From: Rannou@info.polymtl.ca (Patrick Rannou)
Subject: Re: Kobolds (Re: Intelligent opponents)
Organization: Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, Canada
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 04:02:36 GMT

In article <1992Oct7.203655.29858@pbhyc.PacBell.COM> djdaneh@pbhyc.PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes) writes:

Kobold dungeon...

   They nearly wiped out my 10th level party.

   How?  Simple.  They knew the turf, and they took advantage of it.

   For example. . .  The party have traversed a small selection of rooms and
   hallways, without meeting anyone, though they've heard padding footsteps on
   two occasion. . .


	   Conversation				DM thoughts/notes
	   ------------				-----------------

	   "We open the door."
	   <Dice roll.>
	   "It opens with hardly a squeak.  	It should, the kobolds keep
	   You see a high, wide chamber."		it well-oiled!
	   "How big?"
	   "The ceiling is a good 45 feet
	   high.  There is a mezzanine around
	   the three sides you can see.  It's
	   50 feet wide and 100 feet long."
	   "Detect evil."
	   "As before, there's a general sense	Note: In Arthur, Det Evil is
	   of evil all around you."		directional, but not discrete.
	   "Detect magic."
	   "None."
	   "We enter the room cautiously."		Local standard language for 
	   <Sound of rolling dice, just		"checking for traps, etc."
	   to keep them on their toes.>
	   "It's very quiet.  There is what
	   seems to be a double door at the far 
	   end, and right beside it a stairway
	   leading up to the mezzanine."
	   "Head for the stairway."
	   <One more dice roll -- they are
	   surprised!>
	   "When you get halfway, you hear a	The kobolds had been hiding on
	   cry in an unfamiliar, croaking		the mezzanine, of course.  I 
	   language, and dozens of arrows come	gave these bozos enough clues...
	   flying at you at once in all 
	   directions."

   Well, they survived that, through no fault of their own:*) -- though they only
   managed to kill three kobolds; the rest all fled when they got to the stairway
   (which, incidentally, had some interesting traps on it. . . which they forgot to
   check for because they were so *pissed* about the ambuscade).

I love it... still, if there was over 50 kobolds, you should have gave the
players a chance to hear them. I mean, you have maybe 0.1% chance of
squeaking of sneezing or something, thus telling the other party you're
there. There were *50* kobolds. I think the chapter on surprise has a thing
like that... of course, if the roll was truly a 1, then no matter how many
kobolds there were the PCs got surprised...

   Later, they came into a courtyard.

	   "Some kobolds at the well look up at 
	   you, apparently startled.  One has a
	   bucket in his hand."
	   "I charge."
	   "He empties the bucket in your 
	   direction.  It's full of green slime."
	   <roll>
	   "You're covered in the stuff."

Like, DUH, this kobold holds this bucket all day, knowing that should he
ever trip with that thing in his hands, he's going to buy the farm real
fast. Sure. Either he was "on guard", and the bucket was near him but not
in his hands (would you hold a phone book all day if you could simply put
it down and wait?), or if he is truly surprised, as in "Ahh, adventurers,
what i'm gonna do?!" then either he was very poorly guarding his post (or
if he held the bucket in hand, making his round), or he wasn't garding the
place and had nothing to do with GS.

   . . . well, you get the idea.  By this time I was toning things down a bit
   so the party had a chance of surviving; the original plan was to have a whole
   bloody bucket brigade of kobolds tossing a bucketload of GS every other round.
   This was their _home_, dammit, and after 10,000 years there, they've evolved
   some pretty elaborate plans for defending it.



   Really, folks.  You don't have to constantly come up with bigger and better
   monsters, spells, and weapons to keep the game interesting.  Your monsters
   brains are, or should be, the best weapons they have.

You say there were only Kobolds. Putting GS isn't what I call "not putting
bigger and better monster". GS is DEADLY.


Also, you assume a LAWFUL society, with leaders ranging in the 12+
intelligence, or more. Kobolds, like orcs, have this tendency to fight
among themselves and be chaotic. Also, I doubt any kobold would notice that
wood isn't affected by green slime. Also, kobolds aren'r very loyals. No
way they're gonna risk fooling around with GS. It's like if I said "OK,
you're our company security gard. I'll pay you the same salary as everybody
else, but you'll wear this in case thieves come..." And I'd hadle you a
small bottle of nitroglycerine. You'll say "NO WAY I'M GONNA WEAR THAT!
What if I fall, or someone pushes me, like this stoopid Grumd, he always
like to harass me, huh?" "Well, either that or you're fired!" "Well, okay
then, I'll go see the vice-president, and then he'll fire YOU... especially
if all my friends back him up!" 

Amnd thus kobold company war ensues...


ALSO, it took all their wisdom (which is very low) to finally agree to join
up with orcs and others against the Evil Lord, and i seriously doubt it's a
kobold who came up with the idea. They did it because they had no choice,
as a last ditch attempt to prevent their doom. I doubt their alliance
lasted for long after they defeated the evil Lord... think about it..

"The kobold army, with the goblin army, with the orc army, has won..."
"We won! YAY!"
The orcs and bugbears suddenlyt say to the goblins and kobolds...
"OK, thanks, you can all go home now..."
A goblin chief answers angryly
"What, do you take me for a koboldish stupid? I know the evil lord has a
BIG treasure, and you won't bar our way!"
A few kobolds understand that the orcs and bugbears are trying to have the
treasureall for themselves, but most only understand that a goblin chief
has injuried them. Same way, many goblins start shouting at the orcs or
laughing at the kobolds.

War ensues...

Thousands die, and finally one sided wins and get the treasure. Doubtful
it's the kobolds, they aren't intelligent enough to know about the "let
them fight it over while we go get it" tactics. Suppose the winners are the
orcs. The orcs, even tough they arem ore intelligent, go back home...
"We're rich! YAY!"
another orc chieftain (remember, many tribes allied themselves in that war)
then say:
"OK, how do we split it?"

War ensues...


That's the very NATURE of a CHAOTIC EVIL civilisation, espoecially when
it's people aren't very bright or wise, and especially if they don't like
each other to start with. It's the law of greed and "might makes right",
even tough they united themselves for just that right reason!


AND I'M SURE that after 10K years, kobolds hace absolutely NO memory of
that war. Think about it: illeteracy = nearly exactly 100% (kobolds having
a written language? Don't make me laugh... Only say a kobold shaman could
have say 10% chances or reading and writing common...). It's also not a
"civilisation" (if we can afford to call it like that) that writes it's
history through songs... they song a little, but horribly false. And they
know it.


What you did was *NOT* making the players meet a tribe of kobolds. They met
creatures that LOOKED like kobolds, but were lawful neutral instead of
chaotic evil, and that had a standard intelligence instead of a low
intelligence, and that had a high loyalty to their work. *NOT* a kobold
tribe at all.

If nothing (or no big serious menace which comes over and over) has
attacked the tribe in the last century (forget avbout the preceding 10K...
this may account for some of the groudwork, but even caves fall afeter that
long, especially this shoddy kobold building, would say a dwarf (though
kobolds aren't so bad at that task). Then, if the tribe hans't faced big
menaces, then it hasn't overly taken care to protect itself.


Of course, maybe you still managed to have some fun. And of course, the
kobolds aren't stupid up to the point where common sense don't apply i.e.
of course they'll protect themselves, some. I liked the arrow trap a lot,
but the GS bucket was a tad much. To them, it's a super-weapon (if they
ever discovered it), very dangerous to use. Specific kobolds would then be
assigned to the task of holding the bucket in case of emergency, and thse
kobolds would want nothing more than changing job! (the nytroglycerine
syndrome)... So when the party is found and located and it is decided that
the party is really dangerous, it's time to use the "super-weapon"... 6
kobolds each holding their bucket are sent for, briefed, then dispatched.
Of course, at least one will fumble (it's not a normal weapon, and they
couldn't afford to "practice" throwing it, could they? Afterr all, *IF*
they succeed, who's going to go put the lsime back into place, hmmm?),
since non-proficiency is -2 to hit, thus 1-3 is a fumble...

Range should be very near also: say 1/2" | 1" | 3/2". Try throwing
something far from a bucket. 3/2" is 15 feet, and nowe think about how much
a kobold is smaller than a human.

BIG rooms shouldn't be kobold make neither. They prefer small tunnels, and
make human-sized one-human-wide tunnels for "trapping" humans, or for big
circulation areas. Remember that they don't use much light, as it hurst
their eyes. They have infravision, so high ceilings are less important for
them. Try fighting against kobolds when you are in a 3' high, 2'wide tunnel
and suddnely little spears from the side start hacking you. Better have a
good dagger, because this Vorpal sword won't be of any use there...

Kobolds are intelligent enough to make defense-points passage be
kobold-sized. That means crouching, or blasting the wall. Crouching will be
hard to do if the place if defended. Remember, rooms at the spots are 4'
high...

But as soon as a fireball blast through the lot ofthem, they panic and flee.
THAT'S kobolds. Unorganized.

Anyway, a last thing about the GS: even though it is written MV 0, it CAN
and DO move. Else, how could it climb up a ceiling? Of course, it do so
incredibly slowly. But I'm sure kobolds fall asleep often enough on guard
duty... "Opps, Grumbf fell asleep and has been eaten by thr GS... who
volonteers for GS duty?" "YAAAH, fleee!"


Anyway, have fun.








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| Patrick "Paradak" Rannou. |
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