How could Kobolds defend their lair? Part 3 of game session posted.

Coincidentally, the PCs in my game last weekend ran into a kobold lair. The PCs were four 5th lvl characters and the druid's (wolf) animal companion. By the time they got through one EL 5 and one EL 6 encounter, one PC was at -6, one was at 2 hp, the other two were wounded, and the wolf was dead.

Some salient features:

A simple horizontal wire at 5 ft height. Didn't affect the kobolds or the dwarf scouting the area. When the PCs came charging in, the human fighter/rogue almost decapitated himself on it.

A pair of 4 ft high stone walls with kobold archers behind them. In front of one wall was a concealed pit trap, 20 ft deep, with a bunch of sharpened stakes at the bottom. The wall was also constructed of two rows of piled up rocks, with the first set designed to slide into the pit if someone fell into it. The wolf charged and tried to hurdle the wall, and ended up at the bottom of the pit, dead.

Alchemist's fire. Touch AC usually only gets so high.

Grapple checks. Even with the size penalty, with a bunch of kobolds on each PC, you're going to have a few high rolls.
 

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Hi-

I think you can provide an interesting challenge to the party by using the kobolds strengths against the party. Remember they are being attacked on their home turf - and such places are usually chosen to favor the defender so...

I would imagine that kobolds would be inhabiting caves that had lots of tunnels where they could move and fight unimpeded...but large Hoomans would have to stoop or crawl. Doh ! this would axe some or all of the Hoomans dodge bonus and using weapons other than spear/dagger/crossbow is probably not possible. Similary big attack spells like fireball are not usable in such situations as the backblast will do as much damage to the party

Second kobolds will ambush in areas where only they can fit into the escape routes and they won't stick around after the surprise round to face the retribution.

Kobolds probably have limited magics and those that they have would probably be concenctrated on
1) attacking intruder light source
2) concealing their ambushers
3) concealing their natural traps and sally ports

All of the heavy fighting should be not be done by standing toe to toe in melee combat rather they should have prepared kill zones where large quantities of rock landslides will smash big hoomans flat. After all a single tiny kobold can't slug it out with the barbarian but he could certainly pull a string that would unleash several tons of stone to smash said barbarian flat.

Finally critical kobol areas may be built behind squeezes...areas that would be difficult for a fully armored man to move through (plate armor is rigid you know) which may force the party to abandon their heavy armor, shields...
 

Lots of the tactics already mentioned will of course make the encounter tough, but there is one really simple way to amp up a kobold lair, and it is used as a plot device in Sunless Citadel: Dragons. Even just one realtively young dragon on the kobolds side will make for a nice final big encounter.

Force them to keep going deeper into the lair by blocking the obvious exit route. Annoy the players with the traps and hit and run tactics mentioned earlier in posts by people who know far more about running such things than I do, but PCs want a Big Bad at the end. A kobold sorcerer a few levels higher than the party average and nice nasty dragon, preferably of one of the nonstandard varities so PCs will have a harder time identifying its weaknesses, should suitably challange the PCs, even if you don't run tactics that well.

Or, have them go in a slaughter the kobolds. That's what they are expecting to happen. Then have the Dragon they have been worshiping come around for the monthly offering. He will likely wonder where all his worshipers have gone, and he might not be happy about it.
 

Or, you can completely turn it around on them. Let them fight their way deep into the mountain, find the treasure trove...
and then everything goes poof. Everything they fought, and everything they saw was just one big shadow conjuration by some big bad-A evil guy with a horde of fresh henchmen. Meanwhile, the players are now lost in a labrynth that resembles nothing like what they stepped in to.

But then, that's throwing out the original design parameters.
 

You may want to play to your party's weaknesses.

E.G: CONSTRUCTS.

Your cleric can deal with undead, your rogue can disarm most traps, but Constructs....those will give everyone but the Barb. a run for his money, and even him if he lacks the right (adamantite) weapon.

You can't crit 'em. You can't turn 'em. You can't sneak 'em.

So, how do kobolds get a golem? Well, they live underground, right? Maybe they've laired on top of some ancient treasure hoard....

And if you want to target other areas, then target saving throws. Screw the fireballs and the lightning bolts...hit the rogue and the barbarian with charms and dominates and holds, and THEN hit them with fireballs and lightning bolts...y'know, when they can't make saves against them because they're helpless due to being held....:)
 

Ok - Keep in mind that all of the suggestions in the thread might not make for a very fun game from the player's perspective. But, you are asking for advice on how to hand them their butts on a platter, so we need to focus on the strengths of the kobolds as well as do everything we can to focus on the weaknesses of the party.

First thing - Kobolds won't need light in their home. Don't have any light sources.

The actual lair should be a long way in. Many twisty passages. Passages should be rough with a lot of deep dips and they shoud be tall enough for kobolds, but not much else. For the first few hundred feet, the party wil have to crawl through something that feels downright claustraphobic. They shouldn't have line of sight of more than ~10 feet.

These passages should be guarded, but not by any guards in the entry tunnel. Have tunnels running around and over the entry tunnel. Cracks between the two provide a way for the kobolds to know where the party is, and sometimes they can even fire a crossbow through. This is very frustrating to the melee machines. Even if the damage is negligible, the fact that they are being attacked and can't respond is torturous.

Think in 3 dimensions. Why wouldn't kobolds have a 40' shaft up, 30' horizontal to a 50' shaft down? With a few rocks, they can make life uncomfortable for the people crawling through their tunnels. In one kobold lair my party went through, they got so accustomed to the ups and downs that they missed the secret door, found the down shaft and started climbing down. All the shafts were conveniently provided with ladders after all. This particular shaft was more than 100' down and the bottom had huge rusty spikes jutting out of the floor. The ladder was rigged to fail. The climb was long enough that adventurers, being impatient, decided to have multiple people climb down once it became apparent that the bottom was a long way down. Heh, that was fun. especially since they couldn't climb a convenient ladder back up.

Is there a water source? Remember those dips in the entry tunnels? Make sure two of them have a nice deep bend, like in your sink plumbing. Make sure the stretch of tunnel in between doesn't have any cracks. After the party enters, a small team of kobolds runs into the tunnel, through one of the ends, sets up a lot of firewood, sparks up a fire. Then, they retreat back they came from and start pumping water into the two deep bends. That section of corridor is now sealed and the fire will devour the oxygen. Now, when the party leaves, they have to swim through one of the bends, crawl through the airless section of tunnel on top of the embers of the fire, swim through another bend and then breathe. Sure, a few of them might be able to do it. The nifty thing is that if they figure out a way to fill that section with air, the fire will spark back up until it runs out of fuel.

Oil - lots of oil. Coupled with a few cherished flasks of Alchemist's fire, held for an emergency, you can do some damage.

The local equivelant of flypaper. When the party starts crawling on it, it sill stick the their hands, making it hard to hold a weapon properly. Tanglefoot bags are a fun addition if you are doing rolling boulders.

If the kobolds have a sorceror, you might consider making a few tunnel sections positively restrictive. Such as 2-1/2 wide. According to Page 76 of the 3.0 DMG, you need to have room to dodge to gain benefits for Evasion. The rogue will _hate_ that of a fireball goes off right there. Of course, the rest of the players may argue that they should get bonuses since the rogue is effectively acting as cover - sure, allow that.

The whole complex should make no sense at all to the players. This isn't a standard dungeon. This is a living warren. The kobolds probably spend a lot of their "spare time" improving defenses, creating dead ends, etc. Once the party gets out of the entry corridor, they should find so many tunnels branching in every direction that they are afraid to proceed. Thos tunnels should angle up, down, go straight, go everywhere. The lair is still there because it is too much of a nuisance to take the kobolds out. You don't want to give the party a stand up fight. You want to always attack one person at a time. This is a game of attrition. Make the party burn up all their healing spells. Put them in areas where they are always fighting with penalties, can't use their best weapons and can barely see what is happening. You are betting that a lair of kobolds has more HP than the party with all of their healing magic. Do everything you can to avoid letting the party attack more than a single kobold at any given time. How do you cleave when you can only see one of them? How do you flamestrike a bunch if there is never a clump? Fight dirty, the kobolds are in a win or die situation.

A well-prepped party of this level can still wreak havoc on the lair. They start by opening up the entry corridor and getting into the guard corridors. Start bypassing the little traps laid out for them. But, an ill-prepared party loaded up on offensive spells, will be less useful. They will be expecting to see that nice clump of kobolds that they can flamestrike. They will be looking for the cleave combos.

They won't get it ... until you want them to. When they are all out of spells, bruised from rocks dropped on them, swollen from the stings of a hundred scorpions and finally crawling into the Kobold Sorceror Kng's main chamber. The kobold sitting on the throne smiles stupidly as the barbarian finally stands up to his full height with that wicked look in this eye that means Rage-Charge-Power Attack. Then the 8th level Improved Invisible Sorceror, that is letting his stupid, halfwit jester sit on the throne, unleashes a lightning bolt through the party. The 5th level Improved Invisible Rogue unleashes a sneak attack and the 4th level Improved Invisible Fighter readies an action to set his spear against the barbarian if he charges the halfwit false king. So far, you have used all of the Sorceror's 4th level spells, and 1 of his 3rd level spells. Improved Invisiblity lasts 1 min/level. How many attacks can just three kobolds get in with that?
 

Potions and spellcasters.

If you want to beat the PCs with standard kobolds, have one or two leaders who also happen to be higher level sorcers. Maybe 9th or 10th. This is perfectly reasonable given the party's levels.

Have the leader be a veritable potion making machine. Give every kobold a potion or two of haste, fly, invisibility (for sneak attacks), bull's strength, etc.

You can supercharge your normal kobolds without giving them levels or even items. Remember, the PCs will get items if they kill the kobolds. But not if the kobolds have no items and already drank their potions! :D

Then swarm them. Kobolds from everywhere, firing arrows, and slings. Standard kobolds will just be fodder for the Cleave feat so keep them out of melee.

However, if you make the caves smaller then you can limit the PC's use of Cleave and give them penalties in melee. But I don't recommend this because then if the PC's die, they might complain you deliberately took away their feats, etc. I prefer to give the PCs plenty of rope and let them hang themselves.

Overwhelm the group with sheer numbers if you use standard kobolds. If you really want to kill the party, give the kobolds levels.

10 or more level 10 fighter or sorcerer kobolds armed to the teeth with appropriate magic, etc. will annihilate the party. Now you probably don't want to outright kill everyone so you'll have to be careful not to back the PCs into a corner and give them an opportunity to run away. :)

If they don't run away and fight to the death, well then thats their choice. :D
 


For the kobold lairs, design crawlspaces just big enough for Kobolds to move through without penalty, but small enough to give any 'medium-sized' or larger creatures a hard time.

Camoflage and conceal the openings to these crawlspaces.

While some of these crawlspaces would allow Kobolds to outmanuver the PCs, end in dead ends, and arrive in deeper caverns with tougher monsters... Have some of these crawlspaces eventually open back up in dozens of places that are very high up on the walls in some taller, larger caverns the PCs will have to move through.

From these protected locations, place kobold snipers using crossbows with poisoned bolts, alchemical items and bags of caltrops.

Use large, 'poisoned' barbwire nets. :D Suspend these over large caverns where they can dropped on many PCs. Including the rooms with the snipers.

Use gates, bars and things that can be shut to keep the PCs pinned down under enemy crossbow fire.

Use narrow kobold-sized defense bridges that force larger creatures to make balance checks. Use grease spells here.
 
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