Tog rummaged through the pockets of the dead intruder. She tossed aside non-shiny things that didn’t look like weapons or coins for the smarter Kobolds to figure out. Her ears perked up, big footsteps were approaching. She scurried across the floor to her hiding hole, easily squeezing through the tight opening and grabbing her recently blooded spear. Large boots entered the room and the figures spoke in a language Tog did not know. One of the voices began to leave the room as the other big creature began looking around the room and collecting the odds and ends that Tog had tossed off the corpse.
She waited, spear ready to strike, as the big creature neared her hiding hole. She heard three knocks on the stone walls of the room. The others had gathered around to spring a trap and they were ready. A large pale fleshy face loomed into the holes opening. Not waiting for the big creature to realize what was going on, Tog jabbed her spear at the face. The spear point found purchase in the creatures eye and it reeled back shrieking. She charged out to take the initiative, her fellow Kobolds dropped from the ceiling and popped out of their hiding holes in the walls. They swarmed the creature, jabbing spears, slinging stones, and shooting darts at it, the screams and yelps of pain echoed through out the bivouac’s cavern walls. Togs eyes landed on a shiny book attached to the hip of the creature, She grabbed it and raced back to her hiding hole and deeper into the bivouac. catching her breath she attempted to read the name on the book.
The cries of pain from Mordenkainen echoed around her as she read the book.
Overview
We have covered some deadly monsters here in my Journal and built interesting ways to mess with your players. Yet nothing, NOTHING, compares to the sheer terror that you can inflict on your players and friends with Kobolds.1 There are stories of Kobold lairs ruining campaigns in all Tiers, yes including level 20 parties; some of these stories may be built up, but you can absolutely break a campaign if you plan creatively enough with these little terrors.
Kobolds are cowardly Dragon worshipers first and foremost, they will often be found in Dragon lairs —though they do form their own lairs— as the servants and defenders of their Dragon gods.2 You should remember that they are cowardly when planning encounters, Kobolds will rarely fight to the death, preferring to run and hide if things get too deadly.
The first thing we need to remember is Kobolds find strength in numbers. Never go into a fight with Kobolds if they aren’t out numbering your players by at least three-to-one. This may seem excessive, but they do not have the staying power nor the damage output to turn a fight too quick for your players to react. Additionally when their numbers start top dwindle, Kobolds have no issue with turning tail and running to gather their forces or to lead their enemies into traps and kill-boxes. Usually I save this for the Stats section —I will go into further detail there— but, with Kolbols Pack Tactitcs you start to realize how they fight. They aren’t trying to be clever like Goblins groveling or sneaky and mobile like Bullywugs; Kobolds use strength of force and hit and run tactics to whittle down their enemies piece by piece.3 It’s gotta be scorched earth, fantasy Vietnam; tunnels, traps, tricks, and ambushes are their way of war.4
Next we should note that is they are tunnelers and builders. Traps, forking switchback tunnels, dead ends, and narrow chokepoints; these are all the ways Kobolds will collect the Kobold bivouacs5 together. These defenses are meant to impede anything larger than a Kobold from easily traverse; the traps can range from simple alarms to more advanced traps like small catapult that hurl jars of flesh eating oozes or carnivorous small creatures. I would recommend having more alarms near the entrances of the Kobold lair, and increase in danger as they get closer to the food stores, egg nurseries, treasure caves, and sleeping quarters. Now the traps don’t only need to be mechanical, they can also be ambushes. These can include rooms that have smaller rooms with murder holes lining the walls for spears, slings, blowguns, and daggers to strike out from the shadows.
Finally, being diminutive dragons, sometimes Kobolds are born with wings —this will be getting its own breakdown soon— and are known to Kobolds as Urds. An Urd is seen as a blessing from Tiamat, but, are the object of envy and ostracization from the other Kobolds. Urds tend to take guard roles and will wait on ledges above entrances so they can drop rocks and other traps on intruders.
Stats
There isn’t a whole lot to cover with the Stat block, but we are going to still see what our little beastie can do.
Kobolds have very low armor class and insignificant Hit Points, They won’t be a force to reckon with in combat, and that’s not how they should be run.
Intelligence 8 means we get to make traps, yay!
Sunlight Sensitivity more-than-likely won’t come up as they tend to live underground and if they venture to the surface it will be fore night-time raids.
Pack Tactics is the focus of the Stat block. This is the better version of the optional Flanking rule, by simply having one or more Kobolds in melee range of an enemy, all Kobolds get advantage on their attacks against that target. If you look at the wording, it dose not specify melee attacks, So your Kobolds at range also get advantage. This can be deadly for low level parties, but as soon as they get their subclass and their first few class features the advantage will just be a nuisance.
Finally the attacks are nothing special, but knowing what we know so far we can figure out that most kobolds will be using their Sling and be doing targeted volley fire.6 You can replace the Dagger with any simple weapon and it really won’t change much. I would recommend just flavoring the Dagger as something else and keeping the stats the same.
Combat Examples
We will have two combat encounters for this section, one a normal straight fight between ranged kobolds and the other against an entire Kobold bivouac —may the gods have mercy on the adventurer’s souls.
In our first example we will be pitting 12 Kobolds, 6 using melee weapons and 6 using ranged, against 4 tenth level adventurers. This combat will be fairly straight forward as it is the preamble to the next fight with an even deadlier foe.
Our adventurers have been dispatched by the King to investigate the disappearance of his court Wizard Tybalt, and his band of adventurers. As our adventurers are traveling through the forest the Wizard was last seen in they are being stalked and measured up by a band of Kobolds. Waiting for the opportune moment, the Kobolds strike out at night in an attempt to catch the adventurers off guard.
Provided the Kobolds get the drop on the adventurers and have them surprised, the following will happen. On the first turn of combat the 6 melee Kobolds will charge forward and strike at the softest looking target. If the group has a Wizard, Sorcerer, or Warlock that will be their target. Taking jabs with their rudimentary weapons the melee Kobold’s primary goal is to provide the ranged Kobolds with advantage on the attacks.
On their turn the ranged Kobolds will focus fire one target, using the advantage provided by Pack Tactics to try to bring down the caster. Now this fight will probably only last one turn, once three of the melee Kobolds die the rest will turn tail and flee, making their way back to the Kobold lair. The Kobolds will lead the adventurers through a series of pre-built traps intended to deal with intruders.
Now our second encounter is where things get evil. The 4 tenth level adventurers will be facing off against an entire Kobold bivouac. How many Kobolds are there, you may be asking your screen right now. Well, as many as you need to make it a one sided fight. This is where we will pull out all the stops, the kiddie gloves come off and its time to bring the hurt on a group of adventurers that may see themselves as invincible. Here we will be remind the players themselves of one crucial fact, running away from a fight is always an option. Here are some example of the traps and surprises the Kobolds will have set up inside.
A room full of Brown Mold. The Kobolds themselves harvest this mold for eating; however, if anyone uses fire, in the form of a torch or a spell, the Mold expands consuming the flame. If any of the adventurers attempt to strike the mold or move it with their hand they take 4d10 cold damage as outlined on page 105 of the Dungeon Masters guide.
In a small room that has a two foot deep pool of water, the Kobolds have wrangled several Grey Oozes for their waste disposal. Upon entering the water the Oozes will attack the adventurers without prejudice.
The adventurers walk into a five foot wide, ninety foot long hall with holes dotted around the floor, walls, and ceiling. As they travel through all manner of melee weapons will poke out and attack the players, since there are Kobolds surrounding the adventurers, all of these attacks will be at advantage. Additionally, if an adventurer attempts to cast Fireball into one of the holes, without looking through it first they and their party will be subject to the effects of the Fireball, since the surrounding space the Kobolds occupy is only three feet deep.
In a medium sized room the Adventurers will find several chests and crates. Some or all of these chests and crates are Mimics that the Kobolds have lured down here to occasionally feed to be a nice little surprise for any invaders. While the adventurers are dealing with the Mimics Kobolds will appear behind them and attack with ranged weapons, the Mimics —being allies of the Kobold— will provide the “ally” requirement for Pack Tactics.
These are just some examples of the evil shenanigans you can pull in a Kobold bivouac, the idea is death by one thousand cuts, rather than one big fight. Feel free to look around at other sources and compile a hoard of evil to unleash on you friends.7
It is important to note, that your players may not think to run from a bunch of kobolds. If this is the case, ask them periodically if they would like to flee and regroup or flee to adjust their strategy. Remind them there is no shame in running to save their lives.8
Non-Combat Encounters
Not all Kobold encounters need to be life or death situations where the players get TTRPGPTSD; You can have Kobolds be “funny little guys” and that is exactly what we have here.
Tizik and Baahz: A pair of Kobold twins, neither can remember who is the older sibling but will absolutely claim they are. Tizik is a tinkerer who gathers fungus, molds, and oozes to create “Fizzy Drinks”, which are really just mild poisons. Baahz is a animal wrangler who captures Snakes, Scorpions, Spiders, and Electric Eels to create “Danger Pots”, which are clay pots full of whatever animal they wrangled. Tizik and Baahz will bicker and compete with one another every opportunity they get. If your party has a Dragonborn in it, they will believe them to be a very tall Kobold or a “Biggun” as they’ll call the Dragonborn.
Gado the Wise: Gado had the unfortunate mishap of wearing a cursed crown that he can no longer remove without causing himself great physical pain. The “Crown of Superior Intellect” has boosted Gado’s intelligence score to 30, this has come with the unforeseen consequence of Gado now being able to only talk in Metaphors and Parables. If the party can decipher these obscure messages they will gain a resource of great knowledge, Gado the Wise will be able to inform the party on any History, Cultural, Scientific, Arcane, or Religious topic they ask about.
Final Thoughts
I cannot extol the greatness of Kobolds enough. Even without a Dragon to guide and lead them, you can create extremely dangerous scenarios just by exploiting the mechanics of their stat block. Kobolds will be making another appearance in this Journal when I feel it is time to cover their variations more in depth.
They might “hate” you if you run these little bastards right.
They do see Dragon’s as demigods, as they are the children of Tiamat
For stories about DM’s doing this check out Tucker’s Kobolds.
Beware your players may get a form of PTSD.
Typical a temporary improvised shelter, but used here to mean more of just an improvised shelter.
More on this to come soon, deathly soon.
If enough people ask I may make a Kobold Bivouac dungeon for you all to use.
This with a little maniacal cackle will forever be a fun time for the DM and players, as long as you aren’t using Kobolds maliciously.