PDA

View Full Version : Fighters and Kobolds and Trolls, Oh My! [3.5 D&D thought experiments]



Pages : [1] 2

Fortuna
2010-05-28, 05:00 AM
EDIT: This thread has been renamed and its purpose has changed since it first arrived on these forums. Below is the initial purpose of this thread, as well as a new challenge suggested by Eldan and any others that materialize. Please, try to keep this reasonable: I dislike involving wizards etc. in this kind of idea, particularly at the extremes of optimization. My personal preference is core-only.

The Original Challenge (Final answer: approx. 42000)
Now, as sucky as a Fighter 20 is, they're still miles better than a Kobold Warrior 1. That's something we can all agree on (barring stupid cheese). But how much better?

Given only a single non-magical weapon, a single non-magical suit of armor and optionally a single non-magical shield, how many Kobold Warrior 1s can a Fighter 20 kill, on average, if they rush him in a swarm?

EDIT: although the idea was clear in my mind, I can see that it was not clear in my post. Thus, here are the rules in full.

The Fighter

The fighter must be human, must have no non-core feats, skills, or other additions, must have ONLY:
One (1) non-magical weapon of choice, from the core ruleset.
One (1) non-magical suit of armor of choice, from the core ruleset.
One (1) non-magical shield of choice, from the core ruleset.
The fighter may forgo any of these three options at the beginning of the combat. The fighter is built using a 32 point buy, and has no constraints beyond those listed here.

EDIT: Due to ridiculousness, these items must be sized for a medium character and worn at the beginning of the challenge.

The Kobolds

The kobolds are exactly as in the SRD entry (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/kobold.htm), with NO variation. Their tactics will be:
Attack the fighter in melee, if possible.
Otherwise, move to be able to attack the fighter in melee next round, if possible.
Otherwise, move to be able to attack the fighter in melee as soon as possible.
If within charge range, but unable to attack for whatever reason, attack with slings.
Whenever a kobold dies, its corpse instantly vanishes without a trace.

The Arena

The fighter begins at the centre of a 300'x300' arena. At the end of each round, kobolds appear in every unoccupied edge square of the arena. The arena is unexitable due to Magic.

EDIT: Due to ridiculousness, the arena is a cube composed of walls of force which is located on the Prime Material Plane, with atmospheric conditions typical to approximately ten meters above sea level at the equator of the Earth. It is empty apart from fighter and kobolds.

The Challenge

The fighter is to directly kill (that is, make an attack roll against and deal sufficient damage thereby to render dead) as many kobolds as possible.

Eldan's Challenge (Trolls vs. Fighter) Unanswered!
The Arena

The arena is an infinite plain, wide open.

The Fighter

The fighter must be human, must have no non-core feats, skills, or other additions, must have ONLY:
One (1) medium non-magical weapon of choice, from the core ruleset.
One (1) medium non-magical suit of armor of choice, from the core ruleset.
One (1) lit torch.
The fighter may forgo any of these three options at the beginning of the combat. The fighter is built using a 32 point buy, and has no constraints beyond those listed here.

The Trolls

There are three trolls, forming the points of an equilateral triangle, each one 60' away from the fighter. The trolls' tactics are unspecified (and therefore fair game). Each round, one new troll appears sixty feet away from the fighter.

The Challenge

The fighter is to directly kill (that is, make an attack roll against and deal sufficient damage thereby to render dead) as many trolls as possible.

Zovc
2010-05-28, 05:04 AM
Now, as sucky as a Fighter 20 is, they're still miles better than a Kobold Warrior 1. That's something we can all agree on (barring stupid cheese). But how much better?

Given only a single non-magical weapon, a single non-magical suit of armor and optionally a single non-magical shield, how many Kobold Warrior 1s can a Fighter 20 kill, on average, if they rush him in a swarm?

The warrior can probably kill an infinite number of them with Great Cleave. Attacks of opportunity and whatnot... They can't hit him... etc...

kamikasei
2010-05-28, 05:06 AM
Arbitrarily many, I'd say. The kobolds aren't going to have more than +10 AC, so the fighter should be hitting them on anything but a 1, and doing enough damage at a minimum to kill them in one blow. The kobolds will have a very low chance of hitting the fighter and very low average damage even if they do connect. The fighter could have heavy fortification armor or a shield, negating crits, and fast healing, perhaps above the average damage the kobolds are dealing.

Or did you mean the fighter was the one with the non-magical armor, weapon, and shield?

Tavar
2010-05-28, 05:08 AM
Using the feats to get reach(the aberrant feats), exotic weapon prof spied chain, the whirlwind attack line, shape soulmeld:Astral Vambraces, Bonus Essenia, any 2 incarnum feats(for the extra essentia)...He can kill an infinite number.

Fortuna
2010-05-28, 05:10 AM
OK, I understand that what I meant was not what I asked...

The kobolds are exactly as in their MM entry. The Fighter is any core-only human fighter 20 you care to build, but with the equipment restrictions in the first post.

Kaiyanwang
2010-05-28, 05:14 AM
Can I ask what you want to prove with this? :smallconfused:

Fortuna
2010-05-28, 05:15 AM
Can I ask what you want to prove with this? :smallconfused:

I am merely satisfying my own curiosity.

Zovc
2010-05-28, 05:16 AM
OK, I understand that what I meant was not what I asked...

The kobolds are exactly as in their MM entry. The Fighter is any core-only human fighter 20 you care to build, but with the equipment restrictions in the first post.

Single Non-Magic Weapon: Spiked Chain

Combat Expertise

Great Cleave (and its prerequisites)

Whirlwind Attack

...and he should be good.

Edit: Incidentally, the most strategic formation for the kobolds to attack the fighter in would probably be a straight line, giving him the fewest targets for his great cleave off of attacks of opportunity.

Of course, I don't think kobolds would simply barrel into a fighter knowing that only certain death awaited them.

tl;dr: 'One does not simply walk into a level 20 fighter.'

Adumbration
2010-05-28, 05:19 AM
Let's see now. A 20th level fighter, on the average, has 10+19x5.5 + 20x7 = 254 hitpoints. Maybe a little bit more, if he's invested a lot of money into tomes. His AC can be considered to be high enough for the kobolds to hit only on a natural 20, but he likely also has heavy fortification - negating the extra damage, but not the automatical hit.

It takes approximately 58 hits of a small heavy crossbow to take down the fighter, and so it takes approximately 1160 attack rolls from the kobolds to kill the fighter.

Depending on the arena, the fighter can take anything from 0 (when the fighter is situated in the bottom of an open mine with all the kobolds conveniently situated within the range) to... eh, can't be bothered to calculate.

We need someone really good with math to figure it out.

Fortuna
2010-05-28, 05:23 AM
Let's see now. A 20th level fighter, on the average, has 10+19x5.5 + 20x7 = 254 hitpoints. Maybe a little bit more, if he's invested a lot of money into tomes. His AC can be considered to be high enough for the kobolds to hit only on a natural 20, but he likely also has heavy fortification - negating the extra damage, but not the automatical hit.

It takes approximately 58 hits of a small heavy crossbow to take down the fighter, and so it takes approximately 1160 attack rolls from the kobolds to kill the fighter.

Depending on the arena, the fighter can take anything from 0 (when the fighter is situated in the bottom of an open mine with all the kobolds conveniently situated within the range) to... eh, can't be bothered to calculate.

We need someone really good with math to figure it out.

Except that the Kobold entry has them using spears, and therefore the kobolds are using spears. That makes it even more complicated.

Eldan
2010-05-28, 05:24 AM
Well. Let's see.

Core only, we start with an elf. Dex 20. Add 4 points from level ups to that, he can have Dex 24. 7 AoOs per turn. With a spiked chain, he should therefore kill seven kobolds per turn before they can approach him for melee combat.

That assumes they use melee of course.

So, if about 10 kobolds can get in range per turn... three should be able to attack. With his high dex, the fighter will probably use light armour, so his AC won't actually be that high. (Note, however, that even with heavy armour, it won't get very high without magic.) AC: probably only about 19-20, sadly.

Meaning the kobolds can hit on a 19. 10% chance to hit.

Still takes a while. It's much easier with ranged combat, though.

Saph
2010-05-28, 05:25 AM
There's no point doing the math, because the fighter's also going to have access via his 760,000 gp of equipment to healing magic, invisibility magic, and probably a method of teleportation as well. He can kill an arbitrarily large number of kobold warriors.

A 20th-level fighter may be weak by the standards of a 20th-level full caster, but he's still ridiculously powerful by the standards of 1st-level NPCs.

Eldan
2010-05-28, 05:25 AM
Look at the OP again: no magical equipment.

Saph
2010-05-28, 05:27 AM
*checks* :smallconfused:

A fighter can't get beyond level 10 without magical equipment, much less to level 20. That's a bit arbitrary.

Kaiyanwang
2010-05-28, 05:27 AM
There's no point doing the math, because the fighter's also going to have access via his 760,000 gp of equipment to healing magic, invisibility magic, and probably a method of teleportation as well. He can kill an arbitrarily large number of kobold warriors.

A 20th-level fighter may be weak by the standards of a 20th-level full caster, but he's still ridiculously powerful by the standards of 1st-level NPCs.

This. I see that the OP says no equip, and this can happen, but is situational.

I could go on saying that the kobolds are not swarming the fighter, but are trying to make in fall in their traps.

This is why I asked what we could actually prove.

Adumbration
2010-05-28, 05:28 AM
Except that the Kobold entry has them using spears, and therefore the kobolds are using spears. That makes it even more complicated.

Oh. My mistake. I misread the OP so that the kobolds had only the non-magical weapon/shield/etc.

You know, in that case it would be a valid tactic for the kobolds to start by sundering his weapon, armor and shield. That would lower his AC to be reliant on his dexterity, and allow hits... let's say 1/4 time. The fighter might have improved unarmed strike, and the kobolds have very little hp, so it wouldn't necessarily reduce the kill rate so much, but it would speed up the process significantly.

Next step would be to trip the bastard and stand around him, taking attacks of opportunity.

Fortuna
2010-05-28, 05:28 AM
Well. Let's see.

Core only, we start with an elf. Dex 20. Add 4 points from level ups to that, he can have Dex 24. 7 AoOs per turn. With a spiked chain, he should therefore kill seven kobolds per turn before they can approach him for melee combat.

That assumes they use melee of course.

So, if about 10 kobolds can get in range per turn... three should be able to attack. With his high dex, the fighter will probably use light armour, so his AC won't actually be that high. (Note, however, that even with heavy armour, it won't get very high without magic.) AC: probably only about 19-20, sadly.

Meaning the kobolds can hit on a 19. 10% chance to hit.

Still takes a while. It's much easier with ranged combat, though.

Look at the OP again: Human only.

Zovc
2010-05-28, 05:31 AM
*checks* :smallconfused:

A fighter can't get beyond level 10 without magical equipment, much less to level 20. That's a bit arbitrary.

I agree that it is absurdly crippling to a fighter (of all classes) to say "you can't have any magic goodies," but I still think the fighter is fine.

kamikasei
2010-05-28, 05:33 AM
Yeah, a lack of magical equipment makes this essentially meaningless. Too much of a high-level character's power, especially for fighters, is bound up in their gear. No healing? No miss chances? No enhancement bonuses to anything?

It's also so distorted a situation that the best options for the fighter would be poor choices in most other situations - for example, Great Cleave. With full plate, a large shield, a longsword, Great Cleave, Whirlwind Attack etc. the kobolds should be dealing an average of 1-5 damage each round and then all dying in one hit to be replaced by a new wave - and hell, since the fighter likely has higher initiative they're probably not even getting those attacks at all.

Adumbration
2010-05-28, 05:36 AM
Disarm and sunder are the kobolds' best friends here. They work, too.

EDIT: The second wave can spend their actions feinting the fighter, too, for flat-footed goodness.

Ossian
2010-05-28, 05:40 AM
I don't get the tie between level and "must have magic equipment".

You have Conan as a level 20 (say) fight and X Kobolds, let's do the math.

OR

You have "Anime Fighter Something" 20th level fighter. He has 760,000 GP worth of magic items. The a wizard of appropriate level wants to toy with him and pits him in an arena, with nothing but:

1 weapon
1 armor
1 shield (if desired)

All non magical.

O.

Eldan
2010-05-28, 05:50 AM
The problem is, really, that fighters, in order to remain even remotely capable in combat, need powerful weapons and armour.

There is, in DnD, barely any way to increase your armour nonmagically, especially in core. That means his AC will remain at or below 20 (best case), with full plate and decent dexterity, or leather and enormous dexterity. Which means the kobolds still have decent chances to hit, especially if half of them use aid another and there's flanking involved.
If the kobolds have +5 to hit from flanking and aid, they suddenly hit with 30% of their hits.

Of course the fighter can kill any number of them in his turn. But he can't defend himself against them.

Ossian
2010-05-28, 05:52 AM
The problem is, really, that fighters, in order to remain even remotely capable in combat, need powerful weapons and armour.

There is, in DnD, barely any way to increase your armour nonmagically, especially in core. That means his AC will remain at or below 20 (best case), with full plate and decent dexterity, or leather and enormous dexterity. Which means the kobolds still have decent chances to hit, especially if half of them use aid another and there's flanking involved.
If the kobolds have +5 to hit from flanking and aid, they suddenly hit with 30% of their hits.

Of course the fighter can kill any number of them in his turn. But he can't defend himself against them.

Well, I guess the question from the OP was not "is it smart to go Fighter 20" or "is this a fair fight?". More like: how many can he kill? Sure the math is tough, but we are talking scores of the little buggers :)

paddyfool
2010-05-28, 05:53 AM
Disarm and sunder are the kobolds' best friends here. They work, too.


I thought about that, but I don't think 20s and 1s are autosuccesses or failures on these opposed attack rolls, so assuming the fighter's at least medium sized, he should have at least a +23 on them (+19 for BAB, +4 for size difference, before you get into the likely stat difference) and thus be unable to lose (especially as Kobold Warrior 1s can't get Improved Sunder or Improved Disarm unless you're allowing flaws)
.

EDIT: The second wave can spend their actions feinting the fighter, too, for flat-footed goodness.

This might actually work, since he's unlikely to have many ranks in Sense Motive.

EDIT: On the AC, I think about the best he's likely to have is +8 (mithril full plate) +3 (dex) +1 (buckler; he can take a -1 to hit and still only miss on 1s), for a total of 22.

Eldan
2010-05-28, 05:54 AM
Core only, with a spiked chain, it would be 6 for AoOs and up to 24 standing within reach. Per turn. He lives for probably about 15-20 turns before they kill him. Makes up to 600 kobolds. Pretty impressive.

Edit: they have slings. He's dead much earlier. How many kobolds can fit in 50 ft. range? They hit on a 16, deal 1 damage, in addition to the melee rush to keep him busy.

Runestar
2010-05-28, 06:05 AM
Or let's try this in reverse, how can we optimize kobold warrior1 to actually be of some threat to a fighter20?

First thing which comes to mind is the ritual which grants them a 1st lv SLA. Take magic missile, which deals 1d4+1 damage (averaging 3.5 damage). A typical human fighter20 with 20con will have 220hp. So if we have 68 kobolds ready standard actions to hit the fighter with magic missiles...:smalltongue:

Adumbration
2010-05-28, 06:09 AM
Or let's try this in reverse, how can we optimize kobold warrior1 to actually be of some threat to a fighter20?

First thing which comes to mind is the ritual which grants them a 1st lv SLA. Take magic missile, which deals 1d4+1 damage (averaging 3.5 damage). A typical human fighter20 with 20con will have 220hp. So if we have 68 kobolds ready standard actions to hit the fighter with magic missiles...:smalltongue:

Ohhh no. Take Power word: Pain and Mortalbane couple of times.

EDIT: Damn, forgot the hp limitation on the power word. Oh well, mortalbane works still.

paddyfool
2010-05-28, 06:10 AM
Or let's try this in reverse, how can we optimize kobold warrior1 to actually be of some threat to a fighter20?

First thing which comes to mind is the ritual which grants them a 1st lv SLA. Take magic missile, which deals 1d4+1 damage (averaging 3.5 damage). A typical human fighter20 with 20con will have 220hp. So if we have 68 kobolds ready standard actions to hit the fighter with magic missiles...:smalltongue:

Clever. What if, however, he has an SLA of "Shield"? :smallwink:

Oslecamo
2010-05-28, 06:11 AM
I must point out to adamantine fullplate, wich grants DR3, but isn't magic

A spear wielding kobold can deals around 1-4 damage. And the possibility of dealing 4 damage is 1/20x1/6=1/120. Less than 1% of the attacks will even scratch the fighter's skin. Slings just bounce out of him.

If we can get another point of DR in there the kobolds can't hurt him at all.

For the lulz I suget an intimidate fighter wich makes the kobolds turn against each other.

Johel
2010-05-28, 06:15 AM
Edit: they have slings. He's dead much earlier. How many kobolds can fit in 50 ft. range? They hit on a 16, deal 1 damage, in addition to the melee rush to keep him busy.

This.

Also, sling being a ranged weapon, the range is actually 500 feet.
Sure, they'll get an aweful malus to hit...but a natural 20 is still a natural 20.
:smalltongue:

Killer Angel
2010-05-28, 06:17 AM
Given only a single non-magical weapon, a single non-magical suit of armor and optionally a single non-magical shield, how many Kobold Warrior 1s can a Fighter 20 kill, on average, if they rush him in a swarm?

AH!
You didn't say that the fighter 20 cannot have a cohort! :smalltongue:

paddyfool
2010-05-28, 06:23 AM
Alternatively, isn't there a feat-based way to get access to manoevres, and thus be able to heal himself as he fights? (My ToB fu is very weak, but this could be awesome if accurate).

Fortuna
2010-05-28, 06:23 AM
AH!
You didn't say that the fighter 20 cannot have a cohort! :smalltongue:

ONLY what I listed there. If you wanna split hairs, then he doesn't have air, either.

Eldan
2010-05-28, 06:24 AM
Of course. There's a feat which gives you one maneuver of choice.

Oslecamo is right with the adamantine plate, however.
So, 30% chance to hit the fighter, 16% chance to wound him. Not very high. Meanwhile, the fighter kills 30 kobolds per turn.

Edit: no air favours the fighter. He can hold his breath much longer than the kobolds. :smalltongue:

Oslecamo
2010-05-28, 06:34 AM
Of course. There's a feat which gives you one maneuver of choice.


Well, if burns some feats to get that stone dragon stance that grants DR5 then the kobolds are even more screwed.:smallbiggrin:

Killer Angel
2010-05-28, 06:38 AM
ONLY what I listed there. If you wanna split hairs, then he doesn't have air, either.

I know, I was only kiddin' (hence the smile). :smallwink:

Indeed, without air is more difficult for the fighter...

Kyrthain
2010-05-28, 06:46 AM
Is there any way for a human fighter to get flight without items? If so, he wins. Just grab a comp greatbow, and fire from outside the max range of the kobolds.

No idea how to get flight.

paddyfool
2010-05-28, 06:52 AM
Is there any way for a human fighter to get flight without items? If so, he wins. Just grab a comp greatbow, and fire from outside the max range of the kobolds.

No idea how to get flight.

It isn't flight, but in some arenas, investing lots of ranks in Climb and Jump could enable similar tactics.

Zovc
2010-05-28, 06:53 AM
This might actually work, since he's unlikely to have many ranks in Sense Motive.

This is bogus! OP mentioned splitting hairs because the fighter may have taken a core feat (Leadership). On the other hand, our fighter can't have any magic items, AND he can't put ranks in Sense Motive! (OR have air? I know you're joking, but OP is a joke, if you ask me.)

Runestar
2010-05-28, 06:54 AM
Better yet...try the incarnum-powered housecat. :smallbiggrin:


A housecat has the following ability score modifiers: -8 Strength, +4 Dexterity, +0 Constitution, -8 Intelligence, +2 Wisdom, -4 Charisma. We can give a housecat the nonelite array without increasing its CR, and we'll assign 11 Strength, 12 Dexterity, 13 Constitution, 10 Intelligence, 9 Wisdom, and 8 Charisma. Thus, a housecat with the nonelite array distribution as given above would have the following ability scores: 3 Strength, 16 Dexterity, 13 Constitution, 2 intelligence, 11 Wisdom, 4 Charisma.

>Using Unearthed Arcana's flaw system, we can give the housecat the Meager Fortitude and Weak-Willed flaws so that it gets two free bonus feats. With three feat slots to spend, we can make the housecat take Shape Soulmeld (Airstep Sandals), Shape Soulmeld (Dissolving Spittle), and Shape Soulmeld (Soulspark Familiar). This gives it a fly speed of 10 feet with good maneuverability, a spit attack which deals 1d6 acid damage upon a successful ranged touch attack with a range of 60 feet as a standard action at will, and a useful familiar which is also a formidable combatant when compared to the housecat.

>So yeah, it's a min-maxed flying housecat that can spit acid and has its own pseudo-familiar. And it's still technically a CR 1/4 housecat. Make of it what you will

Poil
2010-05-28, 06:54 AM
No idea how to get flight.

I'm sure that someone somewhere has calculated how high your strength modifier needs to be before you can simply flap your arms. Then it's just the simple matter of optimizing your strength. :smallwink:

Zovc
2010-05-28, 06:57 AM
Better yet...try the incarnum-powered housecat. :smallbiggrin:

If I'm not mistaken, Airstep Sandals don't let you stop in midair. The cat can fly 10' into the air, end its turn, and fall 10'.

paddyfool
2010-05-28, 06:59 AM
This is bogus! OP mentioned splitting hairs because the fighter may have taken a core feat (Leadership). On the other hand, our fighter can't have any magic items, AND he can't put ranks in Sense Motive! (OR have air? I know you're joking, but OP is a joke, if you ask me.)

It's a cross-class skill, and he's only got 2+Int skills per level. Assuming a fighter-classic Int of 13 to enable combat expertise etc. (not that he needs that line too much for any relevant builds), that's only 3*23=69 skill points, or 4*23=92 if human. How many of those would you spend on sense motive? I somehow doubt it'd be the maximum 22, and even if it was, you'd still only get 11 ranks, making success entirely possible for them.

Zovc
2010-05-28, 07:05 AM
It's a cross-class skill, and he's only got 2+Int skills per level. Assuming a fighter-classic Int of 13 to enable combat expertise etc. (not that he needs that line too much for any relevant builds), that's only 3*23=69 skill points, or 4*23=92 if human. How many of those would you spend on sense motive? I somehow doubt it'd be the maximum 22, and even if it was, you'd still only get 11 ranks, making success entirely possible for them.

We're talking about optimization (Not, "My character was a farmer, and doesn't really know when people are lying to him"), so I'd still put as many points as I can. Hell, since we apparently have to stay core, I might even find room for skill focus.

kamikasei
2010-05-28, 07:09 AM
How much optimization are we actually supposed to be doing, though? Is this supposed to be a fighter with a viable build for actual adventuring who's been stripped of his regular gear, or are we going for a theoretical "this is what could be done within the limits, though the guy might be useless under any other circumstances" approach?

Eldan
2010-05-28, 07:12 AM
Let's get back to the issue of air!

You can hold your breath for con*2 rounds.
The fighter has con 20, so 40 rounds. The kobolds have con 10, so 20 rounds.

After that, it's a DC 10+1/round con check. After 11 rounds, it's DC 21, which the kobolds can't do.

Which means that by round 40, when the fighter has to do checks, all kobolds are dead.

Winner: fighter. Or at least until his own air runs out.

casper
2010-05-28, 07:18 AM
Edit: they have slings. He's dead much earlier. How many kobolds can fit in 50 ft. range? They hit on a 16, deal 1 damage, in addition to the melee rush to keep him busy.

Technicaly masterwork adamantive full-plate is non-magical suit of armor. So slings wouldn't be a problem.

Ingus
2010-05-28, 07:26 AM
As a theorical question, I'll give a theorical answer.

Take less than optimized fighter 20. Give him a classical yet suboptimal armor+shield+sword (Fullplate, Large Shield, Longsword) and 220 Hp. Put him in an infinite, endless plain.
Now take X kobolds, as MM1. Providing they can think a good plan, they will split up in 4 smaller groups directed on all 4 directions. Formation: 4 spear wielding kobolds as screen at 30ft, then 4 more sling/spear wielding every 30ft till (say, as arbitrary) 150ft from the fighter: this means 5x4 kobolds every side for 4 sides, so 80 kobolds. After the latter side, add 10 kobolds by side, so 120.
There's the setting, now let's start the battle.
Since the lvl 20 fighter should have more or at least equal initiative bonus than the kobolds, since he's terribly outnumbered, he arbitrarily starts first.
He has no bow, so he select a single kobold and charge, let's say north (he's in fullplate, so he move 20ftx2). He kills the kobold on 2/20 or more.
Now, kobold's turn: all kobolds make a single move action to keep the distance from the fighter. Then every kobold, except the (likely) dead kobold and the other nearer 3, use the sling, while the other 3 does a 30ft retreat action, so 119 attacks.

They hit only on natural 20, so 5%. 5.90 hits... the chance to hit with slings are roughly 2,5% out of 100, so the average damage is the average spear damage (2,66) x chanche of spear hit, plus average sling damage (1,33) x chance of sling hit (roughly 97,5%) x 5.90 to a total of 8 (rough) damages.

8 decreasing damages, to a 220hp fighter brings him down in roughly 30 rounds, while the fighter would put down only 28.5 kobolds (30 rounds, 95% hit, provided a 100% kill even with a roll of 1).

I've tried with 60 kobolds, but the rate of killings were too high. So the maximum number a very low optimized fighter can stand is between 60 and 120.

Obviously, better optimized fighters and fighters optimized to fight swarms are more likely to survive (just weapon mastery [slashing] doubles the number of kobolds bearable this way).

EDIT: Disclaimer: never been too good in maths, so forgive me if I can't build an equation system :smalleek:

NotMe
2010-05-28, 07:27 AM
With the Martial Spirit stance (Devoted sprit 1, costs 2 feats to get this and the prequisite manouver) the fighter can heal 2HP each time he makes a successful melee attack.

With Combat expertise and mundane armour the fighter can get his AC to 21 or higher, sufficient that Kobolds with +1 to hit in melee require 20s to hit for 1 to 5 damage. Even with the combat expertise in use the fighter will still only be missing on a 1.

With a spiked chain the fighter will be killing a kobold per blow and with combat reflexes, a decent dex and whirlwind attack or greater cleave he will pretty much have a 95% chance of killing each kobold within reach each turn.

He still has plenty of feats left for something like abbarent reach, just to give an even higher numer of kobolds killed per turn.

Using the healing from his stance he will be getting HP much faster than loosing them, so he can effectively fight off kobolds in melee indefinately, or at least until someone unleashes some form of exhaustion rules or can be bothered to work out the number of succesive ones that he'd need to roll to be overwhelmed.

Hand_of_Vecna
2010-05-28, 07:30 AM
Before I saw the core only post my first thought was AC over 20+ Martial Spirit (Martial Study+Martial Stance) = Fighter kills however as many thousand he feels like since he's healing 24 hp a turn or really more like 22.8 since he misses on a 1. Reach weapon, Improved Unarmed Snap kick with a 22 dex. 7 AoO, 4 regular attacks plus 1 unarmed strike

Core only though with adamantine heavy fortification plate he can ignore their sling attacks since their d3's with 8 attacks on him each round he'll take a point of damage every ten rounds on average. 20 attacks to hit once 4 hits to deal damage once and he's attacked 80 times in ten rounds.

The maximum kobold kills per turn core build is reach weapon+combat reflexes+Whirlwind Attack

So he will kill 21+his dexmod X [1100+(conmodX200)]

A magic Weapon is still allowed right? So for theoretical purposes we can dump str and depend on magic for guaranteed damage. Assuming that I'll max Con since it's more important since each point of con mod gives you 200 rounds of standing and fighting. So 17+5=22 Con and 16 Dex.

21+3 X [1100+6X200)]

21+3 X 1100+1200

24 X 2300

55,200

This is of course a theoretical number based on the best possible core build for this task which has focused on con over dex which this dex based build wouldn't do. Oh I supposed you'd need to add a few hundred more because once you have enough damage to auto-kill and as many attack as possible the rest of your feats shout be toughness. Endurance+Diehard would be inferior to one toughness feat because once you fall below 0 you continue to bleed out wile your fighting so at most you would last 9 extra rounds.

Oh killing 55 thousand kobolds takes him a little under 4 hours btw.

Eldan
2010-05-28, 07:35 AM
Since this is non-magic, he can't get heavy fortification. So one in every 400 shots (two natural twenties) can still wound him, coming from a sling. With some hit and running and spreading out, they can really pelt him. Also, range pretty much isn't an issue anymore, since they only wound him on 2 twenties, the -10 for max range isn't an issue anymore.

There's also a really appropriate quote here:
"Who will be the one to tell him that he won't get any XP from any of them?"

Ingus
2010-05-28, 07:43 AM
There's also a really appropriate quote here:
"Who will be the one to tell him that he won't get any XP from any of them?"

:smallbiggrin:

Kaiyanwang
2010-05-28, 07:57 AM
If non-core material is allowed, Combat Focus feats brings in a 4 fast healing.

Hand_of_Vecna
2010-05-28, 08:25 AM
Oh, yeah if he can't have magic at all as opposed to the OP's magic weapon+armor and your core only he'll only last a few rounds.

WorstDMEver
2010-05-28, 09:15 AM
Given only a single non-magical weapon, a single non-magical suit of armor and optionally a single non-magical shield

Many people missed that part. And stat blocks would be nice - remember, warriors get a full d8 for hit points and should get max at 1st level, plus any Con modifier. And the fighter probably put most if not all of his stat improvement into an already prodigious Str. Stats would help clarify a bit.

I'm assuming I can give full plate, a longsword and a shield to everyone here....

So, the figher's AC is no longer ludicrous, 13 with full plate, tower shield and a +1 dex bonus. Level 1 warrior has +1 BAB, probably 12 Str for another +1. Pretty weak, but with the same potential 13 AC. fighter 20 has a much nicer attack (20/15/10/5) and can probably kill everyone in reach each round through great cleave but still can miss on 3rd and 4th attack without too much of a stretch.

Can any of my kobolds have bows? This would even the odds a little, though they probably wouldn't have the Precise Shot feat and would have to attack at a -4.

If you give the fighter a halbard it gets even nastier if he has combat reflexes along with great cleave, unless the kobolds all have halbards, too.

Equipped correctly (even without magical gear or support), a very large kobold tribe could kill the fighter assuming the initial conditions apply. The kobold losses would be very heavy though.

You know, maybe I'll run a simulation on this one...

Remember back in the day where a fighter could sweep? Against creatures with less than one HD a fighter could attack as many of them as he had fighter levels.

And, hair-spitting - even if he has a cohort, a Leadership score of 60, or whatever, an infinite pool of any combat will eventually kill the fighter and his cohort if they're all allowed only mundane equipment. It would take alot more kobolds, but eventually the fighter and his minions become fatigued while the kobolds can sleep in shifts while awaiting their turn to die.

The Glyphstone
2010-05-28, 09:20 AM
So, the figher's AC is no longer ludicrous, 13 with full plate, tower shield and a +1 dex bonus. Level 1 warrior has +1 BAB, probably 12 Str for another +1. Pretty weak, but with the same potential 13 AC. fighter 20 has a much nicer attack (20/15/10/5) and can probably kill everyone in reach each round through great cleave but still can miss on 3rd and 4th attack without too much of a stretch.



Huh? Is your full plate made out of cardboard? Full plate is a +8 AC bonus, a Tower Shield is +4. That's AC22, no AC13...:smallbiggrin: You've gotta have a typo in there, because everything else you said makes sense.

Eldan
2010-05-28, 09:21 AM
I think he meant a +13 AC bonus above the base 10.

Oslecamo
2010-05-28, 09:25 AM
So, the figher's AC is no longer ludicrous, 13 with full plate, tower shield and a +1 dex bonus. Level 1 warrior has +1 BAB, probably 12 Str for another +1. Pretty weak, but with the same potential 13 AC. fighter 20 has a much nicer attack (20/15/10/5) and can probably kill everyone in reach each round through great cleave but still can miss on 3rd and 4th attack without too much of a stretch.

Eerr, strenght bonus? Masterwork adamantine weapon? Weapon focus? Greater weapon focus? He's a fighter! At least give him his feats!



Can any of my kobolds have bows? This would even the odds a little, though they probably wouldn't have the Precise Shot feat and would have to attack at a -4.

So the almost epic fighter can't get magic stuff, but the kobold horde gets a ton of one of the most expensive basic weapons in the PHB? I don't see that as very fair.

The Glyphstone
2010-05-28, 09:25 AM
I think he meant a +13 AC bonus above the base 10.

Ah. that makes more sense, yeah.

WorstDMEver
2010-05-28, 09:27 AM
Huh? Is your full plate made out of cardboard? Full plate is a +8 AC bonus, a Tower Shield is +4. That's AC22, no AC13...:smallbiggrin: You've gotta have a typo in there, because everything else you said makes sense.

LOL - you're right - but 23, because any fighter worth his salt will take the 12 dex for the extra +1 to AC.

WorstDMEver
2010-05-28, 09:34 AM
Eerr, strenght bonus? Masterwork adamantine weapon? Weapon focus? Greater weapon focus? He's a fighter! At least give him his feats!

So the almost epic fighter can't get magic stuff, but the kobold horde gets a ton of one of the most expensive basic weapons in the PHB? I don't see that as very fair.

Yes yes, he can have his feats.... And if you think the kobolds' equipment is unfair, ask the first few dozens how fair it is to be a level 1 warrior against a level 20 fighter in the first place. Besides, I just said bows - not like I asked for composite longbows.

In fact, let's just put the fighter in his top of the line mundane gear at the bottom of a 30 foot canyon and see how this kobold tribe does. OP didn't even mention an ambush by hundreds of archers firing from superior positions. In this case, don't give the kobolds ANY armor. Just shortbows. And 3 rows deep of as many as I can fit in 4 range increments in either direction. Out of 500 bow attacks per round - and my much less geared kobolds are more likely to be dexterous than strong - I'd say some would hit, wouldn't you? This is much less fair than my original idea, but much cheaper for my infinite kobold tribe.


Given only a single non-magical weapon, a single non-magical suit of armor and optionally a single non-magical shield, how many Kobold Warrior 1s can a Fighter 20 kill, on average, if they rush him in a swarm?

I'd say a whole pile of them. I'm still not sure why there's a huge arguement here - the question was HOW MANY, not can a single warrior 1 kill a single figher 20 naked in a pool of chocolate pudding....

Cyclocone
2010-05-28, 09:34 AM
[...]remember, warriors get a full d8 for hit points and should get max at 1st level, plus any Con modifier.

NPC classes do not get max hp at 1st, and a kobold with the NPC array would have at most 11 Con.

WorstDMEver
2010-05-28, 09:38 AM
NPC classes do not get max hp at 1st, and a kobold with the NPC array would have at most 11 Con.

Now who's being unfair? That's just mean. They're kobolds, wasn't fate cruel enough?

Theodoriph
2010-05-28, 09:40 AM
Before I saw the core only post my first thought was AC over 20+ Martial Spirit (Martial Study+Martial Stance) = Fighter kills however as many thousand he feels like since he's healing 24 hp a turn or really more like 22.8 since he misses on a 1. Reach weapon, Improved Unarmed Snap kick with a 22 dex. 7 AoO, 4 regular attacks plus 1 unarmed strike

Core only though with adamantine heavy fortification plate he can ignore their sling attacks since their d3's with 8 attacks on him each round he'll take a point of damage every ten rounds on average. 20 attacks to hit once 4 hits to deal damage once and he's attacked 80 times in ten rounds.

The maximum kobold kills per turn core build is reach weapon+combat reflexes+Whirlwind Attack

So he will kill 21+his dexmod X [1100+(conmodX200)]

A magic Weapon is still allowed right? So for theoretical purposes we can dump str and depend on magic for guaranteed damage. Assuming that I'll max Con since it's more important since each point of con mod gives you 200 rounds of standing and fighting. So 17+5=22 Con and 16 Dex.

21+3 X [1100+6X200)]

21+3 X 1100+1200

24 X 2300

55,200

This is of course a theoretical number based on the best possible core build for this task which has focused on con over dex which this dex based build wouldn't do. Oh I supposed you'd need to add a few hundred more because once you have enough damage to auto-kill and as many attack as possible the rest of your feats shout be toughness. Endurance+Diehard would be inferior to one toughness feat because once you fall below 0 you continue to bleed out wile your fighting so at most you would last 9 extra rounds.

Oh killing 55 thousand kobolds takes him a little under 4 hours btw.



As described your fighter kills 0 kobolds. The kobolds simply move away from him each round and use their slings. Since your fighter is in full plate, he can't keep up. Eventually one of them will triple 20 and kill him and be revered as a great kobold hero. :smalltongue:



Actually if we start on a battlefield with 100, 000 kobolds and a fighter, the fighter's dead in the first round.

I really don't know why people are bothering with this. :smallsmile:

kamikasei
2010-05-28, 09:40 AM
Now who's being unfair?

The OP, when he said these were straight-from-the-MM-statblock kobold warriors (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/kobold.htm).

To the extent that this exercise has a point at all, it's not to try to stack the deck against the fighter.


Eventually one of them will triple 20 and kill him...

Not actually part of the standard rules.

Cyclocone
2010-05-28, 09:41 AM
Now who's being unfair? That's just mean. They're kobolds, wasn't fate cruel enough?

Heh, make them CR 1 kobold Adepts instead then.:smallcool:

WorstDMEver
2010-05-28, 09:41 AM
Ok, how about this -

The fighter 20 can have all of his epic gear, but he's paralyzed from the ears down. His cohort has deserted him because he stiffed them with the bar tab one too many times. And he's passed out drunk.

The kobolds then would probably be unable to harm him at all due to his crazy DR and fast healing. Maybe they could poison him in his sleep while he's drooling on the carpet? I don't know.

Ossian
2010-05-28, 09:43 AM
Yes yes, he can have his feats.... And if you think the kobolds' equipment is unfair, ask the first few dozens how fair it is to be a level 1 warrior against a level 20 fighter in the first place. Besides, I just said bows - not like I asked for composite longbows.

In fact, let's just put the fighter in his top of the line mundane gear at the bottom of a 30 foot canyon and see how this kobold tribe does. OP didn't even mention an ambush by hundreds of archers firing from superior positions. In this case, don't give the kobolds ANY armor. Just shortbows. And 3 rows deep of as many as I can fit in 4 range increments in either direction. Out of 500 bow attacks per round - and my much less geared kobolds are more likely to be dexterous than strong - I'd say some would hit, wouldn't you? This is much less fair than my original idea, but much cheaper for my infinite kobold tribe.


You have just been arrowed! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6EknwERf3o)

Theodoriph
2010-05-28, 09:44 AM
Not actually part of the standard rules.




It's in the core book and I don't know anyone who doesn't use it, so that's good enough for me. :smalltongue:

WorstDMEver
2010-05-28, 09:44 AM
The OP, when he said these were straight-from-the-MM-statblock kobold warriors (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/kobold.htm).

To the extent that this exercise has a point at all, it's not to try to stack the deck against the fighter.



I didn't see the other post - his original just said "kobold warrior 1" so I was figuring the NPC class. However, the original question stacks the deck against the fighter anyway, since the question was "how many would it take to kill the fighter" to paraphrase.

WorstDMEver
2010-05-28, 09:46 AM
It's in the core book and I don't know anyone who doesn't use it, so that's good enough for me. :smalltongue:

Triple 20 is an outright kill in which of the 3 core books? Can I get a page ref? Or a link to the SRD?

The Glyphstone
2010-05-28, 09:47 AM
In fact, let's just put the fighter in his top of the line mundane gear at the bottom of a 30 foot canyon and see how this kobold tribe does. OP didn't even mention an ambush by hundreds of archers firing from superior positions. In this case, don't give the kobolds ANY armor. Just shortbows. And 3 rows deep of as many as I can fit in 4 range increments in either direction. Out of 500 bow attacks per round - and my much less geared kobolds are more likely to be dexterous than strong - I'd say some would hit, wouldn't you? This is much less fair than my original idea, but much cheaper for my infinite kobold tribe.



That would be easier to survive, not harder. They'll have to kill him in the surprise round, which they can't, otherwise he takes his tower shield and just claims total cover for the rest of time. He's not going to try to fight back at range...

Oslecamo
2010-05-28, 09:48 AM
As described your fighter kills 0 kobolds. The kobolds simply move away from him each round and use their slings. Since your fighter is in full plate, he can't keep up.

Run action and aoo the hell out of the kobolds. Dash feat and quick trait both increases your speed, and the first can be stacked multiple times. Horses are also nonmagical equipment mind you.



Eventually one of them will triple 20 and kill him and be revered as a great kobold hero. :smalltongue:

Well the triple 20 rule is an optional rule and very few people actualy use itsince not everybody enjoys being killed by a random rat.



Actually if we start on a battlefield with 100, 000 kobolds and a fighter, the fighter's dead in the first round.

I really don't know why people are bothering with this. :smallsmile:

Mind explaining how your 100.000 kobolds are attacking the fighter at the same time when slings are bouncing out of his adamantine fullplate?:smallamused:

Intimidatormancer could easily turn the kobolds against each other. Stacking of DR stuff can turn the fighter immune to strenght 6 kobolds with superior weapons. There's plenty of ways for the fighter to come out of this winning.:smallcool:

Hmm, mounted archer on a gryphon...drool...:smallbiggrin:

WorstDMEver
2010-05-28, 09:59 AM
That would be easier to survive, not harder. They'll have to kill him in the surprise round, which they can't, otherwise he takes his tower shield and just claims total cover for the rest of time. He's not going to try to fight back at range...

And dies of starvation sooner or later.... We're talking a 20th level human fighter, right? Not a construct with fighter levels? So fatigue and exhaustion and hunger and thirst and any number of other normal limiting human factors apply? And since the question was "how many," I have an infinite number of kobolds at my disposal who can rest in shifts....

Or they pour oil into the canyon and light him up....

Again, the question is how many.

And you can't use a tower shield for total cover from two different directions. He'd have his total cover vs half (being generous and ignoring geometry) and take it in the rear (literally) with no dex bonus (only +1, I know) and no shield bonus against the other half. This is a good thing?

So, the question really is - "how many" would it take. You're saying that if the Plane of Infinite Kobolds were to open up and rain on this poor (and I mean poor - no real gear to speak of... ) fighter he'd survive and somehow kill every one of the infinitely spawning kobolds for ever and ever because he's also immortal? And invincible? And indestructible? Or what?

Hell, they could dog-pile him and overwhelm him with sheer weight of numbers. Every kobold just charges and grapples. With 5000 kobold on top of you, let's see what you do.

Oslecamo
2010-05-28, 10:06 AM
And dies of starvation sooner or later....

Or they pour oil into the canyon and light him up....

Again, the question is how many.

Well to fill a canyon with oil you may as well claim that the kobolds can drop the moon on the fighter.

Also since the kobold's ranged weapons can't hurt the adamantine fullplate fighter he can just, you know, climb the canyon walls.



And you can't use a tower shield for total cover from two different directions. He'd have his total cover vs half (being generous and ignoring geometry) and take it in the rear (literally) with no dex bonus (only +1, I know) and no shield bonus against the other half. This is a good thing?

Because if the kobolds are down the canyon, they're in reach of the fighter's pointy stick. One advantage of being down it's that your oponents can't attack you from below.

The Glyphstone
2010-05-28, 10:08 AM
And dies of starvation sooner or later....

Or they pour oil into the canyon and light him up....

Again, the question is how many.

And you can't use a tower shield for total cover from two different directions. He'd have his total cover vs half (being generous and ignoring geometry) and take it in the rear (literally) with no dex bonus (only +1, I know) and no shield bonus against the other half. This is a good thing?

Hi, welcome to 3.5. There are no rules for facing - unless you houserule, he can claim his tower shield cover against any attack he wants. If he was flying, he could claim total cover in a sphere. Why, I couldn't tell you, but them's the breaks.:smalleek:

As for flooding the entire canyon with oil...wasn't this supposed to be a cheaper alternative? Starvation...who's going to use up food faster, one human fighter or 500 kobolds? Again, not cheap.

Grapples - the kobolds are at -4 compared to his +24. Without Aid Another's, they can't beat him if they roll 20's and he rolls 1's. It'd take 8 kobolds all aiding one last kobold (the max possible) to have a total of +12 Grapple, still versus his +24. That's barely a 50% chance. Plus, you can't have more than 4-8 kobolds grappling one fighter at a time, so the odds can't get any worse against him than this.

Superglucose
2010-05-28, 10:11 AM
*checks* :smallconfused:

A fighter can't get beyond level 10 without magical equipment, much less to level 20. That's a bit arbitrary.
Imagine there's a horribly evil wizard who repeatedly Disjuncts the fighter until all of his equipment is mundane and then opens a Gate to the Elemental Plane of Kobolds. How long does the wizard get to sit back and watch the fighter cut through Kobolds God of War style before either his new champion (the fighter) dies or he has to step in and end things himself?

Knaight
2010-05-28, 10:12 AM
Hi, welcome to 3.5. There are no rules for facing - unless you houserule, he can claim his tower shield cover against any attack he wants. If he was flying, he could claim total cover in a sphere. Why, I couldn't tell you, but them's the breaks.:smalleek:

Tower shields specifically allow either the shield bonus (which seems like a much better idea really), or cover in 1 direction. Its not facing, but stuff like walls provide cover in only 1 direction, and the secondary use of a tower shield is basically wall creation. So claiming cover against any attack is a house rule, getting shield bonus against all attacks is how the system works.

Theodoriph
2010-05-28, 10:14 AM
Run action and aohttp://www.giantitp.com/forums/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=8581309o the hell out of the kobolds. Dash feat and quick trait both increases your speed, and the first can be stacked multiple times. Horses are also nonmagical equipment mind you.


Well the triple 20 rule is an optional rule and very few people actualy use itsince not everybody enjoys being killed by a random rat.



Mind explaining how your 100.000 kobolds are attacking the fighter at the same time when slings are bouncing out of his adamantine fullplate?:smallamused:

Intimidatormancer could easily turn the kobolds against each other. Stacking of DR stuff can turn the fighter immune to strenght 6 kobolds with superior weapons. There's plenty of ways for the fighter to come out of this winning.:smallcool:

Hmm, mounted archer on a gryphon...drool...:smallbiggrin:


Dash doesn't increase your speed when you're in adamantine full plate. Light armor and lightly encumbered only. So the kobolds can easily outrun you. A horse is fairly pointless, unless it can survive.


As for kobolds with 6 strength, they tend to have 9...unless you want to roll an infinite number of kobold warriors up. Then we can divide them into those with high strength and those with low strength and presume that the infinite number of high strength kobolds would attack before the infinite number of low strength kobolds. Actually, using this methodology, you could be attacked first by the infinite subset of the infinite number of kobolds that have perfect stats (we'll call them the shock troops), thereby being killed all the faster.


P.S. No magical equipment, so I took the heavy fortification off your fullplate. :smalltongue:

The Glyphstone
2010-05-28, 10:15 AM
Tower shields specifically allow either the shield bonus (which seems like a much better idea really), or cover in 1 direction. Its not facing, but stuff like walls provide cover in only 1 direction, and the secondary use of a tower shield is basically wall creation. So claiming cover against any attack is a house rule, getting shield bonus against all attacks is how the system works.


Shield, Tower
This massive wooden shield is nearly as tall as you are. In most situations, it provides the indicated shield bonus to your AC. However, you can instead use it as total cover, though you must give up your attacks to do so. The shield does not, however, provide cover against targeted spells; a spellcaster can cast a spell on you by targeting the shield you are holding. You cannot bash with a tower shield, nor can you use your shield hand for anything else.


Where does it mention one direction? It's not in the description of Tower Shields, or in Cover - you just have to be behind the cover. Besides, walls can't be repositioned to face any direction you want, tower shields can.

Indon
2010-05-28, 10:18 AM
And, hair-spitting - even if he has a cohort, a Leadership score of 60, or whatever, an infinite pool of any combat will eventually kill the fighter and his cohort if they're all allowed only mundane equipment. It would take alot more kobolds, but eventually the fighter and his minions become fatigued while the kobolds can sleep in shifts while awaiting their turn to die.

I'm afraid there is no fatigue in-combat by RAW.

However! If the kobolds can force the fighter to continually walk without rest, they might be able to get him in a Forced March (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/movement.htm#forcedMarch)!

...which they can totally use to deal a negligable amount of nonlethal damage to him, as well as get him exhausted. Probably still can't ever take him down.

As for thirst and starvation, our 20-con Fighter survives for 34 hours without water, automakes 10 hours worth of checks, takes roughly 10d6 average damage over the next 20 hours, then takes 1d6 damage per hour. He has a couple hundred hoursish.

However, all the kobolds in our infinite plane of kobolds die of thirst in a fraction of the time.

In fact, the kobolds can't even run - because our fighter can hustle at the overland move speed long enough the force to kobolds to die of forced marching (mind that our fighter is recovering 20 hp of nonlethal damage every hour purely from his HD). So if the kobolds have food or water that they could use to survive longer than the fighter, the fighter will eventually run them down and take that food and water off of their corpses.

Edit: A Kobold collapses during the fourth hour of hustling or after an average of 10 hours of walking.

Our fighter can hustle for six hours continuously before the damage he takes even outpaces his natural recovery rate of 20 nonlethal damage an hour. He can walk until he dies of thirst.

WorstDMEver
2010-05-28, 10:18 AM
Well to fill a canyon with oil you may as well claim that the kobolds can drop the moon on the fighter.

Also since the kobold's ranged weapons can't hurt the adamantine fullplate fighter he can just, you know, climb the canyon walls.

Because if the kobolds are down the canyon, they're in reach of the fighter's pointy stick. One advantage of being down it's that your oponents can't attack you from below.

Ok, I said 30' deep, I suppose I should have said something like 60' wide - throwing flasks of oil is bad enough. for the rest, I'll just have to draw you a picture. Have you ever taken archery in high school? If you hold that shield directly over your head, I'll pincushion your legs. Your tower shield is not a dome, it's a fairly flat (if large) object and would provide 1/2 to 3/4 cover at best crouching (unless you're a dwarf, then you can just lie down and place the shield on top of you.

I'm assuming you're saying that your adamantine full plate is in line with

Adamantine Breastplate: This nonmagical breastplate is made of adamantine, giving its wearer damage reduction of 2/–.
No aura (nonmagical); Price 10,200 gp.

So sure, it reduces bow damage by 1/3 (shortbows). Cool. I'm still throwing oil flasks - because an infinite number of kobolds doesn't have access to oil. Or cauldrons, or fire to boil it with, or anything. Just seeds and berries for food, and rocks and sticks for toys....

WorstDMEver
2010-05-28, 10:20 AM
I'm afraid there is no fatigue in-combat by RAW.


No fatigue due to combat - but you still have to sleep. If you do any work for 16 hours you become fatigued. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that fighting is work. Of course, our friend who's sleeping under his tower shield in the box canyon would be fine I guess....

AstralFire
2010-05-28, 10:21 AM
I am amazed how few people thought of the 3/- DR from Adamantine Fullplate. Then DR 2/- from Roots of the Mountain. Switch to Flame's Blessing stance for protection from fire as needed. Combat Vigor from PHB2 for healing. Kobolds cannot win.

WorstDMEver
2010-05-28, 10:21 AM
Where does it mention one direction? It's not in the description of Tower Shields, or in Cover - you just have to be behind the cover. Besides, walls can't be repositioned to face any direction you want, tower shields can.

You obviously can't face it in every direction simultaneously. You're being ridiculous.

The Glyphstone
2010-05-28, 10:22 AM
I am amazed how few people thought of the 3/- DR from Adamantine Fullplate. Then DR 2/- from Roots of the Mountain. Throw in improved Damage Reduction feats from CW ad nauseum, the Kobolds cannot win.

The OP limited our Fighter to Core a page ago, after seeing that the simple inclusion of ToB in any form made the 'challenge' impossible. So, Adamantine Full Plate is still in, RotM or Martial Spirit isn't.



You obviously can't face it in every direction simultaneously. You're being ridiculous.

I'm being RAW. Houserule if you like, but that's how the rules work - surrender your attacks, claim total cover against all incoming attacks for one turn. For that matter...why isn't the fighter pressed up against one wall, instead of moronically standing in the middle? That takes out 1/3 of the total force immediately, since now only the first row of one side can target him, and he can easily move his shield to cover every angle of attack in front of him.

WorstDMEver
2010-05-28, 10:23 AM
Hey - so, how many?

Saph
2010-05-28, 10:24 AM
:smallsigh:

So you're saying that if you get to choose every detail of the terrain and world, and deny a 20th-level character any of the stuff that they would have needed to reach 20th-level in the first place, then you can "beat" them with 1st-level warriors.

In other news, a 20th-level wizard can be beaten by 1st-level warriors too, just as long as he isn't allowed to use magic, have equipment, sleep, eat, drink, or breathe.

Indon
2010-05-28, 10:24 AM
No fatigue due to combat - but you still have to sleep. If you do any work for 16 hours you become fatigued. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that fighting is work. Of course, our friend who's sleeping under his tower shield in the box canyon would be fine I guess....

No, you don't. Our fighter can remain exhausted literally forever.

Edit:

Hey - so, how many?

For all the stacking against him you're trying to do, it's still infinite. The kobolds can not kill the fighter.

Even if they run and kite him continuously they will collapse of exaustion first.

The Glyphstone
2010-05-28, 10:26 AM
:smallsigh:

So you're saying that if you get to choose every detail of the terrain and world, and deny a 20th-level character any of the stuff that they would have needed to reach 20th-level in the first place, then you can "beat" them with 1st-level warriors.

In other news, a 20th-level wizard can be beaten by 1st-level warriors too, just as long as he isn't allowed to use magic, have equipment, sleep, eat, drink, or breathe.

I just hope this is a theoretical situation, otherwise his screenname becomes disturbingly appropriate...

WorstDMEver
2010-05-28, 10:27 AM
:smallsigh:
In other news, a 20th-level wizard can be beaten by 1st-level warriors too, just as long as he isn't allowed to use magic, have equipment, sleep, eat, drink, or breathe.

Silly - you can use magic. Fire away. When you run out of spells, call a medic.

The question was - and I'm going to repeat this - "how many."

Most of us are saying quite a few. Some of us are complaining about the conditions of the test. No one is saying this is a fair or reasonable test of any class. It was a silly question. It's getting a pile of silly answers.

So, how many? Just like "How many pennies are in this 55 gallon drum?"

Indon
2010-05-28, 10:28 AM
Oh, and by the way, by the same overland movement rules that allow our fighter to chase down kobolds until they collapse, he can escape kobolds or force them to collapse chasing him.

Our Fighter 20 can jog for six hours continuously before he takes any significant damage from it.

AstralFire
2010-05-28, 10:29 AM
Silly - you can use magic. Fire away. When you run out of spells, call a medic.

The question was - and I'm going to repeat this - "how many."

Most of us are saying quite a few. Some of us are complaining about the conditions of the test. No one is saying this is a fair or reasonable test of any class. It was a silly question. It's getting a pile of silly answers.

So, how many? Just like "How many pennies are in this 55 gallon drum?"

Since you are deciding when to and when not to exercise rules as written at your whim, as well as specifying a number of other silly conditions, why don't you do the math yourself?

Emmerask
2010-05-28, 10:31 AM
The kobold warrior will only hit on a 20 so a 5% chance to do ~6 dmg
the fighter will kill each and every kobold around him each round so 8 deads each round.


so without doing the math I would say somewehere in the three thousand range would be my guess :smalltongue:

The Glyphstone
2010-05-28, 10:31 AM
Oh, and by the way, by the same overland movement rules that allow our fighter to chase down kobolds until they collapse, he can escape kobolds or force them to collapse chasing him.

Our Fighter 20 can jog for six hours continuously before he takes any significant damage from it.

And do so under a tower shield, to boot. Or, if we're going to cover all our potential houserule bases, two tower shields*. They can be wielded one-handed, it's just that their shield bonuses to AC overlap. With two of them, a fighter can cover attacks from any direction he wants...and before any complaining about how heavy shields are comes into play, we are discussing someone who, without any magical aid, can triple, almost quadruple the olympic world record for clean-and-jerk weightlifting. Tower shields will be like feathers to him.

*Heck, if we're being 'ridiculous' for obeying the RAW in an absurdly one-sided contest, let's get a third tower shield strapped to his back, a fourth one that he pushes on a little wheeled trolley, and a fifth one glued flat to the top of his hat.:smallbiggrin::smallcool:

kamikasei
2010-05-28, 10:32 AM
Well, apparently we've pinned down that the kobolds are directly from the MM and are all using their spears, and that the fighter has only core to draw on and no magical gear. That still leaves a lot of uncertainty around the fighter's build and the circumstances of the scenario, terrain especially.

Kaiyanwang
2010-05-28, 10:32 AM
Where does it mention one direction? It's not in the description of Tower Shields, or in Cover - you just have to be behind the cover. Besides, walls can't be repositioned to face any direction you want, tower shields can.

This has been clarified in main FAQs and became official. In fact, Pathfinder tower shield contains a clearer explaination of towershield that, AFAIK, is identical to the answer of the Sage.

WorstDMEver
2010-05-28, 10:33 AM
No, you don't. Our fighter can remain exhausted literally forever.

Edit:

For all the stacking against him you're trying to do, it's still infinite. The kobolds can not kill the fighter.

Even if they run and kite him continuously they will collapse of exaustion first.

Exhaustion is worse than fatigue.... He can become fatigued after an hour of full rest from exhaustion.

Do any of you still have a copy of Neverwinter Nights? You can test this by creating a simple one-area module, creating a trigger that spawns 15 kobolds at a time and just run with it. In fact, customize the kobolds' onDeath script so that when he dies, a new one spawns. Then make your 20th level fighter and equip him with standard gear and have a go.

And it's not "infinite" because the human fighter will die of age eventually, if you want to stick to the "stays exhausted forever" position.

The Glyphstone
2010-05-28, 10:34 AM
This has been clarified in main FAQs and became official. In fact, Pathfinder tower shield contains a clearer explaination of towershield that, AFAIK, is identical to the answer of the Sage.

FAQ's aren't RAW, we're not using Pathfinder rules, and I'd consult a Magic 8 Ball before I trusted any answer given by the Sage, regardless of which side it favored.

WorstDMEver
2010-05-28, 10:35 AM
And do so under a tower shield, to boot. Or, if we're going to cover all our potential houserule bases, two tower shields*. They can be wielded one-handed, it's just that their shield bonuses to AC overlap. With two of them, a fighter can cover attacks from any direction he wants...and before any complaining about how heavy shields are comes into play, we are discussing someone who, without any magical aid, can triple, almost quadruple the olympic world record for clean-and-jerk weightlifting. Tower shields will be like feathers to him.

*Heck, if we're being 'ridiculous' for obeying the RAW in an absurdly one-sided contest, let's get a third tower shield strapped to his back, a fourth one that he pushes on a little wheeled trolley, and a fifth one glued flat to the top of his hat.:smallbiggrin::smallcool:

Ok, so, you have a hut built of tower shields - you're getting the flaming oil flask treatment from my infinite kobold horde.

kamikasei
2010-05-28, 10:36 AM
Do any of you still have a copy of Neverwinter Nights?

NWN is a modified implementation of an older ruleset. (Although come to think of it, the OP never did specify an edition, did he?)

WorstDMEver
2010-05-28, 10:38 AM
Since you are deciding when to and when not to exercise rules as written at your whim, as well as specifying a number of other silly conditions, why don't you do the math yourself?

Because, smart alec, it wasn't my question. But it seems that most people don't want to actually think about the question given, just blurt out "it's infinite!"

WorstDMEver
2010-05-28, 10:40 AM
NWN is a modified implementation of an older ruleset. (Although come to think of it, the OP never did specify an edition, did he?)

Yeah, but it's close enough for the question asked. The beasts are not significantly different. The fighter is limited by a reduced set of feats available, but has the parry skill. Yes, it's modified, but it's close. And it's faster than doing it by hand.

Draz74
2010-05-28, 10:42 AM
I skimmed this whole thread, and not a mention has been made of the Fighter's very favorite feat in this situation (admittedly non-Core):

Stone Power.

Bwahaha, you not only have to roll a 20 to hit me, you not only have to do at least 4 damage to get through my DR, but you have to do at least 6 damage per turn (combined) to get through my renewable temporary hit points!

AstralFire
2010-05-28, 10:44 AM
Because, smart alec, it wasn't my question. But it seems that most people don't want to actually think about the question given, just blurt out "it's infinite!"

You're certainly making it your question, considering the decision that they suddenly have flasks of oil and can conquer tower shields. The question is rapidly becoming akin to 'how many kobolds can a fighter kill where the kobolds are tucker's kobolds and the fighter is a naked idiot on the elemental plane of kobolds'. What's the point?


I skimmed this whole thread, and not a mention has been made of the Fighter's very favorite feat in this situation (admittedly non-Core):

Stone Power.

Bwahaha, you not only have to roll a 20 to hit me, you not only have to do at least 4 damage to get through my DR, but you have to do at least 6 damage per turn (combined) to get through my renewable temporary hit points!

Non-core banned, and before I was aware of that, Stone Power seemed wholly unnecessary.

CockroachTeaParty
2010-05-28, 10:48 AM
I'm not a fan of restricting it to Core only. With some ToB maneuvers, Robilar's Gambit, and other feats, he could probably kill kobolds until he starved to death. Actually, he would probably die of thirst first, assuming he has no access to water and the kobold just keep 'appearing.'

So he could probably kill a solid three days' worth of kobolds or more. If he stood his ground, eventually the dead would pile up into a wall surrounding the radius of his spiked chain's reach.

The Glyphstone
2010-05-28, 10:50 AM
Does blood have a water component to it?

Indon
2010-05-28, 10:50 AM
And it's not "infinite" because the human fighter will die of age eventually, if you want to stick to the "stays exhausted forever" position.

Fair enough. We don't need to use a human by RAW, however, we can use a longer-lived race to rack up more kills in old age.

Now, is our fighter killing kobolds by chasing them down, or by wading through them? This will significantly change our kill counts on the plane of infinite kobolds.

WorstDMEver
2010-05-28, 10:52 AM
You're certainly making it your question, considering the decision that they suddenly have flasks of oil and can conquer tower shields. The question is rapidly becoming akin to 'how many kobolds can a fighter kill where the kobolds are tucker's kobolds and the fighter is a naked idiot on the elemental plane of kobolds'. What's the point?

I was still with the original question - my bad. He clarified later. However, you're telling me that you don't suppose that our little kobolds don't have oil flasks? I didn't say alchemists' fire. Maybe I need to read over the kobold entry and see what they are capable of as a race. I think they can make fire.

I'm not making it my question - I'm just trying to remind everyone of what the question was.

Let's look at it this way. I ask "how long does it take to cook a hamburger on a gas grill?" You answer "On charcoal it takes about an hour because you have to let the coals settle before you can toss that baby on the grill." That's nice, but it's not what I asked. The OP asked a question and set the conditions, and everyone wants to wander all over the map without really looking at it.

WorstDMEver
2010-05-28, 10:53 AM
Fair enough. We don't need to use a human by RAW, however, we can use a longer-lived race to rack up more kills in old age.

Now, is our fighter killing kobolds by chasing them down, or by wading through them? This will significantly change our kill counts on the plane of infinite kobolds.

Let's do some of both. Don't forget that sooner or later he'll start to take penalties from his exhaustion (-6 and only half move).

The Glyphstone
2010-05-28, 10:55 AM
Let's look at it this way. I ask "how long does it take to cook a hamburger on a gas grill?" You answer "On charcoal it takes about an hour because you have to let the coals settle before you can toss that baby on the grill." That's nice, but it's not what I asked. The OP asked a question and set the conditions, and everyone wants to wander all over the map without really looking at it.

No, you ask "how long does it take to cook a hamburger on a gas grill." We answer "It'll never happen if we cut the fuel line from your gas tank to the grill" (i.e., removing the ability to deal damage to the fighter). The OP asked a question, set the conditions, then had to repeatedly change the conditions to systematically eliminate ways for the fighter to survive indefinitely. we're not reading the map anymore because it's been scribbled on so many times that all the landmarks are illegible.


Wow, this metaphor got really weird really fast.

CockroachTeaParty
2010-05-28, 10:56 AM
A warforged with some of the better feat combinations could probably do this indefinitely. On the elemental plane of kobolds, one lone warforged wades through seas of blood, doomed to destroy shrieking, squealing lizard-midgets for all eternity...

AstralFire
2010-05-28, 10:58 AM
I was still with the original question - my bad. He clarified later. However, you're telling me that you don't suppose that our little kobolds don't have oil flasks? I didn't say alchemists' fire. Maybe I need to read over the kobold entry and see what they are capable of as a race. I think they can make fire.

I'm not making it my question - I'm just trying to remind everyone of what the question was.

Let's look at it this way. I ask "how long does it take to cook a hamburger on a gas grill?" You answer "On charcoal it takes about an hour because you have to let the coals settle before you can toss that baby on the grill." That's nice, but it's not what I asked. The OP asked a question and set the conditions, and everyone wants to wander all over the map without really looking at it.

Those aren't MM kobolds. When you just start to say 'well, it'd be reasonable for the kobolds to also have this', and 'for the sake of realism things can't do this', it gets really damn hard to actually answer the question - not to mention it starts to defeat the point. Why can't the fighter start using the bodies of the slain as massive walls? If they're in a grassy field and people are throwing fire, why doesn't the fighter just let the entire place go up in flaming smoke? He can survive it much better than the kobolds can, get some breathing room, construct some walls out of the bodies of the fallen, get some rest inside of his sanctum of dead people.

Saph
2010-05-28, 11:01 AM
Another question would be why the fighter is outdoors?

If I'm fighting an army of X thousand enemies with worthless weapons, I wouldn't be doing it in an open field.

Superglucose
2010-05-28, 11:02 AM
So he could probably kill a solid three days' worth of kobolds or more. If he stood his ground, eventually the dead would pile up into a wall surrounding the radius of his spiked chain's reach.
Depending on how you read "Iron Heart Surge" he could keep going forever. Alternatively, there's a feat in Ravenloft which gives you access to 2 0th or 1 st level spell per day from the druid or cleric list (Redhead), which could be Create Water. As for food... well we are depositing an infinite number of kobolds at your feat.

Sliver
2010-05-28, 11:05 AM
*Heck, if we're being 'ridiculous' for obeying the RAW in an absurdly one-sided contest, let's get a third tower shield strapped to his back, a fourth one that he pushes on a little wheeled trolley, and a fifth one glued flat to the top of his hat.:smallbiggrin::smallcool:

The fighter is limited to one weapon, armor and shield...


Ok, so, you have a hut built of tower shields - you're getting the flaming oil flask treatment from my infinite kobold horde.


The kobolds are exactly as in their MM entry.

*looks at kobold entry*

Kobold fighting options: Spear or Sling.

As far as I can see, you are just bored and ask a pointless, meaningless question just to see how the playground will react. "SATISFY MY CURIOUSNESS!"

No one here is your private jester. If you are bored, find something to do beside pestering everybody else.

The Glyphstone
2010-05-28, 11:07 AM
The fighter is limited to one weapon, armor and shield...


Well, sure - that was just in response to having 3.0 facing houserules added in.

Glimbur
2010-05-28, 11:10 AM
A warforged with some of the better feat combinations could probably do this indefinitely. On the elemental plane of kobolds, one lone warforged wades through seas of blood, doomed to destroy shrieking, squealing lizard-midgets for all eternity...

Can we name him Killbot?

WorstDMEver
2010-05-28, 11:10 AM
Those aren't MM kobolds. When you just start to say 'well, it'd be reasonable for the kobolds to also have this', and 'for the sake of realism things can't do this', it gets really damn hard to actually answer the question - not to mention it starts to defeat the point. Why can't the fighter start using the bodies of the slain as massive walls? If they're in a grassy field and people are throwing fire, why doesn't the fighter just let the entire place go up in flaming smoke? He can survive it much better than the kobolds can, get some breathing room, construct some walls out of the bodies of the fallen, get some rest inside of his sanctum of dead people.

Oh, I never said he couldn't hide behind corpses.... I like that idea.

Have you ever been in a grass fire? Not as bad for people (or probably kobolds) as it is for wildlife. the fireline is narrow and all combatants could leap it with little to no damage (been there, done that IRL).

My first question when I read the OP was "why?" I'm just trying to see the realistic outcome of this battle. My campaigns would never see this happen in the first place. The kobolds that a lvl 20 anyone would be facing would have to be seriously advanced. The whole thread is silly. But the rules are the rules - and the 3.0 (sorry, didn't bother updating) MM says specifically that they will "drive enemies into the traps, where other kobolds wait to pour flaming oil over them, shoot them, or drop poisonous venom onto them."

"Poisonous venom" seems redundant. Hope it was reworded in 3.5.

Prodan
2010-05-28, 11:12 AM
The Combat Focus line of feats offers Combat Vigor, which can provide some healing.

WorstDMEver
2010-05-28, 11:12 AM
Can we name him Killbot?

Yes please....

AstralFire
2010-05-28, 11:13 AM
MM says specifically that they will "drive enemies into the traps, where other kobolds wait to pour flaming oil over them, shoot them, or drop poisonous venom onto them."

"Poisonous venom" seems redundant. Hope it was reworded in 3.5.

Those are presumably not the kobolds in the stat block, as none of those are listed possessions. When you're dealing with this kind of challenge, you have to be extremely specific. Wobbling between realism and abstraction just makes it harder to answer.

The Glyphstone
2010-05-28, 11:14 AM
The Combat Focus line of feats offers Combat Vigor, which can provide some healing.

Also non-core. We have to limit the fighter to core, otherwise it becomes literally impossible for him to lose, he has too many options to render himself immune to kobold attacks and/or heal himself at a faster pace than the kobolds can deal damage.

Prodan
2010-05-28, 11:15 AM
Ah.

Don't suppose some sort of Adamantine armor has been mentioned already, for the DR?

AstralFire
2010-05-28, 11:15 AM
Ah.

Don't suppose some sort of Adamantine armor has been mentioned already, for the DR?

Yeah, it has.

Siosilvar
2010-05-28, 11:23 AM
1 in 20 kobolds will hit.
With Adamantine fullplate, 1 in 3 kobolds will do damage. And this is only in melee.

So...

20 * 3 * fighter's hit points / 1.5 (kobold average damage if they succeed)

Roughly 40 kobolds per hit point.

WorstDMEver
2010-05-28, 11:37 AM
Those are presumably not the kobolds in the stat block, as none of those are listed possessions. When you're dealing with this kind of challenge, you have to be extremely specific. Wobbling between realism and abstraction just makes it harder to answer.

I wasn't wobbling - I've assumed a very large kobold tribe from the start. This is quoted from the combat section of the monster description in the MM. Of course, some of my facetious answers were not in line with this assumption.

My bad - I was wobbling.

Anyway, the OP didn't specify if the fighter had wandered into the kobolds' territory, so I will concede that they woudn't have traps set, or oil, or anything not in the stat block.

In all likelyhood the region he was in would be emptied of kobolds long before he died. Granted, the devastation he would wreak upon the kobold species would be incredible. Realistically (within the rules), there would never be a single coalition of clans large enough to kill this single fighter unless he happened to stumble drunkenly into their home territory, and even then he'd probably kill them all. If he were geared in the regalia of his (near)epic might the carnage would be swift and complete.

<shrug>

But, if there were enough kobolds they could eventually kill him in his pajamas.

Hand_of_Vecna
2010-05-28, 12:22 PM
I totally misread the OP and missed the "non"s.

Ya, without fortification this core fighter is toast in short order. The Kobolds will just surround him on all sides firing at him. They won't charge giving him attacks of oppurtunity actually they'll fill in 15 feet away from him.

Sling has a range increment of 50 so they can hit from what is it three range increments away and still hit on a natural 20 they need to crit to do damage so only double twenties have a chance to do damage lets see how many kobolds fit in a 300 foot diameter circle with a 20 ft hol in the middle? I think it's in the neigborhood of twenty thousand so 20000 attacks divided by 40 about 500 hits each doind 2d3-3 which does about 10 damage every 9 attacks so 450 damage in one round of concentrated fire. So the only kills he gets are from archery or charging one side while he's being surrounded. That's assuming he doesn't just start surrounded and roll initiative in which case he might roll mediocre and get killed by the 200+ kobolds that crit on hit before his turn.

Ossian
2010-05-28, 12:45 PM
The math of the previous post does not seem to come up, just a gut feeling though. At any rate, the kobs don't move a-la-hive mind all at the same time. Even if they start at a distance of 6 ft, the fighter only needs t charge and jump in the fray, and chances are that if all the 20000 kobs start shooting at him (with slings) they will kill more of their kind than anything else.


Round 1
Let s say he has his back against the wall. That leaves 5 squares (including diagonals). In melee (and with a reach weapon), if the kobold try to close in, he could probably Aoo all the 5 and chances are they all die. Let s say tat with 5 kills he is out of Aoo for that round. The Kobs (2nd wave) try to close in (they have to, as the entry gives them a reach of 5 ft only). Let s say it 's always the fighter's initiative. The kobs are in melee but it s the fighter's turn. he butcher's all of them (5) via 1st attack and great cleave, then he has to wait for the kobolds to close in again, say the 2nd wave, but that wastes his other attacks.

From here on, IF I understand the rules correctly (never been that good at number crunching, I ll admit) it is close combat all the time through. The fighter gets attacked 5 times per round (from the 5 spaces that are left around him) and slays 5 Kobolds per round with the first attack and the cleave feats.

So, what are the chances that rolling 5 dice x round, one of them will be a natural 20? Hard to do the math there (my brain is frying) but it has to be higher than just 1/20 (because there are 5 rolls and not just one). The spear does 1d6-1. Max 5 damage (with 3 DR you have to roll at least a 5-6 to damage). Crit is x3 (1/400 that you get a double 20).

Ok, here we have guesswork to the 99th power, but IF we stay melee only because the kobolds don't want to hit their own with arrows in the thick of the fray, and NO disarm / trip ever succeeds, the fighter suffers a 1 HP damage every other round, and if he has 220 PF (someone came up with this figure before), it takes approx 440 rounds to slay him. At a death rate of 5 kobolds per round (assuming the WALL of corpses is not a factor) the fighter 20 kills 440*5= 2200 kobolds?

Meh, I wonder if these calculations I just made were not just a big waste of bytes on the GiTP server....

Adumbration
2010-05-28, 12:53 PM
The way I see it, there should be two scenarios.

1) The kobolds are precisely as in their MM entry, and the fighter has the described equipment. In my opinion, the fighter has a fighting chance in this scenario.

2) The kobolds are warriors, at level one, but they can draw upon a decent point-buy or elite array, have access to Races of the Dragon supplement and all that it entails, and their feats can be chosen for them. The fighter can draw on all his WBL and has access to all the books for feats and items. In my opinion, the kobolds can win this scenario fairly quickly, in comparison to the first scenario.

AstralFire
2010-05-28, 12:54 PM
Care to explain how the second scenario favors the Kobolds? o_o

tyckspoon
2010-05-28, 01:00 PM
Care to explain how the second scenario favors the Kobolds? o_o

They could use the Rite of Passage to acquire Magic Missile or Hail of Stone for no-miss damage. That's the only addition I can think of that would make a significant change.. and even then I wouldn't bet on the Kobolds.

Adumbration
2010-05-28, 01:02 PM
Care to explain how the second scenario favors the Kobolds? o_o

Well, one of the more abusive methods involve the aforementioned draconic ritual that gives a 1st level arcane spell as a spell-like ability once per day. Take Mortalbane as a feat, from Book of Vile Darkness. Several times, if flaws are allowed.

Mortalbane does not specify that it can not be applied multiple times on the same spell-like ability. Say hello to 10d6+1d4+1 magic missiles. Those brooches of shielding run out verry fast.

And like I said, that's just one of the more abusive methods, relying on RAW interpretion. There are more RAI-friendly methods, too.

AstralFire
2010-05-28, 01:06 PM
Well, one of the more abusive methods involve the aforementioned draconic ritual that gives a 1st level arcane spell as a spell-like ability once per day. Take Mortalbane as a feat, from Book of Vile Darkness. Several times, if flaws are allowed.

Mortalbane does not specify that it can not be applied multiple times on the same spell-like ability. Say hello to 10d6+1d4+1 magic missiles. Those brooches of shielding run out verry fast.

And like I said, that's just one of the more abusive methods, relying on RAW interpretion. There are more RAI-friendly methods, too.

With full wealth, can't the fighter just get himself surrounded by a prismatic sphere and items of gust of wind or telekinesis or something to suction kobolds into it? With an anti-magic sphere inside of the prismatic sphere, where he proceeds to clobber them all one by one while using the many sources of (Ex) fast healing?

true_shinken
2010-05-28, 01:30 PM
You have Conan as a level 20 (say) fight and X Kobolds, let's do the math.


Except Conan is nowhere near level 20. A good blow to the head knocks him out cold. Conan does not defeat whole armies at once. Just because he is a well-known character it does not mean he is level 20. Conan wold probably be around the low to mid levels, 5-7ish.

Even without magical equipment and limited to core, a Fighter 20 using adamantine full-plate would simply breeze through this like no one's business.

JaronK
2010-05-28, 01:37 PM
If the Kobolds want to win, they should use bows instead. A bunch of Kobold Warrior 1s with Compound Longbows could do some real damage if there were enough of them (remember 20s always hit, and they could space out near the maximum range of the bows). Throw in a few Kobold Bard 1s with Dragonfire Inspiration (of different types) and Masterwork War Drums and this could actually be a nasty encounter.

JaronK

Adumbration
2010-05-28, 01:41 PM
With full wealth, can't the fighter just get himself surrounded by a prismatic sphere and items of gust of wind or telekinesis or something to suction kobolds into it? With an anti-magic sphere inside of the prismatic sphere, where he proceeds to clobber them all one by one while using the many sources of (Ex) fast healing?

Point taken. The Cube can take on anything.

EDIT: For a less snarky response - to really find out what would happen, a match would have to be arranged and clear rules and banlists set. In fact, I may have to retract partially my earlier statement - I can't tell with any precision which side would win with all wealth and customization available.

true_shinken
2010-05-28, 01:46 PM
Point taken. The Cube can take on anything.

EDIT: For a less snarky response - to really find out what would happen, a match would have to be arranged and clear rules and banlists set. In fact, I may have to retract partially my earlier statement - I can't tell with any precision which side would win with all wealth and customization available.

OP already said - core-only fighter, kobolds as per monster manual entry

Ossian
2010-05-28, 01:50 PM
Except Conan is nowhere near level 20. A good blow to the head knocks him out cold. Conan does not defeat whole armies at once. Just because he is a well-known character it does not mean he is level 20. Conan wold probably be around the low to mid levels, 5-7ish.

Even without magical equipment and limited to core, a Fighter 20 using adamantine full-plate would simply breeze through this like no one's business.

I said Conan for the sake of simplicity. I have no idea what his level would be in d20. Some say he's epic by the time he is 60, some place him at a permanent 5-6 level of Barbarian/Fighter /Rogue. Old AD&D had him as customized fighter 13/rogue7. Howard did not play D&D anyway.

However, it is beside the point. Just pick your random fantasy fighter with 20 levels of muscles and BFS.

Oslecamo
2010-05-28, 02:04 PM
If the Kobolds want to win, they should use bows instead. A bunch of Kobold Warrior 1s with Compound Longbows could do some real damage if there were enough of them (remember 20s always hit, and they could space out near the maximum range of the bows). Throw in a few Kobold Bard 1s with Dragonfire Inspiration (of different types) and Masterwork War Drums and this could actually be a nasty encounter.

JaronK

I believe that goes against the purpose of the challenge of both the fighter and kobolds hacking at each other whitout magic support on each side.

This, if the kobolds are taking caster levels then just let me pick my fighter 1/wizard 19 and we'll talk.

If the kobolds are bringing splatbooks then by all means do it, but then the fighter also gets to cherrypick noncore stuff.

Bakkan
2010-05-28, 02:05 PM
Note: Accidentally hit submit before I was finished, still working on it

Assume Kobolds exactly as in the MM or SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/kobold.htm) entry.

For our fighter, (assuming 32-pt buy and WBL)
Human Fighter 20

Equipment

Armor: Adamantine Full Plate (+8 AC, +1 Max Dex, 3/- DR)
Shield:Tower Shield (+4 AC, -2 attacks)
Weapon: Masterwork Kusari-Gama (1d6, reach, can attack adjacent enemies) [DMG]


Feats

1: Combat Expertise
1: Power Attack
1: Cleave
2: Dodge
3: Weapon Focus(Kusari-Gama)
4: Weapon Specialization(Kusari-Gama)
6: Great Cleave
8: Greater Weapon Focus(Kusari-Gama)
9: Mobility
10: Spring Attack
12: Whirlwind Attack
12: Combat Reflexes
14: Greater Weapon Specialization(Kusari-Gama)
15: Improved Initiative
16:
18:
18:
20:


Abilities
STR 16 (+3) [15 base + 1 inherent]
DEX 15 (+2) [15 base]
CON20 (+5) [16 base+4 inherent]
INT 14 (+2) [14 base]
WIS8 (+0) [8 base]
CHA8 (+0) [8 base]

Hit Points
10+19d10+100 (214)

Armor Class
23 [+8 armor, +4 Shield, +1 Dex], 11 touch, 22 flat-footed
Since he will only be using his highest attack bonus for whirlwind attack, he can max out Combat Expertise and give himself 28 armor total.

Attacks:
+26/+21/+16/+11 [+5 Str, +2 Greater Weapon Focus, +1 Masterwork, -2 Tower Shield]

Damage:
1d6+7 [+3 Str +4 Greater Weapon Specialization]

Now for the number crunching

Let R be the number of kobolds who attack the fighter with their ranged sling attack. They cannot assist or be assisted using Aid Another and they do not flank, so they have only their +3 attack bonus to hit. They need a 20 to hit, but a normal hit won't get past his damage reduction, so they need to critical, which requires another 20. On a critical, they deal 2d3-2 damage, so even on a critical they have only a 1/9 chance of dealing a single point of damage. Therefore the damage the fighter takes from ranged attacks in one round is

R x 1/20 x 1/20 x 1/9 x 1 = R/3600

Now let M be the number of kobolds who can attack the fighter with their melee spear attack. This can get a little more complicated because of the Aid Another and flanking possibilities. Any kobold has a 3/5 chance of successfully aiding another one on his attack if he is not flanking, and a 7/10 chance of successfully aiding if he is. For a given attack, let a be the number of kobolds aiding the attack. Then the amount of help given by the aiding is governed by a binomial distribution, with the number of trials equal to a and the probability of success equal to 3/5 or 7/10. To be precise, the probability that x of the kobolds successfully aid is

B(a,3/5,x)=(aCx)(3/5)^x(2/5)^(a-x)
if they are not flanking and

B(a,7/10,x)=(aCx)(7/10)^x(3/10)^(a-x)
if they are flanking.

.........And I realize that I may be making this harder than I need to.

Suppose that a particular kobold in melee has a p/20 chance of hitting the fighter (no matter how he gets that probability). He has a 1/20 chance of threatening a critical, and a p/20 chance of confirming. If he criticals, he deals 3d6-3 points of damage. I gathered probability data from here (http://anwu.org/games/dice_calc.html), to determine that the expected damage if he crits, given the fighter's DR, is

0.06944x1 + 0.09722x2 +0.11574x3 + 0.125x4 + 0.125x5 + 0.11574x6 + 0.09722x7 + 0.06944x8 + 0.0463x9 + 0.02778x10 + 0.01389x11 + 0.00463x12 =

4.55556, or 41/9 points of damage.

On the other hand, he has a (p-1)/20 chance of hitting without threatening and a 1/20 x (20-p)/20 chance of threatening but not confirming. In either case he deals 1d6-1 damage, which has a 1/6 chance to deal 1 damage and a 1/6 chance to deal 2 damage, for an expected damage of 1/6 x 1 + 1/6 x 2 = 1/2.

So an attack with a p/20 chance of hitting will deal, on average

1/20 x p/20 x 41/9 + [(p-1)/20+1/20 x (20-p)/20]x 1/2 = (1829p-9p^2-180)/144000
points of damage. For simplicity's sake, let's simplify this:

If p=1, 0.01139 average damage (41/3600)
If p=2, 0.02390 average damage (1721/72000)
If p=3, 0.03629 average damage (871/24000)
If p=4, 0.04856 average damage (437/9000)
If p=5, 0.06069 average damage (437/7200)
If p=6, 0.07271 average damage (349/4800)
If p=7, 0.08456 average damage (6091/72000)
If p=1, 0.09636 average damage (3469/36000)
If p=9, 0.10800 average damage (27/250)
If p=10, 0.11951 average damage (1721/14400)


Now let's look at the possible number of kobolds in melee range, from 1 to 8, and see what the ideal strategy is that gives the highest average damage. For simplicity, we assume that any pair of kobolds can be treated as flanking with each other.

First, note that unless a kobold is both flanking and has 3 kobolds assisting him (for a total attack bonus of +9), he can only hit on a 20. So if there are three or fewer kobolds adjacent to the fighter, they should all just take their normal attacks and hope for the best. That is,
1 Kobold: 0.01139 average damage
2 Kobolds: 0.02278 = 2x0.01139 average damage
3 Kobolds: 0.03417 = 3x0.01139 average damage
4 Kobolds: 0.04556 average damage

Here we have two possibilities. Either all the kobolds attempt to assist one, or all four take normal attacks.
If all assist, there is only a 0.7^3 chance of all succeeding, and so
Damage: 0.7^3x0.02390 + (1-0.7^3)x0.01139 = 0.01568

If all four attack, then
Damage: 4x0.01139 = 0.04556, which is far better.

5 Kobolds: 0.05695 average damage

If one kobold doesn't assist but takes a normal attack, then from the 4 kobolds analysis they should all take normal attacks. If four kobolds assist one, then note that one kobold doesn't flank and so only has a 60% chance of assisting successfully.
Damage: 0.7^3x0.6x0.04856+(3x0.7^2x0.3x0.6+0.7^3x0.4)x0.02 390+(1-0.7^3x0.6-3x0.7^2x0.3x0.6-0.7^3x0.4)x0.01139 = 0.02407

If all five attack, then
Damage: 5x0.01139 = 0.05695, which again is much better

6 Kobolds: 0.06834 damage

Once again, we know that we only have to look at what happens if five kobolds assist one.
Prob that 5 assist: 0.16807 = 0.7^5
Prob that 4 assist: 0.35015 = 5x0.7^4x0.3
Prob that 3 assist: 0.30870 = 10x0.7^3x0.3^2
Prob that 2 or fewer assist: 0.16308=1-0.16807-0.35015-0.30870
Damage: 0.16807x0.07271+0.35015x0.04856+0.30870x0.02390+0. 16308x0.01139 = 0.03894

If all attack normally,
Damage: 6x0.01139 = 0.06834, which is better.

For 7 and 8 kobolds, we will assume the same result as for 4, 5, and 6 kobolds holds.

7 Kobolds: 0.07973 average damage
8 Kobolds: 0.09112 average damage


The Setup
Now, if I may quote the OP:
"[The kobolds] rush him in a swarm."

So here's how I'm setting up the first experiment. The fighter stands in the center of an infinite flat plane, which is the Elemental Plane of Kobolds. Every square in the plane except for the one the fighter occupies holds a kobold at the beginning of the experiment. When a kobold dies its body disappears. Every kobold will do whatever he can to kill the fighter, that is, every kobold within 500 feet will sling a bullet at him, every kobold adjacent to him will attack him with their spear, and every kobold who can move up to attack him will.

Let's assume the fighter goes first. He uses Whirlwind attack to attack every kobold within 10 feet (there are 24 of them), missing, on average, 1.2 kobolds (hence killing 22.8 of them). Now all the kobolds move up. The fighter waits until all but one of his adjacent squares are occupied with kobolds, then takes his AoO on the last kobold to move up. He then uses his great cleave to strike at more of the kobolds around him until he rolls a 1. As the kobolds continue to move up, he repeats this, waiting until the last kobold provokes an attack before taking it. I am assuming here that all of the kobolds delay so that the kobolds closest to the fighter go first. The fighter can make a total of three AoOs in this way. If he ever misses the last kobold, he will not be able to make any more attacks of opportunity, since no kobold will be leaving his threatened square. After he makes his three AoOs, the kobolds fill in the squares around him and attack.

He will be attacked by the eight kobolds surrounding him and all those kobolds not adjacent to him. He takes, on average, 0.09112 damage from the kobolds adjacent to him.

A circle 500 feet in radius centered on the fighter has an area of about 783,398 square feet. Each square is 25 square feet, so this circle contains about 31,416 squares. Nine of those squares are taken up by the fighter and the adjacent kobolds. Additionally, let's say that the kobolds are not entirely suicidal and will not use their slings if the fighter threatens them. So a total of 25 squares are not taken up by slingers. Hence 31,391 kobolds sling at him, dealing about 31,391/3600 = 8.72 damage.

So the fighter is taking 8.81 damage per round. That means he will last 24.3 rounds, assuming I did my math correctly. Now we just need to figure out how many kobolds he kills per round.

Eldariel
2010-05-28, 02:22 PM
I think you'll want 16 Dex base for more AoOs. Either way, you get full Strength even on light weapons in mainhand. You just can't efficiently two-hand them (you can two-hand one-handed weapons), nor Power Attack. So his damage is amazing 1d6+9.

Meh, might well fill his remaining feats with some archery (for tactical alternatives), and the list of Improved Trip, Sunder, Overrun and so on if you feel like it.

Kaiyanwang
2010-05-28, 02:24 PM
FAQ's aren't RAW, we're not using Pathfinder rules, and I'd consult a Magic 8 Ball before I trusted any answer given by the Sage, regardless of which side it favored.

I pointed out Pathfinder because after that ruling, was assumed that TS worked that way.

Even the fact that is a standard action take cover has been clarified before.

Dairun Cates
2010-05-28, 02:26 PM
I think you'll want 16 Dex base for more AoOs. Either way, you get full Strength even on light weapons in mainhand. You just can't efficiently two-hand them (you can two-hand one-handed weapons), nor Power Attack. So his damage is amazing 1d6+9.

Meh, might well fill his remaining feats with some archery (for tactical alternatives), and the list of Improved Trip, Sunder, Overrun and so on if you feel like it.

If we're theorhetically keeping him alive as long as possible and we're sticking with the chain AOE AoO build, why not put them in toughness just to get some extra HP?

Theodoriph
2010-05-28, 02:27 PM
Note: Accidentally hit submit before I was finished, still working on it

Assume Kobolds exactly as in the MM or SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/kobold.htm) entry.

For our fighter, (assuming 32-pt buy and WBL)
Human Fighter 20

Equipment

Armor: Adamantine Full Plate (+8 AC, +1 Max Dex, 3/- DR)
Shield:Tower Shield (+4 AC, -2 attacks)
Weapon: Masterwork Kusari-Gama (1d6, reach, can attack adjacent enemies) [DMG]


Feats

1: Combat Expertise
1: Power Attack
1: Cleave
2: Dodge
3: Weapon Focus(Kusari-Gama)
4: Weapon Specialization(Kusari-Gama)
6: Great Cleave
8: Greater Weapon Focus(Kusari-Gama)
9: Mobility
10: Spring Attack
12: Whirlwind Attack
12: Combat Reflexes
14: Greater Weapon Specialization(Kusari-Gama)
15:
16:
18:
18:
20:


Abilities
STR 21 (+5) [16 base + 5 inherent]
DEX 14 (+2) [14 base]
CON16 (+3) [16 base]
INT 14 (+2) [14 base]
WIS8 (+0) [8 base]
CHA8 (+0) [8 base]


Armor Class
23 [+8 armor, +4 Shield, +1 Dex], 11 touch, 22 flat-footed

Attacks:
+26/+21/+16/+11 [+5 Str, +2 Greater Weapon Focus, +1 Masterwork, -2 Tower Shield]

Damage:
1d6+7 [+3 Str +4 Greater Weapon Specialization]



You still have the speed problem that I mentioned earlier. As far as your character goes so far, the kobolds have no reason to engage you. You move at 20ft....they move at 30. They can just keep out of range and keep peppering you with sling shots (or bows if we can customize our kobolds) until you keel over. And since you can only have one weapon as per the OP....you can't pack a bow in reserve.

Oslecamo
2010-05-28, 02:33 PM
You still have the speed problem that I mentioned earlier. As far as your character goes so far, the kobolds have no reason to engage you. You move at 20ft....they move at 30. They can just keep out of range and keep peppering you with sling shots (or bows if we can customize our kobolds) until you keel over. And since you can only have one weapon as per the OP....you can't pack a bow in reserve.

There's this thing called "charge" that allows you to move at double your speed and attack.:smalltongue:

Mind you sling shots just bounce off fullplate whitout dealing damage. And the kobolds have a limit of ammo they can carry.

Theodoriph
2010-05-28, 02:36 PM
There's this thing called "charge" that allows you to move at double your speed and attack.:smalltongue:

Mind you sling shots just bounce off fullplate whitout dealing damage. And the kobolds have a limit of ammo they can carry.


Wow...you're moving 30 feet. Guess what...the maximum range of a sling is much larger than 30ft. And 3 20s kill anything :smallamused:

And as per the MM, there is no limit to their ammo.

Eldariel
2010-05-28, 02:38 PM
Wow...you're moving 30 feet. Guess what...the maximum range of a sling is much larger than 30ft. And 3 20s kill anything :smallamused:

Instant kill rules are a variant, not core. Also, he can move 40', not 30'. Charge is a double move.

Theodoriph
2010-05-28, 02:40 PM
Instant kill rules are a variant, not core. Also, he can move 40', not 30'. Charge is a double move.

Typo...regardless 40 or 30 doesn't matter when they're over 100 feet away and theoretically up to 500.


And instant kill rules are in the core book, so they're core by my reckoning.

Eldariel
2010-05-28, 02:44 PM
Typo...regardless 40 or 30 doesn't matter when they're over 100 feet away and theoretically up to 500.

And instant kill rules are in the core book, so they're core by my reckoning.

They're a variant. Sidebar on page 28 on DMG:
VARIANT: INSTANT KILL
When you or a player rolls a natural 20 on an attack roll, a critical roll is made to see if a critical hit is scored. If that critical roll is also a 20, that’s considered a threat for an instant kill. Now a third roll, an instant kill roll, is made. If that roll scores a hit on the target in question (just like a normal critical roll after a threat), the target is instantly slain. Creatures immune to critical hits are also immune to instant kills.
The instant kill variant only applies to natural 20s, regardless of the threat range for a combatant or weapon. (Otherwise weapons, feats, and magical powers that improve threat ranges would be much more powerful than they are intended to be.)
The instant kill variant makes a game more lethal and combat more random. In any contest, an increase in randomness improves the odds for the underdog. Since the PCs win most fights, a rule that makes combat more random hurts the PCs more than it hurts their enemies.

And 30' or 40' matters; they can only move 30' and attack each round, so the Fighter will catch 'em. Also, Tower Shield can be used to gain Total Cover so they can't attack at all.

Chen
2010-05-28, 02:46 PM
Sling are what 150 ft range? Ignoring diagonals being longer for the moment that a square 61 squares to a side. Thats 3720 Kobolds. From the minor math that appeared that deals a little over 1 hp damage per round to the fighter if they all attack with their slings. Assuming all the melee kobolds don't do anything thats going to take a LONG while to kill the fighter (well ~214 rounds). He'll kill a lot of kobolds in that time.

Theodoriph
2010-05-28, 02:47 PM
They're a variant. Sidebar on page 28 on DMG:
VARIANT: INSTANT KILL
When you or a player rolls a natural 20 on an attack roll, a critical roll is made to see if a critical hit is scored. If that critical roll is also a 20, that’s considered a threat for an instant kill. Now a third roll, an instant kill roll, is made. If that roll scores a hit on the target in question (just like a normal critical roll after a threat), the target is instantly slain. Creatures immune to critical hits are also immune to instant kills.
The instant kill variant only applies to natural 20s, regardless of the threat range for a combatant or weapon. (Otherwise weapons, feats, and magical powers that improve threat ranges would be much more powerful than they are intended to be.)
The instant kill variant makes a game more lethal and combat more random. In any contest, an increase in randomness improves the odds for the underdog. Since the PCs win most fights, a rule that makes combat more random hurts the PCs more than it hurts their enemies.

And 30' or 40' matters; they can only move 30' and attack each round. Also, Tower Shield can be used to gain Total Cover so they can't attack at all.




So basically you're admitting that it's core. Thanks, but I already knew that. :smalltongue: All they need to do is keep out of range. That's easy enough when they're faster. Tower shield doesn't matter. They have unlimited ammo and while the fighter is using his tower shield, he's not killing anything. Since they can move faster than him, he can't even use it to get in range...poor boy.

Eldariel
2010-05-28, 02:56 PM
So basically you're admitting that it's core. Thanks, but I already knew that. :smalltongue:

It's in Core, but it's not a part of the Core rules. It's a variant for Core rules, which is what I said in the first place. There seems to be a disconnection here in somewhere


All they need to do is keep out of range. That's easy enough when they're faster. Tower shield doesn't matter. They have unlimited ammo and while the fighter is using his tower shield, he's not killing anything. Since they can move faster than him, he can't even use it to get in range...poor boy.

The Kobolds don't win until they kill the Fighter. If they keep running, that will never happen, and as such they're stuck there for eternity running away. Besides, I'm betting they'll fail more Constitution-checks on the chase eventually than the Fighter will. The OP says they will "rush him in swarms" anyways.

Oslecamo
2010-05-28, 02:58 PM
So basically you're admitting that it's core. Thanks, but I already knew that. :smalltongue:

It's a variant, thus unless the DM says otherwise it isn't used. Point. And the OP didn't say we were using that variant rule.




All they need to do is keep out of range. That's easy enough when they're faster. Tower shield doesn't matter. They have unlimited ammo and while the fighter is using his tower shield, he's not killing anything. Since they can move faster than him, he can't even use it to get in range...poor boy.

Not really. Kobolds will get tired before the fighter. And they can't hurt him at all while he's behind the tower shield even with your variant rule.

Mind you he can perfectly catch up with them by charging(move 40 foot) or running (60 foot, 80 with feat).

Theodoriph
2010-05-28, 03:07 PM
It's in Core, but it's not a part of the Core rules. It's a variant for Core rules, which is what I said in the first place. There seems to be a disconnection here in somewhere

The disconnect was when you said it's not a part of core. It is, as it's in the core books. Ergo, the kobolds are authorised to use that rule if they wish. We can put it to a vote if you like, but I think the infinite hordes of kobolds beat one fighter. :smalltongue:




The Kobolds don't win until they kill the Fighter. If they keep running, that will never happen, and as such they're stuck there for eternity running away. Besides, I'm betting they'll fail more Constitution-checks on the chase eventually than the Fighter will. The OP says they will "rush him in swarms" anyways.

They don't have to keep running. In full plate, the fighter only runs at 60 feet a round (80 if he takes run). Kobolds can run 120 ft per round.


So essentially you could get something like this happening.

500 feet between fighter and kobolds. Fighter runs 80 feet (with run). 420 feet. Kobolds shoot, move 30 feet. 450 feet. Fighter runs 80 feet. Kobolds run 120 feet. 490 feet. Fighter runs 80 feet. Kobolds shoot, move 30 feet. 440 feet. Fighter runs 80 feet. Kobolds run 120 feet. 480 feet. Fighter runs 80 feet. Kobolds shoot, move 30 feet. 430 feet. Fighter runs 80 feet.
Kobolds run 120. 470 feet.

All the kobolds need to do is add in a spare run every so often to make up the 10ft they lose per cycle. And that's assuming the fighter takes run as a feat. If he doesn't, the kobolds can attack even more. And since the kobolds are not running consecutively they don't have to make constitution checks.

They just need to keep pelting him until they hit the jackpot. With a few hundred kobolds and a few hundred slings, that would work out to around 1500 attacks a minute if they attack about every other round. So it shouldn't take more than 5 minutes to kill the pesky fighter. :smalltongue:

Drakevarg
2010-05-28, 03:13 PM
The disconnect was when you said it's not a part of core. It is, as it's in the core books. Ergo, the kobolds are authorised to use that rule if they wish. We can put it to a vote if you like, but I think the infinite hordes of kobolds beat one fighter. :smalltongue:

'scept, y'know, that's not how variant rules work. You can't just vote which ones are used. DM has to decide them, with the default assumption being "no." And since the OP is essentially the DM here, and he hasn't said yes, the answer is therefore no.

Theodoriph
2010-05-28, 03:14 PM
'scept, y'know, that's not how variant rules work. You can't just vote which ones are used. DM has to decide them, with the default assumption being "no." And since the OP is essentially the DM here, and he hasn't said yes, the answer is therefore no.

Except you're wrong. See...I can do that too. Core only, and core it is. I win.

Oslecamo
2010-05-28, 03:15 PM
The disconnect was when you said it's not a part of core. It is, as it's in the core books. Ergo, the kobolds are authorised to use that rule if they wish.

No they're not. Variant rules need specific DM aproval to be used.



All the kobolds need to do is add in a spare run every so often to make up the 10ft they lose per cycle. And that's assuming the fighter takes run as a feat. If he doesn't, the kobolds can attack even more. And since the kobolds are not running consecutively they don't have to make constitution checks.

We're now fighting in a completely featurless plane where there's no cover and there's always space to run away in a straight line?

The fighter buys a griffon (he can by core and it's nonmagical equipment), gets a longbow, flies out of sling range and shoots arrows.

Theodoriph
2010-05-28, 03:18 PM
No they're not. Variant rules need specific DM aproval to be used.


Wrong. Technically, all rules need specific DM approval to be used. :smalltongue: Since we can use core, the kobolds are going to use whichever set of core rules benefit them most. Since they outnumber the fighter, democracy wins in my books.

Gametime
2010-05-28, 03:19 PM
Except you're wrong. See...I can do that too. Core only, and core it is. I win.

From the DMG:


Variant: To give you an idea of some of the ways in which you can
alter the D&D rules for your own campaign, some sidebars suggest
variants that you can adopt or modify to suit your game.
The basic rules presented in this book—that is, everything not identified
as a variant—apply to the baseline D&D campaign.

Emphasis mine. Variants aren't an assumed to just maybe kinda be involved in the default D&D rules - they have to be explicitly chosen by the DM, or they aren't part of the rules.

If the OP wants to step in and allow the auto-kill rule, fine. Until he does, it's irrelevant for the purposes of this thought experiment.

Theodoriph
2010-05-28, 03:24 PM
From the DMG:



Emphasis mine. Variants aren't an assumed to just maybe kinda be involved in the default D&D rules - they have to be explicitly chosen by the DM, or they aren't part of the rules.

If the OP wants to step in and allow the auto-kill rule, fine. Until he does, it's irrelevant for the purposes of this thought experiment.



Wrong. See above.

Drakevarg
2010-05-28, 03:25 PM
Wrong. See above.

{Scrubbed}

true_shinken
2010-05-28, 03:35 PM
{Scrubbed}
This. I want to hug you, Psycho.

Gametime
2010-05-28, 03:37 PM
Wrong. See above.

So even though there is, literally, a rule that tells you which rules are default and which ones are not, and there is no reason to assume that we are not using the default rules other than that you really want to, you are going to insist that taking the rules interpretation that is most favorable to your position is just as valid as taking the rule interpretation that is actually supported by the text.

Fair enough. There doesn't seem to be much point in arguing further.

Barbarian MD
2010-05-28, 03:57 PM
I give you: the Kobold Challenge! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=135820&highlight=kobold+challenge)

This same idea prompted me to create a game on these very boards. I think the PC level was something around 8. Douglas proved that he could kill an infinite number of kobolds. At that point, we gave up on it and declared him the winner by default.


Human Monk 2 with the Cobra Strike fighting style variant/Crusader 2/Fighter 2 with 2 flaws. 3 feats for levels, 1 from human, 2 Monk, 2 Fighter, 2 Flaw = 10 feats. Enough for: Aberration Blood, Inhuman Reach, Willing Deformity, Deformity (tall), Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Spiked Chain), and Whirlwind Attack + prerequisites. Inhuman Reach and Deformity (tall) each give +5' reach, making my natural reach 15'. Spiked Chain doubles this to 30'. This is enough reach to cover the entire clearing. Proceed to Whirlwind Attack every round, attacking every kobold in reach. Thanks to Martial Spirit from Crusader, this should heal me to full every round as well as clearing 95% of the kobolds, so as long as my max hp is high enough to survive 1 round of attacks I should be fine.

Mando Knight
2010-05-28, 04:05 PM
And 30' or 40' matters; they can only move 30' and attack each round, so the Fighter will catch 'em. Also, Tower Shield can be used to gain Total Cover so they can't attack at all.

Besides, to catch up, the Fighter can also run 60 feet rather than just 40 feet. On top of that, the OP stated that the kobolds rush the Fighter, so no skirmishing for them. Edit: it also helps to look at the last page before posting. :smallredface:

Oslecamo
2010-05-28, 04:14 PM
Wrong. Technically, all rules need specific DM approval to be used.

All rules need specific DM approval, but some need more specific approval than others.

The fighter class, nonmagic equipment and MM kobold have been aproved. triple 20 kill weren't. It's as simple as that.

If all rules on the DMG are fair game then I invoke rule zero to make the fighter immune to everything(and infinite power since we're at it) and at the same time deny the kobolds the use of rule zero itself. Your move.

Stompy
2010-05-28, 04:25 PM
Now, as sucky as a Fighter 20 is, they're still miles better than a Kobold Warrior 1. That's something we can all agree on (barring stupid cheese). But how much better?

Given only a single non-magical weapon, a single non-magical suit of armor and optionally a single non-magical shield, how many Kobold Warrior 1s can a Fighter 20 kill, on average, if they rush him in a swarm?

You need to update this with the new rules added in.

Answer: Use an adamantine weapon to dig through the ground. Use an adamantine tower shield, fortified into the earth, to block the entrance. Dig air holes for yourself. Then procede to kill all the kobolds because they don't have water nor food on them, and you can outlast them. (EDIT 4, sorry, I want to win this.) Hell, you could just make a 5' wide corridor in the earth, and then use your 3.0 tower shield.

EDIT: Since you did not specify it yet, assume the ground is solid rock. :smalltongue:

EDIT 2: What is the visibility of this NI kobold place? Would the kobolds that will sling me at 500' be able to see me?

EDIT 3: Could you just post the arena conditions, anyway?

Darcy
2010-05-28, 04:39 PM
Kobolds weigh on average 40 pounds. After less than 50 Kobolds he is going to be overwhelmed with Kobold corpses and will be easy pickings for those who remain.

CockroachTeaParty
2010-05-28, 04:46 PM
Kobolds weigh on average 40 pounds. After less than 50 Kobolds he is going to be overwhelmed with Kobold corpses and will be easy pickings for those who remain.

I don't think there are any established rules for piling up corpses... I'm pretty sure a prone creature does not count as difficult terrain? Maybe? Thought I read that somewhere.

Mando Knight
2010-05-28, 04:53 PM
Kobolds weigh on average 40 pounds. After less than 50 Kobolds he is going to be overwhelmed with Kobold corpses and will be easy pickings for those who remain.

Kobold corpses aren't walls. To a Fighter, they're just sacks of flour he can punch away or stride through like one of those ball pits that fast food restaurants used to have.

paddyfool
2010-05-28, 05:03 PM
Here's another unfair way for the fighter to win:

Level 20 Raptoran fighter with a footbow. No shield or armour necessary; just fly off to beyond the maximum range of the kobolds' slings and plink them til you die of old age.

(Only problem I can see here is you'd have to sleep sometime... and they could always run away underground somewhere).

The Glyphstone
2010-05-28, 05:15 PM
Here's another unfair way for the fighter to win:

Level 20 Raptoran fighter with a footbow. No shield or armour necessary; just fly off to beyond the maximum range of the kobolds' slings and plink them til you die of old age.

(Only problem I can see here is you'd have to sleep sometime... and they could always run away underground somewhere).

Well, you don't have to sleep, you'd just end up Exhausted, and be a lot slower and less accurate. :)

Drakevarg
2010-05-28, 05:17 PM
Here's another unfair way for the fighter to win:

Level 20 Raptoran fighter with a footbow. No shield or armour necessary; just fly off to beyond the maximum range of the kobolds' slings and plink them til you die of old age.

(Only problem I can see here is you'd have to sleep sometime... and they could always run away underground somewhere).

Has to be human, and besides, going to maximum load in ammunition would still be < infinity.

Flickerdart
2010-05-28, 05:19 PM
Kobold corpses aren't walls. To a Fighter, they're just sacks of flour he can punch away or stride through like one of those ball pits that fast food restaurants used to have.
Eventually the Fighter's weapons will dull and break against the oncoming horde of Kobolds, and he will be forced to arm himself with whatever is at hand, by which I mean dead Kobolds. If you wanted to get RAW-fancy, he would insta-craft Quarterstaves from Kobold bones, but using raw Kobold is a better mental image.

The Glyphstone
2010-05-28, 05:40 PM
Eventually the Fighter's weapons will dull and break against the oncoming horde of Kobolds, and he will be forced to arm himself with whatever is at hand, by which I mean dead Kobolds. If you wanted to get RAW-fancy, he would insta-craft Quarterstaves from Kobold bones, but using raw Kobold is a better mental image.

If he's got an adamantine weapon, he'll probably die of old age before it breaks. The corpses will pile up around him in an unending mountain, dirt will accumulate on top of them and him, and someday there will be a small hamlet built at the foot of Kobold Hill. No one will know what it is named such, but rumors persist of the legendary, indestructible sword hidden at its core.

term1nally s1ck
2010-05-28, 06:47 PM
Of course, if we use Incarnum, there's a soul chakra bind that gives you a Gate effect for 1000XP, which gives a result of "All of them"

Cloak of the Obyrith and a pile of Abyssal Heritor featsm alongside Greater Resiliency would give you DR: Lots. Add in some of the Fast healing grafts/feats, and you're going to win.

Basically, there are ways to be immune to everything they can throw at you.

Zovc
2010-05-28, 06:57 PM
How many attacks can the fighter make using spring attack, great cleave, and a reach weapon? Can we make a whip do lethal damage to get a reach of 15' and have a one-handed weapon?

Lysander
2010-05-28, 07:10 PM
I'm not a fan of restricting it to Core only. With some ToB maneuvers, Robilar's Gambit, and other feats, he could probably kill kobolds until he starved to death. Actually, he would probably die of thirst first, assuming he has no access to water and the kobold just keep 'appearing.'

So he could probably kill a solid three days' worth of kobolds or more. If he stood his ground, eventually the dead would pile up into a wall surrounding the radius of his spiked chain's reach.

Starve? Die of thirst? How is that remotely possible when the fighter has an infinite supply of kobolds to EAT THE RAW FLESH AND DRINK THE BLOOD OF? Tastes like chicken.

Frozen_Feet
2010-05-28, 07:56 PM
Kobolds are bad for your health. Eating those vile buggers might be what finally kills the fighter in the end. :smalltongue:

Lysander
2010-05-28, 08:10 PM
Kobolds are bad for your health. Eating those vile buggers might be what finally kills the fighter in the end. :smalltongue:

Obesity could be a major problem after the first few months if the fighter goes beyond the recommended daily allowance of one and a half kobolds.

Oslecamo
2010-05-28, 08:16 PM
Obesity could be a major problem after the first few months if the fighter goes beyond the recommended daily allowance of one and a half kobolds.

Nonsense! All legendary warriors are renowed for their ability to quickly burn trough calories so they can party all night whitout worrying about weight excess! Where do you think they get all the energy for hacking trough armies hm?:smalltongue:

Zovc
2010-05-28, 08:43 PM
So, yeah, Cleave seems to work if you down an opponent, so it should work with a whip.

If Fighter can do enough damage with a whip, he can get 15' reach as opposed to a Spiked Chain, and he can do it with one hand. He won't be killing kobolds, but he will be incapacitating a much larger number of them at once.

Flickerdart
2010-05-28, 08:46 PM
If he's got an adamantine weapon, he'll probably die of old age before it breaks. The corpses will pile up around him in an unending mountain, dirt will accumulate on top of them and him, and someday there will be a small hamlet built at the foot of Kobold Hill. No one will know what it is named such, but rumors persist of the legendary, indestructible sword hidden at its core.
That's a neat plot hook.

Fortuna
2010-05-28, 08:53 PM
I've edited the OP with the new rules of the challenge.

Lysander
2010-05-28, 08:54 PM
That's a neat plot hook.

A giant mountain of dirt (actually decomposed kobold flesh) filled with skeletons. The tunnels dug into it are inhabited by kobold zombies, kobold skeletons, and other undead kobolds.

Arbitrarity
2010-05-28, 10:34 PM
According to the posted rules, the fighter now can kill a very, very high number of kobolds. Thank you for the rules update, OP.

I propose a fighter as follows:

Wargh, Human Fighter 20:
Ummm... pointbuy?

Oh well.
16
13
20
13
8
8

That's 28 points. Reasonable?
I have 19 feats. (11 bonus, 7 basic, 1 human). I take the following.
Improved Unarmed Strike
Deflect Arrows
Power Attack
Cleave
Great Cleave
Combat Expertise
Endurance
Diehard
Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Greater Weapon Focus
Weapon Proficiency.
7 toughness.
I have 227 health.

I choose an Adamantine Fullplate, and an Adamantine Kusari Gama (DMG)
My individual hits deal 1d6+5 damage, enough to instantly slay each kobold. I have +26/21/16/11 to hit, but that is mostly irrelevant.
I use Combat Expertise for 4 points, meaning I have 23 AC, so slings hit me on a natural 20, as do charges. I now have +25 to hit, meaning I hit on any attack that isn't a natural 1.

The kobolds in a 60 ft radius are in charge range, so use their slings. Approximately 420 kobolds fit in this radius (12(squares)*12*3.14). Of these, 21 make sucessful attacks on a given round. One of these is a critical. One in 9 rounds, this critical deals 1 point of damage. I then block it with Deflect Arrows.

This means to deal 1 point of damage, 2 kobolds with slings must both roll double 20's, and maximum damage on each die. This will happen once every 81 rounds.

So, the problem is the melee kobolds. 8 kobolds make attacks each round. Of these, they hit on a natural 20. This means, on average, 1 hit every 2.5 rounds. This hit deals an average of 0.5 points of damage (1 or 2 damage on rolls of 5 and 6 on the d6). Criticals are a more serious problem, dealing an average of.... 3d6-6 min 0, which means... I'm not sure, atm.

12 (1/216) 12
11 (3/216) 33 45
10 (6/216) 60 105
9 (10/216) 90 195
8 (15/216) 120 315
7 (21/216) 147 462
6 (25/216) 150 612
5 (27/216) 135 747
4 (27/216) 108 855
3 (25/216) 75 930
2 (21/216) 42 972
1 (15/216) 15 987

On average, the critical deals 987/216 damage, or about 4.5. This occurs roughly once every 50 rounds. This means the average damage taken per round is approximately (0.2+0.09+0.011) 0.3

So I survive an average of 786 rounds before dropping to -10. This is slightly more than an hour and 20 minutes. In this time, I can reach 27 kobolds on my first attack each round, which should use my first 2 attacks. I can then 5 ft step, and follow up with my tertiary attacks against another 9 kobolds. I don't really care about the average here, but I can probably kill 6 of them (this estimate may be high.) This averages 33 kobolds per round. Surviving 786 rounds means I kill approximately 25960 kobolds. Sorry, the prior answer was from not using a reach weapon.

So, your answer for how many Kobolds can be killed by a 20'th level fighter? There it is.

I think the kobolds slain should be replenished, as up to 236 kobolds enter the arena each round.

If anyone has any tips for improvement, please post. This is pretty modular. So long as you have the plate, and deflect arrows, and 23 AC, you're getting 0.375 average damage per round. Without deflect arrows, you take 0.1 average damage per round more, so it's pretty important. You then just need enough damage to 1 hit kobolds, enough accuracy to probably hit your iteratives, great cleave, and probably a reach weapon. Then, maximize how long you can keep fighting (hp)

true_shinken
2010-05-28, 11:01 PM
I propose a fighter as follows:


Excellent! Amazing! You rock!
Can't believe people missed Deflect Arrows up until now.

If the kobolds employed tactics from Heroes of Battle, would the Fighter have a harder time?

Arbitrarity
2010-05-28, 11:19 PM
I assume you're referring to Volley Fire?
Basic Volleys would probably kill the kobolds off on their own. Massive AoE slingstones against an enemy engaged in close combat? With even lower crit chance? Not working.
Concentrated Volley... 1 in 10 volleys would land on target (assuming commander is in 50 feet). With 10 archers (the max) per volley, you'd get about 4 landing per round. Each would deal 2d3-2, with a reflex save (DC 15) for half, if I'm reading the rules correctly. I'll assume I can Deflect Arrows to negate one bullet per round. This... potentially improves the archery damage quite a bit, unless I can pump my reflex save. Which I cannot :smallannoyed:. To damage me, you have to land a volley, with maximum damage, I have to fail my reflex save (40% chance), and I have to have already used deflect arrows.

This means you need to land 2 volleys with max damage in a round (4/81 chance), and I still have a 84% chance of saving (so around 1/122 chance of dealing 1 damage). This is significantly less than random fire hoping for 20's.

If you mean the kobolds start firing at any range hoping for 20's, I have more of a problem. Around 3600 kobolds means I'm taking 8 damage per round from slings alone, plus the 0.35 from the spearmen. My survivability drops DRASTICALLY. I only last 30'ish rounds, so I can only kill around a thousand kobolds.

Bad Situation
2010-05-28, 11:27 PM
So this is the DnD equivalent of "How Many Kindergarteners Can You Take In a Fight?"

Jack_Simth
2010-05-28, 11:37 PM
If anyone has any tips for improvement, please post. This is pretty modular. So long as you have the plate, and deflect arrows, and 23 AC, you're getting 0.375 average damage per round. Without deflect arrows, you take 0.1 average damage per round more, so it's pretty important. You then just need enough damage to 1 hit kobolds, enough accuracy to probably hit your iteratives, great cleave, and probably a reach weapon. Then, maximize how long you can keep fighting (hp)
You're doing your math for being in the center of the horde. As the arena is bounded (kobolds do not exist outside the arena), you can seriously cut down on your rate of damage taken by getting close to a wall. Make sure that you're standing just far enough that new kobolds entering are just barely within your threat range, and you're good. That'll come close to doubling your kills (because you die slower). Almost-doubled again if you can get into a corner.

It's a pity magic items are out - armor of invulnerability (DR 5/Magic), and Heavy Fortification (negate 100% of crits) would pretty much make you immune to the kobolds in the scenario otherwise (spear: 1d6-1 maxes out at 5 points of damage - 0 after DR; sling: 1d3-1 damage maxes out at 2 points of damage - 0 after DR).

The Glyphstone
2010-05-28, 11:42 PM
Well, I'm not going to try and dispute Arbitrarity's math. Though keeping against the wall is definitely an excellent option - at a guess, it'd probably double the total survival time, due to having half the total attackers. In a corner, roughly quadrupled...so, approximately 80,000 kobolds will die to bring down the fighter?

sounds about right.

Arbitrarity
2010-05-28, 11:42 PM
Indeed. However, that also cuts my average kill rate to a mere 6 kobolds per round, unless the 5 ft step is somehow optimal. It seems to leave you exposed to spears again.. Then again, cutting the number of spears attacking me by a third, and slings to a quarter... basically negates slings, but still taking average 0.1ish damage per round, leaves me with around 14000 kills.

DAMN miscalculated spear hit rate. One second, fixing.

term1nally s1ck
2010-05-28, 11:45 PM
That will make almost no difference. The problem is the melee kobolds, not the slings. They average 1/81 damage a round. Even after an hour, that's under 8 damage. The melee kobolds are the big problem.

What was forgotten above was AoOs and Combat Reflexes. You can get a lot of extra kills each round like that.

Arbitrarity
2010-05-28, 11:48 PM
Assuming the kobolds maneuver optimally, they're still taking AOO's to get adjacent. This means I can kill off another 16 kobolds per round, bringing the death toll up 50%, to nearly 40000. If I get another point in dex, that's another 8 kobolds per round, or 45600ish.

So yeah. The multiplied kill rate for standing in the middle of the horde is much more important for total kills than corner-camping helps defensively. Combat reflexes is important, and I forgot to think about it. However, I can't get much more dex, without magic items.

Yukitsu
2010-05-28, 11:57 PM
What if they all decide to throw the spears at you instead?

Jack_Simth
2010-05-29, 12:01 AM
Indeed. However, that also cuts my average kill rate to a mere 6 kobolds per round, unless the 5 ft step is somehow optimal. It seems to leave you exposed to spears again.. Then again, cutting the number of spears attacking me by a third, and slings to a quarter... basically negates slings, but still taking average 0.1ish damage per round, leaves me with around 14000 kills.

DAMN miscalculated spear hit rate. One second, fixing.
You don't go all the way to the wall/corner: You go far enough that you've got fewer slingers. If the wall is just far enough that anyone on the other side of the wall is beyond reach, you still have the same number of opponents in Great Cleave range, but far fewer slingers shooting you. And you five-foot in a basic zig-zag pattern - as all the kobolds are trying to get to where they can hit you in melee, they'll just fill the area back up next round.

Lysander
2010-05-29, 12:02 AM
All the fighter really has to do is survive long enough to have a mountain of corpses he can use as total cover. Then he can build fortified positions out of kobold corpses, hide beneath corpses to sleep, and force kobolds to make climb checks on the bodies of their comrades to reach him.

Arbitrarity
2010-05-29, 12:05 AM
Then I'm screwed, because even if we assume they can't recover their spears, the 58 kobolds entering to replace their slaughtered brethren mean I take about 2 average damage per round from thrown spears. This limits my kills to around 7000.

Ahhh, I see. Well, slingers are already dealing only 3% of my damage, so I'm not very concerned about them. I guess saving most of that 3% is worthwhile, since it lets me kill... 3-4% more kobolds. Wooo :smallwink:

Kalirren
2010-05-29, 12:07 AM
How does Combat Reflexes give you 8 kills per attack? Since you're waiting until the kobolds surround you to do it, you have to be using your unarmed strike to do it, so you deal 1d3+3, which means that you have a 1 out of 3 chance on each kobold of dealing min damage and not dropping him. (0 is staggered and doesn't count - see the Cleave feat.)

I guess you could choose to deal nonlethal, which drops them at 0, then kill it next round with the whirlwind.

Fortuna
2010-05-29, 12:08 AM
Two updates made to the OP: firstly, the fighter has a 32 PB, and secondly, the kobolds don't leave corpses.

Arbitrarity
2010-05-29, 12:09 AM
Why would I use my unarmed strike? Kusari Gama is a one handed spiked chain. It has reach and close combat ability. So 7 kobolds fill around me, as the last one get adjacent, I take the AOO, and Great Cleave to destroy the others. Assuming they don't fake me out, which would be... really bizarre. Since they have deterministic behaviour, however, I can predict this. Then again, I didn't account for natural 1's, which are possible.

Kalirren
2010-05-29, 12:13 AM
Kusari-Gama isn't Core! (Edit: unless it's in the DMG but not the SRD.) And if you want to use the spiked chain instead, then you don't have a hand free for Deflect Arrows.

Also, shouldn't we be having all kobolds within sling range attack the fighter, not just charge range?

Kantolin
2010-05-29, 12:17 AM
Entirely a silly thought experiment response:

Fighter 20
Charisma: 22 [18 base, +4 from level ups]

Diplomacy: 11 ranks
Intimidate: 23 ranks
Bluff: 11 ranks
Knowledge(nobility & Royalty): 5 ranks
Sense motive: 5 ranks

Level 1 feat:
Skill Focus(Diplomacy)
Skill Focus(Bluff)
Negotiator
Persuasive

Total: 11(Diplo) + 6 (Synergies) + 3(Skill Focus) + 2(Negotiator) + 6(Charisma) + 2(Masterwork Tool)
= 30

On average, that's a 40, immediately launching the kobolds you chat with from hostile to unfriendly.

Best case scenario: You roll a 20. That's a 50. The kobolds are now helpful. They now 'will take risks to help you'. The skill is there to 'convince the ogre mages you have captured that they should ransom you back to your friends instead of twisting your limbs off one by one'.

Worst case scenario: You roll a 1. That's a 31. The kobolds are now indifferent and don't much care. You now have to convince them that your'e their buddies.

At the end of each round, more kobodls appear in unoccupied edge squares, so your goal is then to convince your good helpfulf riends (who will take risks to help you) to turn around and plug their ears. You're very convincing. Heck, you could do similarly with bluff if you really needed to convince them.

Then, just in case, you do have intimidate. Spend a minute ato make them all friendly for 1d6x10 minutes. Even if that's just ten minutes, that's plenty of time to set things up so you can butcher the lot of them.

Now, technically however, all this does is extend the amount of time the fighter survives, and doesn't actually alter the amount of kobolds he can kill, since he's still taking ten rounds of swings first in order to diplomacy, then when those die more show up. ^_^ Although for a rushed full-round check at -10, the worst he can do is make them unfriendly, which is still probably plenty, and it gives him some breathing room to eat corpses, sleep, whatever. If they get upset by your eating their dead friends, talk them out of it.

Although also, you can take some of your helpful kobolds and give them the very reasonable proposition that you'll do everything in your power to keep them alive. That way you have kobolds helping you kill kobolds, or at least taking up important space which cannot be occupied by other kobolds. If you can narrow this down to exactly one kobold appearing and fighting you, then you've won functionally indefinitely. From the rules, kobolds only appear in unoccupied edge squares, for example, so you can just talk enough kobolds to fill the edges into standing there and sleeping, then ask one to move.

Now, all this shenanigans aside, you then still have a large pile of fighter feats to go for your kusari-gama or whatever. ^_^ I mean, your to-hit is +20 +str, so you can probably hit them whenever you want, hold a tower shield, and fight defensively if you want and still hit them on a one. So you can just tack this onto most of the above builds.

Is this a good idea or in any way realistic? No. But we're not being realistic here, are we? ^_^

Arbitrarity
2010-05-29, 12:19 AM
It's in DMG. Page 145. It may be a variant, as it's under alternative weapons, along with Katana, gunpowder, lasers, and a few other rules. Otherwise, I'm left boosting my strength two points, or wasting two feats. Hmmm.
Hm. I wonder if dex or con is more important at this point. Dex yields more kills per round, while con increases endurance by quite a bit.

Kalirren
2010-05-29, 12:24 AM
Probably Dex. If each point of Dex mod yields +25% kills per round, and each point of con mod yields about +16% staying power, then Dex is better.

Arbitrarity
2010-05-29, 12:33 AM
That's not exactly it though. It's 8 kills per round vs surviving an extra 60 rounds. QUADRATICS? :smallbiggrin:
Hm. At a dex score of 18, and Con of 16, we can make 72ish kills per round, surviving about 660 rounds, for 47520 kills. Not perfect, but pretty good. Compare to 14-20, where we make 56 kills per round, for 780 rounds, or 43680 kills. Optimizing quadratics is useful.

Fortuna
2010-05-29, 12:57 AM
Optimizing quadratics is also simple: if it's a positive, set x arbitrarily high/low. If it's a negative, then set x equal to half the x term divided by the squared term.

Unless I'm completely wrong, of course.

Lord Vukodlak
2010-05-29, 01:18 AM
Yeah, a lack of magical equipment makes this essentially meaningless. Too much of a high-level character's power, especially for fighters, is bound up in their gear. No healing? No miss chances? No enhancement bonuses to anything?

The fight happens in a mile wide dead magic zone happy? He has magical equipment but it doesn't function.

Anyway with combat reflexes, a spiked chain, and great cleave and a decent dex score the fighter could kill plenty every round.

BUT, I know how the core only Kobolds can even things up[a tiny bit]. They crawl to the fighter using the dead bodies of their allies as cover. [cover=no AoO] Two kobolds could within reason hold the dead[hopeful for its sake] body of a 3rd kobold and use it for cover as they approach.

Kalirren
2010-05-29, 02:07 AM
32 Point Buy is now standard. We need 16 Strength for everything to work, so that's 10 points locked up. We want Combat Expertise which requires Int 13, leaving 17 points...so that's either one stat at 16 and one stat at 14, or one stat at 17 and another at 12. We have five increases on top of that.

So our effective range of tradeoff is between 12 Dex/22 Con and 22 Dex/12 Con.

If +1 Con mod = +20 hp and +1 Dex mod = +8 kills/round, and both come at the cost of +1 mod,

then consider the base allocation of 12 Dex 12 Con which would get us 144 hp and 41 kills per round (= 33 + the free attack of opportunity).

+20/144 =+14% per +1 mod increase
+8/41 = +20% per +1 mod increase

stacking multiplicatively.

+240 kills for diehard (you can only take a move or standard action, and AoOs are probably strenuous enough to cause HP degeneration, so 1 attack per round without moving = 24 kills per round. Looking at it this way, don't take Diehard. It only gives you 240 kills. The 3 extra hp from Toughness gives you an expected 10*attacks per round kills. So that modifies the calculation almost negligibly; it doesn't actually affect the right stat allocation.)

I forget exactly how you maximize quadratics like this again. The number of increases should differ by a constant for things that stack multiplicatively, that's what I remember from my Diablo II days. (goes and rederives it all)

So the lazy way to do the calculation seems to be to take the difference between proportional increases and divide by the product of proportional increases, giving you the constant of difference. In this case the constant of difference = (0.20-0.14)/(0.14*0.20) is about 4.2. So we have to check both difference of 5 and difference of 3.

Difference of 5 = All Dex = 147 hp/(0.3 hp/round) * (41+5*8) kills/round = just under 40000 kills;

Difference of 3 = 20 Dex and 14 Con = 167/0.3 * 73 = just over 40000 kills.

Darkmatter
2010-05-29, 02:48 AM
I'm afraid the Dex optimization is moot - you can't get more than 2 attacks of opportunity per round due to the max Dex bonus on the adamantine full plate, which is necessary for survival.

pingcode20
2010-05-29, 03:17 AM
That max dex bonus cap applies only to AC. So that extra dex just won't give any more AC, but all the other good stuff like extra AoOs does.

Ossian
2010-05-29, 03:29 AM
That max dex bonus cap applies only to AC. So that extra dex just won't give any more AC, but all the other good stuff like extra AoOs does.

I was wondering the same...

Anyways, sorry to derail a bit, but can anyone explain me how can one get 23 Attacks on your "first attack"? (ref. to the breakdown of the previous page.
Even with a reach weapon, and assuming high dex is not impaired by the full plate, i can only count a few AoO. I guess the whole cleave+great cleave plays a role, which is when I start hating 3.5 cause it s really really confusing.

O.

Fortuna
2010-05-29, 03:48 AM
I was wondering the same...

Anyways, sorry to derail a bit, but can anyone explain me how can one get 23 Attacks on your "first attack"? (ref. to the breakdown of the previous page.
Even with a reach weapon, and assuming high dex is not impaired by the full plate, i can only count a few AoO. I guess the whole cleave+great cleave plays a role, which is when I start hating 3.5 cause it s really really confusing.

O.

I think they are referring to Whirlwind Attack, which lets you attack everyone you can reach. That plus a Kusari-Gama lets them attack all kobolds within reach range, so Lots (maybe 23).

Ossian
2010-05-29, 04:27 AM
All right that makes sense but then you give up all other attacks for that round.
So, with Aoo before, then Whirlwind attack, your actions for the round are all used. The kobolds move in, then your reach is reduced to one space in each direction. The kusari gama not being a plasma cannon even if there are targets in reach beyond the ones attacking you, you should not be able to whirlwind attack 23 targets per round, but only say 8 (spaces surrounding you).

Lord Vukodlak
2010-05-29, 05:09 AM
All right that makes sense but then you give up all other attacks for that round.
So, with Aoo before, then Whirlwind attack, your actions for the round are all used. The kobolds move in, then your reach is reduced to one space in each direction. The kusari gama not being a plasma cannon even if there are targets in reach beyond the ones attacking you, you should not be able to whirlwind attack 23 targets per round, but only say 8 (spaces surrounding you).

Here's how whirlwind works, You give up your regular attacks and as a full-round action make a melee attack at your full base attack bonus against every opponent within reach. In the case of the Kusari-Gama and spiked chain they have a reach of 10ft and can strike adjacent foes.
*I don't see where you get this your reach is reduced*

Now as you also forfeit bonus attacks granted by feats and other abilities. You would lose additional AoO from combat reflexes and cleaving.

Eldan
2010-05-29, 06:42 AM
Alternative idea, people:

You take:
Dodge, Mobility, Endurance, Run. Deflect Arrows and Combat Expertise also help. Max your tumble. Then try to run away from the kobolds until they drop dead from exhaustion via forced marching.

Edit: unless it's an infinite plain of kobolds, in which case wherever you run, more are waiting for oyu.

The Glyphstone
2010-05-29, 08:59 AM
Creatures don't block line of sight to other creatures, unless they're significantly bigger. At worst, they'd be giving soft cover to the ones behind them, which would go away if he chose to attack the ones closest to him first.

Arbitrarity
2010-05-29, 09:25 AM
Anyways, sorry to derail a bit, but can anyone explain me how can one get 23 Attacks on your "first attack"? (ref. to the breakdown of the previous page.
Even with a reach weapon, and assuming high dex is not impaired by the full plate, i can only count a few AoO. I guess the whole cleave+great cleave plays a role, which is when I start hating 3.5 cause it s really really confusing.

O.

Great Cleave with Reach attacks. We are surrounded on all sides by a sea of kobolds, and we can reach 10 feet. This makes a 5*5 square of kobolds in our reach, which contains us and 24 kobolds. We can hit one, and Great Cleave into the rest, until we miss. We then use our iterative from BAB to continue Cleaving.

Then, we 5 ft step, to get into reach of additional kobolds. Diagonally in any direction lets us hit another 9 kobolds. We do this with our cleave and iteratives. The text diagram below explains the positioning.
We kill all kobolds in 2 squares, and 5 ft step.
KKKKKK KKKKKK
KKKKKK ------K
KKKKKK ----U-K
KKUKKK ------K
KKKKKK ------K
KKKKKK ------K
5 of the kobolds above us are now in range, as are 4 kobolds to our right. Actually, considering we can 5ft step between our cleaves, we can almost certainly kill all the kobolds between our 3 best iteratives, all of which miss on 1's.

Also, I forgot diehard makes you disabled. Thought it acted like Beastland Ferocity or something. Replace the chain with 2 Toughness, then.

Also, 12 dex gets you 49 kills per round. Approximately, since you'll probably miss a hit in your 16 AOO attacks.
Bah. Quadratics are easy. Let k be kobolds killed per round (33+8*dex), and r be the number of rounds survived ((115+20*con)/0.3). Our total kills are the product of k and r, or ((41+8*dex)(115+20*con))/0.3. Eyeballing it, I'm going to say 18 dex and 16 con is optimal (since it's close to (5+dex)(6+con), if you divide by 8 and 20, respectively), resulting in (73*175)/0.3 (42583). 16 dex and 18 con is (65*195)/0.3, or 42250, very close. 20 dex and 14 con swings too far the other way, to 41850 kills.

So, not much of a difference. I'd argue for 18 dex and 16 con, but I'm not sure what to do with the chances of missing. I suppose the missed target becomes part of the next round of attacks, meaning the loss is minimized.

true_shinken
2010-05-29, 09:36 AM
If you can get Tumble high enouh for a DC 40 check, you could make a 10-foot step and reach more kobolds.
Useless for a human, though, since he can't Tumble in adamantine full-plate. If only you could be a dwarf...

Stompy
2010-05-29, 01:18 PM
Thanks for updating the rules, although I think you missed the tower shield facing rule from 3.0 :smalltongue:


The Arena

The fighter begins at the centre of a 300'x300' arena. At the end of each round, kobolds appear in every unoccupied edge square of the arena. The arena is unexitable due to Magic.

So does this mean that my "dig a hole with adamantine weapon and block with tower shield" strategy is no longer viable? :smallsmile:

Tiki Snakes
2010-05-29, 01:31 PM
So, given the current state of the rules, how would the following work out as a possible tactic for the Kobolds;

Mass Aid Another Diplomacy?

All we need to do is turn the Fighter from Hostile (attack, interfere, berate, flee) to Unfriendly (Mislead, gossip, avoid, watch suspiciously, insult)

So we only need a single 20+ diplomacy check to stop the massacre. Now, there's absolutely no way that the kobolds can do this in one round, because rushing it to a full round action gives a -10, meaning that they can't succeed at aiding another in a hurry.

But it would only take ten successful aid other checks to make a guarenteed 20+. So, splitting the arena up into groups of 21 kobolds, (with the lead check taking place furthest away from the fighter, in each group of Kobolds) should leave us with a pacified fighter in 10 rounds.

So, given ten rounds of the Kobolds not fighting back in any significant way, could they get a Diplomacy check off with a decent chance of success? We've got about 90000 squares, with 90000-1 kobolds at round 1. That's up to 4385 seperate diplomacy teams at any one time.

Can he take out every lead diplomacy checker in every ten round cycle? For the sake of argument, assume that the Lead Diplomancers are visibly distinct (wearing obvious robes, or crowns of laurels).

What kind of state does this leave us in?

Kalirren
2010-05-29, 04:31 PM
You can't five-foot step between cleaves. That's Supreme Cleave, non-Core. The best you'll be able to do is five-foot step once.

You're right about (41 + Dexmod) - Combat Reflexes grants an additional attack of opportunity equal to Dex mod.

How are you getting 115 hp as base? That's far too low. I was working off of your figure of 227 to estimate 147 earlier, but this is the math I did myself:

Taking Combat Reflexes and Toughness instead of Endurance/Diehard gives 8 Toughness.
Total hp = 10 (max hp on 1st HD) + 10*5 (even HD) + 9*6 (odd HD) + 8*3 (Toughness) + 20*1 (12 Con) = 158 base hp.

You're right to consider missing, because missing an AoO results in kills lost. With 8 kobolds and a miss chance of 1/20, you're expected to kill about 6.4 kobolds on an AoO. (Ain't Google calculator great?)

With those numbers, kills go as (39 + 6.4 * Dexmod) (138 + 20*Conmod) ~ (6 + Dexmod)(7 + Conmod) which means that Dexmod should be only 1 greater than Conmod. So you're right. Con is more certain, better to be conservative about it.

For 18 Dex and 16 Con that's about 42600 dead kobolds. Good enough.

Arbitrarity
2010-05-29, 10:56 PM
You can 5 ft step during one cleave though, so you kill the enemies around you, if you're still cleaving, 5 ft step, and get the rest of the kobolds in range.


Actually, this dex optimization is moot. Each AOO killing 8 kobolds means we get attacked by another 8 spears, which cuts our lifespan DRASTICALLY, since spears account for more than 95% of our damage taken. So we have to pump con, like in my initial example.

Hobs
2010-05-30, 01:41 AM
You can 5 ft step during one cleave though, so you kill the enemies around you, if you're still cleaving, 5 ft step, and get the rest of the kobolds in range.


Actually, this dex optimization is moot. Each AOO killing 8 kobolds means we get attacked by another 8 spears, which cuts our lifespan DRASTICALLY, since spears account for more than 95% of our damage taken. So we have to pump con, like in my initial example.

the most sensible strategy seems for the kobolds seems to be to trip and/or grapple the fighter using aid another.

so with only 8 attacking the fighter at once, someone pointed out that 7 aid another's might not be enough, but if you grant kobold's "slight build" ability to let it count as tiny, then you could fit in 16 kobolds around the fighter, and then have 15 Aid Anothers, granting a single kobold +30, which seems like a good way to take the fighter down.

Zen Master
2010-05-30, 03:47 AM
I totally misread the OP and missed the "non"s.

Ya, without fortification this core fighter is toast in short order. The Kobolds will just surround him on all sides firing at him. They won't charge giving him attacks of oppurtunity actually they'll fill in 15 feet away from him.

Sling has a range increment of 50 so they can hit from what is it three range increments away and still hit on a natural 20 they need to crit to do damage so only double twenties have a chance to do damage lets see how many kobolds fit in a 300 foot diameter circle with a 20 ft hol in the middle? I think it's in the neigborhood of twenty thousand so 20000 attacks divided by 40 about 500 hits each doind 2d3-3 which does about 10 damage every 9 attacks so 450 damage in one round of concentrated fire. So the only kills he gets are from archery or charging one side while he's being surrounded. That's assuming he doesn't just start surrounded and roll initiative in which case he might roll mediocre and get killed by the 200+ kobolds that crit on hit before his turn.

This was also the result I arrived at: He gets to act if he wins initiative - then dies instantly in a rain of sling bullets. If we want to add a bit of non-RAW realism, he's likely crushed to death under the weight of the slingstones alone, removing the need for them to crit him.

nolispe
2010-05-30, 05:31 AM
OK, what about the fighter bringing in a collosal suit of armour (Non-magical) and dropping it as a free action as the fighter begins. Then, inside the armour, he climbs up, and uses a reach weapon from the, say, knee area to kill kobolds. They cannot reach him, and he can, if injured, simply retreat into the armour. If he gets hungry, he can grab a kobold with his reach weapon, and eat it.

Eldan
2010-05-30, 07:42 AM
Now he's not wearing adamantine armour anymore, so the sling bullets kill him pretty much instantly.

nolispe
2010-05-30, 03:34 PM
Hmm... Can he use his shield to gain some form of DR or way to resist the sling bullets?

The Glyphstone
2010-05-30, 03:41 PM
Hmm... Can he use his shield to gain some form of DR or way to resist the sling bullets?

Not without magic. The best he can do is have a tower shield, cower in a corner of the arena, and claim total cover non-stop. Total kobolds kills = 0.

ScionoftheVoid
2010-05-30, 03:49 PM
Not without magic. The best he can do is have a tower shield, cower in a corner of the arena, and claim total cover non-stop. Total kobolds kills = 0.

Until they die of thirst or starvation, which gets a whole lot at once.

nolispe
2010-05-30, 07:38 PM
Is there some way to make him not need to eat/drink? because if so, then he can hide in the collosal++++++ suit of armour...

Fortuna
2010-05-30, 08:00 PM
I've made a slight clarification about "kills", so that now the fighter needs to be making an attack roll and dealing damage thereby which kills the kobold for it to qualify as a "kill".

Arbitrarity
2010-05-30, 10:20 PM
It appears then, that my initial calculations were the best.
So, stats?
15
14
22
13
8
8

Take weapon focus-greater weapon focus, exotic proficiency, improved unarmed strike, deflect arrows, combat expertise, power attack, cleave, great cleave, and 8 toughness, combat reflexes. Adamantine plate, adamantine Kusari-gama. Throw 4 points into combat expertise.

259 hp. Attacks +21/16/11/6 after combat expertise. 1d6+6 damage.
Each round, we attack a kobold adjacent, and begin the Great Cleave chain. Not sure how to deal with miss chances here properly. I wish this computer had python installed... how'd you get that average, Kalirren? Looks like 80% to me. Anyways. Of the 33 kobolds in reach, let's say we down 30 of them.
I'm not taking AoO's with cleave, because each of them means I take another 0.29 damage, on average (from spear attacks), which is a BAD idea. Currently I'm trading 30 kobolds per 0.3 hp, and 8 for 0.29 is a much worse rate. Previous use of AOO's was misguided, because it failed to account for extra damage from attacking kobolds. However, I am taking AOO's on the first kobolds to attack me, which nets an extra 3 kills per round, for 33 total.
Average damage taken per round is the old 0.3. So we get about 100 kobolds per hp, or 25900 killed.

Kalirren
2010-05-31, 02:29 AM
The Expected Value was computed with brute force; 0.05*0 + 0.95*(0.05*1+0.95*(0.05*2 +... + 0.95*(0.05*7 + 0.95*8))))))))). I just told Google calculator to evaluate the EV of the whole geometric distribution the stupid way. You could definitely use the formula for a sum of a geometric series to write this in a much less stupid way.

Procyonpi
2010-05-31, 04:26 AM
Now, as sucky as a Fighter 20 is, they're still miles better than a Kobold Warrior 1. That's something we can all agree on (barring stupid cheese). But how much better?

Given only a single non-magical weapon, a single non-magical suit of armor and optionally a single non-magical shield, how many Kobold Warrior 1s can a Fighter 20 kill, on average, if they rush him in a swarm?


The whole "no magic item" thing is pretty arbitrary. Pretty much any lvl 20 fighter has a boat load of magic items. And besides which, all he would need to basically be able to stay alive indefinitely would be armor that gave them some decent DR. Ironically, a lvl 20 wizard would probably choke first, because they'd run out of spells before the fighter ran out of hit points. Fighters may be underpowered against strong foes compared to casters at high levels, but they're still nothing to laugh at.

Sliver
2010-05-31, 04:41 AM
Ironically, a lvl 20 wizard would probably choke first, because they'd run out of spells before the fighter ran out of hit points.

Really? Overland Flight, Rope Trick, some form of DR or negating ranged attacks (for most of the day), any damaging reserve feat. (or summon elemental, for instance)

I don't think that a wizard that is made for such a challenge will be defeated...

Eldariel
2010-05-31, 04:49 AM
Really? Overland Flight, Rope Trick, some form of DR or negating ranged attacks (for most of the day), any damaging reserve feat. (or summon elemental, for instance)

I don't think that a wizard that is made for such a challenge will be defeated...

Or just, y'know, Call something they can't kill and have it go to town. Or Shapechange into something and go to town. Or hell, in such a mass Cloudkill could do some killing. Being immune to infinite number of mundane attacks that barely deal damage isn't even a trick for a level 20 Wizard... Indeed, not having magic items doesn't matter when you are magic.

And yes, level 20 Fighter is something to scoff at. Look at its stats! A level 20 Fighter is barely better than a level 10 or 5 Fighter; he has more HP, higher To Hit and that's it. A single Purple Worm would beat an itemless Fighter any day of the week. That's CR 13. An itemless level 20 character should still be able to take on CR appropriates any day of the week, or at least CR-2 or so. A Core Fighter is nothing more than a sum of his items. Outside Core, he'd be much better but still rather sucktastic.

nolispe
2010-05-31, 04:52 AM
Can he just bring in a Collosal+++++++++ suit of armour, drop it at the start, climb up to about ankle level, and wait with a reach weapon? Will the koboldds, as they are trying to reach him, climb in, and so offer an attack of opportunity each? He can easilly get his Dex high enoguh to take out all eight in a round, right? Hey, he should even be able to get the armour built to offer one entry route, and a DC 40 climb check on the inside. Can he then take out a unlimited number, especillily as he can go into the knee area (No LOS for slings) if he needs a rest, and take kobolds alive for food+water?

Eldan
2010-05-31, 04:57 AM
Well, Core is specified, so no reserve feats for casters.

But have fun calculating how many kobolds you can kill with Storm of Vengeance. Which might very well be the first time that spell has ever been useful.

Taelas
2010-05-31, 06:02 AM
The whole "no magic item" thing is pretty arbitrary. Pretty much any lvl 20 fighter has a boat load of magic items. And besides which, all he would need to basically be able to stay alive indefinitely would be armor that gave them some decent DR. Ironically, a lvl 20 wizard would probably choke first, because they'd run out of spells before the fighter ran out of hit points. Fighters may be underpowered against strong foes compared to casters at high levels, but they're still nothing to laugh at.

A wizard could stay alive for 2,000 rounds by casting Shapechange and changing into anything with DR. At level 20, you have four L9 spells.

If you just want a high kill count, that's even easier:

Have a Fly spell, two Wind Walls, and as many Fireballs as you can muster prepared. Fill every slot from L5 and upwards up with Cloudkills.

Each Cloudkill lasts 20 minutes, instantly kills all kobolds within its radius (20 ft.) per round with no save, and as the kobolds constantly replenish, that means it kills its maximum possible.

A level 20 Wizard with no bonus spells can have 20 Cloudkills. Each Cloudkill kills 50 kobolds per round for 200 rounds. 20 x 200 x 50 = 200,000.

Cast Wind Wall. Take a beating from 8 kobolds in melee, then cast Fly. Cast Cloudkills, remembering to refresh your Wind Wall in its last round. Fire off Fireballs for good measure.

The wizard will be dead long before he sees the final kill count, but who cares about details... 200,000 kills plus chump change is nothing to sneeze at.

tyckspoon
2010-05-31, 06:26 AM
If you're going to bring a Wizard into it: Maximized Wall of Fire. Auto-roasts every kobold out to 20 feet, prevents melee 'bolds from coming into contact, gives total concealment against the slingers (it's opaque, as per spell description.) Duration concentration, so as long as you have reasonable protection against blind-firing slingers, you can just sit there behind it until you get bored.

term1nally s1ck
2010-05-31, 06:27 AM
Fly+invisibility, and he'll never even die then.

pingcode20
2010-05-31, 06:40 AM
A wizard could stay alive indefinitely by casting MMM and venturing out only under the cover of invisibility. And, oh I don't know, making a shadow and causing a kobold-based shadow apocalypse. It's really not worth considering.

Cyclocone
2010-05-31, 07:02 AM
Heck, he could just Shapechange in to a Shadow, it would make him invulnerable too.

AstralFire
2010-05-31, 08:01 AM
Is it just me, or is discussing a Wizard 20 versus Kobold Warrior 1s a lot like discussing just how many fish in the barrel Superman can fry at once with his heat vision? :smalleek:

Tiki Snakes
2010-05-31, 06:16 PM
Is it just me, or is discussing a Wizard 20 versus Kobold Warrior 1s a lot like discussing just how many fish in the ocean Superman can fry at once with his heat vision? :smalleek:

Fixed it for you, Astral.
And he would, too. The ****.

Jack_Simth
2010-05-31, 06:29 PM
Cast Wind Wall.Against Slings, Wind Wall is only a 30% miss chance. Invisibility + Overland Flight will do better - they can't even see you to target you (and it lasts longer, with a lower-level spell slot).

PId6
2010-05-31, 06:54 PM
DR 10 and crit immunity means that it's pretty much impossible for kobolds to hurt the wizard at all. Then he can just start wacking with a quarterstaff for all he cares. Wizard vs kobolds is no contest.

Thane of Fife
2010-05-31, 07:30 PM
Perhaps I'm missing something, but if the wizard has no magic items and no pre-cast spells, he has a solid chance of losing initiative to enough kobolds to get slingstoned to death.

Assuming, say, a 16 or 17 Con (but no Toughness), a 20th level wizard should have around 100 hp. His armor class is probably around 11, or maybe a little bit higher. With an AC of 11, the average kobold sling attack deals about 0.89 damage, meaning that about 113 such attacks should prove fatal. Every point added to the wizard's AC increases that number by about 10.

This is assuming that the kobolds change tactics to fight a wizard and that the arena begins with some number of kobolds in it, rather than them entering at the end of the first round.