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

This thread is for a modern take on the semi legendary Tuckers Kobolds. This is to brainstorm ways to basically make PCs of higher levels (5+ even level 10+) completely miserable by using humble Kobolds. Well mostly humble Kobolds perhaps one is an archmage or high priest serving Tiamat.

What is Tuckers Koobolds?
http://www.tuckerskobolds.com/

A few ideas.

1. A completely fake lair only tenuously connected to the real one. Such a lair of course is filled with.....

2. Traps. Lots and lots of traps including fake ones such as a scorched boot in the middle of a room surrounded by a painted on scorch mark. Its just a boot. Another boot has a 10gp gemstone in it. The 3rd boot triggers a meteor swarm spell.

3. Kobold tuinnels.Very narrow and small tunnels. Think around 2-3 feet tall/wide. Medium creatures can enter them but have disadvantage to hit and grant advantage to get hit. Bonus points for PC halflings and Gnomes.

4. Fantasy versions of IED's. Barrels packed with gunpowder and shrapnel.
Magical IEDs. Beads from a necklace of fireballs come to mind.

5. Layered traps. 1 trap sets off another one. The 2E adventure Labyrinth of Madness has a fine example. Climb down a ladder, one of the rungs has a glyph of warding on it. Usual effects +strength save (with disadvantage DC 15-25) fail the strength save and you fall (taking falling damage), then kit hit by power word kill+animate dead+levitate. A non magical variety is a pit trap onto a greased slide with blades onto it, then some falling damage into lava or another trap.

6. Better equipment for the Kobolds. Primitive grenades come to mind. A crashed spaceship and laser guns is another option (ducks). Add grenades. Thermal detonaters from Star Wars Saga could work.

7. Tactics. Ambushes, surprise round then retreat- during the surprise round. Add some grenades in there perhaps.

8. Update old AD&D spells various PCs have created such as Colour Go Boom (prismatic spray as a fireball effect level 8 spell), power word liquefy (as kill but turns you to water). Then drop grenades on the water. Darzi blast spheres as well (as disintegrate 20').

9. Pit traps onto oozes, jellies and puddings. Then roll some grenades onto them.

10. Moar Grenades.

Anyway jsut some ideas so far. Lets hear your ones.

Kobold-sized siege weapons.

Kobold-sized tanks.

Kobold-sized apperatus of kwalish type machines.

The idea is that you could kill the kobold operating one of them, but then another kobold will hop on the controls to resume fire.

[MENTION=6716779]Zardnaar[/MENTION] Trained gelatinous cubes with contact explosives suspended inside them, prodded by kobold drums or spears.

The "Dragon Mountain 4e" link in my sig has a TON of fun kobold traps and tricks.

Falling damage.

So, lots of spiked pits for kobolds to push you into, instead of making weak attacks.

Low-visibility conditions so they can easily hide and strike the party's soft rear elements instead of tanks. Camouflaged hiding places are even better than low visibility conditions.

I always liked the bag of scorpion bombs featured with earlier kobolds.

Leatherhead said:

Kobold-sized siege weapons.

Kobold-sized tanks.

Kobold-sized apperatus of kwalish type machines.

The idea is that you could kill the kobold operating one of them, but then another kobold will hop on the controls to resume fire.

Click to expand...

One of the Quests of Doom Adventures has an these mechanical scoprions the PCs can use. Hmmmnn.

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.

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)

Two words: explosive runes. (Is this in 5E? If not, update it. It needs to be there.)

Using the 5e stat block:

Pack tactics. Kobold has advantage on an attack roll if an ally is within 5 feet of the target and ally isnt incapacitated. This can lead to:
-kobold suiciders
-one or two tough melee allies like a trained rust monster
- the kobold shaman uses conjure animal for insect swarms

And a bunch of kobolds behind cover let 'em have it.

As mentioned they can squeeze into Tiny spaces, so make use of that. Read The Tunnels of Cu Chi!