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[Loctavus]

Okay, I have two things.

One, a mess of kobolds, two, a caged fire imp.

I've so far lost one gem and a roll of thread to them, but I've now got a wolf chained up and lying in wait for them. The problem is, they bump into the wolf, get bitten maybe once and then run off. I want to capture the little sods and make them see the errors of their ways.

My plan is to have a pit beneath my entrance divided into two sections. The first section is where the kobolds end up, and the second section is home to the imp, who obey his instincts and fireballs them for my amusement.

However I have two problems. The first is how to contain the imp safely and allow him to fireball things. I'm willing to risk a cage and a dwarf in the initial setting up, but will chaining him up still let him throw his balls of fire? Or will the dwarf set to chain him just run away and let him mill about on his own? Alternatively, can he shoot over fortifications?

My second problem, which I really need to solve before the first is a means of catching the little beggars. Cage traps are out, obviously, so my next stop was a grate and a pressure plate.

Could someone give me some hints as to how to use these properly? I set one up with a max and min of 5 (kobolds) and to activate for creatures and not my own. But I'm not sure where to position the pit in relation to the plate (It's just outside of a doorway), and the one kobold I did see dash over it didn't look like he triggered it.

Just to note, I'm willing to experiment with the imp and report back, what I really need help with is dropping kobolds into pits.

[Puck]

i thought kobold (thieves) wont trigger traps, and pressure plates ARE traps.

i think your best bet would be a retracting bridge over your pit, triggered manually (lever or something). i can imagine the timing to be a pita. maybe your even better bet would be a long series of bridges that the kobolds have to walk over and/or a series of floodgates that work as a kind of an airlock system, helping you to get the kobolds where you want them. i guess the placement of the wolf helps in choosing where the spotting will happen, and thus be a crucial part of the whole timing thing.

no clue about the firey part of your questions, tho.

[Duke 2.0]

 With fireballs, and anything really, the creature needs a path towards wherever they are using their ability. Fireballs, flying, firebreath, all require a valid walking path to the target.

 The best way I can think of making the imp crispify the kobolds is to have a line of fortifications between 'em. Then depending on if he'll use a fireball on 'em if he's chained, just have him behind a line of fortifications.

[Loctavus]

Augh, I thought pressure plates -were- one of the few things they could trip, bah.

I'm going to have to rethink that then. Doing as you suggested and using a beastie as an alarm, I can then place it deep enough so as long as I'm quick with the leaver, I can trap the kobolds where I want them. Rather than bring the kobolds to the fire imp in such case, how about the other way around?

It would take a lot of flood gates, but one flick of a leaver could turn a kind of looped tunnel into a fireball target arena. That is, opening the floodgates when the kobold is inside to expose them to the waiting fire imp.

Arn't fire imps immortal?

[Deon]

Immortal? One swing o'axe and imp's head is flying in the bloody arc.

[pushy]

Nothing is immortal in the sense that everything can be killed...but the imps will never die of old age, so if they never get involved in combat then they are essentially 'immortal', yes.

General consensus is that goblins can bypass creatures but can't bypass traps, and the opposite is true for kobolds. If you can FORCE a kobold to go through an area where it'll bump into a creature then you should be OK. One example is to have a one- or two-wide path into your fortress with a random pet tied up somewhere in it, and obviously having no other paths that it could take. The kobold will bump into the pet, be spotted and run away. Simple. Having that path heavily trapped will also help against goblin invaders

[Loctavus]

That was the setup I had, so the wolf I had chained up was certain to scare off any kobolds I bumped into. It doesn't matter too much now anyway.

The end result was 'enough wolf, not nearly enough traps'

My fortress basically got disemboweled by goblin raiders with crossbows. Loosing is fun. I've not done many games where I've gotten as far as goblin raiders, mostly because I don't enjoy hectic combat too much.

Thanks for your help guys, anyway.