Faery Goblins

[Ravilah]

I'm designing a faery forest setting right now, and my players (all early levels 1,2,3) are going to be in it for quite a while. They'll be encountering plenty of ordinary animals, as well as goblinoids and such, with plenty of actual "fey" from the MM.
First of all, what could I add or alter about the technically non-fey creatures (wolves, goblins, and centaurs, for instance) that could give them a bit of fey-flavor (since everything in the forest is supposedly from Faery).
Also, I have gotten used to designing high-level campaigns, and I need some ideas on how to spice-up a low-level goblin encounter. Goblins are a bit crutial to the larger story, but I'm weary of the typical "Oh,no. You've been ambushed by two bugbears. One of them as a Mace! gasp!" I've been spoiled by my villians having cool magics and fancy weapons. I'm a terrible strategist. How to I keep my players interested?
Thanx in advance

 

[RangerWickett]

You seriously need to get Raven Crowking in on this thread. He's posted some really nice fey ideas on this thread.

Give the Goblins Damage Reduction 5/cold iron. For a low level encounter, that alone will make them much more frightening. Maybe have the fight take place in a small gulley with lots of small caves. The Goblins can run through caves, appear on ledges over the party, and toss rocks at them. Or spears made of wood that turn into small wooden snakes if they miss. If the party counter-attacks, the Goblins duck back into the caves and hide, then come at the party from another direction. The caves interconnect in a lot of ways, and are too small for most PCs to fit.

 

[Tonguez]

Spiderclimb is always a good trick - give all your goblins the natural ability to climb any surface and then have them appear in three dimensions - on the ground, upside down (hanging from the roof/branches), and even walking up the sides of cliffs/trees/walls - and make them fast too

 

[Ravilah]

Ooooh. Great ideas all 'round. Consider them tucked away for later use. Thanks!

 

[Sigurd]

Give them region specific limitations

Fey creatures generally stick to fey regions for a reason - they are tied to the land.

Specific Good fey might sicken and die if taken from the enchanted areas too long.

Players will feel really good about tricking bad fey out of their circles, away from their regions where the low level chars can kill more powerful creatures. Alternately your chief baddies might be litterally unkillable in fey regions - they might only be banished for 7 years or some such.

Players can get a palpable sense of danger when they only banish a monster because they know what that monsters first goal will be when it returns.

Sigurd

 

[Raven Crowking]

removed