So, a group of 3rd level characters, I'm running the only rogue. We have 1 priest, 1 Paladin, 1 Ranger, an arcane spellcaster of a sort, and me.
We find our way to a dungeon crawl. First 'indoors' mission for all of us.
we get past the Myconids guarding the entrance by...well, not interacting with them, honestly.
Now, all the doors in this place seem to be either locked, or rusted shut.
Naturally, we pass through what appears to be a desecrated chapel of some sort, to a pair of rusted-shut doors, and I set about doing the thief thing of working on getting the damn doors open..right?
So everyone else, well, takes off for parts unknown. It winds up being a long, sustained action of working on the doors to get them open by lamp light, since I'm the only human in the party and do NOT have enhanced dark vision.
The rest of the team wanders-and-wanders the same two corridors, gets themselves all the way (not that far) back to the entry and voyeurizes the communication/reproduction habits of fungusmen.
with me so far? good.
Now, to get this further in perspective, our Ranger is a High Elf and he does the High Elf Snob act perfectly. The Priest is a half-Elf, the Arcane caster is some other form of demihuman with red eyes and gray skin and little bump horns on his forehead, and the Paladin's some kind of dragonborn/hybrid thing.
Both Priest and Pally have significant negatives to stealth. This is unimportant. the Ranger has skilled into close combat but stays sixty feet away minimum at all times when it looks like trouble, and the arcane spellcaster REALLy likes dropping AOE effects into the middle of melee and doesn't quite understand why that might not be a good thing.
esp. considering my thief? half the time is doing that jackie-chan shit thanks to an unshakeable case of hellbie dice that have had me falling off of roofs and cliffs right into the middle of enemy guards more than once.
apparently I am at my most lethal when trying to recover from a humiliating fall or fumble.
so here I am, getting the door into the rest of the complex (we were given a MAP) while they're clanking around trying to stir up trouble far, far, far, away from the only guy who's managed an unassisted face-to-face kill on more than one occasion.
(because I'm locksmithing/safecracking the door they all gave up on after one or two loud bashes.)
eventually, I get the door open (Sustained action, GM had me rolling for 20 minutes straight.)
and...they finally return, enter a short corridor with a bend, to find another door. same condition as the first-locked, and rusted shut.
I'm going through supplies of oil and files at a furious pace unsticking the lock, and when I do, one of the casters lights to the bright idea to use a specific cantrip to open the door.
Now, that's certainly better than 20 minutes of me prying and lubricating the damn thing to get it open. (I am a ****** hero.)
So the Priest does this instead of the arcanist, who's busy hanging back behind the Ranger, who is also hanging back, and the Paladin, who's ALSO hanging back, leaving me beside the priest.
door opens, and it's the first time any of us has (In character) seen a troll.
the Priest's player wanted to try a 'friendship' spell on the Troll, who's been trapped in this 10x10 room long enough to be just about insane from hunger.
roll initiative.
Priest beats everyone. I just tell the GM I'm 'holding my action'.
ufortunately, Troll beat me.
so here's what happens; Priest digs out a Ration pack, and offers it to the hungry troll...who proceeds to accept both rations, and his arm. Chomp!
My held action triggers, and I haul back on the Priest, dragging him out of the room as his hitpoints hit zero.
Troll rakes his ribs on the way out (opportunity attack) and we barely squeeze past the Paladin, who's suddenly become interested in what's going on. HE runs into claw range and gets chopped up pretty good, but that's our entire healing battery right there. Priest's on his second death failure and I'm using my (Skilled into it because I had a feeling at first level) ordinary medicine skill to try and stop the bleeding and keep his insides on his inside.
Now, is the time when it's time to shout 'retreeeeeaaat!!' The passage is narrow and the troll is large, it can't quite reach us easily (Yet).
but I'm stuck doing a sustained action right around the corner from the place our Priest gave his arm for a...pet? friend? whatever.
second death save for the Priest, I roll a 2. Not happening, but since it's a sustained effort, and my character is...well, he's really stubborn...we go for try number 3.
Natural frikking 20 on a barely-proficient nonmagical healing check.
Essentially stopping the Priest from bleeding out to dead on his third death save.
My 20 success, beat his 3 failure.
He lives!!
only now we've got a wounded paladin, a confused ranger and an apparently apathetic and slightly cowardly mage.
with a troll crawing its way into the open.
I end up with a little time, hand the now-stabilized Priest to the wounded paladin, "Get Out!!" the heroes obey this simple advice, leaving me behind in the room to do my dirty thiefy thing.
In this case, with a jar of lamp oil, 50 ball bearings, a rag soaked in alcohol, and a guttering torch.
I grenade the Troll in the tight entryway just as it pushes its teethy maw through the doorway with arms hooked on the door-sill.
and run away, luckily NOT on fire.
can't say same for the troll, which will have to deal with both ball bearings on the floor, and a 5x5x5 blazing-merrily mix of alcohol, soap, and lamp-oil.
I am thinking I will be negotiating for both a larger share of the treasure from this, AND leadership of the party. (We're burning through my toys faster an they're harder to find/more expensive than yours.)
assuming of course, the burning troll doesn't find its way outside to finish us off while we're all wounded. The lesson from this?
do not feed the damn trolls!!!!