Tough start

After sobering up Rudy and Leenia, the party headed for the cathedral. Across the expanse of the courtyard connecting the Wizard's Tower and Cathedral, they could see a small group of monsters guarding the stairway leading up to the cathedral.

Approaching across the courtyard, there was no chance for surprise. Once the party got within bow shot, the monsters reacted. There were 2 bugbears at the foot of the stairs, 2 archers halfway up, and one goblin hexer at the top of the steps. As combat began, the hexer came midway down the stairs and cast vexing cloud, this gave all the monsters cover and made it difficult for the party to hit with ranged attacks. Add to that the difficult terrain and the party had a slow advance and took a fair amount of damage before beginning melee.

This encounter wasn't meant to be extremely difficult, the monsters weren't that hard. However, they complimented each other well, the hexer giving cover to the archers for example. The difficult terrain slowed the party's advance and unlucky die rolling didn't help them. The monsters rolled well, and dished out a fair amount of damage before eventually succumbing to the party.

I think some good things were learned from this encounter.
1. When the monsters compliment each other, and exploit that, the difficulty level of the encounter rises substantially.
2. Difficult terrain certainly hinders the party more than monsters.
3. Never underestimate poor die rolling by the party or good die rolling by the monsters.

In the end, this encounter taxed the party far more than I had expected it to and precented a whole new set of challenges the party hadn't experienced before. I look forward to challenging them in the future with monsters that complement each other.