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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9504499" data-attributes="member: 6877472">With the main quest dealt with, the lost treasure returned to the good people of Sturnheim, the party decided to check out the few remaining side quests.Sereetha Alcoris, a young noblewoman, came to Sturnheim about a year ago, along with the coffin of her dead father, Renit.  She had him interred in the old cemetery, but now she'd decided to head to the next town over, having tired of the small town life.  Before she goes, she wants to pay her last respects to her father, but during the recent troubles, rumors were spread about "ghosts and undead" and no one has wanted to escort her there through the North Forest.Until now.  The players were instantly suspicious of her despite accepting her mission.  She's not only paying the party 250 gp (half up front, half on her safe return to Sturnheim), but she's decided to let them take her mother's last possession, the Silver Hammer of the Maximilien family (her mother's maiden name).  Without a body, she'd originally left the hammer, a potent weapon against the undead in the tomb to represent her mother, but perhaps it would be better to have it wielded by "heroes" in the days to come.Venturing into the forest, the party encountered a talking owl, Oohooroo, aka "Mousebane", who tested their compassion by feigning a broken wing, and offered to guide them to the cemetery.  Along the way they ran into the magical Fountain of Mead, and three drunken and belligerent Dire Bears.  Underestimating the speed and savagery of the bears, they failed to properly protect their employer, and she was seriously wounded...oh wait, she wasn't.This raised warning bells to the party, who felt she should have been ripped apart by the bear, but she's not undead (at least, that they can tell- they still have suspicions), but instead apparently has an awful lot of hit points.  Of course, in-universe, they don't really know what hit points are, and struggled to use that as a basis to accuse her.  Insight checks and detect thoughts failed to find any holes in her story, so they continued, after deciding to sample the magical mead, which temporarily grants you resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage when at 50% or less hit points until your next rest, but imposes disadvantage on all Dexterity checks and saves!After this, saw dead animals and tracks, which led them off the path to a cave occupied by a pair of owlbears!"This is eminently logical!  First you meet an owl, then bears, and now owlbears!  Very logical, very logical.  I could see this coming a mile away!  You had better do something, since these chaps look rather hungry!  Mind it's hug, it's an embrace you don't want to have!"  -MousebaneAfter fighting the owlbears, despite the fact it's really only their second encounter of the day, the party suddenly wanted to pitch their leomund's tiny hut and take a long rest, even if that means they have to sit around all day!We'll see how that goes...I hear there's a Witch in these woods!-----GM Notes: I'm starting to see a problem.  While the casters all have ways to protect themselves from attacks, via imposing disadvantage, shield, and other reactions, the Fighter lacks such abilities, and has been taking a lot of damage lately from melee opponents, to the point that he suddenly wants to keep his distance and use ranged attacks.  This is what led to them almost losing Sereetha, and a melee combatant who doesn't want to enter melee is more than a little problematic.I thought his +1 plate would help him avoid damage, but as they are moving into fighting Tier 2 enemies more often, who tend to have two or three attacks per turn, the value of armor is starting to wane.Despite the player's griping that "I never miss them" (obvious confirmation bias, I had them track my hit/miss ratio last session, and out of 52 attacks made, 27 hit, 25 missed, and only one hit was a critical), the truth is, some of the enemies they've been up against hit like a truck , and being brought from above half hp to bleeding out isn't an unreasonable thing that can happen in combat.   While three characters can heal, it's not exactly something they're specced to do, and casting cure spells cuts into casting the kinds of spells they want to use.  And they've been going through healing potions like water!I may have to cut enemy damage down, and find ways to stymie ranged attacks more in order to get people into melee range, at least from time to time.Next time!: a gang of Quickling robbers, a Hag, and an unexpected Mimic!</blockquote>

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