Special 9: Ow, that hurt

Today was another one-shot as one of our regular players was not available. The characters today were: Itanis the Utility Wizard, Tsedek the Rogue, Elle the Evocation Wizard, and a new face. The new face is Geoff, a Fighter, and is played by the gentleman who normally runs the game. The gentleman running today's game is the person who plays Magnus the Paladin.

Also, there was snacking on rustic parmesan sourdough.

To set the scene we were walking down a hall and found an opening that had the distinct glow of a fire from a fire place. So Tsedek sneaks up to look-see ... and sees a Goristro. Visualize a 20' tall muscled horned fiend. Its not too bright but very good at "smash everything".

Tsedek goes first and his invisible self strolls right up to it and holds his action. Elle, deciding a fiend with a big fire pit would have a chance of resisting fire, starts up her Sunbeam spell and lobs it -- he made his save so took half damage. Geoff moves forward to right in front of Elle. Itanis conjured up his caltrops of doom. Then the Goristo's turn came. As it starts to move Tsedek used his held action to stab it a couple of times. Turns out it ignores poison. Then it charged Geoff and did some damage.

Tsedek then moved up to the Goristro and held his attack again. Elle used her bonus action to Misty Step away from the impending fight and then lobbed the Sunbeam again -- he still made his save so only took 1/2 damage. Geoff attacked the Goristo, who returned the favor by punching Geoff. Tsedek then used his held action to attack the creature. Itanis lobbed his caltrops.

Then the Goristro turns, decides he doesn't like the creature with the glowing ball of sunshine in her hand, and charges Elle. Tsedek, Geoff, and Itanis' caltrops all got an attack of opportunity and did quite a bit of damage, but he still charged Elle. Did 75hp damage goring her and then used his horns to flip her over his head, flinging her 20' towards the fire pit. She only has 68hp, so she was automatically knocked out and failed her first death saving throw.

Tsedek then moves up to the Goristro and holds his action again. Elle succeeds on her second death saving throw. Geoff walks up to Elle and stuffs a healing potion down her throat, stabilizing her. Tsedek used this moment to attack the creature again. Itanis then lobs caltrops at it again, and he can certainly do a lot of damage with those. The Goristro then attacks Tsedek directly for a lot of damage, and Tsedek then fails his strength check so gets knocked flat on his keester.

With the exception of Itanis, we're all pretty hurt at this point. Goristro is as well. But we're all still fighting. Well except Elle as she's prone catching her breath.

Next round starts with Tsedek getting up, using one attack to do damage to the creature, and then using the rest of his turn to disengage and get away from the creature. The creature got mad and punched Geoff. Elle gets up and throws Ice Storm on the creature and then Misty Steps further away, basically putting the fire pit between him and her. She has 7hp at this point. Geoff attacks and Itanis throws his caltrops. The Goristro then uses his full attack on Geoff, who also fails his strength save and gets knocked prone.

We're all really hurt at this point, including the Goristro, but Itanis is still fully healed. I guess the creature can't figure out Itanis is a great source of pain.

Tsedek uses this moment to go invisible and move away from the main fight. Elle decides that she needs to Polymorph herself into a Tyrannosaurus Rex for the HP pool and wades back into the fight. Tsedek, being invisible and next to Elle, makes a dexterity check to grab hold of the T-Rex and get on her back as she ran past. Geoff had gone unconscious with the last Goristro attack and failed his first death saving throw. Itanis then lobs his caltrops again ... and killed the Goristro.

We really need to up our healing game. We don't have a ton of it normally and with no Magnus or Leovan today we had exactly zero healing ability. Hopefully next week we return to the main game on Monday!