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Echobeats
2014-05-25, 04:18 PM
Hi folks,

I am planning a one-shot (D&D 4e, 6th level) and am a little stuck at one particular point. The PCs will be travelling through a forest which they really ought to cross before nightfall (or risk being attacked by savage creatures), so that's a skill challenge. Depending on how well they do in that challenge, and what choices they make, they may meet some fey woodland beings who are averse to letting strangers roam in "their" forest and insist the PCs turn back.

Obviously one way round this is to fight them, but I want to reward alternative strategies. So if they succeed in getting the dryads etc. onside via good Diplomacy, they will be offered free passage and a shortcut/faster transport to the forest's edge if they help solve some sort of problem. If they choose violence, it will be a winnable but tough fight.

So, what sort of task could a group of dryads/nymphs/treants etc. have that a party of adventurers could sensibly help them with, taking roughly a couple of hours in-game? Maximum fun/coolness factor, not too complex, no need to connect it to the wider plot. (Though if anyone wants to try and connect it to the wider plot, I can give details: just ask.)

Since they will already be in the middle of one skill challenge, I'm thinking some sort of puzzle or mini-encounter is appropriate. I have a couple of ideas but I'm not sure they're terribly good, so I'll keep them to myself for now so that they won't influence anyone else's thoughts. Happy to share (between spoiler tags) if asked though.

This is a non-specific setting, so no player/character knowledge of particular world elements can be assumed. (I.e. this is not Eberron, Athas, Faerūn or wherever.)

Many thanks in advance.

NichG
2014-05-25, 06:28 PM
A fey from another forest/land has bested a number of the inhabitants of this forest in various riddle games and intrigues, and as a result has begun to accumulate a large set of favors and allegiances. Some of the local fey are worried that this may be a sort of attack or bid to take over/create a more imperial sort of setup in the forest, rather than just the usual fey games. They want the PCs to trick the foreign fey and alleviate one of the debts that he has won from an important treant.

Airk
2014-05-25, 07:39 PM
Well, depends on what you want the encounter to stimulate in terms of gameplay.

But Fey are notoriously whimsical and can ask for all kinds of goofy stuff. "Tell me a story!" "Sneak into the grove of the other dryad and steal the ripest apple!" Stay awake during 2 hours of Treantish Poetry.

Less whimsically, perhaps some 3rd party is causing trouble - woodcutters, for example - and while they don't want to resort to violence, the fey want them to cut fewer/elsewhere/more evenly, and don't think the woodcutters themselves are interested in talking to a tree. ;)

Slipperychicken
2014-05-25, 07:54 PM
Maybe the Fey can be bought off?

They might ask the PCs to prove their friendship by destroying a tiny settlement built around logging the enchanted forest? That's right, the entire settlement: Men, women, children, dogs, buildings, furniture, logging equipment, breakfast cereals, the whole thing. That village is tearing down their homeland, and they want it wiped off the freakin' map. The fey can be talked down to merely destroying the buildings and sending the villagers away with a message not to mess with the fey, but even this will take a hard diplomacy check.

Nymphs might want the PCs to bring some travelers (or other targets) into their pond. Normally, the nymphs would do this themselves, but the target(s) have beheld nymphs before and will not easily fall for their tricks. The nymphs are not concerned with how the targets wind up in their pond, as long as they are made subject to the nymphs' terrible ends. The targets could easily be scholars, clergy, local politicians, or even regular folks who wouldn't want to be seen with nymphs. The targets could be persuaded to visit the pond with a moderate check made to seduce, lies, threats of violence, or some more creative means. The target(s) can be simply kidnapped, but this risks an encounter with local militia.

Some huge dangerous animal or fey has gone violently mad (probably a result of some injury) and must be pacified before it kills again. The PCs can soothe it, restrain it, kill it violently, or kill it mercifully. The fey are sad but will let the PCs pass if they kill it, are somber but still grateful if the PCs kill it mercifully, and are supremely grateful if they soothe it. If they cure it of its madness, that creature and its friends are in their debt as an ally, and everyone feels warm and fuzzy like it was a saturday morning cartoon.

Echobeats
2014-05-29, 02:17 AM
Thanks everyone, some great ideas.

As it happens NichG's suggestion of playing riddle games with a foreign fey gives me the perfect opportunity to use a logic puzzle I've been planning (based on this (http://www.sporcle.com/games/MovieGuru/mr-men-murder-mystery), only shorter and with D&D races. Plus all the clues are in rhyming couplets :smallbiggrin:). So I will have the local fey complain about a satyr prince who tricked himself into being offered indefinite hospitality without his hosts realising it. If the heroes can solve his puzzle he will agree to leave. Then he casts an illusion which "transports" the PCs into a vault with a number of statues standing in a row: each one is either alive, a victim or the murderer. If the PCs make a wrong guess, the statue in question attacks.