[PF] Tucker's Kobolds

[RFLS]

So, if I had, say, a group of 7 players masochistic enough to ask me to throw Tucker's kobolds at them in a Pathfinder game, how would I go about this? I don't want to turn it into a roflstomp of a TPK, but I do want to make the players sweat. I'm already planning a multi-level dungeon with secret passages, bolt holes, murder holes, greased hallways and stairs, the whole nine yard. I also want safe areas for the kobolds, where they actually live their lives instead of just murdering adventurers, but that's besides the point.

tl;dr- Tuckers Kobolds in Pathfinder. How do?

I'm thinking a handful of kobolds with a level in the Alchemist class, and another handful with a level as a sorcerer. After that, mostly levels as rangers or rogues, but I'm not set on any of that.

Trap ideas would, of course, be great.

EDIT: Everyone in the party is level 3, so it won't be 500+ kobolds.

[watchwood]

It's mostly a matter of planning and creativity. Think of how your players are likely to react to a situation, and plan for it.

I once ran a dungeon where to get to the next room, you would have to pull a lever. Each lever was beside it's door, but when it was pulled it would active a trap of some kind. And each time it was a different trap. Later on in the dungeon I'd have the levers set off traps in the previous rooms just to really mess with people. Or a lever that didn't activate anything at all, and just opened the door. Or require the player to cross a rickety rope bridge to get at it. And so on and so forth. I had fun with it.

[Rubik]

Link! http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=155518

[HunterOfJello]

It's all about careful, clever planning. Also make sure that you have the Slight Build rule in place that Kobolds can count as a size smaller when it would benefit them. Here it is on the WotC website (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060420a).

This allows them to squeeze through spaces that only a Tiny creature would ordinarily be able to squeeze through. That's a space too thin to have line of effect down, or be able to accurately shoot a bow through.

~

Throw in some rogues, sorcerers, and clerics, but mostly use warriors and experts. Make them all very crafty, sneaky, and cruel.

[Novawurmson]

Honestly, just kobolds with good positioning and alchemist's fire/acid/Liquid Ice/Nushadir could be brutal. Touch attacks are much easier to hit, and if they don't have the right resistances...

[Deathkeeper]

Well, the Kobold Sorcerer (ARG) has mines as its first bloodline power. Very spammable, although it gets old fast. And they have a gunslinger archetype that deals sneak attack damage, although that probably won't work because very few campaigns work with guns. Rogues will probably do fine.
In general, you just want to make them smart little jerks.


And for traps, don't me too mean with some of them, but a little bit of messin' with the PCs never hurt TOO much. The lever tricks are a favorite of mine.

[TuggyNE]

The main psychological value of Tucker's Kobolds is really to throw them at a mid- to high-level party that would normally consider them too weak to gain XP from; at level 3 kobolds are still a valid threat as is (18 kobolds might make an even encounter, say). So you really might want to wait a while.

[Novawurmson]

You could put the seeds in their minds now... a bunch of level 1 Kobold Experts and 1 Kobold Alchemist could give them a run for their money. Then when you break out the big guns in a few levels...

[Laserlight]

If your players were a party of kobolds, trying to defend a fort/dungeon, with plenty of time to prepare, what would they do?

[LTwerewolf]

Find out if one has the cloudkill spell.

[jmelesky]

I'm not convinced Tucker's Kobolds work in PF. Not because kobolds can't be scary the way they were then, but because obviously kobolds can be scary, since they can have character levels. That just wasn't the case back in 1ed/2ed2.

If you want to give them a similar experience, you'd need to use a monster that doesn't advance (but is still smart/savvy enough to have traps and tactics).

Alternately (and this will confuse and horrify your PCs), put them (in a few levels) up against a dozen or more level 1-2 NPCs. Tell them up front that all their opponents will be humanoids with at most 2 class levels. Then, actually build the NPCs smartly, and use tactics.

Give them all the Shake it Off (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/shake-it-off-teamwork) teamwork feat, make extensive use of terrain and things like tanglefoot bags (touch attack, and guaranteed to drop your movement in half), caltrops (another possible half-movement penalty, and oddly no rules on clearing them out of a square), letting any Rogues (or even Experts) take 20 on their Stealth rolls so, once the players are lured in, there's one round of crazy sniping action, traps of all nonmagical sorts, and the nastier low-level spells (grease their weapons, silent image some walls hiding snipers, drop an obscuring mist over themselves before sneaking off and engaging the fallaway pit trap, stack rays of exhaustion appropriately ...) ...

[DigoDragon]

I see Tucker's Kobolds as simply kobolds with good military tactics. Using cover effectively, planning traps and chokepoints, evaluating the weaknesses in the enemy, having an exit plan if the fight goes badly, etc. I've run them in D&D 3.5 and they can be taken down if the party thinks tactically as well.

[only1doug]

You also have to remember that tuckers group were idiots: having established that the Kobolds could hurt them they continued to keep trying to bypass them instead of trying to deal with the threat.



Tucker posted:
When I joined the gaming group, some of the PCs had already met Tucker's kobolds, and they were not eager to repeat the experience. The party leader went over the penciled map of the dungeon and tried to find ways to avoid the little critters, but it was not possible. The group resigned itself to making a run for it through Level One to get to the elevators, where we could go down to Level Ten and fight "okay" monsters like huge flaming demons.

It didn't work. The kobolds caught us about 60' into the dungeon and locked the door behind us and barred it. Then they set the corridor on fire, while we were still in it.

"NOOOOOO!!!" screamed the party leader. "It's THEM! Run!!!"

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. 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.

We turned to our group leader for advice.

"AAAAAAGH!!!" he cried, hands clasped over his face to shut out the tactical situation.

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. All of our hirelings died. Most of our henchmen followed. We were next.

I recall we had a 12th-level magic user with us, and we asked him to throw a spell or something. "Blast 'em!" we yelled as we ran. "Fireball 'em! Get those little @#+$%*&!!"

"What, in these narrow corridors? " he yelled back. "You want I should burn us all up instead of them?"

Our panicked flight suddenly took us to a dead-end corridor, where a giant air shaft dropped straight down into unspeakable darkness, far past Level Ten. Here we hastily pounded spikes into the floors and walls, flung ropes over the ledge, and climbed straight down into that unspeakable darkness, because anything we met down there was sure to be better than those kobolds.

We escaped, met some huge flaming demons on Level Ten, and even managed to kill one after about an hour of combat and the lives of half the group. We felt pretty good — but the group leader could not be cheered up.

"We still have to go out the way we came in," he said as he gloomily prepared to divide up the treasure.


We decided to run past them and bludered straight into their trap, then we panicked and ran, screamed and fled.

So no thought to actually trying to defeat or negotiate with the Kobolds? Just a plan of run through the middle of their territory and hope they don't notice....

Tuckers Kobolds should be an interesting adventure for your players but unless they emulate the tactics of tuckers players they should survive the experience.

[Psyren]

Wow, they had a 12th-level caster and couldn't get out or fight back? Fail.

[RFLS]

It's all about careful, clever planning. Also make sure that you have the Slight Build rule in place that Kobolds can count as a size smaller when it would benefit them. Here it is on the WotC website (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060420a).

This allows them to squeeze through spaces that only a Tiny creature would ordinarily be able to squeeze through. That's a space too thin to have line of effect down, or be able to accurately shoot a bow through.

~

Throw in some rogues, sorcerers, and clerics, but mostly use warriors and experts. Make them all very crafty, sneaky, and cruel.

Oh, awesome- I'd never come across that before; that'll be useful for hit and run tactics. I've already got hidden tunnels everywhere, I'll just reduce the size of some of them.


Well, the Kobold Sorcerer (ARG) has mines as its first bloodline power.

Link? I can't find it.


If your players were a party of kobolds, trying to defend a fort/dungeon, with plenty of time to prepare, what would they do?

Absolutely nothing sane. Ever.

[Starbuck_II]

Wow, they had a 12th-level caster and couldn't get out or fight back? Fail.

I think the reasoning is Kobolds givre so little exp, it would be a waste to fight them.

[only1doug]

I think the reasoning is Kobolds givre so little exp, it would be a waste to fight them.

Clearly flawed reasoning, if it results in the party losing 75% of their wealth every time they encounter them.

[Psyren]

I think the reasoning is Kobolds givre so little exp, it would be a waste to fight them.

But exp is based on challenge rating, and challenge is modified by (un)favorable terrain. Obviously a networked series of murderholes and Tiny corridors running parallel to the party is a different scenario than facing those same kobolds in an open field under bright sunshine, and it should be treated as such. Similarly, Kobolds aren't packing bushels of alchemist's fire in their MM entries.

Not to say it's an unfair fight - 12th-level casters have toys of their own after all - but it was designed to be a challenging one and should be treated as such.

[ahenobarbi]

Wow, they had a 12th-level caster and couldn't get out or fight back? Fail.

Maybe they could. Well they probably could. But they didn't even try to.

If you want to run something this style firstly you have to make your players feel confident (so as suggested don't do this at level 3 and don't warn them). Secondly you have to get favorable terrain (doors, spaces tight enough for kobolds to squeeze through but too tight for PCs, pits, ...) use equipment and tactics that will allow kobolds to hurt PCs while remaining unhurt (hit with ranged stuff and get out of sight before PCs hit back).