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SorenKnight
2017-04-07, 10:28 PM
The concept of a Tucker's Kobold style dungeon with vicious traps and ingenious tactics designed to allow weaker monsters, such as kobolds and goblins, to challenge higher level players is a popular one on certain areas of the internet, and I've seen innumerable suggestions on various inventive traps. However, I've never seen a full dungeon built using these techniques. While I'm sure that their must be some I've missed, I've still decided to try my hand at designing one, starting here. This is a work in progress and all feedback is welcome.

(I've tentatively placed this thread in the Homebrew section, as it seems the most appropriate. If there is a better location for this let me know and I will request a relocation.

First Level Dungeon Map Full Size (Big)

http://imageshack.com/a/img923/2030/NBpkIi.jpg
http://imageshack.com/a/img923/1916/kJwkMI.jpg


First Level Mini

http://imageshack.com/a/img923/9541/jBmGbo.jpg



First Level Room Descriptions

The first thing in the dungeon is the trap that will alert the kobolds of the party’s presence. You may notice that the trap has a very high perception DC. This is in accordance with the trap crafting skills and the skills of the trap crafters who live deeper in the dungeon. There are no traps in this dungeon that they cannot create using the trap crafting rules.
The trap is placed with the intent that the party trigger it and alert the kobolds. If they do so then the kobolds at the card table move themselves to the arrow slits in the the walls of the first proper room. If the PCs somehow avoid triggering it, for example they could notice the tripwires and simply step over them, or all have slippers of spider climbing and walk along the walls. Note that even if they successfully avoid the tripwires they could still trigger the pit trap, which also alerts the kobolds.

1A
The hinged pit trap here is carefully designed, with all of the telltale cracks at its edges covered with stone dust to disguise them, but a cunning eye could still spot the differences with a DC 25 perception check. However that merely reveals the outline on the floor, and while the average adventurer will likely guess at its function there is no discernable way to disarm it. All the hinges are on the bottom, imbedded in the stone and only accessible from the second level down. The door collapses once at least 2 medium or 4 small creatures stand on it, dropping them down to the second level where the kobolds have deliberately constructed a weak floor. This floor is covered in rusty nails and spikes and the kobolds have been cruel enough to coat the surface in their own waste. Any poor soul unfortunate enough to fall on it takes 1d6+1d4 damage and must save versus both tetanus and filth fever. Both diseases can be found on the Pathfinder SRD. Said PCs then crash through the floor and land in the kennels on the third level alerting the kobolds and the dogs housed there and taking a further 1d6 fall damage.

1B
A path of difficult terrain runs through this chamber, with steep ramps leading up to either side, each capped by walls with conspicuous arrow slits. If the party has triggered either trap up to this point then kobold archers rain down fire from the safety of their elevation and arrow slits. They gain a +1 attack from the elevation and excellent cover from the arrow slits. The kobold archers flee if the party begins to break down the walls or if any of them are killed.

1C
This room features the same arrow slits as the previous room, and the kobold archers here behave the same. However it also has a checkered pattern across the floor, with metallic blue tiles alternating with more standard stone ones. Anyone who steps on a metallic square takes 1d6 nonlethal electricity damage.

1D
This is the first proper combat encounter, with the kobolds coming out of the walls and shadows to fight in honest battle. By this point they are aware of the players and are drawn up in battle lines, with the first rank armed with short spears and tower shields and the second armed with long spears to reach over the first rank. All of the archers that engage in this combat are present in this room, not behind the arrow slits. The kobolds don’t want to have any other threats to distract or delay the players from the trick to come.
When at least a quarter of the kobolds are dead or half are at half health or lower, the rest flee, starting with the archers, in a cacophony of only half feigned terror. They run down the stairwell as fast as they can, as they exit the bottom they smash several alchemist’s fires on the stairs and close the heavy wooden door at the bottom. The rickety construction goes up in flames in seconds, and if all goes according to plan then the kobolds hiding behind the walls in the room proper come out and lock the door behind the PCs as they chase their compatriots downwards. Of course, the PCs may be fast enough to clear the far door before it can be closed or slow enough to have party members still outside when the flames are lit, preventing the back door from being closed on them. Even if the PCs are not so fortunate then they can break down either door. Each has thick soaked cloth on the fireward side to ward off flame and hardness 5 20 hp and break DC 23. They take 1d6 fire damage from each round they spend in the flames.

noob
2017-04-09, 07:17 AM
1: Needs a whole lot more exits else the adventurers might just try to seal the exits(since there is so few of them) and then watch around and use listen checks to hear if there is kobolds digging an exit(because they do not want to starve) and possibly go where they are digging and murder the exiting kobolds(do not tell me that digging both silent and quick) so I advise to have enough exits to make sure that it will take a whole lot of time to block them all(although a barbarian with an adamentine axe can quickly collapse a lot of stuff and survive the collapsing and he can also carry giant bags of rocks and try to flood the dungeon entrances with them)
Furthermore more entrances allows better evacuation of toxic gases and better entry of fresh air(in the case the party start using a lot of fire to try to suffocate stuff inside) which might help survive the pyromaniac insane adventurers(I mean why enter a dungeon while you can kill all in it without taking risks)
2: Tell how much food storage they have(and also do not forget it might be spoiled by some magical rats summoned by adventurers or whatever because I am not sure if spending all the day using traps to try to kill small animals and running around from position to position all day in order to fight mosquitoes is a good idea)
3: I can not read at all the scribbles.
It is numeric you could edit the image to use numeric fonts.
what is on the picture could be the best thing in the universe I would not know because I can not read it.

4: What happens if a barbarian with an adamentine weapon and full power attack starts digging around in that dungeon going through unforeseeable paths like digging directly toward the first room to which kobolds go to take shots at adventurers.(I did the calculations in fact epic level barbarians( from level 3 to 8(3 because before you do not have adamentine weapons or enough power attack for thinking about that)) can dig through gigantic walls super quick(a matter of minutes rather than days) when using adamentine weapons)(they do that in a place reached by no traps for example right near the entrance and of course the team keeps the back of the barbarian ready to murder the incoming kobolds because right near the entrance there is no way for kobolds to shoot from their safe spots)

I suppose that high level means below level 7 because at level 7 you get dimension door which will allow the wizard and two of his team mates to directly teleport to the room with ranged kobolds(which will become mince meat in a few rounds unless you have kobolds which were high level enough for fighting 3 adventurers at once and win but then it is no longer "using lower level monster to beat high level players" but more "using high level monsters to beat high level players")

Kallimakus
2017-04-09, 08:40 AM
1 I agree that some exits are useful, however I'd note that this is the uppermost level (and probably not the only one), so extra entrances can go through heavily trapped (one way) corridors from lower floors as well.
2. Food stores are not something I'd consider too important. Assuming other entrances exist (spread across a suitably large area, through miles of trapped tunnels) that the kobolds would have the ability to resupply indefinitely. And I think that their dogs can beat rats.
3. The larger map helps, but they do take some zooming for me as well.
4. I think you might be thinking of 3.5 Power Attack, in PF it's either +9 (8-11th level) or +12 (12-15th) damage. Barbarian helps very little here, and over a time like this I think that a fighter would do far more damage overall (since you run out of rage). I'd also point out that you need to excavate not only depth, which is trivial, and width which isn't. I'd also be very eager to point out that I wouldn't handle excavation in terms of combat rounds regardless. You'd need a bit of knowledge (engineering) and/or dungeoneering and/or survival to make sure you've got the right direction, and while there are no rules for getting tired, just hacking away at stone is an activity I'd claim will fatigue you sooner or later. Not strict RAW, but I don't care.
By my count, 60 dpr is pretty good (at my level of optimization anyway). That gets your ace around 4 inches into stone per round. A single 5ft square cube of stone has 54000 hp by my count, counting all dimensions, so if a player insists they want to attack roll their way through all that, I'm pretty sure the kobolds have nothing to worry about. (Of course, they could cut it out in chunks to reduce the amount of hp, but I digress.

As for the Dimension Door, the kobolds will just escape through their escape corridors that Medium creatures can't fit through (and which are warded with Glyphs of Warding of Bestow Curse), so you'll need a few castings to kill a few measly kobolds.

I'd say it's a nice start. I'll also point out that high ground applies only to melee, but it still protects against charges so there is that. In addition, I'd add at least a few alchemical splash weapons for the kobolds, since they might have trouble hitting normally past the low levels. Unless that's a strategy you plan to save for a further level that is.

I also like the end staircase strategy since it isn't just a murderfest. Indeed, I'd consider it likely to not catch all characters in it. For those that do get caught, there is also smoke (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/environment/environmental-rules/#Smoke) to consider for some extra nastiness. And as the above poster noted, magic can foul up this rype of plan, but I think that's okay, since they are expending resources to overcome the challenges. Just as planned.

noob
2017-04-09, 09:05 AM
How many kobolds there is?
Do not forget that the kobolds can run out of kobolds(one day you do dim door to kill easily 3 or more kobolds(with lightnings or fireballs) then the next days you try to use minor images to make the kobolds spend bolts(minor image is a cantrip so it is free) then you keep making the kobolds lose ressources until they run out and are way less a threat).
The fact that you can not dig fast makes it way easier for the adventurers: sealing all the entrances becomes even easier and do not really need to watch once the entrances are closed a bit thoroughly(by caving in the entrance) so the kobolds becomes even more vulnerable to siege: close all the entrances but one and through that entrance make a lot of smoke with fires to fill the caves(since clubs are free it means that wood is not really expensive and that with a few gold coins you can buy tons of wood).(You can manage with a bunch of divination spells and regular research to find a lot of entrances.)
Furthermore you could not block some of the best hidden entrances you have found and put some detection spells and then wait they get out and at that moment(when they are 3 round of running away from the entrance) take them out and keep a kobold for interrogation with the op level 1 spells you get in pathfinder(like hypnosis and charm person) and be sure to have a lot of entrances.

So you probably need to have enough entrances that most kobolds forgets about them.(so probably hundreds of them)
Then how did those kobolds build hundreds of long tunnels? It probably took generations and so you could have some graveyard section and traces of a culture to add flavour.

Now let us say that there is a whole lot of entrances then it becomes super hard to defend when the team starts using a lot of diversions through all the tunnels.(like dumb chicken zombies the team have a wide supply of through a controled morgh)

Also do not forgets an adventurer team can have small adventurers like a gnome wizard or a goblin wizard(goblins are good due to huge dex annd they have no malus to int)

SorenKnight
2017-04-09, 09:33 AM
1: Needs a whole lot more exits else the adventurers might just try to seal the exits(since there is so few of them) and then watch around and use listen checks to hear if there is kobolds digging an exit(because they do not want to starve) and possibly go where they are digging and murder the exiting kobolds(do not tell me that digging both silent and quick) so I advise to have enough exits to make sure that it will take a whole lot of time to block them all(although a barbarian with an adamentine axe can quickly collapse a lot of stuff and survive the collapsing and he can also carry giant bags of rocks and try to flood the dungeon entrances with them)
Furthermore more entrances allows better evacuation of toxic gases and better entry of fresh air(in the case the party start using a lot of fire to try to suffocate stuff inside) which might help survive the pyromaniac insane adventurers(I mean why enter a dungeon while you can kill all in it without taking risks)
2: Tell how much food storage they have(and also do not forget it might be spoiled by some magical rats summoned by adventurers or whatever because I am not sure if spending all the day using traps to try to kill small animals and running around from position to position all day in order to fight mosquitoes is a good idea)
3: I can not read at all the scribbles.
It is numeric you could edit the image to use numeric fonts.
what is on the picture could be the best thing in the universe I would not know because I can not read it.

4: What happens if a barbarian with an adamentine weapon and full power attack starts digging around in that dungeon going through unforeseeable paths like digging directly toward the first room to which kobolds go to take shots at adventurers.(I did the calculations in fact epic level barbarians( from level 3 to 8(3 because before you do not have adamentine weapons or enough power attack for thinking about that)) can dig through gigantic walls super quick(a matter of minutes rather than days) when using adamentine weapons)(they do that in a place reached by no traps for example right near the entrance and of course the team keeps the back of the barbarian ready to murder the incoming kobolds because right near the entrance there is no way for kobolds to shoot from their safe spots)

I suppose that high level means below level 7 because at level 7 you get dimension door which will allow the wizard and two of his team mates to directly teleport to the room with ranged kobolds(which will become mince meat in a few rounds unless you have kobolds which were high level enough for fighting 3 adventurers at once and win but then it is no longer "using lower level monster to beat high level players" but more "using high level monsters to beat high level players")

1. There are more exits, they simply aren't pictured yet. Most exits are Tiny sized, hidden and lead to different levels of the dungeon, this exit is just the only Medium sized one and thus the only one that the players can easily enter. The kobolds have deliberately designed the dungeons this way, they know how clever adventurers can be so they have created a path of least resistance, they believe that as long as the adventurers see a clear path forward they will take it, thus preventing them from breaking in to the kobolds actual living spaces, which are all Small and Tiny sized.

2. Rats to Spoil Food
Any medieval would need to have reliable means to deal with rat problems. These kobolds have small, easily resetable traps as well as dogs. Not that with how little damage a trap has to do to kill a rat its fairly simple to give them an automatic reset. Any larger creatures, such as dire rats, would likely be seen by the kobolds (deeper layers get more and more crowded so sneaking past them gets progressively more difficult).

3. Scribbles
Yeah, that,s my fault. I was going for a sort of hand notation looked, but it can be difficult to judge to legibility of your own handwriting. I'll go back and replace the scribbles with actual type, which should be easier to read. I look forward to your feedback on the written sections when I do so. :smallsmile:

4. Digging Through Walls with Adamantine Weapon
Certainly a viable tactic, but by no means an automatic winner. Remember that you need someplace to put the displaced stone/earth and any tunnel longer than 5 feet or so would require supports to avoid collapsing, significantly slowing down progress. All that this particular tactic would achieve would be reaching the warren sections of the dungeon, which are all tiny or small sized. It could be useful, but the kobolds have the advantage here. Not to mention the possibility of them retreating past a Tiny sized section and then throwing an alchemist's fire flask at a wooden support beam to collapse the tunnel on the adventurers.

5. What Higher Level Means
Honestly I don't have a solid conception of exactly what it means. For reference the highest level kobolds in this dungeon are capped at level 5. I part of me thinks I'm lazy for saying this rather than giving a straight level recommendation, but I think that any GM who wants do use this should make their own judgement based on how clever they think their players are. For a particularly clever group you might have them be in the range where they would expect to fight kobolds, with the higher level kobolds acting as boss fights. For a really straight forward group, particularly a low magic one, you might want them to be significantly higher level. It really depends on how many of the various tricks and traps that you think they can bypass and how many you think they will have to brute force.
Their are more exits, they simply aren't pictured yet. Most exits are Tiny sized, hidden and lead to different levels of the dungeon, this exit is just the only Medium sized one and thus the only one that the players can easily enter. The kobolds have deliberately designed the dungeons this way, they know how clever adventurers can be so they have created a path of least resistance, they believe that as long as the adventurers see a clear path forward they will take it, thus preventing them from breaking in to the kobolds actual living spaces, which are all Small and Tiny sized.

I will respond further as I have time, and upload the second level, and some potential story hooks on why a party would delve into this dungeon sometime later today, hopefully. And of course I will put up a more legible map as well.

noob
2017-04-09, 09:54 AM
That are not 100% valid assumptions:
1: Adventurers are not all medium(goblin, gnomes and halflings are small adventurers)
2: A path with neon signs above it is not a path of least resistance since it is probable that it is trapped.(personally I had a gm that spammed nasty traps like wail of the banshee and disintegrate and pits with gelatinous cubes which are on fire and swimming in acid so I always tried a path that did not have to go through corridors or room or near anything that have been built by the gm)
3: I absolutely hate to have to enter a dungeon at all.


If the adventurers start to make huge fires at the huge entrance to fill the dungeon with smoke to prevent the kobolds from breathing either the fumes can not exit through the small paths because they are too tiny and the kobolds die of suffocation/exit through the small exits(and so are no longer able to use the advantages of their dungeon for as long as the adventurers are burning tons of wood and then the adventurers can send their undead /magic eyes search for the food room/living quarters and then later dim door in it when the kobolds comes back to the dungeon and murder unprepared kobolds) or you can see smoke exiting though the other exits and thus find them even if they were super hard to see or find through regular means.

So I suggest to use something else than kobolds like animated objects made sentient through magic or whathever as long as it is not vulnerable to the 5555 things to which living things are vulnerable.
This would make the dungeon harder while keeping the same cr 1/4 per monster.
oh sorry I made a mistake: the lowest cr intelligent animated object(tiny animated object with the robot type tackled onto since it is allowed) is cr 1/2
but you could do clockwork automaton kobolds.

SorenKnight
2017-04-09, 10:14 AM
That are not 100% valid assumptions:
1: Adventurers are not all medium(goblin, gnomes and halflings are small adventurers)
2: A path with neon signs above it is not a path of least resistance since it is probable that it is trapped.(personally I had a gm that spammed nasty traps like wail of the banshee and disintegrate and pits with gelatinous cubes which are on fire and swimming in acid so I always tried a path that did not have to go through corridors or room or near anything that have been built by the gm)
3: I absolutely hate to have to enter a dungeon at all.


If the adventurers start to make huge fires at the huge entrance to fill the dungeon with smoke to prevent the kobolds from breathing either the fumes can not exit through the small paths because they are too tiny and the kobolds die of suffocation/exit through the small exits(and so are no longer able to use the advantages of their dungeon for as long as the adventurers are burning tons of wood and then the adventurers can send their undead /magic eyes search for the food room/living quarters and then later dim door in it when the kobolds comes back to the dungeon and murder unprepared kobolds) or you can see smoke exiting though the other exits and thus find them even if they were super hard to see or find through regular means.

1. I am aware of small adventurers, but is is rare that entire parties will all be gnomes and halflings. Generally the presence of small adventurers opens up more scouting and flanking opportunities, but doesn't change the order of the dungeon as a whole for most parties. If a given party just really likes small races, or know to prepare for these circumstances (Reduce Person is a thing) then the dungeon will go significantly differently, but that is something that is difficult to plan for. I intend to complete the dungeon first and then go back over the entire thing with suggestions for what to do in various situations that may arise as a result of clever player actions.

2. The clear path is the kobolds design, not mine. I do intend to go back and create some guidelines for what the kobolds might do when faced with a noncompliant party, but I need to have a clearer picture of the dungeon as a whole before I can do that and I'm still working on the second level. These are legitimate faults of the dungeon as is, but I do hope to address them.

3.This is simply personal preference. If you hate to entire dungeons then a dungeon based adventure may not be for you. Personally as a GM I hardly ever run dungeons, and a part of the reason that I'm doing this is for a change of pace.

I'm sorry, but smoke goes up. The dungeon goes down. In order to smoke out the kobolds they would have to teleport to the bottom of the dungeon, then start a huge fire. Setting fire to the entrance would accomplish nothing. You would need a heavier than air gas, like a cloudkill spell.

An animated object dungeon would certainly be cool, but I really like kobolds. Also some of the challenge comes from kobolds with class levels later in the dungeon, which animated objects can't get. Not to mention that sentient enemies can respond intelligently to the parties actions, which is necessary for a lot of the tactics in the dungeon and for the enemies to respond to the clever tactics that adventurers will inevitably come up with, such as all the ones that have already been suggested earlier in the thread.

noob
2017-04-09, 10:22 AM
A hot gas it will try to go up but the adventurers can first build a wall with a door and make a fire inside of the main entrance and then the gas can not really exit through the main entrance now that there is a wall with a door(that the adventurers can keep shut tightly)
Now the adventurers now just have to periodically open the door for a very short time to enter and bring more wood for the fire(they can hold breath while doing that since they are in the smoke only for a short time).
Since I did not do a lot of physics someone could tell me what should happen in this case please?(will it have significant effect for wasting the air or will you be unable to make the fire burn quickly due to the lack of oxygen?)

Animated objects which have the robot subtype slapped onto gets an int value due to the robot type saying it does(and it also says that any construct can be made as a robot I believe).
Also I found that kobolds can be made in constructs with Clockwork Automaton template(cr + 0) but the fluff is quite opposed to having low level people doing it on their own.

SorenKnight
2017-04-09, 10:31 AM
1 I agree that some exits are useful, however I'd note that this is the uppermost level (and probably not the only one), so extra entrances can go through heavily trapped (one way) corridors from lower floors as well.
2. Food stores are not something I'd consider too important. Assuming other entrances exist (spread across a suitably large area, through miles of trapped tunnels) that the kobolds would have the ability to resupply indefinitely. And I think that their dogs can beat rats.
3. The larger map helps, but they do take some zooming for me as well.
4. I think you might be thinking of 3.5 Power Attack, in PF it's either +9 (8-11th level) or +12 (12-15th) damage. Barbarian helps very little here, and over a time like this I think that a fighter would do far more damage overall (since you run out of rage). I'd also point out that you need to excavate not only depth, which is trivial, and width which isn't. I'd also be very eager to point out that I wouldn't handle excavation in terms of combat rounds regardless. You'd need a bit of knowledge (engineering) and/or dungeoneering and/or survival to make sure you've got the right direction, and while there are no rules for getting tired, just hacking away at stone is an activity I'd claim will fatigue you sooner or later. Not strict RAW, but I don't care.
By my count, 60 dpr is pretty good (at my level of optimization anyway). That gets your ace around 4 inches into stone per round. A single 5ft square cube of stone has 54000 hp by my count, counting all dimensions, so if a player insists they want to attack roll their way through all that, I'm pretty sure the kobolds have nothing to worry about. (Of course, they could cut it out in chunks to reduce the amount of hp, but I digress.

As for the Dimension Door, the kobolds will just escape through their escape corridors that Medium creatures can't fit through (and which are warded with Glyphs of Warding of Bestow Curse), so you'll need a few castings to kill a few measly kobolds.

I'd say it's a nice start. I'll also point out that high ground applies only to melee, but it still protects against charges so there is that. In addition, I'd add at least a few alchemical splash weapons for the kobolds, since they might have trouble hitting normally past the low levels. Unless that's a strategy you plan to save for a further level that is.

I also like the end staircase strategy since it isn't just a murderfest. Indeed, I'd consider it likely to not catch all characters in it. For those that do get caught, there is also smoke (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/environment/environmental-rules/#Smoke) to consider for some extra nastiness. And as the above poster noted, magic can foul up this rype of plan, but I think that's okay, since they are expending resources to overcome the challenges. Just as planned.

1. and 2. These are pretty much exactly correct.

3. I'll fix the maps.

I forgot to put in what curse the Glyph delivers.:smallredface: It's the 50% chance to lose action curse, to make the adventurers more vulnerable to traps like the stairs. The kobolds know that adventurers are likely to have healing, so they only but blasting Glyphs somewhere that they think the invaders are likely to already be damaged, like after escaping from the flaming stairs trap.

Point of order, Medium creatures can fit through tiny spaces, they just have to make a Escape Artist check. And in my interpretation armor penalties would be increased, as not only do they inhibit your movements, they also make you bulkier. It might not even be possible to fit through in heavy armor or while carrying something bulky, like a shield. So the player can do it, they just have to make the decision to leave their heavy armor, shields, and backpacks full of gear behind, or find a way to widen the hallway.


A hot gas it will try to go up but the adventurers can first build a wall with a door and make a fire inside of the main entrance and then the gas can not really exit through the main entrance now that there is a wall with a door(that the adventurers can keep shut tightly)
Now the adventurers now just have to periodically open the door for a very short time to enter and bring more wood for the fire(they can hold breath while doing that since they are in the smoke only for a short time).
Since I did not do a lot of physics someone could tell me what should happen in this case please?(will it have significant effect for wasting the air or will you be unable to make the fire burn quickly due to the lack of oxygen?)

Animated objects which have the robot subtype slapped onto gets an int value due to the robot type saying it does(and it also says that any construct can be made as a robot I believe).
Also I found that kobolds can be made in constructs with Clockwork Automaton template(cr + 0) but the fluff is quite opposed to having low level people doing it on their own.

What are they making it out of? It's unlikely that they can use wood, so they would have to haul a significant amount of stone, bricks and mortar, alongside some kind of material, likely clay, that can create an airtight seal along the entrance. At that point the adventurers are spending a lot of time, effort, and noise, constructing something at the entrance. The kobolds are likely to see it and ambush the party (they'll almost certainly lose, but it will establish that the kobolds are aware of the party and not every encounter has to be slanted in the kobolds favor, particularly when the party pushes them outside the types of engagements their used too). In the time that it takes the kobolds can simply construct their own airtight seal on the other side of the entrance, negating the effect.

Honestly the kobold thing is something I'm going to stick with. It was part of the initial concept of the dungeon, and I don't want to stray too far from that. No matter how awesome or statistically superior a construct dungeon might be.

noob
2017-04-09, 10:53 AM
Well if the party by trying to build a wall cause the kobolds to try to ambush them then the party subdue and kill kobolds and use the subdued kobolds to get information(with mind affecting spells by casting 4 or five hypnosis and charm person you can get a kobold to tell everything you want about the topography of the dungeon and its entrances)(and the team have reduced the number of kobolds they will fight in the rest of the dungeon) and with the information about the other exits and the tunnels now just have to siege the kobolds by blocking all the exits and watching where there is tunnels near the surface.
If the kobolds are smart enough to have no confrontation with the adventurers and do the airlock thing then there is problems: the airlock while preventing the smoke will block air circulation so you can not have an airlock everywhere you probably have interest in doing it near the entrance but then you can not get at an advantage position where you can fire at the adventurers without having either the smoke going there or the adventurers breaking the airlock.
so the adventurers are safe up to the airlock and when they reach the airlock they can break it(fireball or just some wide swings of an axe or thrown weapons) and retreat quickly to the main entrance.

However the whole tactic about the fire might simply not work due to lack of air for the fire to burn so I still wonder if I can fill with smoke a cave by using a fire.
Whenever the fire can waste the air of the dungeon or not is a physics question and I have not found anything saying if it would work or not.
so the kobolds might not even have to build a seal and could just know the adventurers would not be able to fill the dungeon with smoke because for example the fire might run out of oxygen.
So the kobolds could just do nothing about it and thus the adventurers would be truly wasting their time.

Now if the adventurers have a level 9 wizard the wizard could everyday go in the dungeon and lay waste to the corridors walls with disintegrate and then run away and possibly kill kobolds if there is kobolds where he is disintegrating the walls supposed to give the kobolds and advantage.
I wonder how could we do disintegrate proof environment.
Can dust be disintegrated?
At the same time level 9 is super high and is complete overkill for going in a kobold dungeon.
It would be like saying"this castle is bad: when a cleric and his gated army comes and cast 50 earthquakes it breaks"

when doing for the first time the "cast dimensional door for getting the room where kobolds are waiting to shoot at adventurers in the corridors" the adventurers could bring only a wizard and a random character and then subdue one kobold and cast dim door back to the main entrance and run away while carrying the kobold that then the team will use to get the info for doing a siege.

SorenKnight
2017-04-09, 11:24 AM
Well if the party by trying to build a wall cause the kobolds to try to ambush them then the party subdue and kill kobolds and use the subdued kobolds to get information(with mind affecting spells by casting 4 or five hypnosis and charm person you can get a kobold to tell everything you want about the topography of the dungeon and its entrances)(and the team have reduced the number of kobolds they will fight in the rest of the dungeon) and with the information about the other exits and the tunnels now just have to siege the kobolds by blocking all the exits and watching where there is tunnels near the surface.
If the kobolds are smart enough to have no confrontation with the adventurers and do the airlock thing then there is problems: the airlock while preventing the smoke will block air circulation so you can not have an airlock everywhere you probably have interest in doing it near the entrance but then you can not get at an advantage position where you can fire at the adventurers without having either the smoke going there or the adventurers breaking the airlock.
so the adventurers are safe up to the airlock and when they reach the airlock they can break it(fireball or just some wide swings of an axe or thrown weapons) and retreat quickly to the main entrance.

However the whole tactic about the fire might simply not work due to lack of air for the fire to burn so I still wonder if I can fill with smoke a cave by using a fire.
Whenever the fire can waste the air of the dungeon or not is a physics question and I have not found anything saying if it would work or not.
so the kobolds might not even have to build a seal and could just know the adventurers would not be able to fill the dungeon with smoke because for example the fire might run out of oxygen.
So the kobolds could just do nothing about it and thus the adventurers would be truly wasting their time.

Now if the adventurers have a level 9 wizard the wizard could everyday go in the dungeon and lay waste to the corridors walls with disintegrate and then run away and possibly kill kobolds if there is kobolds where he is disintegrating the walls supposed to give the kobolds and advantage.
I wonder how could we do disintegrate proof environment.
Can dust be disintegrated?
At the same time level 9 is super high and is complete overkill for going in a kobold dungeon.
It would be like saying"this castle is bad: when a cleric and his gated army comes and cast 50 earthquakes it breaks"

when doing for the first time the "cast dimensional door for getting the room where kobolds are waiting to shoot at adventurers in the corridors" the adventurers could bring only a wizard and a random character and then subdue one kobold and cast dim door back to the main entrance and run away while carrying the kobold that then the team will use to get the info for doing a siege.

The kobolds would engage in hit and run tactics. Most likely a small group would stealth to with sling range (likely several range increments away) then hurl 1 alchemist's fire each before bolting away. If the party still caught one then they could get the information out of him, but I really don't see that as a problem with the adventure. If the PCs are clever enough to get the full information then they deserve to have it.

If they do escalate to a full on siege, and they certainly could, especially if they wanted to find and block every single passage in or out (which would require a lot of hirelings, given the kobolds ability to reopen any unattended blocked passages) then that would be beyond the scope of the adventure as I've currently written it, and anything of that scale requires a certain degree of GM improvisation anyway.

A wizard would need to be 11th level to cast disintegrate, unless I'm missing something. A minor nitpick really, but once you hit that level a lot of the game starts to fall apart.

Gildedragon
2017-04-09, 12:50 PM
So something I see missing: divide and conquer traps... Things that split the party: from pit traps that let one person walk through but will break after that, to sliding walls, to falling roofs

noob
2017-04-09, 05:56 PM
If a gm starts splitting the party then the players are going to do weird stuff in order to avoid that after they know the gm do not follow the rule "never split the party"(it is part due to all the restriction like needing to find a way to tell things to only some players but not others(because they are not at the same place in the game) and also it makes a lot of players angry and players who did not knew the party could be split could have made a build for supporting(you know for not overshadowing the other characters) instead of a build for being able to destroy the universe 7 times as a swift per round(and then when they can get to change character be sure that they will try each to have autonomy and so do something like "team cleric"(go and find the cleric team in pathfinder: it covers all the roles with clerics before they prepare spells then they have spells too))).
For example the party barbarian or druid will carry the entire team or everybody will play cleric or druid because they are T1 and can do everything or yet the adventurers will use a short and thick metal chain linking each of the bodies of the adventurers and will also use universal glue for gluing themselves to each other.

SorenKnight
2017-04-10, 09:29 PM
I'm sorry that I haven't been able to put up the next level as soon as I intended, I had more important issues to deal with and a good dose of procrastination besides.


So something I see missing: divide and conquer traps... Things that split the party: from pit traps that let one person walk through but will break after that, to sliding walls, to falling roofs

An excellent suggestion, and one that I have considered. Currently my plan is to put the majority of the divide and conquer traps on the 3rd floor.


If a gm starts splitting the party then the players are going to do weird stuff in order to avoid that after they know the gm do not follow the rule "never split the party"(it is part due to all the restriction like needing to find a way to tell things to only some players but not others(because they are not at the same place in the game) and also it makes a lot of players angry and players who did not knew the party could be split could have made a build for supporting(you know for not overshadowing the other characters) instead of a build for being able to destroy the universe 7 times as a swift per round(and then when they can get to change character be sure that they will try each to have autonomy and so do something like "team cleric"(go and find the cleric team in pathfinder: it covers all the roles with clerics before they prepare spells then they have spells too))).
For example the party barbarian or druid will carry the entire team or everybody will play cleric or druid because they are T1 and can do everything or yet the adventurers will use a short and thick metal chain linking each of the bodies of the adventurers and will also use universal glue for gluing themselves to each other.

I don't see split the party traps as that big a problem. Generally when the party is split I just have everyone roll initiative and then act in that order, around the same table. And I find the idea of them rebuilding their entire party to counter a tactic just because a single dungeon uses it to be absurd. Its far easier for them to just change their tactics, not their entire party. For example if a sliding door comes between them they smash it down, if someone falls down a pit trap they toss down some rope, etc. That is the way the dungeon is meant to be played, if the players forced to develop their own tactics to counter those of the kobolds. Responding to a few simple split the party traps by replacing the entire party with T1 classes would be like seeing a single man shooting at you with a pistol and responding with a tactical nuke.

noob
2017-04-11, 04:43 AM
Well I did only said that some people hated being split so it is better to say to the players that they can be split in that adventure and ask if they still want to do it.

SorenKnight
2017-04-11, 06:19 PM
Well I did only said that some people hated being split so it is better to say to the players that they can be split in that adventure and ask if they still want to do it.

Well, in that case I couldn't agree more. No adventure will have universal appeal, and every GM must know his players.

Dungeon Map with all Illegible Scribbles Labeled

http://imageshack.com/a/img923/3202/nDllQz.png


All Illegible Scribbles Rewritten in Text.

T1
Hinged pit trap that drops once 2 or more medium creatures put weight on it. It leads to the breakaway floor on level 2 and then the kennel on level 3.

T2
Connecting passage runs beneath.
T3
If the intruders break through the wall or kill a kobold they flee into the tunnels.
T4
Passages shrink to Tiny size, small creatures can squeeze through, Medium or larger creatures must make Escape Artist checks as a full-round action.
T5
10 foot slope up to arrow slits. Interior walls are made out of thin wood, Break DC 20, Hardness 5, HP 10.
T6
Stairs lead up to watch room over corridor that triggers poison dart traps, DC 20 to notice small peephole. The kobold triggers the poison darts when he can hit the maximum possible amount of enemies.
T7
Manually triggered poison dart traps.
T8
creaky, greasy, rickety wooden stairs leading downwards. Once the four kobolds at the bottom hear the head PC reach the halfway point (the creaky stairs impose a -4 penalty on stealth checks) they hurl one alchemist's fire each into the stairway. The whole construction goes up quite quickly.



Second Level Map

http://imageshack.com/a/img923/33/R7ECFS.png


Second Level Content

Level 2

The Door
Heavy wooden door covered in heavy water soaked canvas on the side facing the stairs. The door has break DC 23, hardness 5, HP 20. The players can cut off the canvas to protect themselves from the flames, but their isn’t enough to protect more than one medium creature.

2A
This room has a tall wall on one side, topped by twin barricades with viewing windows protected by a metal mesh. Each five feet along either wall is labeled, one side with letters in Draconic the other side with Dragonic numerals. The pair of kobolds behind the barricades, where they are protected from any non-magical ranged attacks, call out the location of the most vulnerable looking enemy each round. The four kobolds behind the wall use slings to hurl alchemist's fire into that square. They have a 50% miss chance and take range penalties as normal, but are difficult to attack in turn, though any PCs with splash weapons of their own can return fire.
The exit to this room is a heavy wooden door, with break DC 23, hardness 5, HP 20 and lockpick DC 30. If the PCs attempt to retreat they find the stairs burned down and 2d4 kobolds throw down alchemist’s fire on anyone trying to climb up, damaging both them and their rope on a hit.

2B
The portcullis in front of this room is recessed into the ceiling (Perception DC 15 to spot it, the portculllis at the entrance of 2C is the same DC) and is activated manually by one of the kobold archers once all of the PCs have entered the room or three rounds into the battle, whichever comes first. If the PCs break through the wall they can use the same lever to lift the portcullis.
This room is entirely covered in difficult terrain with three sides made up of stone and wooden wall covered in arrow slits. On the other side there are three kobold archers and two first level sorcerers. The sorcerers both have wands of Magic Missile with 2d10 charges remaining. They spam the spell at whichever enemies look the most vulnerable. The wall has the same stats as the other interior wooden walls, Break DC 20, Hardness 5, HP 10.
The exit to this room is quite different from most others in the dungeon. A secret door in only the most technical sense, it is of fine craftsmanship but has been left ajar, lowering the Perception DC to 13, and making the door easily visible from the entrance to the room. The kobolds hope that finding a “hidden” door will help instill a false sense of security and give the PCs the idea that they are in an area of the dungeon the kobolds did not intend, something far from the truth and a notion that any foolish enough to fall for the ruse will soon be disabused of.

2C
This room opens up into a winding, fragile walkway over a deep, cavernous pit. To the left (character’s right) there is comforting solid ground, while the right (character’s left) there lies a chest and the opposite side has a doorway to parts unknown.
If the PCs open the chest then the Glyph of Warding on it detonates (unless they disable it, or bypass it somehow, like hacking a hole in the side of the chest, then they can retrieve the 300 gold pieces inside safely). Opening the doorway reveals a bare wall behind it, with the same explosive result. Either way the whole platform begins to sway and shake with ominous cracks and snaps and the portcullis drops over the entrance. In 1d3 rounds the whole construction tumbles into the pit with an echoing crash. If the PCs have reached safety they can easily observe the wood disappear into the depths. If they linger they hear the crashing resume and see the red glow of flame in the distance a round after that.
If the PCs are unfortunate enough to fall then they find that the coid only drops them 20 feet before they hit a greased chute that eventually drops them in the 3rd level. They can clearly hear something falling after them. 1d3 rounds later a barrel of alchemist’s fire crashes into the ground, dealing 4d6 fire damage to anyone who has yet to flee the room, with a DC 20 reflex save for half damage.

2D
The wide staircase here leads downwards, and is, shockingly, completely safe to traverse. It possesses the same level of construction quality as all other wooden constructions in the dungeon, but contains no traps. However the exit to the stairs do. As soon as the first PC steps off the stairs the pressure plates trigger and the stairs collapse behind them (or around them for any laggards). The pressure plates can be spotted with a DC 25 Perception check by anyone who looks for them before stepping off and can be easily jumped over with a DC 5 Acrobatics check by anyone who is aware of it.

2WA
This room is cluttered with sleeping pads and serves as the primary sleeping area for most kobolds of the first and second levels.

2WB
This room is storage for various building materials, primarily the scrap wood of the same time that various barriers and stairs in this dungeon are made out of.

2WC
This room is a cobbled mass of jagged wood and rusty nail covered with a thin layer of waste. It is very fragile and collapses beneath any creature Small or larger who falls on it from above, but if the PCs lower themselves carefully then the floor can support the full weight of up to one Medium creature before breaking. The statistical effects of anyone who falls on it are described in 1A.