Why are some weapon-wielding monsters so foolishly armed?


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Let's take the lowly kobold. In my Bestiary 1 I see a pic of a kobold with a bone through its nose, a spear and it's range weapon lists a sling. Bear in mind that it is defined by its class levels. Its listed class in the stat block is Warrior 1, one of the only advantages of which is all martial weapons.

Why so cruel to the kobold?

Without changing/optimizing stats, adding PC class levels or modifying any feats I'm looking at a Str 9, Dex 13 Small sized creature. Said creature is also of average intelligence and capable of wielding ANY martial weapon, so why is he depicted with THESE weapons?

A simple change from a sling to a shortbow gives the kobold a +2 avg damage for a mere 30gp. There's not much you can do for the melee weapon but if he HAS to fight melee you could drop a Lucerne hammer in his hands; justify it as a mining hammer and pick combined. He's using 2 hands for his ranged weapons; why not max out his damage potential?

Ok, so maybe the hammer is too much but seriously; why a spear and sling? For that matter mites are throwing darts? Seriously? They ride on giant vermin; poisoned darts or instead maybe a crossbow?

I get hamstringing monsters with inferior stat arrays compared to the heroes. After all the PCs ARE presumably the heroes right? But really sub-standard gear seems like overkill on making monsters weaker than the PCs.

Silver Crusade Contributor

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Maybe the kobold wasn't allowed into the weapon shop, because he's a kobold. He had to scrounge up a spear - doubly hard, because he's Small, and all the weapon-crafters are making Medium weapons, because that's where the money is. He took Craft (trapmaking) instead of Craft (weapons), so no luck there. He's stuck with his sad little spear.

Mites are weird. Maybe they like darts.


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Do you have higher level examples, I'm not worried about challenging anyone with Kobolds, thats not their intent in the first place, they're there to prop up the egos of squishy 1st level adventurers :-)


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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

Keep in mind that you are dealing with averages. A wealthy, lucky, or skilled Kobold may have a good deal of masterwork martial equipment. The average kobold warrior is out of luck, and often uses "free" equipment.

PCs are assumed to come from a civilized area where weapon smiths and armor smiths exist. PCs also have a lot of money to allow them to start with martial gear (though not likely masterwork at starting gear).

It is to show what an advantage it is to have a higher population, organized society behind you can be.


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A kobold makes traps. One Pazio module had them in a dungeon with a crossbow trap. How then could they have a crossbow in a trap, but not a weapon? How do they have the Warrior NPC class (proficient in ALL Martial weapons) if they have no access to said "weapon shop?"

Finally, everyone always says: Tucker's Kobolds. Let's say you have that scenario, where you've got 50 kobolds defending some incredibly grueling gauntlet against oncoming adventurers. Presumably they'd slay some, if not ALL of their foes. What happens to their enemies' weapons?

My last 3 sets of PCs in my games have included a Halfling, grippli and another Halfling; one of the halflings and the grippli were both rangers. If those 2 fought some kobolds, got ambushed and were defeated, the kobolds would then have access to chakrams, axes, a short sword and a shortbow.

Heck YEAH they're going to use 'em!

So this is my response to "they don't have the tech"

1. they can make a trap, they can make a weapon

2. they loot the dead, like any good PC

3. if any gear was damaged they take it to the local sorcerer with the Mending cantrip, drop some gold, and they have a new weapon in their arsenal


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Because the Beastiary has average kobolds and not kobolds with a backstory?


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

This is best to talk to the writers of Paizo modules.

It's not like I don't have kobolds wielding martial weapons in my home games, or even have kobold PCs.

Still, I can see the bias for a low-resource society.

It might not be lack of skill, it is lack of resources. Lucky and successful kobold tribes would have better resources, and likely will have polearms, armor, bows, and master craft items.

Sadly, when most opponents are medium sized, they would have problems using all captured equipment in a human-centric world.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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For weapon-wielding monsters, you the GM get to make the decision as to what they actually wield. In fact, in a home game it's perfectly fine to swap one out for another; don't worry about weapon proficiencies either. That's a really minor element.

The reason monsters wield what they wield is most heavily influenced by the monster's theme and our desire to have variety in the book. If every monster wielded a scimitar, that'd be boring. Furthermore... often, art will come in with a monster wielding an unexpected weapon and, as often happens, if there's not enough time to change the art, we have to change the stats to match.


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Also, it could be a matter of wealth/treasure ... PCs will sell anything they can.

Sovereign Court

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When I run Kobolds I tend to make them ambush fighters. They try their best to face foes in environments they have an advantage. Weapons are for swarming or mop up after the trap has done its job. Otherwise they will try their best to get a safe spot and use range attacks since they are not hardy enough for melee battle when given a choice.

You could optimize their weapons I guess but once you start down that path you can pretty much throw away 90% of weapons in the ultimate equipment book. I do think occasionally coming up with a beefy Kobold that can melee or a chieftain sorcerer that leads the pack can be fun. Id combine a boss with clever encounter places instead of worrying about optimizing equipment to challenge PCs with Kobolds and other similar monster types.

On the flip side, I always thought it peculiar that lycans use weapons while in hybrid form. So many modules have great axe wielding werewolves it just seems to defeat the purpose of being a lycan in the first place. Kinda points out how important weapons are to anything humanoid shaped in the game I guess.

Silver Crusade Contributor

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Following Mr. Jacobs and his point about the art, most of the art in the Bestiary was taken from the various modules and such. ^_^

So if the kobold in the adventure had a spear, then the art had a spear, and so the Bestiary kobold inherited that spear along with her art.

Silver Crusade Contributor

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Pan wrote:
On the flip side, I always thought it peculiar that lycans use weapons while in hybrid form. So many modules have great axe wielding werewolves it just seems to defeat the purpose of being a lycan in the first place. Kinda points out how important weapons are to anything humanoid shaped in the game I guess.

Regarding this point - despite the iconic image of werewolves, without a feat, they don't have claws. Their hands either wield weapons or go unused.

Learned that while preparing for Broken Moon. ^_^


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Kalindlara wrote:

Following Mr. Jacobs and his point about the art, most of the art in the Bestiary was taken from the various modules and such. ^_^

So if the kobold in the adventure had a spear, then the art had a spear, and so the Bestiary kobold inherited that spear along with her art.

For this reason I advise all GMs use art from the module Dragon's Demand.

Silver Crusade Contributor

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Dragon's Demand wasn't written or illustrated when they were scraping ogether art for the first Bestiary, unfortunately. ^_^


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Well. There are a couple reasons:

1. Kobolds are mooks. Mooks don't need good stuff.

2. There are a small subset of weapons that are actually good. Look over fifty PFS character sheets who have proficiency with "all martial weapons". I'd bet you'll find greatswords, nodachis, rapiers, scimitars, kukris, longbows, bardiches, and the occasional high-power exotic weapon... and very little else as primary weapons. Maybe a longsword or two from people who haven't run numbers, some spiked gauntlets/armor spikes/cesti as secondary pieces, but that's still not broadening the pool much.

If we gave all of the monsters good weapons, we have a very small list to draw from. We'd be pulling into Exotic weapons pretty quickly, and honestly things would get a bit stale.

3. The tech level thing is a legitimate concern. Yes, they can loot the dead-- but that's going to be the minority of kobolds. How many kobolds do you think there are to every one adventurer? If a gang of five takes down an adventurer, only one of them can have his longsword. 80% of kobolds still don't have good weapons.

The traps thing... these are kobolds. Traps are what they do. If they do loot or make a crossbow, it's probably going in a trap long before it goes in a kobold's hands. Compare them to goblins, who are similar overall but better armed (shortbow, shortsword)... but goblins are expected to charge'n'die, not make traps. They'd certainly have more reason to hang onto a bow than to turn it into a trap.

4. Power concerns are a thing. +2 average damage is a pretty big deal at level 1, when your average character probably has 11 HP.

5. Some of it's a cultural thing. Why do most giants carry greatclubs, while only the tougher ones use greatswords/greataxes? Because we expect giants to be big dumb brutes who are probably using a tree for a club, that's why.

captain yesterday wrote:
Do you have higher level examples, I'm not worried about challenging anyone with Kobolds, thats not their intent in the first place, they're there to prop up the egos of squishy 1st level adventurers :-)

The Calikang has crit-centric feats (Critical Focus, Improved Critical, Staggering Critical), but for reasons unknown carries longswords over scimitars.

A lot of CR 20+ outsiders are kind of silly when you look at them closely. Solars carry Composite longbows with a Str rating of 9. Great, sure, their Str scores are 28... except they're Clerics. Buffs come easy; the standard Solar loadout includes stuff like Righteous Might. They also carry greatswords, which are inferior to nodachis at this level (in their base stats the greatsword is just edging the nodachi out, but these guys are professional buffers, and that would change if you made the Nodachi +4 Keen anyway).

Elysian Titans are CR21 creatures who are pretty bright... and use +3 greatclubs. The CR22 Thanatotic Titan is only slightly better, with a +3 greataxe, and the CR22/Mythic 8 Fomorian Titan is using a mere Heavy Mace (albeit one good and magic'd up). The Fomorian is in the same boat as the Calikang, in that it has those same three critical feats (plus the Mythic version of Improved Critical!) but is wielding what is natively a 20/x2 weapon. Give him a longsword or scimitar and he's strictly better off.

Even Demon Lords aren't exempt. Pazuzu appears to be two-handing a Keen longsword; he'd be better off with a nodachi or greatsword.

That said, it's actually a little less common than I thought it was. I was going to comment on the Balor using a longsword over a scimitar too... but his Large size and relatively low damage bonuses means that for him that move actually makes sense.

Sovereign Court

Kalindlara wrote:
Pan wrote:
On the flip side, I always thought it peculiar that lycans use weapons while in hybrid form. So many modules have great axe wielding werewolves it just seems to defeat the purpose of being a lycan in the first place. Kinda points out how important weapons are to anything humanoid shaped in the game I guess.

Regarding this point - despite the iconic image of werewolves, without a feat, they don't have claws. Their hands either wield weapons or go unused.

Learned that while preparing for Broken Moon. ^_^

Tell me about it I rebuilt werwwolves just for my Carrion Crown game and broken moon.


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Quote:
2. There are a small subset of weapons that are actually good. Look over fifty PFS character sheets who have proficiency with "all martial weapons". I'd bet you'll find greatswords, nodachis, rapiers, scimitars, kukris, longbows, bardiches, and the occasional high-power exotic weapon... and very little else as primary weapons. Maybe a longsword or two from people who haven't run numbers, some spiked gauntlets/armor spikes/cesti as secondary pieces, but that's still not broadening the pool much.

This seems like a weird form of circular design.

I've always heard the existence of crappy weapons being excused by claiming you need to have crappy weapons for the NPCs to wear, and smart players will only pick the PC-appropriate weapons to use.

Yet here we have the other side of the coin indicating that NPCs have to use the crappy equipment, or else everyone in the world would be using the same half dozen weapon types and ignoring all of the other weapons the game has.

Personally I think I'd be a lot happier if weapons were just balanced within a reasonable degree, so that each weapon has a purpose.


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Pan wrote:
Kalindlara wrote:
Pan wrote:
On the flip side, I always thought it peculiar that lycans use weapons while in hybrid form. So many modules have great axe wielding werewolves it just seems to defeat the purpose of being a lycan in the first place. Kinda points out how important weapons are to anything humanoid shaped in the game I guess.

Regarding this point - despite the iconic image of werewolves, without a feat, they don't have claws. Their hands either wield weapons or go unused.

Learned that while preparing for Broken Moon. ^_^

Tell me about it I rebuilt werewolves just for my Carrion Crown game and broken moon.

I just gave a number of them Beast Totem since many are Barbarians. Better than Powerful Blow, anyway.


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Seerow wrote:
Quote:
2. There are a small subset of weapons that are actually good. Look over fifty PFS character sheets who have proficiency with "all martial weapons". I'd bet you'll find greatswords, nodachis, rapiers, scimitars, kukris, longbows, bardiches, and the occasional high-power exotic weapon... and very little else as primary weapons. Maybe a longsword or two from people who haven't run numbers, some spiked gauntlets/armor spikes/cesti as secondary pieces, but that's still not broadening the pool much.

This seems like a weird form of circular design.

I've always heard the existence of crappy weapons being excused by claiming you need to have crappy weapons for the NPCs to wear, and smart players will only pick the PC-appropriate weapons to use.

Yet here we have the other side of the coin indicating that NPCs have to use the crappy equipment, or else everyone in the world would be using the same half dozen weapon types and ignoring all of the other weapons the game has.

Personally I think I'd be a lot happier if weapons were just balanced within a reasonable degree, so that each weapon has a purpose.

*Shrug* You assume a lot more intent than I do. The difference between a scimitar and a longsword is nothing new. I frankly don't think there's a lot of intent to balance all weapons against each other, which makes sense because barring making a lot of weapons totally identical to each other (many more than there are right now), doing that is really, really hard. So instead Pazio just established some upper limits of what they were okay with and everything falls below that line so it's good. The Falcata's five years old and still the best weapon in the game (possibly matched by the fauchard but that's really it), and it's not likely to go anywhere.


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Mark Hoover wrote:

Let's take the lowly kobold. In my Bestiary 1 I see a pic of a kobold with a bone through its nose, a spear and it's range weapon lists a sling. Bear in mind that it is defined by its class levels. Its listed class in the stat block is Warrior 1, one of the only advantages of which is all martial weapons.

Why so cruel to the kobold?

Without changing/optimizing stats, adding PC class levels or modifying any feats I'm looking at a Str 9, Dex 13 Small sized creature. Said creature is also of average intelligence and capable of wielding ANY martial weapon, so why is he depicted with THESE weapons?

A simple change from a sling to a shortbow gives the kobold a +2 avg damage for a mere 30gp. There's not much you can do for the melee weapon but if he HAS to fight melee you could drop a Lucerne hammer in his hands; justify it as a mining hammer and pick combined. He's using 2 hands for his ranged weapons; why not max out his damage potential?

Ok, so maybe the hammer is too much but seriously; why a spear and sling? For that matter mites are throwing darts? Seriously? They ride on giant vermin; poisoned darts or instead maybe a crossbow?

I get hamstringing monsters with inferior stat arrays compared to the heroes. After all the PCs ARE presumably the heroes right? But really sub-standard gear seems like overkill on making monsters weaker than the PCs.

Before people even bring it up (I'm probably too late on this)...

Yes, you should play the monsters like Tucker's Kobolds if you think their weaponry is junk. You'll reconsider your claim of "BAD WEAPONS MEAN BAD MONSTERS" in the snap of fingers (which, if played right, would also be the snap of a PC's neck from said Kobolds).


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"Monster" humanoids are usually poor, especially the small ones.


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Mark Hoover wrote:
Said creature is also of average intelligence and capable of wielding ANY martial weapon, so why is he depicted with THESE weapons?

It's worth remembering that the "Warrior" class is an NPC class, not intended for PC use. Because of that, their ability to use "Any martial weapon" is more akin to flavour text than actually indicating they've been trained to use every weapon in the "Martial Weapons" section of the rule book.

The average Militia-man is likely used to fighting with a sword/spear and maybe a bow (for example), they're not going to dedicate years of their life practicing with every weapon.
The reason they have Marital Weapon Proficiency is to give the GM an idea of what kind of weapons they can equip.

This whole thread does raise the idea that you can increase the CR of an encounter just by giving your kobolds better gear. If you want the adventure to keep going but the PC's have levelled up, just have the Kobolds ambush a weapons shipment.

(You could also assume "Warriors" have spent enough time using weapons that they can use anything that's not completely unbalanced without any major penalties, so if they need to pick up something they're unfamiliar with they can do so without the -4 penalty. It depends what you want from the encounter really.)


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OP is looking at the equipment from a strictly out-of-game, "i can litterally see the rules the whole world is build upon right before my very own eyes, Matrix-Style" viewpoint, and then determines a best-course of equipping oneself from the near-omniscient base.

In-game creatures do not have this view. They do not know that weapon A is objectively better then weapon B, C and D.

And that not even touching the problems of cost and availability, especially for creatures who are not professional murderhobos 24/7, every month of every year.

Silver Crusade Contributor

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Rynjin wrote:
Pan wrote:
Kalindlara wrote:
Pan wrote:
On the flip side, I always thought it peculiar that lycans use weapons while in hybrid form. So many modules have great axe wielding werewolves it just seems to defeat the purpose of being a lycan in the first place. Kinda points out how important weapons are to anything humanoid shaped in the game I guess.

Regarding this point - despite the iconic image of werewolves, without a feat, they don't have claws. Their hands either wield weapons or go unused.

Learned that while preparing for Broken Moon. ^_^

Tell me about it I rebuilt werewolves just for my Carrion Crown game and broken moon.

I just gave a number of them Beast Totem since many are Barbarians. Better than Powerful Blow, anyway.

Mine had Aspect of the Beast. ^_^


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Guru-Meditation wrote:

OP is looking at the equipment from a strictly out-of-game, "i can litterally see the rules the whole world is build upon right before my very own eyes, Matrix-Style" viewpoint, and then determines a best-course of equipping oneself from the near-omniscient base.

In-game creatures do not have this view. They do not know that weapon A is objectively better then weapon B, C and D.

And that not even touching the problems of cost and availability, especially for creatures who are not professional murderhobos 24/7, every month of every year.

Most people generally assume that creatures have an intuitive understanding of the world that correlates to the numbers. It would be reasonable for a creature to understand that a scimitar frequently inflicts nasty wounds, a greataxe is quite inconsistent in the damage it inflicts compared to a greatsword, and a scythe rarely does a lot of damage but when it does...oh boy.

Weapon availability is a concern to a kobold living in a dank cave. Not so much for someone living in a city, who has about as much access to fancy weapons as the typical murder hobo adventurer.


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The same reason why you do not have a short bow and a lucrene hammer- you do not particularly plan to fight armed mercenaries today.

The kobold you see with a spear and sling? He is probably hunting rabbits or something for lunch. He has the basic weapons needed to bring down a small animal.

And maybe the kobold tribe does have good weapons. It is just that they are put away in the armory for dire situations, like when adventurers come charging in. And even then, there are probably only enough good items for the trained kobolds who are the main encounters of that dungeon, and the rest just grab basic hunting gear as a 'just in case' kind of deal.

And why don't they arm all the kobolds for battle when they go out?.... man, they are 1 hd kobolds, they die just as easily whether they have a sling or a greatsword when there are more than 1 creature, or anything with 5+ hd. Do you want to lose resources arming NOOBs who would get killed anyway? Do you want to fill some adventurers' wallets with loot?


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MrCharisma wrote:


It's worth remembering that the "Warrior" class is an NPC class, not intended for PC use. Because of that, their ability to use "Any martial weapon" is more akin to flavour text than actually indicating they've been trained to use every weapon in the "Martial Weapons" section of the rule book.
The average Militia-man is likely used to fighting with a sword/spear and maybe a bow (for example), they're not going to dedicate years of their life practicing with every weapon.

But I don't think of Warriors as representing militia. Militia would be Commoners or Experts called away from their normal jobs to fight, probably with spears and crossbows.

For a Warrior, fighting IS their job. They just aren't heroes/PCs.


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Snowblind wrote:
Guru-Meditation wrote:

OP is looking at the equipment from a strictly out-of-game, "i can litterally see the rules the whole world is build upon right before my very own eyes, Matrix-Style" viewpoint, and then determines a best-course of equipping oneself from the near-omniscient base.

In-game creatures do not have this view. They do not know that weapon A is objectively better then weapon B, C and D.

And that not even touching the problems of cost and availability, especially for creatures who are not professional murderhobos 24/7, every month of every year.

Most people generally assume that creatures have an intuitive understanding of the world that correlates to the numbers. It would be reasonable for a creature to understand that a scimitar frequently inflicts nasty wounds, a greataxe is quite inconsistent in the damage it inflicts compared to a greatsword, and a scythe rarely does a lot of damage but when it does...oh boy.

Weapon availability is a concern to a kobold living in a dank cave. Not so much for someone living in a city, who has about as much access to fancy weapons as the typical murder hobo adventurer.

That's assuming the creature in question has seen all of those weapons used frequently enough to draw those conclusions.

Sovereign Court

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And man - those cave men in the museum are using clubs & spears? Why didn't they just use guns to take down the mammoths?!? That would have been way smarter. ;)


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Durngrun Stonebreaker wrote:
Snowblind wrote:
Guru-Meditation wrote:

OP is looking at the equipment from a strictly out-of-game, "i can litterally see the rules the whole world is build upon right before my very own eyes, Matrix-Style" viewpoint, and then determines a best-course of equipping oneself from the near-omniscient base.

In-game creatures do not have this view. They do not know that weapon A is objectively better then weapon B, C and D.

And that not even touching the problems of cost and availability, especially for creatures who are not professional murderhobos 24/7, every month of every year.

Most people generally assume that creatures have an intuitive understanding of the world that correlates to the numbers. It would be reasonable for a creature to understand that a scimitar frequently inflicts nasty wounds, a greataxe is quite inconsistent in the damage it inflicts compared to a greatsword, and a scythe rarely does a lot of damage but when it does...oh boy.

Weapon availability is a concern to a kobold living in a dank cave. Not so much for someone living in a city, who has about as much access to fancy weapons as the typical murder hobo adventurer.

That's assuming the creature in question has seen all of those weapons used frequently enough to draw those conclusions.

Or it's common knowledge. A soldier is quite likely to hear their instructors talk about various commonly seen weapons during training, or from veteran guards while in active service.


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Don't know if someone has already pointed this out, but the typical treasure value per encounter at CR 1 is 260 gp. Kobold warrior 1s are CR 1/4, so they can't have gear worth more than 65 gp each, if you have 4 as a CR 1 encounter.

Dark Archive

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Because if you optimized a kobold it wouldn't be a CR1/4 anymore?

I mean, you could give it 130 gp worth of armor and 50 gp worth of weapons as described in the Creating NPC's chapter. You could give it a combat feat instead of Skill Focus (Perception), but it would alter the challenge rating. (Don't feel bad, I had to learn that the hard way.)

So yeah, you could optimize every monster in the Bestiary. That doesn't make it a good idea.

Silver Crusade

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Charon's Little Helper wrote:
And man - those cave men in the museum are using clubs & spears? Why didn't they just use guns to take down the mammoths?!? That would have been way smarter. ;)

History is replete with great warriors who wore armor supplemented with armored kilts and used falcatas for everything.

Also, the DM must have totally fudged stuff like the Agincourt or Lepanto, those were way above CR for the people involved.

Seriously, cave dwelling kobolds use spears because they're tribal humanoids living in a cave. They might have crossbows (they might make the launchers expressly for a trap. A mechanism designed to not move might function as a crossbow without being one.

If you want a mechanical reason, you will find none.

RAW shall not avail thee.


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Snowblind wrote:
Durngrun Stonebreaker wrote:
Snowblind wrote:
Guru-Meditation wrote:

OP is looking at the equipment from a strictly out-of-game, "i can litterally see the rules the whole world is build upon right before my very own eyes, Matrix-Style" viewpoint, and then determines a best-course of equipping oneself from the near-omniscient base.

In-game creatures do not have this view. They do not know that weapon A is objectively better then weapon B, C and D.

And that not even touching the problems of cost and availability, especially for creatures who are not professional murderhobos 24/7, every month of every year.

Most people generally assume that creatures have an intuitive understanding of the world that correlates to the numbers. It would be reasonable for a creature to understand that a scimitar frequently inflicts nasty wounds, a greataxe is quite inconsistent in the damage it inflicts compared to a greatsword, and a scythe rarely does a lot of damage but when it does...oh boy.

Weapon availability is a concern to a kobold living in a dank cave. Not so much for someone living in a city, who has about as much access to fancy weapons as the typical murder hobo adventurer.

That's assuming the creature in question has seen all of those weapons used frequently enough to draw those conclusions.
Or it's common knowledge. A soldier is quite likely to hear their instructors talk about various commonly seen weapons during training, or from veteran guards while in active service.

I'm not really sure how much instructions or training is given to kobolds.


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Durngrun Stonebreaker wrote:
Snowblind wrote:
Durngrun Stonebreaker wrote:
Snowblind wrote:
Guru-Meditation wrote:

OP is looking at the equipment from a strictly out-of-game, "i can litterally see the rules the whole world is build upon right before my very own eyes, Matrix-Style" viewpoint, and then determines a best-course of equipping oneself from the near-omniscient base.

In-game creatures do not have this view. They do not know that weapon A is objectively better then weapon B, C and D.

And that not even touching the problems of cost and availability, especially for creatures who are not professional murderhobos 24/7, every month of every year.

Most people generally assume that creatures have an intuitive understanding of the world that correlates to the numbers. It would be reasonable for a creature to understand that a scimitar frequently inflicts nasty wounds, a greataxe is quite inconsistent in the damage it inflicts compared to a greatsword, and a scythe rarely does a lot of damage but when it does...oh boy.

Weapon availability is a concern to a kobold living in a dank cave. Not so much for someone living in a city, who has about as much access to fancy weapons as the typical murder hobo adventurer.

That's assuming the creature in question has seen all of those weapons used frequently enough to draw those conclusions.
Or it's common knowledge. A soldier is quite likely to hear their instructors talk about various commonly seen weapons during training, or from veteran guards while in active service.
I'm not really sure how much instructions or training is given to kobolds.

Good thing kobolds are extremely socially orientated creatures. If the most experienced kobold warriors know that scimitars tend to inflict grevious wounds frequently based on their experience watching their friends get cut down by murder hobos adventurers then they are reasonably likely to warn younger kobolds about it, given that they all live in a cave together as a community.

The availability of weapons for kobolds is a concern though. Unless they have trade with other civilizations or decent blacksmithing capabilities they won't have a plentiful supply of falchions and ranseurs to hand out to their warriors.


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Snowblind wrote:
Good thing kobolds are extremely socially orientated creatures. If the most experienced kobold warriors know that scimitars tend to inflict grevious wounds frequently based on their experience watching their friends get cut down by murder hobos adventurers then they are reasonably likely to warn younger kobolds about it, given...

Having a variety of weapons does strain plausibility if their particular mine is not connected to any decent ore veins.

Spears have been popular across cultures throughout histories because they are relatively cheap and easy to produce. From sharpened sticks to full on spear heads, they require less expertise and resources than swords.

Before giving them a lucerne hammer, I would maybe limit it to just giving them a long spear, or perhaps a nice ax (also relatively simple to produce, or perhaps steal from loggers and refit for a smaller size)

I certainly wouldn't give them greatswords or nodachis (which require a rather high degree of metallurgy to produce, a lot of metal, and even more metal to practice the necessary smithing skills)

Shadow Lodge

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There's a lot of ground between optimal weapon choices and the terrible weapons these creatures are given.

Even the longspear lemeres suggested is a big improvement on the simple spear thanks to sneaking in an extra attack with reach.

Machetes and handaxes can be used with weapon finesse for +2 to hit. These should not be difficult weapons to make. Kobolds have a 6 point racial difference in favour of dex over str, and they're using weapons that are particularly favourable for strong over dextrous creatures (two-handed weapons and slings).

Or try a pickaxe for the x4 crit. Or a heavy or light pick (the latter with weapon finesse) with a buckler or light shield for +1 AC - the kobold can continue to benefit from the shield while using a sling. Picks should be available to miners and it makes perfect sense to make slightly higher-quality war picks. Heck, you can even use mining picks as weapons without penalty with a trait.

And while light crossbows aren't generally optimal enough to become boring, they're fantastic for kobolds and I would really expect to see at least a handful in a tribe that lives around halflings or gnomes - say, enough crossbows to equip the 1 in 20 kobolds who is a 3rd level sergeant.


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Of course, we should also consider ease of carry and what the kobold expects to face in their daily life.

When it was allowed, civilians often just carried a sword and buckler, perhaps, as self defense weapons. Not exactly the best thing against a man in full plate with a lucerne hammer... but enough to face off against a random mugger with similar weapons. Because the mugger doesn't want the guards asking him 'why do you have a polearm?' or 'would...perhaps...know anything about people being mugged with polearms? why am I asking...no reason'

So for the common kobold, a spear might be enough to scare off a random farmer that was wandering in the woods. It is hardly more threatening than a dagger mechanically... but if I was walking down the street and someone pulled a knife out on me...I would probably hand out my wallet... so that counts as 'enough' in this kind of circumstance.

Now, if you are doing a full on raid on the kobold den, and they had the time for sentries to send message back telling them you were coming... yeah, then I would expect that at least a few of the kobolds would get something better from their armory. Crossbows, a few swords, a few long spears...and then a few of the lower level ones would still just use simple spears.


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Suppose, as in the OP, you gave each kobold a shortbow and a lucerne hammer. This effectively increases each kobold's loot by about 45 gold.

A Kobold is CR 1/4. They give 100 xp.
To get to level 2 by Medium Progression, you need 2,000 xp. In other words, you need to kill 20 kobolds. That's 900 gold worth of kobolds.
A level 2 PC is expected to have 1,000 gold worth of gear.

If the GM is being mean, and considers the kobold's loot as unconverted gold amount, then the PC will gain about ~100 gp worth of 'other treasure' in addition to the loot gained from kobolds.
If the GM is being more reasonable, they will mark the kobold's gear as 1/2 price for determining PC loot, so the PC will find ~600 gp worth of 'other treasure'.

Personally, as a player, I don't want half of my gold income to be small-sized shortbows and lucerne hammers. I'd rather have the Kobolds get dirt-cheap gear so the GM can give me loot in other forms.

tl;dr - 45 gold is a lot for CR 1/4.


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Because most creatures in a setting do not know they are limited by RPG game rules that cover their existence and as such act in a way appropriate with their intelligence, resources and cultural norms.

And we all know cultures can make people do some pretty stupid crap.


the David wrote:

Because if you optimized a kobold it wouldn't be a CR1/4 anymore?

I mean, you could give it 130 gp worth of armor and 50 gp worth of weapons as described in the Creating NPC's chapter. You could give it a combat feat instead of Skill Focus (Perception), but it would alter the challenge rating. (Don't feel bad, I had to learn that the hard way.)

So yeah, you could optimize every monster in the Bestiary. That doesn't make it a good idea.

This is strictly false. A creature whose hit dice are solely a factor of class levels are always Level-1 for PC classes and level-2 for NPC classes.

Regardless of equipment, Level 1 Kobold warrior= CR 1/4, Level 1 Human warrior= CR 1/4, level 1 Goblin warrior= CR 1/4, ect.

Sure, you obviously don't want to throw every Kobold into Plate mail, but Leather armor is only 5 GP cheaper than Hide which would improve their AC by 2 and a Flail or is only 6 GP more than a Spear and would either do the same damage in a single hand or more damage as a two handed weapon.

The only reason they are listed that way in the book is so they can be slain easily by murder hobos. . . it's a hold over of earlier editions and the "Kobolds/goblins/orcs dumb/evil only exist to be slain" mentality.


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Nathanael Love wrote:
the David wrote:

Because if you optimized a kobold it wouldn't be a CR1/4 anymore?

I mean, you could give it 130 gp worth of armor and 50 gp worth of weapons as described in the Creating NPC's chapter. You could give it a combat feat instead of Skill Focus (Perception), but it would alter the challenge rating. (Don't feel bad, I had to learn that the hard way.)

So yeah, you could optimize every monster in the Bestiary. That doesn't make it a good idea.

This is strictly false. A creature whose hit dice are solely a factor of class levels are always Level-1 for PC classes and level-2 for NPC classes.

Regardless of equipment, Level 1 Kobold warrior= CR 1/4, Level 1 Human warrior= CR 1/4, level 1 Goblin warrior= CR 1/4, ect.

Sure, you obviously don't want to throw every Kobold into Plate mail, but Leather armor is only 5 GP cheaper than Hide which would improve their AC by 2 and a Flail or is only 6 GP more than a Spear and would either do the same damage in a single hand or more damage as a two handed weapon.

The only reason they are listed that way in the book is so they can be slain easily by murder hobos. . . it's a hold over of earlier editions and the "Kobolds/goblins/orcs dumb/evil only exist to be slain" mentality.

Not true. With PC wealth and PC classes, they're CR=Level.

NPC Gear Adjustments wrote:
You can significantly increase or decrease the power level of an NPC with class levels by adjusting the NPC's gear. The combined value of an NPC's gear is given in Creating NPCs on Table: NPC Gear. A classed NPC encountered with no gear should have his CR reduced by 1 (provided that loss of gear actually hampers the NPC), while a classed NPC that instead has gear equivalent to that of a PC (as listed on Table: Character Wealth by Level) has a CR of 1 higher than his actual CR. Be careful awarding NPCs this extra gear, though—especially at high levels, where you can blow out your entire adventure's treasure budget in one fell swoop!

More importantly, not everything needs to be designed most efficiently to fight PCs. Spears are hunting weapons. Hide only bumps AC by one and penalizes stealth.

Plus, as said above, they're tribal cave dwellers. Spears, slings and leather are appropriate, even if not optimal. If you're dealing with the Great Kobold Empire, they'll have better gear.


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Nathanael Love wrote:
and the "Kobolds/goblins/orcs dumb/evil only exist to be slain" mentality.

Which...they kinda are? The default ones are around to die. If you want a kobold or goblin who'll challenge the PCs, build one with PC class levels.

Things with NPC classes aren't designed to win.


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Also, there's this.

Shadow Lodge

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lemeres wrote:

Of course, we should also consider ease of carry and what the kobold expects to face in their daily life.

When it was allowed, civilians often just carried a sword and buckler, perhaps, as self defense weapons...

I would expect the average kobold of the warrior class to expect to face somewhat more violence than the average human civilian.

voideternal wrote:

Suppose, as in the OP, you gave each kobold a shortbow and a lucerne hammer. This effectively increases each kobold's loot by about 45 gold.

...
To get to level 2 by Medium Progression, you need 2,000 xp. In other words, you need to kill 20 kobolds. That's 900 gold worth of kobolds.
A level 2 PC is expected to have 1,000 gold worth of gear.
...
Personally, as a player, I don't want half of my gold income to be small-sized shortbows and lucerne hammers. I'd rather have the Kobolds get dirt-cheap gear so the GM can give me loot in other forms.

First, what does it matter when that income is promptly converted to gold and used to buy whatever you want (assuming the GM is indeed reasonable and counting stuff you can't use at sale value).

Second, if I as a GM were going to bring a PC to level 2 solely through killing kobolds, they wouldn't all have the same gear. I might have 8 pikers with longspears, slings, and hide shirts (20gp each, 160 total), 6 skirmishers with handaxes, bucklers, slings, and hide shirts (21 each, 166 total), 4 snipers with light crossbows, daggers, and leather (47gp each, 188 total), and 2 adepts with at most a longspear each (5 each, 10 total). That's 524gp of gear, or 262gp of actual wealth after sale, leaving me 738gp. About 200gp of that might go towards scrolls and a partly-depleted wand for the adepts, 200gp towards consumables for the warriors (alchemist's fire, special crossbow bolts, a potion of CLW), and 300-400gp in wealth the kobolds wouldn't be able to immediately use (coins, small gems, maybe a medium-size masterwork shield or armour). Probably I would overshoot on the assumption that a handful of consumables would be used in the fight.

Third, I would probably not spend an entire level fighting just kobolds - maybe half of the XP budget would be spend on kobolds, with the other half filled in with traps, guard animals, oozes, or other hazards around the kobolds' lair.


thejeff wrote:
Nathanael Love wrote:
the David wrote:

Because if you optimized a kobold it wouldn't be a CR1/4 anymore?

I mean, you could give it 130 gp worth of armor and 50 gp worth of weapons as described in the Creating NPC's chapter. You could give it a combat feat instead of Skill Focus (Perception), but it would alter the challenge rating. (Don't feel bad, I had to learn that the hard way.)

So yeah, you could optimize every monster in the Bestiary. That doesn't make it a good idea.

This is strictly false. A creature whose hit dice are solely a factor of class levels are always Level-1 for PC classes and level-2 for NPC classes.

Regardless of equipment, Level 1 Kobold warrior= CR 1/4, Level 1 Human warrior= CR 1/4, level 1 Goblin warrior= CR 1/4, ect.

Sure, you obviously don't want to throw every Kobold into Plate mail, but Leather armor is only 5 GP cheaper than Hide which would improve their AC by 2 and a Flail or is only 6 GP more than a Spear and would either do the same damage in a single hand or more damage as a two handed weapon.

The only reason they are listed that way in the book is so they can be slain easily by murder hobos. . . it's a hold over of earlier editions and the "Kobolds/goblins/orcs dumb/evil only exist to be slain" mentality.

Not true. With PC wealth and PC classes, they're CR=Level.

look at the npc gear chart again--

level 1 is 260 gold with 50 in weapons and 130 in protection. . .

level 2 is 390 gold. . .

to get the bump for equipment the Kobold would have to have at least 390 gold worth of equipment (level 2 NPC or level 1 "heroic" npc).

To get the bump for PC level you'd have to rebuild them as fighters instead of Warriors (extra HP and combat feat).

a bump of less than 50 gold to have not the worst weapons in the game would not increase them past CR 1/4


Weirdo wrote:

First, what does it matter when that income is promptly converted to gold and used to buy whatever you want (assuming the GM is indeed reasonable and counting stuff you can't use at sale value).

Second, ...(encounter design details) ...

That's great encounter design. Unfortunately, it has little to do with the point I'm making.

My point is that the base CR 1/4 Kobold in the Bestiary should not eat up the GM's wealth pool.


voideternal wrote:
Weirdo wrote:

First, what does it matter when that income is promptly converted to gold and used to buy whatever you want (assuming the GM is indeed reasonable and counting stuff you can't use at sale value).

Second, ...(encounter design details) ...

That's great encounter design. Unfortunately, it has little to do with the point I'm making.

My point is that the base CR 1/4 Kobold in the Bestiary should not eat up the GM's wealth pool.

30 gold apiece is hardly "eating up the wealth pool". . .

4 PCs need to get a total of 4,000 gold (less starting funds of max 175 per) means minimum 3300 to get.

At that rate they would have to kill 110 Kobolds. . . are you really going to be fighting 110 Kobolds?

I think 1/110th is a reasonable amount of wealth per monster?

(30 gold = 15 hide armor, 8 flail, 7 heavy shield for +4 AC)


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Nathanael Love wrote:

30 gold apiece is hardly "eating up the wealth pool". . .

4 PCs need to get a total of 4,000 gold (less starting funds of max 175 per) means minimum 3300 to get.

At that rate they would have to kill 110 Kobolds. . . are you really going to be fighting 110 Kobolds?

I think 1/110th is a reasonable amount of wealth per monster?

(30 gold = 15 hide armor, 8 flail, 7 heavy shield for +4 AC)

Firstly, the OP's Kobolds have 45 gold as a CR 1/4 encounter, not 30 gold.

Secondly, the designers of the Bestiary have to be careful with how much gold they incorporate into the stat block of each creature. The problem with the OP's Kobold is not that 45 gold is a lot of gold for a level 1 PC. 45 gold is nothing. You're right.

But what if the GM is a busy person, and he doesn't have the luxury of designing each and every single Kobold he puts into the game? What if other CR 1/4 creatures of the Bestiary were similarly equipped with 45+ gold equipment? What if the GM doesn't play with an openly available economy, i.e. no Magic Mart?

The Bestiary cannot make assumptions about houserules. The Bestiary cannot make assumptions about how much time the GM has to alter said Bestiary. If all encounters were as well-equipped as the OP's kobolds, about 1/2 of the PC's wealth will come from the monster's pre-defined loot. This plays very badly with games with no Magic-Mart and this plays very badly with GMs who have no time to change all the equipment of every single Kobold to be gear-friendly for the PC's.

The usual way for the Bestiary to hand out 'loot' as part of monster drops is to define how much loot they should give out as per the creature's Ecology. See the Dragon as an example. It says 'triple standard', which is another way of the developers saying, "We won't pre-define the loot of the Dragon, so you don't have to worry about it influencing your wealth calculations." Other monsters, such as the Dullahan has equipment that partially vanishes so it doesn't influence wealth calculations (+1 frost keen longsword -> +1 longsword).

Of course there are exceptions, such as the Erinyes, but for these stronger humanoid monsters, it makes thematic sense for them to be carrying valuable equipment. For lowly Kobolds to be carrying 45 gp as a CR 1/4 monster is way too much.


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Except its not at all. . .

Even at 45 gold to get to the 3300 that an average part of 4 needs to get to their 1000 2nd level gold they would need to loot 73 kobolds. . .

Even if you made Kobolds the prime antagonist and fought nothing but CR 1/4 Kobolds through 2+ sessions how many are you likely to have fought>?

20? 40? Maybe. . . but not 73.

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