Kobold

Version 0.29: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

This page is about the player species. For the monster, see Kobold (monster).

Kobolds are small, mysterious creatures of unknown origin. They are well suited to lurking in the darkness of the Dungeon, and have a reduced range of vision which also reduces the range at which they can be seen by enemies. They are competent in combat, especially with short blades, maces or crossbows, and are comfortable with all forms of magic. They are also very adept at using magical devices. Their small size makes them unable to wield large weapons, but they are agile and stealthy, and advance in levels as quickly as Humans.

Innate Abilities

• Nightstalker 3: Kobolds' line of sight is reduced by 3, to a range of 4 squares. Their stealth is also increased by +150.
• Kobolds are small creatures, so have trouble with many items.
  • They are unable to wield many two-handed weapons: great swords, triple swords, dire flails, great maces, battleaxes, executioner's axes, halberds, scythes, glaives, bardiches, longbows, javelins, and anything medium-sized species can't wield.
  • Large one-handed weapons: magical staves, double swords, tridents, demon tridents, and broad axes, are two-handed weapons to them.
  • They are also incapable of wearing tower shields, and more encumbered by bucklers and kite shields.

Kobolds have a base Strength of 5, Intelligence of 9 and Dexterity of 10 (before Background modifiers).

Preferred Backgrounds

• Warriors: Brigand
• Zealots: Berserker
• Warrior-mages: Arcane Marksman, Enchanter
• Mages: Conjurer, Summoner

Level Bonuses

• +1 to a random stat every 5th level.
• 20% less HP than average.
• Average MP.
• +3 willpower per level.

Starting Skills and Equipment

Kobolds receive the skills and equipment listed for their background, with the following exceptions:

• Javelins are replaced with boomerangs.

Difficulty of Play

Kobolds are a fairly straightforward race to play because of their great aptitudes in many skills and their size bonus to EV. Their small LOS makes it easier to sneak up and stab foes, while limiting the effective range of your enemies. Of course, this limits your ranged options as well. Their health is low, though this is somewhat made up by their unqiue traits (faster leveling in particular).

Skill aptitudes

The higher the value, the better the aptitude.

Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude
Attack		Miscellaneous		Magic
Fighting	1	Armour	-2	Spellcasting	0
		Dodging	2
Maces & Flails	-1	Shields	-2	Conjurations	0
Axes	-2	Stealth	4	Hexes	0
Polearms	-2			Summonings	0
Staves	-1	Invocations	1	Necromancy	0
Unarmed Combat	0	Evocations	2	Translocations	0
Throwing	1	Shapeshifting	-1	Alchemy	0
				Fire Magic	0
Short Blades	3			Ice Magic	0
Long Blades	-2			Air Magic	0
Ranged Weapons	3	Experience	1	Earth Magic	0

Strategy

Kobolds' tiny line of sight lends itself well to a few builds:

• Wu Jian + Stabber: Wu Jian's Lunge allows you stab from 2 tiles away; for Kobolds, this is 40% of the screen. A scarf of shadows turns this into half the screen.
• Necromancy: It is easy to fill all visible tiles with undead allies, severely limiting the number of enemies that can appear simultaneous on-screen. Kikubaaqudgha makes it even easier.

Even with a tiny line of sight, their Ranged Weapons skill is quite impressive. A range of 4 is still fairly decent, and ranged weapons are one of their best "heavy" weapon aptitudes.

Of course, you aren't limited to these builds - a Kobold can do archetypical builds in both melee and magic just fine, though have a preference towards lighter armour.

Trivia

Kobolds were originally creatures from Germanic mythology, but they are well known to gamers due to appearing as low-level monsters in Dungeons & Dragons and as creatures in Nethack.

History

• In 0.29, Kobolds gained +3 Ranged Weapons (as opposed to +2 Crossbows and weaker aptitudes elsewhere).
• In 0.27, Kobold backgrounds with kite shields were replaced with bucklers. However, the following version removed kite shields from background starts.
• Prior to the removal of the food system in 0.26, kobolds were carnivorous, but did not have the Nightstalker mutation.
• Prior to 0.21 and the merging of rations, the carnivorous mutation had three levels.
• Kobolds' aptitudes were rebalanced in 0.19. Prior to this change: Axes was -1, Maces & Flails was 0, Throwing was +3, Slings was +2, Bows was -1, Spellcasting was -1, Conjurations was -1, and Transmutations was -1, and Evocations was +3. Kobold base stats were also changed.
• Prior to 0.15, kobolds had 2 ranks of Saprovore and would recover from sickness faster than normal.