Been playing a 3.5 campaign for a couple weeks on Roll20. Had a HELL of an encounter this week.
Over the past half a dozen sessions, we have been helping out the small (and getting smaller by the day - keep reading) town of Dellfall survive a harsh winter. We took out the goblin village raiding their farms and secured enough food to last the winter. We also have been having our dwarf, along with some "conscripted" (read semi-enslaved) goblin survivors dig into a nearby mine for stone to build a small wall around the village. Despite a few deaths in the goblin attacks, it seemed like things were getting better now that Winter broke and Spring was here.
Right before a huge winter storm hit, we had gotten a report of some talking unknown critters were found in our stone mine. So when Spring arrived, we sent our party in to check things out (the beginning of this session): Histrune, a human pally who was a former bartender turned turned to a life of religion after the bar his family owned burnt to the ground; Fegus, a dwarf fighter who is now exploring his ability to learn magic (read: Fighter/Wizard multi-class); Randel, a shadowy half-elf ranger with ties to a nearby lord; Kleck, son of one of the farmers who was killed by the goblins and who was wild with bloodlust; and me, Essdar, a noble-turned-sorcerer trying to escape the intrigue and deceit of his family's political life of and the boring books of wizarding school. We are all Level 3.
We go into the mine and begin exploring. Before long, we see a very out-of-place bush. Fergus, the one most familiar with the mine, was leading the front of the party when a loud roar erupts. From under the bush comes a Large Minotaur, which has us all nearly crapping our pants. The mino swings at Fergus and misses, after which Kleck runs up, sword swinging. With our Melee fighters engaging the mino and the ranger and I laying some cover for the back, we cautiously began to do some damage.
Then, we hear another roar, this right behind us. Out comes ANOTHER mino from another part of the cave. In a panic, I throw down a grease to buy us some time, while Randel double shots the closest one. Fergus, using his magic talents, uses Power Word Pain and puts a death sentence on the first mino, if we can just survive for four more rounds to take its toll. Meanwhile, the mino crushes Kleck, doing critical damage and taking him from positive HP to lower than -10, causing instant death.
Histrune, in true noble pally fashion, hops in front of the second mino to protect me and our ranger. One Power Attack + Smite Evil later, both minos are looking worn down and before long, we win the day, minus the death of Kleck. Single tear.
After a break, we go and examine the bush the first Minotaur came out of and found a tunnel. Going down, we immediately encounter another and begin fighting. We had gotten into a nice rhythm of staying outside the 10' Large creature reach and wearing down the creature. It went down fairly easily, which had us all feeling kind of smug.
We move forward and see a bridge crossing a river. Trying to be strategic, we begin examining it, to see how strong it is and if we could use the river as a choke point. As we started down the bridge, we see the edge of a Minotaur camp and two charge in right up to us. We begin moving back along the bridge and wear them down, with only one being able to cross at a time. Eventually, though, they both break through and in the course of the battle, our paladin is knocked unconscious, barely stabilizing in time to live. Not without cost, though - one mino dies and the other is on the verge.
Panicked, the wounded Minotaur runs away, after which we consider doing the same thing. And then... another roar, this one MUCH louder than the others, is heard. We begin hearing loud steps running and decide to cut the bridge to buy us time to escape. After the rope holding the bridge is gone, Randel runs out first, while Fergus grabs Hirstune, hauling his little dwarven @ss with a human slung over his shoulder nearly twice his size. I am gearing up to cast a Grease right on the edge of the river to make jumping over the river harder with the bridge out.
In Roll20, they have a feature called dynamic lighting, which lets each character see only what they are supposed to see. So with everyone high tailing it out of the cave, I am the only player in our session who can see this thing. Barely outside my vision, shrouded in darkness and shadow, is the biggest dang Minotaur I've ever seen. It could STEP over the river if it wanted to.
I bolt. We head back to town, but with the Winter snow just melting, we make a trail in the mud leading right to town. Luckily, we level up to 4 and are able to heal back to full health and spells, but I am vehemently telling the other players the minos are coming... the Minos are coming! We close the town gate, lay down some caltrops (hidden with Silent Image), send our ranger out to scout the roads, try and think of anything we can do to help out...
"Roll Spot check." After a set of pitiful rolls, our DM announces we don't see it until it is right at the gate - in full light, a giant, 15+ foot tall Minotaur, covered in magic symbols. Along with it is the mino that sounded the alarm and, curiously, a creepy looking gnome. In one attack, this giant beast nearly shatters our town gate. Fergus climbs up to the wall and casts Power Word Pain on the regular Minotaur, knowing that it would barely put a dent in the giant beast before us.
Next turn it crunches down the gate and we are looking at death right in the face. The caltrops help slow both Minos down and avoid their charge attacks, but it's like watching a baseball bat coming to your face in slow motion - it only makes it worse to see it coming slowly. Hirstune goes toe to toe with the smaller mino, taking a pretty solid walloping, while the big one walks right up to me.
Knowing I'm not going to be able to get out of the 15' Giant creature reach, I do the only thing I can - cast another spell defensively, praying to make the Concentration check. I get it off and cast Enlarge Person on our pally, giving him a fighting chance for a Minotaur fight by himself. I make the check, get the spell off... and immediately get knocked down to -7 HP the next turn, taking 28 damage in one hit. I'm out of the fight.
Our pally Power Attacks the normal Minotaur in his new Large state and gets it SO close to death, you can feel it. But he's taken too much damage himself and next turn, he is hit and knocked dead - right down to -10 with one swing. Next turn, in true tragic irony, the Minotaur dies from the next round of Power Word Pain.
At this point, the giant magical mino begins tearing down houses. Villagers like the blacksmith are running out to help us and are getting swiftly crushed. With our pally and me out, the chances of the village surviving (let alone our party) looks pretty impossible.
The only one left is Fergus. The entire fight, our dwarf has stayed on the wall, and cast a Web to anchor the gnome in one spot and has been throwing javelins at the gnome spellcaster, while using his INSANELY high dwarven fortitude to shrug off spells doing failed Ability Damage after failed ability damage. Fergus, being a pretty bad wizard in terms of actual Knowledge or Spellcraft ranks, can only determine that they are spells trying to sap his strength. After the fifth of these goes off without actually hurting him, he says "wow, apparently someone loves the school of necromancy."
A light bulb goes off - the magical markings, a spellcaster with necromancy... "Fergus, kill the gnome!" Fergus stops throwing useless javelins (which missed much more often than hit) and does a swift fly to be right on top of the gnome. The magic mino immediately takes interest and heads over, but Fergus (after shrugging off ANOTHER ability damage spell for zero effect) attacks the gnome in true Dwarven fighter fashion, doing fearsome damage. Both gnome and the magic mino, his (as I guessed) undead construct, collapse to the ground.
The town is in shambles, only two of our party survived, the townsfolk are nearly all wiped out... but we beat that monster. And, with only two characters left, I went from Level 3 at the beginning of the night to Level 5, along with a huge haul of gold and gear.
Of course, half our group has to re-roll new characters...
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