I'm making a Kodold lair and i'd like your help designing it. Obviously it will be small, inches over 3 feet high and filled wiht traps and other features. What features would you see in a Kodols lair?
FEATURES
Ceiling: 3 feet high. Corridors will be 3 to 5 feet high making medium creature hiving to squeeze at some place.
Size: No large or larger creature can fit in. Medium creatures must crawl prone through it. Small and tiny creatures can move and attack normally.
Light: There's no light inside the lair is heavily obscured by darkness. Creature without darkvision are blinded.
I have a ton of traps, either homebrew or taken from games I've heard of/played in, that I love to fill kobolds' lairs with. Here's a few of my favorites:
One trap has the players going down a set of stairs, then right back up, just a divot. Once a pressure plate is pushed at the bottom, however, the stairs retract. The pit can then fill with armor-dissolving acid, let loose jets of flame, or seal off up top and leave them to starve.
Another one is a trap that's good if you're playing a survival-based game. The PCs would trigger a trap via pressure plate or some other mechanism that drops maggots on the PCs. The maggots would worm their way to the PCs' rations, eating them all unless they shake them off, throw their food down the hallway, etc.
This next one will require a higher ceiling, but its one of my favorites. In between the entrance and exit to the room is an enormous pit of acid. The walls on either side are smooth. The acid bubbles up as well, spurting up at seemingly random intervals, almost touching the ceiling on occasion. The ceiling has a crisscross of wooden beams, unlike the other ceilings. These beams might be able to support a player swinging on a grappling hook. The middle row of tiles above the acid contains an antimagic field, stopping any magically flying PCs, and neutralizing any magic items that might grant resistance to acid. Any creature that starts its turn in the acid, or enters the acid for the first time on its turn, takes 4d4 acid damage.
A few more things: First, there's a thing called murderholes, which is essentially a bunch of holes in the wall that enable kobolds to shoot crossbows at the PCs safely. They will need to have access to walls, so walls of rooms can't be pressed close together. Next, if you need more traps, just look up Tucker's Kobolds. Lastly, full credit to whomever I took some of these ideas from.
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"I never thought I'd die fighting side by side with an elf."
Also, you can do the ultimate through the walls traps.
Tunnel is like a 1,000' spiral with tiny little holes between the arms. The kobolds shoot ranged attacks from the next arm in the spiral into theirs. Five kobolds take one shot then they move on. Party constantly getting ambushed every other minute by sniping kobolds. Let the party get creative in dealing with it.
As important as the features of the lair itself are, make sure to give the kobolds themselves some love. What is the primary terrain that the lair is in? What color are they? How many of them are there? What is the hierarchy? How will these details impact their tactics and behavior?
I also have my lair attached to some larger tunnels that creatures like Carrion Crawler use. However, Carrion Crawlers can't carve their own tunnels, so I have also accounted for Ankheg in the area.
Be careful with making the tunnels too consistently small. Squeezing can be annoying for the players, and forcing the entire party prone and single-file, with no quick escape, can turn into a TPK startlingly quick.
You'll also need to consider how the Kobolds get treasure into their lair, depending on what it is. Squeezing barrels through 3ft wide tunnels would be a pain. It may be worth having Major and Minor pathways that give the party a little wiggle room, while also giving the Kobolds secondary routes to exploit. Heck, you could even have some Tiny tunnels that even the Kobolds have to squeeze through, which exclude the party entirely.
As important as the features of the lair itself are, make sure to give the kobolds themselves some love. What is the primary terrain that the lair is in? What color are they? How many of them are there? What is the hierarchy? How will these details impact their tactics and behavior?
I also have my lair attached to some larger tunnels that creatures like Carrion Crawler use. However, Carrion Crawlers can't carve their own tunnels, so I have also accounted for Ankheg in the area.
Be careful with making the tunnels too consistently small. Squeezing can be annoying for the players, and forcing the entire party prone and single-file, with no quick escape, can turn into a TPK startlingly quick.
You'll also need to consider how the Kobolds get treasure into their lair, depending on what it is. Squeezing barrels through 3ft wide tunnels would be a pain. It may be worth having Major and Minor pathways that give the party a little wiggle room, while also giving the Kobolds secondary routes to exploit. Heck, you could even have some Tiny tunnels that even the Kobolds have to squeeze through, which exclude the party entirely.
Thanks funily we use the same variants i also have a Kobold Chieftain. As for tunnels i opted for ants as the digging creatures that are co-living. I like tiny tunnels Kobold's escape route i will include that throughout the lair along with murder hole rooms etc. The kobold lair is meant to be somewhat deadly and challenge a mid-level party with weak monsters, traps and size difficulty altogheter. I will be a memorable dungeon.
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I'm making a Kodold lair and i'd like your help designing it. Obviously it will be small, inches over 3 feet high and filled wiht traps and other features. What features would you see in a Kodols lair?
FEATURES
Ceiling: 3 feet high. Corridors will be 3 to 5 feet high making medium creature hiving to squeeze at some place.
Size: No large or larger creature can fit in. Medium creatures must crawl prone through it. Small and tiny creatures can move and attack normally.
Light: There's no light inside the lair is heavily obscured by darkness. Creature without darkvision are blinded.
I have a ton of traps, either homebrew or taken from games I've heard of/played in, that I love to fill kobolds' lairs with. Here's a few of my favorites:
This next one will require a higher ceiling, but its one of my favorites. In between the entrance and exit to the room is an enormous pit of acid. The walls on either side are smooth. The acid bubbles up as well, spurting up at seemingly random intervals, almost touching the ceiling on occasion. The ceiling has a crisscross of wooden beams, unlike the other ceilings. These beams might be able to support a player swinging on a grappling hook. The middle row of tiles above the acid contains an antimagic field, stopping any magically flying PCs, and neutralizing any magic items that might grant resistance to acid. Any creature that starts its turn in the acid, or enters the acid for the first time on its turn, takes 4d4 acid damage.
A few more things: First, there's a thing called murderholes, which is essentially a bunch of holes in the wall that enable kobolds to shoot crossbows at the PCs safely. They will need to have access to walls, so walls of rooms can't be pressed close together. Next, if you need more traps, just look up Tucker's Kobolds. Lastly, full credit to whomever I took some of these ideas from.
"I never thought I'd die fighting side by side with an elf."
"What about side by side with a side?"
"Aye, I eye eye eye."
If you search for vietnam war tunnel traps there are some diagrams with a bunch of traps that really existed. Some pretty awful stuff there.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Thank you i will look this
Also, you can do the ultimate through the walls traps.
Tunnel is like a 1,000' spiral with tiny little holes between the arms. The kobolds shoot ranged attacks from the next arm in the spiral into theirs. Five kobolds take one shot then they move on. Party constantly getting ambushed every other minute by sniping kobolds. Let the party get creative in dealing with it.
I'm using a variation on this map for my group.
As important as the features of the lair itself are, make sure to give the kobolds themselves some love. What is the primary terrain that the lair is in? What color are they? How many of them are there? What is the hierarchy? How will these details impact their tactics and behavior?
Common variants:
Kobold
Kobold Inventor (Instant Classic)
Winged Kobold
Kobold Dragonshield
Kobold Scale Sorcerer
I also have my lair attached to some larger tunnels that creatures like Carrion Crawler use. However, Carrion Crawlers can't carve their own tunnels, so I have also accounted for Ankheg in the area.
Be careful with making the tunnels too consistently small. Squeezing can be annoying for the players, and forcing the entire party prone and single-file, with no quick escape, can turn into a TPK startlingly quick.
You'll also need to consider how the Kobolds get treasure into their lair, depending on what it is. Squeezing barrels through 3ft wide tunnels would be a pain. It may be worth having Major and Minor pathways that give the party a little wiggle room, while also giving the Kobolds secondary routes to exploit. Heck, you could even have some Tiny tunnels that even the Kobolds have to squeeze through, which exclude the party entirely.
Thanks funily we use the same variants i also have a Kobold Chieftain. As for tunnels i opted for ants as the digging creatures that are co-living. I like tiny tunnels Kobold's escape route i will include that throughout the lair along with murder hole rooms etc. The kobold lair is meant to be somewhat deadly and challenge a mid-level party with weak monsters, traps and size difficulty altogheter. I will be a memorable dungeon.