Whats the CR/ECL of 400 Kobolds?

[green slime]

One Fly spell, plus Protection From Arrows, and a 10th level Wizard could wipe out all four hundred of the Kobolds by himself with little to no chance of being hurt, let alone killed.

Wanna try that trick in my game? The kobolds aren't all out in the open waiting for your flying butt to come zooming by.

Have read this entire thread? Do you understand the set-up? What a grand Spot your Wizard has. What a fantastic target he makes. What an amazing AC he has.

Fly and Protection from Arrows, and all the destructive spells AREN'T resources, are they now...

CHALLENGE RATING measures CONSUMPTION OF RESOURCES!!!!!!! 400 kobolds DO NOT bunch together waiting for you to fireball them!!!!!

Burning resources on these creatures sets the PCs up for the next encounter.

 

[Bauglir]

Think. Grenade. Throw (parabol trajectory). Can lob over walls. WHY would I need a LOS? Can't target, but that is why I use grenades, to chuck at things i can't see, around corners and the like. Perhaps this is why they are called grenade-like?

Some times you don't need rules to express common sense.

Welcome to the rules forum!
I think you were looking for here.

Seriously though 'common sense' is extremely subjective, and can be entirely arbitrary in many cases. For example to me it's common sense that you can't target a small grenade using hearing alone. YMMV, and that's why it's important to stay within the rules.

1) 400 kobolds, a tribe, has several levelled members. These members have trained in various skills. PERHAPS one of them has advanced their trapmaking skill.

Several whated members? I think you know what I'm going to say

2) Aid another...? There are rules for this as well. Like the team piling on in a grapple, gaining +2 for each assiting grappler, you can add +2 for each assisting skilled person aiding the project. Some require a DC 10 check to see if they succeeed in assisting... YMMV.

Aid another as I know it is a combat action. I don't believe it can be applied to skills.

Besides how would that work? 1 kobbie building a trap with 399 others standing around cheering him on?

 

[green slime]

One Fly spell, plus Protection From Arrows, and a 10th level Wizard could wipe out all four hundred of the Kobolds by himself with little to no chance of being hurt, let alone killed.

This is just the kind of overconfidant player that will get themselves killed. Because you burnt up too many resources facing a piddling enemy, that was spread out over a wide area. You are forced to use disproprotionate violence. A fireball gets 5-6. per shot, if you are lucky. You got a wand of fireballs? Assuming the kobolds are so stupid they stay where you can fireball them. After consuming all 50 charges in your wand, there are still 100-150 kobolds left. And you have just wasted 11,750 gp of resources, to the DM's delight, not to mention some of your protective spells for the day.

What is the expected wealth of a tenth level character again? Or a 13th?

No ONE is denying that the PCs can overcome this challenge. They are SUPPOSED to!!! The question is, how much resources does it consume?

The mage's job is to sit tight until it is absolutely necessary to provide special effects. You burn your special effects to soon, and you are wasted for the rest of the day.

Numion is correct, that the BEST way to handle this encounter is through subterfuge, or negotiation NOT brute force. This is the THINKING players challenge. Numion would do well, (probably be ticked off at some of my rulings, but I think he's smart enough to avoid charging blindly into the fray, and therefore miss some of my more extreme "failings").

 

[green slime]

Re the grenades, I don't believe it has be targetted to be thrown. You can use "indirect fire rules" for when shooting at an unseen (invisible) opponent.

That is to say:

I Try to throw my grenade into this square! *points at map*

rolls, rolls for miss chance against invisible, rolls scatter if appropriate, as per rules for greande-like weapons.

So the rules DO cover these circumstances, but I didn't think I'd have to point out that you can try to hit something with an attack that you can't see.

Invisibility being a fairly common ability after 5th level.

Regards "Aid another"
I believe I have seen it mentioned when it comes to helping another to hide, strength checks to break doors and the like, so I don't see it as too much of a stretch. There would be a reasonable limit imposed of course. It definitely isn't unreasonable to have an assistant that actually does provide assistance in an endeveour.

Without my books here at work, it is rather difficult to remember exactly where all these strange rules are parcelled at.

 

[green slime]

The levelled members can just as easily be regarded as summoned creatures that only appear if there is a significant number of Kobolds, in which case, it is the Kobolds providing the challenge...

 

[Darklone]

I did not mean to say that this bridge in Forge of Fury would pose a challenge to 13th level PCs, I just wanted to give an example how a room by itself poses a severe challenge... *duh!*

You may say this is not included in the CR13 of the kobolds, but I was referring to their LAIR. They lived here for some time, I don't think expert trapmakers and sneakers kept it like it was. As for kobolds cutting rope bridges: Nonsense here, yet alone where to take a chasm from? But one kobold pulling a rope that lets a cave ceiling come down might be enough to annoy many PCs, and, believe it or not, it's a real easy trap to built. The problem consists in securing the rest of the maze.

 

[Numion]

CHALLENGE RATING measures CONSUMPTION OF RESOURCES!!!!!!! 400 kobolds DO NOT bunch together waiting for you to fireball them!!!!!

But could you give an example reason why PCs would like to subject themselves to this abuse when they have a million ways to deal with the kobolds with little / no resources? What is the reason your PCs would want to confront all the kobolds on the kobolds terms, because sure as hell they don't have to, while still reaching their adventure objective!

Burning resources on these creatures sets the PCs up for the next encounter.

While I disagree with your assesment of the kobolds abilities, I like the way you think .. grinding down the resources is a way to go, but you can't do it with kobolds.

Choose right tools for the right level

 

[Numion]

I did not mean to say that this bridge in Forge of Fury would pose a challenge to 13th level PCs, I just wanted to give an example how a room by itself poses a severe challenge... *duh!*

I got that part, and thats why added that the environment would have to be pretty damn dangerous to be a challenge to 13th level group. So far dangerous that I doubt the kobolds themselves would want to or even could live there.

And I'm talking here liquid hot magma / pools of acid / poisonous vapors / vacuum type of dangerous.

 

[Bauglir]

Re the grenades, I don't believe it has be targetted to be thrown. You can use "indirect fire rules" for when shooting at an unseen (invisible) opponent.

That is to say:

I Try to throw my grenade into this square! *points at map*

rolls, rolls for miss chance against invisible, rolls scatter if appropriate, as per rules for greande-like weapons.

So the rules DO cover these circumstances, but I didn't think I'd have to point out that you can try to hit something with an attack that you can't see.

You might not be able to see an invisible opponent, but you do have a line of sight to them, in the strictest sense. Under D&D rules the invisible target has 100% concealment but no cover. The party in the example of the lobbed grenades also enjoy 100% cover. If I'm an archer and my opponent gets behind cover I can't bypass it by firing an arced shot (even though this was how real life archers functioned in battles I believe). Missile weapons in D&D are assumed to travel a straight path, and grenadelikes are no exception..

Regards "Aid another"
I believe I have seen it mentioned when it comes to helping another to hide, strength checks to break doors and the like, so I don't see it as too much of a stretch. There would be a reasonable limit imposed of course. It definitely isn't unreasonable to have an assistant that actually does provide assistance in an endeveour.

Without my books here at work, it is rather difficult to remember exactly where all these strange rules are parcelled at.

I'd certainly consider using aid another for mechanisms like strength checks but I can't for the life of me think of any skills that I could conceive using it. (Which is not to say there aren't any)

The levelled members can just as easily be regarded as summoned creatures that only appear if there is a significant number of Kobolds, in which case, it is the Kobolds providing the challenge...

Trippy
Except that I don't see Sp Abil: Summon Sorc8 under the kobold's abilities. I just see that large groups of kobolds tend to include levelled individuals. It's the levels that provide the challenge. You could make those sorcerers levelled kittens (with appropriately modified somatics of course ) and they would still be the ones that pose a threat. (Plus I hear they have an attack that does 12d6 cuteness damage)

 

[green slime]

I am certain that I have seen an example where you can lob missiles of all sorts.

Arrows can be lobbed, just you loose a lot of accuracy. Perhaps this was a sword and fist thing?

And to presume grenade-like missiles CAN'T be thrown round a corner, or over a wall, well, that stretches the imagination a bit too far.

What do you rule when a PC tries to throw something round a corner? they can't? How anal is that? How about kick a ball under a bed? No LoS there either. Can you sweep under a bed when you don't have line of sight? You might not get all the dust, but by your reasoning, you can't even try.

I thought that if the rules where supposed to be PERMISSIVE instead of RESTRICTIVE. That is, if it doesn't say you CAN'T and it doesn't seem unreasonable, then you CAN. Subject to DM whim.