Spoiler: Hum speaks
Show
I've had to work hard to get where I am today, y'know? Dispel a lot of stereotypes, challenge a lot of assumptions. Even had trouble joining the fangshields; they told me they were a monsters-only club, no kobolds allowed. Like people don't treat me as a monster wherever I go! Thankfully they let me in after I gave them a piece of my mind on the whole matter.
But having to prove my skill at arms all the time is probably the worst. See, all my life people say 'you are tiny, Hum, you are not a warrior, Hum, you do not even know the basics of combat'. And perhaps that's true! But the ways I figure it, a pointy stick is a pointy stick, and the faster you're going when you plunge it in someone, the more that's gonna hurt. I always figure that's basic physics, and the faster you go the harder you hit, but for some reason it never seems to work that way for other people!
Spoiler: Spotlights
Show
Early game:
I'm gonna be honest: this build was not made for low-level play. You can talk to plants and animals, you heavily invest in all the scout skills, you can squeeze in very small spaces, you got Track and a racial bonus to survival, but in combat you're simply a small-sized warrior with disappointingly low strength. Humans ought to be pretty common in most campaigns, and you get +2 on the perception and stealth skills versus them. Try to charge in and full attack for three hits that all get bonus damage, and you shouldn't be too bad of a combatant. You can also Rage 1/day, which helps out with survivability and damage.
ECL 6:
At this level, we can fly functionally indefinitely by alternating our 2 turns of consecutive flight with a round of gliding. Don't underestimate the number of CR 6 monsters that simply die to a flying PC with a ranged weapon. Our fly speed is 40 ft., so we're even faster than a number of humanoids employing 'fly speed equal to your land speed' type effects, and we have Berserk's Battle Fury for a risky but quite potent buff that we can draw upon 1/day. Note that both it and Rage extend our flying rounds, which helps compensate for our so-so endurance.
Flight makes us slightly more of a threat in melee, as we can now perform dive attacks to attack with a claw/claw/bite (or claw/trident/bite) routine, dealing double damage on each hit as they're piercing weapons. This also multiplies the favored enemy boost, so if there's any humans on the field (and often, there will be), focus on those. The classic setup of 'human caster behind a wall of zombies/goblins/constructs' is something you do very well against, thanks to your ability to fly over the flunkies and tear into their big boss.
Early epic:
Flyby Attack and Diving Charge form the core of this build. Diving Charge adds damage to our charging hits depending on our fly speed, and with 30 base, +30 from Air Heritage, +20 from Improved Speed, +10 from Berserk, and the temporary +10 from Fangshield Barbarian's Fast Charge, we hit 100 feet of flight and add 3d6 to all our hits. Wingover and Improved Maneuverability expand our movement options some. Note that flyby attack specifically says it can be used with dives! Our land speed is meanwhile up to 50, thanks to benefitting from some of the boosts we chiefly take to increase our fly speed, which directly complements our scout role: if anything spots us, we can at least run back to the party (note how we cover 200 feet per round while running; it takes a heavy horse or a catfolk with the run feat to match that, and we fit in spaces those don't).
If we don't feel like taking AoOs, we can also simply end our flight after hitting the opponent. Ideally though, 4d3+2d8+9d6+8 (more when raging) proves sufficient to kill our foe, letting us keep flying without taking a hit. Even when an AoO is inevitable, consider it an acceptable price to pay for putting ourselves out of reach of full attacks, touch spells, or short-range breath weapons.
Flying foes will usually be slower and less maneuverable than we are, meaning we can wear them down with quick skirmishing charges. Remember, even something with (average) maneuverability still needs two turns to reverse direction, and dragons/chimeras/manticores/whatever all have worse than that; you can do it by expending a few feet of movement.
Late epic:
Adroit Flyby Attack now lets us swoop in, attack, and retreat without provoking AoOs, massively reducing the defensive downsides of charging. Extra Rage similarly helps with survivability, sustaining flight, and damage, and Improved Maneuverability lets us turn in place by expending a very small amount of movement, giving us the ability to charge the same foe each turn for as long as necessary.
Shadow Jaunt lets us easily and reliably ascend during combat and provides utility teleports outside of it, while Child of Shadow meshes with our combat style in a way that essentially offers us permanent concealment. Even our touch AC, normally an achilles' heel of melee warriors everywhere, is pretty high between our size bonus, decent dexterity, and dodge bonus!
The end result is a blazing fast hard-to-hit charger who can zip around the battlefield with ease, dealing very solid amounts of damage and performing well out of combat as a scout and tracker, while having ways around some pitfalls of low-level melee like difficult terrain, save-or-sucks, summoned meatwalls, or flying enemies. Not bad for a kobold barbarian!
Spoiler: Sources
Show
Kobold:
RotD web enhancement
Desert Kobold: UA
Kobold Ranger - RotD
Spiritual Connection Ranger - CChamp
Fangshields Ranger, Fangshields Barbarian: CoV
Berserk: DD
Dragonwrought, Dragon Wings, Improved Dragon Wings: RotD
Diving Charge, Expeditious Dodge: RotW
Air Heritage: PlH
Improved Speed, Adroit Flyby Attack: Drac
Improved Maneuverability: CAdv
Extra Rage: CWar
Mad Foam Rager: PHB2
Martial Study, Martial Stance: ToB
Originally Posted by Hum Ingbird, the Pint-Sized Peregrine
Re: Iron Chef E6 Appetizer Edition, Round XLII
Reply With Quote