Help with dryad encounter

[moonfly7]

My players are going to be going into combat against some dryads kidnapping people from a local town. The game is set in Eberron so I've been trying to give more tacitcs to my enemies as a result of the last war, and to give my players a more fun, creative challenge than increasing the CR.
I'm going to be using tree walk to my severe advantage, harry them as they travel threw the woods, jump out of a tree, attack, dissapear, repeat.
I'd like to avoid using the quintessential "acid vials and alchemist fire" route, because in this scenario I can't see that making too much sense. but I would love to use poison if you have any suggestions, even homebrew ones.
basically I'd like some advice on what more to do, besides poison and hit and run tactics.

also the dryads charm is already used up on the townsfolk, so that won't be to terribly useful, although they could sick the townsfolk on them and they would need to figure out how to not kill them.

[Democratus]

Townsfolk acting as human shields is certainly an option.

Each dryad can have 3 beasts charmed. This has a lot of possibility.

I would also give my dryads different spells, depending on what kind of tree they are bonded to. Mix it up!

Druidcraft at will is a fun effect to play with. Imagine trails of grass suddenly bursting into bloom, sounds from just out of sight, strange odors...

Play with the terrain. This is their home turf. Entangle is good for this. I would also give the 'leader' dryads Plant Growth. Try chasing these creatures around with 1/4 move rate! :smallcool:

[moonfly7]

Townsfolk acting as human shields is certainly an option.

Each dryad can have 3 beasts charmed. This has a lot of possibility.

I would also give my dryads different spells, depending on what kind of tree they are bonded to. Mix it up!

Druidcraft at will is a fun effect to play with. Imagine trails of grass suddenly bursting into bloom, sounds from just out of sight, strange odors...

Play with the terrain. This is their home turf. Entangle is good for this. I would also give the 'leader' dryads Plant Growth. Try chasing these creatures around with 1/4 move rate! :smallcool:

Smart, and the dryads can tree walk so they can ignore the issues posed by it, and the human shields can grapple the players. sure commoners probably won't succeed but it'll be very troublesome anyways

[Nifft]

Swamps, ponds, and ravines: a Dryad can treeport across them, PCs cannot.

Lairs of otherwise-neutral beasts might also be useful: the Dryad cuts a false trail using Druidcraft and leads the PCs to a giant ant colony, or an owlbear nestcave.


Question, though: Why is the Dryad kidnapping townsfolk? If she's compelled to do so, that might indicate some form of "ally" -- a corrupting fiend, a horrible aberration, a hungry ghoul, a scheming Dragonmarked Heir who wants cheap land in that village, etc. -- which might give you better encounters.

Like, if she's stealing villagers to feed a hungry pack of ghouls, maybe she leads the PCs into undead encounters. If they win, good. They're cleaning up her forest. Eventually they confront her and the ghouls, and when the ghoul leader is visibly losing, she switches sides.

[jjordan]

In my setting Dryads can enter into trees or plants and take control of them (ents hate dryads) creating a de facto awakened plant/tree. They can use these to attack and abandon them, coming out of a different tree when the awakened tree is too damaged.

Entangle is the primary weapon and can be used to channel the player characters as they are moving and to control the battlefield in combat.

Guile and deception can be useful to a high-charisma creature. Perhaps one of them asks the PCs to help them as they are being manipulated by another creature? Leads the PCs into the forest until it's dark, evaluates which PCs are best to attack (lowest charismas), and then the group attacks them while they are sleeping? Entangle the sleeping PCs, try to charm the selected targets and lead them away from the battle to leave the remaining party members to be attacked by charmed beasts? Maybe they spread the charm attack out over a longer time and gain some sort of advantage on this attack?

Or maybe just lead them to a dangerous forest dweller? My forest has fungi that function as spear traps or punji pits or secrete narcotic spores that cause victims to lie down and giggle happily until their heart stops beating. There are awakened trees, blights, assassin vines, spiders, snakes and all sorts of creatures that would happily snack on long pig or angrily attack intruders.

[Sorinth]

Since Dryads already have a bunch of Druid spells an easy way to give them a little extra oomph when harrying a group is to add an extra Druid Cantrip that has some range like Poison Spray or Thorn Whip. Thorn whip works well with the kidnapping angle.

[moonfly7]

Swamps, ponds, and ravines: a Dryad can treeport across them, PCs cannot.

Lairs of otherwise-neutral beasts might also be useful: the Dryad cuts a false trail using Druidcraft and leads the PCs to a giant ant colony, or an owlbear nestcave.


Question, though: Why is the Dryad kidnapping townsfolk? If she's compelled to do so, that might indicate some form of "ally" -- a corrupting fiend, a horrible aberration, a hungry ghoul, a scheming Dragonmarked Heir who wants cheap land in that village, etc. -- which might give you better encounters.

Like, if she's stealing villagers to feed a hungry pack of ghouls, maybe she leads the PCs into undead encounters. If they win, good. They're cleaning up her forest. Eventually they confront her and the ghouls, and when the ghoul leader is visibly losing, she switches sides.
Well it's actually a colony of dryads. And they've only been kidnapping men. Basically during the last war this particular group of dryers militarized to protect their homes(it's set in Eberron if I didn't mention it already) Afterwards they realized that they could make their lives much easier by capturing and then charming villagers to basically be there slaves. They basically have them tend there trees, and make their lives generally easier. The party doesn't know it's dryads, they just know someone is kidnapping the men of the town. Specifically all the craftsman have been taken. The blacksmith, the herbalist, the carpenter, the Bard whose the son of the barkeep, as well as a druid and big game hunter who were sent to investigate the disappearances. The druid and hunter cane with a ranger, and she managed to escape the Dryads, so she'll offer a bit of info to the party.

In my setting Dryads can enter into trees or plants and take control of them (ents hate dryads) creating a de facto awakened plant/tree. They can use these to attack and abandon them, coming out of a different tree when the awakened tree is too damaged.

Entangle is the primary weapon and can be used to channel the player characters as they are moving and to control the battlefield in combat.

Guile and deception can be useful to a high-charisma creature. Perhaps one of them asks the PCs to help them as they are being manipulated by another creature? Leads the PCs into the forest until it's dark, evaluates which PCs are best to attack (lowest charismas), and then the group attacks them while they are sleeping? Entangle the sleeping PCs, try to charm the selected targets and lead them away from the battle to leave the remaining party members to be attacked by charmed beasts? Maybe they spread the charm attack out over a longer time and gain some sort of advantage on this attack?

Or maybe just lead them to a dangerous forest dweller? My forest has fungi that function as spear traps or punji pits or secrete narcotic spores that cause victims to lie down and giggle happily until their heart stops beating. There are awakened trees, blights, assassin vines, spiders, snakes and all sorts of creatures that would happily snack on long pig or angrily attack intruders.
Good idea to utilize the forest, I hadn't considered that. As for the tree mech idea(it's what I call it) the article on DND beyond that mentioned those features inspired this encounter, but I won't be using those features this time.

Since Dryads already have a bunch of Druid spells an easy way to give them a little extra oomph when harrying a group is to add an extra Druid Cantrip that has some range like Poison Spray or Thorn Whip. Thorn whip works well with the kidnapping angle.

That's actually a really good idea that I'm surprised I didn't think of.

[Sorinth]

That's actually a really good idea that I'm surprised I didn't think of.

The one thing you may want to consider is whether the Dryads can tree stride with another creature in tow. Having them use Thorn Whip to pull a villager through a window of their own home, and then Tree Stride away with the villager would create a frightening atmosphere in the village.

If the attacks happened at night and the Dryads used Pass Without Trace the remaining villagers would be able to give the party some info but not much. Family members of the kidnapped could tell about the grasping vines pulling family members away as they slept but when they ran out to save their loved ones everything was quite and nobody was in sight. The charmed beasts might be heard or spotted rummaging around the village whenever there was an attack but everyone was too afraid to leave their home to chase the beast off. Maybe one or two children saw a Dryads face peeking through a window one night and screamed but when the parents checked on it nobody was there. So the PCs wouldn't know how much of that is true versus children imagining things. Regardless the villagers are boarding up windows, keeping watch fires throughout the night, putting charms on their doors to ward away evil spirits, etc... There's a lot of horror elements you could use as families huddle together inside trying to survive the night.

In terms of tactics, the Dryads come at night with Pass Without Trace active. They creep around and try to find a good house to target. Namely a house with windows that is near a large enough tree for Tree Stride. Once they've found their target they will peer through windows and attempt to charm the victim. Fail the save and the victim leaves willingly with the Dryad, if they succeed the save (Possibly multiple saves if more then one Dryad), then the Dryads switch over to Thorn Whip to pull them out of the house, the victim is grappled and Tree Strided away, probably with the help of charmed beasts who are better grapplers.


When harrying the party tactics could be things like using Thorn Whips to drag a PC into a trap such as a deadfall, a patch of poisonous plant, or even straight up in the air causing fall damage if they attack from tree branches. Nothing says Tree Stride has to be on the ground so Dryads can very much make it a 3-dimensional fight by using Tree Stride to get into the upper branches of trees.

Dryads have decent Stealth, but with Pass Without Trace they will almost certainly get surprise during an ambush and since Tree Stride isn't an action they can do that after the attack but before the PCs can react. The limiting factor is that it's only 60ft which isn't very far, so potentially the PCs could see where the Dryad exits since they are no longer stealthed. But depending on how dense the forest is this could either require a perception check, possibly at disadvantage, or even be impossible to detect if the foliage is really dense. I would be tempted to have the forest become thicker and more overgrown the deeper the PCs get so the early ambushes they might have had a decent chance of spotting where the Dryads emerge, but the closer they get to the grove the harder it becomes. Eventually these tactics basically force the party to adopt an extremely slow movement where some PCs ready a ranged attack while the rest move and then vice versa which is a great way to build tension.


The one thing you have to manage is the fact that each Dryad can only charm one humanoid, so if they are using them as slaves, then they wouldn't need to attack the village very often, they would quickly max out the number of charmed creatures and stop attacking. So either the kidnapped villagers need to die off fairly quickly, or the charmed humanoids/beasts act as sort of slave drivers keeping the non-charmed ones in line. Depending on the world/location another option would be to have the Dryads be running a whole slave trade and selling whoever they capture.

[moonfly7]

The one thing you may want to consider is whether the Dryads can tree stride with another creature in tow. Having them use Thorn Whip to pull a villager through a window of their own home, and then Tree Stride away with the villager would create a frightening atmosphere in the village.

If the attacks happened at night and the Dryads used Pass Without Trace the remaining villagers would be able to give the party some info but not much. Family members of the kidnapped could tell about the grasping vines pulling family members away as they slept but when they ran out to save their loved ones everything was quite and nobody was in sight. The charmed beasts might be heard or spotted rummaging around the village whenever there was an attack but everyone was too afraid to leave their home to chase the beast off. Maybe one or two children saw a Dryads face peeking through a window one night and screamed but when the parents checked on it nobody was there. So the PCs wouldn't know how much of that is true versus children imagining things. Regardless the villagers are boarding up windows, keeping watch fires throughout the night, putting charms on their doors to ward away evil spirits, etc... There's a lot of horror elements you could use as families huddle together inside trying to survive the night.

In terms of tactics, the Dryads come at night with Pass Without Trace active. They creep around and try to find a good house to target. Namely a house with windows that is near a large enough tree for Tree Stride. Once they've found their target they will peer through windows and attempt to charm the victim. Fail the save and the victim leaves willingly with the Dryad, if they succeed the save (Possibly multiple saves if more then one Dryad), then the Dryads switch over to Thorn Whip to pull them out of the house, the victim is grappled and Tree Strided away, probably with the help of charmed beasts who are better grapplers.


When harrying the party tactics could be things like using Thorn Whips to drag a PC into a trap such as a deadfall, a patch of poisonous plant, or even straight up in the air causing fall damage if they attack from tree branches. Nothing says Tree Stride has to be on the ground so Dryads can very much make it a 3-dimensional fight by using Tree Stride to get into the upper branches of trees.

Dryads have decent Stealth, but with Pass Without Trace they will almost certainly get surprise during an ambush and since Tree Stride isn't an action they can do that after the attack but before the PCs can react. The limiting factor is that it's only 60ft which isn't very far, so potentially the PCs could see where the Dryad exits since they are no longer stealthed. But depending on how dense the forest is this could either require a perception check, possibly at disadvantage, or even be impossible to detect if the foliage is really dense. I would be tempted to have the forest become thicker and more overgrown the deeper the PCs get so the early ambushes they might have had a decent chance of spotting where the Dryads emerge, but the closer they get to the grove the harder it becomes. Eventually these tactics basically force the party to adopt an extremely slow movement where some PCs ready a ranged attack while the rest move and then vice versa which is a great way to build tension.


The one thing you have to manage is the fact that each Dryad can only charm one humanoid, so if they are using them as slaves, then they wouldn't need to attack the village very often, they would quickly max out the number of charmed creatures and stop attacking. So either the kidnapped villagers need to die off fairly quickly, or the charmed humanoids/beasts act as sort of slave drivers keeping the non-charmed ones in line. Depending on the world/location another option would be to have the Dryads be running a whole slave trade and selling whoever they capture.

My thought was that it was a large dryad community so they have around 8-10 slots for that, and realistically they only need to control the ones they are currently using. So if they aren't using said slaves they keep them in a massive cage of roots and poisonous thorns.
Also your suggestions are scary helpful thank you.