Holy Bovine
First Post
This thread is awesome - excellent ideas here guys. I wish I had some of my own but - thank you!
Pathfinder 1E Paizo, Kobolds, Aliens, and Saw
- Thread starter Carpe DM
- Start date
Kheti sa-Menik
First Post
Rechan said:
Odd that. A couple months ago, I lycanthroped wererats and Thri-Kreen. The look on the PCs' faces was cool when the Thri-Kreen they were facing sprouted fur, ears, long teeth, got a little bigger, and took on a very creepy look.
Friend, if tri-keen ain't creepy by themselves, somethin's wrong.Kheti sa-Menik said:
Even friendly tri-keen in the party are supposed to look at the elf like he's a ham sandwich.
Hmmmm. The reverse is also true... Elven Praying-Mantis lycanthrope. The elven barmaid or beautiful princess suddenly looking to mate and eat your head...
Could work with giants too.Mishihari Lord
First Post
Rats
Kobolds as viet-cong is great, but it's been done over and over. I have an idea for something slightly different.
Kobolds as rats. They live in great labyrinths of narrow earthen tunnels. Some they can stand in, some they have to crawls or wriggle through. Only in main rooms are humans going to be able to do anything but crawl. This plays all kinds of havoc with combat and casting. If a too-large creature tries to get through, dirt is constantly bumped off of the ceiling and walls, partially filling the tunnels. I hope none of the PCs have claustrophobia.
The warren is filled with traps, but not the sharp, pokey kind. Hidden ropes are buried in ceilings and pulling the right hidden rope in the right way will collapse the right part of the tunnel on the PCs. If they unlucky they're buried and suffocate. If they're very unlucky they're partially buried and immobilized. At least until some kobolds come by and gnaw off whatever parts are handy. They generally won't kill enemies in this situation right off, fresh meat's better and the screams and wriggling are entertaining.
And did I mention that the warrens reek? Bad enough to gag a troll. This is because they're full of rotting garbage and carrion. The garbage is foul and disease laden. Be careful of the biting flies. They can transmit all of the nasty diseases to the PCs.
And while I'm on disease, don't forget that the kobolds are plague carriers. It doesn't kill them, it just makes them a bit sick and feverish and mad. Plague can be transmitted by claws or bites, but the worst threat are the fleas. Get close to a kobold and you'll almost certainly get a few dozen fleas, and they'll almost certainly carry plague. You have to watch out for the rabid ones too. Unlike most animals rabies doesn't kill kobolds, but it does make them crazy-strong (like a berzerker) And if you get bit you can expect to get very sick and very crazy, then die unless clerical aid is immediately forthcoming.
Outside of their warrens they're much less dangerous but still a threat. The can hide extraordinarily well, digging a quick earth burrow if necessary. They never engage in a straight up fight. Their tactic is to wait until an isolated person comes by then all jump him at once, bearing him to the ground. Once their victim is at their level they start eating him while holding down arms and legs. One kobold is always detailed to sit heavily on the victim's head so he can't yell.
Kobolds are also a threat to settlements' food supplies. They carry all kinds of vicious insets. A group of kobolds who raid a field or barn or storehouse may not be able to carry much, but they'll ruin what they can, and the insects they leave behind will multiply and destroy the rest. Towns have starved after apparently minor kobold attacks.
Kobolds as viet-cong is great, but it's been done over and over. I have an idea for something slightly different.
Kobolds as rats. They live in great labyrinths of narrow earthen tunnels. Some they can stand in, some they have to crawls or wriggle through. Only in main rooms are humans going to be able to do anything but crawl. This plays all kinds of havoc with combat and casting. If a too-large creature tries to get through, dirt is constantly bumped off of the ceiling and walls, partially filling the tunnels. I hope none of the PCs have claustrophobia.
The warren is filled with traps, but not the sharp, pokey kind. Hidden ropes are buried in ceilings and pulling the right hidden rope in the right way will collapse the right part of the tunnel on the PCs. If they unlucky they're buried and suffocate. If they're very unlucky they're partially buried and immobilized. At least until some kobolds come by and gnaw off whatever parts are handy. They generally won't kill enemies in this situation right off, fresh meat's better and the screams and wriggling are entertaining.
And did I mention that the warrens reek? Bad enough to gag a troll. This is because they're full of rotting garbage and carrion. The garbage is foul and disease laden. Be careful of the biting flies. They can transmit all of the nasty diseases to the PCs.
And while I'm on disease, don't forget that the kobolds are plague carriers. It doesn't kill them, it just makes them a bit sick and feverish and mad. Plague can be transmitted by claws or bites, but the worst threat are the fleas. Get close to a kobold and you'll almost certainly get a few dozen fleas, and they'll almost certainly carry plague. You have to watch out for the rabid ones too. Unlike most animals rabies doesn't kill kobolds, but it does make them crazy-strong (like a berzerker) And if you get bit you can expect to get very sick and very crazy, then die unless clerical aid is immediately forthcoming.
Outside of their warrens they're much less dangerous but still a threat. The can hide extraordinarily well, digging a quick earth burrow if necessary. They never engage in a straight up fight. Their tactic is to wait until an isolated person comes by then all jump him at once, bearing him to the ground. Once their victim is at their level they start eating him while holding down arms and legs. One kobold is always detailed to sit heavily on the victim's head so he can't yell.
Kobolds are also a threat to settlements' food supplies. They carry all kinds of vicious insets. A group of kobolds who raid a field or barn or storehouse may not be able to carry much, but they'll ruin what they can, and the insects they leave behind will multiply and destroy the rest. Towns have starved after apparently minor kobold attacks.
This is one of the better threads that I have read anywhere of late- lots of ideas here that I'm snatching up. I do have a question though, actually a few?
What level characters do you pit these cruel viet cong/rat/trapmaking kobolds against? How lethal are your games? How do you maintain a sense of fear while not picking characters off until the lone survivor struggles out of the warren, battered and bloodied?
Chad
What level characters do you pit these cruel viet cong/rat/trapmaking kobolds against? How lethal are your games? How do you maintain a sense of fear while not picking characters off until the lone survivor struggles out of the warren, battered and bloodied?
Chad
I like a lot of the rats stuff. Disease, the threat of tunnel collapse, and especially the nibbling on extremities of players caught in traps. It's funny -- it's still 1d6 damage, but "they're eating my hand" is so much worse than "oof, not another arrow trap."
On the subject of disease. I'm playing right now in a campaign that has changed how I look at disease. The thing to remember about the PCs is that they are communicable. We are currently in the middle of the black death, and we don't dare to go to town to get a cure disease cast, because we'll kill the whole town.
Further, the omnipresent plague makes a great D&D setting. Think about it: roving bands of looters (read: adventurers), no effective centralized authority, occasional "points of light" safe harbors, lots of loose treasure, bandits, monsters run amok. All of the wierd aspects of D&D are explained by having the players struggling to survive in the midst of the Black Death.
Chad --
I've been trying to build lethality into the game. I think players get bored with no risk. Player death creates tension and builds credibility. (Credibility is also why I do open rolling -- if the monster rolls a crit, you are toast.)
The first thing I do when I start a campaign is I decide which adventure I'll run if there is a total party kill. I try to make the adventure as good as possible. (You have to make it scaleable, so that you can run it at any time). Then, I put the adventure in my back pocket.
Having the adventure ready to go means that you won't hesitate if a kill happens. You know that the game will go on--that the game will in fact *BE BETTER* if they die. Because you put a lot of thought into it.
In the kobold lair: the players are prisoners in a debtor's prison. The prison is built in an ancient city, atop the rubble of many prior civilizations. The prisoners dig, and break through into the lair, which has been sealed for millenia. Eggs start to hatch, and prisoners start to disappear. The PCs, in Cell Block Six, are chosen by the rest of the prisoners to investigate and stop the killing.
Planning for death: This is the first arc in an Antihero campaign. If the PCs are killed, I plan to have them wake up in the corpse-pits of the city, each with a blackened silver piece clutched in their left hand, and sickening voices in their heads. These pieces of silver (look at the Order of the Blackened Denarius) are central to the story line--the deaths, and the mystery surrounding them, are what I hope will drive the campaign.
And, on a different note, an idea:
Surprise. The surprise round is a wierd artifact. I wonder if we couldn't use the mechanic a bit more. With some emphasis, the surprise round could really become a way of ramping up the terror of "gotcha"-style creatures.
On the subject of disease. I'm playing right now in a campaign that has changed how I look at disease. The thing to remember about the PCs is that they are communicable. We are currently in the middle of the black death, and we don't dare to go to town to get a cure disease cast, because we'll kill the whole town.
Further, the omnipresent plague makes a great D&D setting. Think about it: roving bands of looters (read: adventurers), no effective centralized authority, occasional "points of light" safe harbors, lots of loose treasure, bandits, monsters run amok. All of the wierd aspects of D&D are explained by having the players struggling to survive in the midst of the Black Death.
Chad --
I've been trying to build lethality into the game. I think players get bored with no risk. Player death creates tension and builds credibility. (Credibility is also why I do open rolling -- if the monster rolls a crit, you are toast.)
The first thing I do when I start a campaign is I decide which adventure I'll run if there is a total party kill. I try to make the adventure as good as possible. (You have to make it scaleable, so that you can run it at any time). Then, I put the adventure in my back pocket.
Having the adventure ready to go means that you won't hesitate if a kill happens. You know that the game will go on--that the game will in fact *BE BETTER* if they die. Because you put a lot of thought into it.
In the kobold lair: the players are prisoners in a debtor's prison. The prison is built in an ancient city, atop the rubble of many prior civilizations. The prisoners dig, and break through into the lair, which has been sealed for millenia. Eggs start to hatch, and prisoners start to disappear. The PCs, in Cell Block Six, are chosen by the rest of the prisoners to investigate and stop the killing.
Planning for death: This is the first arc in an Antihero campaign. If the PCs are killed, I plan to have them wake up in the corpse-pits of the city, each with a blackened silver piece clutched in their left hand, and sickening voices in their heads. These pieces of silver (look at the Order of the Blackened Denarius) are central to the story line--the deaths, and the mystery surrounding them, are what I hope will drive the campaign.
And, on a different note, an idea:
Surprise. The surprise round is a wierd artifact. I wonder if we couldn't use the mechanic a bit more. With some emphasis, the surprise round could really become a way of ramping up the terror of "gotcha"-style creatures.
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Rolzup
First Post
Original post moved to the other thread....
It occurs to me that a conflation of Kobolds with naked mole rats could be really effective. No, no...bear with me! Take this:
...and make it a 3' tall humanoid. Imagine being surrounded by dozens of these things, in narrow twisting passages that they've gnawed from the living earth, muttering and chittering in the darkness....
It occurs to me that a conflation of Kobolds with naked mole rats could be really effective. No, no...bear with me! Take this:
...and make it a 3' tall humanoid. Imagine being surrounded by dozens of these things, in narrow twisting passages that they've gnawed from the living earth, muttering and chittering in the darkness....
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