D&D 5E New Statblocks for D&D's Kobolds

The weekend's streaming events at WotC revealed two Kobold-related things! First, they get a new alignment-free stat block; and second, there's a fan-made stablock for Three Kobolds In A Trenchcoat illustration.

The stat block is an unofficial one from Reddit user TamLin123.

On the official front, the site Venturebeat heard from WotC about races other than orcs, and recent discussions about changes to orcs and other previously evil races, and got the following reply:

“Orcs are not prevalent in the adventure, but Rime of the Frostmaiden does feature other creatures that are currently defined in the game as humanoids. Some cleave to a particular alignment, while others defy expectation. We’re of a mind that humanoid creatures, going forward, shouldn’t have prescribed alignments; alignment belongs to each individual. To that end, there’s a new kobold stat block in Rime of the Frostmaiden that identifies the creature as a humanoid of any alignment, which is a departure from the kobolds in the Monster Manual”.

 

[Orcslayer78]

Alignment belongs to each individual

And that has always been the peculiarity of Humans.

Humans come in every form and degree, they have various cultures which may be very different from one another, variety of shapes, skin color, alignment and degrees. Variety and Diversity are what make humans unique.

Non Human races are different, they are very narrow minded, sharing the same culture everywhere, focused on one thing and one thing only (nature and magic for Elves, stone and metal for Dwarves, destruction for Orcs), and that is what makes the difference between a human and a non human, because they have two completely different mind sets, probably even different brain patterns.
D&D is destroyig this lore and these differences, making every race dull and plain, basically is making everything the same, no more elves, dwarves, orcs or kobolds but just pointy ears slim humans, short and bearded humans, big grey humans, and little scaly humans.

 

[Mon]

I'm hoping that the 3 kobolds in a trenchcoat becomes a playable character race at some point.

You can already play Two Goblins in a Trenchcoat using this amusing homebrew subclass that was posted on DnDBeyond a few years back.

Link: Rogue Subclass: Two Goblins in a Trenchcoat

My next character: a Three-Kobolds-in-a-Trenchcoat PC Rogue, with the Two-Goblins-in-a-Trenchcoat subclass.

That's a lot of small humanoids in one trenchcoat.

D.

 

[Older Beholder]

That’s pretty cool.
I never knew this idea had been floating around.
Now I just need a friend to get an idea to run a goofy one shot or something.

Cheers.

You can already play Two Goblins in a Trenchcoat using this amusing homebrew subclass that was posted on DnDBeyond a few years back.

Link: Rogue Subclass: Two Goblins in a Trenchcoat

My next character: a Three-Kobolds-in-a-Trenchcoat PC Rogue, with the Two-Goblins-in-a-Trenchcoat subclass.

That's a lot of small humanoids in one trenchcoat.

D.

 

[kenmarable]

And that has always been the peculiarity of Humans.

Humans come in every form and degree, they have various cultures which may be very different from one another, variety of shapes, skin color, alignment and degrees. Variety and Diversity are what make humans unique.

Non Human races are different, they are very narrow minded, sharing the same culture everywhere, focused on one thing and one thing only (nature and magic for Elves, stone and metal for Dwarves, destruction for Orcs), and that is what makes the difference between a human and a non human, because they have two completely different mind sets, probably even different brain patterns.
D&D is destroyig this lore and these differences, making every race dull and plain, basically is making everything the same, no more elves, dwarves, orcs or kobolds but just pointy ears slim humans, short and bearded humans, big grey humans, and little scaly humans.

Even setting aside the parallels to horrible real world views of race, that’s just lazy writing. Whether it is early D&D copying Tolkien or it’s Star Trek with “Klingons are the warrior race, Vulcans are the logic race, and humans are the... uh... varied race” or the countless other times in Fantasy & SciFi where other races are defined as one trick ponies and humans are just “varied”, it is cliche, massively overdone, and honestly booooooring. (yawn) The races in Eberron and Wildemount, for example, are actually interesting without being either monolithic “all one thing” races or just “humans that look different.”

If someone wants to treat the races that way in their own games, fine, they can. There’s decade after decade of D&D lore to support it and nearly a century of fiction as well! But I’d expect professional writers 46 years into the game to be more creative than just reheating ideas Tolkien wrote back in 1937. Anyone could do that!

Thankfully, the current D&D writers at WotC as well as various freelance/independent writers in the industry are extremely talented. If I’m paying good money for a book, I expect them to know there are entire fascinating worlds of difference between fantasy races “focused on one thing and one thing only” vs “making everything the same.” My basement is filled with boxes of book after book of those same repurposed ideas, and I know in 2020 that writers can do so much better.

 

[Coroc]

You can already play Two Goblins in a Trenchcoat using this amusing homebrew subclass that was posted on DnDBeyond a few years back.

Link: Rogue Subclass: Two Goblins in a Trenchcoat

My next character: a Three-Kobolds-in-a-Trenchcoat PC Rogue, with the Two-Goblins-in-a-Trenchcoat subclass.

That's a lot of small humanoids in one trenchcoat.

D.

How about 7 Pixies in a Trenchcoat?

Or 3 Kender in a Trenchcoat wait .... 1 of them totally borrowed the Trenchcoat for himself and went off

Or for Darksun: 2 1/2 Athasian Halflings in a Mekillot cloak, well, they obviously got hungry on their way so theres only 2 1/2 of them left .

 

[Minigiant]

Can't wait for "Goblin on Stilts" and "Gnome in a Mechsuit"*

*gnomes have clockwork mechsuits in my family game.

 

[AmerginLiath]

I can kinda see where he's coming from for RPGs and D&D especially at least. Unless you're going 10 Candles: Eclipse type Dark you're probably gonna have some humor sprinkled in.

Per the matter of horror and comic elements, there’s the matter of how classical drama rules work; the storytelling spine of role playing adventures being surprising conservative in following dramatic structure. Horror as a storytelling element works largely by changing up the expected build and release of tension in a story — rather a slow build to the climax, you get a sudden roller-coaster ramp up and release of mini-climaxes (not of the plot conflict itself, but of similar emotional tension felt by the audience as if the plot was being suddenly resolved — hence our immediate investment in those moments) across the story. A palate-cleansing of comic elements after those horror elements (whether sudden ”jump scare” releases or slower horror moments) work like a denouement does in traditional drama or comedy, moving us past the emotional highs and lows of the climax itself and preparing us to pay attention to new information. In a horror film, you have romance in lieu of comedy as that emotional swivel, but that’s harder to set as the expected role for a DM and players to interact with, so broad comedy is a good reset for the tension scale in the sort of storytelling they appear to be trying here.

 

[AmerginLiath]

Or 3 Kender in a Trenchcoat wait .... 1 of them totally borrowed the Trenchcoat for himself and went off

Don’t think that my next Dragonlance character isn’t going to be two kender in a suit of “borrowed” Solamnic armor (the top one wearing a fake horsehair mustache, the bottom one peeking out through the displaced codpiece)...

 

[Xaelvaen]

I disagree with him on that. Granted, horror and comedy go together like chocolate and peanut butter. But sometimes you just want a big ol’ bar of 80% cocoa dark chocolate. There’s room for Happy Death Day and Hereditary.

This is a great analogy. A simple 'like' to this analogy did not suffice. Keep being awesome with analogies. That is all.

 

[maceo]

Very similar to the goblin "battle stack" in ToA-that one can be 9 goblins high...so maybe they could fool a hill giant movie theater usher or something