“Kobold Hall” is a simple D&D adventure for five 1stlevel
player characters. It is short on plot and decision
points; it’s simply five combat encounters in a row. The
adventure is intended to give you something easy to
run the first time you try your hand as the Dungeon
Master, while allowing the other players at the table to
explore their characters’ abilities and learn the game.

Area 3. Skull-Skull!

This encounter includes the following creatures.
2 kobold slingers (S)
2 guard drakes (D)
4 kobold minions (M)

Tactics
The kobolds try to batter the PCs into submission
while avoiding melee.
The kobold minions split up, two on each platform.
Two take turns activating the skull-skull trap, one
throwing a spear on a turn when it isn’t activating the
trap. The other two minions remain on the stairs, out
of sight, ready to replace a fallen comrade and keep
the trap operating.
The slingers fire at the PCs, hoping to use their special
shots to harass characters and make them easier
targets for the rock.
The kobolds’ pet guard drakes remain on the other
side of the door. They rush up the stairs to attack a PC
who climbs up to the platforms. Otherwise, they attack
anyone who breaches the door.

Features of the Area
Pit: The pit is 10 feet deep, filled up to a depth of
4 feet with a thick green sludge. The sludge has two
important traits.
First, it is sticky. Any character who falls into the pit
is immobilized. A DC 13 Strength check allows a PC
to break free.
The sludge is difficult terrain. Creatures can walk
in it, but a creature that ends its move in the sludge is
immobilized as described above.
Climbing out of the pit requires a DC 10 Athletics
check. A creature that falls in takes 1d10–2 damage,
since the sludge provides cushion against a fall.
Door: The door has 20 hit points. Bashing it down
requires a DC 16 Strength check.
Skull-Skull Stone: This weird device counts as a
trap. The kobolds normally swing it down to hit a skull
on the coffins below. The object of the game is to get
a skull to stick to the rock, and then grab the skull as
it comes back to the thrower. When the PCs arrive
on the scene, the kobolds are happy to use the rock
against them.
Platforms: There are no railings for the raised platforms.
Climbing the wall up to the platform from the
floor requires a DC 15 Athletics check. Scattered on
the floor in a small pile in the northern platform are
100 gp in coins, a ruby worth 50 gp, and two garnets
worth 25 gp each.

Dido, Callie, Gale, Elf Ranger, Tiefling Warlock.

7 rounds of combat plus 1.5 rounds of CPR to stabilize dying paladin.  PCs dealt a total of 183 damage, ranger: 70, wizard (nothing but magic missile ever) 49, warlock 41, paladin 17, cleric 6.  (yes 6.  the half the fight she spent her turn on her back after failing athletics to try and climb up to help paladin on upper level.)  Monsters dealt a total of 90 damage.  To the ranger: 36 (of his 27, but healing word helped there).  To the paladin: 54 (no healing word for you!  but lay on hands?  2nd wind?  didn't matter.  downed the next round.)

The trap never hit anything.  Kobolds really didn't have a chance to use it.  Gale kept popping the minions with magic missile so inevitably the kobolds dropped the ball... literally.  Glue pot hit the ranger twice.  Fortunately I had given him a bow, so that wasn't too bad.  But he was critted twice and max damaged a 3rd.  But that was only -9-9-9 damage from the lvl 1 slingers.  Guard drakes do 1d10+9 so they shredded the paladin bad.  None of the other PCs were ever damaged.  Shina was targeted but never hit.

This is the first no house rules run through of this encounter.  The DC of the climb and busting the door should have been dropped down to eratted levels, but it's still a usable comparison for house-ruling stuff.  Wouldn't hurt to run the encounter again with the new DCs to see if that makes a significant difference.  Actually I should just run it again with no changes to see if dice rolls make things vary wildly from one standard encounter to the next.  Which I expect to be the case.  Those were some very bad rolls.

ROUND 2!

Didn't adjust the DCs.  Nearly 8 rounds of combat.  PCs dealt a total of 209 damage, ranger: 31, wizard (1 use of icy terrain, 1 use of scorching burst, MM the rest of the time) 61, warlock 76, paladin 20, cleric 21.  (died once.  Wasted a turn trying to kick open the door.)  Monsters dealt a total of 95 damage.  To the ranger: 13, warlock: 23, wizard 16, paladin 17, Callie 26.

The trap hit Shina once, but that's all it did.  Glue pot hit Dido, but he sacred flame broke him free.  Guard drakes shredded Callie and Shina bad, dropping them both.  Dido was able to salvage them with lay on hands and Callie followed up with a daily to patch things up the rest of the way.
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:59, Mon 16 Apr 2012.

ROUND 3!  Testing doing 1/2 mod per miss with most powers.  Twin strike does 1 damage on a miss per attack.  Minions still immune to miss damage.  They did 2 damage on a hit, 1 on a miss.  Drake's 1/2 mod damage was 2 on a miss.

DID adjust the DCs.  DC5 to climb / open door.  Dido still failed.  Nearly 7.2 rounds of combat.  PCs dealt a total of 151 damage, ranger: 24, wizard (2 uses of MM) 57, warlock 42, paladin 17, cleric 11.  (nobody died, but ranger was left with 1hp and dido bloodied in 1 hit.)  Monsters dealt a total of 75 damage.  To the ranger: 31, warlock: 5,  paladin 35, Callie 4.

The trap hit rollen and callie once, but that's all it did.  Glue pot hit Dido, and callie, and trying to make saves were very annoying.  Guard drakes critted paladin.  Both the ranger's and the warlock's encounters missed.

Strange that overall both PCs and NPCs did LESS damage overall, but makes some sense considering that miss damage edges enemies closer to dead instead of "2 hp left, striker deals 14 damage or nothing."  Tim and I's impressions: it didn't really make that much difference.  Sure I felt like "at least I didn't do NOTHING when my encounter misses," but 2 damage for a miss is little consolation.  Would of course be even less consolation for missing a daily, but no dailies needed this time.
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:51, Tue 17 Apr 2012.

Out of curiosity, I looked up what other kinds of monsters besides a lvl 2 guard drake do close to 1d10 + 9 damage...

Quickling Zephyr Level 14 Lurker
+19 vs. AC; 1d6 + 9 damage.

Balhannoth Level 13 Elite Lurker
Reach 3; +17 vs. AC; 1d8 + 9 damage.

Dryad Level 9 Skirmisher
+14 vs. AC; 1d8 + 4 damage, or 1d8 + 9 damage if the target is
the only enemy adjacent to the dryad.

Ettin Marauder Level 10 Elite Soldier
Reach 2; +15 vs. AC; 1d8 + 9 damage, and the target is pushed 1
square.

Mummy Lord (Human Cleric) Level 13 Elite Controller
+15 vs. AC; 1d8 + 9 damage, and the mummy lord and one
adjacent ally gain a +1 power bonus to AC until the end of the
mummy lord’s next turn.

So.  Guard drakes.  Slightly broken.

I'm imagining a smug lvl 2 guard drake bragging to a friend.  "Yeah.  I did more damage than a lvl 24 elder purple worm.  Sure it rolls 2d10+9, but I still rolled higher."
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:52, Tue 17 Apr 2012.

  Almost all "Back of the book" stuff never got any errata.

  Keep in mind the early "back of book" material you are drawing from is also the sort of stuff the infamous in my mind "Level 2 Acid Pit Trap" came from.



  It is a small mercy this trap also doesn't fall into the popular habit of 'disregard existing rules and throw in an arbitrary made up sky high DC for things like climbing'.  Such as in Scales Of War Lv 1 bar brawl,  "Climbing on top of a table is one extra move space.  Climbing on top of the Bar is a DC 30 Athletics check"

  As I have often rambled before, Oh, the perc check to even FIND the controls is higher than the Disarm check.  And no Rogue ever has a decent Wisdom modifier even if they are trained in Perc.  (Pre errata the DCs are considered ranging from lv 1-3 Easy to Hard.  Post errata they are considered at minimum, lv 7-9 Moderate through lc 16-18 Hard).

  Not raggin on Chris for pulling this out of the back of the book to use, just ragging on the trap itself especially the "Higher Perc check than Thievery check involved in a trap" mindset.  What's the point of being a rogue if you can't find the traps people expect you to disarm?  This is why I run a Ranger with thievery training.

  So yes, short version.  Something from the back of a book was broken?  My shock, it is nonexistent.

That acid pit trap was true evil.  Did more damage than the rest of the encounter if I recall correctly.  Paladin was only able to make it out with the rest of the group pulling on the other end of a rope lowered down to him.  Makes sense to put the tank in front of the group, right?  But they'd better be trained in perception or they'll never notice the traps even on a crit perc check... oh wait... they CAN'T!  Paladin and Fighter both don't have perception on their class skill list!  Athletics to climb out?  Paladins don't have athletics on their class skill list!  >.<

Even the precious Fate system falls prey to the problem of Multi Attribute (or skill) dependance.  If you're up against a fair (2) challenge to climb out of an acid pit trap, and just so happen to have had the foresight to have superb (5) athletics (which means it's near impossible to have superb alertness for noticing traps, even at max level, but at least you're not banned from training those skills ala class skill lists), you can still fail with a roll of -4 on your fudge dice.  (4d6. 1s and 2s count as -1, 3&4=0, 5&6=+1)

But at least then you can tap one of your character's background story aspects, like, "Benches trucks for fun," to get a +2 bonus to the check.  There's at least some way at all to give your dice the middle finger and succeed climbing out of an acid pit trap when your life depends on it even when the dice turns your superb athletics into average.  Not so in D&D.

With that "I agree with you completely" mini-rant out of the way, I'm curious what you mean by "back of book" because the acid pit trap was on page 29 of 297.  Guard drake is on page 90 of 288 in the MM.  Oh... and I forgot to mention...  the boss of the whole dungeon was a young white dragon.

Young White Dragon (D) Level 3 Solo Brute
Claw (standard; at-will)
Reach 2; +6 vs. AC; 1d8 + 4 damage.

Maybe Tim and I should instead be testing a different encounter.  One that doesn't have broken DCs or monsters with teeth sharper than +5 vorpal longswords.  The kobold ambushes on the way to Winterhaven come to mind.
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:07, Tue 17 Apr 2012.

Short Version: Errata seems to only exist for tables, classes, powers, items, constant refrenced thins.  For ENCOUNTER components, errata is basically nonexistent.   Even for things that do get errata, the vast majority of changes does NOT fix DCs, it seems the Staff expects GMs to do that themselves to fit their party.  A painful situation for us until we all realized that.

Long Version:

  Well, I guess less back of the book, more 'The Majority of Encounter materials'.  Powers, class features, tables, things people would be referencing constantly, those get errata.  The handfull of Traps in the example list of traps in DMG1, errata for downgrades.  Adjustments for the disease table.  Anything listed inside an encounter example, no errata.

  Modules and Adventure examples, not so much.  Even the Scales of War has zero errata.  (Though there seem to be multiple versions of Keep On The Shadowfell Module lurking around, those don't have Errata listings so much as "here, read THIS module instead while we quietly edit our compendium to match ...one of these Shadowfell modules").

EDIT: Though this was old 'eh, we did it once we're lazy to do it again' errata on the traps, they lowered damages on Crossbow Turret Trap LV THREE for example, but it seems they never changed the DCs on them.

DC 20-25 (20 to notice pressure plate, 25 to notice ceiling panel and hidden controls) for various grades of Perception check results still, DC 25 pressure plate disarm (IF you perc noticed trap before hand), DC 20 SKILL CHALLENGE (6 successes before 3 failures) to disarm the control panel if it's on, Fail causes panel to explode blast 3, turret still fires).

It really seems that the Errata people want the GMs to "fix" DCs to match the party capability themselves.  Which... can be incredibly painful as we've found before we all realized this.
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:58, Tue 17 Apr 2012.

Short version / long version helped with my reading comprehention.  :)

I'm curious if this means they expects DMs to fix monsters too.

Interestingly, in Dresden, there is no monster manual.  They expect the GM to make them using the character creation rules, (which of course includes a section of "monster only" abilities).  Which is too much like effort.  Especially considering that using the creation rules you can end up with a very weak NPC or very strong NPC with the same number of creation points.  Fortunately, the modules you can get include stats for the monsters pre-made.  So needless to say I'd never run Dresden statted without running from a module.  But No xp values to give you an idea of the relative strength of monsters even in the modules.  No table for giving an idea of how powerful a group of monsters would be.  (Jedi wunnabe PC wound up losing an arm to some non-boss-fight gouls in one of the few Dresden games I was in.)

When I ran d6, I had little idea of what I was doing, and hated the lack of a monster manual, so I abstracted the enemies.  No monster stats at all.  If it fealt like the player had rolled high enough, they hit.  If not, they didn't.  I pretended to roll dice for monster attacks and just made up values on the fly.  Funny thing, none of the players noticed.  Not even Tim.  In fact, I got rave reviews for how much fun the game was.

Of course, plenty of down side to the method.  Consistancy is important.  If one player rolls a 10 and hits, another rolls a 10 and misses (because the DM forgot that a 10 is supposed to hit), the other will feel cheated.

So I buit a hybrid system for the 4e game I ran for Byron and crew.  Some players were poorly built by 4e standards.  Human wizard with a +3 int mod for example.  +3 is hard to hit with in 4e as it is, but he also was the one who notoriously one who rolls low.  I had monster stats, sure, but his good rolls, a 10 for example, usually missed low level monsters.  So any time that came up, I'd say, "HITS!" and edit down the defense of that monster on the fly so if another char rolled an 8 (+5 mod), I would know to say "HITS!" for him too even though I'm used to an 8 being a miss.

This seemed to work out well.  So I'm thinking of having this built into the 6 knuckle system somehow.  A hybrid of hard statted monsters with a hard statted challenge rating / xp value, but the DM is instructed to fix the stats on the fly if "uh...  I get this feeling like poisons that take PCs out of the fight forever is a wheee bit beyond the point of 'this is not fun.  this is not fun.'"

Most recent negative feedback to Byron.  2 game sessions in a row:  "That part where I couldn't do ANYTHING?  Yeah... That wasn't fun."