Kobold Skirmisher

[Lizard]

I expect kobold-lairs to be trapped more severely than Bridget (4chan-joke, don't worry if you don't get it).

With all this pushing, pulling, and sliding that's going on I bet the kobolds learned really quickly how to avoid such dangers. Didn't we just last week see how an elven rogue killed a monster by kicking it into a trap?

Yeah, I can see the kobolds in a room full of Whirly Spiky Bits, nimbly dodging them while their opponents get skewered...

 

[lukelightning]

Yeah, kobolds are sneaky and all, but when did they become friggin' ninja combat beasts? 27 hit points? There better be some sword fodder kobolds along with this one!

 

[Mentat55]

I imagine a kobold skirmisher or two leading a group of kobold minions (to take advantage of the mob attack ability), and at the same time the party is dealing with all the traps set by the kobolds to dissuade intruders. It could be a pretty tough fight -- 5 1st level PCs facing off against 2 kobold skirmishers and 8 level 1 kobold minions, plus a level 1 trap encounter.

EDIT: do 4 minions = 1 regular monster, or is it 2?

 

[Klaus]

Brilliant news - I was hoping that at least one monster would turn up so I could try running a 'mini 4e' game on Sunday night

I plan on running a mini-dungeon filled with kobold skirmishers with the tiefling wizard as their big leader.

 

[Keenath]

Yeah, I can see the kobolds in a room full of Whirly Spiky Bits, nimbly dodging them while their opponents get skewered...

Yeah, exactly! And sticking a spear in you while you're trying to disable the damn thing...

In 4e traps are meant to be encounter-duration traps, which replace a monster and can be disabled during combat (like killing a monster). In other words, these guys are designed to be inside the danger zone of their own traps, making life harder for you.

Yeah, kobolds are sneaky and all, but when did they become friggin' ninja combat beasts? 27 hit points? There better be some sword fodder kobolds along with this one!

He has Mob Attack even though he's a skirmisher. It's likely that all kobolds are "minion-like", in that they benefit from having lots of other kobolds around, but this guy is still a Lv 1 Skirmisher and therefore should be able to stand up to a single PC for a while. This guy is probably going to be at his best with a squad of minion-type kobolds with him (who WOULD be the "one hit kills" type with 5 or 6 HP).

I don't think we know for sure if minions are 2 per slot or 4 per slot. 2 seems a little small, but 4 might lead to an unweildy number of fielded monsters, each of whom is pretty wimpy and uninteresting... 2/slot would probably be more appropriate as far as making each one weak but not TOO weak.


Oh, and notice that we can finally (!) prove for sure that ability score bonuses are exactly what they always were, and all the other statblocks just had a +HD/2 bonus applied. This guy's HD bonus is 0 and so it doesn't adjust his ability scores, and he has 10 and 11 showing +0, 16 showing +3, and 6 showing a -2.

I'll do my "tol'ja so dance" now.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

lol yeah. The only thing you will have to ignore is the bloodied condition (unless someone posts from exp and lets us know how it works)

I think it's meaning in game is usually just "hey, guys, we seem to be doing fine, the monster is bloodied already" or "err, should we maybe retreat now? The Dragon isn't bloodied yet after 8 rounds, and we're all bloodied and have already lost Bob?". Only when special abilities trigger of the condition it matters, and so far, I haven't seen any in the stat blocks.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Kind of disappointing that its intelligence is 6. I know that he's a soldier and all, but the fact that he's incredibly dumb just kind of takes away part of the cleverness I'd grown to associate with kobolds.

 

[Belphanior]

Only when special abilities trigger of the condition it matters, and so far, I haven't seen any in the stat blocks.

Tieflings get +1 to attack rolls against bloodied foes.

But in practice this doesn't sound very hard to keep track of. The DM has its stats in front of his nose, including their bloodied level. "Kobolds 1 and 4 are bloodied. Your turn Darko McDevilpants."

 

[Keenath]

I think it's meaning in game is usually just "hey, guys, we seem to be doing fine, the monster is bloodied already" or "err, should we maybe retreat now? The Dragon isn't bloodied yet after 8 rounds, and we're all bloodied and have already lost Bob?". Only when special abilities trigger of the condition it matters, and so far, I haven't seen any in the stat blocks.

Yeah, so far as I know there's only two effects of bloodied:
You can tell if a monster is bloodied or not by looking (thus giving DMs a handy way to answer when the player says, 'Which one looks most hurt?'), and it makes you targettable by an array of special abilities, both beneficial and damaging.

I believe in PCs, you can use a Second Wind only when you're bloodied, but I doubt monsters have that ability.

 

[Jinete]

"Kobolds 1 and 4 are bloodied. Your turn Darko McDevilpants."

Heh, Darko is actually a pretty common name in my country