In my session last night the party was meant to have a final assault on a kobold lair. We have been fighting Kobolds for awhile so we are all kind of sick of it. My intent was to offer the party ways to defeat kobolds and their chief without kicking down the front door. They did take the bait of a "secret tunnel" and followed it to a room directly next to the chief's lair. They defeated 3/4 kobolds in the room but one got away to warn his buddies. Now what SHOULD happen of course is that the whole den of kobolds should come down on them in force and likely defeat the party. (There is a TON of Kobolds) But it's going to be a total grind-fest that nobody really wants, so I want to turn this into something MUCH more entertaining, challenging and worthy of defeating a minor boss. (Kobold chief). I am looking for ideas.
The kobold lair is much like the one in Volo's guide. The tunnels are 2-3' wide so only the party Halfling can fit safely. Medium creatures can squeeze, but the kobolds have rigged every bottleneck between the rooms to collapse if a medium creature attempts to do so.(No disarm) The kobolds rigged these so they could keep invades out OR even trap them in. The kobolds could very easily collapse the tunnel, trapping the party in their lair and slowly whittle them to death. But the party could have used those traps to block off reinforcements.
My kobolds are currently aligned with a group of orcs. The kobold installed a secret "Orc Tunnel" that went around back way to the chief's room. This tunnel is big enough for medium creatures and as I said the party discovered it. But the rest of the way in are the small collaspable tunnels.
I don't want them to sit a fight 20+ kobolds until they are dead. Maybe my prep was


, maybe I didn't stress the need for a stealthy plan as good as I should have, but Grind-fest is imminent. I am trying to avoid this and also give them a great final fight for their current most hated enemy.
And this point the alertness level of the kobold den is vunknown, so I could go anyway with that. The chief knows, as well as anyone in the room with him but the rest of the complex could be unaware at my discretion. I also am not opposed to reworking the map for the sake of drama or prevent the slog. Any ideas?
The kobold lair is much like the one in Volo's guide. The tunnels are 2-3' wide so only the party Halfling can fit safely. Medium creatures can squeeze, but the kobolds have rigged every bottleneck between the rooms to collapse if a medium creature attempts to do so.(No disarm) The kobolds rigged these so they could keep invades out OR even trap them in. The kobolds could very easily collapse the tunnel, trapping the party in their lair and slowly whittle them to death. But the party could have used those traps to block off reinforcements.
My kobolds are currently aligned with a group of orcs. The kobold installed a secret "Orc Tunnel" that went around back way to the chief's room. This tunnel is big enough for medium creatures and as I said the party discovered it. But the rest of the way in are the small collaspable tunnels.
I don't want them to sit a fight 20+ kobolds until they are dead. Maybe my prep was




And this point the alertness level of the kobold den is vunknown, so I could go anyway with that. The chief knows, as well as anyone in the room with him but the rest of the complex could be unaware at my discretion. I also am not opposed to reworking the map for the sake of drama or prevent the slog. Any ideas?