D&D 5E Tuckers Kobolds 5E AKA You Little Bastards!!!

[Zardnaar]

There's a lot you can do with the core 5e rules themselves. NPC statblocks explicitly can have racial traits added, for instance.

A few months ago, my players discovered a fortress that was run by "The General" and his army of... kobolds. They talked their way in to the General's rooms deep within the keep to find that he was, in fact, an ancient and slightly insane bronze dragon who had signed up to lead a military unit some centuries ago only to have all his soldiers killed. The kobolds moved in later and (taking advantage of the General's survivor guilt) posed as the soldiers. Over time, they came to see themselves as soldiers - rather helped by the rather more disciplined life meaning several of them actually survived long enough to be great wyrms themselves, with a bit of added INT and WIS along the way.

I modelled most of the kobolds as Veterans:

https://capsomere.earth.gkhs.net//command/npc/Veteran/Kobold

With the leaders being a bit tougher:

https://capsomere.earth.gkhs.net//command/npc/Gladiator/Kobold

And one or two wetwork specialists who hearken back to the species' roots:

https://capsomere.earth.gkhs.net//command/npc/Assassin/Kobold

(I posted ages ago about a statblock generator for NPCs. Now that all the NPC statblocks are OGL, it's nice to be able to use those links)

I do not want to go to overboard on making NPCs kobolds but I have thought of things like kobold scouts, veterans, knights, gladiators, archmage and priests.

 

[Dausuul]

5E is ideally suited to replicate Tucker's Kobolds. Bounded accuracy means they have a chance to hit even high-level PCs, and the "split-move" tactic (move from cover, shoot a crossbow, move back into cover), which was a bit of a cheat in the original, is now explicitly allowed by the rules. And high-level casters have far fewer win buttons to bypass the whole thing.

So, I would start with the original and flesh it out a bit:

• Traps everywhere.
• A network of kobold-sized tunnels, with choke points that even a kobold has to squeeze through (which thus completely block the movement of a Medium-sized intruder).
• Murder holes and arrow slits accessible from the kobold tunnels.
• Piles of trash soaked in alchemist's fire, which can be ignited and pushed forward with poles to hem the party in. The trash is difficult terrain and deals substantial fire damage. Also, the smoke blocks vision.
• Kobolds in heavy armor with shields, who form up behind the piles of trash and lob flasks of alchemist's fire.
• Reinforced doors that can be slammed shut to trap the party in corridors that can then be set on fire (there's a theme here).
• Kobold commandos who harass the party with split-move attacks.

Then you have to consider the ways in which a high-level party could shut down the kobolds, which mostly means spells. One big threat is cloudkill; this could be dealt with either using airtight doors, or with deep shafts (that also function as pit traps) to drain the gas away. Teleport is no longer a problem for a party of less than 13th level, and can be further hampered by setting deathtraps in likely destinations. The kobold maze should sprawl quite a bit, with several sections separated by long corridors, to limit the usefulness of spells like disintegrate, passwall, and dimension door.

 

[EvanNave55]

Ladders with preweakened rungs that can take the weight of a kobold, but not a medium creature.

Door that look like they're just ajar enough for a Small creature to slip past, but are in fact braced in that position.

Huge, looming, heavy steel doors with a lock that the players can pick but the hinges along the bottom.

Doors left ajar enough for a smell creature to slip through them, and a bucket of vermin/ooze/acid/oil/BBQ sauce balanced on top.

Solid-looking doors that are actually made of thin balsa wood with spikes on the other side.

Vertical metal bars in a 5ft corridor just far apart enough for a kobold to slip between. The bars are not firmly emplaced, but they are the only thing holding the ceiling blocks up . . .

A tall shaft that the players need to climb. There is a ring attached to the stone ceiling block far above at the top. - Any weight put on this ring will detach the ceiling block.
For added sadism: - weight applied to the ring starts a clockwork mechanism that detaches the ring after enough time to get most of the way up the shaft. Then detaches the ceiling block.
For extreme sadism: as above but it also opens a pit trapdoor at the bottom of the shaft before detaching the block.

A door that triggers a number of dart traps. Inside the room is a spiked pit trap hidden by an illusion of a line of kobold crossbowmen.

Long, straight, steeply-sloped corridors that the kobolds can roll barrels full of dung, oozes, vermin, grease, or BBQ sauce down when the party get halfway up it.

Prestidigitation-based traps that scrawl offensive graffiti on the player's gear.

Doors painted with contact adhesive.

Kobolds with pots of oil, vermin, acid, or BBQ sauce throwing them at the party from behind spearmen, or then ducking through one of the aforementioned partially ajar doors or bars.

Kobold latrine area. Through the hole in the planking, a faintly-glowing ornate sword hilt is visible above the surface of the cesspool. It is in fact a lever which when disturbed, opens the floor to drop anyone on it into the sewers.

Kobold-sized parallel corridors with holes in that allow kobolds equipped with bellows to spray oil, acid, or BBQ sauce onto trespassers in the adjoining corridor.

5E is ideally suited to replicate Tucker's Kobolds. Bounded accuracy means they have a chance to hit even high-level PCs, and the "split-move" tactic (move from cover, shoot a crossbow, move back into cover), which was a bit of a cheat in the original, is now explicitly allowed by the rules. And high-level casters have far fewer win buttons to bypass the whole thing.

So, I would start with the original and flesh it out a bit:

• Traps everywhere.
• A network of kobold-sized tunnels, with choke points that even a kobold has to squeeze through (which thus completely block the movement of a Medium-sized intruder).
• Murder holes and arrow slits accessible from the kobold tunnels.
• Piles of trash soaked in alchemist's fire, which can be ignited and pushed forward with poles to hem the party in. The trash is difficult terrain and deals substantial fire damage. Also, the smoke blocks vision.
• Kobolds in heavy armor with shields, who form up behind the piles of trash and lob flasks of alchemist's fire.
• Reinforced doors that can be slammed shut to trap the party in corridors that can then be set on fire (there's a theme here).
• Kobold commandos who harass the party with split-move attacks.

Then you have to consider the ways in which a high-level party could shut down the kobolds, which mostly means spells. One big threat is cloudkill; this could be dealt with either using airtight doors, or with deep shafts (that also function as pit traps) to drain the gas away. Teleport is no longer a problem for a party of less than 13th level, and can be further hampered by setting deathtraps in likely destinations. The kobold maze should sprawl quite a bit, with several sections separated by long corridors, to limit the usefulness of spells like disintegrate, passwall, and dimension door.

These two are really good posts, and more inline with the spirit of Tucker's kobolds than most of the other posts. The point of Tucker's kobolds is what fear you can give players and how much you can overwhelm them (so on and so forth) WITHOUT giving them bonuses, i.e. no special powers or magic, no improved equipment or class levels, nothing. It's meant to be JUST basic kobolds and clever tactics.

Anyways rant over, sorry about that. My applause to the posters quoted above.

 

[trentonjoe]

Some things I give Kobolds:

1. Green Slime in a jar- throw, run, laugh
2.Pit Trap with your friendly neighborhood rust monster inside.
3. Pit Trap with piercers above it.
4. Indiana Jones Giant Boulder trap
5. Underground streams stocked with piranhas, scorpions and the like
6. Collapsible tunnels, as the little buggers run away, they pull a string and the roof caves in
7. Cover, lots, always- I normally just assume they have it and adjust the AC
8. Poison gas pushed at them by those old world cup shabbuzzle things
9. Beating drums that disrupt concentration, sleep, or even spell casting.
10. Lava, don't fall in

 

[Fralex]

Don't forget about winged kobolds! They can hide in rafters and fly over barriers the players have to walk around. Use them to manually set off more complicated traps and relay information and supplies between kobold squads.

Also: know what else is a deceptively small, cave-dwelling monster? Stirges. They are horrible, have kobolds release swarms of them on players

 

[Imaculata]

You could also take some inspiration from Demon's Souls' Valley of Defilement. The Valley of defilement level is basically a huge system of unstable scaffolding inside a large underground space in total darkness. There are enemies with spears everywhere, and everything deals bleeding, poison or disease. Everything can crumble at any minute, and there are tiny ladders everywhere.



Extending this to Tucker's Kobolts:

-Retractable ladders that allow the kobolts to not only hide in murder holes, but also escape to higher ground.
-Rope, that allows the kobolts to swing or climb to safety. And if the players try to chase them, simply cut the rope.
-Use status effects to their maximum. Have the players fight in terrain that slows them down, and causes poison and disease.
-Make all the terrain very vulnerable to destruction. Everything is created in such a way that it can only endure the weight of tiny kobolts, but not of heavy armored adventurers. This allows you to drop the players several stories down, causing falling damage, and exposing them to what ever nasty stuff is down in the pit.
-Make a lot of use of darkness. The areas that the players are in may be barely lit, but the attacks come from total darkness.
-All kobolts use either ranged weapons, or weapons with reach. And all weapons either cause poison or bleeding.
-Explosive barrels, which can be rolled down ramps, and can also cause the scaffolding to break, dropping the players down into a pit with a flammable or poisonous substance.
-Always use formations of kobolts to lure the players where you want them to go, and then close the trap around them.

What I would NOT do:

-Use other monsters. Yes, you could drop the players into a pit right on top of a gelatinous cube. But I think that defeats the point of Tuckers Kobolts. I think the strength lies in the fact that it is just a bunch of kobolts being clever. So I would design everything to use ONLY the kobolts and their trickery.
-Rely on overly complex magical or mechanical traps. Again, I think Tuckers Kobolts are fun, because they simply are really really clever. The terrain is always in their favor, and they simply outsmart the players. You don't need to add complex nasty traps on top of that. Keep it simple, and keep the traps simple. Its the combination of simple things that makes Tucker's kobolts so nasty.