Ask Jiro presents an assortment of kobold scribes and sages to clarify Tales of the Valiant RPG rules and confirm errata sleuthed out by the ToV community!

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This month’s queries are about a variety of topics!

Stubbenz asks about the fighter’s Turn the Tide:

The wall of force spell specifies that it’s immune to all damage, while the Turn the Tide Epic Boon for fighters specifies that your weapon attack ignores immunity. How do those interact?

As a a follow-up, can Turn the Tide also be used to destroy otherwise indestructible objects, such as powerful magic items?

ANSWER!

Turn the Tide’s overriding of resistances and immunities is specifically referencing those lines in the stat blocks you would find on a monster, vehicle, or similar thing with hit points and resistances/immunities. The wall of force spell doesn’t have hit points, and while the text references immunity and damage, it is an ephemeral, magical barrier with very specific ways of taking it down.

Similarly, magic items don’t have set hit points, AC, immunities, etc., and powerful magic items, like artifacts, have very specific methods for destroying them. So, Turn the Tide is not meant to apply to these kinds of tasks.

That said, Turn the Tide is a 20th level Epic Boon feature for fighters. It is the biggest of guns. I could see a GM allowing a PC the ability to use it to destroy a powerful magic item that the party has worked for several levels to find or get to. Making Turn the Tide one way that a PC can destroy the spinning crystal orb that contains the souls the enemy lich has been collecting for months, thus freeing them to find peace? Excellent choice, GM!

Epic moments can make memorable stories, and the fighter’s Epic Boon can give that character the opportunity for such a story. While the core design intention isn’t to use the feature to destroy any magic item or magical barrier, the flavor of the feature gives the character and GM flexibility to tell compelling stories.

Frostburn326 asks about Focus talent:

None of the Focus talents state which ability is used to determine the DC of the spell you learn. Is it supposed to be fixed, is it supposed to be one that you pick, or is it supposed to just be 8 + your PB?

ANSWER!

Focus talents use your spellcasting ability. Focus talents require you to have access to 2nd-circle spells and affect those spells and that type of spellcasting. While the spell you choose with the talent can be from any source spell list, it is considered to be on your class’s source spell list for you, which means whatever that spell is, it uses your spellcasting class’s spell attack bonus and spell save DC. For example, if your character is casting it as a wizard, it uses INT and all your wizard accoutrements.

Blue Dragon Hug Time asks about kobolds:

1) Do kobolds hatch from eggs?
2) What are baby kobolds called?
3) What is Midgard kobolds’ relation to dragons outside of Mharoti?
4) Are there any kobold pirate crews?
5) Can a kobold turn into a dragon under any circumstance?

OF COURSE WE ANSWER QUESTIONS ABOUT KOBOLDS

*note: all answers are in relation to the Midgard setting and might be different for other settings.

1) Yes, kobolds hatch from eggs.

2) Baby kobolds are called hatchlings, and kobolds who hatch together in the same clutch of eggs are called “clutchmates.” This doesn’t necessarily mean they are blood related, but clutchmates often view each other with the same regard as a human might view siblings.

3) Kobolds typically respect dragons and different kobolds feel varying degrees of kinship toward them. However, that kinship doesn’t necessarily subvert other loyalties. Zobeck’s kobolds, for example, are often fiercely loyal to Zobeck and their local kobold kings. Such kobolds are unlikely to be easily wooed by a dragon, no matter that dragon’s origins.

4) There are a wide variety of pirates within Midgard. It’s likely that a pirate crew of kobolds sails the Middle Sea. To my knowledge, there isn’t a specifically named ship or crew full of kobolds, but there also aren’t a lot of named pirate ships and crews within the Midgard setting. That’s left up to the GMs to create for their versions of Midgard. So go ahead and make that kobold pirate crew!

5) Yes, a kobold can become a dragon in two “natural” ways (there are plenty of magical ways like the true polymorph spell). The first is a closely guarded secret of the dragon Mharot, who uses the power to promote only the most loyal dragonkin. The second is by an Empyrean Kobold (see Tome of Beasts 3). Empyrean Kobolds are like kobold-specific valkyries. When a kobold that exhibits traits strongly aligned with a particular type of dragon dies, the empyrean can transform the kobold into that type of dragon.

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