Lizard Moses: The King of Kobolds

[ImNotTrevor]

Hi everyone. I'm working on mapping out a build for an upcoming campaign and I wanted to see what help I could get from the experts 'round these parts.

The basic concept is being called "Lizard Moses" for right now. The basic build ideas are as follows:

Venerable Dragonwrought Kobold, starting at lvl 5, Pure sorcerer at that point.
Feats: Improved Familiar and something else to start with.

Familiar will be a Muckdweller. (Kinda like a kobold, close enough for this purpose.)
At lvl 6, I will take the Leadership feat so that I begin to attain Kobold followers.

The whole point of the build is to be a Kobold leading lots of other Kobolds and basically leading a tribe through the desert of the campaign world, Moses-style.

Would it better serve me to do pure Wilder and take Thrallherd at level 6 for even more followers very quickly, or should I take the time to Sorc/Wilder before going Thrallherd?

TL;DR:
Playing a Dragonwrought Kobold. I want lots of Kobold followers. How do I best accomplish this task?

[Ferronach]

could be interesting to get some raise dead/necro/the dead walk type of thing going on to have a bunch of undead kobols following you too XD

[ImNotTrevor]

could be interesting to get some raise dead/necro/the dead walk type of thing going on to have a bunch of undead kobols following you too XD

I would, but the DM is kinda iffy on having to do too much Cleric legwork, and I don't really want to be EVIL.

I just want to be a Kobold leading other Kobolds to wealth and glorious victory. Oh, and the promised land. Definitely to the promised land. (With detours for gold and fame but mostly the Promised Land thing.)

[Gildedragon]

Swap familiar for an imbued staff or a school focus, both dragon magazine stuffs (thus avoid the leadership score penalty)

[atemu1234]

I send the pestilence and plague into your house into your bed-
Sorry. Had to be done. Maybe go with favored soul instead? It'd fit the Moses-theme better. Maybe he should dual wield a scourge and a sword?

[Gildedragon]

I send the pestilence and plague into your house into your bed-
Sorry. Had to be done. Maybe go with favored soul instead? It'd fit the Moses-theme better. Maybe he should dual wield a scourge and a sword?

Thing is kobolds like sorcerers and koboldness boosts sorcererhood

[atemu1234]

Thing is kobolds like sorcerers and koboldness boosts sorcererhood

How so? It may be the norm, but isn't the divine kind of an important element here?

[Vaz]

Domain Sorcerer with Divine Companion ACF. Domain Sorcerer slightly lowers your SPD in exchange for a chosen Domain Spell and Power (Kobold Domain, obv's) while Divine Companion allows you to empower said Companion with low level spells for a boost to AC and Saves.

Pick up Earthbound spell for some "traps" which you can lay around. Practical Metamagic to make that easier to cast.

[ImNotTrevor]

I might have been misleading with the name.

I basically wanted to optimize the Leadership feat without getting too crazy with the alternate sources. (Dragon magazine is likely not an option for me)

The Kobold sorcerer is possible, though I could get similar results with a Bard and also get easy Diplomancy. By doing Perform (oratory) I can become a good preacher-type without needing the divine aspect. If there is such as thing as a Divine Bard, I'd love to hear about it.

[Gildedragon]

There is.
Cleric with the evangelist acf (drag mag)
Or divine bard (in the srd)

As to kobold love sorcerer
Greater draconic rite of passage is a +1 to Sorc level. With that go into prestige bard...

[ImNotTrevor]

I'm hoping I can avoid too much MAD if possible. The reason why I would do Bard is to buff my followers, maybe take some levels in Warchanter later on.

Actually...to be really biblical, It would make sense to run pure Sorcerer, then have my cohort be a Bard for buffing purposes. (Moses sucked at public speaking and had a dude do it for him)

Also I could do a 1 level dip into Bard to pick up Diplomacy and Performance as skills to keep the flavor.

For some reason, an arcane caster being the "prophet" of a bunch of draconian descendants makes more sense than a divine leader. Closer draconic ties or something.

[Vaz]

Dragonblood Sorcerer should be your first level. If you have a Familiar, you lose leadership score. Dragonblood Trades this away, and gives you Draconic Heritage for free. In conjunction with Dragonwrought, this is turning your 1st level diplomacy from +7 to +11, and from thereon, it only gets better.

Amethyst Dragonwrought/Heritage gives you Diplomacy, as does Crystal, Pan Lung, Prismatic, and T'ien Lung.

Amethyst and Prismatic are Neutral, Crystal is Chaotic Neutral, while Pan Lung and T'ien Lung are Lawful Neutral, if that has an effect on it. If you take a lot of Dragon feats (i.e 4) then you get access to Legacy, which gives you 3 free spells known. Among other spells, the following are quite effective in a social situation; Amethyst Dragon's have Suggestion, Crystal have Dominate Person (and Control Winds, that's ace), Pan Lung's have Major Image, Prismatic have... yeah... moving on... T'ien Lung have Suggestion (AND Control Weather. ACE, once more).

If you wish to use the power of the gods, and use that to claim your right, Kurtulmak provides Competition, Evil, Kobold, Law, Luck, Madness, and Trickery.

Competition's +1 to opposed checks means you could be quite good as a king, forceful etc, making draws victories, or forcing a narrow loss into a draw (which is usually enough to make an opposed check fail if you are the target). Among other neat thematic spells, Divine Power, and Righteous Might are your big draws - turning you Medium (shock horror!), but also setting your BAB to your HD, which is fun for all sorts of gishiness, for a total of +10 strength.

Evil's a bit meh, unless you're facing a lot of good enemies. Its one niche aspect is access to Desecrate for Animate Undead purposes, but I suppose that's not really your thing? The Damage reduction from Evil Devotion if you choose that is also a bit... well... slow scaling, let's say.

Kobold Domain - it states "adds Disable Device and Search to your list of Cleric class skills". Well... you have none. Either homebrew it to apply to Sorcerer (tbh, your DM should be pretty accomodating for this, it's hardly broken). The other benefit is "trapfinding" ability, and most, if not all, the spells are already on your list. This is a bit of a waste, and lets be honest, as cool as a Domain Sorcerer of Kurtulmak is, if he's the king he's not going to settle for sneaking around risking his neck with magic traps, he'll send his horde of other kobold's in to block the mechanism first.

Law is kind of neat, if that's your thing, especially if you're an iron fist type king. However, outside of Dictum, nothing really stands out. Its Devotion feat is very good for bonuses to attack or AC.

Luck Domain, however? Many people say they'd rather follow a lucky leader than a good one, and despite having a few spells already, eventually getting Miracle is just gravy. And rerolls are always nice, while the Devotion feat is brilliant, especially for Blasters or polymorphers.

Madness - what else is good, but for roleplaying a mad king? With Chaotic alignment from Crystal, this could fit in okayish - 1/day Character level to wisdom is nice. It also opens up Frantic Rage for you if you go for something like a Rage Mage nutty Kobold king. Of course, though, many spells are actually already on its spell-list, but Bolts of Bedevilment are niche and unique, so actually kind of cool.

Trickery Domain - you don't have cleric levels so the class skills are useless. However, the Trickery Devotion is ace for Kobold's. Congratulations, there are now two of you. The rest is a bit naff really, but it's worth saying. Still, PAO and later Timestop make excellent capstone spells, while Disguise Self and Invisibility and False Vision can all have social ramifications.

It's worth noting that if you're taking Devotion feats, you might want to make them useable several number of times a day. It's hard to get Rebuke Undead without dipping as an evil character. One of the most cost effective ways (without cleric) is to take Wyrm Wizard, which is kinda thematic, dont'cha think? How, you say? Bone Talisman (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mb/20040721a) can now be learned as a Sorcerer spell. Spend your days crafting bone talisman's ready to be turned into them.

This is where the fun bit comes.

Make your cohort a Shaper Psion 7, with his 4th level power known being Quintessence, which when manifest instantaneously creates a dollop of snot seperated from the timeframe. Now, provided that the Sorcerer is wearing some form of clothing/armour to which does not affect his casting, he can sew a load of the bone talismans he has cast the spells onto that clothing. While this looks a bit gribbly, (slimy bones on a vest of some sort, say), the quintessence prevents the bone talisman's imbued spell from running out, and as such, can be presented to fuel his Trickery Devotion (you want Trickery devotion). It lasts for 1 minute/level each day, and considering you have a ton of 2nd level spell slots (9+, usually by ECL20), this results in most combats having "2" of you.

[ImNotTrevor]

Cool. If it stays 3.5, I will definitely use that build. Thanks so much for your help!

However the dm has decided that we're switching to pathfinder. So I'm a tad bit up a creek again, and I also feel bad because you guys have been so dang helpful.

Indecisive DM's, man....

[WhamBamSam]

Dragonblood Sorcerer should be your first level. If you have a Familiar, you lose leadership score. Dragonblood Trades this away, and gives you Draconic Heritage for free. In conjunction with Dragonwrought, this is turning your 1st level diplomacy from +7 to +11, and from thereon, it only gets better.

Amethyst Dragonwrought/Heritage gives you Diplomacy, as does Crystal, Pan Lung, Prismatic, and T'ien Lung.

Amethyst and Prismatic are Neutral, Crystal is Chaotic Neutral, while Pan Lung and T'ien Lung are Lawful Neutral, if that has an effect on it. If you take a lot of Dragon feats (i.e 4) then you get access to Legacy, which gives you 3 free spells known. Among other spells, the following are quite effective in a social situation; Amethyst Dragon's have Suggestion, Crystal have Dominate Person (and Control Winds, that's ace), Pan Lung's have Major Image, Prismatic have... yeah... moving on... T'ien Lung have Suggestion (AND Control Weather. ACE, once more).

If you wish to use the power of the gods, and use that to claim your right, Kurtulmak provides Competition, Evil, Kobold, Law, Luck, Madness, and Trickery.

Competition's +1 to opposed checks means you could be quite good as a king, forceful etc, making draws victories, or forcing a narrow loss into a draw (which is usually enough to make an opposed check fail if you are the target). Among other neat thematic spells, Divine Power, and Righteous Might are your big draws - turning you Medium (shock horror!), but also setting your BAB to your HD, which is fun for all sorts of gishiness, for a total of +10 strength.

Evil's a bit meh, unless you're facing a lot of good enemies. Its one niche aspect is access to Desecrate for Animate Undead purposes, but I suppose that's not really your thing? The Damage reduction from Evil Devotion if you choose that is also a bit... well... slow scaling, let's say.

Kobold Domain - it states "adds Disable Device and Search to your list of Cleric class skills". Well... you have none. Either homebrew it to apply to Sorcerer (tbh, your DM should be pretty accomodating for this, it's hardly broken). The other benefit is "trapfinding" ability, and most, if not all, the spells are already on your list. This is a bit of a waste, and lets be honest, as cool as a Domain Sorcerer of Kurtulmak is, if he's the king he's not going to settle for sneaking around risking his neck with magic traps, he'll send his horde of other kobold's in to block the mechanism first.

Law is kind of neat, if that's your thing, especially if you're an iron fist type king. However, outside of Dictum, nothing really stands out. Its Devotion feat is very good for bonuses to attack or AC.

Luck Domain, however? Many people say they'd rather follow a lucky leader than a good one, and despite having a few spells already, eventually getting Miracle is just gravy. And rerolls are always nice, while the Devotion feat is brilliant, especially for Blasters or polymorphers.

Madness - what else is good, but for roleplaying a mad king? With Chaotic alignment from Crystal, this could fit in okayish - 1/day Character level to wisdom is nice. It also opens up Frantic Rage for you if you go for something like a Rage Mage nutty Kobold king. Of course, though, many spells are actually already on its spell-list, but Bolts of Bedevilment are niche and unique, so actually kind of cool.

Trickery Domain - you don't have cleric levels so the class skills are useless. However, the Trickery Devotion is ace for Kobold's. Congratulations, there are now two of you. The rest is a bit naff really, but it's worth saying. Still, PAO and later Timestop make excellent capstone spells, while Disguise Self and Invisibility and False Vision can all have social ramifications.

It's worth noting that if you're taking Devotion feats, you might want to make them useable several number of times a day. It's hard to get Rebuke Undead without dipping as an evil character. One of the most cost effective ways (without cleric) is to take Wyrm Wizard, which is kinda thematic, dont'cha think? How, you say? Bone Talisman (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mb/20040721a) can now be learned as a Sorcerer spell. Spend your days crafting bone talisman's ready to be turned into them.

This is where the fun bit comes.

Make your cohort a Shaper Psion 7, with his 4th level power known being Quintessence, which when manifest instantaneously creates a dollop of snot seperated from the timeframe. Now, provided that the Sorcerer is wearing some form of clothing/armour to which does not affect his casting, he can sew a load of the bone talismans he has cast the spells onto that clothing. While this looks a bit gribbly, (slimy bones on a vest of some sort, say), the quintessence prevents the bone talisman's imbued spell from running out, and as such, can be presented to fuel his Trickery Devotion (you want Trickery devotion). It lasts for 1 minute/level each day, and considering you have a ton of 2nd level spell slots (9+, usually by ECL20), this results in most combats having "2" of you.
Dragonwrought Kobolds can only have Chromatic or Metallic Heritage by RAW. Most DMs should let that slide though.

Wyrm Wizard requires you to be a prepared arcane caster, sadly. Sorcerers don't qualify. It annoys me too.

By contrast, for something that works by RAW, but which your DM may not allow, consider a 2 level dip in Singer of Concordance (you automatically qualify by virtue of being a dragon). That will give you full casting advancement and a domain off of Io's list. You can then trade it out for a domain your deity offers by having a wand/low level Cleric use Substitute Domain on you.

Also, so long as you have a Psion 7+ cohort anyway, make sure he learns Psychic Reformation. Now every kobold born into your tribe is Dragonwrought so long as your Psion PsyRefs them before they reach level 2. It doesn't mesh perfectly with the Dragonwrought fluff as written, but it should be close enough to all the "searching within the mind and soul for the true dragon within" that kobolds get up to.

[Vaz]

Hmm, interesting. Only had a quick Ctrl+F, and found that dragonwrought made mention about age category capping out at x5 and x10 for chromatic and metallic respectively, disregarding the planar, arcane, lung, ferrous and gemstone dragons. However, it's kind of irrelevant for most purposes as a +2 to a skill usually of random import (not many people sink 5 feats in 3 spells known, for example, as extra spell nets a better return. while Bloodlines from Dragon Mag Compendium add 9 in return for 1) - it's the +3 to all mentals and dragon type usually.

[WhamBamSam]

The Draconic Heritage you can get from Dragonblood Sorcerer 1 can probably be from any dragon variety. That's just a +2, not a +4, but it does make diplomacy a class skill. At the very least you can undergo the Rite of Draconic Affinity to change it, though that's obnoxiously expensive.

[Vaz]

Dragonwrought Kobolds can only have Chromatic or Metallic Heritage by RAW. Most DMs should let that slide though.
I meant in regard to this?

If you meant Draconic Heritage, it is very strangely worded, "choose one dragon from the accompanying table", and then later states that with your DM's permission you can choose non-MM Dragons, in which case ask your DM, and consult the below "Draconic Heritage for all True Dragons", which links to the table above, or the "accompanying table". They be trippin'.

[WhamBamSam]

Right, so a Dragonwrought Kobold Dragonblood Sorcerer 1 would have to choose a Metallic or Chromatic heritage for its Dragonwrought skill bonus, but could choose any heritage for its Draconic Heritage feat. Maybe they had a half-dragon dragon in their lineage or maybe their tribe has served a few different dragons over the generations.

[Vaz]

But it doesn't say that anywhere though...

[WhamBamSam]

Hmm... Yeah, I see your point. I guess that might just mean that they default to the normal maximum age rules for kobolds. That's not an insignificant thing if you're starting as venerable though, even with a high Cha mod.

[wwenmdc]

If you wanna utilize the +1 Sorcerer but still be a bard, you could take Sorcerer until you can cast 2nd level spells. Then take one level of Spellthief and finish off with Bard.

Pick up the feat Master Spellthief along the way and you'll improve your caster level as Sorcerer, Bard, Spellthief, or any other arcane caster you chose to take along the way.

If you wanna be divine too you could spend a few future levels in and defect into Mystic Theurge and improve as every caster at once.

However, you're clearly not just going for a straight caster, no, leading kobolds comes first. If you want to improve your brethren with your koboldness you could take the Kobold Paragon here: http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060127a
It doesn't hurt that for the last two levels your sorcerer level boosts.

Also make sure you are a desert kobold. Do it.

Hopefully this helps with [I]something

[DeAnno]

I made an E6 character with this theme for an old Iron Chef with Marshal/Sorcerer/Mindbender that set up nasty ambushes and then enabled wand usage by followers with the Marshal auras. Build is here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=12885530&postcount=30) if you're curious.

Having both the Dex and Cha auras is nice, but you could make do with the Dex if you don't want to focus so much on crafting.