D&D 4E Tucker's Kobolds in 4E? (FR) (Spellgard)

[Graf]

Apologies if this has been discussed elsewhere, very pressed for time.

Running a game (Scepter Tower of Spellgard) for a very diverse group of players (1 experienced player, two novices and a very strong willed "1st edition was the best edition, nothing that encounters me will survive" grognard/ur-geek with no 4E experience). They are playing 2nd level bog-standard characters in FR.

Last session (2nd session) ended with the PCs victorious over a pack of kobolds. Specifically it ended with a dragon shield dragging a badly burned and unconscious wyrmpriest away from the site with 3 quickblades and another dragonshield also in retreat.
"We are NOT letting them get away" announced the grognard.

And so tomorrows session will begin with PCs chasing a bunch of kobolds down through the confined alleys that make up the ruins of Spellgard (where this kobold tribe has dwelled for... years? decades? centuries?)

I feel obliged to give them a taste of Tucker's Kobolds. I have about 24 hours (real time) to get ready and actually about 45 minutes to prep (work/life demands).

I have no maps and only a few scattered ideas about traps and kobold minions (i.e. Tucker's Kobolds type "weak kobolds that are really dangerous because of their cunning traps"). I am not up on the latest 4e design changes (i.e. I know monsters are different now but beyond trying to use the Monster Vault monsters in place of the monsters in the original adventure I haven't got the chops to convert things). So if there are changes to traps then I don't know about that

So I am turning to the community to help. Any ideas/brainstorming/pointers to appropriate traps/etc would be greatly appreciated!

I am not sure about whether to have one map or a series of vignette-type rooms; a map\dungeon is more to my liking but that is just a gut instinct.
The traps should be reasonable both in design (simple, justifiable traps that are not excessively mechanically complex or magical) and in terms of 4e system (max level should be 6; which is challenging for a party of 4 2nd level PCs with a Rogue).

While a skill challenge "catch up with the kobolds, lose surges for failures, enough successes means you catch up and get a chance to fight" would be appropriate normally; I do not want to do that (they've had a few already in the game and it's not in the proper spirit). So anything people suggest about macro-skill-challenges may go into my back pocket for later but won't get pulled out for the adventure tomorrow.

 

[On Puget Sound]

Well, sophisticated stuff like an animated self-reloading crossbow is probably not going to work, so the traps will either be manned or will be simple one-shots. I think traps work better when there are kobolds to take advantage of the situation. So, dropped nets, perhaps with fishhooks in them, followed by charging kobolds with polearms to poke at the characters while staying out of their reach as they struggle with the nets. As soon as the victims cut their way out of the net, the kobolds vanish down pipes and tunnels that allow a Small character to move at normal speed, but medium characters must crawl. And the tunnels have hornet nests in them, that you're likely to disturb unless you know where they are (or hear the buzzing in time with a good Nature/ Perception check). That sort of attended trap.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

At the end of the day, Tucker's Kobolds was little more then DM Fiat with a good story behind it.

 

[Graf]

The net trap idea is pretty good! Thanks. I don't think it works for the first trap (the idea is that the kobolds are running away in a disorganized fashion so it would be weird to have a bunch of well armed kobolds standing around the corner) but it would be great as the party gets deeper in.

Some of the encounters have to be monsterless, the point of the encounter is that the monsters are fleeing and the traps were set (potentially a long time ago) to allow them to escape.

The other ideas I have right now are
Collapsing Wall (attacks an area, hit immobilizes save ends, miss slows, send attack (wider area) blind to end of next turn from dust cloud)
Hole in passage to stab a squeezing PC by as they move by
Board over Kruthak pit (medium creature suffer attack to reflex defense)
One of the old doors from spellgard has been repurposed and does something (kind of breaks the magic rule but I love the idea of this big door to nowhere that they close with a glowing symbol on it that shoots a ray or something)

I know monster damage has been revised. Was trap damage?