Kobold That Walks, Round Two!

[moritheil]

A while back I asked for boardmembers to help optimize a Kobold Worm that Walks for use against a 14th-level evil party. It was a great success; we only had one party death and the party learned not to underestimate kobolds in this world.

Now they intend to take the fight to the kobolds. I have no problem throwing The Kobold That Walks back into the fray, but I am wondering what to include as support. One can only throw so many CR 9 kobold warriors and CR 10 kobold sorcs at a party without it being repetitive, after all.

Does anyone have experience min/maxing marshal and dragon shaman, or otherwise making kobold characters? This is a tribe that hires itself out as mercenaries, so it would make sense to have those types around.

 

[javcs]

Kobold Ur-Priest!

On a more serious note.

You might want to include a warmage or two if they're mercenary 'bolds.

Don't just use warrior, use alternatives, like fighter, barbarian (now there's an amusing possibility, charging, power attacking and leap attacking, raging kobold barbarians), and hexblade. Even if the kobold hexblades don't have good save DCs on their curses, with enough of them, the PC's will fail a save or two.

Kobold ninjas.

Spellthieves ... that could get fun - "WTF? That kobold just stole my spells!"

Warlocks - a free +2 to attack rolls with their blasts, and can get loads of battlefield control with the right invocations. Or just baleful utterance the PC's gear for a while.

Give the kobolds some low Int giant friends. (Hulking Hurler anybody?)

Have the kobolds in the employ of a dragon (tribe). Then you get half-dragon kobolds and blanket the party in breath weapons.

Traps. Lots of traps.

 

[moritheil]

Very nice! Thanks again for your help!

I used warriors because a kobold warrior 12 is only CR 9, but a fighter or barb would be higher. Of course, the fighter or barb levels are probably more than worth it, but I didn't want them to get decimated by spells that affect lower HD creatures.

I never use warlocks. Do you have a standard warlock setup, or should I just browse until I find a reasonably optimized one?

The spellthieves sound like a riot.

 

[javcs]

Of my two standard human warlock 10 builds, the feats were Combat Casting, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Improved Initiative, and Leadership (probably what would get dropped).
Maxed out UMD, Bluff, had taken Tumble cross class.
Type one Invocations
Devil's Sight
See the Unseen
Spiderwalk
The Dead Walk
Curse of Despair
Charm
Type two Invocations
Devil's Sight
Darkness
Summon Swarm
Wall of Gloom
Hungry Darkness
Voidsense

If you go Warlock 11s, look into Chilling Tentacles, devour magic, tenacious plague, and wall of perilous flame. Also fun may be miasmic cloud, hungry darkness, earthen grasp, entropic warding, walk unseen, fell flight, and flee the scene.

Hey, there's an idea, a group uses walk unseen, and entropic warding, places themselves either at the edge of EB range up in the air or in a point where they can snipe at the PCs, all wait for a signal, some unload blasts into the party, and others blanket the area with battlefield control effects. Next action, all of them flee the scene away, and head back to their base, which, of course is behind a stone-shaped wall over the normal cave entrance.
Alternatively, they flee the scene (through walls) to be behind the PCs, wait until they run into traps loose a few EBs and wall/battlefield control effects, flee the scene out, back to the other side of the wall.


Warlocks should have magic items with them at all times.
Perhaps some dedicated item crafters for the tribe.

I seem to recall seeing somewhere that kobold CRs were level -3 for NPC classes and level -2 for PC classes, don't know where, though.


As a joke, I started building a half-fey kobold, I think it was either a warlock or a sorcerer. Might have been Favored Soul. It worked surprisingly well.
If you want, I'll see if I can dig out a version of it for a level of your choice.

 

[moritheil]

Awesome. The d20srd doesn't say anything about kobolds having -2 CR if they have PC classes.

Half-fey is a really broken template. I wonder what I would get if I made a Kobold of Legend . . .

 

[javcs]

That's even more broken.

Combine with the Chameleon template.
Now the Chameleon KoL Barbarian can rage, power/leap attack charge from the ceiling onto the PCs.

Scout X/Warlock Y. Move and Blast, repeat ad infinitum (or death, whichever happens first).

It might've been in the article on kobold weakness. Where exactly that is anymore, I don't know.

I hope there's a Kobold that Walks Part Three.

 

[moritheil]

Solid ideas. I'll have to try a few out.

If and when Kobold that Walks III is out, I will post here and let you know!

 

[krichaiushii]

Lots of mean pets and trained attack animals.

Advanced Fiendish Dire Weasels - everybody loves Con draining attacks!

Something ugly that a handful of Kobolds can ride as mounts, perhaps? Advanced Dire somethings...

 

[javcs]

Brilliant krichaiushii!

Half-Fiend [or if you're feeling kind, only fiendish] Horrid Titanic Magebred Dire Weasels.
Yes, the plural is intentional.
No, I'm not entirely sure just how encumbering it would be to have such a creature attached to you.
It's 3x the Con draining fun!

And there you have something truly ugly.

Would you like some Kobold Warlocks on the top of that? Or would you prefer Kobold Warmages? Or both? Seriously, you could get a load of kobolds on top of a gargantuan sized dire weasel. If it's got half-fiend, it can then fly them around.

Fiendish Stirges.
Trained not to attack the residents of the lair, of course.
Perhaps Titanic Stirges.

That will yield large amounts of PC pain.

 

[Sejs]

I'd like to second the Kobold Ninjas suggestion.

Kobolds that can turn invisible, are really good climbers, can eventually walk through walls, and whose sneak attack is optimized for hitting and then running away is a perfect fit.

Edit: Oh, and who are good with traps and poison, too.