My group is level 8 (soon to be 9) and we are making our way through Serpent's Skull and CoSS (book 3). I have never taken a Pathfinder campaign beyond level 8 and I am already finding it challenging. Some problems I could use advice with:
1.) Some encounters seem like cake-walks and others seem too challenging.
2.) I find it difficult to use higher-level monsters and NPCs effectively because I am not as well-versed in all of the myriad abilities, etc. they have and the stat blocks are getting bigger and bigger.
3.) Some of the players seem to universally outshine the others; specifically the Magus, the Alchemist, and the Cavalier are kicking butt while the Ranger and the Fighter seem to be ho-hum.
Any advice people could provide would be much appreciated.
1. Sometimes players like to veg-out with a filler encounter, other times you need to allow the players time to plan if a future encounter will be hard.
2. If you see a monster ability that you are unfamiliar with, chances are there is a post on the message boards with a simple explanation for it
3. Get together sometime with your players and help rebuild the fighter and ranger to be more optimized for that players style. Maybe their build put them in a combat role that they don't like. You can get some of the more experienced players in their party to help them if needed. If they wanted to they could become a butterfly sting pair if they needed more damage output. Make sure they get the final say in their build though.
You seem to have a very martial oriented party, with no full-caster and three martial character around the table. This is certainly a reason why your encounter can seem very easy or very hard. I don't know how to approach this problematic because I don't know your players specific builds.
About the Fighter and Ranger being behind, this is quite normal at this level because the three other characters have resource pools (bombs, spells, challenges, mutagen) they can Nova in the big encounters, and decent BAB so they can kill very efficiently easier encounters without expending resources.
To make the fighter and ranger shine, you could try a fight in the middle on the night, when spells and extracts are not ready yet, or use attrition with various average power level encounters to reduce the casting classes and the cavalier's resources. Don't hesitate to directly counter the strongest characters of your party when they are too specialized. For instance, Spell Resistance and energy immunity are a pain in the ass for the alchemist and magus, while it doesn't change anything for the fighter. Try to use grapples too. Grappled magus and alchemist aren't that strong, and they will need the help of other party members to escape.
Also, be sure your players are tracking there resources pool and that they really prepare their spells/extracts in advance. A lot of complaints about prepared caster power level comes from players that just decide on the fly what they have prepared a second fireball this day.
1) Yup. They are heroes now. Sometimes (not too foten) they should just get to ROFLSTOMP enemies.
2) This, will just take practice. I've ran several high level campaigns and still need to read up on many monsters. Wait until like 15+, then it starts getting very unwieldy. Read the blocks and have at least 2 or 3 different moves planned out. Don't plan too far ahead though cause the party will mess you up.
3) The discrepancies between classes and system mastery will start to become more real at this point, thats normal. The Magus and Alchemist are Nova classes, so if they aren't on a long grind or are allowed to sleep they should dominate. The fighter is meh, he's not even the best fighter. Tell the ranger to pick up instant enemy at level 10 as his third level spell, and a few pearls of power when he can. He can really start cranking out again when you can make any enemy the favored enemy.
The problem is system mastery/class discrepancies will only grow as you level. Perhaps offer the fighter a rebuild, or moving around a few feats. I can't be sure of your exact party mechanics so its hard to give you a lot of advice, just know that it shall continue.
So, you're right, it is more challenging. Good for you for wanting to improve your skills.
1. You're right, there's more of a range, because there's more variety. At low levels, enemies do hp damage, and are usually vulnerable to most kinds of attacks.
At higher levels, there's a bigger range in both attacks and defenses. Enemies might target saves or do electricity damage. They might have damage reduction or be mindless. Your players will be pushed harder, not only in terms of power, but in versatility.
When they do have the right tool for the job, let them enjoy it.
2. Check out the messageboards for those aps, they've been run hundreds of times, and there's good advice there. Gnome stew is another nice blog for gm's. And have your players do more, like track initiative and move miniatures.
3. Player skill shows more at higher levels. At 1st, it's all about rolling well. By 8th, stronger built characters have an advantage. That said, more encounters a day is an easy way to balance things back toward the ranger and fighter.