Some gear suggestions for high level kobolds?

[HoboKnight]

My party is soon to meet these guys: https://imgur.com/sQqkmkr and I'd like to gear them out with some loot for the party to take, after they conquer the kobolds. What would be some examples of a good gear for these kobold melees and casters? If it helps, party is lvl 8, but gear should go well along with these kobolds - be useful for them. There will be 2 casters and 3 melees, so plenty of gear slots to go around between them.

thanks!

[Unoriginal]

My party is soon to meet these guys: https://imgur.com/sQqkmkr and I'd like to gear them out with some loot for the party to take, after they conquer the kobolds. What would be some examples of a good gear for these kobold melees and casters? If it helps, party is lvl 8, but gear should go well along with these kobolds - be useful for them. There will be 2 casters and 3 melees, so plenty of gear slots to go around between them.

thanks!

Well the statblocks give each melee +2 studded leather armor, a +2 shortbow and a +2 poisonbite dagger, while the caster got "just" a +2 poisonbite dagger.

So that means 3x +2 armor, 3x +2 shortbows, and 5x +2 daggers with poison effect.

That's rather perplexing in term of magic item loadout. That's three Very Rare armors, three Rare weapons, and five homebrew weapons that are stronger than the Rare Dagger of Venom.

I get you want loot for the PCs, but do you want the kobolds to use the loot before they are beaten by the PCs?

I have to note that those statblocks are pretty weird, as the only thing that put those kobolds to CR 8 is their incredibly high HPs and the truly staggering amount of magic items they have. To put things in perspective, the average CR 8 Frost Giant has 138 HPs, and the average CR 8 Young Green Dragon has 136 HPs.

[da newt]

Yeah - the stat blocks are very high hp, low defense, low offense, low proff.

The martial types rely on pack tactics to get their 'to hit' up to half decent, but being in melee with crap AC and just a dagger is silly. Give the poor little buggers a shield and make the daggers into short swords at least (and 2d6 poison damage isn't 12 damage, it's 7).

The caster's spell list is a mess, but I guess they ought to haste their attack team and then fireball anyone who isn't in melee ...

That's a ton of magic items to be dropping in one encounter and depending on the party size and makeup, this encounter is one good control spell from over before it starts - their saves are horrible (and they have no save proficiency).

For your players, how do you let them know these kobolds have 25 - 30x the hp of regular kobolds?

I'm not a fan of these monsters.

[HoboKnight]

Yeah - the stat blocks are very high hp, low defense, low offense, low proff.

The martial types rely on pack tactics to get their 'to hit' up to half decent, but being in melee with crap AC and just a dagger is silly. Give the poor little buggers a shield and make the daggers into short swords at least (and 2d6 poison damage isn't 12 damage, it's 7).

The caster's spell list is a mess, but I guess they ought to haste their attack team and then fireball anyone who isn't in melee ...

That's a ton of magic items to be dropping in one encounter and depending on the party size and makeup, this encounter is one good control spell from over before it starts - their saves are horrible (and they have no save proficiency).

For your players, how do you let them know these kobolds have 25 - 30x the hp of regular kobolds?

I'm not a fan of these monsters.

Thanks for insight! I like monsters to be messy, not fully optimised sometimes. These are supposed to be the elite of a medium-sized kobold tribe, that got its powers in time with blood rituals. So I guess scaling can be weird, eh?

If, however, you have any better suggestions (especially for kobold casters), please go ahead. I have however a hard time finding proper kobolds for my Lvl 8 PCs.

[Unoriginal]

Thanks for insight! I like monsters to be messy, not fully optimised sometimes. These are supposed to be the elite of a medium-sized kobold tribe, that got its powers in time with blood rituals. So I guess scaling can be weird, eh?

If, however, you have any better suggestions (especially for kobold casters), please go ahead. I have however a hard time finding proper kobolds for my Lvl 8 PCs.

You can take any of the humanoid NPC statblocks and apply the Kobold modifiers.

[sambojin]

Staff of the Python wouldn't go astray for the Shamans. It's not great at this level, but it's another body on the field (a huge one), it has restrain-on-hit (or a 10' range attack), can be semi-immortal, but you can just let the staff blow out so your adventurers just end up wih nothing after the fight (you don't want them ending up with free summons. Seriously, you don't). Can be pre-cast as well, so they start the fight with it on the field. Only CR2, so not that scary, but also somewhat fireball proof for 1-2 castings.

Works quite nicely with Haste on it too (though I'd be fireballing with those two slots). Also, remember how Hold Person isn't that great for PCs? It can be horrifying for enemies to have, so casting that on one of them (a low Wis-save character), and auto-critting them a few times with the kobolds/ snakes should make it a slightly scarier encounter for the players as well.

I'd also give the Shamans a +1/+2 Moon Sickle or something. Basically anything that raises their spell DC by +1 or +2. Make those spells a little scarier. He might not be a druid, but shaman is close enough. Maybe a +2 one for the master shaman, and a +1 for his apprentice? Or just a +2 for the master? Something like that. And it explains the next paragraph:

With the poison/ advantage theme, I'd probably just add a few Giant Constrictor Snakes or Giant (Flying?) Spiders to the mix (or both) as well. Body blockers or movers with ranged restrain makes stuff a bit more interesting as an encounter. Sure, the HP isn't there, but it'll still waste a bit of the party's action economy to take them out, while you do other stuff with the kobolds. Slows them down too, so they can be shot/ have spells cast on them. Basically ablative armour, but with a lockdown/ poison theme (and flying/ wall climbing spiders pair pretty well with the Misty Step of the shaman). Not spell ones. Real ones. You don't want concentration or anything to be able to remove them.
3 of each, or at least 4 in total, would do. Wouldn't really change the encounter difficulty CR-wise at this level, but really does make it a harder encounter. It's also another body for your kobolds to ping pack tactics off (they're still allies within 5' of the enemy), so their archery/ stabbery should have a little more accuracy as well.

Two staff Snakes and 4 Giant (Flying?) Spiders would do perfectly, if you want it to be pretty hard and epic. There's even a bit of stealth skill on the spiders, depending on how you want to initialise the encounter. If it's too hard and you TPK them, run the giant spider poison rules. They got paralyzed and captured, because the story can continue on.

(Storywise it works fine too. Giant snakes might not be a dragon, but it's getting there, so these two shaman are doing what they can on that. Trying to summon a dragon couple, for new kobolds, but so far they're up to big snakes. The rest of the average spear kobolds revere them because of it. The flying spiders have been persuaded to serve them through shamanic magic BS, and can even serve as mounts for their elite warriors. Which are also there in this encounter. Found them in/ drew them to the tunnels or something. And poison/ restrain/ lockdown/ movement themes, and advantage/ auto-crit/ pack tactics baby! So it works well enough for "why is this a thing?" for a very thematic and memorable encounter)

((Even if it was one Python Staff, that both Shamans are attuned to (can bonus action back-to-stick and/or action recast) and 3 giant (flying?) spiders, it'd be pretty fun. I don't know the details of your party in this campaign. But I'd veer to the side of too-hard with the spider paralysis save-the-adventure side though, rather than way-too-easy yay-we-beat-them(?/!). Good encounters are, even if they're winnable yet hard, and have some very scary moments. But they can be loseable and not have it as a character reset either. It just got a lot harder though. Win= plenty of free magic things. Lose= no magic things of your own and a serious situation to get out of, and having to regain your equipment. Easy storytelling device. If you really need these kobolds to stick around, even if the party kills them in 1-2 turns, super-misty mega-shaman step or snake-into-dragon-dimensional-thingo. You'll be fine))

[da newt]

In my opinion the down side to these monsters is that their lopsided stats lead to a rather boring encounter.

They have high HP and they have pact (sic) tactics and cast spells - these are all the interesting bits. On the down side, they have meh AC, low to hit, low damage, and TERRIBLE saves. If your party is primarily melee combatants this encounter is a slog - your PCs will hit more often and hit harder, but with so many hp it will take many rounds. If your PCs have some control spells, this becomes a very simple one sided slaughter.

Saves of -1, +2, 0, +2, -1, -1 and 0, +2, +1, -1, -1, -1 are horrible. At this level of play, these guys are soooo vulnerable to saves.

And so basic: +6 to hit for 6 piercing + 7 poison damage 2x per round. What 8th lvl melee PC would worry about that?

How do you get a DC 15 and +6 spell attack bonus with a 16(+2) INT, btw ????

These guys are built like a brute, but they are little weaklings. Check out a cyclops CR 6 or Frost Giant CR 8 - simple brute, better saves, same hp, more damage, better to hit, and their stats make sense. These Kobolds - what gives these little goobers (size small) so many hp and access to better than PC level magic items?

What sort of things should a CR 8 humanoid bring to the table? Check out the Hezrou, Chain Devil, Drow Priestess of Lolth, Fomorian, Githyanki Knight, Oni (7 but I like them), Green Slaad, Assassin, Blackguard, etc

[Mastikator]

Give one of them a dragonic hoard item (Fizban's), one of the mages could for instance have a Dragon Touched Focus.

I'd give the melee's half plates instead of +2 studded leather, a getting 3 +2 studded leather is a lot for a 8th level party. Maybe one of the melee kobolds has the +2 studded, and 4d6 sneak attack instead of multiattack (doesn't need stealth, pack tactics will work for sneak attack just fine). The half plate melees should have shield and shortsword, one of the melees with shortsword could have a flametongue swortsword. I'd give the 3rd melee a green dragonscale scale mail.
That's pretty good loot: +2 studded leather, flame tongue short sword, green dragon scale mail, dragon touched focus. Non-magic loot: 2 half plates.

I'd also upgrade the casting on the mages to 4th level spells, one of them casts storm sphere, the other casts ice storm with their 4th level slot. A party of 8th level can take it.

I'd remove the +2 poisonbite. Poison weapons is good against players but not good for a player.

[da newt]

Sorry - I don't mean to be negative, but I just don't like the design of these monsters.

Now for advice that might be useful:

These guys need to be at least MED in size to represent their special toughness (HP), and I'd recommend LARGE for the melee types if you decide to use their suggested 160 hp, but I'd recommend lowering their hp to 90 and 120 respectively.
If they have 130/160 hp then their CON score ought to reflect that extraordinary toughness (+4), if they only have 90/120 then they are still very tough and ought to have +3 CON.
For a CR8 caster they ought to have at least lvl 10 NPC spell slots and spells known with a casting stat of +4 and proff of +3 for DC 15, to hit +7.
For CR8 melee folks they ought to do 50-55 damage per turn (assuming hits) so I'd give them 3 attacks of ~17 hp each or 2 attacks of ~ 25 hp each. (looks at the assassin as a good template)
They all need Proff added to 2 appropriate saves.
It's PACK TACTICS!


Magic items appropriate for one boss level / end of a story arc loot drop for a party of 5 lvl 8 PCs:
For a VERY generous magic item drop I'd go so far as 1 Very Rare, 2 Rare, 2 Uncommon magic items. Flavor as you see fit for your party to end up with and for these Kobolds to have acquired.

Lastly - a party of 5 lvl 8 PCs should have a very tough time going up against a group of 5 real CR 8 bad guys.