Editing Tales of the Scarecrow (section)

===The Trap=== 
{{Spoilers}}

So, turns out, there's a monster under that thar cornfield. It obeys a ridiculously-specific set of rules which essentially boil down to "attacking anyone who isn't in the clear circle around the house, within 20' of the scarecrow, or actively walking from the outside of the cornfield to the center." Also, it allegedly attacks anyone it can perceive, and somehow can only perceive people who're standing still or walking away from its center, but ''also'' knows when they get to the center and closes the "corridor" through the corn when they arrive. And the corn is so densely packed that anyone trying to pass through it moves at 3/4 speed, and while it ''can'' be cut down or blown apart with magic or gunpowder, it grows back within minutes.

The monster also hates the fresh air so much that its tentacles can only be hit by people who've held their actions to do so or are going on exactly the same initiative number as it, and while the tentacles are chaff it's got a million of 'em. And the monster itself has 1000 hit dice and doesn't come out for any reason, so, yeah. As a small mercy, it only makes one attack per round, but at 1d8 damage a hit and no level recommendation, well...

The scarecrow and the area within 20' of it is a safe haven where the creature doesn't attack, but examining the scarecrow too closely causes it to suck out the examiner's lifeforce. Confusingly, the way the referee is instructed to do this involves counting down from the player's current HP total, even asking for their current HP if necessary, but ''doesn't'' tell you to tell them that's what you're doing. Destroying the scarecrow doesn't negate any of these effects, and they don't go away until you leave that 20' zone.

Oh, and the corn's poisonous. It won't, surprisingly, kill you or anything, but any hit points are precious in this gauntlet.

Once everyone's clustered into the farmhouse (and the module basically shrugs when the incredibly-obvious question of where the hell this farmhouse even came from comes up), and figured out they're basically trapped there, barring a dangerous gauntlet to escape, the ''second'' leg of the adventure starts up.