Honey, I Shrunk the PCs.

[Volvagnos]

Ok, so I have an idea that I'd like to throw in a campaign, early levels before any major magic comes online.

The party is sent on a quest to clear a bandit camp or goblin tribe, pretty much standard adventuring fare. Anyways, when they get to the main area or cause enough of a ruckus, they happen across the enemy leader carrying some sort of orb/crystal. He boasts loudly and hits the PC's with a "disintegration blast". Bright lights and a nauseating feeling flush over the characters.

The Players find themselves exactly where they were, but are now as small as an ant. They must now find a way to use the device (or smash it) to return to their proper size, while fighting 'giant' insects or spiders, avoiding feet, and dealing with something as simple as stairs becoming a hazardous climb.

Now, I'd prefer to avoid giving the PC's a super powerful "we win every combat" item should they capture it, so I'm open to ideas on that.

Would you, as a player, enjoy such an encounter?

To make things simpler, would it work better to stat the insects and such out as if they were medium sized? I mean, avoid changing the players stats, and play it more like a standard dungeon?

Aside from standard 'giant' insects and the like, what other hazards should I throw in?

I suppose I should state that the bandits/goblins truly believe the item destroys the PC's and they have no idea the mini-players are clambering about their camp.

Any input on how to make this truly enjoyable would be great, thanks in advance.

[derpdidruid]

Hmmmm. How are you going to handle this mechanically? Are the PC's just going to be small but keep there standard abilaty scores and it just be for flavour or are you going to adjust them with something akin to the reduce persons spell?

[Volvagnos]

I'm personally leaning more towards it being mainly flavor.

Modding the characters stats would be a nightmare, it would be way simpler to play as though everyone was still their normal size.

It's easier to adjust the enemy stats before hand to match the size of players.

[Raisse]

As far as bookkeeping goes, it's probably best to stat up the enemies as appropriately sized monsters, and use 5mm squares instead of 5 ft. Otherwise, it's going to slow the table down immensely having to recalculate player statblocks.

For the original enemies, you can either stat them up as hazards, or take a look at kaiju type for ridiculously large creatures if you want them to fight directly.

[derpdidruid]

Suddenly its not just human commoners who are spooked when they see a cat.

[Shiroi]

I'd keep normal stats for convenience, otherwise the dex build is going to *thrash* the thf in rediculously funny balance issues. He gets stronger while the barb gets weaker.

Stat the insects as medium or larger, stat shoes as falling objects. Give them stealth checks against chickens or whatever the goblins are riding/using for food. Let them try to convince a prisoner to notice and help them. Let them try to set a prisoner free to cause a distraction, even if the prisoner doesn't notice them. Have them meet other tiny npcs, who have been this way living in the goblins smelly socks for years eating their table scraps and fighting the good fight to make the goblins lives go wrong (adding tiny doses of poison to goblin soups, making them sick before battles, bonus points if the pcs notice your goblins are looking a bit green while they're fighting before they shrink. Sticking goblin toes with pins while they sleep. Things like that.)

If none of the pcs speak goblin, they don't know the command word whispered to activate the item. Make it a whole quest to figure it out, then let them use the item with a mediocre save dc and a once per week ability. Now it's a really cool minor artifact, a very cool plot device but hardly a skeleton key for fights.
Or breaking it really is the only way to fix them, but make sure that's made very clear. Because I wouldn't break this if I was a pc unless I had no choice, assuming I needed it intact to grow back to normal.
Maybe that's why all the other micro npcs are still hanging around, trying every night to use it while the goblins sleep to regain their former size?

[Volvagnos]

I will admit, I was tossing about the idea of having the previous baddie leader (maybe his top guys too) be shrunk as well. You know, one guy found a magic item and used it to take control of the camp. That way, I could have the micro-NPC give ideas to the players should they become stuck, or have a really cool battle with tiny dudes, maybe have the leader be a cavalier who rides a spider or such.

Having the PC's attempt to take down a now Godzilla-sized baddie would be interesting, but I'd hope there would be enough common sense to realize your arrows hurt about as much as a sliver.