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[/QUOTE="FAQ regarding rays and counting as weapons"]
Ray: Do rays count as weapons for the purpose of spells and effects that affect weapons?
Yes.
For example, a bard's inspire courage says it affects "weapon damage rolls," which is worded that way so don't try to add the bonus to a spell like fireball. However, rays are treated as weapons, whether they're from spells, a monster ability, a class ability, or some other source, so the inspire courage bonus applies to ray attack rolls and ray damage rolls.
The same rule applies to weapon-like spells such as flame blade, mage's sword, and spiritual weapon--effects that affect weapons work on these spells.
—Sean K Reynolds, 07/29/11
Vital Strike (and its desecendant feats) have been excluded from working with weapon-like spells according to a different FAQ. The question is, does Vital Strike work with innate ray attacks such as the Jabberwock's eye rays?
Oh man.......
I would say no.
Vital Strike is a feat that is activated when you perform an attack action.
Attacking with the jabberwock's "eye rays" is a standard action in it self. It is not an attack action in it self.
Though this ability is calle "eye rays" I am not sure it should be classified as a ray attack, it is simply the name of the ability.
It's described as a tactic it can use in the encounter. The question is legitimate, since it has two eye rays/round available. If the tactics are in error regarding the feat, then awesome, I can edit the critter according to my tastes. If the tactics are accurate, then awesome, I can edit the critter according to my tastes. :)
A feat is neither an effect nor a spell.
It states exactly what it does and nothing else. Vital Strike is not ambiguous in any way. An attack action is a very specific action, not any action that requires an attack roll.
Bard bonuses and spells like good hope affect any attack roll or damage roll that requires an attack roll.
But Vital Strike can only be used with an attack action. Not as part of a charge or as part of standard action used to cast a spell or part of a standard action used to activate a special ability. An attack roll being part of any of the above actions does not make them an attack action.
An attack action is taking one attack with a weapon. It's been that way since 3.0.
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The fact that the Jabberwock in question has the improved critical feat for its eye rays, and by definition the feat says:
"When using the weapon you select, your threat range is doubled."
As far as I can tell, you cannot take improved critical with special attacks spells, or supernatural abilities, only natural or held weapons.
There would be no question if the Jabberwock were using his vital strike feat with a more obvious natural attack such as bite, claw, etc. Clearly whoever created the statblock of the Jabberwock in the AP and the Bestiary 2 interpreted his eye rays as a natural attack sequence with two attacks (like two claw attacks) that could have improved critical and vital strike applied to it. If you agree with this assumption, then they should work with vital strike. If you feel that the Bestiary 2 creature statblock was created with errors in assigning these feats, then they should not work with vital strike.
I think the real question is not whether you can use vital strike with a single eye ray, but rather is this a natural attack or not. The answer to the OP question becomes obvious once this is determined. I leave you all to figure this one out, as I was involved in the original debate and don't wish to re-hash that part.
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wrong the eye ray counts as a ranged touch attack if you take improved critical for ranged touch attacks then the eye ray will get the benefitThe fact that the Jabberwock in question has the improved critical feat for its eye rays, and by definition the feat says:
"When using the weapon you select, your threat range is doubled."
As far as I can tell, you cannot take improved critical with special attacks spells, or supernatural abilities, only natural or held weapons.
There would be no question if the Jabberwock were using his vital strike feat with a more obvious natural attack such as bite, claw, etc. Clearly whoever created the statblock of the Jabberwock in the AP and the Bestiary 2 interpreted his eye rays as a natural attack sequence with two attacks (like two claw attacks) that could have improved critical and vital strike applied to it. If you agree with this assumption, then they should work with vital strike. If you feel that the Bestiary 2 creature statblock was created with errors in assigning these feats, then they should not work with vital strike.
I think the real question is not whether you can use vital strike with a single eye ray, but rather is this a natural attack or not. The answer to the OP question becomes obvious once this is determined. I leave you all to figure this one out, as I was involved in the original debate and don't wish to re-hash that part.
You can only take improved critical for a held weapon or natural attack, not a ranged touch attack, unless there has been errata put out.
I just scanned both bestiaries, and there is not a single crature except the Jabberwock that has a non-melee improved critical feat. None of these are defined as special attacks.
This leads me to believe that the eye rays are incorrectly statted as a natural attack, and should not have neither improved critical or vital strike assigned to them. Otherwise this is a big exception to the normal rule.
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Jabberwock: huge dragon, CR23, 481hp, DR 15/vorpal.
...yeah -- they're supposed to be badass.
Eye ray: 15d6 19-20x2 plus burn.
...a Vital Strike eye ray would be 30d6, or ~110.25hp fire damage on ranged-touch (including crit chance).
13th-level PC wizard casting Maximized Empowered Scorching Ray (7-level spell): ~113.4hp fire damage on ranged-touch (including crit chance).
Myeh.
Jabberwock: huge dragon, CR23, 481hp, DR 15/vorpal.
...yeah -- they're supposed to be badass.
Eye ray: 15d6 19-20x2 plus burn.
...a Vital Strike eye ray would be 30d6, or ~110.25hp fire damage on ranged-touch (including crit chance).
13th-level PC wizard casting Maximized Empowered Scorching Ray (7-level spell): ~113.4hp fire damage on ranged-touch (including crit chance).
Myeh.
That's how I feel about it...15d6 for a CR23...kinda whimpified, I think it need the vital strike regardless.
Creative Director
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That's how I feel about it...15d6 for a CR23...kinda whimpified, I think it need the vital strike regardless.Jabberwock: huge dragon, CR23, 481hp, DR 15/vorpal.
...yeah -- they're supposed to be badass.
Eye ray: 15d6 19-20x2 plus burn.
...a Vital Strike eye ray would be 30d6, or ~110.25hp fire damage on ranged-touch (including crit chance).
13th-level PC wizard casting Maximized Empowered Scorching Ray (7-level spell): ~113.4hp fire damage on ranged-touch (including crit chance).
Myeh.
Well... it gets two of those eye rays per round, and they can cause an additional 6d6 burn damage... so even if you don't allow vital strike (which you should, in my opinon), it's still pretty rough.
Also: if all it does is two eye rays for 15d6 each, that's an average damage of 105 points (not counting possible crits or the burn damage). According to table 1-1, for a CR 23 creature, they should be doing between 113 and 150 points of damage in a round, so those two eye rays are perhaps a tad on the low side, but only barely.
Eye rays aren't the jabberwock's main thing, though; the eye rays are only for when it can't get up in melee (where it does an average of 129 points of damage, which is a lot more spot on).
I made the eye rays sonic rather than fire. I changed the burn to vibration. They probably should do more damage.
The damage output of characters is pretty scary now even at range. Need the big dog creatures to do more ranged damage so they can compete.
Jabberwock: huge dragon, CR23, 481hp, DR 15/vorpal.
...yeah -- they're supposed to be badass.
Eye ray: 15d6 19-20x2 plus burn.
...a Vital Strike eye ray would be 30d6, or ~110.25hp fire damage on ranged-touch (including crit chance).
13th-level PC wizard casting Maximized Empowered Scorching Ray (7-level spell): ~113.4hp fire damage on ranged-touch (including crit chance).
Myeh.
maximized empowered scorching ray would do about 31 damage per ray on average, still would be vulnerable to disruption, checks energy resistance separately, needs to penetrate spell resistance, doesn't cause burn and has worse ranged touch attacks, a ranged touch attack +10 or so is not a sure hit, especially in melee or with cover.
Also improved and greater vital strike make it considerably more lethal, 60d6 is on average 210 damage, 420 on a crit.
gotta say, i dont like the DR/vorpal.
it breaks standard DR things. its it an EX, or SU?
It doesn't really break anything, it's just unusal and it's themed, much like silver is strong vs lycan.
It's based on alice in wonderland if I recall.
I made the eye rays sonic rather than fire. I changed the burn to vibration. They probably should do more damage.
The damage output of characters is pretty scary now even at range. Need the big dog creatures to do more ranged damage so they can compete.
The sonic themed changes are awesome, Maddigan. :)
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Creative Director
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Of course... changing the eye rays from fire to sonic suddenly doesn't make sense if you look at the original poem, where the Jabberwock is described as having "eyes of flame."
AKA: I didn't just assign fire damage to the monster's eyes randomly.
Of course... changing the eye rays from fire to sonic suddenly doesn't make sense if you look at the original poem, where the Jabberwock is described as having "eyes of flame."
AKA: I didn't just assign fire damage to the monster's eyes randomly.
What poem is everyone talking about? Can i have a link to it?
Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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What poem is everyone talking about? Can i have a link to it?Of course... changing the eye rays from fire to sonic suddenly doesn't make sense if you look at the original poem, where the Jabberwock is described as having "eyes of flame."
AKA: I didn't just assign fire damage to the monster's eyes randomly.
Here you go: Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky
What poem is everyone talking about? Can i have a link to it?
EDIT: I see that this forum is still full of ninjas :D ...
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Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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I want to know when we are going to get to see a Bandersnatch statted up. Or a Pathfinder version of Through the Looking Glass module? :)
I've actually thought about putting elements of The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror and Dungeonland into my Kingmaker game, somehow. There's a bandersnatch in the Mounded Meadow encounter area that would be fun to convert.
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<filed into "You learn something new every day">
One, two! One, two! and through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back.
-- "Snicker-snack" is now a movie term for the (fake) "sound" a sword or knife allegedly makes when somebody swings it.
I didn't know the term dated from 1874.
May I add, that even if a GM or designer allows the Jabberwock to use Vital Strike with its Eye Ray attack, it would only be delivering one ranged attack at 30d6 rather than 2x15d6.
This has all the tell tale signs of being an oversight.
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<filed into "You learn something new every day">
One, two! One, two! and through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back.
-- "Snicker-snack" is now a movie term for the (fake) "sound" a sword or knife allegedly makes when somebody swings it.
I didn't know the term dated from 1874.
Supposedly it was derived from the name of a long bladed knife, a snickersnee..vorpal sounds much better lol
Of course... changing the eye rays from fire to sonic suddenly doesn't make sense if you look at the original poem, where the Jabberwock is described as having "eyes of flame."
AKA: I didn't just assign fire damage to the monster's eyes randomly.
I'm aware of the poem. It doesn't fit the poem. My players tend to pre-buff certain energy types. Fire is a major one of them because there are so many dangerous fire spells. Some of my players read over monster books as well and knew about the fire rays of the Jabberwock. So I made sure to throw them a curve. Sonic is an extremely low use energy type, so I gave the Jabberwock sonic so it would have a better chance of challenging my players.
So I did it for purely mechanical reasons. And under the Jabberock description, it indicated there could be variants given the everchanging First World.
Gotta fit the challenge to the challengers. I couldn't just have my players pre-buff energy resistance and laugh off the Jabberwock's eye rays. They had to feel some fear.
The sonic themed changes are awesome, Maddigan. :)I made the eye rays sonic rather than fire. I changed the burn to vibration. They probably should do more damage.
The damage output of characters is pretty scary now even at range. Need the big dog creatures to do more ranged damage so they can compete.
When you're players are pre-buffing against fire attacks all the time, it definitely helps to throw them for a loop some of the time. I wanted the Jabberwock to scare them and be a challenge. I succeeded at scaring them, but the got lucky and put it down quick. So it wasn't much of a challenge.
My group is too big too. I figured it was Kingmaker, so I let them all have henchmen. The original group was five PCs, now it's five PCs and four henchmen. A Jabberwock doesn't stand much of a chance without being beefed up against nine optimized characters. Not much does.
I put the work in and have made Kingmaker challenging for nine characters so far. And they love having henchmen and followers since they are rulers. So I feel I made the right decision for this module. I normally don't allow Leadership. But if any module was made for Leadership, Kingmaker was.
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Creative Director
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Of course... changing the eye rays from fire to sonic suddenly doesn't make sense if you look at the original poem, where the Jabberwock is described as having "eyes of flame."
AKA: I didn't just assign fire damage to the monster's eyes randomly.
I'm aware of the poem. It doesn't fit the poem. My players tend to pre-buff certain energy types. Fire is a major one of them because there are so many dangerous fire spells. Some of my players read over monster books as well and knew about the fire rays of the Jabberwock. So I made sure to throw them a curve. Sonic is an extremely low use energy type, so I gave the Jabberwock sonic so it would have a better chance of challenging my players.
So I did it for purely mechanical reasons. And under the Jabberock description, it indicated there could be variants given the everchanging First World.
Gotta fit the challenge to the challengers. I couldn't just have my players pre-buff energy resistance and laugh off the Jabberwock's eye rays. They had to feel some fear.
I understand that... but one thing I think GMs forget to do or just plain DON'T do is let the PCs enjoy their toys. What's the point of fire resistance if you as the GM know the PCs will use fire resistance, and thus never give them a chance to use it in the first place?
Is there really anything wrong with the PCs feeling like their powers matter?
I understand that... but one thing I think GMs forget to do or just plain DON'T do is let the PCs enjoy their toys. What's the point of fire resistance if you as the GM know the PCs will use fire resistance, and thus never give them a chance to use it in the first place?
Is there really anything wrong with the PCs feeling like their powers matter?
I don't think it's really that binary. From the sound of it, their powers usually do matter, otherwise why bother buffing fire resistance all the time?
On the other hand, if you want to do something epic, sometimes you have to do something a little unusual that the players didn't see coming before hand. Maybe it was possible to research that this critter was different and had special attacks, yet the players grew lazy, and just went with what they knew from the bestiary.
I don't know. :) But both sides are right: It's not the GM's job to go out of his way to counter the players' abilities at every turn. But it is his job to ensure that particular epic encounters are memorable and awesome.
Of course... changing the eye rays from fire to sonic suddenly doesn't make sense if you look at the original poem, where the Jabberwock is described as having "eyes of flame."
AKA: I didn't just assign fire damage to the monster's eyes randomly.
I'm aware of the poem. It doesn't fit the poem. My players tend to pre-buff certain energy types. Fire is a major one of them because there are so many dangerous fire spells. Some of my players read over monster books as well and knew about the fire rays of the Jabberwock. So I made sure to throw them a curve. Sonic is an extremely low use energy type, so I gave the Jabberwock sonic so it would have a better chance of challenging my players.
So I did it for purely mechanical reasons. And under the Jabberock description, it indicated there could be variants given the everchanging First World.
Gotta fit the challenge to the challengers. I couldn't just have my players pre-buff energy resistance and laugh off the Jabberwock's eye rays. They had to feel some fear.
I understand that... but one thing I think GMs forget to do or just plain DON'T do is let the PCs enjoy their toys. What's the point of fire resistance if you as the GM know the PCs will use fire resistance, and thus never give them a chance to use it in the first place?
Is there really anything wrong with the PCs feeling like their powers matter?
No. Nothing wrong with it. But I was hoping to make the Jabberwock battle a little more epic and challenging. I failed anyway because of their toys. Briar killed the Jabberwock in one round. The player with Briar rolled a 20 and confirmed with a 19. End of the Jabberwock.
Now if I had planned to circumvent Briar, then I would have been taking extreme measures to circumvent the party's toys.If you were running my party, you might have taken more extreme measures than I did. I have a barbarian in my group that has saves he only fails on a 1 (Superstition and human bonus), 370 hit points not raging and 470 raging (he focused heavily on con), a two-handed fighter that does 250 plus point crits as a standard action attack (he focused on strength), and a cross-blooded sorcerer that does insane blast damage.
I used a CR 23 Jabberwock. He wasn't able to stand toe to toe with my party in battle. He would have died and died quickly. Pathfinder characters are really, really powerful at high level. A Jabberwock is a fairly weak creature to take on a fully optimized group of PCs without some modification.
You're a game designer. You know how whacky this game gets at high levels. We DMs that DM high level games have to do a lot of modifying to make any kind of challenge for high level PCs. The physical damage dealers do insane damage and the casters can heal a lousy 130 points of damage a round like it's nothing.
The group uses a Life Oracle as a healer. An optimized life oracle can heal and prevent the Jabberwock from being effective in her sleep.
If you saw how much I had to buff the CR 23 Jabberwock to challenge my party, you would consider sonic eye rays a fairly minor change.
I don't mind. I'm an experienced DM. I know how to beef stuff up and rate challenges for my players. But it's really unrealistic to believe that even a CR 23 Jabberwock is going to challenge an optimized party of appropriate level characters. And considering my party is larger than normal, I had to pull out the kitchen sink to make the battle memorable.
Any DM that runs players that are optimizers understands what has to be done by GMs at high level to make the game challenging in Pathfinder. Bestiary monsters and module encounters as designed do not stand up against optimized Pathfinder characters played by experienced players. That's just how it is and probably always will be.
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Of course... changing the eye rays from fire to sonic suddenly doesn't make sense if you look at the original poem, where the Jabberwock is described as having "eyes of flame."
AKA: I didn't just assign fire damage to the monster's eyes randomly.
I'm aware of the poem. It doesn't fit the poem. My players tend to pre-buff certain energy types. Fire is a major one of them because there are so many dangerous fire spells. Some of my players read over monster books as well and knew about the fire rays of the Jabberwock. So I made sure to throw them a curve. Sonic is an extremely low use energy type, so I gave the Jabberwock sonic so it would have a better chance of challenging my players.
So I did it for purely mechanical reasons. And under the Jabberock description, it indicated there could be variants given the everchanging First World.
Gotta fit the challenge to the challengers. I couldn't just have my players pre-buff energy resistance and laugh off the Jabberwock's eye rays. They had to feel some fear.
I understand that... but one thing I think GMs forget to do or just plain DON'T do is let the PCs enjoy their toys. What's the point of fire resistance if you as the GM know the PCs will use fire resistance, and thus never give them a chance to use it in the first place?
Is there really anything wrong with the PCs feeling like their powers matter?
Ran into this last night. Been having a tough time challenging my admixture evoker because every monster he can change his spells to the energy types he needs to be most effective. So I sent 9 alchemical golems at him. He still had a 1 in 4 chance of his resistance being useful. =p
... but one thing I think GMs forget to do or just plain DON'T do is let the PCs enjoy their toys. What's the point of fire resistance if you as the GM know the PCs will use fire resistance, and thus never give them a chance to use it in the first place?
Is there really anything wrong with the PCs feeling like their powers matter?
I think that the number of posts discussing the matter of challenging one's players might be unfairly reflecting the "want to challenge my PCs" aspect.
Most of the time the PCs cool shineys come into play frequently and often. They school their foes, wipe out hordes o' "mooks" and generally have a good time being Big D*mn Heroes.
It's the really "cool" encounters that get re-tooled to present their proper challenge to a given group, such as Maddigan's APL +5? group or my own APL +6 group.
We don't want to deny the players their shiny toys. We also want them to remember the signature encounters. The Jabberwock is one of those signature encounters, if not perhaps "the" signature encounter for the entirety of Kingmaker.
A signature encounter that sticks in the memory is one that is discussed years later. Most of the time they're not going to be ones that were one-round wonders. They're going to be the ones that the players sweated bullets to get through or they were so odd and unusual that they stick in the brain from sheer novelty.
Exactly.
I re-designed the Wild Hunt to make them more interesting. I always like the Wild Hunt from I believe Celtic Mythology. Really cool idea.
I made a pack of lvl 14 ranger dire wolves focused on trip to give that feel of the pack pulling the PCs to the ground and ripping them apart while the hunter picked off casters with his bow and two nymph druids named Sister Storm and Sister Death provided the spellcasting support. Then tossed in the huge troll two-handed fighter to hammer for damage.
Mage/Druid/Mystic Theurge used clashing rocks on the troll and took him out of battle for a while.
Cross-blooded (Dragon/Orc) Sorcerer nuked the ranger pack into oblivion within a round.
Fighter and barbarian killed the minor smilodons.
Life Oracle dispelled the fickle winds off the enemies.
This let the Zen Archer monk destroy the archer hunter.
Nymphs blinded a few people with their aura. Which was quickly cured by the life oracle.
Then the nymphs were nuked apart by the sorcerer along with their arrowhawk helpers.
As a DM you take the time to design encounters to make them challenging at high level, but you can only do so much. As a DM I'm designing strategies for 5 or 6 npcs or more. Each player is designing his strategies and focusing his magic items on one or two characters at the most. They come up with some seriously devious strategies using spells you might overlook as a DM like Prediction of Failure or Clashing Rocks. Then using a defense like antilife shell, a caster gets to unload with no real repercussions since the game designers decided to give antilife shell no save. Basically even the Jabberwock if his SR is bypassed is useless against a caster with antilife shell and resistance to fire. He's just there waiting to die.
So we gotta take extra measures to provide a challenge for such tactics. Otherwise the game becomes completely trivial. Which isn't fun to run as a DM.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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I'm aware of the poem. It doesn't fit the poem. My players tend to pre-buff certain energy types. Fire is a major one of them because there are so many dangerous fire spells. Some of my players read over monster books as well and knew about the fire rays of the Jabberwock. So I made sure to throw them a curve. Sonic is an extremely low use energy type, so I gave the Jabberwock sonic so it would have a better chance of challenging my players.Of course... changing the eye rays from fire to sonic suddenly doesn't make sense if you look at the original poem, where the Jabberwock is described as having "eyes of flame."
AKA: I didn't just assign fire damage to the monster's eyes randomly.
So your players meta-game too much (planning based on Bestiary entries) and your response is to meta-game back at them? Who started the meta-escalation?
So your players meta-game too much (planning based on Bestiary entries) and your response is to meta-game back at them? Who started the meta-escalation?
Doesn't your question answer itself? *puzzled expression*
So your players meta-game too much (planning based on Bestiary entries) and your response is to meta-game back at them? Who started the meta-escalation?I'm aware of the poem. It doesn't fit the poem. My players tend to pre-buff certain energy types. Fire is a major one of them because there are so many dangerous fire spells. Some of my players read over monster books as well and knew about the fire rays of the Jabberwock. So I made sure to throw them a curve. Sonic is an extremely low use energy type, so I gave the Jabberwock sonic so it would have a better chance of challenging my players.Of course... changing the eye rays from fire to sonic suddenly doesn't make sense if you look at the original poem, where the Jabberwock is described as having "eyes of flame."
AKA: I didn't just assign fire damage to the monster's eyes randomly.
The players. I wrote them an email with a huge description of what the Jabberwock was doing to their city as preparation for the encounter. It was mostly story oriented. Big storm conming. I had the main protagonist cast Storm of Vengeance on their city and Earthquake on their castle. So a few of them looked up the Jabberwock and read the entry thinking they would be ready with fire spells and fire resistance since it has fire eye rays and vulnerability. All I can say as a DM is: SURPRISE!
But it's not just that anyhow. I have players who are big time optimizers. Two of the players pour over the books and boards looking for every way to optimize their characters. Two of the other players pour over the books looking to optimize. They even planned out their henchment to optimize the group. That's how I found out how much a bard can turn a group into a much worse nightmare with action loading of the casters and seriously buffing the physical damage dealers ability to smash.
One poor guy is a casual player. He doesn't plan much. He shows up and plays. He even said at one point "Metamagic is worthless" while playing a wizard. For most of his levels he stood their shocked at what the others were doing until he finally understood that if he wants to compete with the other guys, he better do some optimiziation. He finally did.
Just the nature of the group. We have fun, so I don't sweat it a whole lot. They still get into the roleplaying heavy. They still have a great deal of fun playing. But they do make me work extra hard as a DM to challenge them. I think overall it has made me a better DM. I really can't throw stuff at them straight out of the book and expect it to be challenging. I get to have to fun making really intersting enemies and modifying monsters to scare them.
I want to know when we are going to get to see a Bandersnatch statted up. Or a Pathfinder version of Through the Looking Glass module? :)In COMPLETELY unrelated news I'm sure, we're going to release Bestiary 3 later this year. ;-)
Nice Plug worth repeating.
Have you considered that the player characters might be able to do some of this discovery in-game? That would kind of avoid the need for meta-anything on either part.
Yeah. They have the option to do it in game. But they should have waited. I let them roll Knowledge skills to determine what they know about a creature. They have a fairly substantial means of coordinating their knowledge checks with a bard. I do like to make Knowledge skills useful in combat.
I usually make a table in advance for a creature like the Jabberwock or I roll a random dice and start counting down special abilities in order to see what information they glean. If they had waited, they might have gleaned the Jabberwock's weaknesses. But they didn't wait.
Thinking of meta-gaming or toys is missing the point. The Jabberwock had no chance of challenging this party as written. None whatsoever. If I had tried to play the Jabberwock as this powerful First World Engine of Destruction attempting to go toe to toe with my party, it would have found out that the Material Plane Engine of Destruction known as my party is more powerful than it is. I have yet to find a creature in any of the Adventure Paths, Bestiaries, or any module of appropriate CR within 3 to 5 of my party that can challenge my party as written. I have to prepare for their tactics or the game would be ridiculously easy.
Just as an example of what I do to challenge my party. I buffed the Jabberwock with everything a druid could give it. It had mind blank on. I had +5 Greater Magic Fang on all its attacks permanencied. I buffed its AC. I gave it 1081 hit points. You read that correctly, I gave the Jabberwock 1081 hit points. My party outputs somewhere near 300 to 500 hit points of damage per round. I did all of this including modifying its eye rays to challenge my party.
I figured most DMs with experienced players do this. Pathfinder as written (and 3.5 and 4th edition) cannot handle experienced players. They make modules and encounters trivial due to understanding the strength of group coordination. They did the same thing in 2nd edition and 3rd edition and 4th (when we ran it for a while) and they do the same thing in Pathfinder.
Can you really run things as they are written in the modules and bestiary and challenge your party? I'd like to know. I can't.
I have the hydra in one of the modules 1200 hit points when they were level 13 and gave it 12 heads. It gave them a good run for their money. It managed to drop one PC. They hammered it down eventually. The low damage output of each head could barely hurt the Invulnerable Rager. The two-hander fighter wasn't even there. The barbarian still managed to do 600 points of damage by himself with Come and Get Me.
I know I can't be the only one experiencing this type of power playing. I find it odd that some posters seem to think what I'm doing is odd. I've been doing this with every iteration of D&D since advanced. The game doesn't hold up too well as you get higher level.