Whats the CR/ECL of 400 Kobolds?

[Spatzimaus]

I can think of a few other strategies that would trivialize the 400-Kobold thing. Here's one using one of my 3E characters I've retired: an Aristocrat 1/Psion(Shaper) 6/Constructor 8. 15th level. Casts as a 13th-level Psion. Don't have the books in front of me so the numbers might be off a bit.

Well first, he's Flying and Invisible. Maybe he's polymorphed into something neat, maybe he just has Inertial Barrier on to deflect the occasional shot. As for AC, he's wearing a breastplate and has a bunch of magical stuff, so even if the kobolds DID target the right square and beat miss chance they'd still only hit on a 20.

Okay, now cast Astral Construct VI, selecting 4th-level constructs. You'll get 3-8 (1d4+1 + 1d3 = average 5.5) pets that each last 13 minutes (130 rounds) and have 3 abilities from the expanded B table. Make sure they have decent DR (either innate or with the Carapace power) and maybe the fast healing one; Cleave and Flight are useful too. Mix the abilities up a bit, to keep things fun; giving one of them Whirlwind Attack is a nice start.

Summoning spells don't break invis, so I'm still up there, flying around. In the meantime, I can just watch as my little buddies rampage through the keep, hunting down individual Kobolds. They don't have to be all clumped together; these constructs move pretty quickly, especially the ones with wings.
If each construct could kill one kobold per round, that's 715 kobolds dead on average. With their attack bonus and movement rate this isn't unreasonable, especially if they get a few Cleaves in. The kobolds can't do much to the pets, either. They'd have to run and hide until the 13 minutes are up, and if I place them right they can block doors nicely. What, a 1HD Kobold is going to Tumble well?

All of this, for only 9 power points for the pets, 3 for the invis, and use of a flying item. If I knew they were nonmagical Kobolds I might even drop to a lower pet spell to save PPs. In our campaign this sort of thing was a standard procedure; much more sanitary than throwing Fireballs everywhere. I used constructs for scouting, "disarming" traps the old-fashioned way, carrying my luggage, you name it.

Don't like this strategy? My point is, there are many magical strategies that allow the mass carnage needed here while only expending one or two spells, with no risk to the party members. Not even close to 25% party resources expended.
Gate in something with damage reduction and tell him to go nuts. Especially nasty if it's something that can Teleport Without Error (like most Celestials) to get past locked doors. Normal summon spells would allow the Kobolds to wait it out.
Spells like Creeping Doom that only do a little damage per round to everything in the area may be annoyances to players, but against a 1d4 HP Kobold?
Or, cast Control Air, set the wind to 100 miles per hour sideways, and watch them fly off. SPLAT. The damage from running into a wall will kill them most of the time, and it effects everyone in the extremely large area. Of course, us bigger creatures are only knocked over, not blown away.

 

[kigmatzomat]

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.

The kobolds would pretty much have to be packed wall to wall for your mage to kill them all solo. It would take 8 fireballs if they were grouped in large, spell-friendly groups. The odds of doing so in tunnels measuring 3'x3' with no LOS greater than 20' is pretty much nil. Bursts will be stopped by the turns and you'll be on the edge of most of your spells. That and your mage will still suffer from the cave-ins, dire weasels, flasks of oil and smokepots.

In all honesty, fly doesn't do much in a kobold's lair. Pits are really too much work for the effort, although I guess the occasional air-shaft might be covered with balsa/wicker when an intruder appears.

 

[AuraSeer]

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.

That only works for modern grenades because of their large blast radius. Some fragmentation grenades have a lethal radius over 20 meters (~60 feet). In D&D terms, that means you do damage as long as it lands within 12 squares of the target. Even one with weaker explosives, like a nonlethal 'rubber ball' grenade, is effective within about 5 meters (~15 feet, or 3 squares).

Kobolds chucking rocks, or even alchemical weapons, do not have that much leeway. They can't do any damage unless they hit the right square. If an individual kobold never even looks at the PCs, he has no idea where to throw his weapon, and more than likely he'll just hit an empty square. Even if he does pick the right one by pure luck, and manages to roll high on his touch attack, he still has a 50% miss chance because of total concealment.

 

[LokiDR]

800*20 = 16,000. Can most characters survive 800d6 fire damage over a few rounds? Is 16,000 gp too much for a CR 13? Even assuming touch AC of 20 (high for most 13th level characters), the kobalds will hit with 120. 120d6 should kill most any character who isn't immune.

If the all the kobalds can get shots on one character, even if they only hit on 20, that is 20d8 per round. You can't kill them all, and they have a good chance at disrupting casters. This is only stopped by powergaming clerics and mages who have 20 spells precast every day.

The Chinese have this tatic called the human wave attack. You just charge with hundreds of people. This works against machine guns. It also works in D&D.

I have no doubt 13th level characters could defeat the 400 kobalds in an out and out battle with minimal losses. But with that volume of fire, PCs who don't take it seriously are going to be in trouble. It should be on par with a single CR13 creature, who can normally be defeated much simpler: hold monster, CdG. Which do you think takes more effort to defeat?

 

[AuraSeer]

CHALLENGE RATING measures CONSUMPTION OF RESOURCES!!!!!!!

Are you sure about that?

Say I'm your DM. Your PC is peacefully hanging around in a tavern when I say, "green slime, one fifth of your prepared spells are suddenly gone. No, you don't get a save."

Would you consider that 'challenging'? I wouldn't. Sure it's an expenditure of resources, but (just as in the kobold situation) there's little danger of your getting killed. It probably won't even be a serious inconvenience, unless something else dangerous happens immediately afterward.

Incidentally, if you want people to take you at all seriously, you'll want to avoid 'shouting' with all-caps and exclamation points. It only makes you look silly.

 

[LokiDR]

Shadows

You know, I saw that Shadow trick used a few times. You know what happed? Two different cites were overun, hundreds of innocents died, and the party eventually had to face bigger threats without help. Not a wise idea if there is anything that the DM can do to mess up the plan. And any DM worth his salt should be able to poke large holes in this one.

 

[LokiDR]

Are you sure about that?

Say I'm your DM. Your PC is peacefully hanging around in a tavern when I say, "green slime, one fifth of your prepared spells are suddenly gone. No, you don't get a save."

Would you consider that 'challenging'? I wouldn't. Sure it's an expenditure of resources, but (just as in the kobold situation) there's little danger of your getting killed. It probably won't even be a serious inconvenience, unless something else dangerous happens immediately afterward.

Incidentally, if you want people to take you at all seriously, you'll want to avoid 'shouting' with all-caps and exclamation points. It only makes you look silly.

Not that I agree with his use of caps, but there is logic here. If a DM sends enemies that can be easily defeated at the cost of spells/hp and that you can easily run from, is it not a CR encounter?

If you just stand there, with no precasts, no item uses, and no spellcasting, the kobolds can easily kill you. So could most any monster. The difference is how hard you have to work to avoid death. If the answer to that question is "you throw a few spells, use your pile of buffs, and spend time mopping up" then I think it has qualified as chalange: you had to do more than stand there.

 

[LokiDR]

Why would you fight 400 kobolds?

1) The local town has an infestation they want you to deal with
2) Kobold hold a fort important for a larger conflict
3) An old city is going to be re-settled
4) Because some one is paying you to
5) The entire tribe has been hired to kill you
6) The tribe is defending their territory to the last
7) The lot of them have been displaced and want your home
8) You are trying to rescue a decent number of villagers
9) To prevent the kobolds from joining a more powerful foe
10) Because lower level adventurers died trying

Could 400 kobalds all working together at the same time smash an 8th level party? CR13 vs APL8 means the PCs should run. If you come to the conclusion that the 400 could make adventurers run, they must be some sort of challenge.

 

[dcollins]

If he brings them in using his Summon ability then no extra experience is granted. You may not like that, that is the way summon works.

A Balor's summoning ability is only usable once per day, summons a single glabrezu, and only lasts for an hour. Therefore having 20 glabrezu is outside the standard abilities of a balor.

Tuckers Kobolds was an old (badly written imo) AD&D module that pitted a high level party against a colony of kobolds in their warrens.

No, it was not a module. "Tucker's Kobolds" was an article in old Dragon Magazine describing the techniques used by a particular DM for his killer kobolds. Years later the 2nd Ed. adventure "Axe of the Dwarvish Lords" used some of the same ideas for a huge goblin lair. There may have been another Forgotten Realms module that also used similar ideas.

 

[dcollins]

800*20 = 16,000. Can most characters survive 800d6 fire damage over a few rounds? Is 16,000 gp too much for a CR 13?

Yes, it is. Kobolds have standard treasure (per the MM)... DMG p. 170 indicates that an EL 13 encounter should have 13,000 gp total on average. The proposal would be over that number, and leave nothing for any possible traps, leader magic items, and zero actual money in the treasure room. (In fact, only classed NPCs are given any allowance for turning their treasure into gear, per DMG p. 171, but we can stipulate that for this discussion.)

Furthermore, this is the kind of suggestion that on the one hand presumes the kobolds all get to attack at once, out of nowhere, at point blank range, with no chance of being spotted... and yet also dictates that the kobolds "not be clumped up" so as to not be vulnerable to area-of-effect spells. It's highly manipulative of the rules as written.