So I'm just finishing up Curse of the Lady's Light, and I'm having a terrible time making the combats interesting. They're either extremely deadly (the Glass Golem, the Seugathi) or they're pushovers (Quenelle Page, Oriana).
I'm seeing two significant problems with the party. First, there's a Tetori monk in the group. He's currently got a +16 CMB to grapple. Just as a reference, the Cave Giant in the adventure path has a 23 CMD. Because of Snapping Turtle stance, if someone attacks the monk and misses, the monk gets a free grapple check against it, and after the monk has a creature grappled he gets two chances to pin it on his turn because grapple checks are a move action for him now with greater grapple. Solo monsters are really boring to run now, since combats are just the monk running up to creatures and pinning them in two rounds.
The problem with large groups of monsters is the alchemist. He took the Stink Bomb discovery, so any time there's a bunch of foes he'll just throw a stink bomb and nauseate them, typically incapacitating half of them for 3 rounds. There was a fight with Quenelle Page and 7 Grey Maidens, and within two turns all of the Grey Maidens were nauseated, and the party just beat them to death while they tried to retreat up the stairs. It wasn't very fun.
I don't want to rewrite all the encounters. Are the class abilities just that horribly broken?
you dont have anything to deal with i got a horse with dragonstyle and a fighter riding it doing 80+ Dmg a round
Yes. After experiencing a witch with hex of misfortune, yes. Save or roll twice and take the worst result for everything, get hit again a second round if you do succeed, and if you fail, a cackle every round means it never runs out. That PC was the last witch in any of my campaigns, that is for sure.
Ditto. Witches=fun-vampires, sucking the fun right out of my games.
Yes. After experiencing a witch with hex of misfortune, yes. Save or roll twice and take the worst result for everything, get hit again a second round if you do succeed, and if you fail, a cackle every round means it never runs out. That PC was the last witch in any of my campaigns, that is for sure.
Misfortune (Su): The witch can cause a creature within 30 feet to suffer grave misfortune for 1 round. Anytime the creature makes an ability check, attack roll, saving throw, or skill check, it must roll twice and take the worse result. A Will save negates this hex. At 8th level and 16th level, the duration of this hex is extended by 1 round. This hex affects all rolls the target must make while it lasts. Whether or not the save is successful, a creature cannot be the target of this hex again for 1 day.
If a target of the Misfortune hex makes his original saving throw, then he is immune to that witch's Misfortune hex for 24 hours. The same goes for the Slumber hex.
It's not your fault. With stink bomb and a tetori monk, your PCs have made the combats boring on purpose so that they could win easier. I don't know what to say other than the PCs have to change their characters if they want to have fun.
It's like you're a table tennis referee and everyone brought baseball bats to play with and you're trying to figure out how to make shame ball fun.
No, the fault does not lie with you, but with the players. Explain to them that.
Oh I dunno ... since they're so well optimized, feel free to mix in some simple +1 CR templates from unusual sources. Post-It Notes work wonders. ;)
The other thing that this does let them do is plow through swathes of foes. Sooner or later, they'll get cocky and run into something supremely nasty, as you've already seen.
I'd chalk that up to "too bad, so sad" for the characters.
A recommendation: do not permit "level up" until they have at least a solid night's sleep and a bit of extra time - say, 10-12 hours' game time. Once in a while, interrupt that sleep when it makes sense for the local critters.
Perhaps a hungry ooze slithers under a door in the dead of night...