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Legend
Kobold Encounters vs. Kobold War of Attrition
One of the areas I'm trying to strike a balance in this conversion is the adventuring day vs. encounter focus. Obviously 4e is is heavily focused on the encounter/combat set piece, and the 2e module heavily on the adventuring day/war of attrition against the kobolds. However, I don't think that should stop me from having both present in the adventure.
The Exploring Dragon Mountain skill challenge is intended to model a combination of random encounters, "throw-away" areas (e.g. Barracks: 10 kobolds), and the war of attrition against the kobolds...without eating up too much play time. It's always in the background - can't rest without getting attacked, the ever present pitter-patter of kobold feet, yip-yip laughter of kobolds when a trap is sprung, consequences for failed checks/exploration attempts, guerilla tactics - but as the PCs delve deeper into Dragon Mountain they need more.
They need exciting encounters.
To be fair, the original module has several of these. I've just taken that torch and run with it, roughly using the kobold chiefs as mini-bosses/challenging iconic kobold encounters. Here's the list of encounters I'm working on now:
Under-mines: This area was originally called out on the back of a card stock sheet. I've adapted it mostly as is with one big change: Chief Snivaraan (or perhaps the PCs!) triggers a cave-in, and from then on it's a running skill challenge to reach the elevator before the whole Under-mines collapse. I've also added some reasons the PCs might explore down here: freeing a ghostly trapped haunt from its tortured existence, recovering one of the 6 keys of the dwarven exchequer to bypass the traps in Approach to the Lair, or finding the only writing records of the kobold's secret knocking language.
Molokac's Fungal Fury: Remember those gas spores from 1e/2e which sorta looked like beholders at a distance and exploded into poison gas when attacked? Molokac has moved several of those into an area with his wand of gusty winds (only a few charges left). Kobolds armed with nets and javelins hide on the ledges. Net traps are scattered on the ground. Molokac attempts to clump PCs together, use his wand to move a gas spore near them, then the kobolds shoot it and boom! Fungal fury!
Garunaak's Ambush: After the PCs have kicked some Clan Black Death butt, a timid kobold commoner drops a bag with a note in a gesture of supplication the nervously runs off. Note reads "No more kill kobolds. Please take treazure. Leave in piece." It appears to be a bag of holding, but it's actually a bag of devouring! Meanwhile Chief Garunaak and his archers drink specially stockpiled elixirs of lesser invisibility and launch a surprise attack. They retreat under creepy crawlies trap doors and into a room with a door covered in contact poison on the outside and reinforcements inside.
Hagniar's Rot Grub Bootcamp: Chief Hagniar has a special surprise in store - rot grub infested zombie cows! He lights their tails on fire to get them to charge the PCs. The rest of the kobolds hang back throwing javelins, in the ground in front of them are maaaaaany caltrops just below the surface of the earth so that kobold weight won't trigger them.
Crusher's Kobolds: I reimagined Chief Crusher as a scarred albino kobold who suffered at human hands and is always lurking in the shadows...I also gave him a Cloak of the Bat and made riding giant bats the schtick of Clan Humanbane. In this fight the PCs are crossing a stone bridge over a chasm, the other side has a wall of fire thanks to flammable bat guano. Behind the wall are kobold pikers, and behind the pikers waves of kobolds. Giant bat riders try to lasso PCs up to ledges where they are attacked by kobolds with the "kidnapper" template to be dragged into torture caves. Crusher, using his cloak, flits from stalactite to stalactite, chipping them away so they "crush" the PCs. Meanwhile a small group of kobold "kidnappers" ascends the chasm to flank the party, trying to abduct one into the torture cave down in the chasm.
Harlichak's Gelatinous Doom: The party hears kobold drums growing louder. While in a passage they find themselves flanked by two groups of kobolds, and Chief Harlichak is among them. Strangely bits of metal - helmets, belt buckles, arrow tips - float in front of the kobolds. Of course, these are gelatinous cubes, and the drumming and yelling is how the kobolds have trained them. Doors out of te passage have been barricaded...possibly with gelatinous cubes...and somewhere in the area is a pit trap with a gelatinous cube halfway up it. Harlichak is a devious SOB, and "fed" suspended alchemist's spark traps to the gelatinous cubes...when they die, two metal spheres fall to the ground and release volatile gases that react explosively. For good measure, he uses a potion of growth on the gelatinous cube nearest to him.
The Arena: I reimagined the Skullkicker clan as managing an arena in the old Patrician's Quarter (thanks for that Dragon Age!). Nothing fancy here, design-wise, just a basilisk, an umber hulk or cave troll, and an enormous carrion crawler. If they impress Chief Harixis they can get him practically alone.
Golem Works: I think it was you [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] who suggested the kobolds appropriating old dwarven mining technology like golems? I totally ran with that, and had the Wishbone clan's Chief Karlanaat be a kobold master trapper/tinker. Still designing this one..all I've got so far is an iron golem "suit" called the Hammerer which has resist 15 all until the PCs complete the Disabling the Iron Golm skill challenge (8:3) halfway. If they go further with the skill challenge they can strip the golem of its most powerful attack and ultimately shut it down - forcing Karlanaat to face them himself. There should be several traps he can call on.
Gagranax's Rust Monster Cavalry: Just what it says
I'm using a rusty chute of doom trap on the stairs leading to this area, which the kobolds use as a choke point before falling back (possibly taking the residue of any devoured items with them). The way I've got it now it's a little monster heavy for a kobold fight and the rust monsters being level 6 have miserable attack rolls...
EDIT: Right before this encounter the PCs discover a potion of ironskin in the Collapsed Tunnels...planted by Chief Gagranax of course!
King of the Kobolds: The king is designed as a minion (all kobolds are minions in this conversion) focused on survivability and is quite comical. His wizard has nasty magic which likewise makes him hard to kill by swapping places with a kobold minion; the wizard also summons a stormstone fury elemental (which is easy for a DM to re-skin as whatever). Both have several magic items. The King's champion is actually a fire giant polymorphed as a kobold, which we've discussed. What I need is an awesome trap to capstone ttis encounter. After all, it's not a proper encounter with kobolds unless there's a trap!
__________________________________________
Note that I did not think up encounters for all the kobold clans...
Dreadnought - I'm going to pull the swapped minion/chief gimmick here. Koboled: "No, no, he's the chief! He just told me to wear this robe and crown!" PC: "Whatever, we kill 'me both."
Scrags - They have minimal presence in the mountain, and I see them as more of an RP opportunity, as they have prisoners both human and kobold, and the other kobolds don't like them at all
Strike Force Zedd - I replaced these guys entirely with Dragonstrike, a bunch of outcast unstable pyromaniacs considered too dangerous by their respective clans.
One of the areas I'm trying to strike a balance in this conversion is the adventuring day vs. encounter focus. Obviously 4e is is heavily focused on the encounter/combat set piece, and the 2e module heavily on the adventuring day/war of attrition against the kobolds. However, I don't think that should stop me from having both present in the adventure.
The Exploring Dragon Mountain skill challenge is intended to model a combination of random encounters, "throw-away" areas (e.g. Barracks: 10 kobolds), and the war of attrition against the kobolds...without eating up too much play time. It's always in the background - can't rest without getting attacked, the ever present pitter-patter of kobold feet, yip-yip laughter of kobolds when a trap is sprung, consequences for failed checks/exploration attempts, guerilla tactics - but as the PCs delve deeper into Dragon Mountain they need more.
They need exciting encounters.
To be fair, the original module has several of these. I've just taken that torch and run with it, roughly using the kobold chiefs as mini-bosses/challenging iconic kobold encounters. Here's the list of encounters I'm working on now:
Under-mines: This area was originally called out on the back of a card stock sheet. I've adapted it mostly as is with one big change: Chief Snivaraan (or perhaps the PCs!) triggers a cave-in, and from then on it's a running skill challenge to reach the elevator before the whole Under-mines collapse. I've also added some reasons the PCs might explore down here: freeing a ghostly trapped haunt from its tortured existence, recovering one of the 6 keys of the dwarven exchequer to bypass the traps in Approach to the Lair, or finding the only writing records of the kobold's secret knocking language.
Molokac's Fungal Fury: Remember those gas spores from 1e/2e which sorta looked like beholders at a distance and exploded into poison gas when attacked? Molokac has moved several of those into an area with his wand of gusty winds (only a few charges left). Kobolds armed with nets and javelins hide on the ledges. Net traps are scattered on the ground. Molokac attempts to clump PCs together, use his wand to move a gas spore near them, then the kobolds shoot it and boom! Fungal fury!
Garunaak's Ambush: After the PCs have kicked some Clan Black Death butt, a timid kobold commoner drops a bag with a note in a gesture of supplication the nervously runs off. Note reads "No more kill kobolds. Please take treazure. Leave in piece." It appears to be a bag of holding, but it's actually a bag of devouring! Meanwhile Chief Garunaak and his archers drink specially stockpiled elixirs of lesser invisibility and launch a surprise attack. They retreat under creepy crawlies trap doors and into a room with a door covered in contact poison on the outside and reinforcements inside.
Hagniar's Rot Grub Bootcamp: Chief Hagniar has a special surprise in store - rot grub infested zombie cows! He lights their tails on fire to get them to charge the PCs. The rest of the kobolds hang back throwing javelins, in the ground in front of them are maaaaaany caltrops just below the surface of the earth so that kobold weight won't trigger them.
Crusher's Kobolds: I reimagined Chief Crusher as a scarred albino kobold who suffered at human hands and is always lurking in the shadows...I also gave him a Cloak of the Bat and made riding giant bats the schtick of Clan Humanbane. In this fight the PCs are crossing a stone bridge over a chasm, the other side has a wall of fire thanks to flammable bat guano. Behind the wall are kobold pikers, and behind the pikers waves of kobolds. Giant bat riders try to lasso PCs up to ledges where they are attacked by kobolds with the "kidnapper" template to be dragged into torture caves. Crusher, using his cloak, flits from stalactite to stalactite, chipping them away so they "crush" the PCs. Meanwhile a small group of kobold "kidnappers" ascends the chasm to flank the party, trying to abduct one into the torture cave down in the chasm.
Harlichak's Gelatinous Doom: The party hears kobold drums growing louder. While in a passage they find themselves flanked by two groups of kobolds, and Chief Harlichak is among them. Strangely bits of metal - helmets, belt buckles, arrow tips - float in front of the kobolds. Of course, these are gelatinous cubes, and the drumming and yelling is how the kobolds have trained them. Doors out of te passage have been barricaded...possibly with gelatinous cubes...and somewhere in the area is a pit trap with a gelatinous cube halfway up it. Harlichak is a devious SOB, and "fed" suspended alchemist's spark traps to the gelatinous cubes...when they die, two metal spheres fall to the ground and release volatile gases that react explosively. For good measure, he uses a potion of growth on the gelatinous cube nearest to him.
The Arena: I reimagined the Skullkicker clan as managing an arena in the old Patrician's Quarter (thanks for that Dragon Age!). Nothing fancy here, design-wise, just a basilisk, an umber hulk or cave troll, and an enormous carrion crawler. If they impress Chief Harixis they can get him practically alone.
Golem Works: I think it was you [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] who suggested the kobolds appropriating old dwarven mining technology like golems? I totally ran with that, and had the Wishbone clan's Chief Karlanaat be a kobold master trapper/tinker. Still designing this one..all I've got so far is an iron golem "suit" called the Hammerer which has resist 15 all until the PCs complete the Disabling the Iron Golm skill challenge (8:3) halfway. If they go further with the skill challenge they can strip the golem of its most powerful attack and ultimately shut it down - forcing Karlanaat to face them himself. There should be several traps he can call on.
Gagranax's Rust Monster Cavalry: Just what it says
I'm using a rusty chute of doom trap on the stairs leading to this area, which the kobolds use as a choke point before falling back (possibly taking the residue of any devoured items with them). The way I've got it now it's a little monster heavy for a kobold fight and the rust monsters being level 6 have miserable attack rolls...EDIT: Right before this encounter the PCs discover a potion of ironskin in the Collapsed Tunnels...planted by Chief Gagranax of course!
King of the Kobolds: The king is designed as a minion (all kobolds are minions in this conversion) focused on survivability and is quite comical. His wizard has nasty magic which likewise makes him hard to kill by swapping places with a kobold minion; the wizard also summons a stormstone fury elemental (which is easy for a DM to re-skin as whatever). Both have several magic items. The King's champion is actually a fire giant polymorphed as a kobold, which we've discussed. What I need is an awesome trap to capstone ttis encounter. After all, it's not a proper encounter with kobolds unless there's a trap!
__________________________________________
Note that I did not think up encounters for all the kobold clans...
Dreadnought - I'm going to pull the swapped minion/chief gimmick here. Koboled: "No, no, he's the chief! He just told me to wear this robe and crown!" PC: "Whatever, we kill 'me both."
Scrags - They have minimal presence in the mountain, and I see them as more of an RP opportunity, as they have prisoners both human and kobold, and the other kobolds don't like them at all
Strike Force Zedd - I replaced these guys entirely with Dragonstrike, a bunch of outcast unstable pyromaniacs considered too dangerous by their respective clans.
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