From: djdaneh@pbhyc.PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes)
Subject: Kobolds (Re: Intelligent opponents)
Reply-To: djdaneh@PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes)
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 20:36:55 GMT

In article <1992Oct7.004210.15057@usage.csd.unsw.OZ.AU> barnett@mummy.agsm.unsw.OZ.AU (Glen Barnett) writes:

>This thread was quite interesting in that a number of reasonably intelligent
>ways for a lich to be more than another lamb to the slaughter were put 
>forward. What other ideas for other monsters (or ideas in general) can
>you crafty xdnd DM's put forward?
>
>Glen Barnett

The problem, really, is exactly what you say:  too many DMs and their monsters
are *not* crafty.

Consider the lowly kobold.

"Sword fodder," says the Real Gamer(TM).  But I assure you, I have had more fun
-- as a GM -- with kobolds than with any other member of the "giant class."

It began with the creation of the Small Giant Class Liberation Front.  Kobolds,
Orcs, Goblins, etc., banded together to strike against the evil Overlord of Tff,
because they weren't going to stand in his front lines and die, die, die no mo'.

Well. . . they killed him.

This was something like 10K years in the past of when my campaign began, and,
while there was only a little cooperation remaining between SGCs, they had never
been enslaved like that again, Dark Lord types remembering what had happened.

Begin game time.

It doesn't matter what the party were after:  suffice it to say that they had to
get it.

They went into the nastiest dungeon I *ever* ran. . . the kobold's home caves.
Populated *entirely* by kobolds, not a magic user among them, not a spell did 
they have, not even a piddling +1 dagger.

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).

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."

. . . 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.

Except trolls, of course -- though you should consider the benefits of a
troll with a holocaust cloak. . .

THE SERMON IS ENDED.  GO IN PEACE.
"Thanks be to God!"


		Houston, Houston, do you read? I'd mortgage half my soul
		If I could see it one more time - Apollo, Ground Control
		The Devil take the men who killed the dream that died too soon
		For all my dreams are haunted by a fire on the Moon.
			-- Visual Purple

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, Net.Roach
My opinions do NOT represent Pacific Bell,
Professional Development, or anyone else.
But I'm willing to share.
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.dnd