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View Full Version : DM Help help with very short side quest for druid player



Elvenoutrider
2016-07-20, 09:10 AM
Playgrounders, in my weekly pathfinder game, my party has managed to sneak into a lord's keep, kill several of his guards and soldiers, burn his pleasure barge, sink his small fleet of war canoes (its a keep on a lake), start a riot in his village, give his prized warhorse a case of loose stool, and in the course of all of this they rescued some high valued prisoners from his dungeons. Needless to say he is displeased and when he manages to organize his men and peasant conscripts, he will be marching on the pcs village. The party figure they have about a day (they are right +/- a few hours). They decided to split up with half the party staying to reinforce their town, two players plan to run to another town to gain support from a friendly church and hopefully find legal means to contest the illegal things the lord is doing. My druid player however has decided to go off into the forest in search of aid from fellow nature worshipers.

The pcs at the village are going to have their plans work unless they really throw me a curveball. The players who are going for aid from the nearby village will be able to find it but they will be attacked on the way by a Bounty hunter NPC they managed to alienate with a completely unnecessary intimidate roll earlier. The druid I have no idea for.

In my setting, the vast majority of people working for churches, religous organizations or shrines have as much divine power as priests in the real world - they believe in the higher power, and have ranks in the appropriate knowledge skills. Some of the higher ranking members have Use magic Device to help them cast from a wand or scroll or make a potion, and but the majority generally don't have the force of personality to actually cast spells. Even the people in charge of the churches are usually people with no magic who happen to have the skill points to garner favor and keep the church running. Most of the nature worshippers at these sites that she would go to would be the antisocial type who are avoiding the more popular pantheons for various reasons. If there were an actual nature caster in the area with PC levels, she would likely have heard of them. Realistically at this point I cant think of much more the local nature worshippers can give her than a kind word, and maybe a few consumables.

So essentially I need to figure out who she meets there, what they are willing to give her, and what she needs to do to make it happen. If she were an experienced player I would have an easier time telling her that her plan didnt work, and have her rejoin the party for the big scene but she is a complete newbie so I'm trying to encourage her.

She is third level, a bow is her primary weapon, and has a wolf companion whose favorite food is guards. im looking for a side quest that would take about an hour that I can run for her seperate from the weekly session. I feel like having another nature caster join would be too far, and I feel like being given a kind word and sent on her way would be too short. I am terrible at writing druids into adventures, hoping you guys can help me out.

hymer
2016-07-20, 11:24 AM
Some thoughts:

The nature worshippers are presumably the ablest wilderness people in the area, and they are likely to know its quirks well. Perhaps they know of a natural dam which could be temporarily lowered, to flood a low-lying area that the lord and his little army would have expected to traverse. This could be useful in slowing them down, either taking them through a large muddy area, or they'd need to go around it. Muddy uniforms is also bad for morale.

Does the lord rely on any beasts? Horses for cavalry or officers, mules or oxen to pull supply carts, guard dogs, etc.? It's possible that the nature worshippers would know of a local plant, which emits a smell these animals would be frightened of, or could make 'dog' whistles to trouble specific kinds of animal. If used correctly, this could disrupt an enemy force at a crucial stage, and possibly lower enemy morale as they believe themselves under supernatural assault.

What about provisions? Can the worshippers help bring about a sudden deterioration of food and/or water supplies? Fighting on an empty stomach sucks, fighting without water is worse, and fighting with stomach cramps from food poisoning worse still. The enemy will be moving a fairly short distance, and so are unlikely to bring large quantities of consumable supplies. They are almost certain to rely on local water sources, which could be tampered with.

Good luck!

Bulhakov
2016-07-20, 04:41 PM
Maybe the PC finds an ex-lover of the lord among the nature worshipers. She will not aid the fight, but and can provide some valuable intel, e.g.:
- a way to better taunt/intimidate the guy (he can't get it up, he's got a deformity no one knows about, he likes his mistresses young, maybe too young, he's afraid of snakes, pick whatever fits your games)
- safewords/training phrases he uses on his dogs, that will prevent them from attacking (maybe they listen to dwarvish "heel!")
- a way to cause dissension among the ranks (e.g. his trusted luitenant bangs the lady and/or some of the lord's mistresses, or maybe the lord killed the brother of one of his soldiers and blamed it on someone else)
- info that the lord is afraid of someone, e.g. a powerful neighbor that's also his uncle

As a payment for the intel she may request the lord's balls or if you want to be less extreme - enough venison to last the winter (should be easy for your hunter/druid to promise to deliver)

Elvenoutrider
2016-07-21, 09:08 AM
Did not think of using the ex lover in this scenario - I may have gone for it if I wasn't already planning on doing something similar later in the campaign.

What I decided on was starting by asking her to roll knowledge nature to guess which shrine she could find help at, then im going to roll a percentile die behind my screen, asking her if the wants high or low - the roll doesn't actually matter but I want to give the illusion of chance.

I will have her find a shrine within the hour where she will find an older woman sage there wearing animal skins, her pupils severely dilated as she tends a garden. The woman will be jumpy at first but will listen to the druid's story. The sage will reference the druid's backstory asking how she could expect to mother earth speaking to her if she has so much anger in her heart. The sage will advise the player to meditate on the lay lines and listen to Mother nature because she speaks wisdom to those who listen.

At this point I will have the player roll a will save and knowledge nature to concentrate and meditate - the dc will be high but doable. I may give modifiers based on how the player describes her actions. Through this she will see the path that the lord will take his forces and a few minor ways she can harry them. At this point the Sage will tell her that there is more for mother earth to say, but the player may need help listening. She will hand my player a pipe full of hallucinogens. If the player should choose to use them, she will count as distracted for 8 hours which means all casting will need concentration checks, and she will take perception penalties. if she does, I will give her a +10 bonus to her checks to commune with the earth. At this point she can meditate, making more skill checks until she sees a vision of a local dam constructed to help with crop irrigation. If she destroys the dam, she can make a major obstacle out of what is now a tiny stream in the Lord's way.

She can choose to destroy the dam but this will hurt the farmers crops for the next few months - moral dilemma. This will not actually effect the campaign as they will have to leave the area but it will further introduce the players to the idea that they will have hard choices in this game.

No matter how this goes, the sage will be gone after the druid stops meditating and will leave behind a bag with some alchemist items that will help for when the Lord's troops get closer to the village gates.

Well I think I have this figured out but my game isn't until Tuesday so I'm always down for more opinions, ideas, critique, etc