Tucker's Kobolds are terrifying
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From "Tucker's Kobolds" written by Roger E. Moore: media.wizards.com/2014/downlo...
Hall of the Mountain King by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. creativecommons.org/licenses/...
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They faced the one thing most adventuring parties are never prepared to face and lack themselves, strategy. ( DM here)
As another dm: this and lack of caution and lack of level headedness is what causes almost every party I know to die.
This is also why I run new players through the toumb of horrors at level 1 for charecter creation. Nothing teaches caution, strategy, and thinking better than the one dungeon gygax created with next to zero combat, fuckloads of traps, and a cryptic puzzle in the first room to explain everything. It may be hard, but it's not impossible, and the players you get out of it are better, and more prepared, than any 5e group.
@@l.a.wright6912 Oh this sounds fun. I will try it.
@Vogelfaenger it really is. Just make sure you are using the original adnd version of the dungeon (wizards fricked it up in 5th ed) and you modify the mace they get so it can damage asererack. Other than that it's actually really fun and given that it really only has a small handful of combat encounters it's really food at preping new parties to actually think things through
Also I'd advise letting them take their time and give them a few tries. Personally I do it as a first time player's opportunity at charecter creation by natural selection
Me and my party often come up with plans... And then everyone ignores them. We ended up getting TPKed via cannonball.
problem is you could have one maybe 2 in aa party that can make and carry out a plan, now having other party members that will follow a plan that's another thing altogether
I am truly surprised that "we tied off ropes to climb down into the hell pit." wasn't immediately followed by, "Then the Kobolds set the ropes on fire, while pouring flaming pitch after us."
Or cut the rope just to see if the party could pay the featherfall tax. Shoot, Urds could even go after them. Maybe the shaft was used as a trash drop by the kobolds and attracted oozes to litter the walls, hoping to snag the falling detritus?
no goodies later if adventurers dead due to fall, better to leave them weak and tired, give them a moment of hope.
“We survived because the fire inside us burned brighter than the fire around us”
@@LucasTheOnionThis exactly. The kobolds have the beat defensive position, but they can't muster a force to go deeper in search of treasure. In their turf, they're safe, prepared, confident.
Bold adventurer types can go deal with the fire demons and such, then haul all that loot right back up to the waiting kobolds, nicely portioned out for them.
Nah the DM wanted to play with the lower levels he set up
There's a lot of DMs out there complaining that a well-equipped level 20 party can't even be mildly inconvenienced by most CR 25 monsters.
Those DMs need more kobolds.
This sotry can't be from 5e, due to the Fireball coment. A level 12th caster alone can just shut down that encounter. Move Earth for example instantly puts an end to everything the Kobolts can do.
@trndrd who said anything about lvl 12? Also 5e has fireball my dude so you entire comment makes no sense... also dosent more earth only affect like a 20 or 40 foot area for like 2 hours, but it can't move after initial casting (move the spells area I mean not the earth) so other then collapsing the entire top floor of the dungeon and presumably destroying the afore mentioned elevators in the process please explain how that spell would have been at all usefull in this situation?
@@GnomeGninja 2:27 "I recall we had 12th level magic user". "Fireball..." "What, in these narrow corridoors?" . That corridoor comment means the game wasn't in 5e, as how narrow a path is has no effect on the Fireball whatsoever.
@@trndrdthe history of Tucker and his Kobolds is ADnD (AKA 2e), and a classic.
The fireball there had weird rules about becoming larger when cast in narrow places because it was compressed.
@@albertonishiyama1980 There you go, I knew it couldn't be 5e, or even 3.5.
Here's the thing - this is how Kobolds are _supposed_ to be played. Maybe not to _this_ much devastating effect, but in the lore Kobolds are specifically stated to be resourceful, strategic and inventive, even if they do also happen to be silly, adorable derps that like shiny objects and simp for chromatic dragons.
Kind of reminds me of Goblins from goblin slayer, minus the unspeakable parts
@@Metruzancawas thinking the same thing
This may have just killed my players.
If I remember right, them acting silly is supposed to put people in a false sense of security
Only the chromatic ones?
TO be fair, one of the scariest things to an organized military IS unconventional, guerilla tactics.
Side note, this is why the sleep spell is REALLY good.
📝
if you read the kobold descriptions thats pretty much how theyre suppossed to be run
Exactly, the strength of Kobolds and Goblins are in their cunning
@@ZacSpeaksGiant And in their strength of numbers. I had a 10th level party almost get a TPK from 100 goblins in a random encounter. (war zone, party trying to sneak between the combatants). It was simple tactics, archers on a ridge with mele fighters advancing in front of them one shaman and one sorcerer buffing their troops. Player characters who were used to surrounding a Big Bad Evil Guy and beating it to death had a hard time adapting to open field combat.
The individual goblins went down in 1 hit. Goblins needed 20 to hit the PCs fighters. But with all those dice, 20s happen. That also means every hit on a PC is a critical, effectively doubling the number of hits when viewed as DPS. The back-line PCs, casters and missle weapon characters, were being overwhelmed with arrows. It boiled down to an artillery duel between casters and archers while the fighting types got no support and had to just slog through the piles of goblins. The PCs lived, but the players had PTSD for several sessions and were a lot less likely to charge into a fight that could be avoided. Lesson learned.
The story of Tucker's Kobolds is old, like older than Wizard's acquisition of the the IP. It's entirely likely that the modern descriptions for Kobolds is _because_ of Tucker's Kobolds.
VietKobolds
@@ZefulStarson This is very likely. Apparently the descriptions older than this story don't really mention the cunning of kobolds.
"in the days I was stationed at Ft. Bragg"
Its almost like DnD games that are run by people with real training in tactics and strategy make terrifying DMs.
That’s up there as one of my favorite parts of the video. It has nothing to do with the game itself but explains everything about why and how this happened.
What's worse is that there are a few SpecOps units stationed at Bragg.
I've got 3 words to add to that. "All Guardsmen Party."
Imagine a campaign run by a CIA operative.
craziest thing? canonically this is the exact type of thing the kobolds would do. You never fight them in their "nest"
I hope "Tuckers Kobalds" Becomes the official name these hyper-cunning, ultra-vicious bastards.
It really says something when a party of seasoned adventures would rather fling themselves into a literal pit to hell than fight a particular enemy.
The thing is, this is what happens when you take lower level mooks such as Kobolds and Goblins and run them like actual thinking beings, using their cunning and numbers to make up for their weaknesses
That WAS the whole point of the original story.
Here's how they should have done things.
Go to the level 1 entrance, plant a white flag, shout out a hello, and have a nice meal with lots of meat set out. When the Kobolds come to see what's going on, ask to talk to the leader, you want to make a deal. Negotiate passage through their territory, with some nice fresh cattle, and a portion of the treasure for safe passage on the way back.
You survive, the kobolds get food and treasure in return, it's win win.
Yeah, we have done that more than once, but sometimes the food as deadly. And the treasured we gave away were a bit more explosive than even would have thought. It was certainly a lot of mayhem regardless.
So no guarantees that anyone who did survive this kind of encounter would accept a white flag even again. ;-)
@@Traumglanz While murder-hobo parties like that are fairly common in DnD, for a realistic DM, that behaviour will more likely get the party killed, rather than shut down the potential for diplomacy. Poison food: They let you in, their shaman tests the food, finds poison, you find yourself trapped in the centre of level 1 with a lot of angry Kobolds ambushing you, effectively setting you back to the non-diplomacy option. Trapped treasure: They let you start making your way out. They have a Kobold try the treasure, it explodes, you find yourself trapped in the centre of level 1 with a lot of angry Kobolds ambushing you, effectively setting you back to the non-diplomacy option, and possibly sealing the exit so you have to go back down.
I once used something similar. As my Kobolds are VERY self aware. They know they're weak. So they trap EVERYTHING.
Honeycombed tunnels? Sure sure, how about a honeycomb of traps across an absolutely massive corridor with a mix of obvious ones and well hidden ones.
Not enough? Hookshots. Kobold hookshots designed to start opening fire when the party reaches the center of the trap room. From the various corners. There goal is to both pull PCs through the traps and trigger them, and pull the PCs away from each other. And even if they get free, they still need to go back through more traps.
This is not out of malice either. This is self defense. Adventurers wipe out Kobolds in droves. They're endangered species in my world. They know armored figures approaching means death. some are even prepared to ambush an approaching party with flasks of oil or alchemists fire hidden on them if it means the others have time to evacuate the hatchery.
Damn if I were apart of this party and learned kobolds were an endangered species in this world ide would've stopped trying to invade they'r dungeons and start spreading awareness of they'r near extinction.
Makes me think of the game "Meet Your Maker" where players build huge trap fortresses and then attempt to raid eachothers forts. One of the highest rated forts had grappling hooks hidden behind plasma barriers, so raiding players would get yanked around blind corners into murder holes. Then, even if they dodged those, they still had to get back out through spike corridors with grenade launchers hidden in the ceiling.
A warning I often give while gaming, and in real life. "Don't make me get creative"
The internet has given us centuries of ideas, thought up by clever folks, that we can copy; and I have done more then a bit of reading over the years.
Give me time to plan, and a whole world of pain can be brought into being.
Still haven't used a detonating grist mill yet, but it is in my bag of tricks.
I am lucky my groups have never had to meet my "creative side". They are usually enough of a hazard to eachother that I don't need to do much of anything.
This is the type of enemies that spawn very devoted warriors.
Warrior at guild: "What kind of quest are you looking for?" "Kobolds" "Here you go, Kobold Slayer"
These PCs have been traumatized for life. They're gonna wake up in the middle of the night years later screaming about the walls talking
Kobalds are finnish confirmed?
@@l.a.wright6912
Vietkobold
“The walls are speaking yipyak”
@@hellacoorinna9995they make tunnels and set a bunch of traps. Of course they are like the vietcong.
The tunnels speak Kobold.
"Kobold Commandos" is the coolest fucking concept to me
This would work perfectly at a party that's going murderhobo. The party is so dangerous that the villagers and monsters' team up. A few of them go out as bait for the party in an enclosed room. However, the party doesn't know that there are 2 more groups. 1 of them closes the door sneakily and the other group is ready with something damaging that the party doesn't know about. It heavily involves teamwork.
the players are looking over at Tuckers sheet for the Kobolds and all seems normal…. Until they see the traits and attributes, they have the normal things that Kobolds would have for their personalities until they see it… “TUCKER WHY WOULD YOU GIVE THEM PACK TACTICS!?!” “Because why not lol :P”
I know this is late, but kobolds already have pack tactics.
This is why kobolds are my favorite DND race. 1 of them is even sometimes enough to devistate an entire party. Even being extremely innocent. I had a kobold befriend the druid of the party she fell in love with the kobold, treating it like a little brother due to her tragic back story she taught it common, it would do tricks for her even sang(much to the bards annoyance and thebpalidins Ire) the kobold and druid accidentally signed a blood pact. Then swallowed an extremely important magic item that the party needed right then and there. The party then proceeded to argue with eachother about killing the kobold and ended up killing eachother trying to get to it. The palidin was mortally wounded, the rogue who had sided with the druid in not killing the kobold had his brains splattered against the wall by the palidin the bard had a nervous breakdown becuase his toy piano(yes he played a toy piano) was used as a shovel against the druid then promptly ran at the BBEG only to be thrown off a cliff. Everyone died extremely gruesomely because the kobold ate a magical talking gem.this happened in about ten minutes was entirely player driven and i was more stunned with the ending of the game than the party was. The kobold was Not Suppoaed To Eat The Gem! The Druid told it to "put it somewhere on you that would be safe." The kobold didnt have any clothes so it just ate it.
This is so chaotic, it's awesome
@@Kutomi1 that happened a number of years ago, and its my second favorite dnd story involving kobolds. The other one doesnt have as much meat to it and involved a player character kobold.
And not one of the players suggested they simply wait and let nature take its course, as it were?
Tucker’s Kobolds, a simple dish server by a master chef.
Can we make Tucker’s Kobolds into a slang term for something that is very weak but so clever and malicious it’s more powerful than something stronger than it?
Tubolds?
@@kn1ghtsm1t38it’s supposed to be a term like Schrodingers Cat
With us old farts, it is.
An enemy capable of seeing their downsides and adapting are fucking horrifying
I once amassed an army of Kobalds, first time I ever saw a DM make scramble for a name.
All hail Gruemoosh.
So, they made kobolds in pyromaniac viet cong soldiers. I am both, impressed, horrified and taking notes for my next few sessions.
The trick is to catch them on Moss Sorting Day when two of the Kobolds are arguing over whether their collected moss should be sorted by color or taste and the rest are all trying to avoid getting drawn into the argument. Sneak through without disturbing any of them and you're golden. Unfortunately they'll definitely have finished by the time you're coming back so you'll still have to fight your way through to get out.
th-cam.com/users/shorts7FXrADugDNU
i knew the situation was really fucked up when the magic user refused to cast fireball and said "What, in these narrow corridors?" as an excuse... like damn, that's putting the fear of gods in a good place
Not an excuse. In 2e Fireball always hit max area. This means in narrow tunnels the length increases to friendly fire range
This is why I love the "if you can't beat them, befriend them' strategy. I prefer playing charisma classes, so yeah watch me negotiate with evil witches, crazy dragons and, maybe, a whole battalion of kobolds in guerilla mode.
i think this really depends on your party though. my wizard, who was item creation specialized, and REALLY hated having to dungeon dive for materials and "networking opportunities" wouldnt have thought twice about firebombing the narrow corridors, especially if supremely outnumbered and caught between a bottomless pit and the kobolds being the only way out. The whole "but it would hurt the party though" would be irrelevant when death is certain if i dont act :P
sure, that fireball will hurt a fuckton... but the kobolds have only 4 hps and the party likely has, in good part, at least 30 hps left per characcter.
you know what to do wizard.
Dang, what player hates dungeon diving/crawling? The game has dungeon in it's name for a reason lol. Also true about the party thing, a smart enough party probably would have gone through this like a breeze lol
Just remember though. This was a much earlier version of DnD, where fireballs in and enclosed area rebounded and did more damage. Same with lightning bolts bouncing off the walls.
So a single fireball in an enclosed space could easily wipe a party with the damage reflection off the walls as the players take the same fireball some 3+ times to the face.
ACTION ECONOMY! The tarrasque may have lots of HP, Regeneration, etc, etc, but it really doesn't put out much damage per turn. One healer or buff-cleric could probably handle that.
A bunch of goblins, kobolds, or other feisty friends with traps and a rough semblance of a plan? They can put out far more damage than the party can turn-over-turn, even if you can take a bunch down with one spell.
I'm sorry have you seen a decently optimised twelfth level party?
They throw absolute heaps of damage and can easily deal with a small regiment of kobolds in 5e. Hell our party of 5 level 5s in rotfm just beat the ass of 20+ duergar - tho tbf we are very optimised
an unprepared party will have a terrible time, meanwhile are prepared party is going to wreak havoc on them...
probably
@@rishitchithirala2977 And a party of seasoned players with well-optimized builds that synergize together are going to be even more dominant against an equivalent single monster.
It also makes a difference what the enemy is doing. In a kobold lair, you don't need to actively cheese things to have relatively few enemies in range of any one AoE attack, because they're already going to be spread out through a ton of small, concealed tunnels. They're going to activate traps or fire crossbows before ducking back behind cover. I mean, if you play them the same way as a group of zombies, all just running into melee where the PCs can slaughter them en masse, then they're going to be disappointing no matter the creature. Kobolds might lock and flood the tunnel you're in, or have one of the kobolds with magical abilities summon some earth elementals who can then act as mobile cover or provide flanking opportunities for a kobold with a poisoned spear ready to strike from concealment.
No clue whether that was the case in your game, but one of the issues I see over and over again is DMs not treating kobolds, goblins, and other creatures as being prone to devious plots and clever traps instead of just something to mob the party with. Don't get me wrong, a mass rush of smaller combatants is one tactic open to them, but it should only be used as a last resort or when victory is assured. They need to have forethought put into them before the session - what nasty surprises to they have prepared? What backup plans do they have for when those first nasty surprises don't do the trick? Whether or not they are individually intelligent, they need to be intelligent as a group, able to come up with lots of plans for dealing with intruders that each have multiple levels of backup plans, as well as multiple ways of escaping in one piece in case ALL their plans go kaput. They are usually fairly cowardly, and want to do a few HP at a time from safety or immobilize/incapacitate a PC, rather than risk injury for even great rewards.
Theirs is not the intellectual bastion of an ancient wizard, but the collective abilities of a community of treacherous, backstabbing, cowardly enemies who will go over their plans a dozen times just to make sure that, whatever else may happen, they personally won't be injured. Combining that intelligence with their high action economy results in an opposing force that can shoot you in the back with a poisoned blowdart no matter what direction you face. Group up in a circle, backs together, to face in all directions at once? One of them will spot this from a passageway up above, and will loosen a stone in the ceiling to send hundreds of pounds of solid rock crashing down on all your heads.
That group dynamic is what makes fighting kobolds so much worse than dealing with a bunch of crocodiles. They will team up to ruin your day in the most efficient and least dangerous manner available.
See...this is how kobolds should be used. They are supposed to be dangerous. Their whole thing is traps and gorilla tactics...if you're party isn't scared when they see kobold in a den, you're using them wrong
And I'm not biased *slowly pushes away my 15 kobold player sheets*
Hall of the Mountain King was perfect for this.
Inteligence is a weapon, first who gona use it wins.
One of my friends hated kobold so much, once, he made a weapon that cqn detect and attack them for 3d8, the dm banned the weapon from his campaigns by any means necessary, like it got stolen, broken, or someone forget where to put it, it was quite hilarious seeing them quarrel over something simple like this😅
Ngl if I were pc i would have named the character 'the kobolds slayer' and accepted any quests that involved kobolds lol
The Benny Hill version of Goblin Slayer.
That sounds like an excellent way to kill one kobold... and then get 49 more specifically targeting ONLY HIM in the next six seconds. Whoops.
that moment when the rocks start speaking draconic
"Sometimes, it's the little things, used well that count"
That's what she said!
THE INDOMINABLE KOBOLT SPIRIT
Clearly a new wizard open door, cast cloudkill, close door, wait for the spell to bug bomb the kobolds. Some people really do only cast fireball.
What door? The barred door?
@@itap8880 No before they went in, they knew the kobolds would be there and that they would have to deal with them, open the door while still outside have the wizard cast cloudkill and just close the kobolds in, if the tunnels are so enclosed that fireball back blast is a worry cloudkill will spread out quite a bit and kobolds would more or less not be able to pass the saving check for it due to how weak they are.
@@neogoterra Ok, that makes more sense.
While not quite the same, when I ran the Tyranny of Dragons Campaign, later on in the campaign the party was getting stronger in battle and were mowing down the enemies I placed before them, to the point they talked about how 'easy' I was making the combat. So, I responded by making the next big combat encounter tougher by grouping the enemies into parties and having them act as a cohesive units.
As a Dm, this gave me so many ideas for my campaigns. As a player, I hope my DMs never find this...
Ngl, my first character was a druid, and my first dm hated me because thx to some good rolls and some creativity, I would destroy the world around me, with mold earth... after about a year into the campaign, almost every mini boss and boss level was filled with tile, stone, metal, or even glass surroundings
Kobolds are nasty, when played right.
I had a group of mid-level PCs in college (around 1996/7) that nearly got TPKed by kobolds. The kobolds had giant spider cavalry (on the ceilings, walls, etc.) with polearms, kobolds with repeating hand crossbows, and very similar tactics to Tucker's. Obviously, still sticks in my memory 26 years later.
Tucker’s Kobolds required a Goblin Slayer style approach that this group was not prepared to deliver. XD
*the walls start speaking Kobold*
The Party: "Game over man! Game over!"
That's kobolds for you. Stats aren't much to write home about, not too tough out in the wild, but given homefield advantage or time to prepare, they are an existential threat to PCs of any level
Reminder: there's no geneva in fantasy TTRPGs
now we are talking
Tuckers Kobolds sounds like some military unit.
Honestly I love when games tabletop or otherwise do this. Just rather than the big giant enemy just put me against a group of smaller more intelligent enemies that use tactics and tricks to try and rip you to shreds. It’s just far more interesting to me,
This is the most insane, hilarious DnD story I have ever heard in my life.
Who knew Kobolds could cause this amount of hilarity and chaos? Not me!
This is the one use for dragon born breath weapon, just blast em and carve through
I love the strategy and tactics, and it makes sense that the kobolds would prepare the area to be deadly when they knew that people would regulaly be coming into the dungeon
"There's one thousand of us and only one of him, what's he gonna do? Escape?"
Basically, these kobolds will give your players "Vietnam flashbacks!" 😱🤣
Damn that’s genius also terrifying
There is a micro-roguelike called "Smart Kobold" that is basically a single-player version of this. You play as a mid-to-high-level adventurer with a sword that can OHK just about anything, an Amulet of True Sight (scouting), and a Ring of Searching (trap detection). You hear about a nearby kobold nest, and decide to go clear it out. The kobolds are weak, barely able to hurt you with their crude daggers and wooden shortbows - but they are smart. The kobolds don't have nearly the infrastructure or armaments Tucker's Kobolds have - but the game is still _ridiculously_ hard.
Yes. A new generation must hear the tale of Tucker's Kobolds.
Now *THAT* is level balancing!
Oh, also, fireball in the olden days always expands to its full volume of 33,000 cubic feet.
A Kobold was the race of my first ever character. Eldritch knight that loves to fight up close and personal and loves to use dragonic cry to give my entire party advantage on attacks. Just be grateful they didnt use that on their party.
"The Hall of the Mountain King" is perfect. The judges would have also accepted "O Fortuna".
0:20 FORT BRAGG?! We got some liberty dnd players 😂😂😂 also it got changed last month to fort liberty 😂😂
I learned how nasty kobolds could be in the Dragon Mountain module. Have DM'd my "low level" mobs like this since. They almost never just rush in unless the party manages to surprise them. IF these mobs have ANY forewarning of pending combat with an adventuring party, they will always use strategy and terrain to the best of their ability.
I just sent this to my DM. I shudder to think what he will cook for us, but I just can't help it.
I ran some Tucker's for my friends. They are all, every one of them, old hands like myself and the majority of them started on AD&D, where things fucked around not one bit. We all had run a campaign each in 5e, and it was my turn behind the screen, and i remember a lit of complaints in Discord conversations that 5e is too soft and easy.
So, I decided to stir shit up.
They got sent to a mine that got infested a while back. They were cocky, because this ed is remarkably forgiving, so they just had a few healing pots and, I think, a med kit. "In and out a few times, and short rests to compensate," they thought. Walked into the entrance and through the entry passage into the first cavern, and failed to either check for traps or passive the tripwire.
The entrance collapsed. Clanging could be heard off in the distance. From the walls, the grinding of gears and stone counterweights. They ran back to the entrance, saw the rubble, and ran back to the cavern.
Thats when the kobolds fr9m one of the other two exits rolled a wagon full of burning hay and tar at them. Party got out of its way, but didnt realize it never would have reached them anyway, because it was destined for the pit full of explosives and spikes in front of them that had an illusion cast on it to appear as a stalagmite. It just got worse from there. The next two sessions were a non-stop running firefight full of traps, murderholes, floor tunnels, and shifting walls. The kobolds would harry them into corridors with false floors and punji traps, or tripwires releasing spike studded deadfall traps. One particularly memorable incident involved some kobolds making a retreating action up to a side corridor on an uphill incline, then having their buddies push a boulder down the main path and run the party off Indiana Jones style. Every time the party thought they had barricaded themselves well enough, another hole they missed would sprout a crossbow. Cant take a short rest if you dont get 10 minutes of peace, can you? By the end of the dungeon, they were just where we all had started off behavior-wise: poking in front of them with a 10 foot pole, using a rock on a rope to check for illusory walls and floors, and the rearguard crawling on their stomach, shoving a sword at the base of the walls every 5 feet just to make sure they werent missing hidden kobold warrens. The warrior stole the paladin's shield and had one held in front of them and ine held anove them as they took point.
Best time they had in this edition, they said. I remember a few of them screaming.
Gokd times.
This sounds like he borrowed from 2nd edition D&D's Dragon Mountain. Groups of grappling Kobolds, corridors with air tight doors to stop fireball blow-back, tiny tunnels, kobolds with wands, etc. It was designed to greatly challenge or kill higher level PCs. IIRC, the body count was pretty high, set off by having a well played cleric that raised several PCs.
One of the reasons Tucker's Kobolds work so well is because they CAN go all out. They're still weak, and it's cool to lose to Kobolds.
If an Adult Green Dragon (18 Int, 80 fly speed, massive resources, and a penchant for cruelty and treachery) did the same thing, it would end the campaign with a very frustrating TPK.
1.) Lure the adventurers to its home swamp. The cruelest way would be to offer a fake quest and ambush them out of the blue, but it's probably more thematically appropriate to piss them off and have the players charge in for revenge.
2.) Wait until they are deeply ensnared in his trap.
3.) Throw minions using guerilla tactics. Could literally use tucker's kobolds, but might be more fun to use charmed innocent villagers. And swamp creatures. Poison, sinking bogs, illusions.
4.) Every time the party tries to rest, swoop in, blast them with 56 acid damage, and leave.
4a.) Rot their food and spoil their water.
5.) Use curses or counterspells to prevent them from teleporting out.
6.) Turn it up to 11 if the party reaches the dragon in its lair.
7.) The dragon is paranoid, and makes use of Nondetection and Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum to prevent scrying.
I promise, whatever you can think up in 30 minutes, the dragon who's spent 20 years preparing this strategy is ready for it.
Perhaps the Green Dragon teamed up with a Hag (or three).
More things to understand for context: Tucker ran his games back in 1st edition. Adventuring oarties were huge, with lots of henchmen - possibly groups of twenty or so armed individuals - and had a bunch of donkeys or mules to carry out treasure if they were wealthy enough. Plus 8th was considered high level. At 9th you were powerful and famous enough to carve your own barony out of the wilderness and people would flock to your banner, so...
freaking kobolds were navi seals... fuck!
Had a dm that had made this multiple layer dungeon well before anyone had made characters for the campaign. In information about the boss there was a note about a prepared action. This action was when the party enters the room the boss will teleport to next to the last party member in the marching order and use all 7 attacks on them. When my party did eventually get to the boss fight it was the first thing we did that session and it was right after initiative was rolled that i realized that I had foolishly forgotten to heal use any healing spells on myself and was going into the fight on 9 hp and being the rogue with one level cleric because we needed a healer that used a bow I was last in the marching order and as it turns out 6 short sword attacks and a tail attack is plenty of damage to drop a rogue to 0 hp and then slash through their death saves in a single turn.
I ran a party through Keep On the borderlands. The kobolds there were a terror also. The party referred to them as the "Dreaded Kneebiters"
When the walls start speaking Kobold.
Naming my world’s greatest strategist Tucker, after this great DM. Naturally, he’s the architect of some of the most vile dungeons in all of the planes, and if the players ever end up sick of his tricks and hunt him down, I’d course they’ll find out he’s a kobald artificer.
This is the the thesis of goblin slayer
I wonder if the kobolds can be bribed for safe passage. They’re clearly very intelligent.
Hahaha, someone should send this to Den of the Drake to warn him his little buddy could rise up against him!
If you can't fight strong, fight smart.
Who would win?
A group of six fully equipped level 14 murder-hobos?
OR
The full might of the kobold 10th Mountain Division?
This post has been fact checked by real Kobold patriots
DM: alright Grunts, remember learning about vietnam?
Players: err yeah?
DM: now you get to experience it.
Indeed, the most dangerous foe the party can and will ever face will always be...... the DM. Seriously though, the real threat that party faced was not the kobolds themselves but the insane resources, terrain advantage and coordination that the DM allowed the kobolds to have. The amount of resources afforded to that pack of Kobolds would make a local lord with a castle jealous. Those kobolds must have spent hundreds or even thousands of gold pieces worth of oil to kill those adventurers, where did they even get all of that? Tucker's Kobolds is barely a step away from the infamous "Rocks Fall, everyone dies" joke that happens from time to time in DnD groups.
This guy needs a commission
😂😂😂😂 I can confirm, I had to Deux ex machina my players out of the combat after I almost killed them with skeletons. How?! I hear you ask. They were just in formation and used simple tactics
I love Tucker's Kobolds. I imagine my Kobold's Rights Activist artificer kobold, who happens to really not like humans for how they treat kobolds, reads it like a bedtime story.
Awesome! Thanks ZacSpeaksGiant.
The Viet-Kobald
This is a prime example of an intelligent enemy on its home ground. The original Ravenloft module is where I first learned this principle; intelligence, time to prepare, and hands to work are a monster's best friends. Kobolds aren't the smartest critters, but there are many, many hands to work.
The best thing for this party would be to not fight the kobolds, but use diplomacy to arrange safe passage through the kobold territory. Pay a toll or something.
I almost expected (and I have very very little DND knowledge) the wizard to cast a wish spell to get rid of them or teleport them or protect them or something
I think wish is a very very hight level spell and even then can only be used once so even if they manage to obtain it early on using it on a bunch of kobolds would be a waste of a good spell
@@elishafollet5347 This isn't incorrect, but it's not accurate. If not used in order to mimic another spell's effects, you are dealt 1d10 damage per spell level every time you try to cast another spell until you take a Long Rest, your strength score drops to 3 for 2d4 days, and finally there is a _1/3 chance_ that you will never be capable of casting Wish again.
Wish is the highest spell level in the game - you need to be at least level 17 (it caps at 20) to cast it.
Sounds like Tucker's Kobolds were operating more like an Army Ranger Battalion than a pack of standard Kobolds, lol.
correctly played, standard kobolds DO operate like an army ranger battalion. They're canonically ultra-clever guerilla fighters.
Even in an old computer-based RPG, kobolds were nasty.
The game "Pool of Radiance" was an AD&D 1e game which was part of the "Gold Box" games by SSI. And one of the missions in this game was to prevent an evil leader from allying with kobolds.
... and you were sent to disrupt that, to their lair. There was a front door (which you had to swim under a pool) and a back door... the back door was guarded by a wyvern. This was the *easy* way in, because these kobolds were problems if you triggered an alarm. And when you got to confront the lord of the warrens things went south fast. Because there were way more kobolds than you might have anticipated, and they attacked in waves.
And between waves, things like being fired on with arrows... or catapults... and you'd need to escape through armed traps once you finished.
Yeah, this was a wake-up call dungeon. And the later dungeons were not quite this bad, except for Zhentil Keep. That's another problem entirely.
The kobolds could do that to the party because their support casters selected spells poorly, and the team didn't use a face and scout properly.
The party leader was the problem.
I did this once, the player who was going solo with an NPC (both like 5th level) didn't get more than a third into the single floor dungeon, and the NPC lost an eye. I didn't even have rules for losing an eye, but it was the only possible outcome from peeping into a firing slit (they were gonna cast sleep but needed sight).
I can just imagine the dm smirking
" Tucker in an incredible dangerous dungeon and the days I was stationed at fort Bragg"I'm picturing Tucker as being some hard ass e6 could gone through desert storm and the"country building" afterwards. Yeah his dungeons are going to be incredibly hard, and essentially manned with terrorists.
Holy Shit. Now I want to see this with Unggoy's from Halo.
One: This sounds anything but fun, and the party would surely slap there DM and leave.
Two: KOBOLDS ARE INTELLIGENT AND LIKE SHINIES! PAY THEM TO LET YOU PASS!
It isn't a Kobold's job to TPK the party. Their job is to punish players who don't practice awareness.
Kobolds! \o/
Eat that, goblins!
I do think the worst and most important part about a situation like this is. The brains behind this are smaller than the party. And their tunnels in the walls are small and cramped and impossible to navigate if you are not the size of the monster or smaller. Make them tiny if possible.
I read this article WAYYYY back in the day and have used the notion ever since to UTTERLY TERRIFY PCs when they get complacent.
I need this for my final dungeon, a final challenge for my players
If you guys have ideas tell me
"Kobold Commandos." Jesus Christ...
And that is why we have Warding Wind