D&D Session 34: Tyrant's Pass

In this session, Heidi was absent due to not feeling well. The party made due without their druid, but we kept the session relatively brief in order to not have her miss anything too important. We started kinda late, then watched the D&D episode of Community before starting the session proper.

As the party came out of the swampy lair of the hydra, they found themselves entering Tyrant's Pass, where the road passes near a popular nesting ground for the dreaded tyrannosaurus rex.

The party continued to take advantage of the insufferable Robert, this time by having him walk well ahead of the party (presumably as bait? I guess?), tethered to a party by the party's total combined length of rope. So, Robert led the by about 90 feet.

Soon, the ground began to shake slightly, and naturally two tyrants were approaching the group: one toward Robert, the other toward everyone else. Since the party noticed the creatures from a distance, they had ample time to launch some ranged attacks and spend a couple of rounds preparing before the huge monsters arrived.

Some hid behind trees, others planned to attempt a sort of AT-AT-takedown-style maneuver using Robert and the rope, and John Freeman grabbed one of the portable, single-use cannons from their arsenal.

As the first tyrant got within striking range, Akito charged in for an attack... only for the tyrant to chop down hard on the poor elf, lifting him helplessly off of the ground. The party scrambled to save their tank, but when John Freeman attempted to free the warrior by firing the cannon at the tyrant, the plan backfired as the resulting blast engulfed Akito as well. The tyrant tossed the unconscious body aside and bore down on Zelda instead, eventually swallowing her whole.

As the party's healers rushed forward to save the rapidly dying elf, the second tyrant surrounded them and attacked. With great luck, the cleric Ere'Sat managed to avoid getting picked up after getting bitten. Meanwhile, a third tyrant was spotted approaching the battle.

As the tyrant that ate Zelda attempted to retreat, buck landed a final blow that caused the dinosaur to collapse, allowing Zelda to cut her way out of the creature's throat.

Meanwhile, Tyriron collected another cannon from the arsenal and shot it at the third tyrant. At that point, the tyrant realized that there was likely easier prey elsewhere and decided to run the opposite direction.

The final tyrant (due to some incredibly lucky rolls) could not seem to capture anybody in its jaws for any significant length of time. Unfortunately, the AT-AT-Takedown plan fell through (Robert has never, in fact, seen Empire Strikes Back), but the dino was soon surrounded. For a moment it seemed the creature might escape, but a few magic missiles from John Freeman finished off the fleeing monster, ensuring that the monster shall terrorize nobody every again. Also, very likely its nest will be undefended, and its young will die never having been given the chance to live.

The party proceeded to take trophy teeth and such, and as of the end of the session they were attempting to figure out a way to transport the severed head of one of the tyrants.

MVP for this session goes to Tyriron. Although Buck, John, and Tyriron all "finished off" a tyrant, there can be only one MVP. The fact that John's cannon mishap nearly caused the death of Akito (he was down to -9 before getting healed) disqualifies him from the prize this time. Buck's bardsong and healing helped out greatly in the battle, but his failure to get his elaborate plan to trip the tyrant to work is counting against him. In the end, the fact that Tyriron managed to scare off the third tyrant before it had a chance to become a problem earned him the prize. This time.

The party's total XP is 19,800/21,000. Just 1,200 more XP until level 7, guys!