Tucker's Kobolds[PEACH][3.5]

[Dragon Elite]

Acid Waterfall:
A waterfall streams down from above. Hidden to the PC's, there is a 10x10x10 ft pit behind the waterfall. If you are in the acid, you take 1d3 damage per tun. In the pit, you take 1d10 per turn.

Help! I'm stuck!
This 40x10 room goes flat for 20 ft, then slopes down at a 30 degree angle for the other 20 ft, leading to a decorated chest.(In it are 2 longswords and bow, all trapped.) When they are at the bottom, kobolds jump down from a trapdoor and pour oil down. You need to make a DC 15 balance check, or slide to the bottom. Then, the kobolds throw torches into the oil. (1d6 damage/round, for 5 rounds)

Gridlock
This 100x5 hallway has 1x1 ft squares carved in it. When the PC's are halfway through, kobolds light the oil in the crevices on fire. (1d6 damage/round)

Darts and Death
A shower of darts deals 2d4 damage to all in the zone. If you make a Reflex save DC 16, you jump forward into a pit. Reflex DC 19 or take 1d6 falling damage.

Not again!
This 20x20 room has strange writing on the ground. When you take a closer look, a kobold lights the oil in the writing on fire. you take 1d6 per turn damage.

Please help me decide what the CR's of these are. I am very bad at balance. Also, any other ideas would be helpful. Thanks!

[shadow_archmagi]

The PCs will see them coming after the first oil related trap.

Particularly the gridlock one; any reason why they can't just light the oil themselves and then let it burn itself out?

[Dragon Elite]

They would still burn, because the passageway is chock full of oil and crevices. I still think the Acid waterfall would surprise them :smalltongue:

[shadow_archmagi]

They would still burn, because the passageway is chock full of oil and crevices. I still think the Acid waterfall would surprise them :smalltongue:

No, I mean, they see a long hallway full of oil, so they light it BEFORE going in.

[The Glyphstone]

Also, I think you're overestimating the damage oil can do on some of these, such as the 'writing on the ground' trap...oil isn't napalm (that's alchemist's fire). Unless the individual letters are a couple feet across, there's not going to be enough burning oil in any one square to injure someone.

Also, why can't the PC's jump backwards from the dart trap, or just duck? Why do they have to jump forward into the (I assume hidden) pit?

[Another_Poet]

Acid Waterfall:
A waterfall streams down from above. Hidden to the PC's, there is a 10x10x10 ft pit behind the waterfall. If you are in the acid, you take 1d3 damage per tun. In the pit, you take 1d10 per turn.

This is two traps. The CR of the waterfall trap depends on how big the waterfall is. Let's say it rushes over 2 squares of a hallway or bridge the PCs need to get across. That's a CR1 trap. If you increase the area it covers the CR goes up.

The pit trap is dangerous. Is there falling damage, or does the acid/water in it negate that? Even without falling damage I'd say being trapped in a pit with 1d10 acid damage per turn is CR 3. However you need to add some stats:
-is the person in the pit covered in water/acid? If yes, are they totally covered (requiring Con checks to hold breath or start drowning)? What is the swim DC to get to the surface? It's turbulent water so it might be high (DC20). That is a dangerous trap.
-What is the Climb DC to get out of the pit? It's slippery, and the slipperiness is burning the climber's hands, so it could be quite high (DC 20 - 25). This is an extremely dangerous trap.

Either way, if a Climb or Swim check is offered, low Strength characters will die in here at low levels. if the pit is easier to get out of (only knee-deep acid water in the bottom, not much current, part of the walls are dry enough to have a DC 15 check to get out) then it's CR 3. If you have drowning risk or a DC20+ climb check to get out I would say CR 4.


Help! I'm stuck!
This 40x10 room goes flat for 20 ft, then slopes down at a 30 degree angle for the other 20 ft, leading to a decorated chest.(In it are 2 longswords and bow, all trapped.) When they are at the bottom, kobolds jump down from a trapdoor and pour oil down. You need to make a DC 15 balance check, or slide to the bottom. Then, the kobolds throw torches into the oil. (1d6 damage/round, for 5 rounds)

This is more of an encounter as written.

When I see a ramp down to a chest I immediately ask where the trap is and how we're going to get stuck at the bottom of that ramp. You need to decide on the DC to spot the trapdoor the kobolds are going to use.

Let's say it's a DC 20. If the PCs notice it you can bet they will bash it open and kill everyone inside before they dare approach the chest.

You should decide how many kobolds are inside that trap door. They should all have bows so that, when the PCs are trapped at the bottom of the ramp, they can fire arrows at them in addition to cooking them. Once you know how many kobolds you're using, assume they are each CR 1/2 instead of CR 1/4 (because of the added danger level) and use this site (http://www.penpaperpixel.org/tools/d20encountercalculator.htm) to determine the EL of the encounter.


Gridlock
This 100x5 hallway has 1x1 ft squares carved in it. When the PC's are halfway through, kobolds light the oil in the crevices on fire. (1d6 damage/round)

Again, this is really more like an encounter as you have it written up, where each kobold effectively has a few vials of alchemists' fire, plus total cover when behind their crevices, and a terrain advantage (PCs are caught in a narrow defile). That's a difficult encounter. Given those conditions I'm going to bump the kobolds from CR 1/4 to CR 1/3 each, and assume 20 of them to cover the hallway, which would be an EL 5 encounter.

If you want to make it a trap you need to add some factors. You need:
*Spot DC to notice that there is oil on the floor (probably pretty easy).
*Spot DC to notice the crevices in the wall. This could be more difficult if it is a natural cavern and the kobolds worked to disguise them. Note though that this will ping on the dwarf's stonecunning ability.

Let's say it's DC 12 to notice the oil and DC 20 to notice the crevices. Most likely even a 1st level party will notice the oil, and they are just going to burn it off before they even enter the room. Trap defeated. This could be anywhere from CR 1 (if they burn it off) to CR 4 (if they actually get caught in it). Normally a trap has a fixed DC but this one has such an imbalance of "easy to spot" and "horrible to trigger" that it's hard to say.

Consider not having the oil on the floor at all. The grid carved in the floor is a red herring. The kobolds have kegs of oil which they will dump in through the crevices once the PCs are in the middle of the hallways. Then they throw the torches. Stats:

DC 20 Spot or Search to notice the crevices in the wall are deeper than they look. When you get halfway down the hall, oil starts to pour out of the crevices. 1 round later the torches are thrown, lighting the oil. CR: 3. (Most likely the PCs will run away in the one round of oil pouring.) Alternately, cover the ground in jagged small stones, making it difficult terrain. Running is impossible. The CR is now 4.

Take away the 1 round of oil pouring (let the kobolds light the oil the same round they dump it in, so it all happens instantaneously) and the CR is now 5.

Have a kobold close and bar a door at each end of the hallway, locking the PCs in the inferno, and the CR is now 7.


Darts and Death
A shower of darts deals 2d4 damage to all in the zone. If you make a Reflex save DC 16, you jump forward into a pit. Reflex DC 19 or take 1d6 falling damage.

This is a bad trap from a rules point of view. First off, nearly all traps allow a chance to avoid damage. Either the darts have to make an attack roll (and if they miss the PC is fine that round), or a Ref save gets the PC out of harm's way.

These darts auto-hit, and the reflex save itself is a trap, as by succeeding on it you throw yourself into even worse danger.

I'd suggest these changes.
DC to notice the entire trap: 25
DC to notice the dart trap, but not the disguised pit: 20
All who enter the 10x10' area of the trap take 2d4 damage from the hail of darts. A DC 16 Ref save halves the dart damage. A failed Ref save causes the PC to hurtle into the disguised pit trap, taking 1d6 falling damage.

This is essentially a new spin on "Ref save for half damage." A failed reflex save not only means full dart damage, it also means an extra 1d6 of falling damage. Unorthodox, but a little more in line with the rules.

With that setup I'd say CR3.


Not again!
This 20x20 room has strange writing on the ground. When you take a closer look, a kobold lights the oil in the writing on fire. you take 1d6 per turn damage.

That's not oil, that is a seriously combustible chemical. But essentially this is just the poor man's explosive runes.

The person who is crouching over to get a good look at this writing takes it in the face and takes 1d6 damage followed by 1d3 damage/round. Anyone else standing in the room takes 1d3 damage/rd. I could picture allowing this trap to have no saving throw, since you had to willingly go stick your face in it to set it off at all. A little Gygaxian, may really anger some players. A weak CR 2.


I am very bad at balance.

You'll find it much easier if you assign DCs as well as damage. All your traps had the damage listed, but not many had DCs for checks to find or prevent the trap, or to avoid damage when it goes off.

Look at the Traps section in the DMG and how the DCs and damage scale from CR to CR. The DMG tends to assign seemingly high CRs to traps that don't do much damage. Often that is tied to how hard the trap is to notice. Even a DC 20 Search, which someone can make at level 1 and make fairly reliably by level 4, will bump the CR up.

Once you have a better grasp of the types of checks and saves the typical traps allow, you will become a lot better at estimating the CR of new traps in comparison to the traps in the DMG.

ap

[mucat]

I agree with Glyphstone on the oil traps. The way you damage someone with flaming oil is to soak them in it, not to have it burning in their vicinity. At best, you would have to burn a ridiculous amount of expensive oil for the privilege of harming some guy about as badly as if you'd shot him with a crossbow.

The acid waterfall is even harder to believe. Where are the kobolds getting this much acid? Do they have a pump circulating it back to the top of the waterfall? Would you want to be the kobold in charge of maintaining that pump as its parts corrode? Don't the intended victims notice that the spray from the waterfall stings their eyes, long before coming close enough to suffer any real damage?

Tucker's kobolds are terrifying because they are clever, ruthless, and efficient, and masters at spotting existing hazards of your environment and turning them against you. These guys seem like pale imitations; they build elaborate, expensive-to-maintain Gygaxian traps that don't really do much, and their whole society seems to exist more by DM fiat than because it makes any sense. Kobolds who saw one too many James Bond flick, maybe.

The closest thing you've got here to a trap worthy of Tucker's crowd is the "Help! I'm stuck!" one. There, they are working with an existing or easily engineered feature of the environment -- a dead-end at the bottom of a slope. They use a reasonable amount of resources -- just enough oil to coat the slope, rather than random pools of it lying all over the place. If the adventurers try to climb the slope, they will get oil all over them, making them vulnerable to actually getting burned when the fire starts, rather than standing back and looking at the pretty flames.

I would follow up on that one. Don't include traps that scream "This is here because the DM thinks it's clever!" Instead, think of more traps/guerilla tactics that you would actually use if you had scant resources and were defending an underground warren from invaders who are larger and less dextrous than your own people.

[kestrel404]

Suggestions:
The entire dungeon should smell like oil and brimstone (the two most potent-smelling chemicals generally used in the kobold's traps). This prevents the players from claiming they should be able to smell the oil in the traps. They DO smell the oil, it's just pervasive throughout the dungeon.

The acid waterfall trap should be an innocuous side feature in an otherwise normal room. Except that the kobolds are throwing alchemist's fire at the PCs just after they get into the room. This means that PCs will be lit on fire, and thus looking for water to put themselves out. Except, oops, that's not water! Also, acid smells a lot, so be sure to use a gas trap on them just before they get to the waterfall room - perhaps an acid based gas trap powered by the waterfall? The kobolds would surely use such a plentiful supply of acid in other places nearby.

[Another_Poet]

I think some of you guys are being a little too hard on Dragon Elite.

First, we all know that oil and alcohol don't actually burn that well in real life. Who cares? They burn fine in D&D and 1d6 fire damage per round of exposure is very standard for minor ongoing fires. If you think oil isn't a good candidate that he can just call it something else. "It's ambusholeum, an alchemical product that is highly flammable." It's inferior to alchemist's fire because that stuff ignites the second it is exposed to the air, whereas ambusholeum must be lit by a torch or other open flame.

Second, the waterfall should sting the PCs' eyes and tip them off? Really? In a game where you can stand next to an open pit of lava and not drop dead from the noxious fumes? Besides, this waterfall only deals 1d3 acid damage. It's very weak. So weak that in my post I assumed it was primarily real water with a small amount of actual acid mixed in. Unless it is a huge waterfall, it is not going to put out noticeable spray until you are up close to it, and that spray will be so mildly acidic that you'd have to stand there for some time to notice it. It's hand-waveable.

Also, I just want to point out that Kestrel is a genius.

[jiriku]

Some useful traps:

What goes up must come down: Several hallways terminate in small vertical shafts with ladders leading to an upper gallery. The upper rungs of the ladders are rigged to splinter and collapse under more than 40 pounds of weight, causing a 10' fall (1d6) for the victim, who is then prone. A DC 15 Climb check allows a player to climb up using the ruins of the broken ladder, but a murder hole in the ceiling allows kobolds to ready an action to fire ranged weapons at anyone attempting to do so. When firing on a climbing target, the kobold gains +1 to hit for higher ground and the target is denied any Dex or shield bonus to AC. The kobold manning the murder hole benefits from improved cover (+8 AC, +4 Reflex save, +10 Hide checks).

Shake rattle and roll: A simple covered pit triggers when the combined weight on it exceeds 40 pounds, allowing kobolds to cross but not heavier intruders. The pit is 10' deep (1d6 damage) and sides of the pit are studded with jagged shards of broken glass (+2 DC for Climbing out of the pit and functions as a dagger trap at +5 attack bonus if the character fails a Climb check). When anyone falls in the pit, four kobolds in hidden alcoves or secret cubbies rush out. Three of them throw dither bombs (RotD) in the pit, while the 4th casts an invisible grease spell on the rim of the pit.

[Cicciograna]

You know, I really never got what was up with Tuckers Kobolds. Reading the article that first talks about them I really couldn't understand how, rulewise, the kobolds could threaten the author's party (which, as he says, was composed by PCs between 6th and 12th level).


Thus encouraged, our party scrambled down a side passage, only to be ambushed by more kobolds firing with light crossbows through murder holes in the walls and ceilings.
Wow, light crossbows!
First of all, please, dear DM, would you please roll your dice in front of me? You know, at level 8 I have such an AC that I can hardly believe that a bunch of kobolds can hit me with crossbows unless they roll a natural 20...and then it's only Small crossbow damage! You could say that there are 200 of them shooting in the room, so I get hit 10 times, but at that point I disbelieve the DM, saying that there's no way that 200 critters can gather in the walls and ceiling around a single room to shoot the crossbow, even if they're Small.


Kobolds with metal armor and shields flung Molotov cocktails at us from the other sides of huge piles of flaming debris, which other kobolds pushed ahead of their formation using long metal poles like broomsticks. There was no mistake about it. These kobolds were bad.
Ah, yes, good old fire. As it is the most common damaging element, I'm sure our good Wizard will have some basic protection ready to counter it. And given that this is nonmagical fire, its damage output is easily soaked by the lowliest spells. Move on please.


We abandoned most of our carried items and donkeys to speed our flight toward the elevators, but we were cut off by kobold snipers who could split-move and fire, ducking back behind stones and corners after launching steel-tipped bolts and arrows, javelins, hand axes, and more flaming oil bottles. We ran into an unexplored section of Level One, taking damage all the time. It was then we discovered that these kobolds had honeycombed the first level with small tunnels to speed their movements. Kobold commandos were everywhere.
Again? Open rolls, please. No, really, I can't believe that they can hit us. I simply fail to see them as a menace.
And please note that in the party there's a 12th level Wizard. Meh.

First of all, I want to point out that I understand the basic idea of the article: lower level, clever and organized opponents can be far more menacing that a single ubermonster. It's a concept that I approve and use at its full.
But the menaces must be credible: we're talking about normal fire and Small weapons, which at 8th level anyone can walk through with minimal effort and minimal or no damage (which can be easily cured later with a few castings of low level Cure spells. I don't know if I have a bad experience with the game, but our Rogue used to check for traps everywhere. And I fail to believe that the traps the author met would be so difficult the Rogue can't disable them.
Two are the things: or the author's party was heavily underoptimized, with novice players not knowing how to play; or the novice was the DM.

[DragoonWraith]

You know, I really never got what was up with Tuckers Kobolds. Reading the article that first talks about them I really couldn't understand how, rulewise, the kobolds could threaten the author's party (which, as he says, was composed by PCs between 6th and 12th level).
You realize that Tucker's Kobolds first appeared in AD&D and not 3.5, right? That article is from 1987. Wizards of the Coast didn't even exist yet.

[Cicciograna]

You realize that Tucker's Kobolds first appeared in AD&D and not 3.5, right? That article is from 1987. Wizards of the Coast didn't even exist yet.

Ah, I didn't know it.
That's why they're threatening. Now they wouldn't scare me this much.

[Lycanthromancer]

Ah, I didn't know it.
That's why they're threatening. Now they wouldn't scare me this much.You can take on parties of ~10th level with kobolds. Just exploit low-level spells and terrain, and the kobolds' tendency to take levels in sorcerer, their ability to make traps, and the Races of the Dragon web enhancement for super-squeezable kobolds.

They can be positively deadly.

[Cicciograna]

You can take on parties of ~10th level with kobolds. Just exploit low-level spells and terrain, and the kobolds' tendency to take levels in sorcerer, their ability to make traps, and the Races of the Dragon web enhancement for super-squeezable kobolds.

They can be positively deadly.

If they become Sorc then they're not anymore regular 1d4 hp kobolds, and things change.
For a trivial tactic, 50 kobold Sorc can cast many Magic missile. But in this tactic there is no intelligence, no cunning, nothing smart, it's the sheer force of numbers coupled with a good 1st level spell.

Terrains, traps and squeezing: even with these, regular kobolds cannot damage 10th level characters.

[lsfreak]

Terrains, traps and squeezing: even with these, regular kobolds cannot damage 10th level characters.

When they number many hundreds, the natural 20's start adding up, even if only 10-15 are in a position to attack every round. You've also got things like Aid Another and the mass archery rules in Heroes of Battle that do damage no matter how high someone's AC is.

EDIT: Not to mention, according to RotD, roughly 25% of all kobolds in a den are 1st-level sorcerers.

[Cicciograna]

When they number many hundreds, the natural 20's start adding up, even if only 10-15 are in a position to attack every round. You've also got things like Aid Another and the mass archery rules in Heroes of Battle that do damage no matter how high someone's AC is.

EDIT: Not to mention, according to RotD, roughly 25% of all kobolds in a den are 1st-level sorcerers.

When they start to number the hundreds, that's no more D&D, as a fight against one hundred of opponents is not something that the combat system of D&D can handle.

Mass archery rules? Those for the volley? A simple Reflex save and the threat is gone.

[lsfreak]

When they start to number the hundreds, that's no more D&D, as a fight against one hundred of opponents is not something that the combat system of D&D can handle.
It's not one against a hundred. It's a party of four, against 10-15 kobolds at once. But they keep replenishing themselves, because they number - in total, throughout the den - in the hundreds. The whole point of Tucker's kobolds is that it's not a more typical D&D scenario, it's the logical ramification of being a stupid, overconfident adventurer who doesn't think things through.


Mass archery rules? Those for the volley? A simple Reflex save and the threat is gone.
Concentrated fire. You take damage of one-fifth of the arrows, Reflex half. It's not as good as I remembered, but it's guaranteed damage to those without evasion.

[Tengu_temp]

You can take on parties of ~10th level with kobolds. Just exploit low-level spells and terrain, and the kobolds' tendency to take levels in sorcerer, their ability to make traps, and the Races of the Dragon web enhancement for super-squeezable kobolds.

They can be positively deadly.

I fail to see how a party of level 10, or even level 7, can fall to Tucker's Kobolds, unless:
1. You use a lot of DM fiat. The kobolds are always 100% aware of the party's positions and actions, always find themselves exactly where you need them, and you let them do things the PCs can't, like shoot through the holes.
or
2. Your group consists of morons who only charge forward without thinking.

A level 10 caster can take out a stone wall with ease. A level 10 fighter or barbarian, even easier, and he doesn't waste any resources doing so. A level 10 rogue or factotum will easily find and disarm the traps. Anyone with a ranged weapon and good attack bonus can just ready an action to wait until a kobold head appears in one of the holes and shoot it. Invisibility and teleportation make the encounter even more trivial. And that's just some of the options open to the players, most of which don't even require preparing for this specific encounter.

Tucker's Kobolds might have been deadly in AD&D. In later editions, they're overrated.

[mucat]

Ah, I didn't know it.
That's why they're threatening. Now they wouldn't scare me this much.
In 3.5 rules, you're right that any number of kobolds would fail to pose a physical threat to high-level adventurers. There are just too many things a full spellcaster can do to shut down the kobolds' damage output entirely. Too many ways to indirectly return the damage. And 23 years of players gradually learning the most efective tactics within each rule set, so that what would have been a brilliant and unexpected tactic on the players' part back then, is entirely routine today. ("They're above the ceiling? Rock to Mud/Passwall/Disintegrate/a thousand other things." And today's casters scribe those utility spells on scrolls for when they need 'em, which was practically impossible in First Edition.)

I would still say, though, that ordinary 1d4 kobolds -- and I would use a tribe without any spellcasters, in homage to the great Tucker -- could take down an uncautious high-level party. Get them to chase some of the kobolds into a long corridor -- which from an out-of-game standpoint, gives the players every chance to be smart and not run full-tilt in a direction of their enemies' choosing -- and trigger deadfalls collapsing the tunnel both ahead of and behind the party. (Or on them, for a direct approach, but the kobolds might want that shiny stuff they're carrying.) If the rockfall ahead of them triggers first, this is another opportunities for smart players to grasp the implications, turn, and run like hell, rather than waiting for the second collapse.

Now it's time to start with the murder holes and the oil, which even if it can't harm the players thanks to energy resistance, is rapidly using up their scant supply of oxygen.

High-level characters would still in all likelihood survive -- if only because the kobolds weren't actually expecting someone who can teleport. If they can't teleport, trap them as a cliffhanger at the end of a game session, so the players will have a week to come up with an escape plan (even if the characters only have a minute or two.) But still, forcing characters of that level to sweat a little and think hard about how to cheat death is not a bad resume-booster for a band of CR-1/4 mooks.

The tactics involved are ruthless but realistic; this is exactly the kind of thing a smart player would do if running a bunch of Level-1 commoners threatened by a high-level thugs, and all the commoners had going for them was a superior knowledge of the terrain. And it's a lesson in humility for players who expect low-CR enemies to just line up and die like mooks.

[lsfreak]

The kobolds are always 100% aware of the party's positions and actions,
They can yell. When there's enough of them, they'll always know where the PC's are thanks to the wonders of communication. It's not like they're hiding from the PC's. Sure, it might take a while for the confrontation to escalate to that point, but once it does, there's no reason the entire den wouldn't know at least roughly where the PC's are.

always find themselves exactly where you need them
You are attacking an entire den of kobolds. The smallest 20% of dens still contain 40-160 members, and the next 20% of dens number up to 800. Sheer numbers puts them where they need to be.

and you let them do things the PCs can't, like shoot through the holes.
No, you merely manipulate things. They move into an 'arrow slit' (even if it only grants partial cover, that's enough), they fire once, and drop prone as a free action, breaking LoS completely. If the PC's don't use readied actions to fire back, there's nothing they can do. If they do use readied actions, then they're still at a severe action disadvantage, even if a single hit with a bow will always kill a kobold.

EDIT: Of course, if the PC's know what they're getting into, they'll have defenses. Ways around things. Persisted mass lesser vigor, transmute rock to mud, even protection from arrows. The point is that most players don't really think through the entire consequences of "we're attacking hundreds of guerrilla fighters on their own territory," because after all, they're just level 1.

[Tengu_temp]

They can yell. When there's enough of them, they'll always know where the PC's are thanks to the wonders of communication. It's not like they're hiding from the PC's. Sure, it might take a while for the confrontation to escalate to that point, but once it does, there's no reason the entire den wouldn't know at least roughly where the PC's are.

How about the opposite, when the PCs are hiding from the kobolds? I doubt if they're able to make such a dungeon that they can observe every spot in the tunnel, all the time. Also, yelling doesn't strike me like the fastest or most efficient form of communication in a very large group and over long distances.



You are attacking an entire den of kobolds. The smallest 20% of dens still contain 40-160 members, and the next 20% of dens number up to 800. Sheer numbers puts them where they need to be.

Yet when the PCs defeat one batch of the kobolds, it turns out there were maybe 20 of them and not 150. You're actually reinforcing my point here.



No, you merely manipulate things. They move into an 'arrow slit' (even if it only grants partial cover, that's enough), they fire once, and drop prone as a free action, breaking LoS completely. If the PC's don't use readied actions to fire back, there's nothing they can do. If they do use readied actions, then they're still at a severe action disadvantage, even if a single hit with a bow will always kill a kobold.


Readied actions are good enough here - just position yourself in such a way that none of the traps can hit you (any mid-level rogue worth his salt will detect all traps set up by low-level kobolds instantly). The enemy has an advantage in numbers, you have an advantage in patience.
And when you want to go through the dungeon faster, you're still not out of options. At level 7-10 your meatshield can simply break the wall down by attacking it. Many spells, including some of the best spells most wizards should have prepared anyway, ignore obstacles and will pass through the arrow slits without difficulty. Other spells can make you as small as the kobolds you're fighting.

Tucker's Kobolds are ridiculously easy to take down by a party that's prepared to face them. My point is, however, that they won't pose a significant challenge to a party of level 7-10 even if the party is not prepared to meet them, as long as it has any clue about what it's doing.

[Ravens_cry]

The originator of Tuckers Kobolds suggested not to get hung up on the Kobold part. (http://www.tuckerskobolds.com/) A better name is " Tuckers Whatever-race/group-the-PC's-consider-to-be-absolutely-puddly-at-this-level."
Kobolds have certain advantages for the scenario, their small size compared to most PC's but they are by far not the only race capable of using their home turf to their ultimate advantage.
The major key is the players underestimating them.

[mucat]

The major key is the players underestimating them.
Exactly. The point of not that the adventurers can't possibly win. It's that if they are overconfident, they will get their asses handed to them.

To literally use kobolds might actually lessen the impact today; players are so accustomed to assuming that every encounter is level-appropriate, that they will automatically know that something is up. So pull it off in a plausible way.

A goblin tribe is trying some nefarious power play which requires them to complete a ceremony at some ancient holy site above ground. The players find out, get there in the nick of time and intercept them, and in a pitched battle, manage to destroy the high-level goblin clerics and mages behind the plot. Only the low-level cultists remain -- make that very clear in the initial battle -- and they retreat into a nearby warren of caves to hide.

The PCs, tired but victorious, still need to mop up the remaining cultists. (Either they are carrying some key item that must be recovered, or something important lies in the cave warren itself.) So the obvious choice of action for a character used to CR-based pissing contests, is "We follow the desperate guerilla fighters into a dangerous environment that they know like the backs of their hands. After all, they're too low CR to pose a threat."

And then the fun begins. And hopefully when the dust clears, they're thinking of the game world a bit more as a real place, and less as an arena to line up their character stats against the bad guys'.

And then, lesson learned, let the players have the fun next time: put them, perhaps at the helm of a woefully outclassed army, against something a hell of a lot more powerful but not quite as smart as they are. Players are defending known terrain, invaders have a good reason that they need to occupy that terrain. Do it right, and for the rest of their lives, the invaders will shudder at the mention of "Tucker's humans".

(Bonus points if you can find the original kobolds/goblins/whatever who demonstrated the power of good guerilla tactics, and recruit them as part of your defending force!)

[Lycanthromancer]

The pyramids were made using bronze-age technology; we'd have difficulty building those things today, using modern tech.

Inventiveness, cleverness, and a willingness to work toward an end count for a lot. Far more than you're giving them credit for. Otherwise, the pyramids wouldn't be in Egypt. Stonehenge wouldn't be in Wiltshire. And neither would the 887 moai on Easter Island. Or the Incan temples in Peru. And so on.

The ancient Greeks were capable of building combustion engines (although they weren't exactly common; they used them as toys and didn't grasp their usefulness as workhorses). The ancient Romans had indoor plumbing. Evidence suggests that the bronze-age cultures in Central America and Egypt were performing successful brain surgeries well before MRIs had been invented.

Don't underestimate the power of a sentient mind.

As for DM fiat? Very little is needed against an overconfident and underprepared group of mid-level adventurers. The rest is in the scenario, the setup, and taking into account what a few hundred sneaky little bastards with home-field advantage and a penchant for trapmaking and dirty tactics are capable of.

The following is typical of how I'd run things:

A reasonably-sized kobold warren will number somewhere around 500 individual kobolds, 1/5 of which is likely a sorcerer between 1st and 3rd level, about 3/5 being rogues and/or factotums, and the remaining 1/5 split amongst various other classes, such as clerics, experts, and other classes (such as warlocks and dragonfire adepts). Most of which will be 3rd level and below.

Kobolds know that, in general, they are no match for adventurers that are far more powerful than they. They also view inventing and building traps to be the height of art and culture, as well as their best shot of surviving as a people, even if they don't hold individuals very high on the totem-pole. Thus, the most highly-skilled amongst them at trap-making would be protected and somewhat revered, which allows you to get some older and higher-level kobolds who have spent their entire lives specialized in traps. Thus, it's quite probable for a warren of this size to have one Old kobold seer psion (since they make better sorcerers than sorcerers) 1/expert 4 directing the rest of the kobolds, planning out devious, devilish traps, using knowledge and skill to the best of his ability.

We have a kobold with +33 to Craft (Trapmaking) --
+8 ranks
+5 for a 20 Int (17 base, +1 level, +2 age)
+2 race
+3 Skill Focus (Craft: Trapmaking)
+2 masterwork engineer's tools
+2 from the Guerilla Trapsmith feat
+2 precognition
+3 from a psicrystal
+4 for two kobold assistants Aiding Another
+2 via inspire competence from a 3rd level bard (since a warren of 500+ kobolds could easily have one somewhere, and if not, the elder kobold is of sufficient renown to have one on loan from another warren as an apprentice)

He can take 10 for a check DC of 43. That is a REALLY good skill check. He's one of their best trapsters, and he's raised trap-making to an art-form. I could eke out a few more pluses if I tried hard, such as from magic items, but I think this should be sufficient for now. That should be more than enough to envision, design, and direct the building of any of the following traps.

Anything that can multiply the workload being done at any given time (prestidigitation, unseen servant, mount), or grants the kobolds physical capabilities they otherwise wouldn't have (summon monster for brief bursts of burrowing, enlarge person for increased strength, reduce person to fit into excessively small spaces, or to wedge larger items into smaller spaces), or that causes structural damage (such as acid splash or water + ray of frost), etc, would be invaluable. These assist greatly with the normally frail kobolds' ability to get a lot done in very little time. Being stubborn SoBs goes a long way, too.

Have a long, 5' wide tunnel worked out of natural dirt and stone, with the floor made from sand. Have the sand lower the party's speed by half, and grant a -4 penalty to checks made to prevent enforced movement (such as grapple and bull-rushes). A level 3 kobold sorcerer should use pyrotechnics to turn any fire source the party is using to choking smoke, along with a few grease spells to keep them flat-footed. Have some dire badger-riding fighter kobolds using Blind Fight, Ride-By Attack and Mounted Archery to burrow up, attack with Small composite longbows, then burrow down again to forestall a counterattack; add levels of rogue for some sneak-attacks. If the party gets uppity, have the ceiling start hemorrhaging dirt, because the kobolds are digging it up; if the party doesn't get out of the tunnel, sections start dropping on their heads; it's only dirt, so it won't immediately kill them, but they'll take crushing damage, and start suffocating. The kobolds can use the badgers to dig the tunnel free when the party escapes or is killed.

Elsewhere, there's a sloped 10' wide tunnel with a packed-dirt floor and walls, with a 50' wide poisoned spike pit-trap at one end; there's a 10' wide cylinder made from chiseled stone (just wide enough to fill the hallway, with only a few inches to spare on the sides and a foot or so up top to keep it from getting stuck) that the kobolds have wedged into the ceiling (they use dire badgers, pulleys, and counterweights to reset the trap whenever it's sprung). Whenever invaders enter the hallway past the cylinder, its supports are released, letting it drop into the hallway. It rolls downhill, either pushing the party toward the pit or rolling over and crushing them (20d6 crushing damage, due to it weighing several tons, no save). If they fall or jump into the pit, they take damage from falling on the spikes, and movement through the area is treated as though they're affected by the spike stones spell; attempts to climb out of the pit are hindered by kobolds in the ceiling pouring flaming oil down on them (treat as the grease spell, but deals 1d6 points of fire damage per round, and lasts for 1 minute after initial exposure, unless a full round action is spent scrubbing it off).

Make the warren vertical; a few hundred feet high. Make several 15' wide shafts that plummet all the way to the bottom, with (sleep poisoned) steel razor-wire crisscrossing them and either spikes, or acid, or even plain piranha-infested six-inch-high water at the bottom. There are a few veneer-thin floors in the way (enough for a kobold to sprint across, but definitely not enough to stop a plummeting PC), which will allow the kobolds to draw trespassers into falling the whole way down. Any edges that could be grabbed to stop one's descent should be sharpened to slice up grasping fingers, coating in poison, set with precariously-perched breakaway weights, or all of the above (to punish attempts at preventing impending death). A few of the sorcerers in the tunnels that riddle the walls should be set to counterspell any feather fall castings. Lead lining the walls could potentially prevent teleportation (very much useful for keeping the threat level high). It's a trap that would be very simple to construct (mostly you have to worry about the initial tunneling, which is more hard work than anything), and you've got a reasonably lethal trap nigh-guaranteed to kill at least one party member.

A few side-rooms inlaid next to the main thoroughfare (ie, Death Trap Alley) should be specially-trapped from the get-go (but with no murder holes in the walls or ceiling, to inspire confidence), suspended over pits filled with poisonous spikes and swarms of monstrous vipers/spiders/scorpions. The floorboards aren't nailed down; instead, they slide into place through the tunneled-out sections in the walls, with good enough grips that they can pulled into the walls, baring the pits whenever the kobolds want to remove them. The kobold sorcerers should save their cantrips for detect magic, and can scan the side rooms for odd magical phenomena a couple of times per day. Any suspected rope tricks (which are commonly-known adventurer tactics) should be met with a casting of silent image (to simulate the room exactly as it is, under the potential rope trick), and a casting of ghost sound or create sound (played as loud as possible, overtly to disturb the PCs' rest, but covertly to cover the sounds of the kobolds' workings during the night). While the silent image lasts, the kobolds barricade the door, slide a tarp over the floorboards, wedge it into place, then remove the floorboards. When the PCs awaken the next morning, all they see is a tarp over the floor, and will likely dismiss it after they make their respective Knowledge/Search/Spot checks. When they try to climb down the rope, the tarp will give way, dumping whoever into the poison-spiked-swarms below. Anyone else who climbs out of the rope trick will have to find some other way to escape. Meanwhile, kobolds are shooting their bows out of their little murder-holes...UNDER the floors.

More rooms should have ceilings with boards. The boards aren't wedged into walls; instead, they're held in place with simple lynch-pins. On top of the boards are a few thousand pounds of rocks and debris, all of which has been tossed in by the kobolds. An acidic cantrip or two (from inside the wall) should destroy the lynch-pins, which causes all the debris to squash anyone inside, and makes rope tricks potentially inescapable.

There should be a place early in Death Trap Alley with a downward-sloping 10' wide corridor, with a 20' long hole, a 2' wide strip in the middle where it's safe to run crossing it; the strip slopes a bit to either side, but not enough to ruin normal footing. A few sorcerers hide in the ceiling, keeping watch through a murder hole. As the PCs are chasing the kobolds, and after the kobolds cross over the hole, the kobolds slam a portcullis down behind the PCs, then release bags of marbles to cover the hallway (which roll downhill, carrying unlucky PCs to their doom down the hole). Any PCs that manage to not trip and fall into the hole have to Balance their way across the gap, which is made considerably more difficult by grease spells and a silent images or two that simulate complete blackness across the chasm. Meanwhile, the kobolds they WERE chasing are firing blindly at them, hoping for a few good hits...which then escape into bolt-holes as soon as the PCs seem to be about to get across.

Dropping jars of brown mold into torches and campfires is a good way both to cause damage, and also to leave human and elven adventurers stranded in the dark (meanwhile, the dark-loving kobolds can see to fire upon them with pitch-soaked fire-arrows just fine). It's easy enough to collect, so long as you stay more than 5' away from it. A cup on a pole is enough to scoop it up, which allows the kobolds to collect it safely.

I could go on.

All this and more from a bunch of CR 1/4 and CR 1 creatures, that can seriously hamper (even kill) even 9th and 10th level characters.

[Runestar]

The originator of Tuckers Kobolds suggested not to get hung up on the Kobold part. A better name is " Tuckers Whatever-race/group-the-PC's-consider-to-be-absolutely-puddly-at-this-level."

That makes more sense. I had always been disturbed by how the strategies used had nothing to do with kobolds, and could easily have been carried out by halfling commoners or something. Basically, you are running the PCs through a gauntlet of traps, there is nothing kobold'ish about them or requires kobolds to run.

Still, this seems more like cruel metagaming, since you know your party likely won't be optimized to handle this sort of challenge. They aren't even fighting anything, just expected to weather one hazard after another (and the kobolds are probably too low cr to grant them any xp anyways). Clever, but no less despicable than mazing the party cleric and taking him out of a fight with a titan in the first round of combat.

I daresay it is more irritating than dangerous, and ultimately just not fun. The cr system is designed that way exactly so the players can face an appropriately tough foe and get to showcase how awesome and badass they are in combat. When you focus on negating a large part of their strengths, of course they are going to have problems!:smallannoyed:

[PersonMan]

That makes more sense. I had always been disturbed by how the strategies used had nothing to do with kobolds, and could easily have been carried out by halfling commoners or something. Basically, you are running the PCs through a gauntlet of traps, there is nothing kobold'ish about them or requires kobolds to run.

Actually, it is "kobold'ish". Kobolds are trapmakers, shown by their fluff and racial bonus to Trapmaking.

[DragoonWraith]

Yeah, Kobolds are well known for trapping everything. Plus, the addition of a Sorcerer 1 or two can really amplify the types of shenanigans you can have them pull.

[Runestar]

Actually, it is "kobold'ish". Kobolds are trapmakers, shown by their fluff and racial bonus to Trapmaking.

Since when do traps in a dungeon have to be justified by having denizens actually capable of constructing them? I don't think anyone actually rolls to see if they made the trap successfully or not, right? You just plonk down whatever seems reasonable for that environment.:smallconfused:

Granted, kobolds can get that ritual which gives them a SLA. Have them take shape soulmeld for a 2d6 acid spit attack (via flaws) and you have an irritatingly strong npc at just cr1/4. :smallbiggrin:

[Lycanthromancer]

For me, most of the 'traps' in a TK-run would be half-trap, half-ambush, with the kobolds very much in the center of it all.

Release a bag full of weasels on the party from above, and watch as the swarm chews them up, while a few weasel-tamers sic some dire weasels on them from inside the walls; when the dire weasels attach themselves (have the swarms Aid Another in the first couple of rounds for a big fat attack bonus), have a kobold sorcerer cast obscuring mist to grant the weasely weasels a nice miss-chance due to concealment.

Have a dozen or so kobolds throw out alchemists fire and acid vials while their sorcerous compatriot hits the party with some pyrotechnics for choking smoke, then toss some brown mold in for good measure.

Fill the hallway with caltrops, oil slicks, grease spells, and marbles, while a giant boulder crashes down from behind, which threatens to crush the PCs if they don't move out of the way.

Get creative.

[Dragon Elite]

These are all great ideas. I will use them.
*rubs hands*

[Eldariel]

That makes more sense. I had always been disturbed by how the strategies used had nothing to do with kobolds, and could easily have been carried out by halfling commoners or something. Basically, you are running the PCs through a gauntlet of traps, there is nothing kobold'ish about them or requires kobolds to run.

Kobolds have racial bonuses to trapmaking and are stated to pretty much trap everything though so an inhabited trap-filled dungeon is more likely to be a Kobold home than anything else, really, and it's unlikely for a Kobold Warren to be untrapped and designed for larger folk.

[Susano-wo]

Lycanthomancer: You are now my hero. I loved your tactics section. murder holes in the floor, ceilings full of falling rocks. Badassed :D

[PersonMan]

I think I'll run a Tucker's Kobolds session as a one-off. I'm planning to get both of my 2 groups to meet together, so if I could I would do it there. I'd have to warn them about a high fatality rate, though...

[Frosty]

Make sure to give the PCs a reason to not just estroy the warren outright. A scroll of Earthquake and the entire warren is gone. Also, did you know that Cloudkill vapors are heavier than air, and pour down sinkhole-type openings?

Be extra careful in your planning if the PC has dragon shamans, dragonfire adepts, DMM Persist clerics, or spellcasters with lots of Reserve Feats (especially summon elemental). A warlock would also do very well, never running out of resources (can fly, be invisible all day).

[Lycanthromancer]

Make sure to give the PCs a reason to not just destroy the warren outright. A scroll of Earthquake and the entire warren is gone. Also, did you know that Cloudkill vapors are heavier than air, and pour down sinkhole-type openings?

Be extra careful in your planning if the PC has dragon shamans, dragonfire adepts, DMM Persist clerics, or spellcasters with lots of Reserve Feats (especially summon elemental). A warlock would also do very well, never running out of resources (can fly, be invisible all day).Kobolds should always have deeper tunnels, just for fog-type shenanigans, as well as to prevent flooding via weather and/or adventurers, and for sewage runoff. If it's underground (and they're kobolds; why wouldn't it be?), there should be a waterway underneath for waste-runoff, which would do just fine for lethal vapors as well.

You could always make it to where the kobolds are just defending themselves, and entering their lair is convenient, but not necessary. It's a shortcut that'll knock off a few weeks of travel-time through a five-mile-long trek underground, but the place is already home to a band of TN kobolds who steal the occasional cow and some useful garbage, but otherwise are fairly blameless.

If the PCs invade and get driven out, then blame the kobolds for their murderous hobo ways, let them eradicate all the kobolds they can, then make them feel guilty about it afterward, when they realize what a horrible thing they just did.

Works best on Good-but-thoughtless PCs.

[PersonMan]

Sounds good.

I think I'll have them be low-level. Around 5-7, maybe? At what level can they take a lot, but not just blast through the walls and the like? This is a fairly low-optimization group, with one optimizer(he prefers melee, anyways).