Fae Tactics

[ajkkjjk52]

An upcoming adventure I'll be running for my players involves a small band of evil fae sabotaging the relations between two groups. Once the players discover this (if indeed they do) they will likely track down and attack the fae. I want to make this fight memorable by having the fae use unusual tactics (illusions and the like). Any cool ideas?

The party will be 7th level (3.P), and I'm not opposed to using homebrewed monsters/spells.

[AstralFire]

Have the fey wield spells that function like Tasha's Hideous Laughter, but chained. Give it a fairly weak DC, but every time it misses, it makes nearby animals burst out into constant, mocking laughter. And every time the spell's been cast in that area, the DC increases. Make it obvious that this effect will be occurring, however, with the end result that the party is forced to constantly be on the move, running away from maniacally cackling squirrels and rabbits.

This will serve to divide the party up and/or force them into illusion-covered traps. And the traps are just pits or trapdoors and once you're inside, they just spam Hideous Laughter over and over and over again.

[nedz]

Stage the encounter on a path in some dense woods.

The Fae start hidden invisible, and create illusions of threats which draw the party off into traps. (I'm thinking small cliffs, pits etc)
Have them change move the path around a bit, again so that they walk into trees.
Thoroughly confound them into chasing after phantoms, or running away from non existant threats.
Trick the PCs into antagonising some local creature, or tricj the creature into attacking them.
When the PCs are fighting an ent (or whatever) who thinks that they have set a tree alight (another illusion) have the Fae high tail it away.

[Swordguy]

Terrify your players. Don't use D&D Fae...use Fae from historic literature (in a pinch, steal them from AEG's 7th Sea game). The salient points:

-Fae are alien. They act human, and try to be human, to keep themselves amused. Being immortal, they are horribly bored, and will act on totally alien and inscrutable motives simply to entertain themselves. This is the root of most "mischevious" Fae behavior; simple boredom.

-They deliberately take on weaknesses to "keep things interesting". This includes human mannerisms or social contracts (such as the concepts of the Seelie and Unseelie "Court", with a King, Queen, noble ranks, and a social pecking order). This is a self-imposed weakness, and can be discarded if necessary.

-Fae are creatures of dreams. This is why they have such proficiency with illusions. However, nightmare are also dreams...

-Fae are creatures of magic. Magic literally is part of their nature. They don't cast spells - they will a thing to happen and it does. Thusly, magic is near-impossible to use against them. Give them resists against "no-save" spells, make magic weapons do nothing to them, allow them free counterspelling, and so forth. Using magic against a Fae is like throwing Fireballs at a Fire Elemental - it's made of the stuff, why on earth would you think adding more will hurt it?

-Fae can, historically, throw out "technically perfect" illusions and impose transformations upon their adversaries. In game terms they can cast illusions on PCs and/or polymorph PCs with no saving throw. The downside? Fae magic is impermanent; the illusions or transformations last only until sunup/sundown/midnight (depending on which account you read). So yeah, the Fae can turn the whole party into squirrels...but it's not permanent.

-The whole "not permanent" thing does NOT apply for magic cast by the Fae King/Queen/equivalent. Annoy them at your peril. You may be a big bad adventurer...but there are things greater than you.

-Unsmelted Iron (called "cold" iron, as a forge is not part of the manufacturing process) is inherently harmful to the dreamstuff that Fae bodies are composed of. Consider a blow from cold iron weapons to automatically threaten a critical hit. Also consider that these are the only things that, according to lore, can permanently kill a Fae - it's a weapon of mass destruction to them, and being immortal, having a member permanently slain is a shock and horror. Decking yourselves out in cold iron weapons and "going on a fairy hunt" is a good way to end up in a TPK. The magic from Fae only lasts until dawn...but there's nothing stopping them from picking up the now squirrel-ified party and chucking said squirrels off a cliff...

-The memorable part of this sort of adventure will be leaving the D&D monster manuals behind. If your players are like most, they've got the stats all memorized (or at least have good clues about what to use against a given critter). Using this, the party will be in totally unknown waters and they'll have to use their wits, rather than their metagame knowledge of the rules, to triumph. In my experience, that will lead to a far more memorable session that another round of "wizard casts X, wins fight".

[Jack_Simth]

An upcoming adventure I'll be running for my players involves a small band of evil fae sabotaging the relations between two groups. Once the players discover this (if indeed they do) they will likely track down and attack the fae. I want to make this fight memorable by having the fae use unusual tactics (illusions and the like). Any cool ideas?

The party will be 7th level (3.P), and I'm not opposed to using homebrewed monsters/spells.

Pixies are pretty much made for this. Seriously - Greater Invisibility, Flight, and several 1/day spell-likes (including Permanent Image).

Read Permanent Image sometime - it can be made to act & react if the caster is focusing on it... which makes it great for framing someone (especially if you have Greater Invisible comrades handling the moving of items). And, of course, it also makes for really good flooring... oh yes, and if the party decides to cast True Seeing to penetrate the illusions? Keep in mind that Pixies have arrows, and True Seeing has a limited range....

[CarpeGuitarrem]

What Swordguy says, as long as the players don't take it to be unfair. I could understand some players being like "You just made up all of that stuff from nowhere, didn't you???"

Me, I'd be fine with it. A lot of RPers I know would be fine with it. I don't know if everyone would. Just as long as they're not uber-concerned about balance, those suggestions sound totally in character for Fae and totally interesting and fun.

[ajkkjjk52]

-Fae are alien [...] and will act on totally alien and inscrutable motives simply to entertain themselves.

This is definitely the feeling I'm going for with this adventure.

[Flickerdart]

Murderjacks are totally awesome and would be perfect for your purpose. They have magic and scary in piles.

[Swordguy]

Me, I'd be fine with it. A lot of RPers I know would be fine with it. I don't know if everyone would. Just as long as they're not uber-concerned about balance, those suggestions sound totally in character for Fae and totally interesting and fun.

Thank you. I want to address the bolded portion real quick (not as an attack on you, mind you, but as a clarification).

Fae aren't supposed to be balanced. Fae are a lifeform that is totally above humans, or orcs, or elves, or indeed anything mortal. A reasonable equivalent would be a demigod, only without the divine rank, and with a bunch of self-imposed limitations to "make things more interesting". The entire point of using Fae as OPFOR in gaming is to invalidate the usual method of doing things and force your players to pursue other means of getting to their goal. The more magic-heavy the setting, the more outside the box players must think (as their magic toys aren't going to help).

Just because it's a "COMBAT ROUND" doesn't mean you have to destroy the PCs as a GM either. Let the PCs "tickle" the Fae for a little bit, and then turn them into trees for a few hours. Have the Fae mock them a bit, and stroll off. Once the polymorphing drops, SMART players are going to go do some research about dealing with Fae (a story about aheavily defended castle that declared war on the Fae with Cold Iron, and who got totally obliterated for their trouble, is recommended so the players don't go all kill-happy). Mention that the way to beat Fae is to intrigue them, or give them an experience they haven't had before, or trick them into giving their word (which is inimical to what the Fae was trying to do int he first place, thus trapping the Fae by his word). Heck, if you're a merciful GM, drop hints ahead of time that "normal tactics" aren't going to work against Fae - that way you've covered your bases if the players start getting pissy about "GM fiat"...you've warned them, and they didn't listen.

Finally, it's VERY easy to misuse Fae as a GM. If you run them like regular BBEGs, but with extra powers and immunities, it's going to be frustrating and unfun for your players. You focused on the operative part in the quote, though (they're alien), so I'm thinking this part won't be too much of a problem for you. Good luck!

[Warpwolf16]

I'll put in some prior experience with Fey, I've used them once or twice for a horror-ish feel. Unseelie inspired fey, they are your best friends. Murder Jack's and Red Caps my friend, they are two perfect examples of little creatures to toss about.

Here is a example:

The party hear of strange happenings in a village on the edge of a forest where the shack of a witch/warlock is hidden and a castle of those who burned her. The family blood line was cursed and slowly the family died to the point where there is one, who makes a pact with a robed member of the unseelie court who removed the curse as long as the castle serves as a unseelie hunting ground for Red Caps and others. The spirit of the witch/warlock lingers in its shack making pacts with mortals who wish for power. The party encounter a Murder Jack in the forest playing with a mangled child half dead body as it says 'mother said not to go, but to her I will show, a giift of blood and tears, of all the children's fears.' The Murder Jack has allies in the woods in the form of unseelie pixies and upon seeing the party approach they begin to use their magic to distract the group as the murder jack lumbers off dragging the childs body. Being forced away for a moment they return to town and look for information on what the Murder Jack meant by 'Mother' and discover the legend of the witch/warlock and the family who had her burned.They discover the witch/warlock mothered two children who she offered to the fey as vessel for their power. One is a Feytouched who has mutliple tough lumps going down his back and has a lame leg. The other child serves her mother trying to return her to her fleshly form as a true fey. Once they return to the forest they find a trail of blood which leads to the Feytouched son who's blood is needed for the ritual, theyre ambushed by Red Caps and Murder Jacks after they hear snckering and licking of lips while drops of blood can be seen drippig from the tree's as pale glowing eyes watch the group like a owl watches a rat run to its burrow only to swoop down and snatch him up before it can enter its hole. Around the edge of the fores where they party is fighting the most is a group of twisted unseelie satyr who play their pipes with a maddening tune and dance in circles.

I scared a player a little due to the fact he was afraid of the bloody scene I described as a Murder Jack and a Red Cap fought over a child by trying to pull him apart and how around them was the results of two other fights over children.

[JonRG]

WW: Kids are always the creepiest. So is rhyming, which reminded me of this.

An Unseelie nymph could also be a nice touch because they can so easily be mistaken for the good kind, obsessively detecting paladins excluded. The PCs could ask for her help or confide plans in her (or worse, lose a few of their manfolk to the charm effect ). She probably would never outright attack the party, but one could certainly be a pitfall.