Can we have a poll?

[SangoProduction]

I don't know how to make one for these forums, or even if it's possible, so if you do, or...hmm, ok, well, I just thought of Strawpoll, so yay (http://strawpoll.me/6456916). Hopefully this isn't breaking any terms of Service of the forums.

To elaborate: fast kobold sorc progression includes that greater rite of dragon something, and being a Loredrake Kobold, or the similar, not just being Pun Pun.

Spell level early entry include precocious apprentice or whatever, and that Illumian thing.

I simply want to know, statistically, what I'm more likely to get accepted, lol.
I have a sneaking feeling it will be the Spell level early entry stuff as it doesn't give you advanced spell casting beyond your levels, typically.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Improved Sigil (Krau) is going to get over easy. It requires a feat, a specific race, and has fairly specific uses.

Precocious Apprentice is nice but very shaky on RAW so it may not fly.

Kobold + Greater Draconic Rite of Passage has a steep cost associated with it and is cleanly RAW, so that should be fine.

Dragonwrought Kobold + loredrake is in a pretty nebulous place since there is not a clean cut answer if DWKs counts as true dragons. That aside it also gives by far the greatest benefit for the cost of a feat that gives +3 to all mental stats and allows for some awesome alter self forms, so this one is likely to be refused just because of how strong it is.

[Troacctid]

Greater Rite works fine, Loredrake doesn't. Improved Sigil (Krau) works, Precocious Apprentice doesn't. So you'd have to be more specific, I guess.

[Uncle Pine]

I would have no problem with early entries, if any of my players went for that. However, one is currently planning to enter Ultimate Magus as a Spontaneous Divination Wizard and I already had my Wizard 1/Rainbow Servant X accepted by the player who will DM after the end of my current campaign.
Never had a kobold going through the rite of passage, but that's probably because it just didn't happen. As a comparison, I did have a player with a 4th level Colossal dragonwrought kobold Totemist. YMMV.

[Ruethgar]

DWK Loredrake is only legal by RAW technicality and is unlikely to fly for most DMs.

Greater Draconic Right of Passage takes 6 levels to get and only puts sorcerers on more even footing with wizards. It is hardly awe inspiring or broken and as long as you aren't taking advantage of too many of the kobold's awesome options would be fairly likely to pass. However in my experience, the potential of kobold's gets them banned a lot more than what you use them for.

Krau is potent in combination with other effects but not broken and could probably see play though IMHO it is less likely than the Draconic Rite to function for early entry.

Precocious Apprentice should work just fine and better than the others but I've run into more GMs who despise it more than they ought and more than Krau by far, though less than Kobolds in general, Loredrake and Rite included.

The feat heavy Sanctum Earth spells are by far the most likely to pass if you want to waste two flaws your first and a human feat getting them go right ahead.

By far the least likely early entries are Pun Pun and Elven Generalists.

[Jack_Simth]

There's a problem with mechanical optimization:
In most (not all) cases, all else being equal, there will be more enjoyment (note that enjoyment takes many forms) at the gaming table when all players have roughly the same amount of power (note that this also takes many forms) than there will be when there is a significant power gap between players.

If you're doing something that sets one player's character significantly apart from the others in terms of power, you are very likely to reduce the enjoyment of one or more people in the group. It does not matter which direction this power separation goes. The single character that can't contribute is just as much of a problem as the single character that makes everyone else's character obsolete at their role. How this power discrepancy occurs is also irrelevant.

As D&D is usually played as a game with no real-world stakes (there are exceptions, and this post does not apply to those), harmless enjoyment is the goal. If your mechanical optimization causes a meaningful power discrepancy with the other player characters, you are sabotaging the underlying goal (in most cases). It does not matter if this is because you used a trick to get that Kobold Sorcerer casting four levels above your ECL (white dragonspawn loredrake dragonwrought kobold Sorcerer with the Greater Draconic Rite of Passage and LA Buyoff is one way to do it) while taking epic feats from first level, because you said a name three times and knew what to ask for, or because you're taking levels in commoner.

So really, what you need to do before any optimization is a discussion with the gaming group on what power level you're all after. Communicating specifics is difficult unless you've all had a decent amount of experience gaming with each other, but once done, how you get there is irrelevant.

[Troacctid]

Precocious Apprentice should work just fine and better than the others but I've run into more GMs who despise it more than they ought and more than Krau by far, though less than Kobolds in general, Loredrake and Rite included.

Precocious Apprentice needs to not work in order to not be dysfunctional. If it counts as being able to cast a 2nd spell, then the feat simply doesn't function at all, because its benefit is lost once you're able to cast 2nd level spells.

If you allow early entry via Precocious Apprentice, you might just as well allow early entry via magic items, because any 1st level Wizard with 150 gp can buy a scroll that lets her cast a 2nd level spell.

[Necroticplague]

Never tried the fast spell progression, have used a lot of early entry. Honestly, the early entry wasn't even to increase my power level. It was mostly because to me, the class feature I wanted was more interesting than more levels in my base class. Thus, I wanted to get the former ASAP while reducing the amount of the latter. Thus, Eldritch Corruption cheese.

[Nohwl]

i usually use early entry with sanctum spell, never tried a loredrake kobold. usually go with human as a race and i hate kobolds. i'd allow either in a game i dm.