Tucker's Kobolds -- really that tough a challenge?

[Bullgrit]

Forked from: Kobolds as PCs...Why?!

Tucker's kobolds.

Although the story is entertaining, I really don’t think the “regular kobolds, with 1-4 hp” could have been that deadly to the PCs (6th-12th level). Yes, I can see how they would not be a cake walk, with the honeycombed level and many murder holes, but really, it seems that the Players in the game were more bad at adventuring (and planning) than the kobolds were good at ambushing.

Can someone explain to me why this set up was such a terrible thing for the PCs. Especially since the PCs ostensibly knew what was coming.

And/or, for fun:

Say you are a party of AD&D1 adventurers about to pass through Tucker’s Kobolds’ territory. How do you get through with a minimum of trouble?

Assume a “standard” AD&D1 party of six level 9 PCs:
one fighter
one paladin
one cleric
one thief
one magic-user
one fighter/magic-user (level 8/8)

Bullgrit
Total Bullgrit

 

[Corathon]

I agree that a prepared party of 9th level characters should prevail fairly handily against "Tucker's Kobolds".

Heavily armored PCs will be almost unhittable by kobolds, and if fighter-types get into melee they will slay many kobolds per round (they get one attack per level against the < 1 HD kobolds).

If kobolds won't come to melee, the spellcasters can have their fun. Place the fighter types around the MUs to protect them, and have both cast protection from normal missiles ahead of time to avoid spell interruption. Then cast cloudkill , which will seep into those small openings and murder holes. Another trick is to cast minor globe of invulnerability and then throw fireballs out of it. The flames will expand into a huge volume, reaching into the kobolds' tunnels and frying quite a lot of them. Passwall will allow the fighters to get past murder holes and slaughter the kobolds.

The cleric should have a find traps running to avoid any nasty surprises. The paladin's detect evil "radar" tells the party roughly where the kobolds are hiding, and the thief can be sent in (with an invisibilty spell and an infravision spell if he's human) ahead to scout out the situation and turn the tables on ambushers.

 

[rounser]

Tucker's kobolds is a tired idea that won't quit. It's even had a boxed set and dungeon magazine adventures devoted to it. It hasn't been novel or clever for quite some time, and IMO needs to be put to bed. Even Pun-Pun and 4E's tough kobolds reference it.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

I disagree with rounser. I concede the idea is not exactly new, and that it has been examined and picked apart many times. However, like anything else in D&D, as long as the players at the table get something worthwhile from it, its worth considering.

The basic idea behind Tuckers Kobolds is to try to kill the PC's without relying on any of the normal means which put them well beyond the Kobolds in tactical terms. The article made a point of several things.

- The Kobolds stayed well out of melee using murder holes and constrictive corridors.
- The Kobolds would break line of sight by using smoke screens and obstructions
- The Kobolds would get around high AC by using traps to inflict damage.

What you have to keep in mind is that this is not a the PC's vs Kobolds in normal combat. This is more akin to being placed in a very difficult skill challenge like situation where the PC's have to use realtime problem solving instead of skill rolls. How do you kill Kobolds that you cannot establish line of sight with? How do you avoid burning to death when the oil soaked corridors are set on fire? How do you avoid suffocation from the smoke? How do you keep your very weak pack mules alive, or do you just abandon them and much of your equipment?

More to the point, Tuckers Kobolds can be seen as a challenge to the DM. Is it possible to challenge a reasonably high level party without simply using bigger monsters at them? Its not about the monsters. Its about creating a dungeon that is very dangerous without putting Spheres of Annihilation in dark doorways or relying on save or die effects.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Achan hiArusa]

I agree that a prepared party of 9th level characters should prevail fairly handily against "Tucker's Kobolds".

Heavily armored PCs will be almost unhittable by kobolds, and if fighter-types get into melee they will slay many kobolds per round (they get one attack per level against the < 1 HD kobolds).

If kobolds won't come to melee, the spellcasters can have their fun. Place the fighter types around the MUs to protect them, and have both cast protection from normal missiles ahead of time to avoid spell interruption. Then cast cloudkill , which will seep into those small openings and murder holes. Another trick is to cast minor globe of invulnerability and then throw fireballs out of it. The flames will expand into a huge volume, reaching into the kobolds' tunnels and frying quite a lot of them. Passwall will allow the fighters to get past murder holes and slaughter the kobolds.

The cleric should have a find traps running to avoid any nasty surprises. The paladin's detect evil "radar" tells the party roughly where the kobolds are hiding, and the thief can be sent in (with an invisibilty spell and an infravision spell if he's human) ahead to scout out the situation and turn the tables on ambushers.

Ballistas are deadly in corridors and Protection from Normal Missiles will only slow them down. Cloudkill always sinks so it can't get into murder holes, passwall can only get to so many and iron bars embedded in the walls is an old trick to avoid that one. Fireball might be a bit of a problem but doesn't cover provide bonuses to reflex saves? Find Traps still requires a search check and eventually the cleric will fail a big one. If the kolbolds are everywhere then detect evil is useless. And flour on the floor or tripwires will catch that invisible thief.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

You're essentially asking why the US didn't win Vietnam, if you'll excuse the analogy that will get me rightly and justly yelled at. The whole point behind Tucker's Kobolds is that they used highly inventive and non-conventional means of fighting. Fireball wouldn't work because, back then, a fireball filled up as much space as it was supposed to - throw it in an enclosed area, it bursts out of the enclosed area and onto you.

Remember, the traps weren't the simple wall-falls-on-you variety. Does Detect Traps work to find grease under your feet for future lighting? Does it detect burning roadblocks the kobolds are going to manually throw down at you?

The other thing to remember about Tucker's Kobolds is that it wasn't limited to kobolds. Kobolds were used to demonstrate how even the weakest race in the game could bring terror to higher levels if used intelligently. You're falling prey to a thought process a lot of people do when discussing games - you're armchairing it. Very few parties plan out their exact tactics right before a battle, because very few parties know exactly what they're up against. They ready their cloudkill spells and run in, only to find the kobolds have put grates in the floor in key areas to make it sink down. They start throwing fireballs only to notice afterwards the trail of oil leading to their feet. That was the threat of Tucker's Kobolds - they were unconventional, so you couldn't plan around them.

 

[roguerouge]

Plus, all it takes to defeat fire ball is a second kobold with a readied action to slide a plate over the murder holes or arrow slits. Fireball hits obstruction, party set on fire.

I've done a Tucker's kobolds thing (Hero Snare, for those of you who know of it) and the key was the small corridors. Like you have to get down on your knees and push your shield in front of you small. The best block on line of sight is the fighter's big ass in front of you. They also flat out refused to let the party sleep, banging on pots and pans, then doing suicide missions that targeted the sleepers. The fact that kobolds have dark vision and most parties have to light torches meant that they knew where you were at all times.

My favorite trap though? You opened a trap door in the ceiling, convinced you had found access to their commando warrens, only to get a face full of green slime.

 

[Wik]

Yeah. Tucker's Kobolds are great, but they justified some pretty bad "I know my PCs, so I'll make an encounter using monsters acting 'intelligently' that will counteract all of their powers".

For example, if the PCs use Cloudkill a lot, the grates in the floor trick would be a counteract. It's sort of like saying "hey, I've seen you do this trick a million times before, so these NPCs will be designed specifically to stop you, even though that's not very realistic".

The other time it can be cheesy is when the PCs fight your kobolds, and you develop random stops to their powers. "What, cloudkill? No, they, uh... have grates in the floor so the cloudkill doesn't work?".

That being said, it can be a lot of fun to throw an encounter at the PCs like Tucker's Kobolds - especially in 1e, where you were not entirely sure which PCs would be thrown at you (many players had multiple PCs, back in the day...). You think of counters to typical problems, and see how fast your PCs can think on their feet.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

It doesn't take that. I am sure you could survey 1000 gaming groups and find that most people would Cloudkill a bunch of kobolds first thing. Some gamers are intelligent, innovative people. Some just find the best combos of feats and spells (or powers) and spam them.

 

[WayneLigon]

The premise here is that an intelligently-run monster group is vastly more dangerous than it's hit dice would suggest. Kobolds are a great example because people assume that they're worthless monsters, fit only to give some 1st level PCs some XP. They're jokes. Except when you take the time to make them not jokes.

You may be used to PCs wading into a group of monsters and laying waste to them because the PCs behave like they've been trained by the SAS and the monsters just sit there and take it. The idea here is that you have a group of monsters that don't just sit there and take it. It's not a matter of them magically knowing and exploiting the PC's weakspots and holes in their defenses, it's about playing a monster intelligently and competantly so it doesn't matter what those defenses are. People talk about how 1E forced PCs to be better players and all that rot, well stuff like that forces them to prove it once in a while.

Your 9th level wizard with cloudkill has to get that spell off first. All it takes is a couple kobolds with a wire noose that drops from the ceiling and your wizard is helpless and unable to cast spells while they jab a couple 1E save-or-die poisoned spears in him. Cloudkill? They see it kill a couple kobolds and then they pull back to higher tunnels, letting the heavier-than-air cloudkill pool into the lowest room they have. If this has been used on them before, then they also rig a trapdoor in that room so that when you pass under it two levels down it opens and the party chokes to death on it's own cloudkill.