CrazyCrab
2017-07-21, 04:35 PM
Hi everyone,
making a new character as I'm moving and will be joining the Adventurer's league there. As usual, when I'm looking for a cool idea I messed around in HeroForge looking for a fun looking hero. I ended up with a pretty neat looking Kobold caster, then realized that I've never seen anyone play one in my meetup - which is, currently, a 50+ members London based group. Being THAT guy, I figured I should at least try playing one and see if it's really so bad. (If anyone's curious, here's the guy I came up with https://www.heroforge.com/load_config=631405 )
So, having looking around on the net, the general consensus is that 5e (unlike the quite alright 3.5e) Kobolds are bad. I mean, if we look at the breakdown...
# +2 DEX -2 STR... a net 0. While others are generally a net +3. Ouch.
# Small. Like, very small. Smaller than half lings, at an average 2.5 feet. Can be useful?
# Speed 30. That's nice, given the size.
# Darkvision. Alright, but why not Superior Darkvision, being always underground?
# 'Grovel, Cover and Beg' Action, all allies have adv. on attacks vs enemies within 10 feet of you. Recovers on SR/LR. Hmm. Somewhat mediocre, but maybe we can work with this...
# Pack Tactics. Know them, love them. Undoubtedly the best feature. Would make them perfect ranged heroes, if it wasn't for...
# Sunlight Sensitivity. Aww. Why do you do this, Wizard.
Overall, pretty bad with little to no flavor. No trap proficiencies or even bonuses to mining, despite the earlier chapter in the same book which focused on the two aspects. When it comes to reptiles Lizardmen are better in pretty much every way, with free mage armour and more.
Let's assume that the adventure will be 1/2 sunlight, 1/2 darkness. Being unable to tell in what kind of game I will be playing, I think it sounds fair and is somewhat cautious.
This means that the natural go-to, Rogue/Ranger will not have advantage 1/2 the time, unless you're running a mega-dungeon or something. As it's Adventurer's League, no Sunglasses cheat either - was never a big fan of DMs doing it anyway and wouldn't ask for them in the 1st place. This means that the crowd favorite, Rogue, will not get to use sneak attack 1/2 the time. That's... fun? Being at a -3 net Stats, MAD classes are almost kind of out of the question... and you cannot multiclass with Barbarian or Paladin without 1st putting an ASI into STR. So for multi-classing, we're looking at DEX + One Stat.
I've given it some thought on my way from work and here are the two 'gimmicks' I came up with.
1) Minionmancer Wizard OR Druid: Thanks to 'save or hurt' spells, you don't care about Sunlight Sensitivity and when it it's dark you have advantage on spell attacks. The big combo is casting a horde summon, then moving in, using Grovel and giving advantage to all your summons. Looks lethal? Concentration will be an issue though.
2) Warlock Blaster / Champion 3: Devil's Sight which means that 1/2 the time you can get around Sunlight Sensitivity with Darkness when outside. At max level, with hex, 4 rays with advantage and 19/20 crits, then action surge and 4 more, I think you'll be getting quite ridiculous damage... Never mind, doesn't work with spell attacks. :smallannoyed: (EDIT)
Thoughts? Opinions? Tips? Looking forward to it!
making a new character as I'm moving and will be joining the Adventurer's league there. As usual, when I'm looking for a cool idea I messed around in HeroForge looking for a fun looking hero. I ended up with a pretty neat looking Kobold caster, then realized that I've never seen anyone play one in my meetup - which is, currently, a 50+ members London based group. Being THAT guy, I figured I should at least try playing one and see if it's really so bad. (If anyone's curious, here's the guy I came up with https://www.heroforge.com/load_config=631405 )
So, having looking around on the net, the general consensus is that 5e (unlike the quite alright 3.5e) Kobolds are bad. I mean, if we look at the breakdown...
# +2 DEX -2 STR... a net 0. While others are generally a net +3. Ouch.
# Small. Like, very small. Smaller than half lings, at an average 2.5 feet. Can be useful?
# Speed 30. That's nice, given the size.
# Darkvision. Alright, but why not Superior Darkvision, being always underground?
# 'Grovel, Cover and Beg' Action, all allies have adv. on attacks vs enemies within 10 feet of you. Recovers on SR/LR. Hmm. Somewhat mediocre, but maybe we can work with this...
# Pack Tactics. Know them, love them. Undoubtedly the best feature. Would make them perfect ranged heroes, if it wasn't for...
# Sunlight Sensitivity. Aww. Why do you do this, Wizard.
Overall, pretty bad with little to no flavor. No trap proficiencies or even bonuses to mining, despite the earlier chapter in the same book which focused on the two aspects. When it comes to reptiles Lizardmen are better in pretty much every way, with free mage armour and more.
Let's assume that the adventure will be 1/2 sunlight, 1/2 darkness. Being unable to tell in what kind of game I will be playing, I think it sounds fair and is somewhat cautious.
This means that the natural go-to, Rogue/Ranger will not have advantage 1/2 the time, unless you're running a mega-dungeon or something. As it's Adventurer's League, no Sunglasses cheat either - was never a big fan of DMs doing it anyway and wouldn't ask for them in the 1st place. This means that the crowd favorite, Rogue, will not get to use sneak attack 1/2 the time. That's... fun? Being at a -3 net Stats, MAD classes are almost kind of out of the question... and you cannot multiclass with Barbarian or Paladin without 1st putting an ASI into STR. So for multi-classing, we're looking at DEX + One Stat.
I've given it some thought on my way from work and here are the two 'gimmicks' I came up with.
1) Minionmancer Wizard OR Druid: Thanks to 'save or hurt' spells, you don't care about Sunlight Sensitivity and when it it's dark you have advantage on spell attacks. The big combo is casting a horde summon, then moving in, using Grovel and giving advantage to all your summons. Looks lethal? Concentration will be an issue though.
2) Warlock Blaster / Champion 3: Devil's Sight which means that 1/2 the time you can get around Sunlight Sensitivity with Darkness when outside. At max level, with hex, 4 rays with advantage and 19/20 crits, then action surge and 4 more, I think you'll be getting quite ridiculous damage... Never mind, doesn't work with spell attacks. :smallannoyed: (EDIT)
Thoughts? Opinions? Tips? Looking forward to it!