I know the Dudes acknowledged that 5e is very different from AD&D, but I think there are lots of differences they didn't even consider (for instance, the near-universality of dark vision among PCs in 5e). My idea for a third video in this trilogy: The Dungeon Dudes create a 5e version of Tucker's Kobolds that makes the adventure challenging using the modern rules.
Not only that, but up casting didn't exist back then, what you saw is what you got. So casting invisibility would be a MASSIVE investment of spell slots. The party had hirelings and donkeys. I seriously doubt the wizard had the slots to cast invisibility on everyone. And Magic Missile back then were based completely on the casters highest Spellcaster level, a 12th level Spellcaster would have the maximum of 5 magic missiles. Readying actions didn't exist either. So that's out the window immediately. As for dealing with all the fire. There is a spell that could do that ridiculously easy for a party, namely, Affect Normal Fires, a spell that would allow the wizard control the intensity of, or just EXTINGUISH ALL MUNDANE FIRES IN RANGE. It's a spell that doesn't exist in these newer editions, which shoes that magic were far more varied in the past. It's a spell that would have great use, though.
4 players all level 12 = 48 divide by 4.. a total CR of 12 (divided by 1/4 each for kobold CR, you get 48 Kobolds) Quest-giver: a seemingly robust and fit fighter, who mostly just rocks in a chair hugging himself. mumbling incoherently, talking to party members who aren't there. Or drinking himself to sleep at the tavern. When pried for information, if he is drunk enough, he tells a tale of rumored treasures, protected by great monsters in a nearby lair. If the party makes any indication that they intend to go check it out, he will just scream at them, and beg them not to go. Then break down in tears, sayind "the kobolds..." over and over. - the front door is actually a series of 5 doors, one after another, each requiring an action strength check to kick down once you're locked in. - inside the front door(s) is a steep stone staircase which descends 40 ft (and it will definitely be covered in grease very soon). - spread out the kobolds, packs of 2 (pack tactics), but groups of two are never closer than 15ft apart (actually tactical pack tactics) - wooden shutters on the murder holes, 2 kobolds per murder hole, 1st free-use opens & attacks, 2nd free-use attacks and closes it. - add a lot of poison - lots of traps, which "cannot" be discovered or disarmed by the rogue, because the entire triggering mechanism is manually operated by a kobold. (out of reach log-drops, etc) - limited amounts of obvious "cover" available to the party (mind the poison tipped punji sticks hidden in the cover though... also mind that whole barrel of oil in the ceiling over it...) - a cart filled with big rocks, with the front covered in poison spikes, which rolls into the back-side of the "obvious cover", and makes doubly sure to shove players into the spikes already in the "cover". - that vine-covered lattice which goes up to the top level kobolds? That's poison Ivy. And the lattice is secured by a latch, which the 2 kobolds at the top can un-latch, letting the lattice fall ...into the 'cover' with the fun pokey-sticks - a wooden side door, seemingly getting out of the ambush area from which a voice can be overheard saying "hold the door shut!", but the door only opens to a stone wall, and a small improvised explosive. - "Rocks fall, party dies" but do you know why rocks fall? It's because 2 kobolds and a pri-bar knocked the support beam out. - when the alarm horn is blown, the party should understand that they weren't "detected", but that they're "in the center of the kill-box" - one older kobold who comes out and says "I love it when a plan comes together" while chewing a cigar, when the party runs out of the dungeon. if the party survives, AND actually get through the kobolds, then they get to the staircase and go down to level 10 ...only to find that the kobolds have already murdered all the demons and just use the lava pit down there to smoke jerky. There is treasure, and a lot of jerky. Some of the jerky meat is hard to exactly place the flavor of.
Tucker's Kobalds win ... you can't hit them, they can hit you, they can damage you, they outnumber you ... they win ... Most of the spells mentioned fail .. no line of sight, total cover ... Sleep .. will sleep a few who have total cover and will be woken by others.... Ready Action ... is the only valid argument.... except for the fire, traps and more traps ...
@@brendanmcmannis3334 To be fair, in AD&D, you didn't take a long rest, at all. You did your day's adventure, and then you went back to town to rest up before the next dungeon delve. And however long you waited between games was how much time passed between dungeon raids. So the fact that you only healed 1 or 2 points per night was OK, since you'd be resting for a whole week, and probably have your cleric casting their healing spells on someone every day, to make up the difference. AD&D was WAY different to 5e. SO very different.
It's worth remembering that the original Tucker's Kobolds were up against a party whose magic users didn't have the flexibility of modern spellcasters. The spell slot system whereby you can cast any spell prepared as long as you have a slot of sufficient level didn't exist (or was, at best a variant system that might not be in use at that table, much like the various attempts at mana-pool based systems) at that time. Each spell had to be memorized (a process that took 10 uninterrupted minutes per spell level, after a period of rest/sleep that scaled with the highest level spell you wanted to memorise but started at a minimum of 4 hours), and disappeared from your head after a single casting. If you wanted to drop multiple fireballs (as an example), you needed to memorize Fireball multiple times. What's more, at that time you started knowing Read Magic and three random spells, and had to seek out other spells during the campaign. You didn't just learn more by levelling. And even if you found a spell, you needed to roll a % check to learn it (and failure meant you didn't get to try again until you levelled up). Not only that, the maximum number of spells you could learn was capped by your Intelligence (and INT, or indeed any given stat, at that time tended to average lower than in modern D&D). In short, a mafic user at that time was nowhere near as flexible as in modern D&D, and the spells they had available to prep for any given dungeon crawl was in a large part down to the DM, so they can perhaps be forgiven for not having the best spells for the job. To make matter's worse, it was much easier to interrupt and spoil a spellcaster's day- you declare you're casting a spell, that memorization of it will be used, regardless if the spell goes off successfully or not. Given casting times for spells back then very often meant even an enemy further back in the initiative order would get a turn before the spell went off, and Concentration checks to avoid having your casting interrupted weren't yet a thing, I find it very easy to believe that the wizard in the story had trouble doing anything useful. (Also, just as an aside, the AD&D DMG specifically mentions that arrow slits and murder holes provide near-total cover, and thus Magic Arrow won't work. Plus at the time, all additional targets needed to be within 10' of the base target. In 5e though, yeah, it's a pretty ideal spell for that situation)
Not just uninventive, but also parties that dont do much scouting. Kobolds had imunity to one element, based on what dragon type were based on. Martin asks why the players didnt prepare against the fire or used the fire against them, but even if you already know how the DM uses the kobolds the DM has six different encounters (one for fire imunity, one for poison imunity...) and can always choose wich one on the fly if the party doesnt check it beforehand (and even if they do, he could change it saying something like "a rival faction took control of the path you guys choose during the preparations" if the party doesnt act quickly). Edit: typos
@@albertonishiyama1980 Fair points and I agree. I actually didn't know about the elemental immunity in AD&D (I've played a little 3.5 and a lot of 5). That's cool and one of those details I wish they hadn't simplified out of 5e. Anyhow, it sounds (from the original story) like the players knew (or should have found out) how the DM would use the kobolds, so fair enough to call this a failure of scouting as much as a failure of ingenuity. Though I will say if the DM changed it that dramatically after I'd scouted it (unless the party dallied for months), I think I'd stop playing with the jerk.
I think Tucker´s Kobolds were designed to burn through some of the recsources that the party would need for their level 10 adventure, and the party knew that they would have to give up on their goal to fight the demons if they did not run.
I think Tucker's is a story designed to encourage DMs to use history as a tool for combat design. All the tactics used by the kobolds are reminiscent of guerrilla tactics used by the defending native population of Vietnam forces in the Vietnam war, something which would have been much more in the mind of the populace in the days of early D&D
And since most of group were in the Army, the DM had access to military tactical manuals. One manual show how to make a contact circuit for a mine out of c-ration can, K-bar, nail, and wire. Ooops forgot the P-38,
I did that once. Saw something on History channel about the Vietnam Tunnel warfare. PC took out the look outs on the hill and then decide to plug each tunnel entrance. AKA skip the adventure.
@@RottenRogerDM You mean the "Pew-38 Explosive Space Modulator"? We always called it that. It made opening cans SO much more fun! "There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering KABOOM!" "Nope. Just tuna. YUM!" I remember the joy when my sister and I, upon moving to our own apartment, managed to find some "Pew-38's" at an old Army surplus store. They're fantastic! They fit right on your keychain, and they do so much more than open cans. They open boxes and letters, and hearts, with the laughter they provide. One of the best tools ever! I miss mine. I lost it during the last move, and the Army surplus store closed. Wah!
1e Magic Users. i) Their spells were fire and forget, so if you wanted to bring along Magic Missile and/or Sleep (which are fairly useless at higher/deeper levels where the party is ultimately heading), a 12th Level MU would have to sacrifice a one-shot memory slot (they got 4x L1-5, and 1x L6) which they might have otherwise used for a more useful "utility" spell. ii) A 12th Level MU would be evoking 6x 1d4+1 magic missiles, with all targets having to be in a 10 ft. square area. Each does only 3.5 HP damage on average, which would give a 75% kill rate against an average kobold. So 4-5 dead kobolds on a cast assuming they've been bunched up. If those murder holes are spaced apart you might only be getting half that. iii) A Sleep spell will knock out 4d4, so maybe 10, kobolds, and they'd all have to be within a 15 ft. radius circle. If there are more kobolds nearby they can awaken their friends with a round's action, so it'll buy time, but might end up not actually taking too many out of the fight long term. (Sleeping a couple of kobolds carrying a vat of oil and flaming torches whilst in amongst their fellows might be a useful cast, of course). iv) MUs had to find spells and also roll to learn them, so they just might not have more useful spells in their spell book. v) A 12th level MU is going to have around 28-29 HP (11d4+1). Dropping a 12d6 (42 HP on average) fireball with the caster in the blast zone isn't going to be a great experience for the party. A 12th level Thief wouldn't fare much better with 39 HP (10d6+4), whilst a 12th level Fighter would have, perhaps, 67-68 HP (9d10+9, +9 as a +1 CON bonus, say). Even if they do make their saving throws for half damage, they're going to be pretty badly beaten up. Plus, they'd risk having their equipment destroyed or damaged from the heat/fire (older games were much more brutal than 5e in this respect). Also, back in the day maybe around 2/3rd of the adventuring group was made up of henchmen and hirelings who would just be turned into crispy critters by such a fireball. So, not generally a good idea unless in a really sticky situation.
This so very much yeah. I do think this analysis goes wrong, on account of the Dudes simply not having played quite enough 2nd to catch the changes in attitude and system.
1e was a different time. I'm glad you acknowledged the differences in Fireball and Lightning Bolt-- there are similar differences with many other spells (like there's no such thing as upcasting, but I think by 9th level a wizard gets 5 magic missiles per casting of the 1st level spell...so only 5 kobolds go down). I think there are two mistakes you make that it might be fun if you re-address: The kobolds are likely part of a tribe and I'd bet Tucker maxed that tribe. So you're talking 400 kobolds, not 30. And you're talking 300 eggs ready to hatch more...there are also some really scary overbearing rules in 1e. If a pack of 40 corner you in a dead end, it's over. It's been a long time since the '80s, but I also think that, as small creatures, they could cram a square with more than one per square, so it gets thick and nasty quickly. I think where y'all would be better versed to address the mistake you made is this: You put 5e tactics against 1e kobolds. You need to upgrade the kobolds to 5e in the same numbers-- say your 30-- and add in spell-casters. THIS would be why they run and choose to fight single monsters rather than the mad rush of endless kobolds.... (But a fun video as always, guys. Glad to hear from one of your DMs that the games at GenCon went well. They really bragged about the floating positions coming in with various optional adds. Bravo.)
i never knew that the party already knew they would be facing tuckers kobolds, had a map of the dungeon, and had plenty of time to plan out their path and preparations Edit: it was a partial map
It does sound like they got cocky, and thought they could just waltz through the first level without issue, thus did not actually prepare. Or rather, preparation stopped at "have map, know enemy identity, call it a day".
yeah, that's the part that stands out the most on hearing the original version of the kobolds. at least some of the PCs in the party had encountered them before, and they had a partial map of the dungeon level. the players had everything they'd've needed to properly prepare for the kobolds, but instead their entire fail of a plan was "pick a short path and run". the party entirely deserved the utter beatdown the kobolds gave them
There is an official 5e AL adventure modeled after Tucker's Kobolds. It's DDAL06-01 A Thousand Tiny Deaths for characters level 1-4. I'd like to see you guys try overcoming that adventure. Let's make it easier, you can play it with level 6 characters.
Level 3 spells make it a lot easier. Hypnotic Pattern is great, probably still packing Sleep at this stage as well. Also did anyone think of actually trying to negotiate with the Kobolds and use a non combative solution to the problem?
@@mikeunderwood734A non combat solution? Negotiations? Are you MAD, boy?! This ain't the pub, this is a war(game). (I'm ofc joking, but that's probably the equivalent reaction that you'd get from the power-trippy antagonistic DM who has been looking forward to wrecking his players with a bunch of made up monsters all week)
@@mikeunderwood734 respectfully, it's not about how powerful the spell is. The kobolds are spread out in secret tunnels, firing through murder holes. It's not one single encounter, they use hit and run tactics so suddenly you are hit with two dozen attacks. You retaliate, they disappear. You will run out of spell slots before they run out of kobolds.
@@intrinsical That is the biggest factor, the party has limited resources, Kobolds (and most similar humanoids like Goblins, Hobgoblins, Orcs, Gnolls, etc) come in numbers ranging from 50-500+ and often have allies and/or non-ally monsters that they know about and can use nearby.
Now it’s been a long time since I played first edition. Back in the eighties when I was in high school. There are a few things I’d give the players. Dropping a fireball on yourself is a lot worse in first edition. Wizards had a d4 hit points, and I believe fireball did 10d6. Rogues had only a d6. That fireball could have messed them up. There was also no short rests, so if they couldn’t get a long rest in the dungeon they may have been trying to conserve resources and/or save their spells for the bigger monsters. All that said, yeh I th8nk with some better planning this should have been a doable challenge.
Agreed, the real lesson to learn here is how much stronger 5E PCs are than they was back in the day. Things like short rest, hit dice, and not loosing a spell when taking damage go along way. The number of spells suggested to deal with the kobolds on the first level of the dungeon would mean 2 days of down time to rest and rememorize.
@@RottenRogerDMHad this happen but a save vs disintegration where my fellow player survived with only a single +1 long sword. No cothes, armor or treasure. Just. The. Sword.
@@RottenRogerDM Harder, try impossible. I never let a party get 8 hours of uninterrupted rest in a dungeon and was never allowed one. Most of the reason I am wizard adverse to this day was the resource management was so bad I still have flashbacks! It wasn't until 3.5 that I considered a pure wizard viable to any significant degree.
Actually, it would have been worse because a fireball did 1d6 per level of the magic user, so a 12th level magic user would have done 12d6 with a fireball, not 10d6. Pair that with the fact that all classes other than fighters could only get a +2 maximum hit points per level and hit dice only were rolled up to level 9 through 11 (depending on the class of the character), and like mentioned above hit dice were smaller (except for fighters, paladins, druids, and clerics) and a level 12 magic user’s fireball could inflict a TPK on an unlucky party, though it’s likely that a fighter might be tough enough to survive with their d10 hit dice and potentially +3 or +4 CON bonuses.
It's worth mentioning that sharpshooter won't do much to negate the arrow slits and murder holes, since the kobolds can split their movement and fire, taking full cover (untargetable) after they shoot
@@mxt3k Wouldn't work if there was heavy smoke already. The kobolds would likely get a few extra rounds of firing because they are closer to the ground.
@@aaronnunavabizniz199 if there is heavy smoke that keeps the players from shooting, then the kobolds cant fire either. Players ready action, as soon as the Kobold moves to a shooting position behind cover, the attack is rolled before the Kobold attacks. The Kobolds get no extra rounds of firing due to size.
Tuckers Kobolds is great but a couple points. 1) The kobolds are a complication to kill the mules and hirelings (more treasure means more XP) so you have to protect them. 2) The players were focused on the mid and end levels and were not prepared with extra resources to deal with the Kobolds. They could have gotten all kinds of things to have gotten though. And while Monks and Paladins were rare and Druids and Rangers uncommon and loosing your familar would suck it was possible to be really tricking and make the Kobolds show their hand and thus avoid most of the traps. But the players were lazy. 3) The fire spells were because if you have fire at the end level and so you have ice or wind before that levels are themed as are campaigns 4) The moral is all baddies can be a threat - to the unprepared. (Last point. Ad&D had limits for what we called Demi-human characters like an elf. But they multiclassed in ways we don’t have now. The story does not really say how many were in the party but if the Wizard was a Elf Magic User/fighter at 10th level then they have Magic User 5 and fighter 5. The story was focused on the Kobolds so we don’t know if that also was a factor.) (Edit Last part was had MU Twice should have been Fighter/MU)
Multiclassing is not being well explained. Demihumans generally took 2 or more classes and ALL their classes advanced more or less together and generally a level behind a single class character. So if the highest level character was 12th level and the wizard was 12th level, it was almost certainly single classed. If it had been 11th level, it was likely a fighter/magic-user 11/11 or a magic-user/thief 11/12. But demihumans had level limits based on subrace and prime ability score (set by class), so it may have topped out lower in any of the classes.
@@johnweatherman5685 yup I did poorly type that last bit out. I think you got to the general point I did but you would (been like 20 years) but you add them not take the high level (that is what we did at least) though my point is we don’t know exactly what the character levels were. Also this does assume they ran the game the as the books say - many didn’t or made modifications. We just don’t know without Tucker here.
10:14 It just goes to show that the mentality of "keep throwing higher level and more powerful monsters at the party as they level" also affects the party. They're not considering these lower level and more basic spells because they're not used to situations where those spells are not only tactically viable, but specifically designed for. Power breeds complacency.
We're playing Ghosts of Saltmarsh, and one of our party members is a Human Bard (no, not Variant Human) who doesn't have a single ability modifier above +2. We got into an ambush, and over two rounds, he put 3 out of the 4 attackers to sleep. Our DM took it surprisingly well.
Just to nitpick, at normal casting using a 40 foot cube the max number of sleepy kobolds is 40. That leaves 24 if you are only using one kobold per square. This points out the power of small numbers done large. And my current casual player love it.
One thing that occurs to me is that the party could have tried to negotiate with the kobolds, and thus avoid fighting them altogether. So many groups neglect diplomacy as an option.
One thing anout the Kobolds and the fire: They had immunity to a "random" element (not really random, but they could have any type of the Dragon Breaths options since there was one Kobolt variant to any color of dragon). So it's a enemy weirdly difficult to prepare against. In one encounter they can abuse fire, and on the next pull a cloud kill, and the one after that have corridors full pf glyph of warding that they stomp and lightning bolts fly on the party. You can know that they're there, but there's still the "what element" question that can make everything you prepared to go to waste.
In AD&D, Kobolds were not part of the "draconic" monster family. They were described as "dog-like" and were more of a trickster/pack monster. I fought them several times in module B1: Keep on the Borderlands (The Caves of Chaos.)
Better: Imagine these Kobolds sounds like they have a brain, so chances are, the tribe might consist of multiple variants, so they could send a different kind each time which makes it even more troublesome, or a mix.
The other things to remember is the asymmetry of this battle. If you use a cone of cold on level 1, that is a fifth level spell you can't use anywhere else and it netted you a few dead kobolds whereas normally those kobolds would be easy prey for a fighter without the use of any resources
I feel like the kobolds were implied to be endless. Aside from the fireball suggestions, they never mentioned fighting back. The way that the group is always surrounded and they talk about honeycomb tunnels, I feel like it is supposed to be implied that there is no killing all the kobolds as more will just immediately replace them.
the strongest weapon they kobolds had by far was their intimidation on the players themselves. LEADER: lets run blindly past all of them instead of treating this like any other dungeon. speedrunners know what happens when you try to run past all the enemies, some or all catch up.
I'm planning to use a version of Tucker's Kobolds in a mini-campaign I'm prepping for my group. I've never GMed, so I am doing a crazy amount of research
I used Killer Kobolds and one player tried to avoid a trap by being a "40 pound" Tabaxi [normally 70 pounds] and he fell through the trap anyway. One of the other players captured one of the kobolds lizard mounts [which only understood kobold draconic speech] using animal handling. they never learned that they couldn't ride them unless they spoke commands in kobold draconic AND broke/gentled the lizard for riding.
There is an anime series that very much reminds me of Tuckers Kobolds and how to defeat them, it's called Goblin Slayer. It's essentially a DnD campaign where the regular parties gets brutalized by the Goblins and only the veteran "player" knows how to handle them.
The players in Tucker's Kobolds always struck me as high school students, popcorn and soda drinkin' kids looking for some fun slaughtering old dungeon monsters that pop out when you open a new door in the dungeon. Challenged to actually think they just... didn't.
Since it happened at Ft Bragg, NC "Home of The Airborne and Special Operations Forces" [where they teach specialized Small Unit [squad of 5 Adventurers] tactics. I'm not sure of their being high school, but they could have been young visiting troops, the permanent troops would have soon figured out what to do when they returned to the local village with henchmen, hirelings and pack animals killed and no volunteers for the forseeable future. they might be able to buy provisions and equipment at 200-500% of cost to partly repay the villagers for the loss of their relatives.
@@grog4063 this reads as nonesense to me. most people I know try NOT to bring their irl skills into rp. so even if this was a military game, they probably treated it as different then their actual job.
@@TranshumanMarissa And how many letter grades have you been 'dumbed down??!?' I have probably played DND more years than you are old. In my first group I played in, everyone had a bow and used them regularly. Do you dare to face off against a DND Ogre with 1 hit point. In my arrogance, I did and I won. Do the same and I'll be impressed. BTDT!
@@znail4675 To me, it always felt like the players got a bad case of the rpg brain. Preparing for high level encounters, because they want the most loot, leaving themselves vulnerable to the viciousness of lower level encounters played well, plus generally, the tactics you develop in rpgs is very different then IRL tactics, only for the Kobolds here to go full guerilla warfare.
One of my favorite dungeons I ever made was inspired by tucker’s kobolds. They had a bunch of tricks but the main one is that they lived in an abandoned castle full of undead. Their little tunnels let them avoid the zombies and their traps would drop an elevator full of skeletons on you etc
DDAL06-01 A thousand Tiny deaths mention but don't use to good effect is the murder holes on the sides of Room B, C and E. Kobolds came in 40 to 400 lots in 1E. Getting Tucker to work today, would be harder due to have quickly you can change out spell slots, healing, etc. One of my two TPKs in 5E came from this module. I didn't allow a short rest due all rooms had murderholes, so I could nickel and dime the pcs to they decided to push forward. The second was during the boss fight the pcs stayed at range and in fireball formation.
I'd like to see Tucker's Kobolds but for 5e. Listen they're tricky buggers but its too easy with the spells available to us to just trivialize encounters like this. I think the point of the story is to show how terrifying kobolds can be despite their terrible hp.
I’ve gleaned lessons over the years from rereading Tucker’s, and by far, it is incredibly fun to make that standard adventuring gear useful when the other people at the table aren’t expecting it. Expecting company to come through that door? Throw an end of a rope to the party members on the other side of the entrance and make sure to pull it taut for a fun trip and easy advantage for everyone by the entrance.
"If my back was against the wall, I'd totally drop fireball and take the damage..." This. This is the reason my sorcerer took Careful Spell and subtle spell rather than the "optimal" choice. Maxim 20. If you're not willing to shell your own position, you're not willing to win. And if most to all of your party is rogues they have evasion, and you don't have to be *nearly* as shy about fire support.
Something else to consider: the players were going to be dealing with demons later. They couldn't just gear up to fight the kobolds because they were also going to have to deal with the demons.
Makes me wonder if the party was on a timeline or something. If they had plenty of time, they could have fought the kobolds, then camped out outside the dungeon before advancing on the demons. Better that than leaving hostile kobolds across your retreat path, right? Of course, it's possible the party was on a death-ride trying to prevent the demons from completing some unspeakable ritual "before it's too late!"...
You might want to pick up 3 Books by Keith Ammann -Monsters know what they are doing, MOAR! Monsters know what they are doing and Live to tell the Tale.
Was actually at ft Bragg (now ft liberty) after watching this video and told a colleague the story of the kobolds. Nice video. Learning how to dm better through memorable stories like this awesome!
You also got account for how much more valuable player resources were in AD&D. You would heal only 1 hp per day as long as you did nothing more strenuous than riding a horse at a walk or 2 hp if you spent the whole day on bedrest with no activity. The wizard would have been lucky to had 25hp at level twelve and was using Vancian magic so required 10 minutes per spell level to memorize spells at the start of each day and could not change them out. He also would not have any cantrips in the the way they exist in 5e. Instead cantrips would basically be prestidigitation but broken up into multiple parts. Magic Missile also wouldn't be able to be used thru arrow slits as the offered near total concealment and Magic Missile used to act as an AOE, so you could only target creatures in a 10 cube. I might also be reading too much into it, but when the wizard asked about casting fireball, that made me think he might have been an Invoker Wizard, which would mean he would lose access to enchantment and conjuration spells, so no sleep and no summon monster. Cone of Cold would have worked but he would be using a 5th level spell on putting out fires in a 12 foot wide by 60 foot long area so probably not the best use of resources. I do agree that they definitely should have been better prepared with mundane items, but I would never use the 10 foot pole to push back against flaming debris. It would have been too big a risk with one of the most important items to have in surviving a dungeon!
The takeaway from Tucker's kobolds is that any monster can be deadly if run intelligently enough. Keith Ammann's books such as The Monsters Know What They're Doing delve into this subject comprehensively.
Played in one deathtrap dungeon were the lower level monsters respawned every time we left to go back to town. After a while, we'd fight our way through the top few levels (the first was goblins, the second was kobolds IIRC) for no real purpose at all. They couldn't harm us, they were no threat, we weren't even using any resources, all it was doing was slowing the session down. Eventually the druid asked the DM a flat question. "Why are we doing this again?" "Mostly because the module says the monsters respawn." "Does it say where the monsters are coming from?" "No. I mean, I guess there's a village or something nearby." "So we've slaughtered hundreds of goblins/kobolds, and they STILL want to pick a fight with us? If I was a goblin, I'd take one look at us and hide somewhere until we went past." "You know what? You're right. Let's just skip to level 4."
The DM took respawning to be instantaneous and new monsters (Higher level and fewer of them) would probably move in. DM never understood that poulation increase is a small fraction of the total adult population and is not static - accidents happen too.
In the AD&D days there was a number of appearing stat in monster stat blocks Kobolds and goblins always showed up in numbers between 20 and 200 so they could be a threat at any level. Beyond that some of the mechanics they said they would have used didn't exist and some the spells would still have been out of range of even a 12th level magic user because there were higher level spells than 9th back then
There was also Vancian spell casting, which meant you prepared a spell for each spell slot. It also meant that upcasting was nearly nonexistent, without the use of metamagic. Instead, you had spells that would get stronger as your character leveled up.
?? No. In 1E (where the story comes from) spells were still limited to 9th Level. In fact Illusionists (&Clerics?) only went as high as 7th level spells. The rest of your points are spot-on though...
Gonna use tuckers Goblins on my end campaing as the guardians of the demilich dungeon for the final arc (variant of goblins since is tematic for my setting)
I have seen Killer Kobolds set for level 5 that even level 7 characters had problems winning as a new dungeon. The idea is it's a new group. Now that they are a level 12 group they should do better, but they appear to an army of lions - led by a sheep. The kobolds were fire resistant. All in all, good planning on Kelly and Monty's part.
Very fun video, and great historical commentary. The point that players need to be prepared and think, and some things have not changed in decades, is great.
I think part of the issue is the mentality of AD&D players, who expected difficulty on level ten, but not in the entrance to the dungeon. By having the kobolds use guerilla tactics, Tucker had prepared a potentially deadly encounter with weak monsters. The party leader knew about the threat, but the AD&D mentality of avoiding unnecessary encounters was too strong. The party lost their hirelings and pack animals, and could have been defeated, all because they wanted to save their resources for the fire demons on level ten. The solution for the players was to think outside the box of their AD&D mentality, the way Tucker had. If the party magic-user had memorized Cloudkill, many of the kobolds would have been killed. But it seems like the party user was conserving spells, and the spells he had memorized were not helpful in this encounter.
Back when I used to play a D&D, I would keep stone to mud spell handy for dungeon crawls for just this type of situation. If the ceiling was stone, I would turn it to mud, collapsing it on the attacking monsters, and then cast mud to stone … instant cement shoes. We could then pick the monsters off at our leisure. Especially good for kobolds and goblins.
I ran a oneshot for a 3player lvl10 (paladin, glooomstalker and wizard) party, ending with a white adult dragon which they met after going through kobolds in ice tunnels. Toxic mushrooms, pits, shambly bridges and thin ice for the heavily armoures to fall through landing in icy water with quipers all the while kobolds were shooting their crossbows. The players survived but will never forget those pesky kobolds
TLDR: Tuckers Kobolds are also a way to tax the player's resources before the get to the demon on lvl 10. Genius. I think one of the major points that gets overlooked is that Tucker's Kobolds aren't the real reason the party is there. They are there to kill the demon on level 10. Perhaps the reason the players weren't using any spells (Fireball, Sleep, Magic Missile etc) is because they were trying to conserve resources for the BBEG fight they knew was coming up. IMO that just makes it an even more legendary DM move. Tucker's Kobolds probably made the BBEG on level 10 an even more challenging encounter.
With this story (and other well-known exemplar stories like the 16 HP dragon), I feel like you have to take it with a grain of salt or two. You have to assume the players were giving it their best shot, and that the GM wasn't just screwing them over with things that SHOULD have worked. As you said, the point of the story (that low-level creatures can still pose an interesting challenge when utilized properly) is still there, so long as you don't pick at it too much. ...Incidentally, if you're thinking of turning this into a series, the story of the 16 HP Dragon is also a great one that provides some teachable moments. (It's a Dungeon World story, not D&D, but you've branched out to other games before.)
hey dungeon dudes!! i have no idea what other videos you are planning but i think a video on how to run and roleplay a hag encounter would be super cool and fun, especially green hags!!
@@pierowmania2775no spirit guardians that far back. Clerics are spoiled for choice now, but you generally had one damage dealing spell per level, and most were decidedly inconvenient.
Worth mentioning that under 1ed rules, if you wanted to cast Magic Missile twice, you had to prepare it twice. Granted the party knew what they were facing and should have been better prepared for it.
My party died without honor or mercy in this scenario at a Con in the late 80's. The tactics came in handy when I DM'ed an old API module " The Caverns of Thantos". It was a good 5-8 adventure only slightly spoiled by a colony of about 200 cranky Kobolds that would swarm like hornets if disturbed.
Great video as usual. Others have said it but I'll add my voice to the pile: a great 3rd episode on the topic would be how a 5e DM could adapt the kobolds to the current rules.
I think the brilliance of the Tucker's Kobolds scenario is the fear and panic that overcame the party that stopped them from thinking it through. Like Han Solo single handedly running screaming after a bunch of panicking Stormtroopers, or the panic stricken grasshoppers from A Bugs Life running from an ant-made bird model, this scenario is great in creating anticipatory fear in the players.
I don't know, playing a wizard in any addition of AD&D is really tough. At six level you have two third level spells, and you would have to choose which you would want to memorize. Not only that, but if you're four first level spells, you'd have to divide them up between shield and mage armor and magic missile. And remember there were no such thing as cantrips so once you cast your spells you were done, absolutely done. Combats lasted many many rounds and so if you're a wizard, you're probably going to blow all of your spells in one combat. Back then I used to just not do anything some rounds. I would be waiting for my opportunity to drop my one well timed spell because that's all I was going to get in the entire combat.
Tucker's Kobolds took place in the late 70s, Tucker left about 1980. He actually developed the dungeon using the white box rules. Most D&Ders were also war gamers. The Kobolds didn't bunch up. It was their home territory. It was possible to get past them, but getting past without using up too many spell slots or losing too many hit points was the challenge. It was quite easy to take out a couple here or a couple there, but there were about 30 of them but they fought in teams of twos and threes. They had fall back positions, and fallback positions behind those. The other thing was they adapted. As characters learned ways to fight them, they were come up with their own counters. The biggest thing working for the Kobolds was they worked as a team, whereas most PCs tend to use the Barbarian Infantry mentality--everyone is a hero. The Kobolds had no ego to defend. They had no problem just running away. They also had ways to get behind the party as the party advanced. They were particularly effective when returning from the depths of the dungeons with few hit points, and few spells left.
As a beginning DM, who knows how I always am when I'm playing Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale, I tend to hoard all the consumables, for "that rainy day when I'm definitely going to NEED it! I may never get another one of these again!", I actually gave a special reward (I call them Yippideedoos) to the first player who used a potion in the game. I will be ensuring that they DO get plenty of potions and scrolls, and I want them to get into the habit of USING their consumables. I think that, with the right consumables on hand, Tucker's Kobolds would have been more easily beat. You mentioned potions of fire resistance. Also, even if you don't want to use spell slots on the low-level things, carry some low-level scrolls with you, man! I know a lot of people who, as they level up, will sell off all the low-level scrolls, because "I'm beyond this stuff, now. Scrolls are for the BIG spells you can't cast, yet!" and "I need the cash!" But, honestly, sometimes a low-level spell is EXACTLY what you need. So, keep those scrolls of Magic Missile and Sleep and other such stuff. I really thought it was so bizarre, though, that they were planning, so carefully, for this dungeon crawl, checking the maps, and knowing the kobolds were there, and what they were like, because they'd seen them before. And yet, they didn't come prepared specifically for the kobolds they KNEW they would face, in favor of preparing for the "Probably OK" flaming demons they hoped to face. What if, they got through the kobolds, got down to level 10, or further, and found something else, entirely. Like, maybe the Kobold homeland, or something like that? HAHAHAHAA! That would be hilarious. "Oh, instead of 30 low-level kobolds, you're now facing 100 leveled-up kobold elders."
These guys were playing at Ft. Bragg, NC. That means that they were part of the 82nd Airborne Division. I am guessing that they were likely not commissioned officers, so not college students.
Thinking about this - how does fire work in dungeons? It's one thing if it's something grand and spacious, made mostly from stone with occasional flammable element, like dwarven ruins. But how would fire work in closed ramshackle tunnels with a lot of burnable stuff? If anything - it's the PCs that should use the fire tactics for their advantage. Explore the outside of the dungeon. Find all of the ventilation shafts and block them up. Stockpile a lot of burnable stuff at the entrance of the dungeon and light it up. Use the smoke to find the ventilation holes and other exits you've missed. Kill all of the kobolds that try to run from smoke. Then give the fire and monoxide poisoning time to do it's work, wait until everything is burned out and go explore the empty dungeon. Minding the fire damage of course.
Yes, the leader was scared and over-reacted. However, that may have been the best strategy. If the party makes a mad dash for the lower levels, they take damage each round. If they stay to fight, it takes more time and the party probably takes more damage. Worse, the party uses precious spell slots. The party should look for that middle ground -- using a small number of defensive or utility spells (darkness, fog cloud, dimension door, gaseous form) while they simply move through the encounters as quickly as possible.
I think you're assuming a bit about the party's level. In the 80s (I DMed in the 80s), a party in a multi-level dungeon usually was expected to level up in a multi-level dungeon. In this way, such big dungeons were basically campaigns. So I could see the party starting at level 3-5, and growing to level 10 by the time they get to the 10th dungeon level.
So, a few things: One, it's possible the wizard did pack magic missile and sleep, and had simply cast them earlier in the dungeon. If memory serves, the kobolds were on level 3, so the party had already gone through two whole levels of dungeon on this delve. Not to mention they still would have had to pack the light spell (remember that there are no cantrips in AD&D), in case the torches burned out. Two, by looking at the kobolds in microcosm like this, we're forgetting all the tradeoffs the kobolds imposed. For example, every spell you pack to deal with the kobolds is one that you don't have to take out the BBEG on level 10. For anyone unfamiliar with how spells worked in earlier editions, you would prepare individual spells and then cast them. So if you wanted to cast fireball three times, you needed to prep three fireballs. Flexible casting was not a thing. Three, it's interesting to note that the party doesn't even try to kill the kobolds. This, to me, suggests that there was little benefit to doing so, so possibly the kobolds have no treasure (which played a large role in XP advancement in early editions). The party is here to maximize their profits, and ergo doesn't try to kill the kobolds, but rather to get to the big treasure chests on level 10 (the elevators that lead there are on level 3, which is why they're going through the kobolds in the first place). Four, the story references the author being stationed at Ft Bragg. I believe that Tucker is either a veteran or a soldier's kid, meaning he likely had experience with these tactics either first or secondhand via the Vietnam War. Any tools the party used to counter the kobolds would get countered either in real-time (as the kobolds adapted), or when they next came in to the dungeon. So yeah, you can cast sleep, but that's only going to affect some of the kobolds, and all it'll do is buy you some time to get to the exit. Not to mention that in doing so, you've now burned a spell that you're going to need later on. Putting all this together, it seems apparent the party made a decision to try sprinting through level 3 as fast as they could once discovered, thereby trying to maximize their ROI for the trip. This clearly didn't work, and I think that highlights the best options the players didn't take: Option #1: Kobold Genocide. Kill every kobold on level 3. Burn as many henchmen, retainers, and mules as you have to. Kill every single one of them, and then set up shop in the ruins, creating your own stronghold. Solve the problem of the kobolds by ruthlessly eliminating them. Make this the entire point of a single delve, and pack about double the supplies you think you'll need. Option 2: Kobold Friendship. As you come in, advance one member with a flag of parley, and announce as loudly as possible that you want to speak to the kobolds. Find out what the kobolds' want, and give it to them in return for safe passage through their warrens.
Something that I think they didn't take into account: The original story explicitly says Tucker's Kobolds were never boring. Which, to me, implies that every time they come down this tunnel there's different shenanigans taking place. This time it was fire and arrow holes, but if they came back with fire resist and gas spells then they'd be dealing with pitfall traps and rolling boulders. Or rooms that fill with water and slippery floors. If the Kobolds are always using a different trick, it makes it a lot harder to prepare for them, especially if you want to keep enough gas in the tank for the actual fights later on. They still definitely could have planned around it better, and fear was the main weapon the little monsters used, but I want to give the party at least some credit. I doubt they got to "run away in blind terror" after just one encounter.
In defense of Tucker’s players how many times have players forgotten about half of the things they are able to do, and have available to them in the heat of the moment.
Something I think y'all may have not considered...It's not always about the game mechanics / minmaxing, sometimes it's JUST about the players, and it CAN be a valuable teaching tool.... Consider, the story originated at Fort Bragg (now Fort Liberty), NC... In the late 80's... That means that at that time, the instillation was home to, not only standard training of US Army soldiers, it was also, essentially, the US's training ground for waging unconventional, asymmetric, and phycological warfare for not only Airborne units, but also SOCOM units, and would have been staffed by senior enlisted and officers who had served in prior real life wars, including Korea and Vietnam. D&D started with a table top wargaming.... Those senior enlisted and officers would have come up playing TTWGs either for fun, or in the case of officers, as part of training. Jus sayin... "Seemingly weak opponents using "primitive" tools and tactics and a system of traps and tunnels to overwhelm a "more trained / more skilled" unit preventing them from their mission objectives"... Sounds like a teachable moment to me.
Have an Evocation Wizard. Sculpt Spellls protects everyone else in the party and have the healer heal the Wizard! Also pack Magic Missile, Fireball, Scorching Ray, Cone of Cold! If the Wizard gets really low on hit points have an Otiluke's Resilient Sphere to protect himself and a teleportation spell to escape, whether Misty Step, Dimension Door or whatever.
Advanced DnD also requires that the wizard memorize the spells they will use into the spell slots they're going to use. While today, there's lots of magic to get around this, then there wasn't. The lessons from Tucker's Kobolds was that enemies who are thought of as weak can still be dangerous if they are smart. Can't just one for one it.
I accidentally made a "Tucker's Kobolds" situation with Shadowdancers in a friend's campaign I was co-DMing. I say "accidently" because of the situation. The party didn't know the Shadow Dancers were there, but the entire situation could've been avoided if a PC had just shut a door. But the door stayed open, the PC didn't actually check the room they were looking in, and three Shadow Dancers exited behind the party and took a PC down. Should note, there were nine PCs at level 10 and rated a "Medium" encounter.
8:15 Tucker's kobolds did not have to worry about sharpshooters. Although the Ranger subclass of archer might have been proposed in some Dragon Magazine edition, it would not have been required. In addition, cover was not ignored by such archers, they just had the ability to do called shots, which were far from certain. So sharpshooter would not have helped much if at all.
Sleep spell would be useful (AOE like Spirit guardians) but monster summoning would be...problematic. Those were Kobold size honeycomb tunnels on the other side of those arrow slits and murder holes. You would need to summon a kobold size or smaller monster to put in them. Also remember they are trying to get through this to an area where they will need their spell slots.
After roassting the poarty like this, and as DMs yourself, I think another good follow up video would be you designing a 5e tuckers encounter that could threaten a high level party with all these auto hits and devastating aoe attacks that you mention
You might not believe it, but I have no experience with dungeons and dragons, youtube feed me this channel because I recently purchased Baldur's gate 3 on steam. It turns out most of the content here is much more well explained than the "baldur's gate guides". ❤
in my "Dragon Lore Campaign" my party was sent to enter a kobold nest under the golden dragons lair. before they encountered any of the kobolds they found a statue of Tiamat. it showed a detailed image of her. later the have the chance to sneak up on some of the kobolds prepping a fight, and they choose to cast a few overlapping minor illusions of Tiamat to hide themselves. three of them spoke draconic, and the other two just made low growling noises. I wanted a fight, but seeing how well they all worked out this plan, I made the kobolds bow in fear and praise to their god. they told the kobolds to leave this place and never return, so I made them pack their things and head for a different lair.
New plan: Negotiate with the kobolds. Tell them you'll pay a fee in shiny coins or food if they let you pass through their territory undisturbed. If what they ask for is a reasonable amount then you both end up ahead of where you'd be if you fought each other.
Dear Mr. Guardian we will take 3 mules, your state farm agent named Jake, and the mage. Rub this herb and rosemary butter on the mage before you deliver them. 😀
You might as well have added, "these kobolds are intelligent, so a party member with good charisma and the ability to speak draconic could probably try negotiating. " So, while the description mentioned it, it shows the biggest difference between 1st and 5th ed that you aren't even mentally acknowledging the hirelings. In 1st edition, in addition to an experience requirement, levels also had a net worth requirement that, RAW, needed to be maintained during any downtime at the risk of losing the ability to maintain your power (training, magical research facilities, etc. ). Tucker seemed to be running things very by the book from this description. Miscellaneous magic items like bags of holding were extremely uncommon, even at higher levels, and carry capacity was limited. But amongst the standard perks of leveling you also gained the qualities of leadership and could attract followers. Who were generally lower level. The biggest threat the kobolds were posing wasn't directly aimed at the players (although they were being threatened), but at the logistics chain they were needing to escort to make the delve to level 10 and back not end up a complete wash that could literally lower their own level. You do also have to consider that in 1st ed, after a certain point, you gained a flat 1-2 hp per level instead of full hit dice, let alone bonus hp for constitution. Only the highest scores even got that. This is the fundamental issue even before discussing changes to spell casting rules or things like up casting not existing befor 5th ed. Tldr, the game is different now and the threat posed had higher stakes than it first appears.
0:37 Before having seen the video: My idea of how to defeat the little b@st@rds; 12th level wizard can certainly take Protection From Normal Missiles. Protection From Fire scroll (or spell) is also needed. You might want some means of going ethereal in order to get through the wall, since I am uncertain (since my memory of spells in AD&D, 1st Ed. from 40 years ago is not all that great) if you could use Passwall, Dimension Door or some other spell to get past the wall barrier between you and those damned dragon kin. Now you start slinging fireballs (since you are protected from the fire that they had already planned to burn you with), and give them a taste of their own medicine. Just a quick idea of how I would initially approach the problem.
I think Tucker's Kobolds has a couple different lessons to be had. One and foremost is that not all parties are going to be going into combat situations with tactical brilliance and that shouldn't always be expected so while the DM can make an encounter terrorifying like them, sometimes they would be better served not doing so. but secondly, that resources of the players and the DM have a lot more utility than they imagine. a max level wizard can still get a lot of use out of low level spells just as a DM and players can make a mundane item and a little ingenuity into more threatening than a much more readily dangerous thing given the right set up. and lastly, Roleplaying and character building can be done in combat and planning just as much as the High Charisma character can while talking to nobles and such. The fear in the players can be a great idea for the characters. Sure the demon king at the core of the dungeon might be the threat the world is aware of, but these constant jousts with the kobolds and their religious fanatic like focus on these dangerous traps could put distrust int he players that they can play out, maybe they have tripped so many trip wires and have had to deal with floods of scorpions, so tripping over a bench at a tavern makes them have a more visceral reaction than they expected. Trauma can be done a bit edgy with roleplay but having a response like that can be a small thing that puts more flavor into the world.
The second problem is starting combat at Melee Range. Combat in Farmland, Grassland, Desert. Arctic or plains could be up to (6d6)x10 ft could be up to 360' (5 combat round to close for Dragonborn, 6 for those with 30' movement dashng and 7 dashing for those with 25' movement dashing. 200' is max range for all other environments. [Up to 4 dashes to close to melee range.] Most of the 'Combat Maps' start at melee, negating the use of bows due to bow attacks at 5' are at disadvantage [which they should be.] 5-7 Ranged attacks [-1 to hit for speed of travel] will cut down 2-5 attackers, making melee more survivable. Firing at the fire pushing kobolds could kill up to 4 enemies leaving the fires to burn out or be avoided.
I know the Dudes acknowledged that 5e is very different from AD&D, but I think there are lots of differences they didn't even consider (for instance, the near-universality of dark vision among PCs in 5e). My idea for a third video in this trilogy: The Dungeon Dudes create a 5e version of Tucker's Kobolds that makes the adventure challenging using the modern rules.
Seconded. The lesser magic especially would present a problem for modern players, among other things their assumptions don't take into account.
This is a great idea.
Not only that, but up casting didn't exist back then, what you saw is what you got. So casting invisibility would be a MASSIVE investment of spell slots. The party had hirelings and donkeys. I seriously doubt the wizard had the slots to cast invisibility on everyone. And Magic Missile back then were based completely on the casters highest Spellcaster level, a 12th level Spellcaster would have the maximum of 5 magic missiles.
Readying actions didn't exist either. So that's out the window immediately. As for dealing with all the fire. There is a spell that could do that ridiculously easy for a party, namely, Affect Normal Fires, a spell that would allow the wizard control the intensity of, or just EXTINGUISH ALL MUNDANE FIRES IN RANGE. It's a spell that doesn't exist in these newer editions, which shoes that magic were far more varied in the past. It's a spell that would have great use, though.
4 players all level 12 = 48 divide by 4.. a total CR of 12 (divided by 1/4 each for kobold CR, you get 48 Kobolds)
Quest-giver: a seemingly robust and fit fighter, who mostly just rocks in a chair hugging himself. mumbling incoherently, talking to party members who aren't there. Or drinking himself to sleep at the tavern. When pried for information, if he is drunk enough, he tells a tale of rumored treasures, protected by great monsters in a nearby lair. If the party makes any indication that they intend to go check it out, he will just scream at them, and beg them not to go. Then break down in tears, sayind "the kobolds..." over and over.
- the front door is actually a series of 5 doors, one after another, each requiring an action strength check to kick down once you're locked in.
- inside the front door(s) is a steep stone staircase which descends 40 ft (and it will definitely be covered in grease very soon).
- spread out the kobolds, packs of 2 (pack tactics), but groups of two are never closer than 15ft apart (actually tactical pack tactics)
- wooden shutters on the murder holes, 2 kobolds per murder hole, 1st free-use opens & attacks, 2nd free-use attacks and closes it.
- add a lot of poison
- lots of traps, which "cannot" be discovered or disarmed by the rogue, because the entire triggering mechanism is manually operated by a kobold. (out of reach log-drops, etc)
- limited amounts of obvious "cover" available to the party (mind the poison tipped punji sticks hidden in the cover though... also mind that whole barrel of oil in the ceiling over it...)
- a cart filled with big rocks, with the front covered in poison spikes, which rolls into the back-side of the "obvious cover", and makes doubly sure to shove players into the spikes already in the "cover".
- that vine-covered lattice which goes up to the top level kobolds? That's poison Ivy. And the lattice is secured by a latch, which the 2 kobolds at the top can un-latch, letting the lattice fall ...into the 'cover' with the fun pokey-sticks
- a wooden side door, seemingly getting out of the ambush area from which a voice can be overheard saying "hold the door shut!", but the door only opens to a stone wall, and a small improvised explosive.
- "Rocks fall, party dies" but do you know why rocks fall? It's because 2 kobolds and a pri-bar knocked the support beam out.
- when the alarm horn is blown, the party should understand that they weren't "detected", but that they're "in the center of the kill-box"
- one older kobold who comes out and says "I love it when a plan comes together" while chewing a cigar, when the party runs out of the dungeon.
if the party survives, AND actually get through the kobolds, then they get to the staircase and go down to level 10 ...only to find that the kobolds have already murdered all the demons and just use the lava pit down there to smoke jerky. There is treasure, and a lot of jerky. Some of the jerky meat is hard to exactly place the flavor of.
Tucker's Kobalds win ... you can't hit them, they can hit you, they can damage you, they outnumber you ... they win ...
Most of the spells mentioned fail .. no line of sight, total cover ...
Sleep .. will sleep a few who have total cover and will be woken by others....
Ready Action ... is the only valid argument.... except for the fire, traps and more traps ...
On the subject of magic missile, AD&D said that “near-total concealment, such as that offered by arrow slits” can render magic missile ineffective.
THANK YOU
I mean it was a narrow hallway. Just walk up to it and stick your wand in before firing.
Not to mention -1 spell slot on the first level of a big dungeon that (if the kobolds are an indication) doesn't allow for long rests
@@brendanmcmannis3334 To be fair, in AD&D, you didn't take a long rest, at all. You did your day's adventure, and then you went back to town to rest up before the next dungeon delve. And however long you waited between games was how much time passed between dungeon raids. So the fact that you only healed 1 or 2 points per night was OK, since you'd be resting for a whole week, and probably have your cleric casting their healing spells on someone every day, to make up the difference.
AD&D was WAY different to 5e. SO very different.
If I remember right ADnD was basically a rules supplement for small parties of Hero Units, because DnD was originally a Table Top War Game
It's worth remembering that the original Tucker's Kobolds were up against a party whose magic users didn't have the flexibility of modern spellcasters. The spell slot system whereby you can cast any spell prepared as long as you have a slot of sufficient level didn't exist (or was, at best a variant system that might not be in use at that table, much like the various attempts at mana-pool based systems) at that time. Each spell had to be memorized (a process that took 10 uninterrupted minutes per spell level, after a period of rest/sleep that scaled with the highest level spell you wanted to memorise but started at a minimum of 4 hours), and disappeared from your head after a single casting. If you wanted to drop multiple fireballs (as an example), you needed to memorize Fireball multiple times.
What's more, at that time you started knowing Read Magic and three random spells, and had to seek out other spells during the campaign. You didn't just learn more by levelling. And even if you found a spell, you needed to roll a % check to learn it (and failure meant you didn't get to try again until you levelled up). Not only that, the maximum number of spells you could learn was capped by your Intelligence (and INT, or indeed any given stat, at that time tended to average lower than in modern D&D).
In short, a mafic user at that time was nowhere near as flexible as in modern D&D, and the spells they had available to prep for any given dungeon crawl was in a large part down to the DM, so they can perhaps be forgiven for not having the best spells for the job.
To make matter's worse, it was much easier to interrupt and spoil a spellcaster's day- you declare you're casting a spell, that memorization of it will be used, regardless if the spell goes off successfully or not. Given casting times for spells back then very often meant even an enemy further back in the initiative order would get a turn before the spell went off, and Concentration checks to avoid having your casting interrupted weren't yet a thing, I find it very easy to believe that the wizard in the story had trouble doing anything useful.
(Also, just as an aside, the AD&D DMG specifically mentions that arrow slits and murder holes provide near-total cover, and thus Magic Arrow won't work. Plus at the time, all additional targets needed to be within 10' of the base target. In 5e though, yeah, it's a pretty ideal spell for that situation)
I think Tucker's Kobolds is designed to hit an uninventive party.
😂😂😂 yeah, riiiight.
Not just uninventive, but also parties that dont do much scouting.
Kobolds had imunity to one element, based on what dragon type were based on.
Martin asks why the players didnt prepare against the fire or used the fire against them, but even if you already know how the DM uses the kobolds the DM has six different encounters (one for fire imunity, one for poison imunity...) and can always choose wich one on the fly if the party doesnt check it beforehand (and even if they do, he could change it saying something like "a rival faction took control of the path you guys choose during the preparations" if the party doesnt act quickly).
Edit: typos
@@albertonishiyama1980 Fair points and I agree. I actually didn't know about the elemental immunity in AD&D (I've played a little 3.5 and a lot of 5). That's cool and one of those details I wish they hadn't simplified out of 5e.
Anyhow, it sounds (from the original story) like the players knew (or should have found out) how the DM would use the kobolds, so fair enough to call this a failure of scouting as much as a failure of ingenuity.
Though I will say if the DM changed it that dramatically after I'd scouted it (unless the party dallied for months), I think I'd stop playing with the jerk.
I think Tucker´s Kobolds were designed to burn through some of the recsources that the party would need for their level 10 adventure, and the party knew that they would have to give up on their goal to fight the demons if they did not run.
“Uninventive” is a lot kinder than how I’d say it, but I definitely agree
I think Tucker's is a story designed to encourage DMs to use history as a tool for combat design. All the tactics used by the kobolds are reminiscent of guerrilla tactics used by the defending native population of Vietnam forces in the Vietnam war, something which would have been much more in the mind of the populace in the days of early D&D
And since most of group were in the Army, the DM had access to military tactical manuals. One manual show how to make a contact circuit for a mine out of c-ration can, K-bar, nail, and wire. Ooops forgot the P-38,
Murderholes and arrow slits are basic medieval defense system, it's not even that devious
*Bardcore "Fortunate Son" begins to play*
I did that once. Saw something on History channel about the Vietnam Tunnel warfare. PC took out the look outs on the hill and then decide to plug each tunnel entrance. AKA skip the adventure.
@@RottenRogerDM You mean the "Pew-38 Explosive Space Modulator"?
We always called it that. It made opening cans SO much more fun!
"There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering KABOOM!"
"Nope. Just tuna. YUM!"
I remember the joy when my sister and I, upon moving to our own apartment, managed to find some "Pew-38's" at an old Army surplus store. They're fantastic! They fit right on your keychain, and they do so much more than open cans. They open boxes and letters, and hearts, with the laughter they provide. One of the best tools ever!
I miss mine. I lost it during the last move, and the Army surplus store closed. Wah!
1e Magic Users.
i) Their spells were fire and forget, so if you wanted to bring along Magic Missile and/or Sleep (which are fairly useless at higher/deeper levels where the party is ultimately heading), a 12th Level MU would have to sacrifice a one-shot memory slot (they got 4x L1-5, and 1x L6) which they might have otherwise used for a more useful "utility" spell.
ii) A 12th Level MU would be evoking 6x 1d4+1 magic missiles, with all targets having to be in a 10 ft. square area. Each does only 3.5 HP damage on average, which would give a 75% kill rate against an average kobold. So 4-5 dead kobolds on a cast assuming they've been bunched up. If those murder holes are spaced apart you might only be getting half that.
iii) A Sleep spell will knock out 4d4, so maybe 10, kobolds, and they'd all have to be within a 15 ft. radius circle. If there are more kobolds nearby they can awaken their friends with a round's action, so it'll buy time, but might end up not actually taking too many out of the fight long term. (Sleeping a couple of kobolds carrying a vat of oil and flaming torches whilst in amongst their fellows might be a useful cast, of course).
iv) MUs had to find spells and also roll to learn them, so they just might not have more useful spells in their spell book.
v) A 12th level MU is going to have around 28-29 HP (11d4+1). Dropping a 12d6 (42 HP on average) fireball with the caster in the blast zone isn't going to be a great experience for the party. A 12th level Thief wouldn't fare much better with 39 HP (10d6+4), whilst a 12th level Fighter would have, perhaps, 67-68 HP (9d10+9, +9 as a +1 CON bonus, say). Even if they do make their saving throws for half damage, they're going to be pretty badly beaten up. Plus, they'd risk having their equipment destroyed or damaged from the heat/fire (older games were much more brutal than 5e in this respect). Also, back in the day maybe around 2/3rd of the adventuring group was made up of henchmen and hirelings who would just be turned into crispy critters by such a fireball. So, not generally a good idea unless in a really sticky situation.
This so very much yeah. I do think this analysis goes wrong, on account of the Dudes simply not having played quite enough 2nd to catch the changes in attitude and system.
Also System Shock. Take half your hp in one turn and you roll con to see if you actually survive it at all. Death saves didn't exist.
1e was a different time.
I'm glad you acknowledged the differences in Fireball and Lightning Bolt-- there are similar differences with many other spells (like there's no such thing as upcasting, but I think by 9th level a wizard gets 5 magic missiles per casting of the 1st level spell...so only 5 kobolds go down).
I think there are two mistakes you make that it might be fun if you re-address:
The kobolds are likely part of a tribe and I'd bet Tucker maxed that tribe. So you're talking 400 kobolds, not 30. And you're talking 300 eggs ready to hatch more...there are also some really scary overbearing rules in 1e. If a pack of 40 corner you in a dead end, it's over. It's been a long time since the '80s, but I also think that, as small creatures, they could cram a square with more than one per square, so it gets thick and nasty quickly.
I think where y'all would be better versed to address the mistake you made is this:
You put 5e tactics against 1e kobolds. You need to upgrade the kobolds to 5e in the same numbers-- say your 30-- and add in spell-casters. THIS would be why they run and choose to fight single monsters rather than the mad rush of endless kobolds....
(But a fun video as always, guys. Glad to hear from one of your DMs that the games at GenCon went well. They really bragged about the floating positions coming in with various optional adds. Bravo.)
i never knew that the party already knew they would be facing tuckers kobolds, had a map of the dungeon, and had plenty of time to plan out their path and preparations
Edit: it was a partial map
It does sound like they got cocky, and thought they could just waltz through the first level without issue, thus did not actually prepare. Or rather, preparation stopped at "have map, know enemy identity, call it a day".
yeah, that's the part that stands out the most on hearing the original version of the kobolds. at least some of the PCs in the party had encountered them before, and they had a partial map of the dungeon level. the players had everything they'd've needed to properly prepare for the kobolds, but instead their entire fail of a plan was "pick a short path and run".
the party entirely deserved the utter beatdown the kobolds gave them
If you can make the party freak out and panic, you win.
There is an official 5e AL adventure modeled after Tucker's Kobolds. It's DDAL06-01 A Thousand Tiny Deaths for characters level 1-4. I'd like to see you guys try overcoming that adventure. Let's make it easier, you can play it with level 6 characters.
Level 3 spells make it a lot easier. Hypnotic Pattern is great, probably still packing Sleep at this stage as well. Also did anyone think of actually trying to negotiate with the Kobolds and use a non combative solution to the problem?
@@mikeunderwood734A non combat solution? Negotiations? Are you MAD, boy?! This ain't the pub, this is a war(game).
(I'm ofc joking, but that's probably the equivalent reaction that you'd get from the power-trippy antagonistic DM who has been looking forward to wrecking his players with a bunch of made up monsters all week)
@@mikeunderwood734 respectfully, it's not about how powerful the spell is. The kobolds are spread out in secret tunnels, firing through murder holes. It's not one single encounter, they use hit and run tactics so suddenly you are hit with two dozen attacks. You retaliate, they disappear. You will run out of spell slots before they run out of kobolds.
@@intrinsical That is the biggest factor, the party has limited resources, Kobolds (and most similar humanoids like Goblins, Hobgoblins, Orcs, Gnolls, etc) come in numbers ranging from 50-500+ and often have allies and/or non-ally monsters that they know about and can use nearby.
That's perfect for me because I wanted to run a Viet Cong dungeon to throw against my utterly uninventive players.
Now it’s been a long time since I played first edition. Back in the eighties when I was in high school. There are a few things I’d give the players. Dropping a fireball on yourself is a lot worse in first edition. Wizards had a d4 hit points, and I believe fireball did 10d6. Rogues had only a d6. That fireball could have messed them up. There was also no short rests, so if they couldn’t get a long rest in the dungeon they may have been trying to conserve resources and/or save their spells for the bigger monsters.
All that said, yeh I th8nk with some better planning this should have been a doable challenge.
And if the DM was evil, everything saved vs magical fire. So, you could lose you spell component pouch. Swapping out spell in the dungeon was harder.
Agreed, the real lesson to learn here is how much stronger 5E PCs are than they was back in the day. Things like short rest, hit dice, and not loosing a spell when taking damage go along way. The number of spells suggested to deal with the kobolds on the first level of the dungeon would mean 2 days of down time to rest and rememorize.
@@RottenRogerDMHad this happen but a save vs disintegration where my fellow player survived with only a single +1 long sword. No cothes, armor or treasure. Just. The. Sword.
@@RottenRogerDM Harder, try impossible. I never let a party get 8 hours of uninterrupted rest in a dungeon and was never allowed one. Most of the reason I am wizard adverse to this day was the resource management was so bad I still have flashbacks! It wasn't until 3.5 that I considered a pure wizard viable to any significant degree.
Actually, it would have been worse because a fireball did 1d6 per level of the magic user, so a 12th level magic user would have done 12d6 with a fireball, not 10d6. Pair that with the fact that all classes other than fighters could only get a +2 maximum hit points per level and hit dice only were rolled up to level 9 through 11 (depending on the class of the character), and like mentioned above hit dice were smaller (except for fighters, paladins, druids, and clerics) and a level 12 magic user’s fireball could inflict a TPK on an unlucky party, though it’s likely that a fighter might be tough enough to survive with their d10 hit dice and potentially +3 or +4 CON bonuses.
It's worth mentioning that sharpshooter won't do much to negate the arrow slits and murder holes, since the kobolds can split their movement and fire, taking full cover (untargetable) after they shoot
True but like they mentioned, players can use their Ready Action to retaliate when the kobolds pop out
@@mxt3k Wouldn't work if there was heavy smoke already. The kobolds would likely get a few extra rounds of firing because they are closer to the ground.
Or do what some of my players do is fall prone after the attack.
@@mxt3kYou cant ready an action in 1st or 2nd ed.
@@aaronnunavabizniz199 if there is heavy smoke that keeps the players from shooting, then the kobolds cant fire either. Players ready action, as soon as the Kobold moves to a shooting position behind cover, the attack is rolled before the Kobold attacks. The Kobolds get no extra rounds of firing due to size.
Tuckers Kobolds is great but a couple points.
1) The kobolds are a complication to kill the mules and hirelings (more treasure means more XP) so you have to protect them.
2) The players were focused on the mid and end levels and were not prepared with extra resources to deal with the Kobolds. They could have gotten all kinds of things to have gotten though. And while Monks and Paladins were rare and Druids and Rangers uncommon and loosing your familar would suck it was possible to be really tricking and make the Kobolds show their hand and thus avoid most of the traps. But the players were lazy.
3) The fire spells were because if you have fire at the end level and so you have ice or wind before that levels are themed as are campaigns
4) The moral is all baddies can be a threat - to the unprepared.
(Last point. Ad&D had limits for what we called Demi-human characters like an elf. But they multiclassed in ways we don’t have now. The story does not really say how many were in the party but if the Wizard was a Elf Magic User/fighter at 10th level then they have Magic User 5 and fighter 5. The story was focused on the Kobolds so we don’t know if that also was a factor.)
(Edit Last part was had MU Twice should have been Fighter/MU)
Multiclassing is not being well explained. Demihumans generally took 2 or more classes and ALL their classes advanced more or less together and generally a level behind a single class character. So if the highest level character was 12th level and the wizard was 12th level, it was almost certainly single classed. If it had been 11th level, it was likely a fighter/magic-user 11/11 or a magic-user/thief 11/12. But demihumans had level limits based on subrace and prime ability score (set by class), so it may have topped out lower in any of the classes.
@@johnweatherman5685 yup I did poorly type that last bit out. I think you got to the general point I did but you would (been like 20 years) but you add them not take the high level (that is what we did at least) though my point is we don’t know exactly what the character levels were. Also this does assume they ran the game the as the books say - many didn’t or made modifications. We just don’t know without Tucker here.
10:14 It just goes to show that the mentality of "keep throwing higher level and more powerful monsters at the party as they level" also affects the party. They're not considering these lower level and more basic spells because they're not used to situations where those spells are not only tactically viable, but specifically designed for. Power breeds complacency.
Oh the sleep spell...so under appreciated, so under used.
We're playing Ghosts of Saltmarsh, and one of our party members is a Human Bard (no, not Variant Human) who doesn't have a single ability modifier above +2. We got into an ambush, and over two rounds, he put 3 out of the 4 attackers to sleep. Our DM took it surprisingly well.
But not in this case. How many castings do you think you have against an effectively unlimited number of opponents?
And it was _even more_ powerful in older versions of D&D.
Just to nitpick, at normal casting using a 40 foot cube the max number of sleepy kobolds is 40. That leaves 24 if you are only using one kobold per square. This points out the power of small numbers done large. And my current casual player love it.
@@RottenRogerDM of course back in Original D&D one cast was only 4D4 1 hit dice monsters, so at MOST 16 kobolds per cast.
One thing that occurs to me is that the party could have tried to negotiate with the kobolds, and thus avoid fighting them altogether. So many groups neglect diplomacy as an option.
One thing anout the Kobolds and the fire:
They had immunity to a "random" element (not really random, but they could have any type of the Dragon Breaths options since there was one Kobolt variant to any color of dragon). So it's a enemy weirdly difficult to prepare against.
In one encounter they can abuse fire, and on the next pull a cloud kill, and the one after that have corridors full pf glyph of warding that they stomp and lightning bolts fly on the party.
You can know that they're there, but there's still the "what element" question that can make everything you prepared to go to waste.
In AD&D, Kobolds were not part of the "draconic" monster family. They were described as "dog-like" and were more of a trickster/pack monster.
I fought them several times in module B1: Keep on the Borderlands (The Caves of Chaos.)
I think this was from Kobold Press, Ver 3.5. It was never core rules as far as I can remember. But the variant did make things interesting.
I don't use "modern" kobolds in my games. They are scaly, doglike creatures, as in 1st edition.
Better: Imagine these Kobolds sounds like they have a brain, so chances are, the tribe might consist of multiple variants, so they could send a different kind each time which makes it even more troublesome, or a mix.
The other things to remember is the asymmetry of this battle. If you use a cone of cold on level 1, that is a fifth level spell you can't use anywhere else and it netted you a few dead kobolds whereas normally those kobolds would be easy prey for a fighter without the use of any resources
I feel like the kobolds were implied to be endless. Aside from the fireball suggestions, they never mentioned fighting back. The way that the group is always surrounded and they talk about honeycomb tunnels, I feel like it is supposed to be implied that there is no killing all the kobolds as more will just immediately replace them.
the strongest weapon they kobolds had by far was their intimidation on the players themselves.
LEADER: lets run blindly past all of them instead of treating this like any other dungeon.
speedrunners know what happens when you try to run past all the enemies, some or all catch up.
Just gotta be quicker and smarter so they don't catch up!
@@negative6442
"Deekin don't surf!"
16:57 Thank you, my Dude. It always boggled my mind.
A decanter of endless water? That would be fun if it were a grease fire.
AD&D or 5e rules?
I don’t even play D&D anymore but always come back to your channel, because you two are creative, smart and entertaining. 😊
Thank you for your videos.
I'm planning to use a version of Tucker's Kobolds in a mini-campaign I'm prepping for my group. I've never GMed, so I am doing a crazy amount of research
I used Killer Kobolds and one player tried to avoid a trap by being a "40 pound" Tabaxi [normally 70 pounds] and he fell through the trap anyway. One of the other players captured one of the kobolds lizard mounts [which only understood kobold draconic speech] using animal handling. they never learned that they couldn't ride them unless they spoke commands in kobold draconic AND broke/gentled the lizard for riding.
There is an anime series that very much reminds me of Tuckers Kobolds and how to defeat them, it's called Goblin Slayer. It's essentially a DnD campaign where the regular parties gets brutalized by the Goblins and only the veteran "player" knows how to handle them.
The players in Tucker's Kobolds always struck me as high school students, popcorn and soda drinkin' kids looking for some fun slaughtering old dungeon monsters that pop out when you open a new door in the dungeon. Challenged to actually think they just... didn't.
Since it happened at Ft Bragg, NC "Home of The Airborne and Special Operations Forces" [where they teach specialized Small Unit [squad of 5 Adventurers] tactics. I'm not sure of their being high school, but they could have been young visiting troops, the permanent troops would have soon figured out what to do when they returned to the local village with henchmen, hirelings and pack animals killed and no volunteers for the forseeable future. they might be able to buy provisions and equipment at 200-500% of cost to partly repay the villagers for the loss of their relatives.
@@grog4063 this reads as nonesense to me. most people I know try NOT to bring their irl skills into rp. so even if this was a military game, they probably treated it as different then their actual job.
@@TranshumanMarissa And how many letter grades have you been 'dumbed down??!?' I have probably played DND more years than you are old. In my first group I played in, everyone had a bow and used them regularly. Do you dare to face off against a DND Ogre with 1 hit point. In my arrogance, I did and I won. Do the same and I'll be impressed. BTDT!
@@TranshumanMarissaI also think there was some roleplaying going on here with the players finding it funny to act scared.
@@znail4675 To me, it always felt like the players got a bad case of the rpg brain. Preparing for high level encounters, because they want the most loot, leaving themselves vulnerable to the viciousness of lower level encounters played well, plus generally, the tactics you develop in rpgs is very different then IRL tactics, only for the Kobolds here to go full guerilla warfare.
"Remember the seven Ps. Proper planning and preparation prevents piss poor performance."
One of my favorite dungeons I ever made was inspired by tucker’s kobolds. They had a bunch of tricks but the main one is that they lived in an abandoned castle full of undead. Their little tunnels let them avoid the zombies and their traps would drop an elevator full of skeletons on you etc
DDAL06-01 A thousand Tiny deaths mention but don't use to good effect is the murder holes on the sides of Room B, C and E. Kobolds came in 40 to 400 lots in 1E. Getting Tucker to work today, would be harder due to have quickly you can change out spell slots, healing, etc. One of my two TPKs in 5E came from this module. I didn't allow a short rest due all rooms had murderholes, so I could nickel and dime the pcs to they decided to push forward. The second was during the boss fight the pcs stayed at range and in fireball formation.
I'd like to see Tucker's Kobolds but for 5e. Listen they're tricky buggers but its too easy with the spells available to us to just trivialize encounters like this. I think the point of the story is to show how terrifying kobolds can be despite their terrible hp.
Party: WIZARD!!! DO SOMETHING!!!!
Wizard who only prepped Fireball: 🤷♂️
Over 30 years and some things never change.
I’ve gleaned lessons over the years from rereading Tucker’s, and by far, it is incredibly fun to make that standard adventuring gear useful when the other people at the table aren’t expecting it. Expecting company to come through that door? Throw an end of a rope to the party members on the other side of the entrance and make sure to pull it taut for a fun trip and easy advantage for everyone by the entrance.
They had spikes and rope and at least one of the players would have taken my favorite dungeoneering tool - the grapnel.
"If my back was against the wall, I'd totally drop fireball and take the damage..." This. This is the reason my sorcerer took Careful Spell and subtle spell rather than the "optimal" choice.
Maxim 20. If you're not willing to shell your own position, you're not willing to win.
And if most to all of your party is rogues they have evasion, and you don't have to be *nearly* as shy about fire support.
Something else to consider: the players were going to be dealing with demons later. They couldn't just gear up to fight the kobolds because they were also going to have to deal with the demons.
Makes me wonder if the party was on a timeline or something. If they had plenty of time, they could have fought the kobolds, then camped out outside the dungeon before advancing on the demons. Better that than leaving hostile kobolds across your retreat path, right? Of course, it's possible the party was on a death-ride trying to prevent the demons from completing some unspeakable ritual "before it's too late!"...
I gotta play these things, man. Gonna play my first in person DnD game next week. Just subscribed.
Good on you @bobbyhill4256 I started playing about two years ago after a 20 + year hiatus. May your dice roll high
Welcome to the community brother. SKÅL!
You might want to pick up 3 Books by Keith Ammann -Monsters know what they are doing, MOAR! Monsters know what they are doing and Live to tell the Tale.
Was actually at ft Bragg (now ft liberty) after watching this video and told a colleague the story of the kobolds. Nice video. Learning how to dm better through memorable stories like this awesome!
You also got account for how much more valuable player resources were in AD&D. You would heal only 1 hp per day as long as you did nothing more strenuous than riding a horse at a walk or 2 hp if you spent the whole day on bedrest with no activity. The wizard would have been lucky to had 25hp at level twelve and was using Vancian magic so required 10 minutes per spell level to memorize spells at the start of each day and could not change them out. He also would not have any cantrips in the the way they exist in 5e. Instead cantrips would basically be prestidigitation but broken up into multiple parts.
Magic Missile also wouldn't be able to be used thru arrow slits as the offered near total concealment and Magic Missile used to act as an AOE, so you could only target creatures in a 10 cube. I might also be reading too much into it, but when the wizard asked about casting fireball, that made me think he might have been an Invoker Wizard, which would mean he would lose access to enchantment and conjuration spells, so no sleep and no summon monster. Cone of Cold would have worked but he would be using a 5th level spell on putting out fires in a 12 foot wide by 60 foot long area so probably not the best use of resources.
I do agree that they definitely should have been better prepared with mundane items, but I would never use the 10 foot pole to push back against flaming debris. It would have been too big a risk with one of the most important items to have in surviving a dungeon!
I’d be willing to wager that a single well prepared scribes wizard could solo tuckers kobolds with the ability to remotely cast spells
Drone strikes.
I mean he could drop like 5 spells before even entering the dungeon so yeah
That is true for ANYTHING and EVERYTHING though, hardly a valid point when it's not something that is possible.
"Didi Yip"
The takeaway from Tucker's kobolds is that any monster can be deadly if run intelligently enough. Keith Ammann's books such as The Monsters Know What They're Doing delve into this subject comprehensively.
Played in one deathtrap dungeon were the lower level monsters respawned every time we left to go back to town. After a while, we'd fight our way through the top few levels (the first was goblins, the second was kobolds IIRC) for no real purpose at all. They couldn't harm us, they were no threat, we weren't even using any resources, all it was doing was slowing the session down. Eventually the druid asked the DM a flat question.
"Why are we doing this again?"
"Mostly because the module says the monsters respawn."
"Does it say where the monsters are coming from?"
"No. I mean, I guess there's a village or something nearby."
"So we've slaughtered hundreds of goblins/kobolds, and they STILL want to pick a fight with us? If I was a goblin, I'd take one look at us and hide somewhere until we went past."
"You know what? You're right. Let's just skip to level 4."
The
DM took respawning to be instantaneous and new monsters (Higher level and fewer of them) would probably move in. DM never understood that poulation increase is a small fraction of the total adult population and is not static - accidents happen too.
15:45 i didnt ask how big the room is, i said i cast fireball
In the AD&D days there was a number of appearing stat in monster stat blocks Kobolds and goblins always showed up in numbers between 20 and 200 so they could be a threat at any level. Beyond that some of the mechanics they said they would have used didn't exist and some the spells would still have been out of range of even a 12th level magic user because there were higher level spells than 9th back then
There was also Vancian spell casting, which meant you prepared a spell for each spell slot. It also meant that upcasting was nearly nonexistent, without the use of metamagic. Instead, you had spells that would get stronger as your character leveled up.
?? No. In 1E (where the story comes from) spells were still limited to 9th Level. In fact Illusionists (&Clerics?) only went as high as 7th level spells.
The rest of your points are spot-on though...
Gonna use tuckers Goblins on my end campaing as the guardians of the demilich dungeon for the final arc (variant of goblins since is tematic for my setting)
I feel like I had this exact conversation with my friends Mike, Chris, and Rick in 1987 when the original article came out. 😂😂
You can’t suppose they choose the spells they have access to, for wizards / magic-users, in older editions. You got the spells you found.
Impatient party wants to get to the glory and rewards of level 10 without addressing the dangers of level one.
If the kobolds are using flasks of oil to set the room ablaze, using water would be a very bad idea.
Casts create water. Burning oil does what an oil fire does when exposed to water.
I have seen Killer Kobolds set for level 5 that even level 7 characters had problems winning as a new dungeon. The idea is it's a new group. Now that they are a level 12 group they should do better, but they appear to an army of lions - led by a sheep. The kobolds were fire resistant. All in all, good planning on Kelly and Monty's part.
Very fun video, and great historical commentary. The point that players need to be prepared and think, and some things have not changed in decades, is great.
I think part of the issue is the mentality of AD&D players, who expected difficulty on level ten, but not in the entrance to the dungeon. By having the kobolds use guerilla tactics, Tucker had prepared a potentially deadly encounter with weak monsters. The party leader knew about the threat, but the AD&D mentality of avoiding unnecessary encounters was too strong. The party lost their hirelings and pack animals, and could have been defeated, all because they wanted to save their resources for the fire demons on level ten.
The solution for the players was to think outside the box of their AD&D mentality, the way Tucker had. If the party magic-user had memorized Cloudkill, many of the kobolds would have been killed. But it seems like the party user was conserving spells, and the spells he had memorized were not helpful in this encounter.
Back when I used to play a D&D, I would keep stone to mud spell handy for dungeon crawls for just this type of situation. If the ceiling was stone, I would turn it to mud, collapsing it on the attacking monsters, and then cast mud to stone … instant cement shoes. We could then pick the monsters off at our leisure. Especially good for kobolds and goblins.
I have forgotten that tactic. I think I gave the monsters a saving throw vs magic to avoid getting stuck.
I ran a oneshot for a 3player lvl10 (paladin, glooomstalker and wizard) party, ending with a white adult dragon which they met after going through kobolds in ice tunnels. Toxic mushrooms, pits, shambly bridges and thin ice for the heavily armoures to fall through landing in icy water with quipers all the while kobolds were shooting their crossbows. The players survived but will never forget those pesky kobolds
TLDR: Tuckers Kobolds are also a way to tax the player's resources before the get to the demon on lvl 10. Genius.
I think one of the major points that gets overlooked is that Tucker's Kobolds aren't the real reason the party is there. They are there to kill the demon on level 10. Perhaps the reason the players weren't using any spells (Fireball, Sleep, Magic Missile etc) is because they were trying to conserve resources for the BBEG fight they knew was coming up. IMO that just makes it an even more legendary DM move. Tucker's Kobolds probably made the BBEG on level 10 an even more challenging encounter.
Love the shirt, Kelly. Showing my age here but I saw AFI back when they were touring Sing the Sorrow. That was one hell of a gig
With this story (and other well-known exemplar stories like the 16 HP dragon), I feel like you have to take it with a grain of salt or two. You have to assume the players were giving it their best shot, and that the GM wasn't just screwing them over with things that SHOULD have worked. As you said, the point of the story (that low-level creatures can still pose an interesting challenge when utilized properly) is still there, so long as you don't pick at it too much.
...Incidentally, if you're thinking of turning this into a series, the story of the 16 HP Dragon is also a great one that provides some teachable moments. (It's a Dungeon World story, not D&D, but you've branched out to other games before.)
Remember in the first video, the Hirelings, Henchmen and pack animals were killed and eaten by the kobolds while the Adventurers escaped unscathed.
hey dungeon dudes!! i have no idea what other videos you are planning but i think a video on how to run and roleplay a hag encounter would be super cool and fun, especially green hags!!
Sharpshooter wouldn't be much use with the split fire tactics, but spirit guardians would be brutal for the kobolds
I don't remember that spell being available in AD&D but that's probably because I never played a cleric that got high enough level.
I think that is a 5e spell, at least I don't remember it from previous editions. That would be a 5e tactic.@@pierowmania2775
@@pierowmania2775no spirit guardians that far back. Clerics are spoiled for choice now, but you generally had one damage dealing spell per level, and most were decidedly inconvenient.
Worth mentioning that under 1ed rules, if you wanted to cast Magic Missile twice, you had to prepare it twice.
Granted the party knew what they were facing and should have been better prepared for it.
Gotta keep in mind this was level one of a huge dungeon.. Can't blame the players for not wanting to use up all their resources.
My party died without honor or mercy in this scenario at a Con in the late 80's. The tactics came in handy when I DM'ed an old API module " The Caverns of Thantos". It was a good 5-8 adventure only slightly spoiled by a colony of about 200 cranky Kobolds that would swarm like hornets if disturbed.
Great video as usual. Others have said it but I'll add my voice to the pile: a great 3rd episode on the topic would be how a 5e DM could adapt the kobolds to the current rules.
I think the brilliance of the Tucker's Kobolds scenario is the fear and panic that overcame the party that stopped them from thinking it through. Like Han Solo single handedly running screaming after a bunch of panicking Stormtroopers, or the panic stricken grasshoppers from A Bugs Life running from an ant-made bird model, this scenario is great in creating anticipatory fear in the players.
I don't know, playing a wizard in any addition of AD&D is really tough. At six level you have two third level spells, and you would have to choose which you would want to memorize. Not only that, but if you're four first level spells, you'd have to divide them up between shield and mage armor and magic missile. And remember there were no such thing as cantrips so once you cast your spells you were done, absolutely done. Combats lasted many many rounds and so if you're a wizard, you're probably going to blow all of your spells in one combat.
Back then I used to just not do anything some rounds. I would be waiting for my opportunity to drop my one well timed spell because that's all I was going to get in the entire combat.
Kobolds were cute little dog dudes back then, not dragonlings.
Tucker's Kobolds took place in the late 70s, Tucker left about 1980. He actually developed the dungeon using the white box rules. Most D&Ders were also war gamers. The Kobolds didn't bunch up. It was their home territory. It was possible to get past them, but getting past without using up too many spell slots or losing too many hit points was the challenge. It was quite easy to take out a couple here or a couple there, but there were about 30 of them but they fought in teams of twos and threes. They had fall back positions, and fallback positions behind those. The other thing was they adapted. As characters learned ways to fight them, they were come up with their own counters. The biggest thing working for the Kobolds was they worked as a team, whereas most PCs tend to use the Barbarian Infantry mentality--everyone is a hero. The Kobolds had no ego to defend. They had no problem just running away. They also had ways to get behind the party as the party advanced. They were particularly effective when returning from the depths of the dungeons with few hit points, and few spells left.
As a beginning DM, who knows how I always am when I'm playing Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale, I tend to hoard all the consumables, for "that rainy day when I'm definitely going to NEED it! I may never get another one of these again!", I actually gave a special reward (I call them Yippideedoos) to the first player who used a potion in the game. I will be ensuring that they DO get plenty of potions and scrolls, and I want them to get into the habit of USING their consumables.
I think that, with the right consumables on hand, Tucker's Kobolds would have been more easily beat. You mentioned potions of fire resistance. Also, even if you don't want to use spell slots on the low-level things, carry some low-level scrolls with you, man! I know a lot of people who, as they level up, will sell off all the low-level scrolls, because "I'm beyond this stuff, now. Scrolls are for the BIG spells you can't cast, yet!" and "I need the cash!" But, honestly, sometimes a low-level spell is EXACTLY what you need. So, keep those scrolls of Magic Missile and Sleep and other such stuff.
I really thought it was so bizarre, though, that they were planning, so carefully, for this dungeon crawl, checking the maps, and knowing the kobolds were there, and what they were like, because they'd seen them before. And yet, they didn't come prepared specifically for the kobolds they KNEW they would face, in favor of preparing for the "Probably OK" flaming demons they hoped to face.
What if, they got through the kobolds, got down to level 10, or further, and found something else, entirely. Like, maybe the Kobold homeland, or something like that? HAHAHAHAA! That would be hilarious. "Oh, instead of 30 low-level kobolds, you're now facing 100 leveled-up kobold elders."
I want the tactical analysis of these kobolds with 2e rules, as the Gods intended.
These guys were playing at Ft. Bragg, NC. That means that they were part of the 82nd Airborne Division. I am guessing that they were likely not commissioned officers, so not college students.
Thinking about this - how does fire work in dungeons? It's one thing if it's something grand and spacious, made mostly from stone with occasional flammable element, like dwarven ruins. But how would fire work in closed ramshackle tunnels with a lot of burnable stuff?
If anything - it's the PCs that should use the fire tactics for their advantage. Explore the outside of the dungeon. Find all of the ventilation shafts and block them up. Stockpile a lot of burnable stuff at the entrance of the dungeon and light it up. Use the smoke to find the ventilation holes and other exits you've missed. Kill all of the kobolds that try to run from smoke.
Then give the fire and monoxide poisoning time to do it's work, wait until everything is burned out and go explore the empty dungeon. Minding the fire damage of course.
Hahaha not only did the wizard only prepare fireball, but he KNEW he was going into a dungeon to fight _fire demons,_ let alone the kobolds.
Yes, the leader was scared and over-reacted. However, that may have been the best strategy. If the party makes a mad dash for the lower levels, they take damage each round. If they stay to fight, it takes more time and the party probably takes more damage. Worse, the party uses precious spell slots. The party should look for that middle ground -- using a small number of defensive or utility spells (darkness, fog cloud, dimension door, gaseous form) while they simply move through the encounters as quickly as possible.
Sleep, even in older editions, would be a stellar spell in this encounter
I think you're assuming a bit about the party's level. In the 80s (I DMed in the 80s), a party in a multi-level dungeon usually was expected to level up in a multi-level dungeon. In this way, such big dungeons were basically campaigns. So I could see the party starting at level 3-5, and growing to level 10 by the time they get to the 10th dungeon level.
A tribute of half a dozen goats or pigs and a suggestion spell would be my preferred solution for safe passage through lvl 1
Thank you.
So, a few things:
One, it's possible the wizard did pack magic missile and sleep, and had simply cast them earlier in the dungeon. If memory serves, the kobolds were on level 3, so the party had already gone through two whole levels of dungeon on this delve. Not to mention they still would have had to pack the light spell (remember that there are no cantrips in AD&D), in case the torches burned out.
Two, by looking at the kobolds in microcosm like this, we're forgetting all the tradeoffs the kobolds imposed. For example, every spell you pack to deal with the kobolds is one that you don't have to take out the BBEG on level 10. For anyone unfamiliar with how spells worked in earlier editions, you would prepare individual spells and then cast them. So if you wanted to cast fireball three times, you needed to prep three fireballs. Flexible casting was not a thing.
Three, it's interesting to note that the party doesn't even try to kill the kobolds. This, to me, suggests that there was little benefit to doing so, so possibly the kobolds have no treasure (which played a large role in XP advancement in early editions). The party is here to maximize their profits, and ergo doesn't try to kill the kobolds, but rather to get to the big treasure chests on level 10 (the elevators that lead there are on level 3, which is why they're going through the kobolds in the first place).
Four, the story references the author being stationed at Ft Bragg. I believe that Tucker is either a veteran or a soldier's kid, meaning he likely had experience with these tactics either first or secondhand via the Vietnam War. Any tools the party used to counter the kobolds would get countered either in real-time (as the kobolds adapted), or when they next came in to the dungeon. So yeah, you can cast sleep, but that's only going to affect some of the kobolds, and all it'll do is buy you some time to get to the exit. Not to mention that in doing so, you've now burned a spell that you're going to need later on.
Putting all this together, it seems apparent the party made a decision to try sprinting through level 3 as fast as they could once discovered, thereby trying to maximize their ROI for the trip. This clearly didn't work, and I think that highlights the best options the players didn't take:
Option #1: Kobold Genocide. Kill every kobold on level 3. Burn as many henchmen, retainers, and mules as you have to. Kill every single one of them, and then set up shop in the ruins, creating your own stronghold. Solve the problem of the kobolds by ruthlessly eliminating them. Make this the entire point of a single delve, and pack about double the supplies you think you'll need.
Option 2: Kobold Friendship. As you come in, advance one member with a flag of parley, and announce as loudly as possible that you want to speak to the kobolds. Find out what the kobolds' want, and give it to them in return for safe passage through their warrens.
Something that I think they didn't take into account: The original story explicitly says Tucker's Kobolds were never boring. Which, to me, implies that every time they come down this tunnel there's different shenanigans taking place. This time it was fire and arrow holes, but if they came back with fire resist and gas spells then they'd be dealing with pitfall traps and rolling boulders. Or rooms that fill with water and slippery floors. If the Kobolds are always using a different trick, it makes it a lot harder to prepare for them, especially if you want to keep enough gas in the tank for the actual fights later on.
They still definitely could have planned around it better, and fear was the main weapon the little monsters used, but I want to give the party at least some credit. I doubt they got to "run away in blind terror" after just one encounter.
In defense of Tucker’s players how many times have players forgotten about half of the things they are able to do, and have available to them in the heat of the moment.
Something I think y'all may have not considered...It's not always about the game mechanics / minmaxing, sometimes it's JUST about the players, and it CAN be a valuable teaching tool....
Consider, the story originated at Fort Bragg (now Fort Liberty), NC... In the late 80's... That means that at that time, the instillation was home to, not only standard training of US Army soldiers, it was also, essentially, the US's training ground for waging unconventional, asymmetric, and phycological warfare for not only Airborne units, but also SOCOM units, and would have been staffed by senior enlisted and officers who had served in prior real life wars, including Korea and Vietnam.
D&D started with a table top wargaming.... Those senior enlisted and officers would have come up playing TTWGs either for fun, or in the case of officers, as part of training.
Jus sayin... "Seemingly weak opponents using "primitive" tools and tactics and a system of traps and tunnels to overwhelm a "more trained / more skilled" unit preventing them from their mission objectives"... Sounds like a teachable moment to me.
Have an Evocation Wizard. Sculpt Spellls protects everyone else in the party and have the healer heal the Wizard! Also pack Magic Missile, Fireball, Scorching Ray, Cone of Cold! If the Wizard gets really low on hit points have an Otiluke's Resilient Sphere to protect himself and a teleportation spell to escape, whether Misty Step, Dimension Door or whatever.
I love shadows (CR1) . They can really rip a party apart quickly that is not well prepared.
In First edition D&D there was no such concept of up casting a spell. Yes, Magic Missile could be cast, and still be effective without upcasting.
You also got an extra missile per 2 levels, so by level 12 you had 6 missiles (level 11 technically).
My party did not have a problem with "Tucker's Kobolds" because we were similarly vicious. But read Macauley's book: Castle. Think devious.
Advanced DnD also requires that the wizard memorize the spells they will use into the spell slots they're going to use. While today, there's lots of magic to get around this, then there wasn't. The lessons from Tucker's Kobolds was that enemies who are thought of as weak can still be dangerous if they are smart.
Can't just one for one it.
I accidentally made a "Tucker's Kobolds" situation with Shadowdancers in a friend's campaign I was co-DMing. I say "accidently" because of the situation. The party didn't know the Shadow Dancers were there, but the entire situation could've been avoided if a PC had just shut a door. But the door stayed open, the PC didn't actually check the room they were looking in, and three Shadow Dancers exited behind the party and took a PC down. Should note, there were nine PCs at level 10 and rated a "Medium" encounter.
8:15 Tucker's kobolds did not have to worry about sharpshooters. Although the Ranger subclass of archer might have been proposed in some Dragon Magazine edition, it would not have been required. In addition, cover was not ignored by such archers, they just had the ability to do called shots, which were far from certain. So sharpshooter would not have helped much if at all.
Sleep spell would be useful (AOE like Spirit guardians) but monster summoning would be...problematic. Those were Kobold size honeycomb tunnels on the other side of those arrow slits and murder holes. You would need to summon a kobold size or smaller monster to put in them. Also remember they are trying to get through this to an area where they will need their spell slots.
Like a swarm of rats???!!??
that would work!@@grog4063
After roassting the poarty like this, and as DMs yourself, I think another good follow up video would be you designing a 5e tuckers encounter that could threaten a high level party with all these auto hits and devastating aoe attacks that you mention
Can we do a follow up video for the DM side? How to put together a Tucker’s Kobolds scene . . . that’s not a total cake walk ?
You might not believe it, but I have no experience with dungeons and dragons, youtube feed me this channel because I recently purchased Baldur's gate 3 on steam. It turns out most of the content here is much more well explained than the "baldur's gate guides". ❤
I do have a character in mind who is a gnome that uses pranks to teach others how to be wary of kobold traps. I'm now rethinking him a bit.
Thank you for your fun video. Perhaps the wizard was trying to save his spells for the big fight.
I see strongholds and followers on the bookshelf. Nice!
in my "Dragon Lore Campaign" my party was sent to enter a kobold nest under the golden dragons lair. before they encountered any of the kobolds they found a statue of Tiamat. it showed a detailed image of her. later the have the chance to sneak up on some of the kobolds prepping a fight, and they choose to cast a few overlapping minor illusions of Tiamat to hide themselves. three of them spoke draconic, and the other two just made low growling noises.
I wanted a fight, but seeing how well they all worked out this plan, I made the kobolds bow in fear and praise to their god. they told the kobolds to leave this place and never return, so I made them pack their things and head for a different lair.
New plan: Negotiate with the kobolds. Tell them you'll pay a fee in shiny coins or food if they let you pass through their territory undisturbed. If what they ask for is a reasonable amount then you both end up ahead of where you'd be if you fought each other.
Dear Mr. Guardian we will take 3 mules, your state farm agent named Jake, and the mage. Rub this herb and rosemary butter on the mage before you deliver them. 😀
You might as well have added, "these kobolds are intelligent, so a party member with good charisma and the ability to speak draconic could probably try negotiating. "
So, while the description mentioned it, it shows the biggest difference between 1st and 5th ed that you aren't even mentally acknowledging the hirelings. In 1st edition, in addition to an experience requirement, levels also had a net worth requirement that, RAW, needed to be maintained during any downtime at the risk of losing the ability to maintain your power (training, magical research facilities, etc. ). Tucker seemed to be running things very by the book from this description. Miscellaneous magic items like bags of holding were extremely uncommon, even at higher levels, and carry capacity was limited. But amongst the standard perks of leveling you also gained the qualities of leadership and could attract followers. Who were generally lower level. The biggest threat the kobolds were posing wasn't directly aimed at the players (although they were being threatened), but at the logistics chain they were needing to escort to make the delve to level 10 and back not end up a complete wash that could literally lower their own level. You do also have to consider that in 1st ed, after a certain point, you gained a flat 1-2 hp per level instead of full hit dice, let alone bonus hp for constitution. Only the highest scores even got that. This is the fundamental issue even before discussing changes to spell casting rules or things like up casting not existing befor 5th ed.
Tldr, the game is different now and the threat posed had higher stakes than it first appears.
0:37 Before having seen the video: My idea of how to defeat the little b@st@rds; 12th level wizard can certainly take Protection From Normal Missiles. Protection From Fire scroll (or spell) is also needed. You might want some means of going ethereal in order to get through the wall, since I am uncertain (since my memory of spells in AD&D, 1st Ed. from 40 years ago is not all that great) if you could use Passwall, Dimension Door or some other spell to get past the wall barrier between you and those damned dragon kin.
Now you start slinging fireballs (since you are protected from the fire that they had already planned to burn you with), and give them a taste of their own medicine.
Just a quick idea of how I would initially approach the problem.
I think Tucker's Kobolds has a couple different lessons to be had. One and foremost is that not all parties are going to be going into combat situations with tactical brilliance and that shouldn't always be expected so while the DM can make an encounter terrorifying like them, sometimes they would be better served not doing so. but secondly, that resources of the players and the DM have a lot more utility than they imagine. a max level wizard can still get a lot of use out of low level spells just as a DM and players can make a mundane item and a little ingenuity into more threatening than a much more readily dangerous thing given the right set up.
and lastly, Roleplaying and character building can be done in combat and planning just as much as the High Charisma character can while talking to nobles and such. The fear in the players can be a great idea for the characters. Sure the demon king at the core of the dungeon might be the threat the world is aware of, but these constant jousts with the kobolds and their religious fanatic like focus on these dangerous traps could put distrust int he players that they can play out, maybe they have tripped so many trip wires and have had to deal with floods of scorpions, so tripping over a bench at a tavern makes them have a more visceral reaction than they expected. Trauma can be done a bit edgy with roleplay but having a response like that can be a small thing that puts more flavor into the world.
The second problem is starting combat at Melee Range. Combat in Farmland, Grassland, Desert. Arctic or plains could be up to (6d6)x10 ft could be up to 360' (5 combat round to close for Dragonborn, 6 for those with 30' movement dashng and 7 dashing for those with 25' movement dashing. 200' is max range for all other environments. [Up to 4 dashes to close to melee range.] Most of the 'Combat Maps' start at melee, negating the use of bows due to bow attacks at 5' are at disadvantage [which they should be.] 5-7 Ranged attacks [-1 to hit for speed of travel] will cut down 2-5 attackers, making melee more survivable. Firing at the fire pushing kobolds could kill up to 4 enemies leaving the fires to burn out or be avoided.
That poor mage, years later, still getting roasted
ha ha that burns.
I think this just prooves sharpshooter and the ability to just ignore cover is OP