I was wondering if anyone else's party thought of dealing with the roc and egg hunt like this.
When my party reached the roc's nest, they simply waited for the roc to fly down to attack them and used Charm Animal on the roc. This made sense as many wandering monsters are animals, and I had no problem rewarding my players for resolving the encounters with Charm Animal.
My players wanted the roc to take them up to the nest. I countered by saying that although the roc was friendly towards them, it was still just an animal, and they couldn't communicate with her. They countered that they could use Handle Animal or Wild Empathy as it was a simple instruction, and I agreed.
They then wanted to take one of the roc's eggs, but again I denied them. I told them the roc was protective of her eggs, and any action against them or even to touch them she would likely interpret as hostile, breaking the charm effect. As these were her strong instincts as a mother, Wild Empathy could only tell them that such, but not subvert said instincts.
Then my players used Speak with Animals to talk directly with the roc, and as she was friendly towards the PCs, the roc allowed them to touch her eggs as they promised not to harm them.
Amusing sidenote: The charmed roc became a little infatuated with the character that charmed her, nuzzling him and cooing about how happy she was to meet him as she was lonely after her mate was killed.
Examining the eggs with Heal and Survival, the PCs determined they were all unfertalized. They wanted to explain this to the roc, hoping that she would let them take one. This was pushing the limit of the Speak with Animals spell, which was only supposed to be used to ask questions, but my players managed to make the roc understand by using rhetorical questions. Once the roc understood that the eggs would never hatch, she was willing to let the PCs take them.
I told my players they would have to figure out how to get the roc egg down next. Instead, they asked if the roc would fly them and her eggs back to their capital. This was an easy request for the roc to do, so she agreed. I told them even flying it would take 24 hours to get back to the capital.
My players realized that Charm Animal would wear out before then and wanted to recast it as necessary. I told them that the roc resisted regardless of her friendliness to the players, but they again just used Speak with Animal and argued that choosing to fail a saving throw was a simple request.
Once they had her back to the capital, they decided that they could Awaken the roc. They figured out how to keep the roc charmed for the twenty-four-hour casting time by having another player cast Charm Animal and Speak with Animal while the other cast Awaken. By this point, I knew there was little I could do to stop them, so I just said the roc was infatuated enough with the caster to let him cast the spell on her.
The first attempt failed, but they managed, eventually, to awaken the roc. After being Awakened, she was happy to transport the party around; due to her earlier infatuation with the charmer, she gained the name of Bird-Wife. This amused everyone except the charmer.
Anyway, afterward, I thought about what my players did and if there was something reasonable I could have done to keep them from doing what they did. There are certainly plenty of things I could have done to break the charm effect, like have the town guards fire arrows at the roc as she came to land in the capital, but my goal isn't to stop my players, just reasonably challenge them as much as I can which I hope I've illustrated. However, not only could I not think of anything I could do to stop them, but I realized doing this, Awakening the roc, seems very easy to do. My party didn't even have a Druid in it, which I imagine would be able to do the whole thing even more easily.
So I figured I'd ask and see if, and maybe even how many, other parties did the same. Awakened the Roc or even just charmed her into helping the party with the Egg Hunt.
That's cool a cool idea, did it work out like you hoped?