No offence taken, PK, I just wanted to make sure that people understood that in this case the player wasn't new. I actually have a new player now and she is amazing. She hasn't played D&D but she is doing fairly good for having chosen to play a Druid starting at level 9. Spells still overwhelm her a bit (I gave her a shortened list to choose for now). I don't have any complaints about her aside from being far too enthusiastic about everything xD
(Now I cancelled my lvl 9 game because of some difficulties in advancing the story and she is playing a lvl 1 barbarian, who is a better character to start)
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Anyway, Nitro, it's cool to know that you've got a pretty good grip of the finer points of tabletop gaming, it's just in my experience new players normally just don't understand that concept. You wrote like someone with a lot of experience with Pathfinder, tbqh, and I mean that as a compliment!
Why thank you! You also make a good point; I doubt most new players get quite as obsessive about this system as I do. Perhaps re-flavouring mechanics to a concept should be one of those standard things we teach new players, because it can really enhance your options.
Pathfinder is good at removing the need for that given the enormous wealth of mechanical diversity, but it's still a useful skill.
The worst pc I've ever had the misfortune to play alongside was some lame attempt at Min-maxing a mesmerist. The player dumped their strength and age to raise intelligence as much as possible and then played the character incredibly dumb. They refused to get into combat and ran while the rest fought. Refused to use their abilities when it could have helped. And their strength was so low that they were almost insta-killed by the first strength draining spider they ran into.
The whole experience made me quit the campaign and kindled within me that all Min-maxers and power-gamers are merchants of BADWRONGFUN. I have zero love for them and their ilk ever since. I believe they ruin the game for everyone.
Said enormous wealth of material does often put people off though
I don't understand why a Mesmerist would try to raise int.
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I am also seduced by variety and complexity of systems, but I realize that it's not for everybody.
The whole experience made me quit the campaign and kindled within me that all Min-maxers and power-gamers are merchants of BADWRONGFUN. I have zero love for them and their ilk ever since. I believe they ruin the game for everyone.
I'm no min-maxer, but I can say I know why they do it after having 4 character's die in a row in a campaign once, dosn't feel good. Looking back it was more my play style than my build though.
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A guy in my recent party made a Drake Rider Cavalier.
From level 1.
At first he carried the useless thing around in a box, then he left it at the party's house for safety. It was too dangerous to use the one and only class feature, the damned thing is a liability.
Utterly hopeless. He was playing an NPC warrior class.
Not his fault entirely, he saw the fluff, figured he could ride a dragon into combat with his lance and be awesome.
Having said that, he kept on rolling crits and his AC and HP were fine, so it wasn't a total mess. It's the fault of the writers of the poor archetype.
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The worst pc I've ever had the misfortune to play alongside was some lame attempt at Min-maxing a mesmerist. The player dumped their strength and age to raise intelligence as much as possible and then played the character incredibly dumb. They refused to get into combat and ran while the rest fought. Refused to use their abilities when it could have helped. And their strength was so low that they were almost insta-killed by the first strength draining spider they ran into.
The whole experience made me quit the campaign and kindled within me that all Min-maxers and power-gamers are merchants of BADWRONGFUN. I have zero love for them and their ilk ever since. I believe they ruin the game for everyone.
As a power gamer, yes, I like POWERFUL characters, I must say that this wasn't min maxing, it was a poor player is all. Min maxing is a technique, it doesn't replace player ability... and a guy who has his character run when the rest are fighting is just a poor team player and a poor player overall.
I agree that it was poor playing, but I have issues with all the power gamers I've played with as they are often self centered. They want their character to do everything and tell you how you should play your PC. I realize that I'm painting with a broad brush, but that has been my experience.
While my "tale of woe" doesn't compare to some of the others, I still feel compelled to share. I once rolled up a Halfling Rogue in 3.0. Pretty standard, right? Well, my "low" rolls were 8 and 10, and I decided to put the 10 into STR and the 8 into Cha, giving me 8 Str (for Halfling) and 8 Cha. I then decided to equip the character. I quickly discovered that not only was I penalized by low strength, but I was subject to a 3/4 carrying capacity penalty, so that I could not physically carry a light crossbow without being encumbered. Being a starting character, I could not afford a hand crossbow. I eventually went with a sling and stones at first level, which turned out surprisingly well. By the time I made it to second level I found a belt of lifting so I could increase my carrying capacity enough to carry a light crossbow. And before someone says "shortbow," I decided I didn't want the damage penalty from a shortbow due to low strength.
The plus side about this character was that I rolled two 16s, and put them into DEX (giving me 18) and INT, so I had plenty of skill points and a decent DEX bonus. That at least kept me alive and useful out of combat until I could level up.
Either that's too broad a brush, or I'm not a real Power Gamer... I play as part of a group, and my character is specialized... I'd never try to control the other players, or try to do everything myself.
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In the Iron Gods game I ran, there was a player who joined halfway through book 2 for one session and played a Ratfolk alchemist and had a 13 in intelligence, and a 5 strength, but insisted on carrying a greatsword for some reason and charged into every fight. He even had the gall to chastise the Wizard for having magic missile prepared because it was "sub-optimal". There was a reason he wasn't invited back after that session...
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In the Iron Gods game I ran, there was a player who joined halfway through book 2 for one session and played a Ratfolk alchemist and had a 13 in intelligence, and a 5 strength, but insisted on carrying a greatsword for some reason and charged into every fight. He even had the gall to chastise the Wizard for having magic missile prepared because it was "sub-optimal". There was a reason he wasn't invited back after that session...
How do you screw up a Ratfolk Alchemist? Every rule and every bit of lore bends over backwards to make it functional from level 1.
And in Iron Gods as well. An AP deliberately designed for nerd tinkerer PCs to shine.
Tsk.
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How do you screw up a Ratfolk Alchemist? Every rule and every bit of lore bends over backwards to make it functional from level 1.And in Iron Gods as well. An AP deliberately designed for nerd tinkerer PCs to shine.
Tsk.
I'm honestly not sure. and I'm a bit baffled as to why he had such a mediocre intelligence, given he had no qualms about breaking every other character creation rule I gave him, especially when it came to wealth. He didn't even give himself a headband...
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While my "tale of woe" doesn't compare to some of the others, I still feel compelled to share. I once rolled up a Halfling Rogue in 3.0. Pretty standard, right? Well, my "low" rolls were 8 and 10, and I decided to put the 10 into STR and the 8 into Cha, giving me 8 Str (for Halfling) and 8 Cha. I then decided to equip the character. I quickly discovered that not only was I penalized by low strength, but I was subject to a 3/4 carrying capacity penalty, so that I could not physically carry a light crossbow without being encumbered. Being a starting character, I could not afford a hand crossbow. I eventually went with a sling and stones at first level, which turned out surprisingly well. By the time I made it to second level I found a belt of lifting so I could increase my carrying capacity enough to carry a light crossbow. And before someone says "shortbow," I decided I didn't want the damage penalty from a shortbow due to low strength.
The plus side about this character was that I rolled two 16s, and put them into DEX (giving me 18) and INT, so I had plenty of skill points and a decent DEX bonus. That at least kept me alive and useful out of combat until I could level up.
Don't Small PC's use "Small" equipment, which weighs half as much as regular equipment?
My druid rolled for cash, and was so poor, that if he had bought a backpack, he wouldn't have been able to afford to put anything in it.
I doubt this is the forum for this, but I do have a question or two.
Is a weak character always a bad thing?
Are there specific areas that weakness can never be tolerated?
Could there be storylines where weakness might be preferable?
OK, that was three.
I doubt this is the forum for this, but I do have a question or two.
Is a weak character always a bad thing?
Are there specific areas that weakness can never be tolerated?
Could there be storylines where weakness might be preferable?
OK, that was three.
Yes, because this is a game too
Low will save, general uselessness, being an ass about it or acting bored because you made a s#+# character
Sure, but that whole game part in RPG goes out the window and if it doesn't then that story has non-traditional areas where one can be strong.
weak character implies useless, so yes, always bad.
Being weak at somethings but great in others is SOMETIMES maybe okay. Depending on how many areas, which areas those are, and how bad actually are you at them.
But the biggest issue with "weak" characters is there's no reason to build a character that way. It's very easy to create a character that does some skills well, magic and fights. So if you want to be the sneakiest sneak that ever sneaked, you can do that, AND still be useful in many other areas.
Characters should have a plan for contributing at combat to aid meaningfully in success for party. This is something that everyone needs to do because no one can do it for you, at best they are doing it in spite of you not helping, at worse everyone dies.
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I doubt this is the forum for this, but I do have a question or two.
Is a weak character always a bad thing?
Are there specific areas that weakness can never be tolerated?
Could there be storylines where weakness might be preferable?
OK, that was three.
All of the above depend on why you're playing, what you're playing and what you get out of playing.
If you play for nothing but silly fun, are playing a fun little oneshot homebrew and you enjoy roleplaying tragic deaths or hilarious failures... yeah, weakness can be great. If you're playing to advance the epic quest and save the world, are playing a highly detailed entirely constructed setting made by a creative genius and you find nothing sweeter than the dramatically roleplayed vanquishing of a hated foe... weakness will cause you and your team to have a bad time.
You can be weak if your team is weak and accept weakness and just want to have fun playing around. But don't let your team down. If people are expecting every character to pull their weight, then weakness isn't just a problem for you; it's a problem for everyone and that's not ok.
Storylines where weakness is preferable? Ever read the first few chapters of Order of the Stick? The Colour of Magic?
Gnome paladin.
Str 12, short sword, light shield, studded leather armor.
Yes, that's +2 to hit, doing 1d3+1 damage. I think she had Dex16? So that was AC18, which isn't bad at lvl1. But that damage...
1d4+1, but still. No Weapon Finesse?
I'm used to 5e weapons, where the weapons (not the characters) have the finesse tag, and Dex to damage to boot! A gnome paladin would be fun. Or a Halfling.
I doubt this is the forum for this, but I do have a question or two.
Is a weak character always a bad thing?
Are there specific areas that weakness can never be tolerated?
Could there be storylines where weakness might be preferable?
OK, that was three.
Call of Cthulhu is pretty much build on playing fragile, puny professors that slowly goes insane and are ultimately completely powerless in face of the real threat.
The Old school renaissance movement seems to emphasise the fun in playing a first level PC with 2 hp who gets splattered in the first encounter.
So, sure, there's ways of gaming where weak PCs are expected, even required. Those ways of gaming are, however, not great to mix with Pathfinder. And I don't think its any good if one player brings in that style to a table with a different kind of game.
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There is a big difference between making a character with weak points, what it's OK as long as it doesn't hinder the party, and making an useless character.
What useless means can depend on what the game is, of course. In Pathfinder you have to make sure to be able to do something in combat, in a politic Vampire game with zero combat a useless character could be something entirely different. A character has to be able to bring something useful to the story or it would be disruptive in the long term.
Take my Enchanter Wizard in 3.5. She had 3 forbidden schools (Dragonlance rules). She was a specialist on the weakest magic school. She started with a CON score of 9. If I didn't make sure that I could provide some useful help to the party I'd deserve that my fellows dropped my character into a pool and let her drown. So I didn't rely only on Enchantment spells. I tried to overcome my limitations to make my character useful despite her many issues. Making a weak character on purpose is not bad as long as you are willing to work around that weaknesses and be useful. But playing a weak character who wants to be its weaknesses instead of working around them is disruptive.
Note that I am not talking about not making your weaknesses relevant or not roleplaying them. You should do it. But don't let your weaknesses define you. Look for alternative ways to remain useful.
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The problem in most of the cases raised in this thread seems to be people making characters like the one kileanna describes and not doing anything about it at all but instead Charging in with a great sword and 13 strength or trying charm a zombie.
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Playing a Enchanter Wizard requires a lot of points in Knowledges so your character always knows when an enemy is immune to mind affecting.
If I was playing my Wizard and if an enemy with immunity to mind-affecting appears and my only option there was doing nothing, I wouldn't be playing well. I need to have other options: casting Haste on my party, summoning, something. If I know my character has a weakness I have to plan in advance so I can still be useful. Maybe it won't be my best fight but at least I'll be helping my party.
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My worst experience was at a convention, playing Arcana Unearthed classes. My friend and I showed up early, to find that everyone else had shown up even earlier, and the last classes were a Magister (wizard/arcanist) and an Akashic (skillmonkey). Like an idiot, I let him have the Magister. :)
In theory, Akashics aren't totally useless, but the scenario for which these pregenerated characters were created used foes that were immune to the Akashic's attacks (he had an item that threw some mental blasts, and a weapon that did piercing damage, and I think some sneak attack. the undead were immune to the mind-affecting blasts, had DR 5 against piercing, and were immune to sneak attack). My friends Magister did something like 231 pts of damage in the scenario (he kept count, because he was having so much fun overcasting and undercasting his boom spells), and, after DR, my character managed to get a single point of damage through, with his 1d6+1 rapier attacks. He did manage to *take* an amazing amount of damage, 'though, and every other PC at some point handed him their healing potion...
But he's not a damage dealer, he's a skill monkey! So, obviously the designer of these pregens, and the adventure, would have considered that? Nope. Despite my asking to a possibly annoying degree if I could attempt X or roll Y, I ended up needing to make one critical skill roll, near the end of the session, which turned out to be some sort of Spellcraft or Knowledge (Arcana), which the Magister had a higher skill total, and rolled better, on, anyway.
Ugh.
Unfortunately, that was the one chance I had to play that game. The Witches, Magister, Warmain, etc. all seemed like fascinating and fun classes, but I got stuck with the Akashic, in a scenario that was almost surgically designed to exclude him.
Later on, one of the people running the game said to me, 'Yeah, my wife said the Akashic might be useless here...' and I gritted my teeth and thought to myself, 'Your wife is wise and you should listen to her more often.' :)
As for other players, there's always the ones who are new to these sorts of games and roleplay a bit too much to be effective. 'I bet my arrow would do more damage if it was on fire! I spend this round holding my arrow in the campfire.' or 'These guys are scary! I climb up a tree to get away from them!'
Such things are not entirely unreasonable, but experienced gamers generally expect a more useful (and, optimally, homicidal) choice of action from anyone operating under the title of 'Adventurer.' :)
What I'm telling now was one of the most frustrating experiences ever for Dalindra. We were invited to take part of a homebrewed setting with fully homebrewed rules. The GM was a pretty nice man but we had never played with him and didn't know how he was going to be as a GM. He was the worst GM we've ever had. We didn't get to roleplay our characters or take decissions, just roll dice. He described everything that our characters did, like coming into a trap without noticing and never gave us a chance to say that we looked for traps. In combat he had his GMNPC who solved everything and who attacked whenever we tried to negotiate. He said about a player who left: «I'm glad that he left because his character was going to be too strong and I was going to kill him in the first session». The player had left BEFORE we started playing so that means the GM allowed him to create his character just to kill it. About mine he complained a lot about being too powerful because he dealt about half the damage his GMNPC dealt.
But Dalindra took the worse part: he wanted to play a caster character and the GM was OK with it. He also chose to play a sort of doppleganger who was very weak physically but subtle and smart. A good choice for a spellcaster.
So what did the GM do? After the character was created, he told Dalindra that he wasn't going to introduce magic on the first sessions because it was too complicated so he gave his character a dagger so he could defend himself. As he thought being able to shapeshift was also OP, he changed his own rules for shapeshifting so he could only do it if he rolled a natural 20, and even then it was a flawed transformation that could easily be identified as a doppleganger.
Dalindra asked for picking a different character if he wasn't going to be allowed to use magic but the GM wouldn't let him as he had already prepared everything and making a new sheet would be time consuming. So he spent the 3 sessions we lasted before he quit the game trying to stab enemies and failing all the attacks.
He was so frustrated that he tried to suicide his PC sending him in foolish attacks but the GM always had his GMNPC saving him or just forbid his course of action.
It was a really awful game.
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That story made me so angry an angry alias happened
An angry alias with a really cool avatar!
Not Pharasma but cool anyway!
I don't even know why we lasted 3 sessions. Maybe because the GM was awful as a GM but a very nice person and I wanted to give him an opportunity.
I don't even remember if the story had any plot at all. We went on a trip, fought enemies, camped, spotted something at night, fought, encountered a cave with a sleeping dragon that we weren't supposed to fight, frontally attacked it trying to get killed, were saved by the GMNPC and quit the game. That's all.
Edit: Just to point out how frustrated we felt, Dalindra and I never had tried to get our own characters killed and never tried again on further games. We are against it. We did it just that time out of sheer desperation. It was probably something stupid to do.
Yeah there aren't really any angry Pharasma pictures :( she's a pretty chill gal.
How long were the sessions? Because in the games I've played sessions are normally minimum 2 and a half hours, playing a wizard with 0 spells and a dagger for 7 and a half hours sounds freaking maddening.
About 4 hours of highly organized sessions with zero time wasted on OOC chatter.
Scared?
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And now that I'm thinking about it I think we lasted not 3 but 4 sessions.
The 2 first ones I wanted to leave but Dalindra wanted to give the GM an opportunity. The last 2 ones it was Dalindra who wanted to leave and I didn't want to offend the GM as he was a nice person and was so excited about his own story. It's difficult to tell a person «I don't like your GMing style». That's why I usually ask my players to give me advice about which things they think I should improve or remove from my games. That gives them an opportunity to give me some constructive criticism without having to be harsh or telling me directly that I am doing things wrong. People is not usually that sincere.
16 hours of being a spell less wizard with a dagger
Holy moly
My god... and I thought the time my GM arbitrarily gave the dragon combat reflexes just to counter my attempt to spread out and not all get hit with the breath weapon was bad.
I mean that does sound fairly obnoxious
It was a nearly full grown dragon to. After we killed it (Only managed because my cavaliers order of the dragon ability pushed the barbarian over the AC threshold to finish the thing of) we looked the encounter up in the module. The thing had 8 friggen dex.
LOL. How many AoE got that Dragon to do with his 8 Dex? Did at least your GM played it right or did he give infinite AoE?
My Fire Wizard complained because the BBEG on my campaign wore an Evasion ring and casted Protection against fire on himself. It was a White Dragon.
The funny thing is that he wasn't even on that encounter (we told him after the game ended) and his evasion was irrelevant as nobody tried to target him with spells because of his ridiculously high SR.
But he was offended by the sole idea of a White Dragon with Evasion and Protection against fire.
I think it's appropriate for the last boss of a campaign.
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What I'm telling now was one of the most frustrating experiences ever for Dalindra. We were invited to take part of a homebrewed setting with fully homebrewed rules. The GM was a pretty nice man but we had never played with him and didn't know how he was going to be as a GM. He was the worst GM we've ever had. We didn't get to roleplay our characters or take decissions, just roll dice. He described everything that our characters did, like coming into a trap without noticing and never gave us a chance to say that we looked for traps. In combat he had his GMNPC who solved everything and who attacked whenever we tried to negotiate. He said about a player who left: «I'm glad that he left because his character was going to be too strong and I was going to kill him in the first session». The player had left BEFORE we started playing so that means the GM allowed him to create his character just to kill it. About mine he complained a lot about being too powerful because he dealt about half the damage his GMNPC dealt.
But Dalindra took the worse part: he wanted to play a caster character and the GM was OK with it. He also chose to play a sort of doppleganger who was very weak physically but subtle and smart. A good choice for a spellcaster.
So what did the GM do? After the character was created, he told Dalindra that he wasn't going to introduce magic on the first sessions because it was too complicated so he gave his character a dagger so he could defend himself. As he thought being able to shapeshift was also OP, he changed his own rules for shapeshifting so he could only do it if he rolled a natural 20, and even then it was a flawed transformation that could easily be identified as a doppleganger.
Dalindra asked for picking a different character if he wasn't going to be allowed to use magic but the GM wouldn't let him as he had already prepared everything and making a new sheet would be time consuming. So he spent the 3 sessions we lasted before he quit the game trying to stab enemies and failing all the...
That really sounds like a rough sit-through, and the GM should probably have caught on, to the problems Dalindra and you, were having with how he was running things.
However there was a bit in there, that I unfortunately catch myself doing sometimes. Its the part about "taking control of a player" to adequate describe a scene, to such a degree that its understandable by all the players. I mean describing a room and its contents, or how a monster looks and behaves is not a problem, but its often when game mechanics gets into the mix. A troglodyte can be be described as foul smelling, but as a GM you kind of have to somehow convey, how the smell is affecting the character, when they fail their save against the troglodytes stench.Its here that I find myself, unfortunately at times, taking a bit to much of player agency away, by describing how the smell makes them double over and go green in the face...
I don't know if I'm being to rough on myself, but it just seem to myself, that I should limit my scope to describing, how the world reacts and let the players have sole discretion on how, why, and to whom their characters react.
LOL. How many AoE got that Dragon to do with his 8 Dex? Did at least your GM played it right or did he give infinite AoE?
I can't quite remember the specifics, but he definitely took a number of AOO's. The reason he did it I think, is because I was riding my mount behind the dragon after winning initiative. He got an AOO, weird I thought, to have combat reflexes with what should be a horrible dex but not totally out of the question. So I fast dismounted to continue the move behind him and he got me then to.
We dealt with it, but after finding out I was pretty miffed.
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Well, I can see how a player could be bothered by that, but I don't see it as a big flaw. I've had many GMs who did that, but when a player corrected them saying «No, my character worked in a port and had to smell rotting fish a lot of times. He is not very affected by foul smells» the GM was OK with it and allowed the player's correction. That is not bad GMing at all.
But when you say «You open the door, walk into the room and fall into a trap» without allowing the player to say «Wait, I don't do that. I check for traps before opening the door, then I open it stealthily and I look inside to see if it's empty» that is bad GMing, specially when you don't allow your players to correct what you said because you should have said that before but never gave you a chance to say it. He also didn't allow him to choose our actions in advance like: «unless I say otherwise I check all the doors for traps». We had to say it just in time and then he wouldn't allow us to say it xD
Well, I can see how a player could be bothered by that, but I don't see it as a big flaw. I've had many GMs who did that, but when a player corrected them saying «No, my character worked in a port and had to smell rotting fish a lot of times. He is not very affected by foul smells» the GM was OK with it and allowed the player's correction. That is not bad GMing at all.
But when you say «You open the door, walk into the room and fall into a trap» without allowing the player to say «Wait, I don't do that. I check for traps before opening the door, then I open it stealthily and I look inside to see if it's empty» that is bad GMing, specially when you don't allow your players to correct what you said because you should have said that before but never gave you a chance to say it. He also didn't allow him to choose our actions in advance like: «unless I say otherwise I check all the doors for traps». We had to say it just in time and then he wouldn't allow us to say it xD
I must say don't think, I have ever done anything like that. I mean when I have players who don't describe their characters as doing anything other that "I open the door" or "I walk into the room", I might ask something like "So no looks around at the content of the room?" or "Nobody checks the door?" to kind of hint them in to exploring their surroundings.
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I stopped hinting to experienced players because some of them were getting lazy, but I always stop the game and make them describe step by step what they are going to do. When they are done I ask: something else?
For long instances, I make them describe their base strategies for the whole place (check all the doors for traps, move stealthily, send the rogue ahead, etc) and make them only tell me when they want to do a different thing.
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I stopped hinting to experienced players because some of them were getting lazy, but I always stop the game and make them describe step by step what they are going to do. When they are done I ask: something else?
For long instances, I make them describe their base strategies for the whole place (check all the doors for traps, move stealthily, send the rogue ahead, etc) and make them only tell me when they want to do a different thing.
*Dreams of having players like Kileanna's who can hold their focus for longer that... *Squirrel!!!* looks out of the window *
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Almost forgot this one, but Kileanna's comment sparked a memory...
...playing in a module for PFS and encountered a shadow at L1 in an 'evergreen'.
...our 'beefiest melee combatant' ended up taking a lot of STR damage.
...rest of scenario was quarter-movement 'turtle formation' and drawing out enemies so our now 'glass' tank could contribute without getting the party dead.
I doubt this is the forum for this, but I do have a question or two.
Is a weak character always a bad thing?
Are there specific areas that weakness can never be tolerated?
Could there be storylines where weakness might be preferable?
OK, that was three.
I hate having a weak character, but I suppose it's not always a bad thing, depending on who is playing and whether the DM will let a weak character survive...
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I think weak characters can be fine if the players are okay with it and the GM doesn't mind basically holding back more than he would usually.
EDIT: oh and the player themselves if aware they're weakening themselves and doesn't moan about it.
LOL. How many AoE got that Dragon to do with his 8 Dex? Did at least your GM played it right or did he give infinite AoE?
My Fire Wizard complained because the BBEG on my campaign wore an Evasion ring and casted Protection against fire on himself. It was a White Dragon.
The funny thing is that he wasn't even on that encounter (we told him after the game ended) and his evasion was irrelevant as nobody tried to target him with spells because of his ridiculously high SR.
But he was offended by the sole idea of a White Dragon with Evasion and Protection against fire.
I think it's appropriate for the last boss of a campaign.
I just DMed a 5e homebrew dungeon where the BBEG was a druid mummy. After he took fire damage once (he had fire vulnerability), he cast Protection from Energy (fire) while hiding behind a ziggurat/tomb. The players were a little bewildered and I don't think they caught on. Most of them have either thunder and lightning powers (a Tempest cleric and a storm-based wizard) or dark shadowy powers, so they don't use a lot of fire damage stuff. The monk has fiery fist powers, but he got to use those against the "Demogorgon" flesh golem.
When I played PF, I often redesigned monsters and their feat selections. If a monster has a +8 racial bonus to Perception, it doesn't need Alertness. Iron Will or Combat Reflexes or Quicken Spell-like Ability will usually be more fun.
It was a nearly full grown dragon to. After we killed it (Only managed because my cavaliers order of the dragon ability pushed the barbarian over the AC threshold to finish the thing of) we looked the encounter up in the module. The thing had 8 friggen dex.
On one hand; to be fair he only did so because he new that we were going to kill the thing in a few rounds anyway, and he was intentionally tolling us.
On the other hand; The bastard polymorphed my Trex into a Halfling!
I'm not against to change the enemies to make a more appropriate fight, changing some feats, prepared spells, even leveling them up... be it to make a tougher fight or to make it easier depending on the players.
As long as you don't tailor all encounters to kill the PCs or make their strategies useless (nothing wrong if your main strategy doesn't work from time to time, but making it useless makes you wonder why you are playing your character), rewriting enemies doesn't seem like a bad thing to do as long as it is supported by the rules (giving 5 AoO to an enemy with 8 Dex is weird).
Said that, I am usually lazy to do it if it's not for a very good reason. I don't care that my players finish an enemy in one blow without being able to act if I know other enemies are going to be more threatening.