Summary

  • Forest settings in Dungeons & Dragons campaigns provide opportunities for various encounters and challenges, such as fighting beasts, aiding wounded animals, or investigating dead creatures.
  • Poachers and black markets in the forest can add a sense of urgency and moral dilemmas for the players to navigate.
  • Incorporating environmental hazards like false floors, quicksand, wildfires, flooding, and carnivorous plants can create unexpected obstacles and thrilling moments during the adventure.

If you're a Dungeon Master (DM) leading a party through a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dungeons & Dragons campaign, chances are you've either had the group travel through a forest or plan to in the future. A forest setting is a common biome that can play host to many travels, encounters, and the like.

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However, it can be difficult to always come up with something on the spot during long periods of🔯 walking or riding toward the next objective. So keeping༒ a few, ready-to-go ideas handy can really help not only speed things up for the players but can make your job as a DM easier too.

9 Beasts And Animal E༒ncounters

Dungeons & Dragons Displacer Beast
via.DnDBeyond

This is always a quick and easy way to inject some combat into an otherwise slow, traveling montage. Whether the players spot a rare beast while passing through, or they get attacked at night while trying to taꦏke a Long Rest, the party will have to react by either taking up arms, fleeing, or disabling the creature without killing it.

Though it doesn't always have to be a beast that is enraged or looking for a fight. They could find a bear with its paw caught in a trap, a wounded animal they can heal, or a dead creature they can investigate to see what caused the🔯 damage, givin🎃g them evi🦄dence that they have bigger problems on the horizon.

If you have a copy of Xanather's Guide To Everything, there is a d100 table of such encounters so that you can roll in the middle of a session or beforehand and have your players battle the resulting monster.

8 Poachers Or A Black Mar𒆙ket

A DND Fey Wanderer Ranger looking on in a forest
Murasa Ranger by Eric Deschamps

Keeping with the theme of animals, poachers, like bandits, are a popular and quick way to challenge your players. It gives your party the opportunity to come across something they don't like or can't sit idly knowing that beautiful creatures are being trapped, attacked, or captured.

You can expand upon this further by having the players find a black market hidden in the woods where a number of big bads gather to sell or purchase illegally gotten goods. Or, you can flip the table on your players and have them attacked by a group of poachers or customers of this shady business that don't want witnesses.

7 🦂 False Floor

Shadar Kai elves lurking under a stone bridge in DnD by Sidharth Chaturvedi
Art by Sidharth Chaturvedi

Having a false floor or a floor trap is always a fun way to catch players off guard. It's also an option that can be highly customized depending on the level of your player characters (PCs) or how they like to play. Does the ground give way to spikes? Do they step on a trap made of ropes that hoist them into the tree canopy above? They can also fall into an underground cave or dungeon that they have to navigate through.

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It's also a way you can split the party, causing panic among the players. Have them all roll an acrobatics check or a dexterity saving throw. Those that succeed stay above ground while the others plummet below.

6 🌠 Quic🔜ksand Or Mud

Dungeons & Dragons Swamp
Dungeons & Dragons Curse Of Strahd Illustration By Jedd Chevrier

This was always a hazard used in cartoons, making it seem like it would be a major life problem. In real life, most of us may never encounter this issue, but that doesn't mean it can't become your players' problem. Quicksand or quick mud can catch your players off-guard and shake up the monotony of otherwise uneventful travel.

Again, you can have players roll to quickly escape. But another, fun option would be to have high rolls put them in more danger. For example, if you have them roll something based on dexterity, instead of a high roll getting the player out of there, it acts as more movement that causes the sand or mud to pull them in further. Once that's been seen by the players, just sit back and smile as they figure out what to do.

5 ꦓ Wildfires And Flooding

A Dungeons & Dragons hellhound sprays fire from its mouth at a wood elf
WoodElf And Hellhound By For D&D Player's Handbook By Craig Elliot

A forest on fire can be a huge problem for the party to deal with, especially if there's something else at play. Fires can be caused by natural sources, such as lightning, but they can also be set or caused by the arcane. It can be the fault of your players, but it can also be lit by an enemy or creature.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, you can suddenly have too much water. A flash flood can chase your party or sweep them away and cause numerous saves to get them out of the water or to a calmer part of it. Or the players can come to an overflowed river and have to decide if they're going to try and calm it, find another way, or help anyone caught up in the rapids.

Combat rounds can be useful in a setting where things are moving fast. You can rely on initiative to plot out who's doing what and how the situation continues to change in an organized way.

4 ෴ Elementals💙

On the left, an earth elemental made of stone. On the right, a fire elemental made of flame.
Via the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual

One reason the🤪re could be floods or wildfires in the forest is because of some pesky or raging Elementals. The common Elementals in the Monster Manual are Fire, Earth, Water, and Air. No matter which you decide to use, if they are appearing in the Material Plane, they may have a reason to fight.

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1

You can also use them as a tool, summoned by an enemy spellcaster, either to cause havoc or to attack the party or an NPC. No matter why or how they arrived in this setting, they pose a threat to players and the environment around them if they aren't returned to their plane or defeated quickly.

3 🥂 Treants And Awakened Trees 🅠

treant dad angry Cropped

This could take the party by surprise, or they could hear the loud stomping or these animated trees. Either way, they are sure to spice up a walk through the woods. Things could go well for a group of adventurers as Treants are good creatures. They can warn them of danger or come to their aid if they are under attack. However, they can also mimic the duties of The Lorax, speakiꦗng for the inanimate trees and lashing out against anyone who harms the forest.

Awakened Trees are a different monster and resemble Golemsജ in the way that they can be brought to life by a spellcaster. They could be ordered to go after the party or protect an area or hideout, ready to beat back the players if they get too close.

2 Spores

A spore druid cultivating luminescent fungi in the underdark, Dungeons & Dragons
Glowspore Shaman by Lars Grant-West

In the world of gaming, it's hard not to think of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Last of Us when you mention spores. But they can be a very versatile 𓃲option to hold onto until a rainy day. Your party can come to an overgrown ღsection of the forest that has evasive mushrooms covering trees, logs, stumps, maybe even bones. A wrong move or passing through the area can cause spores to surround them.

These can cause status conditions like pois🐈oning. It can give them a disease. You could even have it cause maddness in your PCs or give them intense hallucinations. You can even go all the way and make it so that zombie-like creatures or undeaꦫd rise up to attack.

1 ꦛ Carnivorous Pl💝ants

Van Richten's Guide To Ravenloft D&D artwork of the bodytaker plant spawning a podling
Bodytaker Plant By Irina Nordsol Kuzmina

There are a number of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:carnivorous plants in th𒊎e D&D sourc💟e books. Many of them, when they remain completely still, are undetectable, alloไwing them to completely surround the party, multiples of them attacking and wrapping around the players.

In this situation, a forest environment will suddenly become a living nightmare for the party. 🅘It may be the smartest move to try to escape as quickly as possible. They can also stay and fight at the risk of being eaten or swallowed whole. These monsters work well in a forest since they can blend in easily and pose little threat until the party is relaxed or clos🐽e enough to bite.

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