[MENTION=1165](Psi)SeveredHead[/MENTION] Sounds good to me.
I've got two dilemmas that I'm thinking about.
1.
The first dilemma is that one of my players is familiar with Tucker's kobolds and their typical strategies (arrow slits, murder holes, oil and fire, etc). In addition to those time-honored kobold traditions, what fresh new devious kobold strategies can I throw at the party which might surprise my old school player?
I think paragon level PCs would be fairly familiar with kobold tactics. In other words I don't see a problem there. Arrow slits are still devastating. (How much effort does it take to get through/around that wall?)
2.
The second is a skill challenge design dilemma. I have set up some of the exploration of Dragon Mountain as a skill challenge (page 5/6 of the PDF). Failures in this skill challenge have dire consequences determined by a d12 roll, ranging from having magic items stolen to the party getting split up. Right now I have it so that if a 12 is rolled, one of the PCs is abducted by kobolds, interrogated, stripped of their possessions, and sent to wander the mountain naked. Obviously, that could be a sticking point for some of players (and some of MY players in particular), because I'm not giving the player a chance to save him or herself and because no combat took place.
I want to be respectful of my players' versilimitude needs here, but I also am trying to capture the original spirit of Dragon Mountain which lists this exact abduction situation as one of the kobolds strategies. Thing is, in regular combat achieving a single PC abduction is almost impossible...
How would you resolve my dilemma?
You've spotted the obvious issue.
In Dark Sun, if you fail the "survive a day on Athas" skill challenge (yes, that's a skill challenge, and it gives you XP because you're not guaranteed to succeed) badly enough, you face spontaneous encounters of level +4.
If the PCs fail a skill challenge, they run into a kobold encounter set up to enable some of these actions.
If the theft encounter is triggered, they're dealing with skirmishers (possibly invisible due to items) that try to make Thievery checks and run away with items. This might be easier if some dragonshield-type kobolds distract the PCs. (This could be a "regular" encounter with some kobold minions who have Thievery trained who dart in, steal stuff, and dart out. If they have some sort of "Spring Attack" maneuver, they don't even need to stay in the hot spot for long! The thieves could belong to a different clan from the anchoring kobolds, as why would kobolds risk their lives just to let their friends steal stuff?)
The real cost is losing healing surges facing an unnecessary encounter (and possibly daily abilities, or not even getting a short rest when they wanted to) and since the PCs are sort of stuck in the mountain, that's really nasty...
For the kidnap encounter, I would recommend a level +4 (or more) encounter, where the kobolds try to use "nonlethal" controlling attacks. Lots of kobold sorcerers dishing out sleep-equivalent spells, etc. If the PCs fail, someone is likely to get kidnapped. And if the PCs succeed, they still lost resources.
I'd drop the splitting the party one. Paragon-level PCs could easily reunite using their own character resources, even if that means someone has to spend a few minutes preparing Sending. (Also, if only half the party gets into combat, half the party will probably be bored. Worse if you don't give XP to PCs who "skip" fights.)