Kobold power, GO!

[Inari1991]

My group doesn't believe in the power of Kobolds, I desire to prove them wrong.  Problem is, I'm new to this min-maxing nonsense.  I know of the Venerable Dragon-wrought Kobold, but I have no clue what books any of the necessary things are in and my DM(understandably so), requires to be able to read and see all these wonderful things.  Access isn't a problem, I just need the name. And I'm still fuzzy on many of the things, I think I heard something about a White Dragonspawn?  Earth variant?

In short, I need help finding the resources to make a crazy old Kobold sorcerer so he can kick these non belivin whipper snappers into shape!

General discussion on how kick ass Kobolds are is fine as well.

[Solo]

Doubt your DM would allow the trick though.

[Inari1991]

That is also a concern, but this group thinks that monks are good.  No seriously.  He's a fairly new DM and would allow just about anything thats not too crazy with a good bio. I don't plan on utterly destroying a campaign or anything, I just want to keep up with the werewolf monk and the pixie wizard.  And they would never suspect a lowly Kobold to be worth a damn.

[Solo]

Carnivore will be along momentarily to talk about pixies.

[geniussavant]

Races or the dragon has the dragonwrought feat, that's what allows you the be venerable with no physical stat penalties, dragonspawn is in on of the dragonlace setting books, I think, and as for earth variant, I think you might be looking for the desert racial variant from unearthed arcana. Hope it helps.

[Inari1991]

Races or the dragon has the dragonwrought feat, that's what allows you the be venerable with no physical stat penalties, dragonspawn is in on of the dragonlace setting books, I think, and as for earth variant, I think you might be looking for the desert racial variant from unearthed arcana. Hope it helps.

Thank ya very much Geniussavant.  I'll start looking at the fluff of these things and see if I can wrap a bio around this

[Sohala]

What, no mention of loredrake or the rituals yet?

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Also, since Races of the Dragon gave kobolds the twelve age categories from Wyrmling to Great Wyrm, a kobold with the dragonwrought feat counts as a true dragon.  That means they can pick a sovereign archetype from Dragons of Eberron, which are kickass.

[JaronK]

First off, there's little to win in proving that your group is wrong about Monks or something like that.  If your group is happy how they're playing, then I don't think it's a good idea to show them another way of playing that they likely won't enjoy.

With that said, here's how Kobolds break.

First off, with Dragonwrought they become dragons.  Because the definition of a True Dragon is one who has 12 age categories (see Dragon Magic, Dragons of Kyrnn, and Draconomicon), and because Kobolds have said age categories (see Races of the Dragon) a Dragonwrought Kobold can use any one of the Sovereign Archtypes from Dragons of Eberron.  This includes getting +2 levels of Sorcerer casting or one bonus feat every 4 levels.  They only cost is that you can't take any other archtypes... which is amazing.  Other options include adding all Cleric or Druid spells to your arcane casting (making Warmages, Dread Necromancers, and Beguilers amazing) or getting some handy item creation abilities. 

Second, they can be venerable without penalties (from the same table that gives age categories in Races of the Dragon) which gives them +3 to all mental stats.  Nifty.

Third, all dragons of old age or older are able to take Epic feats without regard for their HD.  Venerable Dragonwrought Kobolds count.  With that said, this isn't a huge deal... most good epic feats require too many skill ranks to be available early anyway.  But +30 hp at level one (Epic Toughness) is pretty awesome.

But wait, there's more.  The Greater Draconic Ritual from the online expansion gives them +1 level of Sorcerer casting (yeah, this stacks with Loredrake's +2 sorcerer levels) at a cost of 4hp, 1,100gp, and one feat (you also get the ability to cast any one Sorcerer 1st level spell as a spell like abilities 3/day... Identify is the best choice since that means you don't have to pay 100gp per casting).  You can do this at level 6, meaning a 6th level Kobold Sorcerer could cast like a 9th level Sorcerer, including 4th level spells.

If you go the Sorcerer route, then the best blast spell in the game is available to you in the form of Wings of Flurry in Races of the Dragon.  1d6 force damage per caster level to all targets you designate within 30' of you (so it won't hit friendlies), reflex save for half, and if they fail the save they're unable to act for a round.  Nice.  Bonus: +1 caster level free if you're a dragon (or dragonblooded).

Anyway, the point is that by combining abilities from a few different books, Kobolds become incredible Sorcerers, Warmages, Beguilers, or Dread Necromancers.  They're not half bad in other roles either mostly because the option of taking a ton of free feats helps pretty much anyone.

JaronK

[Inari1991]

Oh I'm not trying to prove them wrong about monks or any other drama nonsense, I just want to be able to keep up, the monk player isn't half bad at strategy and whatnot and the pixie wizard is well... He has roughly 6 years of experience on me in D&D.  I love kobolds, and sorcerers are pretty cool, but you say they make great dread necros as well?  That sounds spiffy, I may try that out as I've never played one of those before.

[SorO_Lost]

First off, there's little to win in proving that your group is wrong about Monks or something like that.  If your group is happy how they're playing, then I don't think it's a good idea to show them another way of playing that they likely won't enjoy.

+2

Tangent since it's the JaronK here.
[spoiler]

First off, with Dragonwrought they become dragons.  Because the definition of a True Dragon is one who has 12 age categories (see Dragon Magic, Dragons of Kyrnn, and Draconomicon), and because Kobolds have said age categories (see Races of the Dragon) a Dragonwrought Kobold can use any one of the Sovereign Archtypes from Dragons of Eberron.

Beaten by
A. the 12 age thing is an out of sentence note about what you can create a dragonpact with and does not override the rules about true dragons.
B. Dragons of Krynn was printed after that and does directly have rules on true dragons. Guess who isn't a true dragon by those standards.
C. Rules Compendium, Page 5, Order of Rules Application, Note - same rules are found in the DMG.
Renders your exception based concept, that is if one printed dragon lacks something, such as a lung dragon's spellcasting, then you do not need spellcasting to be a true dragon wholeheartly into the BS that it has always been.

You can copy & paste it into your thread and argue it there if you like. Neither of us will change our minds but the rules could use the publicity plus I can polish off the argument summery I have.[/spoiler]

[JaronK]

A:  The 12 age categories thing is helpfully telling you what a True Dragon is.  I'm pretty sure that's quite clear.  It also matches with Draconomicon.
B:  Dragons of Krynn says a True Dragon is any dragon with age categories.  Dragonwrought Kobolds count.  So, my guess is Dragonnells.  Am I right?
C:  Your order of application thing is irrelevant, what you're missing is the point that Monster Manual specifically says it's just a description of known True Dragons, which means it doesn't apply to anything printed later (since those would be "unknown").

If you didn't want to debate it here you probably should have wrote it there, not put it here and then said not to answer it here.  But I helpfully bumped that thread for you.  And you can argue there that Dragons of Krynn, with it's "a True Dragon is any dragon that has age categories", somehow doesn't apply to Kobolds.

JaronK

[Vynar]

Because your sorcerer will still have a limited amount of spells known, you could try for some prcs such as the Sandshaper from Sandstorm or whatever the desert book is called that add to your spell list. With this class you would lose a level of spell casting progression but if you are already at +3 you will be fine.

[Havok4]

Lets not derail this thread with the debate that dragonwrought kobolds are or are not true dragons. We have had that argument between you two somewhere around 5 times and nothing is even accomplished.

[Solo]

I have fun. Does that count?

[Aliment]

Slight Build can be very interesting, as it lets you act as a tiny creature (see Web enhancement).  I remember seeing a build that had the ability to act as if it was Tiny while wielding a Huge weapon thru use of Expansion/Compression and other crazy things.

[Havok4]

Slight Build can be very interesting, as it lets you act as a tiny creature (see Web enhancement).  I remember seeing a build that had the ability to act as if it was Tiny while wielding a Huge weapon thru use of Expansion/Compression and other crazy things.

I remember that. It worked by acquiring the human subtype via houserule or ritual and picking up jotunbrude. It was called Tiny mclargehuge or something like that.

[JaronK]

Eh, Titan Bloodline lets you get away with that one without needing any of that (since your size doesn't matter, you can always wield a huge warhammer).  But Slight Build is still an awesome ability.

Basically what happened with Kobolds is they were weak to start with so a variety of different authors tried to power boost them without knowing about other authors' previous attempts.  The result is that there are a ton of options to be found for Kobolds, and the combination of them is rediculous.  The True Dragons thing was just another issue, where they tried to make True Dragons better (since those suck as PCs) and didn't realize what Races of the Dragon had done.

JaronK

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Basically, every time there's a supplement about reptilians, or cave dwellers, or dragons, or sorcerers, the individual devs decided "hey, you know, kobolds are really pathetic, so I'll throw them a bone".

Little did they know, far below the countless chasms of the earth, the kobolds gathered those bones together, lashing them to each other with hide and sinew, assembling a great and terrible dracolich, to ride through the streets crushing all semblance of game balance before them, and razing campaigns to the ground.

[Gavinfoxx]

I'm currently playing a Brass Dragonwrought Desert Kobold Sorcerer, and it's great fun!

If I was min-maxing to the hilt and I were you, you could do worse than look at my basic plan for her...

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=8620.0

Also look at this:

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=7329

Note that my plan isn't FULLY min-maxxed; I'm not venerable, I didn't take the alternate sorcerer version that dragonwrought kobolds DO qualify for, I didn't take intermediate brass dragon lineage, the plan is to take four levels of Sorcerer that I didn't need to take, where I could have gone for Signer of Concordance at level 2, and I didn't take any epic feats before epic (what with the not being venerable thing), and I didn't do the Loredrake thing either.  Buuuut I DID write the city of the dead thing into the backstory, to basically get automatic access to my prestige class (as an excuse for the character to have extra, expensive items at low level), and for my troubles the DM gave me a useful regional feat that I wouldn't have qualified for.  Also if you are the writing backstory and roleplaying type, it's totally okay to gank the backstory from my character if ya want. just don't pass it off as 100% yours, okay?