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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9079661" data-attributes="member: 6877472">After days of delving in the former Scarlet Citadel, our <s>mercenary jerks</s> brave heroes finally evoked a response from the bandits and ne'er-do-wells who infest the former Dwarven fortress, as we were woken up from our well-deserved long rest to find a small force of trollkin, an actual troll, and an armored owlbear trained for war attacking the town we'd been using as our base of operations!While the mayor blamed us for everything (and we attempted to keep collateral damage to a minimum to avoid further tanking our reputation in the town) we did gain some assistance from the non-combatant townsfolk, such as healing from the Druids and a stash of imperfect Pearls of Power (no attunement required, but one use only) from the retired Battlemage who serves as one of the few sources of (slightly cursed) magic items.Armed with few ways to overcome the regeneration of the troll-blooded foes, our Monk started using a torch as an improvised weapon, to deal 1 point of fire damage, while my Wizard was required to deal the bulk of the fire and acid damage (not for the first time, I have to wonder why the designers decided that this would be practically exclusive ability of arcane casters!).Just when we thought things couldn't get worse, we also had to deal with some ghost wolves and a trollkin shaman's sleet storm, which ground combat to a halt for a few turns.Our Ranger clambered up onto the Inn's roof to pepper our foes with arrows, while the Cleric used Spirit Guardians for the first time, daring anyone to stay in range!Quickly realizing fireballs and Tasha's Caustic Brew were bad, the enemies pinned down my Wizard, forcing me to use Dodge (and a couple of well-timed shield spells) to avoid taking damage and losing my concentration- though nothing could save me from an opportunity attack I took leaping out of a window, which brought me to less than half my total hit points!The Cleric and Ranger went down once each, and the Monk attempted to fend off a troll by his lonesome for several combat rounds before slowly, the tide of battle began to shift in our favor.It was a grueling conflict that took a good 15 combat rounds to resolve, and afterwards, we retreated to our rooms, fully expecting to have to deal with the mayor's complaints in the morning.</blockquote>

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