A wake-up call is good once in a while. Keeps them on their toes. Although they're already quite cautious.
The first gear to upgrade is what's most likely to get hit.
Indeed.
Though what Sherri was saying about the monsters that use poison... It reminded me of something that happened in WWII...
During the war, the British (I think?) did a study to improve the survivability of their fighter planes. Since they couldn't just turn all their planes into flying tanks, like Russia's treasured Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik, they figured they should armor the spots most likely to down the airplanes. So, they started looking at where the bullet holes on fighters were located and put a bit of armor plating in those spots...
Except that it didn't work out as they planned.
They did figure it out, though. Thing is, they were seeing the planes that managed to come back. Which means that the areas that had the most bullet holes were of no real consequence, and they should instead armor the places with the fewest holes.
Sherri saying that other adventurers reported that the monsters don't use poison all that often reminded me of this when I thought to myself, "But that's just the ones that came back alive. What happened to the ones who didn't?"
Though it seems like it wasn't such a big deal until Sherri got clobbered. Admittedly, though, it was by a caterpillar and not an ant or a spider.