I just thought of a one shot or a adventure to stick in a campaign. The adventurers have been hired by the local nobles of a town to remove a kobold infestation in an abandoned castle (similar to a manor in size) that has been there for decades. Little do the players know that these kobolds have been reproducing at fast rates and underneath the castle is a literal ant colony of pathways. Of course since there are so many kobolds I have made the ruling that they have 1 hit point each, allowing them to pose a threat in large numbers without actually being to hard to deal with. On top of this there are traps from the castle itself all the way to the bottom of the Kobold lair. If you guys have ideas on how to improve on my initial idea, that would be appreciated.
Why do the nobles want the kobolds cleared out? Are the kobolds causing general trouble in the town?
Maybe the nobles have intel that the kobolds are hoarding treasure, and the nobles want to hire adventurers to kill the kobolds, after which the nobles will attempt to claim the hoard for themselves. What the nobles (and adventurers) don't know, is that the kobolds are collecting all of this treasure to appease a dragon living nearby.
The kobolds plan to make a deal with the dragon; they supply it with a steady stream of treasure, and the dragon will attack any towns/villages the kobolds ask it to.
If the kobolds succeed, the dragon turns on the kobolds and slaughters them all after attacking the village.
This is genius, perhaps a young green dragon since they are pretty good at lies and deceit. Inside the castle I plan to have traps of different levels of severity. If you have any ideas for traps that would be awesome.
This is genius, perhaps a young green dragon since they are pretty good at lies and deceit. Inside the castle I plan to have traps of different levels of severity. If you have any ideas for traps that would be awesome.
I'm admittedly not the best at coming up with good trap ideas. Kobolds tend to be pretty inventive, so maybe there could be a tripwire connected to a bell that alerts the kobolds of intruders. Perhaps that tripwire also causes a net to drop down onto the party, allowing the kobolds to rush in and stab them?
Maybe there could be a moat around the castle, which is filled by a nearby river. There could be a pit trap with a pressure plate at the bottom, connected to a system that redirects the river's flow into the pit, so the pit slowly fills with water as the victim figures out how to escape.
Of course there could be the standard swinging axes, poison needle traps, and spiked pits too.
This is genius, perhaps a young green dragon since they are pretty good at lies and deceit. Inside the castle I plan to have traps of different levels of severity. If you have any ideas for traps that would be awesome.
I'm admittedly not the best at coming up with good trap ideas. Kobolds tend to be pretty inventive, so maybe there could be a tripwire connected to a bell that alerts the kobolds of intruders. Perhaps that tripwire also causes a net to drop down onto the party, allowing the kobolds to rush in and stab them?
Maybe there could be a moat around the castle, which is filled by a nearby river. There could be a pit trap with a pressure plate at the bottom, connected to a system that redirects the river's flow into the pit, so the pit slowly fills with water as the victim figures out how to escape.
Of course there could be the standard swinging axes, poison needle traps, and spiked pits too.
I like the idea of a alarm system and the drowning pit, but maybe instead of water it fills up with green slime that the Kobolds have cultivated.
Trap Wise, my personal favourite for Kobolds is a pressure plate on a set of stairs, that when triggered activates a ballista that rapidly shoots bolts at the players on an initiative, it feels like a monster combat but when it actually shines is when they see the pressure plate and not the ballista, that makes things interesting!
This is genius, perhaps a young green dragon since they are pretty good at lies and deceit. Inside the castle I plan to have traps of different levels of severity. If you have any ideas for traps that would be awesome.
I'm admittedly not the best at coming up with good trap ideas. Kobolds tend to be pretty inventive, so maybe there could be a tripwire connected to a bell that alerts the kobolds of intruders. Perhaps that tripwire also causes a net to drop down onto the party, allowing the kobolds to rush in and stab them?
Maybe there could be a moat around the castle, which is filled by a nearby river. There could be a pit trap with a pressure plate at the bottom, connected to a system that redirects the river's flow into the pit, so the pit slowly fills with water as the victim figures out how to escape.
Of course there could be the standard swinging axes, poison needle traps, and spiked pits too.
I like the idea of a alarm system and the drowning pit, but maybe instead of water it fills up with green slime that the Kobolds have cultivated.
That's a good idea. If it was just water, it'd be fairly easy to escape, while green slime is much more of a threat
Trap Wise, my personal favourite for Kobolds is a pressure plate on a set of stairs, that when triggered activates a ballista that rapidly shoots bolts at the players on an initiative, it feels like a monster combat but when it actually shines is when they see the pressure plate and not the ballista, that makes things interesting!
On this note, since kobolds are small, you could have the pressure trap only activated by medium-sized creatures and larger, or else creatures wearing heavy armor or carrying a lot of weight. The ballista idea is a good one if you want a potentially deadly trap designed to inflict a lot of damage. If the intent was different, you might consider having the stairs collapse under the weight of the characters causing some minor damage, making a lot of noise to alerts the guards, and potentially challenging the characters as they tried to advance through the castle.
Kobolds are pact tactics. Constantly having advantage is huge.
Making traps fire above their heads is a great idea for a small creature. Having the kobolds activate traps that miss them and hit the players is a great idea.
There’s always the room full of lines and lines of statues, and something, like entering they’re line of vision or stepping on a pressure plate, gets them animated.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbithole, and that means comfort.”
If the Kobolds are aware of the party they can lead the party into a trap a defensive position. Have the characters enter what they think of as a large square empty room, what the characters may not be aware of is that there is a false partition which makes up the north wall perhaps a flimsy wooden partition from which kobolds with crossbows await. The kobolds set this up if alerted earlier to the party as a position to defend. If your very nasty add in that there are holes in the ceiling in which they poor hot tar. Have a look at a Portcullis for ideas. You can get meaner with clouds of itching dust making verbalised magic impossible. A strong fighter might easily break through the false wall and although the kobolds might lock the party in retreat through smashing a door should be possible. The party if they see themselves as invincible especially after butchering many of the weak kobolds and not used to this and filled with false confidence in invisibility be butchered but that was the fun of old school D&D where a bad move or stupidity results in a death. Generally players love it as long as they chased the kobolds in haste, there are options its not just certain death if they are smart they can survive.
Kobolds make for some of the best, dangerously uncertain, encounters. Having begun my RP game experience during those deadly years, I grew to enjoy the uncertainty of success inherent in potentially deadly scenarios. They teach the players that smart play can earn them great rewards, and brute force and arrogance carry their own costs. [redacted. sent info to another, more appropriate thread]
Too late to be brief, kobolds, when used to their full potential, are a wonderful game tool for whittling even the most powerful individuals down to size. Just be careful; some players really don't like to see their perceived invincibility of their characters challenged.
I just thought of a one shot or a adventure to stick in a campaign. The adventurers have been hired by the local nobles of a town to remove a kobold infestation in an abandoned castle (similar to a manor in size) that has been there for decades. Little do the players know that these kobolds have been reproducing at fast rates and underneath the castle is a literal ant colony of pathways. Of course since there are so many kobolds I have made the ruling that they have 1 hit point each, allowing them to pose a threat in large numbers without actually being to hard to deal with. On top of this there are traps from the castle itself all the way to the bottom of the Kobold lair. If you guys have ideas on how to improve on my initial idea, that would be appreciated.
Good idea.
Why do the nobles want the kobolds cleared out? Are the kobolds causing general trouble in the town?
Maybe the nobles have intel that the kobolds are hoarding treasure, and the nobles want to hire adventurers to kill the kobolds, after which the nobles will attempt to claim the hoard for themselves. What the nobles (and adventurers) don't know, is that the kobolds are collecting all of this treasure to appease a dragon living nearby.
The kobolds plan to make a deal with the dragon; they supply it with a steady stream of treasure, and the dragon will attack any towns/villages the kobolds ask it to.
If the kobolds succeed, the dragon turns on the kobolds and slaughters them all after attacking the village.
[REDACTED]
This is genius, perhaps a young green dragon since they are pretty good at lies and deceit. Inside the castle I plan to have traps of different levels of severity. If you have any ideas for traps that would be awesome.
I'm admittedly not the best at coming up with good trap ideas. Kobolds tend to be pretty inventive, so maybe there could be a tripwire connected to a bell that alerts the kobolds of intruders. Perhaps that tripwire also causes a net to drop down onto the party, allowing the kobolds to rush in and stab them?
Maybe there could be a moat around the castle, which is filled by a nearby river. There could be a pit trap with a pressure plate at the bottom, connected to a system that redirects the river's flow into the pit, so the pit slowly fills with water as the victim figures out how to escape.
Of course there could be the standard swinging axes, poison needle traps, and spiked pits too.
[REDACTED]
I like the idea of a alarm system and the drowning pit, but maybe instead of water it fills up with green slime that the Kobolds have cultivated.
Trap Wise, my personal favourite for Kobolds is a pressure plate on a set of stairs, that when triggered activates a ballista that rapidly shoots bolts at the players on an initiative, it feels like a monster combat but when it actually shines is when they see the pressure plate and not the ballista, that makes things interesting!
That's a good idea. If it was just water, it'd be fairly easy to escape, while green slime is much more of a threat
[REDACTED]
On this note, since kobolds are small, you could have the pressure trap only activated by medium-sized creatures and larger, or else creatures wearing heavy armor or carrying a lot of weight. The ballista idea is a good one if you want a potentially deadly trap designed to inflict a lot of damage. If the intent was different, you might consider having the stairs collapse under the weight of the characters causing some minor damage, making a lot of noise to alerts the guards, and potentially challenging the characters as they tried to advance through the castle.
Or maybe now we have two trap ideas :)
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Kobolds are pact tactics. Constantly having advantage is huge.
Making traps fire above their heads is a great idea for a small creature. Having the kobolds activate traps that miss them and hit the players is a great idea.
There’s always the room full of lines and lines of statues, and something, like entering they’re line of vision or stepping on a pressure plate, gets them animated.
“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbithole, and that means comfort.”
Wow, I want to run this now, you wouldn’t mind would you?
Wouldn't mind at all, it's great to see people get inspiration from others.
If the Kobolds are aware of the party they can lead the party into a trap a defensive position. Have the characters enter what they think of as a large square empty room, what the characters may not be aware of is that there is a false partition which makes up the north wall perhaps a flimsy wooden partition from which kobolds with crossbows await. The kobolds set this up if alerted earlier to the party as a position to defend. If your very nasty add in that there are holes in the ceiling in which they poor hot tar. Have a look at a Portcullis for ideas. You can get meaner with clouds of itching dust making verbalised magic impossible. A strong fighter might easily break through the false wall and although the kobolds might lock the party in retreat through smashing a door should be possible. The party if they see themselves as invincible especially after butchering many of the weak kobolds and not used to this and filled with false confidence in invisibility be butchered but that was the fun of old school D&D where a bad move or stupidity results in a death. Generally players love it as long as they chased the kobolds in haste, there are options its not just certain death if they are smart they can survive.
Kobolds make for some of the best, dangerously uncertain, encounters. Having begun my RP game experience during those deadly years, I grew to enjoy the uncertainty of success inherent in potentially deadly scenarios. They teach the players that smart play can earn them great rewards, and brute force and arrogance carry their own costs. [redacted. sent info to another, more appropriate thread]
Too late to be brief, kobolds, when used to their full potential, are a wonderful game tool for whittling even the most powerful individuals down to size. Just be careful; some players really don't like to see their perceived invincibility of their characters challenged.