Kobolds in 5e Dungeons & Dragons | Web DM

get in there stay where that stinger get in there we're not stinger Secretariat come on attorney general malfeasance or keep your strength Secretariat knows the push hold him in contempt what happens in Cobalts Fight Club stays in cobalt Fight Club okay that's just that's dirty it's cobalt on web DM all right Jim hmm we're talking cobalt today Oh first off is this not yet another race that was wrong the reason behind that so I did a bit of investigation on that reading through bolos refreshing my memory about like what kobolds are and and you know like how they've evolved over the additions and everything and get to that part about curl mocking or like first of all girl glitter girl's real ass and just like I mean like not up there with karela or like the elf guns the investigation I did suggest that Nikko balls did something to warrant garl glitter gold trying to trap their God in a cavern and eliminate them that they might have actually like messed with the gnomes before gnomes existed because in least and like DND lure gnomes are born from gemstones and like the biggest the Cobalts found them first or at least that's the way it is and I think Forgotten Realms backing it up a bit I'm reading that just like alright we got a you know a servant of Tia Mont Ryan a TIA mod it's kind of one of those deities that I see at least is like they're not like actively looking to promote domination or whatever in the world they mostly just want to be left alone and and not bothered and just sort of venerated by their you know the dragons or whatever and it's only like being messed with by others that drags them into these kind of cosmic conflicts yeah yeah that include little act of worship and like beseeching them and it's a trend in Dungeons and Dragons that there are evil humanoids that have evil deities which invariably at some point got into a conflict with the god of the good people's and it's one of those things where I think they want us to look at it like from this black-and-white heroic fantasy perspective where it's like yeah there kobolds they're evil they're they're sort of like these wicked little dog lizard things yeah and their deity is is sort of similar and they've always sort of hated gnomes and but to me like it just doesn't it's not working anymore and so I like to either change those things up or accept that interpretation is like yeah that's what the gnomes want you to think you know of course yeah you always have to demonize the enemies sure fight them sure but it does sort of paint the picture of all these ethno-religious subgroups in a D&D world just like fighting each other in various religious conflicts that are the way Colonel mock you know is is the god of kobold zijn is this sort of bitter grudge carrying kind of you know uber kobold but uh you know informs all of the all the others but in revisiting coal boats I found that I was like way more interested in them yeah and and found more potential in them than I think I'd probably given them credit for because for me I'm goblins like all day long goblins right right you know well I mean and in looking at them down through the the additions mm-hmm they have changed them because I used to be worn Goblin II rubble he's actually be Goblin that's right they were related to goblins Vaart gremlins and some others in an original D&D they are listed in the same entry as goblins yes like goblins and cobalt see there were scaly sort of dog like they always had lizard elements to them but they weren't like Dru chronic they weren't like actual lizards they have the blood of the dragon and right right that it's right that's a distinctly like Wizards of the coast era D&D and mention of turning them from these sort of like dog lizard things to actual lizard people why they didn't make them just like a subgroup of lizard folk or something I'm not quite sure but no ma'am it seemed like in third edition everybody had intro conic ancestry so it was figured it was part and parcel of the whole thing it was it was all the fad right got some scales you could speak to conic you know yes you gave dragons a a built-in two into the system absolutely sir absolutely I mean you know if it hadn't been for that we wouldn't gotten pump on so you know there you go again like third second he is arbitrarily high well yeah he wouldn't like second or third level like if I remembering right because arbitrarily high stats it's pretty much whatever special abilities wants because like all the different books that you make anyway that wonders a third edition that you could get up to there what I like about the cobalt that presented in fifth edition is that to me they are not this aggressive evil humanoid sort of species there which let me left alone you know our preference would be just like tunnel and have our communities and and and a really like if there's even people around who would like let us live here and not try to kill us we would be fine with that and it almost suggests a world where all of these evil humanoid peoples out there if they were just like talked to and brought into the fold that you would have this integrated society of all of the intelligent peoples of a DND world instead of this animosity seemingly based on divine origins but also suspiciously looking like well they just look weird and different so we're gonna kill them kind of thing it just part of that D&D tradition that is if you scratch me at the surface is just kind of like this doesn't feel right we're going to break into the homes of these small diminutive yeah little creatures and and they're desperately trying everything they can do to keep us out but we're here to take their stuff and wipe them off the face of fear it almost sounds like you have a dream in my campaign world that's how I treat the gold it's worth bringing up because if you're gonna present these whether it's kobolds or goblins or orcs or whatever as a people they have a culture they have a society and I love the fact that they go into such detail on cobalt society both in the ways that it's different but also in the fact they have strong social bonds right they very much care about their tribe their community and will do everything for that it to the point where they're sort of like isolationist and you know we don't want to be anybody near us but that seems to be more based on their experience in the world and the fact that they are this small you know diminutive they don't have great power they're not commanding giant empires they're just sort of like we want to live our lives not not be messed with and you know the fact that they keep getting messed with that there are wars with goblins that they you know commit genocide on ohms and all that other stuff is a consequence of these divine conflicts that make life for the people in a DV world just suck so I tried I'd do something about that in my own game so there's other reasons why the world sucks it's not gods it's Yuri their own fault see how they've changed over the years Wow you see what they kind of are now yeah like people wanting to play Cobalt so can I take this information and form a good concept out of it you know I'm sure like something that's worth playing right or something that is a little different I think for me I would start with the idea that there's got to be a very good reason for your Colt to be outside of their tribe and which is an extended family and and sort of a communal living arrangement where they're not you know they don't really care about the sort of nuclear family it's about the greater unit and so it sounds like a typical D&D origin stories coming up here I don't know right well in this case it's sort of like yellow adventurers killed all of my people you know and I yeah but it's at the same time like I you know what am I gonna do I'm gonna go live with some orcs and goblins like you know these humans these dwarves these elves they they typically come in here and and are you know are bad but gosh they their cities are better than in a work camp you know and so you could see it being like yeah these people are responsible for like say the death of my my tribe my people but maybe this call both like sees that humanity isn't monolithic that the people that came and and killed all their loved ones are not the same people that would welcome them in in a village would be like yeah of course we know we need somebody who can help us with this thing and you're you know small and industrious and willing to help and be part of a group you can see like lone kobolds in the world you know if people from other cultures or species would ever recognize them you know the the premium that Cobalts place on togetherness cooperation and add sort of group survival do you be like yeah of course we want Cobalts over here like these guys real team players and you know once you establish the fact that you're gonna treat them well and not like pick on them and make their lives worse then they're like do or die you know they're they're you know great companions and so I think like maybe that's a good him you know if you're playing a cobalt then you know that group cohesion that cooperation the teamwork of a D&D party is kind of like a surrogate tribe yeah I would avoid the sort of like on a mascot or kind of cutesy yeah that's just my personal preference though and would go for more of the you know a person looking to belong yeah that's how I would play it yeah they could also maybe the whole tribe wasn't wasn't destroyed but maybe they were rejected sure tribe for one reason or another you know a misunderstanding or maybe they did steal something right whatever oh yeah they were cast out so now they're looking for a new family a new tribe a bit of redemption bit of redemption yeah or maybe it's like they're they're just sort of a black sheep of their people and they do not get along and they there's something about this kobold where they're just like man they'd rather be by themselves just doing their own thing and not worrying about it you know maybe they practiced a different kind of magic than the sorceress magic that kobolds usually practice or maybe they're touched by a different divine power than girl monk and and that scene is this you know bad or wicked or somehow you know an influence you got to get rid of so like a warlock of keep treat them like drown elves right and serve ourselves in like we're kobolds in gnomes are the same people and it's only their different experiences of life and exposure to different magical you know whatever's influences that have like changed their shape but there's still these underground all miners and subterranean dwelling kind of people's and that's what I like I like to sort of see all of those creatures as similar whether they they have like a common origin and then diverged later on or they just like have learned to get along and at least like well we have no idea what's going on underneath us but you know these these people have their own integrated society that just happens to be underground mm-hm and you never really you never really seen anything about it so right down there come back right exactly the line is blurred as opposed to say with goblins or goblins I feel like firmly in the we're just sort of like wicked creature a little monsters yes you know you can you can sort of like make us play races and sort of integrate into the world but looking at kobolds again second time I'm like man he's a much better fit I really like that about him I was surprised yeah how much I was like oh yeah like I'm glad I revisited this because I'm usually just write off kobolds and don't even think twice about it I can't shake the idea of a kobold barbarian rage-filled monsters yeah right right right here in my heart place but yeah just the thought of a tiny little angry Cobalt yeah like means penalties at all well do you know I'm sure right but it fits right you know there they've got that you know I'm stop picking on me you know well I mean even the entry says it's like they usually like want to be left alone but when they're like kind of put in a corner yeah well nobody puts Baby in the corner the teeth the teeth and the claws come out you know it's just a 30 pound ball of fury right right you do like a battle rage of barbarian and then it's just like they're covered and spiked armor and punch dagger just be spiked and put spikes through their skin yeah no baby is really intense so I there's so many different you know ways to look at kobolds I love the like the juxtaposition of a strong melee fighter with with the sort of like the small diminutive kind of stature I think they make really good rogues you know just because the the the pack tactics that they get is really nice for that but just it's it fits with their you know they're very industrious very mechanical you know they're they're their lairs are filled with traps and they're very good with sort of like excavation and mining to me that sort of like speaks to a rogue where rogue is very good with their hands they're very sort of technical minded you could maybe see them being like an artificer or something if you sort like reef Laver some of their abilities especially if it's more less less like mechanical or machinery and it's more of like the more natural artifice or combining things to create a you know they they figured out gunpowder by just ramming you know ingredients together yeah yeah so you can seeming like amateur chemists chemists my trial I like using the sort of like small races as a care concept for like powerful magic users yes you know just because I'm former number one love willow and and we hope that those sequel doesn't suck Yoda is another right oh yeah judge me by my size you know and so I I like the same with like a cobalt where it's like oh yeah you just look like a little rat thing like I'm not gonna pay you any attention and then you know the next thing you know they're unleashing powerful magic that you know if you're gonna go that route then I probably would make them a true conic sorcerer and just be like yeah you're gonna deal with this flying kobali and and and so like those are playing with like the concepts that are in these are like Volos and more mainline Cobalts but i like them in laying between two river i have all kinds of like cobalt is just a race that you would pick if you want to play a small lizard folk right to be a larger lizard folk you want to be like a bearded dragon lizard folk and I would just be like play a kobold and maybe swap things out if you wanted to do that but I also like them as in their more traditional TSR era incarnations of like diminutive dog lizard people and even more weird stuff of just their earth spirits the first time I ran into cobalt wasn't D&D it was the quest for glory video games yeah and you have to in the first one there's like a barren Sun that's been transformed into a bear or something and it's a cobalt that did it the cobalt just like lives in this cave and the only reason I did is because the Baron's son came in there messed with it you know and you have to like distract it you don't necessarily have to kill it you just have to like distract it long enough to free the prisoner and they're like get out of there ever since then I've seen them less as a stand-in for a low-level mob type monster that you fight and more unique solitary creatures that have a strong imaginative strong innate magic and a connection to the natural world and so I almost see cobalt just like fake creatures that inhabit old mines and old cellars of abandoned houses maybe they're you know just the leftover earth spirits that you know magicians would conjure into a mine to make sure the miners were safe and if as long as they gave it you know a portion of you know the coal that they found or whatever I don't know then things would be fine but if they disrespected the mine spirit then yeah that's gonna cause cave-ins and there's gonna be noxious gases down here you know they take care of those kind of things yeah you don't want to know where those gases came through that was where I was familiar with coal boats from coarse cobalt comes from a Germanic myth and in that there are all kinds of different coal bolts they're just like another name for a spirit or a fairy or something like that and so in that sense you could make them sort of like Bobby's there's sort of like house spirits domesticated Fae that you know mend your clothes and patch up the roof and tend the fire at night and you know they're there your house monsters you know you treat them well and and and don't get in their way and you'll never know they're there and they'll take care of things for you but you know don't don't curse them don't you know don't they got weird maybe weird social taboos you're not supposed to to break or something like that and then if they do then you get a leaky roof and you're fine you're you know your fires cold in the morning restarted or your dishes aren't done dishes aren't done your dog gets the mange or you know something you know so don't finally gets please never had fleas before doesn't know why please or a kobold delicacy easily right yeah easily do you I mean do you have a place for colds in your worlds are you really you don't really like me you know you know I was just thinking about this and like in at least in Starbound I haven't really used Cobalts I just it's it's I think I'm kind of like you I've just always kind of like gone more like goblin or whatever standard fantasy but now like as we're talking I'm imagining like I want a nice proud cobalt race on a planet here's how here's one thing they're small right yeah they're small they take they don't need as much air right they don't need as much food they don't weigh as much their ships can travel faster what if they are the asteroid miners yours right they're not bound any one place they travel it maybe like big maybe like abandoned dwarf ships or something like that because I can see them being like because they're small because they're don't take up as much because many resources and because if they need to they can like breed really quickly to replenish themselves they can you know change their gender if there was too many men or not enough women or whatever to like balance things out they enough rocks self-sufficient you know they eat their own eggshells you know if they need to cite to me they'd speak to like like maybe slightly reskin of a people that explore the Stars and mined the resources there out yeah the ultimate scavenger survivors ride around out in the boy all right that's like I can kind of see that you probably because they're kind of small but yeah I can also see them where maybe their planet was destroyed and I don't know it started yeah they they literally went out on a chunk of planet maybe they didn't even know didn't even know yeah there's like an earthquake er yeah really quite ready getting cold yeah go to the surface there's nothing yeah they they travel in their asteroid until it reached another group of whatever yeah I like it yeah all right I'll put them in doable like I'm sure that my party will just start killing them and just go you're right now it's just like once again you are the [ __ ] that'll happen that will happen in my in my street in the street spell campaign kobolds are a group of elemental spirits or fake creatures that have been compacted by like basically imperial sewer mages you know the the court magicians who are responsible for keeping up the sewers in the city of just like yes some in these fake creatures that live down there and take care of things deal with leaks and change out pipes and scrub the walls and most people never know they're there but if you travel through the under city which is extensive they're the ones they're keeping things going and you know they take care of the trash they're just another type of gutter fairy that's a part of the urban landscape and they're the ones though that are keeping that city really moving yes absolutely pissed off and in that sense I usually have them depict it as either just like grumpy old men but really small and they just look like they all we're like you know the little caps a little candle on it or they have like big corncob pipes or not quite like the Wow level of coal bold but more like the grumpy you don't grow up the old man kind of cold right and then in lane between two rivers they look like all kinds of things sometimes they're lizard there's actually like lizard people and live alongside lizard folk and Dragonborn who sort of comprised the reptilians of a setting but other times their mole people you know some wizards somewhere down the line took moles and something else and was like here's mole people and you know or dog or Fox people like a lot of times I'll give them very animalistic features and so there may be vulpine or cane and the like maybe their actual homunculus and they're just like enough of them and they can recreate and reproduce themselves but they are thoroughly magical creatures that were invented by someone for some task and now they just like burrow underground and get really upset when they're bothered little clay golem things yeah yeah take a piece of their clay and another clay and mash it together and make a new one but make a new one and then like yeah and then they all have like say animals skull heads that they use and you know they're I wouldn't change much about their stats but they just look that way yeah especially the mole people I got a real kick one day about them all being mole people like they're looking naked mole-rat kind of things too and then of course there's the big hole which they all speak with a southern accent but there's no more cobalt at the big hole because they all died it's all right so like I think they're just like conceptually they're really cool yeah and you can reskin them into a lot of different kinds of creatures but like stats wise I'm not loving them you know III I do not like the strength penalty like that's the big killer for me if only because it's like I don't like the in penalty to orcs mm-hmm I think it goes against the kind of ethos of fifth edition yeah no negative yeah orcs get to bonuses at least right like I mean would you think that another plus two something would offset that I mean they they tend towards sorcerer so I like that but a plus one charisma doesn't seem it doesn't seem right yeah doesn't seem right for them yeah I think well number one if I'm thinking about adding stuff to them I'm definitely I can see Khan right like it see them having a Constitution even though they keep talking about how they're weak and whatever but they're hard but they can be hearty while still being weak right right they can be hearty yes certainly and you know if you live underground and you're you know you're surrounded in these sterile kind of like environments where you have to do your own agriculture like be self-sufficient you would think be more Hardy would be an asset you see I'm also being an intelligence boost because they're supposed to be clever and good trap makers and and have an understanding of like engineering and structural integrity and stuff so I could see maybe a little bit of a boost there but I'm thinking more along the lines of proficiencies give them miners tools masons tools come up with another proficiency for like trap making tools mm-hmm that's the one thing and I say it out loud that like fifth editions and doesn't really have which is like a way for you to make your own traps you know like I'm sure you could come up with something using this the you know the things in the dmg but like putting that in the players hands might be interesting you know that's interesting so you go like do like a tool proficient scene you know that gives you access to the ability to craft traps and then I would just use the crafting rules but maybe like not as extensive sort of take as long to craft them yeah if you're talking like a tripwire or yeah a deadfall with something like just understand how to oh we can we can prop a boulder up between them yes yeah if it's just like digging a pit and putting like a canvas over it with covering it with a layer of like light dirt that's one thing but like a say swinging door that leads you know that has like mechanical elements to it and counterweights and all that stuff then that's probably a combination of mason carpentry right you know a generic engineering skill which might just be an intelligence check but I'm talking more like snares and quick traps that you could set up in a minute or two yeah yeah yeah okay so instead of that - to strength you since you don't like it what was there some options that maybe if a player out there wants to in the DM z-- logo they don't like this though yeah yeah they still want to be I if I were running it personally I would do either one of the two I would either say alright you don't get the strength penalty but as a cold you're Max's eat right you're not gonna have that twenty that most mortals have you know you're 18 still great you still strong as Colt you know but it's not the you're never gonna be as strong as an orc or of you know human even at the same time like goblins don't have that problem halflings don't have that problem gnomes don't have that so it seems weird to single out Cobalts as this small you know creatures that are extra week and maybe I wouldn't or maybe I wouldn't represent that by strength but by whatever the opposite of wrong builders likes a weak frame weak frame yeah and it's like yeah you just can't carry as much the the modifiers for incumbrance for you are different maybe they're you know a third less or half yeah still swing a sword pretty strong yeah yeah can't do any bad yeah don't you can't carry around a lot of stuff and so like one of the things that I liked about kobolds and sort of prior editions was their affinity for Dyer weasels and like a strain of like a problem but that like Dyer weasel lycanthropes were a thing amongst kobolds and so Dyer where weasels died or where weasels yeah so you can see like there's all kinds of burrowing creatures that they might domesticate to act as pack animals and smoking of labor and things like that bad rule dire dire Wolverines and hustles and all kinds of burrowing critters that they say like yeah you know we're weak but we also have all of these vicious animals that we use to fight for us maybe they accidentally find like a Zorn and grindage to life yeah put a collar around it I don't use it I mean yeah it would be you know why would yeah though they feed it all there you know all the stuff that they don't use from their excavation come on and it eats all those gyms that have gnome souls in them it's the boy that can be born their other abilities so of course they're small yes thirty foot movement right round which at least I didn't reduce that bright and dark vision of course yeah and now we're let's get to the one that seems to divide a lot of people yes the grovel cower bagged ability yeah I personally I love it yeah and this was the reason I love it yeah yeah it can be because they're weak and whatever and it's like oh they're you know and some people I don't like that yeah people have said they don't like it sure right but when I taught self-defense one of the things that we would teach people it is to keep your head about you but to put forth the impression that you are not you're supposed to act oh my god you know because aggressor will lose focus on what they're doing yeah do that because they're like oh I got them scared yeah and that lets you and maybe others have a chance to get them right which is exactly what this ability does yeah and so when I first time I read that oh that's perfect that's great yeah it's a distraction it's a distraction and it's a it's a mechanical way to represent your enemies under estimating you exactly right and in that respect I really like it because it's often difficult to play that specific flaw right and unless you have a DM who's like really role-playing their monsters in combat and really trying to get inside their creatures heads and say like okay this is how this group of enemies would act in a fight as opposed to just like me treating it like it's a game and I'm going to play it as it's the game then I can see that ability working really well because you could have creatures that completely ignore this little thing is this even a threat like it was this your pet what is this spectacle and going instead for the bigger threats right and then this way there's some mechanical imp to it you have a reinforcing of the sort of like role-playing choices that you're making I'm sympathetic to the people who are like I don't want to play a character that's an unheroic you know and and this is an ability that doesn't say that doesn't scream like in-your-face heroism that other kinds of Dien the options that I have but at the same time it's like that's okay we have plenty of other options and you can reskin this yeah so it's something different I don't know though Jim is it more heroic to get scared and run away or more heroic to get scared drop your knees and beg for your that is true there's a weird heroism and just being like you can just run away you could just run away right inside different straight accounts use the true-true and it can easily be rescanned as like a help me friends I'm you know I'm being attacked or war cry a war cry or guys get um you know a you know it's a number one it is a great way to get mayor's into combat with the enemy you want to fight so that you then benefit from your PAC tactics which to me is the redeeming feature of the kobold and and it Trump's sunlight sensitivity yeah because it's like all right I got packed tactics we're in direct sunlight well now I just don't I'm just making a regular attack wind me restrain me and put me prone put me in a sack still making my attack how often are you fighting in direct sunlight that you're not indoors underground doing something else now you just have advantage yeah anytime there's someone else in melee or even just within five feet and not incapacitated of an enemy you want to hit and that and especially because we've played in a game with a the old variant of the artifice or the gunsmith and they were cobalt day from nerd Archy and that his cobalt was like really badass because it was like God every time you shoot that cannon you have advantage and that's impressive you know so I think that packed tactics at the end the end of the day is gonna cancel out a lot of this and will make up for you know what is a what I see is like a you know strength penalty that's a no go grovel anthem Attica Lee might have some issues but you know we can work with this and and I'm yeah I'm liking it yeah I got a lot more than I did say yesterday before I was started like really good into this oh yeah oh yeah COBOL barbarian fear fear his light step right a small frame that is your is your address which is your undoing right now with Pat tactics you don't have to worry about a reckless attack and you're leaving yourself open so yeah fun times smart barbarian smart barians head on over to patreon for our weekly podcast and so much more want to see us play we've got games every week on Twitch which we upload to our second youtube channel web d if you liked the video hit that subscribe button click the Bell give us a thumbs up and tell us in the comments thanks for watching I love that scene in Rome where it's like on a farm and it's like they got to invite all these priests up to bless the field and in order to do it they've got like [ __ ] in the field like this you have just lights are just a bunch of priests or like waiting for them to bang and they're just sort of like I'm gonna make the field fertile right yes you're just talking about how awkward it is you must consummate this field must bless the field see work yourself into her like the farmer Wow Wow the furrow receive the seed and grow fertile

Channel: Web DM

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Rating: 4.9392405 out of 5

Keywords: d&d, dungeons and dragons, dungeons & dragons, DnD, Web DM, WebDM, kobolds, kobold, tucker's kobolds, volo's guide to monsters, d&d gameplay, how to play dungeons and dragons, dungeons and dragons 5th edition, gm tips, player character, dm tips, dungeons and dragons races, player races, dnd player races, kobold player race 5e, dungeons and dragons character creation, dungeons and dragons lore

Id: FVFUFv46inM

Length: 33min 41sec (2021 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 27 2019

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[u/frightened-inmate-2]

I was worried when I saw this video in my recommendations, but was actually pleasantly surprised.