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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 7301235" data-attributes="member: 20323">Gotcha. No worries, we all hit the creative wall as DMs. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Since, from your anecdotes, your players sound a bit bloodthirsty, I think offering you targeted advice about making combat with the kobold chief interesting would be most helpful...[SECTION]Your scenario as I understand it: Bloodthirsty players have led their PCs in assaulting kobold warrens; they're the types who love a good boss fight / tactically interesting fight & earlier killed off a friendly kobold NPC rather than parlay. As their PCs approach the kobold chief's lair, the players are a bit worn down from "Tucker's kobolds/fantasy Vietnam/claustrophobic tunnel-fighting". Party is just outside chief's lair, but chief is alerted to their presence. General alertness of kobolds in the rest of the lair is TBD (to be determined). There are 20+ kobolds protecting the chief and possibly tentative orc allies. Other monsters & traps & details of the lair are TBD (to be determined). There are collapsible passageways...but it's unclear how or whether you intend to use those. You, as DM, want to present a challenging boss fight, rather than a parlay like I earlier suggested or skill challenge type scenario like        [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] suggested with the kobolds withdrawing, sealing entrances, and smoking out the PCs.[/SECTION]Am I understanding your situation right?If so, here is my 4-Part Plan of Kobold Chief Viciousness and Ensured Adventurer Doom™ <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/glasses.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt="B-)" title="Glasses    B-)" data-shortname="B-)" />Part 1: Net trap of kobold awesomenessThink vertically & split the party. The kobold throne room in Volo's is tiny - about a 30-foot diameter circle - that gives no room to manuever...unless you think vertically. I mean, nothing on Volo's map makes the throne room stand out, so you as DM need to give it character, interesting features, a reason that it was chosen by the "smartest and oldest" kobold (their chief) as throne room.There's a great line in Volo's about a trap: Nets attached to ropes that pull creatures up vertical shafts far away from anyone who can help. Now imagine those shafts in the ceiling concealed by loosely draped tattered tarps in mockery of a noble's throne room replete with tapestries and hanging silks, and the floor covered in tapestries stolen from a noble caravan strewn about like carpets (concealing net traps which trigger when > 50 lbs presses on them). And then imagine along those shafts are little alcoves with kobolds wielding poisoned knives and little javelins. And now imagine the cave fisher spinnerets (or whatever) they make the rope as being a little springy...Adventurer steps on a net trap and suddenly they're hoisted upward, blinded by tattered tapestries and/or tarps, and provoking opportunity attacks from moving up the shaft from all the kobolds lurking in the alcoves. Moreover, neither they nor allies have line of sight to one another. Simply cutting free incurs falling damage. Yet if they don't escape the "bungee-cord effect" of the spinneret will cause PC to provoke opportunity attacks from lurking kobolds *again* on the next round. And PC must contend with being poisoned by poison daggers/javelins (imposing disadvantage on attack/ability checks...including checks to escape the net trap). And make sure to grin evilly. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />That's the first trap...Part 2: Trap of Kurtulmak's spell thieving & hidden squicky chamberThe throne room in Volo's is described as featuring a shrine-idol to Kurtulmak behind the throne. Let's run with that! While seated in the throne, the kobold chief gains the ability to, as a reaction, attempt to steal any spell he sees being cast. This is in fitting with the lore on Kurtulmak, who stole the gift of sorcery from a dragon deity to give to his kobolds. This could be an opposed check, or a set DC Wisdom or Charisma save. If successful, the chief knows the spell's name and purpose, determines its new target, and then it's resolved using the PC's spell attack / spell save DC (if pertinent to the spell). OPTION: You could use scroll mishap rules for the spellcasting instead for more randomness.Of course, when this happens the idol's eyes need to start flaring with putrid green light dramatically as soon as the PC begins casting a spell, growing brighter the closer the PC gets to completing their spell. This gives the PCs a chance to attempt countermeasures like casting dispel magic on the idol, or a sorcerer to use Subtle Spell to conceal their spellcasting from the idol, or a warrior with a big hammer to try and smash it to bits.But these are nasty kobolds, and the chief is the smartest of them all. The shrine-idol serves as a critical roof support, and if it is destroyed, the roof collapses around just the throne, separating the chief and whatever PC smashed the idol from the rest of the throne room (a dwarf PC with Stonecunning should recognize this). It also reveals a secret chamber behind the throne room (not depicted on Volo's map...it's that secret) which happens to be filled with the sorts of nasties adventurers hate: swarms of rot grubs, rust monsters, and so forth. Naturally, the kobold either is naturally resistant to these monsters / doesn't have metal items, has a magic item granting immunity to them, or has control over them through mundane or magical means. Only a vertical shaft leaves the secret chamber, with a tattered hemp rope leading up it; any creature weighing more than 50 lbs. who attempts to climb the rope finds it snaps under their weight after 20 feet or so, dropping them back into the swarm of squicky monsters.Part 3: Gnome skull ornaments and green slime cauldronsThere's a reason the chief's throne is elevated on a slight dais, and his closest bodyguards wear small stilts made of bone, and it's not just to look bigger to other kobolds. No, the massive ceramic cauldrons suspended in the "corners" of the throne room actually are filled with green slime! One pull of a chain from a kobold will cause the cauldron to dump the green slime, which covers the throne room's floor....Green slime eats through wood/metal but not bone. Oh, and it also eats through adventurer's feet.But wait, there's more. Gnome skulls with veiled eyesockets are mounted on ornamented pikes around the throne room, ostensibly because even in death gnomes aren't worthy of witnessing the majesty of the kobold chief. Kobolds hidden in alcoves behind some of these skulls can swivel control sticks to raise or lower the veils and rotate the skulls – within the eye sockets are pieces of obsidian enchanted with continual light focused into precise beams. When aimed at the light-fearing green slime, they can evoke reflexive movement in the slime, forcing it to move into squares where it was previously eradicated or to clear a safe path for kobold troop reinforcements (or for the chief's escape!).Part 4: Release the secret weapon! It's stirges!Covered cages along the perimeter of the throne room, blending in with the other kobold accouterments/tables/boxes/etc., actually contain stirges, the cage doors kept pinned by fishing line held in tension to the floor with pitons. These stirges are kept hungry and trained to favor  mammal blood (and disfavor reptilian blood...or perhaps whatever nasty root the kobolds eat makes their blood non-stirge-appetizing). If a PC "triggers" a cage opening by stumbling across a taut piece of fishing line (or if a kobold opens one,  or if  green slime from part #3 corrodes a piton), six stirges pour forth from a cage and attack!The stirges aren't much of a threat to skilled adventurers in and of themselves, but may fly up the shafts in part #1 to feast on a suspended/restrained PC, and removing one in the midst of combat requires an action that might be better spent dealing with the kobolds or counteracting a trap.This can be foreshadowed by having kobold slingers fire pots of sticky bloody ichor at one or more PCs, making them for the stirges........The real beauty of this is when the 4 parts start to work together... say a PC gets hoisted up in part #1 and stabbed and painted with bloody ichor, then they might fall down but their ally's feather fall is intercepted in part #2 only to rescue a kobold-with-a-paintbrush who was falling with them, and land smack in green slime in part #3 (perhaps the feather falling kobold lands on top of them to add insult to injury), only to witness the stirges burst free of cages and come swarming at them in part #4 ("Ooo, that's what the kobold with the paintbrush was doing!").</blockquote>

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