Theory crafting!
list your most dangerous encounters and their cr, also include if this encounter is particularly dangerous to certain party comps (mostly casters, people who like to rush in, etc)
this is just to have fun and share ideas between GMs who want to challenge their players while staying fair by rules as written
Vs casters, fort based traps with nasty poisons.
Vs martials, trigger that causes a berserk. Pretty nifty if said martial is a barbarian.
Symbol of death.
A dark room, where the wall covering explosive runes light up in slowly more clear letters.
A room with behind the fake walls, pugwampi witches.
Several pit traps that need to be dodged to de-activate a tesla-coil-esque crystal.
Ghost with blind sense and flyby attack, in a dark hallway, just darting through the walls, hitting people, then flying away. a caster supporting the ghost and giving it greater invis would also suck
Those tesla and pugwampi are the same encounter.
a door unlocked by a large metal sword while being chased with rust monsters
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having to beat a succubus...
in a wrestling tournament
A potentially quite dangerous CR 2 opponent:
** spoiler omitted **
Can cast persistent color sprays, can fly and go through walls, has an animal companion, nice defenses and skills, etc.
And animal soul makes him immune to a huge portion of the anti-undead abilities in the game.
damn, that is pretty nasty
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Anything where a group of intelligent opponents with mixed skills target the group for assassination.
They know who to target and when to hit them. Surviving something like that is amazingly difficult, and needs to be balanced very carefully by the DM to make sure there's either no death in the party, or at least not a TPK.
They are deadly encounters, and are also very complex to run well. Scares the pants of the players too.
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Mixing 3.5 in with pf
Mind flayers after previous opponents have dropped the players will saves.
Beholders or particularly nasty caster that a melee party can't get to (on the other side of metal bars, or shooting the player as they try to rush down a corridor).
Orc barbarian-clerics that stay close, plug a bottleneck and heal only each other.
Ghasts covered in yellow mould.
Lastly, rust lords vs. character that are very dependent upon their equipment.
forgive me if im wrong, but i didnt think that bloodragers got rage powers.
ahh, missed that, OK, carry on with the most badass dog ever
For a low level game;
Pillar of a thousand arrows trap, with several undead in the room.
THe arrows trap does nonlethal to all in a repeating radius, and undead are immune to nonlethal.
First, apply Mind Fog...
Then apply any of the 3 spells that does Killed, Nauseated, Staggered, Sickened. Or a grappling/seducing Succubus...
Multiple channel specced foes.
Not quite the most dangerous, but I once had a party that had a tendency to not use elemental resistances. One encounter was a near party wipe, but a few lucky rolls bailed them out. I had planned it to be a medium difficulty encounter while they were near full power.
Encounter Monsters (Total CR 16)
- 2x Iron Golem
- 1x Level 14 Ifrit Sorcerer (fire Elemental Bloodline)
The players were "ambushed" by the sorcerer and the iron golems in a room they thought was safe (wizard was studying to fill some spell slots due to new information they learned).
The Ifrit casted a delayed blast fireball (delay 2 rounds) as a Surprise attack in the square in front of the double door the party was hiding behind. Iron golem broke down the door and that was where things went down hill.
Basic Tactics, the sorcerer stayed out of the room and would occassionally throw some AoE fire effects (mostly just fireballs) to keep the Iron golems healed up. Eventually the party got out of the room and he switched to Chains of Fire. The party was level 16.
Will'o'wisps (CR 6) against any party unable to cast see invisibility and/or fly.
What's worse, these guys are cunning, often luring the party into other hazards prior to attacking, or else luring other, more dangerous monsters straight into the party's camp while they sleep at night; things like that.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Two 3rd-level evil clerics, each with Selective Channel, spamming negative channels. That is a CR 4 encounter. Against APL 1, it should be "epic", but it's more like "everyone's dead in round 1". Against APL 2, it should be "hard", but it's still very deadly.
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A single wight is CR 3, which should be "hard" for 1st-level PCs, but any attack it lands will auto-kill a PC. (Remember, the listed Fort save on energy drain is to keep the negative level from becoming permanent the next day, not to keep you from getting it in the first place.)
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A Cleric3 and a Ninja3 is a CR 4 encounter. The ninja goes invisible as a swift action, then gets into position. Then, the cleric casts hold person at DC 17 (with Spell Focus and Greater). They coordinate their actions via Delay/Ready so that the ninja acts before the affected PC gets another save, and uses CdG. Dead PC. Then, the ninja goes invisible again as a swift, and takes a 5ft step. Repeat this process twice.
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Two 4th-level alchemists: a CR 5 encounter. They both use DEX-mutagen and drink up some levitate and blur. They stand in the air above the PCs, dropping bombs down on them (penalty to hit from levitate, but they're touch attacks and still splash on a miss). Direct hit damage is 2d6+3, and the PCs can't get into melee and face 20% concealment for their ranged options.
Cairn wight zen archers, rapid fire arrows delivering 1 negative level per round, advanced template stacked with already good dex and modifiers for class levels. Possibly include a caster that could dispel wind walls, etc.
Highest CR was when my PCs "fought" an adult red dragon, which was CR 14, but it was an illusion and all the PCs had horrible will saves, so they wasted all of their one time a day spells and abilities on it, and then had to deal with the Summoner who spent the time they spent fighting the dragon, summoning an army of Dire Wolves with the Augment Summoning Feat and a Summoning shackle.
Incorporeal swarm immune to elemental damage.
Pugwampis charging in, while others pelt the PCs with poisoned darts. Good luck with those fort saves, kiddies!
Personally, I find that something like Warrior 3 has a disproportionate amount of hp for a CR 1 creature. Compare Caravan Guard, Fighter version of the same, and Gnoll.
Even the common human adept 3 can be a pretty naste foe, if done right.
CR 1
Human Adept 3
Init +5, pcp +8
HP 13
AC 15
To Hit: +2 scorching ray
Stats: Str 10, Dex 12, Con 11, Int 9, Wis 15, Cha 8
Feats: Improved Initiative, Spell Focus:Evocation, Spell Spec.:Burning Hands.
Gear: Scroll of Scorching Ray, Masterwork Light Wooden Shield, Mwk Studded Leather, Silver Holy Symbol + ~250gp.
Has three burning hands, 5d4, ref dc 14 for half.
It's not entirely unreasonable, but can take a few hits and might even down more than one pc in a single round, with a well-placed burning hands. (avg. 12.5 damage pre-save.)
Works fairly well as an evil cultist minion.
