

All I know is that the Kobold rogue in our party is friggin disgusting. Rogues are already the best striker in terms of shear damage output (at low levels anyway). With shifty he can back out of the fight with one enemy to go get another one that is on the ropes. He can double shift to get all the way around a medium sized opponent. So he deals a huge amount of damage (you really can't stop him from getting the flank). He doesn't have a strength penalty anymore so he is strong.

He is one nasty little kobold. Most powerful race? Yeah probably (by a hair). It doesn't bug me yet though. He still can't do it alone. I would like to see the other races get similar cool stuff rather then swing the nerf bat and hammer kobold down.

 

[Aservan]

All I know is that the Kobold rogue in our party is friggin disgusting. Rogues are already the best striker in terms of shear damage output (at low levels anyway). With shifty he can back out of the fight with one enemy to go get another one that is on the ropes. He can double shift to get all the way around a medium sized opponent. So he deals a huge amount of damage (you really can't stop him from getting the flank). He doesn't have a strength penalty anymore so he is strong.

He is one nasty little kobold. Most powerful race? Yeah probably (by a hair). It doesn't bug me yet though. He still can't do it alone. I would like to see the other races get similar cool stuff rather then swing the nerf bat and hammer kobold down.

 

[lukelightning]

How about the fact that they're the only PC race that gets Darkvision? And they also get Trance.

To be a tad pedantic, kobolds are NOT a PC race. They are a monster race, in the Monster Manual in a section that clearly states that these racial stats are not balanced for use as PCs.

 

[Dausuul]

All I know is that the Kobold rogue in our party is friggin disgusting. Rogues are already the best striker in terms of shear damage output (at low levels anyway). With shifty he can back out of the fight with one enemy to go get another one that is on the ropes. He can double shift to get all the way around a medium sized opponent. So he deals a huge amount of damage (you really can't stop him from getting the flank). He doesn't have a strength penalty anymore so he is strong.

He is one nasty little kobold. Most powerful race? Yeah probably (by a hair). It doesn't bug me yet though. He still can't do it alone. I would like to see the other races get similar cool stuff rather then swing the nerf bat and hammer kobold down.

If you ask me, 4E kobolds are a shout-out to Pun-Pun.

 

[Tale]

To be a tad pedantic, kobolds are NOT a PC race. They are a monster race, in the Monster Manual in a section that clearly states that these racial stats are not balanced for use as PCs.

To be a tad pedantic, I wasn't talking about Kobolds. I was talking about Drow, in comparison to Kobolds, and on the current subject, which is their relative power overall. I don't think the existence of a qualifier alters the point Mearls made.

 

[Dausuul]

To be a tad pedantic, kobolds are NOT a PC race. They are a monster race, in the Monster Manual in a section that clearly states that these racial stats are not balanced for use as PCs.

To be even more pedantic, that's not actually what it says. It says, "This information can also be used as guidelines for creating player character (PC) versions of these creatures, within reason. Note that these traits and powers are more in line with monster powers than with player character powers."

Or, to paraphrase, "You can use these writeups for PC races, but we haven't fine-tuned them for PC use the way we did with the stuff in the PHB. Use with a modicum of caution."

 

[Lizard]

One of the Dwarf racials is the ability to use Second Wind (a per encounter power) as a Minor action.

Being able to Shift (an at-will ability) as a minor action adds a LOT of tactical options.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

How much of the balance could change if they could only use Shifty once per round?

No one seems to say that Goblins are too powerful, when they can shift 1/round as an immediate reaction from a melee attack. So does restricting shifty to 1/round make Kobolds "balanced".