[3.5] Tucker's humans

[SillySymphonies]

My players, stay out!

I'm planning on running a Tucker's kobolds-like challenge for my group.

My players:
gray elf telepath 4/thrallherd 5
human cleric 8 (thrall) (divine metamagic (persistent spell))
halfling artificer 9
human ranger 1/fighter 6/Eldeen ranger 2 (chain tripper)

For fluff reasons (among else) the opponents are not kobolds, rather human warriors, level 1, nonelite array (13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8), appropriate NPC wealth (900 gp) and the magebred template:
+4 natural armor OR +2 natural armor and +10 ft. speed
+4 Str, +2 Dex, +2 Con OR +2 Str, +4 Dex, +2 Con OR +2 Str, +2 Dex, +4 Con
bonus feat: Alertness OR Athletic OR Endurance

Assume a stealthy psionic mind flayer thrallherd is keeping the party occupied with mind blasts and dispel psionics.

Sources allowed: PHB, DMG, MM, XPH, ECS.

How would you run this challenge and how would you stat these 'Tucker's humans'?

[Slipperychicken]

After reading Tucker's Kobolds, it looks like your humans are basically going to lead them into a killzone filled with traps, in which they'll cut off escape somehow, light the place on fire, then cherry-tap them to death with ranged/alchemical weapons through arrow-slits and murder-holes, preventing PC retaliation. Basically, it'll look like guerilla/hit-and-run strategy.

Tanglefoot Bags to make their lives awful. Coat the killzone in oil or some other flammable liquid, then set it on fire and watch the PCs save eat d6 after d6. Molotov Cocktails and rocks are popular crowd weapons. Traps to take their health down a bit. Caltrops are cheap, and will make them waste magical healing to cure the move penalty. Some kind of sun-stones (ones that make them save v. Daze or something) to deny them actions or inflict status effects.

Obviously, it'll be harder to deny the PCs access to the humans, since they have to fit through medium spaces (or small, depending on how "civilized" you want them to be). For perspective, the Vietnamese insurgents were able to dismantle whole artillery pieces, and sneak them piece-by-piece through tunnels you had to lie on your belly to crawl through.


If you want it to be a whole area rather than just one room, have the humans work shifts, one or two groups shooting out of the brush, using the sniping rules to get a few shots at the PCs while staying nonvisible via hiding/concealment. Find where they set up their Rope Trick, and set ambushes and traps, waiting for them to come out. If possible, humans will try to not let them sleep. This will wear through their resources more slowly than a straight-up fight, but that's the point. A straight fight will kill these people, and they know it, so they will fight dirty, run away to fight again later, and use every edge they've got, to survive the PCs.


If it does come to a straight fight, 48 or more of them can join together into a DMG2 Riot. It's basically a 30 HD, CR 8 Swarm with 135hp, +34 Grapple, and the ability to grapple multiple creatures without penalty. Overwhelm, pin, trample to death.