Adventures in Marshall Barony, ep 18

THE CAST O' CHARACTERS:

CURRENT ROSTER
Vance - Yozzat, a dwarf
Joe - Olwen Door-Hinge-Bane, a human ranger
Tim - Raymondo M., human thief
Seana - Marigold, best class ever....HALFLING
Steve - Dosta Grimm, a fucking elf
Shane - Ralgar the average beetcake  ;)

Ep 18.  Rescue Marigold, thievery, bandits! - 25 Feb
The party regroups and wait for Marigold who suddenly realized the predicament she was in. She manages to get back to the party and they quickly determine that they must return to town and collect their XP. 

As they exit the well, they discover two of the hirelings joined up with bandits and fled with about half of their gold. Obviously very angry, the party mounts a heated chase for these bandits. (see my comments below) They manage to catch up with the bandits and wayward hirelings camped along the side of a road, with a roaring campfire and quite a few bandits, including a large trollish type creature.

Without pause for their concern, party devises a plan to set up in a tree for sniper attacks while the sleep-master Dosta readies a sleep spell (see comments below). They manage to sleep about half of the bandits...and Ralgar begins mercilessly slaughtering the snoozing victims.

Everything appears to be going to plan when suddenly they realize one of the bandits is....a spellcasting bastard who returns the favor and casts sleep on the party! Olwen falls out of the tree he was going to snipe from, Dosta and Yozzat both take a nap in the road. Olwen's player 'debates' that falling from the tree and smacking into the ground would cancel the sleep spell effect...sure, sure whatever. So he wakes up and sprints over to Dosta. I told him he could (1) get up from his fall and pick up his bow, (2) run over to his friends, (3) shake his friend to wake them up, and (4) fire his bow all in a single round. So he opts to step on Dosta instead of shaking him. :/   Players, I swear sometimes....

His arrow has little effect on the troll and we ended with the troll about to pummel the PCs back to first level.

DM's Thoughts: 
I think another player (her hubby) explained to her the OSR mantra of 'never split the party' and that is what caused Marigold to suddenly change course and return to the party.

DM Comment 1: they were quit upset that I did not let the bandits and hirelings be a simple, 'we show up, kick their ass, and take back our gold.' Boohoo crybabies, suck it. Did I do it on purpose? Heck ya, railroad my adventure for some chase through the woods? Yeah, have a bandit party with a troll and a spell caster, bitches. How you like me now?

DM Comment 2: They cried more when the troll was not effected by the magical sleep spell and then when I pulled out a spell cast to cast sleep on them! Whiney little fuckers! You'd think I had a bunch of millennial 5e players instead of some cool old school guys.

DM Comment 3: Here is the real thing. Dosta cast sleep on the Fungal Men in the cave. Then two hours later (we discussed this and the players suggested that 2 hours was how long they were down there), he cast ANOTHER Sleep spell! As a first level elf. 

I am starting wonder about this group....