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



## Bullgrit (Jan 8, 2009)

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



			
				Whimsical said:
			
		

> 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


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## Corathon (Jan 8, 2009)

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.


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## rounser (Jan 8, 2009)

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.


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## Lord Zardoz (Jan 8, 2009)

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


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## Achan hiArusa (Jan 8, 2009)

Corathon said:


> 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).
> 
> ...




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.


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## ProfessorCirno (Jan 8, 2009)

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.


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## roguerouge (Jan 9, 2009)

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.


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## Wik (Jan 9, 2009)

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.


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## Achan hiArusa (Jan 9, 2009)

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.


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## WayneLigon (Jan 9, 2009)

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.


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## Christian (Jan 9, 2009)

WayneLigon said:


> 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.




Right. It's not about kobolds particularly, or about the detailed set of tactics they were using in the article. If you know what tactics your opponent is going to use, you can devise counter-tactics to thwart them. The fun part is, when you know the enemy you are about to face is going to use clever and original tactics of some sort, but _you don't know exactly what_. That forces you to think on your feet and find clever counter-tactics in the heat of battle.

And yes, that is the fun part. As long as it's your character and not you having to do it.

What's boring is when the PCs and the monsters both use the same 'stand toe-to-toe and make full attacks every round' tactics. Pretty soon, you get some combined RPG/computer nerd with a spreadsheet working out the expected DPS and saying, "OK, I've figured out that we'll defeat this enemy after 4.6 rounds of fighting, taking 21.4 points of damage each. So lets skip all this rolling, mark off three cure serious wounds spells and two cure moderates, get our XP, and move on to the next encounter." (And before anyone takes offense, that geek is reasonably likely to be me.  )


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## LostSoul (Jan 9, 2009)

WayneLigon said:


> 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.




It's been a long time since I played 1E, but wasn't a spell lost if you took damage that round?  I played with that rule but I'm not sure if it was a house rule or not.



WayneLigon said:


> 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.




What about Cloudkill + Gust of Wind?  (Assuming you had those spells, of course - though it might be worth it to seek out a sage and ask him where you could find one.)


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## Celebrim (Jan 9, 2009)

While it is certainly possible to use a low HD humanoid and challenge players, the specific problem I've always had with 'Tucker's Kobold's' type situations is that almost invariably they end up resolving to 'the DM judges the kobolds by different standards than he would judge the players'.  Invariably, in 1st edition and 2nd edition desciptions of 'Tucker's Kobold's' type challenges, there are always special rules created to give the kobolds some advantage.

And even when there aren't, the kobolds still have less tangible but certainly important advantages that are the result of being run by the DM.  For example, 'Tucker's Kobolds' never have command and control problems.  They always know where the PC's are and are always able to perfectly coordinate their actions.  They never waste time or delay anything else because they are never short of information.  Not only do they act as if they were part of a telepathic hive mind, but they effectively have omniscence.

Likewise, any 'off stage' kobold more or less has the ability to teleport once it gets more than a round or two from the players.  They never fail to be able to perfectly predict the player's actions and move without fail to cut off the players.  They are always able to swarm to the player's positions whenever any kobolds remain alive.  They are always on hand whenever they need to be.

Additionally, they have perfect knowledge of the player's capabilities.  They know exactly what to prepare for.  Whenever they are on hand, they always have exactly the right tools prepared to counter the PC's plans.

Additionally, they have infinite resources to make those preperations.  They can purchase or make any counter they desire, and if these defenses are trashed they have an infinite amount of labor and raw materials to repair the damage.

The sort of DM's that got off on 'Tucker's Kobolds' scenarios seem particularly prone to this sort of thing, often without even being consciously aware that they are doing it.  It's even shown up in published scenarios.  For example, the goblins in 'Axe of the Dwarvish Lords' basically had all the above problems in spades, and the 'special rules' they used for mass archer fire, opening doors, and so forth were simply DM cheating because the same things would never be allowed for low level PC's.

Still, it's not hard to come up with scenarios where the HD of the monster has little or no impact on the threat posed by the attack.

1) Ranged touch attacks:  Ranged attacks are good in general, because they neutralize a certain portion of the PC's attacks.   At sufficient range, the throw a PC needs to hit approaches 20, which turns missile exchanges in to a shear battle of numbers.   Ranged touch attacks are even better, because they neutralize a good portion of the PC's #1 advantage - superior armor class.  If you add to that grenade like weapons, so that there is a good chance you'll 'hit' even if you miss, you get into a situation where it doesn't matter what the THAC0 of the attacker is all that much.  Burning oil is the perfect weapon for low HD monsters.  

Never mind that a typical 'Tucker's Kobold' tribe will in a single session burn oil worth several times the total value of goods that a kobold tribe is supposed to own, and never mind that whatever the source is of all this wealth it probably won't be made available to the PC's no matter what.

2) Poison:  Poison is another big neutralizer, because it neutralizes another one of the PC's biggest advantages - superior hit points.  Each hit becomes threatening, regardless of the PC's remaining hit points and potentially vast healing resources.  

3) Ballistic Weapons:  If I'm blindly lobbing ordinance over an opaque wall, it basically doesn't matter that I don't have particularly good aim.   The chances that I hit are entirely based on luck at that point, and in all likelihood any return fire you make will be similarly handicapped.  Moreover, since most spells rely on line of sight, I've just neutralized another one of the PC's biggest advantages.  

4) Highly Favorable Terrain:  I have 90% cover, am located 20' up a wall on the other side of a concealed pit, and you are fighting on an uneven stone floor covered with hot pig fat and liberally sprinkled with caltrops.   Additionally, I've strung lengths of sharpened piano wire about the room at various heights.

5) Abusing 'tame' monsters:  So, I just threw a nest of hornets into the middle of the room.  Swarms are great.  And, I'm not just lobbing rocks over the wall, I'm lobbing clay pots containing green slime/yellow mold/rot grubs.  And, the concealed pit contains a black pudding.  And the tribe has well trained giant weasels/hell hounds they can unleash for their kennels.

6) Traps: Naturally, a whole tribe of kobolds manages to safely live in quarters that are more lethally trapped than Acerak's tomb without ever having accidents.


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## Edena_of_Neith (Jan 9, 2009)

I remember Tucker's Kobolds.
  Remember that these critters had access to an arsenal of items to help them, had a whole webwork of tunnels to crawl through, and they were extremely competent guerilla fighters.  They also were endlessly patient, completely ruthless, set a new precedent in ruthlessness, and there were a lot of them.

  I would wager them against even a large, competent party of 7th and 8th level characters.

  In 3rd edition, they could have challenged a large 9th or 10th level party, even if the kobolds were only 1st level, due to the large number of classes (and all the spell-using classes) available to them.
  If the kobolds were higher level, they could have challenged parties with levels in their teens.

  *Tucker's Kobold's* would have been 10th level or even higher, in 3E.
  In this case, they could have taken on a large party where party levels were 20th or higher.

  Remember the overwhelming power of Instant Kill Poison, a common favorite of monsters in 1E and 2E.  (A round lasted one minute, long enough for the poison to take effect and incapacitate totally.)
  Poison was a Save or Die affair, and your chances weren't real good of making the Save unless you were high level (not even if you were a dwarf.)
  Tucker's Kobolds had no qualm about using poison ... or monsters they found (like Carrion Crawls or Green Slime) or other nasty things (like improvised traps, pit traps, collapsing ceilings, oil slicks, and even crude explosives or explosive gasses.)

  Tucker's Kobolds never made morale checks, never lost their will to fight, would never stop (the Terminator would have liked them.)
  The party they attacked, was psychologically overwhelmed by the attack, the endless attack that kept on coming, first taking their animals, then their hirelings, then their henchmen, then finally them, one by one.

  Tucker's Kobolds, aren't something any character I ever ran would want to run into.  The only exceptions being a human paladin of mine named Osilovar, who would have blown his great horn and fought the glorious fight, and my Haldendreeva elven girl Trillirra, who would have fought them tooth and nail, killing (and eating) them one by one.

  I'd rather have an enemy army of kender (armed with high powered magic) to deal with, than Tucker's Kobolds.
  I think Raistlin would agree with me (and even Mordenkainen and Elminster, too.)

  Tucker's Kobolds could have completely messed up the drow city of Menzoberranzan, and I don't say THAT lightly!


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## rounser (Jan 9, 2009)

> However, like anything else in D&D, as long as the players at the table get something worthwhile from it, its worth considering.



It's like a very tired in-joke (_gsnort, you guys got owned by *kobolds*, gsnort!_) combined with an undeserved egoboo that the DM or designer can pat themselves on the back for for being so _clever_...oblivious to the idea that they can use _anything_ to cheat the players, and almost always win, so long as they invent special case rules and use unlimited resources, DM knowledge, hiveminds etc. as has been mentioned in this thread.

In short, the idea should be a dead duck, and it would be long forgotten but for the above two DM bennies (in-joke and egoboo).  As a result it's an undead duck, which IMO is desperately in need of a good long drink from the holy water firehose.

If you must do it, at least use jermlaine, who actually have an affinity for traps.


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## Mishihari Lord (Jan 9, 2009)

I've done it, yes it certainly worked well, and both I and my players had a great time.


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## Belphanior (Jan 9, 2009)

Dragon Mountain had a lot of this as well, with kobolds throwing essentially endless amounts of save-or-die poisoned darts at you. Even back then I felt something weird was going on. We weren't actually fighting a nest of kobolds. We were facing a constant barrage of pain that happened to have some kobold-y flavortext. They might've been humans or halflings or orcs and it wouldn't have mattered.

Tucker's Kobolds is an idea that should be dead and left in the past. It sets out to prove that even weak opponents are dangerous if played intelligently. But instead it proves that monsters are irrelevant if you're willing to cheat enough damage onto the PCs.


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## S'mon (Jan 9, 2009)

I avoid silly stuff like kobolds having anti-Cloudkill tactics, or readied actions that beat an exploding fireball (WTF?!).

I _do_ use constricted tunnels and the kind of thing you'll see in any medieval castle.  One of my favourites was a 3'x3' tunnel with a 4' drop at the end into a chamber.  The monsters (quaggoths) easily slaughtered the poor PCs who kept trying to crawl through into the room.  I also gave a 22nd level 2e Wizard a very tough time in an orc lair, the orcs numbered several hundred (a full "30-300" 1e/2e style orc encounter) and had some Winter Wolves, plus they made good use of deadfall traps, chain-drapes and the like.  Nothing specifically aimed at 20th level Wizards mind you, but intelligent tactics vs generic flying and invisible foes.


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## S'mon (Jan 9, 2009)

The worst Tucker-inspired cheese I ever saw was a Dungeon magazine module where the kobold tribe was armed with dozens and dozens of globes from  _Necklaces of Fireballs_.  I wanted to strangle the author.


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## roguerouge (Jan 9, 2009)

Caveat: Any bad DM can ruin any type of encounter, and thus a bad DM does not invalidate the encounter so described. So YMMV, 'kay? 

Suffice it to say, that when I ran Hero's Snare there was a reason the kobolds were so tenacious, the PCs eventually got access to the surveillance and movement tunnels (by squeezing) and thus figured out how they knew so much, they got breathers that simulated regrouping on the kobold end, they had a defined number of kobolds and resources, they had a source for those resources (mining and trade), they had a reason for having an alchemist and there was a separate "living quarters" warren that was trap-free.


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## roguerouge (Jan 9, 2009)

S'mon said:


> I avoid silly stuff like ... readied actions that beat an exploding fireball (WTF?!).




I'm curious as to why you find tactics to defeat fireball, the second most generic of all arcane spells, to be silly? Especially when it's as low tech as sliding defensive plate and an extra kobold. And it prevents using spears or sword back through the arrow slit. It's essentially a murder hole on a side wall, instead of on the ceiling. What's so wrong about that?

I mean, all the wizard or fighter has to do is think to ready an action for when the arrow slit opens again, then win the opposed check to act first. It's all using the initiative rules.

Edit: For the record, I agree with you on anti-cloud kill tactics, which are simply too rare for the kobolds to prepare for ahead of time.


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## Piratecat (Jan 9, 2009)

S'mon said:


> The worst Tucker-inspired cheese I ever saw was a Dungeon magazine module where the kobold tribe was armed with dozens and dozens of globes from  _Necklaces of Fireballs_.  I wanted to strangle the author.



That was the otherwise-glorious adventure about the resurrected red dragon, that took place in a giant floating diamond. It got bonus points for a cool setting, but lost points for the kamikaze kobolds.

I think the true value of the "Tucker Kobold" is that it teaches DMs that you don't necessarily need to use bigger and badder monsters to challenge a group of high level PCs. If the players aren't ready for them, any less powerful monster using great tactics and good prep can be a threat. I think that's a wonderful lesson, even if it hasn't always been applied correctly.


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## S'mon (Jan 9, 2009)

roguerouge said:


> I'm curious as to why you find tactics to defeat fireball, the second most generic of all arcane spells, to be silly? Especially when it's as low tech as sliding defensive plate and an extra kobold.




It's your specific tactic of readying an action so that when the fireball explodes the kobolds _then_ shut the plate and trap the fireball with the PCs, that is silly and an abuse of the readied-action rules.  Generic tactics like using murder holes (AC 20 touch attack to shoot fireball through) or in 1e/2e just getting in close, would be fine.

An acceptable middle-ground would be: readied Kobold sorcerer makes spellcraft check, identifies spell being cast as fireball, has plate shut - _before_ it goes off.  Usually though anyone with Spellcraft to ID a spell has better things to do than ready an action like that.  Exception would be if PC Sorcerer was 'spamming' fireballs, then I could see it.


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## S'mon (Jan 9, 2009)

Piratecat said:


> That was the otherwise-glorious adventure about the resurrected red dragon, that took place in a giant floating diamond. It got bonus points for a cool setting, but lost points for the kamikaze kobolds.




Yup, it was a very fine adventure, apart from the kobolds.


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## timbannock (Jan 9, 2009)

S'mon said:


> It's your specific tactic of readying an action so that when the fireball explodes the kobolds _then_ shut the plate and trap the fireball with the PCs, that is silly and an abuse of the readied-action rules.  Generic tactics like using murder holes (AC 20 touch attack to shoot fireball through) or in 1e/2e just getting in close, would be fine.
> 
> An acceptable middle-ground would be: readied Kobold sorcerer makes spellcraft check, identifies spell being cast as fireball, has plate shut - _before_ it goes off.  Usually though anyone with Spellcraft to ID a spell has better things to do than ready an action like that.  Exception would be if PC Sorcerer was 'spamming' fireballs, then I could see it.




As long as it's not the first action the kobolds take in the entire dungeon, I don't see the issue here:  If the PCs use any kind of ranged attack, why wouldn't one of the (presumably many) kobolds ready an action to close the grate REGARDLESS of what they expect to have flung at them.

In other words, if the kobolds suspect that the PCs have ANY means of returning fire through the murder hole/window/whatever, why wouldn't one of them want to control the opening so that they could block whatever that attack might be?

Though I definitely agree there's a huge potential for abuse in this situation, I think the initial idea is that these kobolds had probably either experienced adventurers before or had heard stories and knew that adventurers might come to wherever they are.  Fighting on your home turf if you're prepared at all should provide some huge benefits, thus the term "home field advantage."

I think it's interesting that people think the abuse might come from DMs giving the kobolds too many resources (and potentially endlessly renewable ones at that).  I totally agree that such a situation is likely.  But if you look back at older modules (Temple of Elemental Evil for one) and at Gygax's Castle Zagyg, there's actually tons of info on how the enemies replenish resources once assaulted.  I think that's something that's missing from most of the new adventures, and it's glossed over a lot by DMs (notably because sometimes it seems a little crazy and unrealistic, such as ToEE's case).

Worth noting, however.


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## S'mon (Jan 9, 2009)

neuronphaser said:


> In other words, if the kobolds suspect that the PCs have ANY means of returning fire through the murder hole/window/whatever, why wouldn't one of them want to control the opening so that they could block whatever that attack might be?




Fine to have eg one kobold fire through the hole then another kobold shut the plate, all on the kobolds' turn.  My complaint was directed at the idea that the PC Wizard casts fireball, the readied kobold _sees it coming_ and shuts the plate, the fireball impacts on the plate.


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## Celebrim (Jan 9, 2009)

Piratecat said:


> I think the true value of the "Tucker Kobold" is that it teaches DMs that you don't necessarily need to use bigger and badder monsters to challenge a group of high level PCs. If the players aren't ready for them, any less powerful monster using great tactics and good prep can be a threat. I think that's a wonderful lesson, even if it hasn't always been applied correctly.




I think that is very true.

'Tucker's Kobolds' in their own way teach a similar lesson to 'Tomb of Horrors' and it is a very important lesson.  I think every DM needs to encounter at least the idea of 'Tomb of Horrors' and 'Tucker's Kobolds'.  Every DM needs to mature past the largely empty 30'x40' room and 'roll initiative'.  Seeing how to challenge the players with things that would in the context of a straight up fight is an important part of that maturation.  

For me this experience was with longbow equipped Gnolls in a forest.  The DM took a wandering encounter with Gnolls, which we would have easily defeated in a straight up fight, and instead of grouping them together, liberally sprinkled them about a forest setting and had them snipe at the party.  Although we eventually triumphed, I still remember the initial confusion bordering on panic when we players were thrown this unexpected twist.  What were we supposed to do?   Here we were, 7th level characters, huddled on the ground behind the boles of trees completely terrified by mere 2HD monsters.  We actually had to interact with the environment, instead of just picking up dice and throwing them, and the enemy was actually resisting effectively instead of just trading blows with us.  It was novel, and it was exciting.

But 'Tucker's Kobolds' goes way beyond that toward some really antagonist DMing if you aren't careful about it.  If you aren't careful, 'Tucker's Kobolds' or something similar will end up being a DM PC in a small distributed disguise.   The problem I get with reading about 'Tucker's Kobolds' is at somepoint I get the feeling that DM is so vested in his creation, that he simply won't let them lose.


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## roguerouge (Jan 9, 2009)

S'mon said:


> It's your specific tactic of readying an action so that when the fireball explodes the kobolds _then_ shut the plate and trap the fireball with the PCs, that is silly and an abuse of the readied-action rules.  Generic tactics like using murder holes (AC 20 touch attack to shoot fireball through) or in 1e/2e just getting in close, would be fine.
> 
> An acceptable middle-ground would be: readied Kobold sorcerer makes spellcraft check, identifies spell being cast as fireball, has plate shut - _before_ it goes off.  Usually though anyone with Spellcraft to ID a spell has better things to do than ready an action like that.  Exception would be if PC Sorcerer was 'spamming' fireballs, then I could see it.




Ah. I see that I've miscommunicated. No, what I meant was:

Archer fires. 
Kobold B uses readied action to close door.
Wizard shoots fireball at place where arrows were coming from. Ka-boom!

Basically, given how fast all of this is going, I'd probably call for a spot check to see whether the wizard saw where the attack came from and whether it was still viable for targeting. 

Perhaps a second kobold to open the door for the archer first would be best for optimum repeat action in round two. Which would be:

Kobold A re-opens door
Kobold B fires
Kobold C closes door

If the wizard did something last round, they can't ready an action. If they did nothing except ready an action for this round, then it's going to depend on what they stated their readied action was. If it's "I blast the archer the next time he shoots," then it's going to be a race between simultaneous actions of fireball and door closing.


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## Drowbane (Jan 9, 2009)

Baldur's Gate (2e) had a good version of "Tucker's Kobolds".  Those lil bastards would TPK ya if you weren't careful.


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## Piratecat (Jan 9, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> For me this experience was with longbow equipped Gnolls in a forest.



 For me, it was siccing the PCs against a number of orcish archers mounted on ponies. They did the Mongol thing; with greater mobility, they simply rode away each round and all fired their arrows. The PCs couldn't catch up with them easily, and the concentrated arrow fire was brutal. The group won, but learned not to charge into a wall of archers.



> The problem I get with reading about 'Tucker's Kobolds' is at somepoint I get the feeling that DM is so vested in his creation, that he simply won't let them lose.



That? That's a problem. I agree.


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## Achan hiArusa (Jan 9, 2009)

No, the real silly thing is having a world with magic and not having sentient beings who know how to counter those tactics.  Its ridiculous to assume that somebody is going to build a castle without knowing about magic that can counter it.  Anyone in a D&D fantasy world who builds defenses will have ranks in Knowledge (Arcana) and will build to his capabilities.

As for the Kobolds.  A 1st/2nd edition kobold village will have 693 adults (400 fighting males, 10 leaders, 40 bodyguards, 1 chieftain, 8 guards, 1 Shaman, probably 2 shaman apprentices, 231 females, plus 46 young).  With a CR 1/4 encounter multiplied by about 8 factors of 2 the village will have about 2,600 gp in goods.  That will buy 26,000 vials of oil.  Say they trade with Drow (or trade with people who trade with Drow) then the could buy drow poison (75 gp), that would buy 34 vials of sleep poison.  In my estimation, screw the PCs, if the monsters have resources they should use them, and the PCs should be lucky if they get anything out of the encounter.

Its not always just kobolds.  When fiends were reintroduced into 2e one of the quotes was to the tune of:  a Pit Fiend is not bigger ogre with scads of hit points and magical abilities, fiends are subtle manipulators, with high intelligences, and millenia to plot.  But most people use them as bigger, dumb Ogres with magical abilities.


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## Gentlegamer (Jan 9, 2009)

Belphanior said:


> Dragon Mountain had a lot of this as well, with kobolds throwing essentially endless amounts of save-or-die poisoned darts at you.



Oh god! I remember them! Our party survived because we had a gnome illusionist/psionicist to create illusions and whatnot to trick the kobolds into attacking phantasmal parties and so on. He was the MVP of that adventure by far. That player received mucho extra shares of treasure when all was said and done.


> Tucker's Kobolds is an idea that should be dead and left in the past. It sets out to prove that even weak opponents are dangerous if played intelligently. But instead it proves that monsters are irrelevant if you're willing to cheat enough damage onto the PCs.



Strongly disagree. There's no such thing a DM cheating (at least not as described here).

To paraphrase a current film:

"When the Dungeon Master does it, it's not illegal."


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## Gentlegamer (Jan 9, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> But 'Tucker's Kobolds' goes way beyond that toward some really antagonist DMing if you aren't careful about it.  If you aren't careful, 'Tucker's Kobolds' or something similar will end up being a DM PC in a small distributed disguise.   The problem I get with reading about 'Tucker's Kobolds' is at somepoint I get the feeling that DM is so vested in his creation, that he simply won't let them lose.



I agree with this. The DM should be an impartial participant. In fact, the good DM is secretly rooting for the players to win. 

But it ain't gonna be easy, cupcake.


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## Celebrim (Jan 9, 2009)

Gentlegamer said:


> There's no such thing a DM cheating (at least not as described here).
> 
> To paraphrase a current film:
> 
> "When the Dungeon Master does it, it's not illegal."




I agree in one sense, in as much as I agree that it's the DM's prerogative to break or rewrite the rules if necessary.   But, in another sense, if the DM is not being a fair arbitrator and his motives are selfish, then a DM breaking the rules is morally the same as any other sort of cheating in a game.


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## timbannock (Jan 9, 2009)

S'mon said:


> Fine to have eg one kobold fire through the hole then another kobold shut the plate, all on the kobolds' turn.  My complaint was directed at the idea that the PC Wizard casts fireball, the readied kobold _sees it coming_ and shuts the plate, the fireball impacts on the plate.




I don't see the problem there.

From a purely rules standpoint, isn't a readied action an "interrupt" based on its trigger.  So, one kobold could say "I ready my action to close the gate as soon as I hear casting from the PCs."  Thus, no matter what spell is being cast, the gate is closed at the very moment casting becomes audible, and thus before the fireball launches out at the kobold.  I might be wrong in this interpretation, but that's how I've run it...let me know if I'm wrong!

Now, from a non-rules standpoint, the same situation is still true.  I watch out the grate while my buddies are shooting through it.  If one of the guys we're shooting at begins waving bat guano around and saying words I don't understand (maybe he's just taunting me in Common, which I don't know because I speak Draconic, but maybe he's casting a spell), I close the door pronto.  If he was casting a spell (something I've heard of before, and my friendly neighborhood Kobold shaman does repeatedly), I live because I closed the grate.  If he wasn't, well, I'm still alive, and we can always open the grate again and open fire.

If the kobolds never heard of magic, didn't expect return fire, or just weren't organized at all (which is fine), then yeah, this would be poor playing.  But if the kobolds ever heard of magic attack spells, or expected any kind of return fire (bows, arrows, slings), then why isn't this a totally valid -- and even very smart! -- tactic?


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## Bullgrit (Jan 9, 2009)

Three things that jumped out at me when reading the tale:

"The kobolds caught us about 60' into the dungeon and locked the door behind us and barred it." A party of level 6-12 (including a 12th level magic-user) couldn't get through a locked and barred door? I thought "getting through doors" was covered in the first week of Dungeoneering 101.

The author mentions three times that the party was expecting/had encountered "huge flaming demons". Were they not prepared for fire? The kobolds' simple flaming oil seemed to really be a problem -- AD&D1 fire did, what, 1d6 damager/round?

"...kobold snipers who could split-move and fire, ducking back behind stones and corners ..." Seems like a special gimme gimmick making the kobolds a little more than the stock variety.

Again, the story shows a pretty poorly run party of adventurers. Especially considering that this party had already run into these kobolds before.

Bullgrit


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## Voadam (Jan 9, 2009)

rounser said:


> If you must do it, at least use jermlaine, who actually have an affinity for traps.




That's the first time I've ever heard anyone assert kobolds have no affinity for traps.


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## Corathon (Jan 9, 2009)

Achan hiArusa said:


> Ballistas are deadly in corridors and Protection from Normal Missiles will only slow them down.




Not *that *deadly. Damage is 2d6, fire rate is once per 2 rounds, maximum.




> Cloudkill always sinks so it can't get into murder holes,




 It won't get into holes on the ceiling (the classic murder hole), but it will get into lateral holes (from which kobolds are sniping).



> passwall can only get to so many and iron bars embedded in the walls is an old trick to avoid that one.




 Sure, but if it does get into one, the party can kill the exposed kobolds and leave. Then return the next day, rinse, repeat.
 I grant you that embedded iron bars inside the walls would block the passwall, but it seems unlikely that the kobolds will have an encyclopedic knowledge of every spell and have prepared countermeasures to each and every one.



> Fireball might be a bit of a problem but doesn't cover provide bonuses to reflex saves?




 Yes, hefty bonuses in fact. But it doesn't matter if the kobolds save or not, they have 4 HP at most and will die anyway.



> Find Traps still requires a search check and eventually the cleric will fail a big one.




 According to OP, this is an AD&D1E question. There is no "search check", the spell simply works.



> If the kolbolds are everywhere then detect evil is useless.




 True enough.



> And flour on the floor or tripwires will catch that invisible thief.




 If the disturbed flor would be visible to the kobold's infravison, it will be visible to the thief's infravison also, so that he can avoid it in the dark. The trip wires might get him, but he has a good chance to find traps.




			
				WayneLigon said:
			
		

> 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.




 Remember that the party in question, as posed in the OP, knows that they're hunting tricksy kobolds. Use of detect invisible (which automatically finds secret doors) and a modicum of brains means that the MUs will not be standing on/under/next to any secret doors when they cast.

 And there's lots of other tactics at the disposal of 9th level characters, too. Send in a conjured air elemental (which can pass through small openings, doesn't care about poison, and which the kobolds can't harm). Or have the cleric take the party ethereal (using the plane shift spell) and materialize on the other side of the kobold defenses.




> 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.




 I actually agree with this. A party of well-prepared monsters can give much higher level PCs a run for their money. Tucker's Kobolds might even be a nasty surprise for 9th level PCs.  But a 9th level party that is prepared to fight such kobolds will stomp them. Not a fight, just a slaughter.


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## SHARK (Jan 9, 2009)

Greetings!

Well, I certainly agree with many of you all on a number of points. However, as far as critiquing *Tucker's Kobolds* goes, I think some of you are forgetting a few things, and perhaps meta-gaming to some extent.

First off, the players do not know, and generally will never know *exactly* how the Kobold tribe gains the wealth to store/stockpile/utilize all the oil, traps, poisons, and so on. *Most don't, and are unlikely to find out the exact details.*

Next, while the resources and tactics used may in fact annoy many of you, I think there's some meta-gaming thought going on here.

To wit: Why is it so pervasive to believe that every group of monsters are somehow encountering *you, your PC group* for the very first time? The player group is quite likely not the first adventuring group the monsters have encountered, and certainly in many campaigns, groups of adventurers making raids into various cavern systems, etc in the local area may be in fact a routine aspect of life, and it could be a fairly common reality for many years up to the present.

Therefore, many such groups and tribes of humanoid monsters would develop tactics over time and make it a priority to gain and gather resources in which to defeat such roving bands of marauding adventurers. That's part of having an intelligent, interactive world, yes?--rather than a static, simplistic world of dumb creatures that--despite some common level of intellectual ability, and capacity for warfare and to learn from their experiences--never seem to respond to maruading bands of adventurers? 

Still, I also know that after awhile, lets face it--whether it is 1ED, or 3rd, the group of players already have lots of experience with mowing down whole caverns full of dumb monsters that are often ultimately helpless against the players. Thus, it is certainly refreshing to have them meet up with a group or tribe of monsters that are quite different from what they have smugly been accustomed to dealing with for most of their adventuring careers.

In my own campaigns, I often use the typical dumb monsters, beastmen, orcs, goblins, and so on.

But I also often spike the environments with locations of tribes of the same kind of creatures that--as the players know and love to hate--will quite readily make life a living hell for them in a *blink*

"What kind of Hobgoblins did you say they were, Probus? Were they light green-skinned Hobgoblins with ram-horned bronze helmets? Yeah? Oh, no...guys, it's a tribe of *Bloodfist Hobgoblins *that have moved into the mountain fortress in to the north of the town....oh, damn...we have our work cut out for us for sure..." 

I think it's good for the DM to make their dungeons special, and make their tribes of otherwise routine, dumb humanoids into something more interesting, and entertaining. Admittedly, if every tribe of orcs, kobolds, beastmen, goblins and so on were **always** tribes of uber-equipped, U.S. Marines/SAS Commando's, living inside a Fortress of Sauron--that too, would get boring. But it's nice to know that *sometimes--that's what they are! *

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK


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## timbannock (Jan 9, 2009)

SHARK said:


> Greetings!
> 
> snip
> 
> SHARK




Good points.  Looking at some of the Castle Zagyg: Upper Works stuff, it specifically notes that the creatures have seen adventurers plenty of times before.

Also think of dungeon ecology, however realistic or not it is in your campaign.  If you have a dungeon with lots of levels, and each level is tougher than the next (the usual megadungeon), think about how those 1st level monsters might interact with the higher level creatures.  Maybe they are enemies, in which case the kobolds would have to get smart fast.  Maybe they're friends, and so the kobolds have heard stories of high level adventurers, and figured out some tactics.

This is doubly true if the kobolds guard the Main Gates(TM) to the dungeon.  If every adventurer of every level walks through those doors, the kobolds get to greet them.  They won't live long if they don't adapt to fighting smart, on the run, and with lots of traps.

It's worth noting that we don't know the exact context of Tucker's Kobolds.  The PCs might have faced 'em before, but were the kobolds more "standard fare" then?  Was their deadliness a response to being blasted with fireballs and cloudkills constantly?

If the campaign focused on this dungeon, then it's great to see some of the monsters smarten up and change up their tactics.  Hopefully it wasn't a case of the DM giving them unlimited resources to do so with, but there's certainly room to explain some resources (trade with lower-level-of-the-dungeon denizens for dead PC loot, raiding the nearby village for barrels of oil, etc.).


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## Celebrim (Jan 10, 2009)

Shark, we usually agree on many things, but here I must disagree.



SHARK said:


> First off, the players do not know, and generally will never know *exactly* how the Kobold tribe gains the wealth to store/stockpile/utilize all the oil, traps, poisons, and so on. *Most don't, and are unlikely to find out the exact details.*




But this is irrelevant.  Even if the PC's are unlikely to ever know, the DM still needs some notion about the source of any resources.  The reason is very simple.  Abstract resources tend to be unlimited and invincible.  Fighting something that has abstract resources is like fighting a ghost that can materialize and become ethereal at will.  Concretely imagined supplies tend to be limited, interdictable, capturable and even subvertable.  'Tucker's Kobolds' tend to not only never suffer in logistical problems - never suffer from the friction of war - but by virtue of having an abstract supply line are also immune to indirect assaults.



> Next, while the resources and tactics used may in fact annoy many of you, I think there's some meta-gaming thought going on here.




I'm fairly sure that I indicated that it was not the tactics or the resources that annoyed me.  Any of the tactics or any of the resources are in isolation fine.  What annoys me about 'Tucker's Kobold's' is the unlimited nature of these resources.  In Tucker's Kobold's type encounters, all of these tactics and resources are applied together and there is a tendency for the Kobold's to be perpared to defeat any tactic.



> Why is it so pervasive to believe that every group of monsters are somehow encountering *you, your PC group* for the very first time? The player group is quite likely not the first adventuring group the monsters have encountered, and certainly in many campaigns, groups of adventurers making raids into various cavern systems, etc in the local area may be in fact a routine aspect of life, and it could be a fairly common reality for many years up to the present.




Given the number of kills a player character can expect to rack up, if a group of humanoids is encountering hostile adventuring groups on a regular basis the logical assumption is that the humanoids are all long since dead. 



> Therefore, many such groups and tribes of humanoid monsters would develop tactics over time and make it a priority to gain and gather resources in which to defeat such roving bands of marauding adventurers. That's part of having an intelligent, interactive world, yes?--rather than a static, simplistic world of dumb creatures that--despite some common level of intellectual ability, and capacity for warfare and to learn from their experiences--never seem to respond to maruading bands of adventurers?




Sure, they'll do their best to prepare for adventurers.  I'm fully willing to believe that monsterous humanoid's ability to plan goes far beyond even what you suggest here.  For example, I assume that the various tribes are engaged in manufacturing, and that they regularly trade surplus goods to neighboring tribes for mutual economic advantage.  I further assume that the humanoid tribe tends to be part of a vast rumor network, where invovative ideas are spread by wandering humanoid bards, shamans, itenerent craftsman, mercenaries, and merchants.  So I wouldn't even have to assume that a particular tribe had seen a fireball before they'd be able to take some steps to defend against one.

But that's not the problem I have.  The problem I have is PC resources are not infinite.  Even if the PC's were asked to harden an area against attack, there would be some precautions that they'd simply find too expensive, too laborous, and too troublesome to undertake - and I say that with full respect for player ingenuity and devotion to detail.

I mean, let's look at the specifics for a second.  In the original 'Tucker's Kobolds' articles it refers to kobold archers, moving, then firing, then finishing their move.  In 1st ed., that's a non-standard rule that allows the kobolds to snipe at the players without recieving return fire.  Now, why haven't the PC's archers been allowed to pull this trick since the beginning of the campaign?  Surely the high level PC's are more capable archers than the kobolds, and capable of employing whatever tricks relatively unskilled kobolds can?  And if they have been able to since the beginning, why weren't they informed that they could?  And if they can, why aren't they able to pull the same trick on the kobolds and hense neutralizing the tactic or turning the tables on the kobolds?



> Thus, it is certainly refreshing to have them meet up with a group or tribe of monsters that are quite different from what they have smugly been accustomed to dealing with for most of their adventuring careers.




Why not spread the resources around?  Instead of having a bunch of dumb demihumans waiting to be killed, and a few tribes of smart humanoids with virtually unlimited resources, why not assume all humanoids are reasonably clever and resourceful?  Why not make the reutine reasonably clever, reasonably bright, and reasonably resourceful and save the 'full imagination and cunning of the DM' for monsters that are supposed to be wealthy super-geniouses?

In point of fact, if I'm encountering 'Tucker's Kobolds' in 1e with something like a 12th level mage on hand, I'm going to deal with it something like this:

"I cast Invisible Stalker."
"Invisible Stalker, I command you to kill all the Kobold's on the first level of the dungeon."

I wouldn't expect a tribe of kobolds to last more than a day against a highly intelligent vaporous flying permenently invisible assassin that is utterly lethal to a kobold with every attack.   But of course, with true Tucker Kobolds serving the role of DM's pets, this attack would be undoubtably be dodged immediately.  The Kobold's would immediately recognize the presence of the invisible stalker, and they'd automatically know the exact instructions the stalker was given, and they'd immediately be able to organize a flight of the entire tribe to some special bolt hole technically on another level of the dungeon, at which point the Invisible Stalker would immediately consider its instructions fulfilled and the kobold's would then immediately resume all their battle stations with a speed comparable to them all possessing unlimited teleportation.  

It's that sort of thing that annoys me.


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## WayneLigon (Jan 10, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> I mean, let's look at the specifics for a second.  In the original 'Tucker's Kobolds' articles it refers to kobold archers, moving, then firing, then finishing their move.  In 1st ed., that's a non-standard rule that allows the kobolds to snipe at the players without recieving return fire.




This is the sort of thing that annoyed a lot of people about D&D up until 3E: monsters in 1E very frequently have mundane-origin (meaning, it's not a magical ability or supernatural effect, bbut something that anyone could reasonably expect to do given some dedication and training) special abilities that PCs can _never learn_. Ever. I think all elves _except PC elves_ can do the split-move-and-fire thing as well. 

And customizing monsters is just a thing that is expected from DMs. I regularly give ghouls the ability to effectively spider-climb at will, because the image of skittering emaciated critters on the walls and ceilings is a horrifying one. It's not in the core rules, but it's just something I do.


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## Mark (Jan 10, 2009)

Some form of this old chestnut can be fun to spring on a group of relatively new players but for experienced players this concept tends to chafe and be tired.


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## Raven Crowking (Jan 10, 2009)

WayneLigon said:


> This is the sort of thing that annoyed a lot of people about D&D up until 3E: monsters in 1E very frequently have mundane-origin (meaning, it's not a magical ability or supernatural effect, bbut something that anyone could reasonably expect to do given some dedication and training) special abilities that PCs can _never learn_. Ever. I think all elves _except PC elves_ can do the split-move-and-fire thing as well.




Prior to 3e, why would you ever prevent any character from shooting an arrow during his or her move?  If a player said, in bd&d, 1e, or 2e "I cross the room, firing an arrow at midpoint" why would you not let them?


RC


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## Celebrim (Jan 10, 2009)

Raven Crowking said:


> Prior to 3e, why would you ever prevent any character from shooting an arrow during his or her move?  If a player said, in bd&d, 1e, or 2e "I cross the room, firing an arrow at midpoint" why would you not let them?
> 
> 
> RC




I think it would have been very much up to the DM.  

Older editions frequently had a very clearly defined order of operations.  For example, in BD&D it clearly defined that all movement would take place, then all missile fire, then all spells, and finally all melee.  There would be absolutely no reason for a player to expect that he could move again following the missile phase.   And the DM who wished to allow such things would have to be very careful indeed to not let the character argue that he ought to be able to move after missile fire, but before melee combat because bD&D had no conception of 'attacks of opportunity' or similar rules designed to make linear turns more resemble real time.  He'd also almost certainly feel the need to event things like 'readied actions' to counter the tactic.  

Thus the kobolds don't merely have an extra ability, they are breaking the rules in a very specific way, and in a way that would have been very unusual in an earlier edition game and which would have made alot of DM's uncomfortable simply because it created such a potentially complex headache.  You more or less would have been throwing the whole combat system out of the window and winging it.  If the kobolds are doing so in the context of a game where the PC's are comfortable with the DM 'saying yes' to anything remotely reasonable, then fine - it would probably come as no surprise that kobolds can split move and fire and PC's may have even already used this tactic on a monster themselves.  If it comes up in the context of a DM who frequently handicaps players with the letter of the law, the first time I see split move fire kobolds, I don't know how anyone else feels but I'm going to lose a great deal of interest in the game.


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## Raven Crowking (Jan 10, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> I think it would have been very much up to the DM.





I don't know about you, but I never had any difficulty as DM or player by allowing character -- PC or kobold -- to do what we generally acepted an average person could do.

RC


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## Celebrim (Jan 10, 2009)

Raven Crowking said:


> I don't know about you, but I never had any difficulty as DM or player by allowing character -- PC or kobold -- to do what we generally acepted an average person could do.




I generally don't have a problem with it either.  In general, if it seems to me that you ought to be able to do it, then I come up with a way for you to do it regardless of what the rules say.

That being said, I'm not entirely sure that as a teenage DM 20 odd years ago I would have been perfectly comfortable with allowing a player to move-fire-move.  The question then would be not whether an average person wielding say a crossbow would be able to do it, because clearly they could, but whether an average person wielding a crossbow would be able to do it before an opponent would have a chance at replying.  I would quite probably have argued that the player was attempting to take advantage of the limitations of the rules to argue for being able to do something that he in fact couldn't do.  If we break down what is actually going on, the character wants to move - thereby revealing himself - fire, and then move back.   Main difference between that and three rounds of action is that the enemy doesn't get to fire back.   And that's what the player is really demanding - not the ability to move and fire, but the ability to attack without getting attacked in reply.  If they thought that they could get fired on, they wouldn't attempt it.  Perhaps if the character had surprise, I might allow this, but if the character doesn't have surprise then I wouldn't see why this couldn't be broke into 3 rounds of action.  I certainly wouldn't allow it repeatedly without some means of repeatedly achieving surprise.

Of course, my tool set is alot bigger now than then, and my answer would probably be alot different now than then regardless of edition.

However, this is all somewhat irrelevant, as the question isn't how would I have handled, but how was it being handled by the DM's who are fond of doing 'Tucker's Kobolds' sorts of scenarios.


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## Edena_of_Neith (Jan 10, 2009)

You are talking apples and oranges here, guys.

  At *that time*, when Tucker's Kobolds were seen in Dragon Magazine, the gaming culture was much more of an 'anything goes' mentality, and much less of today's 'balanced' mentality.

  Look at the article that was printed.  That article came from a specific member of a group, upon whose party Tucker's Kobolds the DM had sicced.
  That party was either TPKed, or very close to it.

  'Anything goes' was THE motto of Tucker's Kobolds.
  Things that would be considered unfair, unreasonable, unbalanced, or game-breaking, abusive, were Standard Operating Procedure for these critters.

  Even in *that* environment, they only fit *if* the DM was willing to be *extremely* hard on his players, and the players were accustomed (very accustomed) to their DM being extremely hard on them.
  Otherwise, it would not have worked, not even back then.

  In *today's* environment of balance, balanced encounters, balanced spells, balanced challenges, fight and rest, and so on, Tucker's Kobolds aren't going to fit.
  I mean, how many groups today will desire that the DM do everything he *can* to achieve a TPK (short of an outright 'you're dead'), desire the DM do everything he *can* to mess them over, to mess with them, and who can tolerate and deal with the loss of just about everything they possess (magical items included), the loss of hirelings and henchmen, the loss of all acquired treasure, while an army of insane, maniac kobolds runs circles around them?

  Tucker's Kobolds were kind of a low level Tomb of Horrors.
  They should be treated as such.  They are not there to give anyone an even break.  They are not easy, fair, or balanced opponents.  They are the Kobolds from the Abyss, they want to Party, and you've got an Engraved Invitation You Can't Refuse to the Masquerade Ball.

  EDIT:  Some of you know I take a lasse faire attitude towards the casting of magical spells.  Fortunately, the original Tucker's Kobolds did not have magical spells.  In 3E, they *could.*  Trust me, if you go there, we're talking about ... well, I think the party might just PREFER the congenial Tomb of Horrors over Tucker's Kobolds, come to think of it.  Much safer, and far more reasonable.
  But they don't need spells.  Even without spells, Tucker's Kobolds have enough firepower, and the ruthless will to use it, to take on a goodly part of the City of Greyhawk.


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## Celebrim (Jan 10, 2009)

Edena_of_Neith said:


> You are talking apples and oranges here, guys.




I know what I'm talking about.  I played 'back in the day'.  I'm one of those old school DM's that newer players think is an unforgiving rat bastard DM who creates dungeons of death, but they only think that because they've been peddled soft cozy little dungeons where survival is the expected result for a team of unskilled novices and have never actually met a true rat bastard DM that will chew up 30 or 40 PC's in a single dungeon.



> At *that time*, when Tucker's Kobolds were seen in Dragon Magazine, the gaming culture was much more of an 'anything goes' mentality, and much less of today's 'balanced' mentality.




Balance isn't the issue.  'Tomb of Horrors' is a well balanced module, IMO.  I've plenty of times pitted low level characters against monsters that they had no chance against, if only to teach my players that sometimes they have to run.  I have no problems with the balance issues involved in ballistic flagons of flaming oil, or anything else of the sort.  I have no problem with abusing the rules or coming up with nasty situations.  I'm the kind of guy that would force you to fight a troll wearing a ring of fire resistance in a driving rainstorm.  I'm generally ok conceptually with 'save or die' or even 'no save and die'.  

But I draw the line at 'unfair'.  I treat NPC's with the same skepticism I treat the PC's.  Their plans don't always work out either.  They suffer from confusion and failures of morale and supply shortages and the rest.  I don't treat NPC's as some sort of favored pet that the PC's aren't allowed to defeat.  I don't vest my ego in my ability to counter any plan that the PC's come up with.  I don't give NPC's any edges that I wouldn't give to PC's in the same circumstance.

That's the real issue behind 'Tucker's Kobolds'. 



> I mean, how many groups today will desire that the DM do everything he *can* to achieve a TPK (short of an outright 'you're dead'), desire the DM do everything he *can* to mess them over, to mess with them, and who can tolerate and deal with the loss of just about everything they possess (magical items included), the loss of hirelings and henchmen, the loss of all acquired treasure, while an army of insane, maniac kobolds runs circles around them?




The way I see it, any DM worth his pizza can _always_ produce a TPK if he wants one.  The DM can do anything he wants, so of course he can always stack the die in the NPC's favor.  Of course I can TPK a 12th level party with just a kobold, if by 'just a kobold' you mean 'a kobold plus a level that activates a massive death trap' or something like that.  But its worse than that, because with the 'Tucker's Kobold' syndome, the problem isn't that the characters are being put in a situation that is grossly unfair, but that the players are.  The players aren't being presented with a puzzle to solve so much as an oppurtunity for the DM to treat the players as puppets for his own amusement.  In order for 'Tucker's Kobolds' to work against a high level party, the DM has to practice not only 'saying no', but treat all of the NPC's actions in the most favorable terms and all of the PCs in the least favorable terms.  In order for the kobolds to really have a chance against a decent party, the DM has to set up the situation so that nothing the PC's can do actually has a chance of working.



> Tucker's Kobolds were kind of a low level Tomb of Horrors.




That's completely unfair to Tomb of Horrors as a module.  As you point out, the challenges in ToH are for the most part far more reasonable.


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## Gentlegamer (Jan 10, 2009)

Edena_of_Neith said:


> At *that time*, when Tucker's Kobolds were seen in Dragon Magazine, the g
> Even in *that* environment, they only fit *if* the DM was willing to be *extremely* hard on his players, and the players were accustomed (very accustomed) to their DM being extremely hard on them.
> Otherwise, it would not have worked, not even back then.



You're exactly right. This is part of the very social make-up of a role-playing game and why it is both impossible and unnecessary to make universal rules that govern every group of players using the system. The DM makes rulings and so on with the (tacit or explicit) consent of the players. It's all about the common understanding/expectations that the group develops over time.


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## Edena_of_Neith (Jan 11, 2009)

The group Tucker's Kobolds was sprung on, was apparently very happy with the scenario.  They eagerly took on these opponents.  When the conflict took on the epic proportions it was to take on, they rose to the challenge.
  What I remember about that article is that this, was something they looked back fondly on, were proud of having had the experience, wished to let the whole gaming world know of their epic struggle.  (And, they did just that.)

  The Young of today are not different.  The Young will always be the Young.

  But who set down a rule that we, the Older, cannot enjoy such challenges?
  Who says we cannot rise to meet them?
  Who says we are not up to epic encounters?

  It is not I, who says these things.

  I say that, in every Older person, a Young person remains, defiant and audacious and ready to come out and meet all of the challenges.
  To his aid comes the knowledge, experience, and wisdom of the Older Person.

  Edena_of_Neith


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## S'mon (Jan 11, 2009)

I think most players are happy to face a strong challenge within the rules.  Split-fire clearly breaks some iterations of the rules and would annoy me.  Nor is it plausible IRL - you can fire a crossbow on the run, but you're not going to hit anything.


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## Old_school_overlord (Jan 11, 2009)

I just finished a long session for my adventurers - 6 players who are all fairly new to D&D - that was inspired by the Tucker's kobolds article (I'd been planning it for some time).

The group:
9th level Paladin                        (Gloria)
9th level Rogue/Swordsage          (Lmax)
9th level Lizardfolk Swordsage      (Salith)
8th level Sorcerer                      (Dorvet)
8th level Cleric                          (Gwilin)
8th level Bard                           (Melody)

They know the Kobolds are in contact with the Dragon Meerthrax who posses a widget they require for plot purposes, and had bargained for information from a nearby cabal of Gauths.

Entering the winding tunnels they passed a small concealed sentry post (which had provided a kobold with a nice view of them as they stood at the tunnel mouth preparing to go in) and walked past some open doors without paying too much attention. 20 ft further down the corridor and portcullis are slamming down behind them and in the middle of their marching order splitting the party, Lomax the Rogue spots the murder holes in the ceiling a fraction of a second before gallons of boiling water are poured down onto them.

Two of them move down the tunnel to secure it, while the rest start to try to lift the portcullis. A pair of kobold archers take pot shots to little effect and are taken down by a barrage of magic missiles and shadow garrotes, meanwhile long spears stab down at their heads, inflicting some irritating grazes and behind them a pair of Kobolds who have dropped down from the a hatch in the ceiling bar the doors shut to prevent them escaping. By this point the portcullis has been lifted and party members quickly duck under, another archer appears down the corridor and is charged by Lomax who falls into the pit trap the kobold was standing behind devil. The party hastily move down the corridor and the stragglers are pelted with alchemist fire before they manage to get beyond the reach of the murder holes. Having fished Lomax out the Pit they proceed cautiously down the tunnel, into a large squarish chamber with double doors at the far side.

They nervously start to cross the room, calling out to the unseen Kobolds that they wish to talk to peacefully with their leaders - The Red Rock warren aren't having any of it though, and the 4 archers from each side open fire at them. Noticing that the arrow slits to the left are at floor level (compared to the elevated ones of the right) Melody charges over to attempt to skewer one of them, and instead manages to fall into the spiked pit directly in front of  the archer. At this point they realised that neither of the Swordsages had bothered bringing ranged weapons, and an protracted fire fight broke out that was complicated by the other sentries arriving from behind, having slipped out the secret door into the tunnel.

That's a quick summary of the first couple of rooms, it made a great change from "I am lord Doom-Helmet, prepare to die.." and some uber bad guy getting taken down in one round - instead at least a hunded Kobolds have already fallen before them, and after being set on fire for the tenth time, I've never seen such bloodlust from my players!


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## Edena_of_Neith (Jan 12, 2009)

(muses)

  I honestly believe Tucker's Kobolds were meant as primarily humor, and taken that way by the group who sent in the article to Dragon.
  Why?

  Because poison was so very lethal in OD&D, 1E, and 2E, and if the DM had really wanted Tucker's Kobolds to kill the party, it would have been simple enough:

  DM:  

  A squadron of kobolds with readied hand crossbows with poisoned bolts appears.  They have Surprise.
  They all fire.  10 incoming poisoned bolts.  5 hit the fighter.  Roll five saves versus Poison.

  (fighter fails 2 of them, dies.)

  (initiative is rolled, group wins)

  Group:  (attacks the kobolds in hand to hand combat, begins killing them.)

  DM:  But now, 10 kobolds appear behind you, coming out of the Secret Entrance.  They also have surprise, and they fire their posioned bolts from their hand crossbows.
  3 bolts hit the wizard.  Make three saves versus poison.

  (the wizard dies, party wheels to face the Wolf Pack assault)

  DM:  The kobolds who were originally in front of you, those still alive (after being struck at by the party and many downed by bolts from their own side), strike with poisoned blades at the backs of those who turned, and at the front.
  Those from behind draw poisoned blades and charge.
  Multiple poisoned hits on most of the party.  Make your saves.

  (most of the party dies)

  ...

  Real fun ...  : (

  Tucker's Kobolds were not played in this spirit.  They were nasty, evil little critters, amusing, annoying, and downright mean, but hey, they were fun.
  It is hard to imagine the above scenario as fun.

  About the only way the above scenario could be fun is if ... the party was forewarned and threw a magical immunity to poison up first, or defensive spells that repelled bolts (Protection from Normal Arrows, 2nd level, in 2E), or were wearing really heavy armor and shields (+3 Plate Armor and +3 Shield, AC -6, AC 26 in 3E terms.)

  In which case, it's still not funny.  It's a deadly serious game of Kill or Be Killed, of the grimmest type.

  DM:  The kobolds appear.
  One party member:  My character cannot be surprised.  She may roll for initiative.
  DM:  Roll!
  Her:  Improved Initiative and High Dex.  I won the roll.  Fireball!
  DM:  The kobolds are killed.
  Party:  We may now roll.
  DM:  Roll!
  Party:  Some roll high initiative.
  DM:  10 more kobolds appear behind you.
  Party fighter who won initiative:  With initiative, I perform a Bull Rush.  I try to knock as many down as possible.  If I survive their attacks, I'll pull a Power Attack with Great Cleave.
  Party cleric who won initiative:  Ranged attack with Cause Serious Wounds, dumping Divine Metamagic into it to make it affect multiple opponents.

  Etc.  Very serious, there.  Not humorous as Tucker's Kobolds were meant to be.


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## Edena_of_Neith (Jan 12, 2009)

Old_school_overlord, my hat's off to you.

  Reading your post above, it seems to me you captured very nicely the spirit and essence of Tucker's Kobolds.

  More power to you and your group.  And, more fun.  : )


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## Celebrim (Jan 12, 2009)

Edena_of_Neith said:


> Because poison was so very lethal in OD&D, 1E, and 2E, and if the DM had really wanted Tucker's Kobolds to kill the party, it would have been simple enough:
> 
> DM:
> 
> ...




That is an example of exactly why 'Tucker's Kobolds' don't ring true to me.

I've adventured as a 12th level character in 1st edition AD&D.  A kobold with a hand crossbow even with surprise probably would need a 20 to hit you AC, and any M-U's would probably have stoneskin and/or protection from normal missiles up.  So the expected result of 10 incoming poisoned bolts is zero hits.   And a 12th level fighter with minimal magical protection would probably fail a saving throw versus poison only about 1 time in 5.  So, each character would expect to be able to soak up about 100 poisoned crossbow bolts before dying (which for all but the most expensive insinuative poisons would take more than one round).  Long before that would happen, clerics would be casting 'slow poison' on everyone (12 hour duration at this level), reviving newly dead characters to await treatment and protecting everyone else - and they'd do this and be ready for this precisely because they were used to poison being so deadly in 1st edition.  They wouldn't have survived to 12th level if they weren't prepared to handle the whole party being poisoned by venomous hydras or teams of leveled drow commandos or what not.

Moreover, the chance of the kobolds achieving surprise wouldn't be that good anyway.  Some waves would just die outright.



> Tucker's Kobolds were not played in this spirit.




No, they certainly weren't.  Because if they'd even been played in that fair of a spirit, the kobolds would have gone down hard and we'd never even have heard about them.  'Tucker's Kobolds' were played in a spirit far less fair, if perhaps somewhat less bloody minded, than your example, else they didn't have a chance of threatening a party of 12th level characters.

I agree with the point of Moore's editorial.  Moore was trying to suggest that at higher levels, for the game to be challenging, the DM had to be creative.  He was trying to suggest that high levels of challenge could be maintained through the upper levels by putting the characters at a tactical disadvantage.  But his example is I think a very unfortunate one, because as someone whose played at that level I can't help but read the examples and think, 'That's only challenging because the DM was just cheating, fudging, and meta-gaming left and right, or else he's running a hyper low magic game where noone has magic armor, bags of holding, rings of protection, or anything, or else your whole party is a bunch of inexperienced novices that were just given high level characters rather than earning them, or some of all of that.'  

Because in actual play, the M-U would be using telekinesis or gusts of wind to push those broom pushed piles of debris back over the kobolds, would be collapsing tunnels with transmute rock to mud and conjured earth elementals, would be killing off whole armies of kobolds with walls of fire, flash freezing rooms with cone of cold, knocking off dozens of them with sleep, frying narrow tunnels with lightning bolts, siccing invisible stalkers on the poor things, dropping cloud kills on them and so forth.  One insect plague would keep the whole bunch of them busy for a very long time.  Meanwhile, the fighters would need roughly a 2 to hit the archers through an arrow slit, while the kobolds would need roughly a 20 to hit.  Kobolds would drop like flies and do virtually no damage.

So how did the DM make it work?  Well, I suspect he 'cheated'.  Those 'steel tipped bolts' conferred a special +3 bonus to hit the first time they were fired (afterwards they became blunt, naturally).  The kobold archers probably had other special bonuses (they were all specialized in their weapon, they all had 16 DEX, they all gained a +2 tactical bonus to hit, or whatever).  The kobolds archers could do a special 'split fire move' that violated the normal rules to avoid getting shot at.  Every thing that the characters did was always interpretted in the worst possible light, failing to work or even back firing.  Areas of effect were always assumed to catch the minimal number of kobolds.  Everything the kobolds did was alwayer interpreted in the best possible light.  Countermeasures to spells were sometimes invented on the fly.  Kobold losses were always replaced at an exagerrated rate.  Morale was never checked no matter how many scores or dozens of kobolds met Kurtulmak.

Meanwhile, the players are using tactics that suggest, among other things, that no one has a bag of holding - much less anything unusually good.

I'm not even sure we can trust Moore as a reliable narrator.  For all I know he's exagerrating the situation to make a point, but I suspect based on what TSR actually published in 'Axe of the Dwarvish Lords' that he isn't.  I'm glad that they had fun, but it reminds me more of when some of my fellow players waxed nostalgically on terrible DMs with pet DM 'player characters' that repeatedly tormented the party and was essentially immune to any counter attack.  They had fun too, but they also probably wouldn't have chosen to go back to that environment.


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## SHARK (Jan 12, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> That is an example of exactly why 'Tucker's Kobolds' don't ring true to me.
> 
> I've adventured as a 12th level character in 1st edition AD&D.  A kobold with a hand crossbow even with surprise probably would need a 20 to hit you AC, and any M-U's would probably have stoneskin and/or protection from normal missiles up.  So the expected result of 10 incoming poisoned bolts is zero hits.   And a 12th level fighter with minimal magical protection would probably fail a saving throw versus poison only about 1 time in 5.  So, each character would expect to be able to soak up about 100 poisoned crossbow bolts before dying (which for all but the most expensive insinuative poisons would take more than one round).  Long before that would happen, clerics would be casting 'slow poison' on everyone (12 hour duration at this level), reviving newly dead characters to await treatment and protecting everyone else - and they'd do this and be ready for this precisely because they were used to poison being so deadly in 1st edition.  They wouldn't have survived to 12th level if they weren't prepared to handle the whole party being poisoned by venomous hydras or teams of leveled drow commandos or what not.
> 
> ...




Greetings!

Good points, my friend, good points! I understand your criticisms of the *Tucker's Kobolds* much clearer now after reading your extensive critique. You know I'm *Old School* too. I agree generally with your critique--though I have to say also, that it seems to me that if a DM is going to challenge high-level PC's, *and* avoid simply using the endless treadmill of ever-stronger monsters--that some good creativity and improvisation of lower-level creatures, or monsters long-thought of as more *mundane* may be quite useful, as well as entertaining, true? Tucker's Kobolds seems to be an example in that direction to inspire DM's with ideas on how to do so. (Though, admittedly, some of the mechanics and reasoning may be suspect, as you noted well)

What do you think of the "Axe of the Dwarvish Lords", anyways? (I guess I never did pick that one up!)

However, as an aside to the *Endless Supply* problem that you note with *Tucker's Kobolds*--as well as some of the tactics--what if the DM were to say, well, the Kobolds are allied with *Sauron* and since Sauron wants to gain their absolute loyalty, has impressed them with the abundant supply of all manner of tools, equipment, oil, poisons, and so on? In addition, perhaps some master Assassins and a few *Black Wizards*, etc, etc, spent some time in the past training the kobold tribe?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK


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## Dausuul (Jan 12, 2009)

WayneLigon said:


> And customizing monsters is just a thing that is expected from DMs. I regularly give ghouls the ability to effectively spider-climb at will, because the image of skittering emaciated critters on the walls and ceilings is a horrifying one. It's not in the core rules, but it's just something I do.




Just a note - the 4E designers seem to agree with you.  Ghouls in 4E have a climb speed.


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## Edena_of_Neith (Jan 12, 2009)

(duplicate post deleted)


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## Edena_of_Neith (Jan 12, 2009)

12th level?  A large party of 12th level characters?
  I had forgotten that.  Please pardon me, it has been a long time.

  I am at a loss, is this is true.  I appreciate the capacity of 1E and 2E 12th level characters and 12th level multi-classed characters, and 0 level kobolds would have a really difficult time with them.
  Then again, in my system, 12th level characters are extremely capable people.  I allow things other DMs do not allow.  The kobolds would not have stood a chance.

  DM:  10 kobolds leap out, hand crossbows ready, poisoned bolts about to fire.
  Party:  (is not surprised, wins initiative easily.)
  Fighter:  4 shots (2/1 attacks, 2 arrows per attack), all hit (4 kobolds dead.)
  Other Fighter:  Charge (some kobolds fire at him, the bolts bounce off his armor) and attack with my twin long swords.
  Barbarian:  Axe, sword.
  DM:  All those kobolds are dead.  10 leap out from behind you, crossbows at the ready.
  Elven Fighter/Wizard:  Fireball, 12d6 (all kobolds killed.)
  DM:  10 *more* kobolds leap out, crossbows ready.
  Rogue:  Greek fire, already lit, 2 bottles, then 2 more (all hit, all kobolds killed.)
  DM:  10 *more* kobolds leap out.
  Cleric:  The Reflective Wall from the Tome of Magic (2E).  (the kobolds shoot, and hit themselves.  Most die.)
  Wizard:  Magic missile, 6 missiles, 2 to each survivor.
  Druid:  I summon an Earth Elemental to deal with the next 10 (it will, obviously, do more than that.)
  DM:  As the earth elemental is killing them, 10 *more* kobolds appear.
  Psionicist, 1E:  Psionic Blast.  (catches them all in blast, kills them.)
  DM:  10 *more* kobolds show up.
  Monk (yes, the pathetic monk)  I attack Hand to Hand with 3 attacks (3 kobolds instantly dead.)
  Illusionist:  Spectral Force.  Carrion crawlers - I was bit and paralyzed, so can simulate the effect -  appear and attack.
  Cavalier:  Was I supposed to do something?  Oh yes.  Cavalier sword attack with all bonuses.
  Ranger:  Attack with both swords, 4 attacks.

  DM:  Stop, stop, stop!  They're dead.
  The Party:  (yawns)  How boring.  Hey Tucker, you lame brain, get out here and die like a kobold.  Or do we simply chase you down?

  Tucker:  (from a great distance)  You'll never catch me!
  Cleric:  Invisible Stalker, fetch Tucker.

  (invisible stalker returns with Tucker.)

  The Party:  You were saying?


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## Celebrim (Jan 12, 2009)

SHARK said:


> Good points, my friend, good points! I understand your criticisms of the *Tucker's Kobolds* much clearer now after reading your extensive critique. You know I'm *Old School* too. I agree generally with your critique--though I have to say also, that it seems to me that if a DM is going to challenge high-level PC's, *and* avoid simply using the endless treadmill of ever-stronger monsters--that some good creativity and improvisation of lower-level creatures, or monsters long-thought of as more *mundane* may be quite useful, as well as entertaining, true?




Sure.  Like I said, I agree with the point of the article just as much as I shudder at the example.  In my experience, in 1st edition somewhere between 9th and 12th level - depending on how free the DM has been with the magic items, a large experienced party acquires the ability to take down almost anything in the MM and quickly in a straight up fight.  In open battle, a large party of 12th level characters is literally the equal to an entire army.  A few thousand kobolds wouldn't present an excessive challenge.

And it's not that I don't think you can challenge 12th level characters with 'only kobolds'.  You can, you just have to put them in situations were hit points and armor class and THAC0 don't matter.  You use traps, seige weapons, ballistic fire, grenade-like weapons, etc. and you try to never have a kobold actually in line of sight.  

Which is the problem with Moore's example.  In Moore's example, of 'Tucker's Kobolds', there is very little evidence from the text that the kobolds were relying on anything but the most basic of traps (setting oil soaked straw on fire) and there is plenty of evidence that they were in line of sight and exchanging attacks with the party.  It's not a situation where the kobolds are lobbing flaming oil over stone walls, or dropping it down chutes, or luring the party into pit traps: the described situation is primarily one of hurled javelins and axes and volleys of arrows and bolts.  That situation doesn't ring true to me as a player and DM with about 15 years of experience with 1st edition.

What does ring true to me is that the party leader says, "Oh no, it's them!  Run!", not because he thinks its futile to fight kobolds, but because he's come to learn that it is futile to fight the DM's PC.  The party leader is just accepting the abuse as a matter of course, knowing that if he tries to fight the kobolds nothing will work out right and the DM will just go to greater and greater lengths to make the kobolds 'impressive'.  The party leader is metagaming.  The best way to deal with 'Tucker's Kobolds' is to pay homage to Tucker's fearsomeness, but to not give Tucker much of a chance to use them and instead move on to monsters Tucker has less of his ego invested in.



> What do you think of the "Axe of the Dwarvish Lords", anyways? (I guess I never did pick that one up!)




I think it could have been a wonderful adventure, and that it is filled with alot of good ideas and written by someone that understands 1st edition well enough to know how to abuse it, but....

Most of the uber-Dungeon is taken up with 'Skip's Goblins', which are 'Tucker's Kobolds' on steroids.  Not only are the kobolds given enormous amounts of one shot magical items including literally hundreds of explosives and hundreds potions of heroism, but scores of one shot 'rings of spell storing' like devices that grant the goblins various protections.  They are also placed in highly deadly a trap filled environment (with 4' ceilings).   But not only that, they are expressedly immune to all of their own traps.  So, for example, all the doors in the environment are very difficult to open, but all the goblins know special tricks that allow them to be opened immediately.  The goblins automatically avoid all the traps.  The environment is liberally salted with rot grubs, that never attack the goblins.  Plus, additionally, the goblins have special rules for mass volley fire that lets them make nasty area attacks with regular bows.  Essentially, any group of goblin archers can cast fire ball - with no fire resistance.  It kinda sorta makes sense for say 20 goblins working together if you don't think about it too hard (a bunch of arrows is bound to hit something right?), but if you think about it at all you immediately realize that per the rules two archers who don't aim at the target and instead fire in the general direction are far more dangerous than four or eight archers that take aim.  The rules are screwy, ill-thought out, and just designed to screw with the players, because of course they can never take advantage of all these special rules for goblins working in formation.  And that's just the tip of the iceberg.  Trust me, I'm vastly understating the problem.



> However, as an aside to the *Endless Supply* problem that you note with *Tucker's Kobolds*--as well as some of the tactics--what if the DM were to say, well, the Kobolds are allied with *Sauron* and since Sauron wants to gain their absolute loyalty, has impressed them with the abundant supply of all manner of tools, equipment, oil, poisons, and so on? In addition, perhaps some master Assassins and a few *Black Wizards*, etc, etc, spent some time in the past training the kobold tribe?




Well, sure, but even Sauron has a limited supply of this stuff.  Why not supply actual humans with it?  Or gnolls?  Or bugbears?  Why spend a couple hundred gold peices on each kobolds equipment?  Why kobolds? 

But ok, suppose they do have a powerful patron or some similar situation where money is no object.  Maybe they luckily acquired a whole dragon's hoard from an unwary party of adventurers out of spells and down to their last hit point, and then they dug in suffiicently before any one knew what was going on to keep the goblins, orcs, derro, and drow from taking the ill-gotten gains from them.  Or, even more to the point, suppose you want to challenge your PC's with kobolds?

I'm fine with that.  I just think that the skilled DM is showing off how much he can do with so little, not just in terms of the size of the monster, but in the resources that that monster has.  I always want to be careful to seem like I'm extrapolating for the kobolds what's reasonable for them to have, and not what I want to give them to make them seem special.   I'd really only be able to answer the implicit question, 'What do you think is reasonable?', by actually answering in detail.


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## Plane Sailing (Jan 12, 2009)

I just read the 'tuckers kobolds' bit, and the following exchange made me raise my eyebrows a little: 



> I recall we had a 12th-level magic user with us, and we asked him to throw a spell or something. "Blast 'em!" we yelled as we ran. "Fireball 'em! Get those little @#+$%*&!!"
> 
> "What, in these narrow corridors? " he yelled back. "You want I should burn us all up instead of them?"




Surely doing 12d6 damage to the whole party (half on a save, with a fairly good chance)would probably leave everyone hurt but otherwise OK, while it would "in these narrow corridors" toast all the kobolds completely, whether they save or not.

However, in that kind of set-up the DM seems reasonably likely to give them all hand-wavium shields that they hide behind and take no damage from the fireball, but there you go.

Cheers


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## Plane Sailing (Jan 12, 2009)

WayneLigon said:


> This is the sort of thing that annoyed a lot of people about D&D up until 3E: monsters in 1E very frequently have mundane-origin (meaning, it's not a magical ability or supernatural effect, bbut something that anyone could reasonably expect to do given some dedication and training) special abilities that PCs can _never learn_. Ever. I think all elves _except PC elves_ can do the split-move-and-fire thing as well.




Ironically, 4e has gone back to this methodology.

I was running some troglodytes last Sunday, and the trog javelin thrower can pin you to the wall with his javelins. A mundane ability that you can't duplicate no matter how much you might want to (nor can anyone else for that matter). The same is true of many humanoid enemy abilities.

_plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose_!


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## LostSoul (Jan 12, 2009)

Plane Sailing said:


> Ironically, 4e has gone back to this methodology.
> 
> I was running some troglodytes last Sunday, and the trog javelin thrower can pin you to the wall with his javelins. A mundane ability that you can't duplicate no matter how much you might want to (nor can anyone else for that matter). The same is true of many humanoid enemy abilities.




I really wish they included something about ad-hoc rulings for applying effects on the fly.


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## timbannock (Jan 13, 2009)

Many Powers actually perform very similar effects, and there's also the legendary page 42 of the DMG, which does in fact talk about conditions as well as DCs and damage.


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## Hella_Tellah (Jan 13, 2009)

neuronphaser said:


> ...there's also the legendary page 42 of the DMG, which does in fact talk about conditions as well as DCs and damage.




No it doesn't.  It deals only with DCs and expressions of damage--there is not one example of a condition on the whole page.  The closest it gets to talking about conditions is pushing an ogre 1 square, or perhaps granting a +2 or -2 modifier.  If you can find a way to stretch that page to give guidelines for pinning opponents to a wall, you're a better reader than I am.  Me?  I'd ignore that page and tell the player he can attempt it at a -4 penalty to hit.


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## Dausuul (Jan 13, 2009)

Plane Sailing said:


> Surely doing 12d6 damage to the whole party (half on a save, with a fairly good chance)would probably leave everyone hurt but otherwise OK, while it would "in these narrow corridors" toast all the kobolds completely, whether they save or not.




Hmm... well, let's see.  This is a 12th-level party, in 1E.  Thanks to the wonders of OSRIC...

Cleric: 9d6+6 hp (average 37.5), save on 11 or better
Fighter: 9d8+9 hp (average 49.5), save on 10 or better
Thief: 10d6+4 hp (average 39), save on 11 or better
Magic-User: 11d4+1 hp (average 28.5), save on 8 or better

Some characters might have a Con bonus, giving them 1 or even 2 extra hit points per die, but remember this is 1E; you need a 15 or better to get any Con bonus at all, there are no +Con items, your stats don't improve with level, and 4d6 drop lowest is considered a _generous _option for rolling stats.  I'd expect most of the PCs to have 14 or less.

Compare the above to an average 42 points of damage from a 12d6 _fireball_, or 21 on a successful save.  Only the fighter has enough hit points to survive a failed save.  If he rolled well on damage and/or poorly on hit points, the M-U could well kill himself even on a successful save.  And that's if everybody starts at full hit points.  If they've already taken some hits from the kobolds, even the fighter might not make it.

Of course, every single hireling, henchman, and donkey would be incinerated. And to add insult to gruesome searing agonizing injury, 1E _fireballs _can destroy items too. Any PC who fails the save is likely to lose several magic items (in addition to potentially, y'know, dying).

Meanwhile, unless the corridors are _really_ tiny, it's unlikely the blast would fill the whole dungeon level, and besides, all it takes is a door or two and the kobolds behind 'em survive.  Then the PCs have to face those kobolds while beat to crap, probably down at least one party member and maybe two, without any of their animals or retainers, and with a good chunk of their magic items gone.

Not to mention that the party was trying to get _past_ the kobolds to fight more stuff down below.


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## Edena_of_Neith (Jan 13, 2009)

Back then, an experienced party need not have even fired a Fireball.  They could do the same thing with Spectral Force.
  Here's how this is constructed:

  (long ago)

  Illusionist Master:  Master Apprentice, stand still!  (illusionist does)
  Wizard:  (fires weak, 5d6 fireball at apprentice, no attempt at save.)
  Cleric:  (heal on apprentice, before his soul can leave his body.  Heals the insanity caused by the shock, as well.)
  Illusionist Master:  You can now reproduce the exact effects of being hit by a Fireball (poor illusionists ...)

  (recently)

  Illusionist to Party:  On my signal, I will throw the illusionary Fireball.  We will practice this now, with weak (5d6) fireballs, until all of you are immune, can will to disbelieve.
  Party (some groaning) :  Ok
  Party:  (practices, some instantly saving and immune, others hurt but surviving the weak fireball effect, until they also are immune.)
  Party - eventually:  Ready!

  Illusionist:  Ok.  When I give the prearranged signal, you know to forcibly disbelieve.
  Party:  Got it.

  (now)

  DM:  10 kobolds appear, hand crossbows and poisoned bolts ready!
  Illusionist:  Spectral Force ... Fireball!
  The whole party, shouting:  She's throwing a Fireball!  GET DOWN!
  Illusionist:  BURN, KOBOLDS!

  DM:  (rules no save is even allowed for the kobolds ... there is no justifiable reason to expect anything but a real fireball ... they are all killed, killed by their belief a fireball killed them.)  

  DM:  (the hallway fills with illusory smoke and the smell of charred kobolds, who appear to be burning.  The party alone can see through this, because the illusion had no effect on them.)  The 10 kobolds that appear behind you, crossbows and bolts in hand, cannot see for the smoke.  They do not break morale, but look confused, frightened, and do not fire.)

  The Illusionist:  (had only fired a 5d6 fireball illusion, still has 7 dice of damage to inflict, she being 12th level.)  FIREBALL!
  The party:  GET DOWN!
  DM:  (10 more fried kobolds, the entire hallway a charnal wreckage of smoking bodies, superheated stone, smoke, and smell.  The party seem injured to anyone watching, but are still up amidst the disaster.)

  DM:  10 more kobolds appear, looking very frightened and wondering what to do.
  Illusionist:  (still with 2d6 to cast)  Magic Missile!  (It requires 5 dice to simulate a fireball)
  Rest of Party:  We attack!  Arrows, axe/sword, charge, spells, wands, conjured monsters!

  One little Spectral Force ... and just one simple application of it.

  If the rest of the kobolds somehow figure out this is an illusion, a REAL Fireball can be cast ... and the kobolds, trying to disbelieve an illusion, stand there not evading and receive NO saving throw against it.

  Who needs high level spells, when you are trying to dust thousands of kobolds?
  If nothing else, throw that 2nd level cleric spell that involves the chest (I have forgotten the name ... Frisky Chest?) and charge the kobolds.  That chest, loaded with hundreds of pounds of metal, should act as a very effective juggernaut against such small creatures.)

  If the little beasts are going to try to use *poison* against the party, the kind that requires a save or death this round, then it's Lassé Faire.  It's time to Teach a Lesson on those who would contemplate to use poison against the valiant Party!


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## Edena_of_Neith (Jan 13, 2009)

This works in 3rd Edition as well.
  All you need do is House Rule that Spectral Force (and the 2E rules governing it's maximum allowed hit dice of inflictable damage, or allowable hit dice of conjurable monsters) is a 3rd Edition spell of ... 3rd level, as it was in 2E.

  The kobolds are even more vulnerable in this scenario.  Will, Fortitude and Reflex Saves are more difficult to make, even though the kobolds are classed now.

  Of course, if the *kobolds* have practiced this stunt, with their *own* Spectral Force, that's another matter.

  However, since such a stunt would be popular, an experienced 12th level party would be expecting it, and everyone in the party would receive a Will Save to disbelieve.
  Since hit points are greater in 3E, the party is more likely to survive.  Then they can throw something devastating in return. 
  What would that be?

  How about a Battlerager or Frenzied Berserker, or just a very angry barbarian (who did not appreciate that illusionist stunt!) right in their midst?
  Power Attack + Great Cleave + Bastard Sword = a lot of dead kobolds.
  Spiked Chain + Whirlwind Attack = a lot of dead kobolds.
  Conjure Fire Elemental = a lot of dead kobolds (good luck disbelieving *that*.)


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## Edena_of_Neith (Jan 13, 2009)

It can get nastier than I have said.

  (long ago)

  Master Illusionist:  My apprentice, you have done well.  Now, experience the ultimate power of the undead!
  Death Master:  (commands his spectre to drain 2 levels from the illusionist.)
  Evil Cleric:  (throws Restoration twice on the illusionist, who will be expected to repay for the service eventually ... or the spectre will make a return visit, and this time it will not be stopped.)
  Master Illusionist:  You have done well, my apprentice.  Now, you can simulate sucking the very life out of any living thing!

  (now)

  Illusionist of 12th level:  Spectral Force of a spectre, and it attacks.
  Cleric in party:   (brandishes unholy symbol)  By the Power of Bane, I summon the Wrath of the Tyrant upon you!
  Rest of party:  (appears to cringe, to shy away in terror)
  The Illusionist:  (brandishes her fist on high)  Come forth, Cursed One, and may the Bitterness of Untold Centuries be Unleashed upon All.  Kill, and do not stop, do not stop, until they are ALL devoured!
  The Kobolds:  RUN.  (No reason to disbelieve, no save allowed.)

  (but the spectre has a move of 48, and it can attack from the rear ... they can feel it's cold, even without seeing it.  It catches and kills them all.  Believing it can kill them through level drain, that belief kills them.)

  (the spectre sticks around, bowing to it's 'mistress' and it's 'master', ready to kill again.  Those poisoned bolts are useless against it, as the kobolds know very well.  But no more kobolds appear ... they will revolt against Tucker, before being ordered to fight a spectre.  They do not wish to be killed and join it in Unlife!)


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## Edena_of_Neith (Jan 13, 2009)

If Tucker's Kobolds are experienced enough (especially if they are 3E monsters, with high levels in classes of their own) to pull these stunts, and they take on an experienced, creative, and well roleplayed, large 12th level party, the results are going to be ... well ... interesting.

  Interesting as in ...

  (Far away from the dungeon)

  Commoner 1:  What is that commotion?
  Commoner 2:  Are we having an earthquake?
  Commoner 3:  Looks like a thunderstorm is coming.
  Commoner 4:  Sounds like that time I was in the tent with the wounded.  Listen to the yelling and the screaming.


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## Lurks-no-More (Jan 13, 2009)

Dausuul said:


> Some characters might have a Con bonus, giving them 1 or even 2 extra hit points per die, but remember this is 1E; you need a 15 or better to get any Con bonus at all, there are no +Con items, your stats don't improve with level, and 4d6 drop lowest is considered a _generous _option for rolling stats.  I'd expect most of the PCs to have 14 or less.



Actually, isn't "4d6, drop lowest" the Method I in 1e?


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## Edena_of_Neith (Jan 13, 2009)

It was one method, yes.  Quite popular.

  However, I frequently saw it modified in favor of the players, sometimes quite heavily.
  Back in that time, multiple stat scores above 14 were common.


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## timbannock (Jan 13, 2009)

Hella_Tellah said:


> No it doesn't.  It deals only with DCs and expressions of damage--there is not one example of a condition on the whole page.  The closest it gets to talking about conditions is pushing an ogre 1 square, or perhaps granting a +2 or -2 modifier.  If you can find a way to stretch that page to give guidelines for pinning opponents to a wall, you're a better reader than I am.  Me?  I'd ignore that page and tell the player he can attempt it at a -4 penalty to hit.




Alas, you are correct!  I consider push/pull/slide conditions, even though they are not technically so.

Still, it's not much of a leap to put conditions into the same bucket as forced movement.  And I do think your method is perfectly elegant.  It's mathematically similar to using the attack roll as the "skill check" to perform the maneuver.

On second thought, I think a deeper discussion of using conditions would be warranted on page 42, but that not being the case, perusing monster abilities in the MM should give plenty of ideas of how conditions can (and should) be used alongside the table on p. 42.


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