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7 months ago ::
Nov 25, 2012 - 2:51AM
#31
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So my players have decided to tackle Dragon Mountain and that means Tucker's Kobolds are in their near future  Here's my first stab at a functional kobold minion stat block. I intend to do several more of these for priests/witch doctors, trappers, archers, etc. What do you think of this rough draft? EDIT: I realize Tucker's Kobolds are much more than the sum of stat blocks, but still it's a starting place. Later I may post some traps and tactics for them to use, but for now it's a measly kobold stat block. KoboldLevel 9 Minion Skirmisher
Small natural humanoid (XP 100) HP 1; missed attacks never damage a minion, AC 23; FORT 21; REF 22; WILL 21 (+4 defenses vs. traps) Initiative +10 Speed 6 Perception +5 Darkvision Traits
Mob Tactics: The kobold gains +1 attack per kobold ally adjacent to the target (max +5) Skirmish: Kobolds can split move before and after attacking. Trap Sense: Kobolds get +4 defenses against traps. Tunnel Savvy: When squeezing, kobolds move at full speed (not half), don't grant combat advantage, and don't suffer -5 attack penalty. Standard Actions
Javelin (Melee/Ranged Basic), At-Will: +14 vs. AC; 7 damage; if thrown ranged 10/20 Minor Actions
Shifty (At-Will): The kobold shifts 1 square Triggered Actions
Narrow Escape (Immediate Reaction, At-Will): When a close/area attack misses the kobold, it shifts 3 squares. Skills Athletics +8, Stealth +13, Thievery +13 Ability Scores Str 9, Con 12, Dex 18, Int 9, Wis 13, Cha 10 Languages Common, Draconic Alignment evil
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7 months ago ::
Nov 26, 2012 - 8:39AM
#32
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Just remember that part of Tucker's kobolds power also lies in frustrating the players. The running the gauntlet encounter as for example presented by Svendj can be a lot of fun since it challenges the standard assumptions of a fight. Do it a few dozen times in a row and you end up with a boring repetitive and irritating setup that highly validates some builds at the expense of others. For example, controllers are EXTREMELY effect against minions while most defenders suffer a lot (even more so when the minions are ranged attackers), PCs who have a lot of attacks vs. Will are extremely ineffective against traps, and so on. Making such setups work properly also involves a certain gotcha approach, which on occassion is fine (suprise does add to the fun of a game), but if done too much can lead to a rather competitive game between DM and players. Finally, combat in 4e works best when challenging. Regardless of challenge, they always take a lot of time to setup and play through, even when easy, and as such underpowered fights can take more time then they are worth. As for hostile environments and traps being a poor excuse to warp xp budgets, as others have said, that is a rather simplified statement. The goal is to design a challenging fun encounter for your group, while the xp guidelines are a good tool for that, they are not perfect. You could decide to add a monster or two more, or make the environment more of a challenge, the net effect is the same. Sure, if you use that same budget to grant xp, it could be considered an unfair modification, but since a DM sets the level pacing and xp rewards anyway, that will have little impact beyond perhaps the immediate gratification for the players of that specific encounter. I certainly never have had players at my table calculate the level of an encounter at the table and afterward calculate whether or not they got the right amount of xp for that encounter even when I still used xp 
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7 months ago ::
Nov 26, 2012 - 8:55AM
#33
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Date Joined:
Nov 26, 2012
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I think I once remember reading something about a suggested trap involving a gelatinous cube in a pit under a large trapdoor, with the explanation going something along the lines of "kobolds dig pit for some purpose, gelatinous cube somehow finds its way into the area, cube falls in pit, kobolds go 'huh.' and keep it fed so it acts as a trap". It also suggested them somehow putting said cube in the ceiling with a trap door under IT.
.....baaaah, now I can't remember where I read that. Not sure if it would make sense in this situation though...
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7 months ago ::
Nov 26, 2012 - 1:36PM
#34
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Just remember that part of Tucker's kobolds power also lies in frustrating the players. The running the gauntlet encounter as for example presented by Svendj can be a lot of fun since it challenges the standard assumptions of a fight. Do it a few dozen times in a row and you end up with a boring repetitive and irritating setup that highly validates some builds at the expense of others. For example, controllers are EXTREMELY effect against minions while most defenders suffer a lot (even more so when the minions are ranged attackers), PCs who have a lot of attacks vs. Will are extremely ineffective against traps, and so on. Making such setups work properly also involves a certain gotcha approach, which on occassion is fine (suprise does add to the fun of a game), but if done too much can lead to a rather competitive game between DM and players. Finally, combat in 4e works best when challenging. Regardless of challenge, they always take a lot of time to setup and play through, even when easy, and as such underpowered fights can take more time then they are worth.
My approach to running this dungeon crawl, like most of my DMing, is to provide the players with a real challenge that they can enjoy the rigors of solving, and feel awesome about overcoming. Occasionally they may fail, and that opens up fertile ground for new stories. I am not taking a "DM vs. Player" stance, except in the most playful good-spirited way. I agree with a lot of the Fourthcore design precepts, which is serving as something of a template for my conversion of Dragon Mountain.
I'd say 60-70% of fights will be against kobolds, the rest will be against non-minion enemies or the dragon. So combat-wise the defenders won't be totally screwed. Also I'm planning for many of the fights to have a trick to them, like breaking past a line of kobold pikers to reach the area behind the murder holes kobolds are attacking from, or loosening a triggered boulder trap to repel/crush oncoming kobold hordes.
Btw, the party is...
Show
Human / Barbarian 11 / Nocturnal - A mount-focused build which will have a slight disadvantage while underground. I'm looking for a way to give her a bit of an edge while in Dragon Mountain. The player likes to kill stuff and has cleave/multiattack options good against minions.
Deva / Wizard 11 / Unseen Mage - Took "expanded spellbook" a whole bunch to get an old school caster feel, and makes good use of rituals. Probably the most experienced old school player. The kobolds will probably learn to fear him.
Human / Fighter 11 / Swordmaster - A dual-weapon damage machine with some auto-damage powers good against minions. Story-wise, his old adventuring party died braving Dragon Mountain and he wants to recover their corpses for proper burial. The player is strong with tactics & puzzles.
Half-elf / Bard-Warlord 11 / Captain of Fortune - A strong leader who is best suited to urban or social environments. Dragon Mountain provides ample opportunities to interact with kobolds and leverage competing clans against one another in a cutthroat fashion.
Human / Paladin 11 / Knight Hospitaler - The player is new to D&D and his character build is in flux, but he's taken to it like a fish to water. Playing a pretty standard/old school Lawful Good paladin. His build is the one I am most concerned about gimping with minions and traps...
As you can see, no rogue in this party. At some point 2 more players will be joining in, and one of them will have Thievery training, but for now the party has no way to detect traps...I think that means that early on the traps should be more to create interesting complications (what Steve Winter dubbed "story traps") rather than inflict lethal harm. Fortunately, that's how the entry area traps of Dragon Mountain are set up.
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7 months ago ::
Nov 27, 2012 - 12:14AM
#35
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@erachima How are minions and line effects an abuse of the XP system?
Minions and effect lines aren't intrinsically abuses of the XP system, this encounter paradigm abuses minions and effect lines to subvert the XP system by making underleveled and therefore virtually costless entities threatening. Simple enough.
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7 months ago ::
Dec 02, 2012 - 8:47AM
#36
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Any cool stories of creative sadistic tricks your kobolds have used in the past? There's all the standard stuff from Tucker's Kobolds: guerilla warfare, arrow slits & murder holes, oil-slicked passages & fire, aided attacks/grapples, etc. One "trick" I thought up is a twist on the sovereign glue-covered kobold... Instead of glue, the kobolds are covered in pheromones/monster gore. When the kobolds retreat, they go through a dangerous subterranean monster's territory. The pheromones/gore mean the monster will ignore the kobolds in favor of any pursuing PCs.
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7 months ago ::
Dec 03, 2012 - 11:07AM
#37
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Knocking sounds heard echoing down tunnels. The kobolds use a kind of morse code by hammering certain veins of rock with their picks, reporting on the PCs' movements. The PCs discover this. Later PCs hear more knocking....only this time it's kobolds collapsing a tunnel! Finally, the PCs hear knocking a third time. The source of the knocking was kobolds extracting cobalt (a poisonous gold/silver look-alike), which they abandon but set on fire in retreat when the PCs come investigating. Dungeoneering determines that it's actually cobalt, handling the stuff causes burn damage, and it outgases poisonous fumes.
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7 months ago ::
Dec 04, 2012 - 12:18AM
#38
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@bluespruce786 Just realized that your map had a full size version. Awesome! Reminds me of the maps I used to make back in the day Gotta love the albino prirhanas. I am going to give my random kobold encounter generator a little test here... (d12=12) Roll once on Kobold Table, once on Trap Table, and once on Special Table (d12=2) 10 Kobolds (d12=7) They're making up a story about what to tell the chief regarding their recent bungled mission (d12=3) Chasm - the room slopes toward a chasm 100-ft deep (2d12=16) Ejector Plates trap So I interpret this as: A group of sullen kobolds are returning to their clan's warren after losing half their numbers in a failed venture. They skirt along the edges of a foreboding chasm, casually stepping over the pressure plates concealing traps they installed, as they coordinate the bold face lie they're going to tell their chief. They could be surprised by stealthy PCs.
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7 months ago ::
Dec 05, 2012 - 12:11PM
#39
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Here's another sneaky kobold tactic, from my Dragon Mountain conversion...
After the PCs have kicked ass in one clan's territory, a kobold commoner nervously appears around a corner and sets down a bag with a note attached in view of the PCs before running off. The note reads "No more kill kobolds, please take treazure, leave in piece." The bag appears to be a bag of holding. It is actually a bag of devouring. If a PC isn't hit by the bag's attack the first time they reach in, they pull out a small 100 gp gem but feel like they grazed a much larger gem when reaching within...
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7 months ago ::
Dec 06, 2012 - 12:54PM
#40
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Hmm, no love for kobolds?  I was thinking of ways my kobolds could use gelatinous cubes in traps besides the classic cube in a pit trap / cube dropped on PC (which probably will also make an appearance). Then it hit me that gelatinous cubes don't dissolve metal or bone, right? Could the kobolds have "fed" the cube some kind of trap held in suspension inside the cube? I love the idea, but I'm not sure what the trap would be yet... Maybe an alchemical explosive in a thin metal sphere a la hand grenade? Any ideas?
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