How to lure the characters onto a lilypad?

[Noumenon]

I want to use the "Lurking Lizard" monster as Karemare illustrated it here. It basically disguises itself as a lilypad, then tries to paralyze you so you sink to the bottom of the pool. My PCs are going to be Tiny size for this adventure (Goodman Games' The Dragonfiend Pact) so I thought it would be cool if they were actually jumping from lilypad to lilypad when some of them turned out to be fakes. The question is, how to get them on a lilypad?

I didn't want to use them just as stepping stones across a lake. I had the idea that the party could be chasing a grig who's playfully running away with their map. Being basically a cricket (I interpret their flying ability as just the ability to make long hops), he could hop from good lilypad to good lilypad and the players would have no clue some of the ones in between were lurking lizards.

My question is, how could I set up an encounter so this chase scene will actually happen? The natural thing for adventurers to do, faced with something that moves 40, is to give up on catching it. They'll try to shoot it with ranged weapons first. Assuming the grig makes it out of range, how can I make the players want to follow it instead of saying "Well, I guess it's gone"?

If this encounter can't be made to work, what else would you suggest to get the PCs hopping about from lilypad to lilypad? Maybe the lilypads sink after three rounds, encouraging movement. But what are they fighting?

 

[arscott]

What are the PC's speeds while tiny? Because you can reduce a grig's speed to 30 ft just by giving him medium or heavy armor.

 

[Rechan]

To lure a PC on something:

Put something female on it.
Put a magical item on it.
Put an alcoholic beverage on it.

 

[Mark]

If it was carrying what would normally be a small belt pouch brimming with full-sized gold coins it might also weigh him down enough to make it a tempting and rewarding chase.

 

[Noumenon]

Thanks, guys! According to the adventure shrinking to Tiny reduces your speed from 30 feet to 20 or 20 feet to 15. (I made a cheat sheet for the players that fits on a 3x5 card so they'll remember.) But I hadn't even thought of the concept of slowing the grig down somehow. I don't need a precise encumbrance that will lower his speed to 12.5, I can just make him just slow enough (crippled leg, some kind of female rider per Rechan's suggestion).

I'll just give him the map and make sure the players understand if it gets wet it'll be ruined, and if he dies on a lilypad it'll sink in two rounds. That will make them chase instead of using ranged weapons from shore. Hmm... I can even allow him the same random shot at hitting a false lilypad that they have, and they might end up trying to shoot the lizards off of him! They might end up turning this prankster into an ally, if they rescue him while all the other grigs are just looking on and laughing at him.

See, instead of giving the map of the rat warrens to the players right off when they go Tiny, I'm gonna let them wander around a bit and then run into a little barricade manned by grigs to keep the rats underground. They'll be like "Yeah, we mapped the whole place quite a while ago. You'd like that map, wouldn't you? Let's see you take it from old Gimp-Leg over there, then! Ha, ha!" I think my players might take up that challenge, or I might have to be prepared for them to take hostages. Wonder if I should try to give Gimp-Leg a head start by using entangle and the grig fiddle, or if that would just be too hostile.