D&D General Tucker's Kobolds: worth using in 5e?

I'm running a dungeon loosely based on Icespire Hold (map below), but the book version is quite empty. Almost every room is just a description without any encounter or anything to interact with.


So I was thinking: what if I use Tucker's Kobolds? The famous killer kobolds from that old Dungeon Magazine article that used traps and subterfuge to strike fear into the hearts of adventurers that would kill them with a single attack.

Has anyone tried it in 5e? What interesting traps and tricks would you use? What are the best locations to place traps on that map?

Might I suggest looking into Mystic Arts’ recent(ish) video on hobgoblins? Obviously hobgoblins should play differently than kobolds, but Daði’s basic premise of using modular design to make a wide variety of CRs for creatures of a single type could be very useful in creating a Tucker’s kobolds situation, and his hobgoblin designs might be good inspiration for the kinds of synergies you might want to build into your kobolds.

Using the inventions from the Kobold Inventor gives you some nice koboldy traps. They're only deadly at first level, but the flavor is right.
Toss in some basic Artificer Infusions the Kobold Tinkerer and the multi-step traps from Tasha's and you have a fun adventure

The argument against Tucker's Kolbolds is "if your players don't like traps, they're not going to like manned traps."

The original idea is very old-school in its attitude. It's about punishing the pcs for being too heroic and not cautious enough. Is that your goal? Then go for it. Is that completely out of context compared to the rest of the campaign? Then it's not going to come across as clever so much as "the ref wants us to lose."

If you do want to use them, let the pc's see a lookout kolbold before they go in, so they understand the challenge: prepared, clever enemies who know you're coming.

I've always used the idea that goblins and kobolds rely on a mix of numbers and a level of cunning. Unless there are exceptional individuals (special variants, class levels, etc) I try to keep the complexity low. Surprisingly, some fairly simple traps with a bit of layering become highly dangerous.

I.e. the falling twig trap. Its an area filled with twigs and some kind of trap door. Might just be a a tarp or hide over a hole above a passwageway that slopes deeper into the warren. A rope is cut and the area is filled with twigs to the ceiling. Damage is minimal, like d4. But it is "rock to mud" level difficulty to escape because of volume, snagging and interlocking.

But hey, full concealment and full cover.

Then a couple flasks of crude oil are tossed at the front of the pile, followed by torches. Now the party risks burning to death. Since the passage slopes down, so the smoke is rising, filling the party's escape route. To escape forward is to advance into the flames, going back risks suffocation. Unless a character was right near the edge, they can't see out, so most teleporting gets iffy. They can't cast most spells as they can't see open areas and many spells behave poorly when the area is occupied.

This is a bog-simple defense and it can drive even a tier3 party insane.

Let's go simpler: a swinging log trap that is set at about 4ft, so it misses small creatures but hit medium+ ones.

Even simpler: the passages are only 3ft x 3ft. Welcome to crawling one at a time. Can you crawl faster than a kobold can run? I'm guessing no.

Add some caltrops or more of that crude oil, so they are slippery and flammable.

jmartkdr2 said:

The argument against Tucker's Kolbolds is "if your players don't like traps, they're not going to like manned traps."

The original idea is very old-school in its attitude. It's about punishing the pcs for being too heroic and not cautious enough.

Click to expand...

See, I think it's about "punishing" the players, in a fun way, for playing their characters like they're dumb. It's not heroic to go charging into an unknown, potentially dangerous situation without exercising a little due caution, it's stupid. After the first trap or two, if they wanna keep blundering around like the Wet Bandits in Home Alone, it's on them. And I would definitely flavour the traps to be hilariously slapstick.

I ran a sandbox campaign that had a section labeled fantasy #%^*ing Vietnam that was dirty with Tucker’s kobolds.

A group of PCs ventured there fairly early on. They came across a lone kobold, a decoy, that they wanted to torture for info. He ran into the bushes and they followed. There was a spiked pit trap on the other side of the bushes. Half the party fell in and took some damage. Then the waiting kobolds ambushed them. It was a deadly fight, CR wise. Starting down a few HP and a few PCs at the bottom of a spiked pit made it even harder.

None of the PCs died. Had two players rage quit because the trap wasn’t telegraphed. It must have given one of the other two PCs PTSD because he was hyper-cautious to the point of not taking a step anywhere without checking for traps for the rest of the game.

In my experience, new with 5E players cannot handle Tucker’s kobolds. And older players who wanted to deal with that kind of play would be playing OSR/NSR games, not 5E.

Good luck. But you probably shouldn’t.

Yes I've done it.

You need to be familiar with the original though or something similar.
Out of the Ashes Dungeon 17 Kamikaze Kobold and Tallows Deep Dungeon 18 using goblins are interesting ways to do it.

Low CR criteria with exploding beads off necklace of fireballs or 3td level spells. You can find them as low as CR 2 and 3. Level 9+ that's fodder.

One of the downsides of doing a Tucker-esque type of scenario is that you end up having to use so many, many low-powered enemies on the field just to counteract the odds of those enemies ever actually hitting. That was one of the main points about the Tucker's Kobolds concept... that players who thought they could never be harmed by lowly kobolds after a certain character level (back in the AD&D/2E era) found that not to be true when so many got thrown at them continuously throughout the entire dungeon that they WERE finding themselves getting hit (and they being unable to hit any of them back because they were all behind arrow slits and the like.)

But all that means is you as the DM just have to roll so many gosh-darned attack rolls all the time, just to see if like you can manage any hits when you need like nothing but 19s or 20s because the kobolds are so low-powered. And then you are stuck with these rare hits doing extremely minor attack damage... slowly plinking away at the PCs hit points. The whole Tucker's thing very much becomes a battle of attrition over round after round after round after round... the PCs unable to escape the dungeon, but 90% of all the kobolds unable to actually hit.

Now if you decide to up the power of the scenario by making it all trap-based, where you are no longer using the kobold stats for attack and damage but instead raising the CR by using more powerful traps that can actually do significant damage to the PCs, then it probably wouldn't be the same sort of slog. But it also would no longer be a true Tucker's Kobolds scenario at that point (if that actually even matters, which it probably shouldn't.)

Goblins work great with this and combined with there ability to do hit and run tactics and often gain advantage on attacks that makes them stay a relevant threat at even higher levels.

Plus its satisfying when you can mow them down with a well placed fireball.