Epic Adventurers v. Kobolds?

[35263526]

I ran a level 60 group through an orc village to access the illithid citadel underneath it. They had so much fun decimating the orcs that I should probably have changed their alignments to evil. Players in general don't seem to like using spells that'd just kill the whole low-level army, they'd rather take a hands on approach, so it isn't really that boring and it really lets them feel like their characters are true powerhouses (something you rarely see in ordinary campaigns because monsters progress at about the same rate as characters).

 

[LeapingShark]

I agree though that I think it's important to toss in a few push-over encounters every once in a while, to give the party a chance to flex their muscles. For that matter, same goes for a party of any level. It's alot of fun to dominate the opponent and show off, it helps emphasize the fact that the PC really are the superheroes of the world. I'm not sure about playing through entire adventures that are too easy, it might get old fast, maybe make the kobold warrens kinda small...

 

[Jolly Giant]

I ran my players through a kobold dungeon when they were lvl 18-19; not epic yet, but close. It was great fun, mainly because it took the playrs so completely by surprise. For one thing, I hardly ever use dungeon crawls. Secondly, they certainly didn't expect to be fighting kobolds at there level.

However, I did not do it the way you seem to have in mind. The kobolds proved quite challenging for the PCs; with their twisting tunnels just big enough for a kobold to move through, and their many devious traps. Then; after wasting a lot of their spells and resources on traps and guards, they finally met the half-fiend sorcerer 18 kobold king, and his succubus rogue 9 mistress...

 

[IronWolf]

If the kobolds are played well they could still pose at least an interesting scenario. Traps upon traps, long narrow tunnels, kobolds with class levels. How many kobolds are we talking? Given enough and a challenge could certainly be presented to the epic level party I think.

 

[PatrickLawinger]

Traps ...

Use twisting tunnels and devious traps as suggested. Perhaps the Kobolds have been mining the area for years and have a huge tribe due to the great wealth and "fungus farms" they have hidden in the deeper caverns. This means they'd have time to build truly devious traps.

Think Grimtooth's Traps, Necromancer Games (okay, shameless plug here) is going to have the 3.5 revision out the first week or so of June. We also have a huge web-preview that could be very useful to you. I am sure you can adapt some of those traps to challenge the PCs a bit. Don't forget aid another and multiple grappling opponents. Divide the party if possible.

Even with all of this, an Epic party could simply cause the mountain/caverns/fortress to simply collapse, wish or miracle the kobolds to another plane, etc. The whole thing depends a bit on your players and their approach.

Patrick

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

More exciting: Kobolds vs. epic commoners.

 

[the Jester]

The kind of 'kobold group' I'm talking about would be typical for a hard low-level party to beat. Several hundred kobolds in a trap-filled lair, maybe led by a 9th level sorcerer or a sorc/rogue, with a handful of other 'leveled' kobolds floating around in the mix somewhere.

However... even being as much of a RBDM as I can manage, I expect the party will find it a cakewalk.

That's sort of the point, though; I just want to make sure it's a fun game for everyone when/if I do something like this. I suppose there is always the chance that some other enemy of the party might step in in the middle of everything to ambush the pcs while they're busy, but that's faily cliched (and besides, the epic group is hard to track down- they are usually all mind blanked). There's also always the "big monster the kobolds revere as a god" idea, but in this context 'big monster' would be unlikely to above CR 13-16.

Like I said, a cakewalk for a party ranging from 20th to 27th level.

Anyone have any particular pointers for ensuring this is a good time?

 

[S'mon]

Either you have to give kobolds loads of class levels - and by that point, you could as well run a regular adventure - or this is going to be ridiculously easy. Most epic characters could take down an army of CR 1 and less creatures without even taking damage. The last epic characters I made found himself in the middle of an orc army and he simply ignored them while taking care of his business.

Using the Fighting on the Run rule from Conan RPG I can easily do 40-60 hp damage/round to that guy (hitting on a '20' with full PA) with melee troops, more if I use cavalry with Spirited Charge & Ride-By Attack. Archers are far worse.

 

[JoeGKushner]

If I feel that the conflict isn't going to drain any resources from the players, I'd probably just skip it and say, "After clearing out the kobold lair..."

I don't mind letting the players be cool, beating down a villain that think's it's powerful like the old Westerns or taking out a hill giant maruading a caravan or something but a dungeon crawl of pitiful monsters would be a little too time consuming.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It's all fun and games until the Aspect of Kurtulmak, epic kobold sorcerers, paragon kobold rogues and paragon half-dragon dire weasels come out to play.