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I thought it might be interesting if some of the DMs here shared some of the more unorthodox ways they have challenged their players.
For instance, some low-CR creatures have dancing lights and/or ghost sound as spell-like abilities.
I have found that (almost without fail) if you have said creature hide and use these spells to create a glowing man-like figure to threaten a party of adventurers, the party will spend a round or two lobbing spells and missile attacks at it. Nothing irritates an arcane caster like wasting a fireball on a non-entity.
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This one is in no way creative, but I have gotten the PCs with the skeleton in the gelatinous cube trick. They thought it was a ghost for about two rounds (until it came into the light and promptly absorbed their fighter).
One of my favorite nasty DM tricks though is to stack traps. Most rogues will only really go after the first trap they see and will immediately assume that disarming one trap means they're safe (even for just a minute). Finding effects that stack well really is one of my favorite techniques for providing challenge. The effect doesn't even have to be damaging; one of my favorite traps turned the rogue lawful good for a period of 24 hours every time he got too close to the goodie the group was after (which promptly made him uninterested in stealing it like they had been asked).
The best example I can come up with quickly is that I once had a giant double door flanked by a pair of huge statues in the way of the players. Whenever they got close to the door, gouts of flame, ice, electricity, and acid would erupt from magical runes carved on the door. The players eventually came up with the plan to cast dispel magic on the runes and hopefully suppress their effects. The real trap though was that the two statues were actually tomb guardians who had volunteered to be turned into stone by the flesh to stone spell. Casting an area-effect dispel actually dispelled not only the runes, but set forth the guardians after the characters.
As a DM, coming up with creative challenges (not just combat encounters) is half the fun.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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Just last weekend I unleashed a special hallway trap. First, there's an unlocked door and 10 ft. in is a hidden portcullis in the ceiling with no trigger. Then, the hallway turns and 10 ft. ahead is the trigger to the portcullis as well as a second portcullis 10 ft. ahead operated by the same trigger, boxing the party in.
Then the fun begins as sand pours in from the ceiling for six rounds (after that everyone starts suffocating). Now, 10 ft. ahead of the second portcullis is a another door beyond which is a room filled with poison vipers.
The fun continues as the party tries to decide to go forward or to go back. In our case the party was split, three and three. The three that went back had to breach the portcullis with spells, escaping the sand with only a round to spare. The three that went ahead were stading on 2/3 sand and had to bash the top of the door open and drop into the room (a false crypt) filled with snakes.
The first group had to dig the second out using a bag of holding and a shield for a shovel.
It's good to be the GM.
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I'll start a new campaign and tell the players in advance that the enemies they face will be different than what they're used to, but not tell them how, then I'll change up stats on monsters: Vampire's damage reduction overcome by wood, staking the heart merely deals 3d8 damage instead of rendering it inert; allowing Lycanthropy to effect Fey, Fey Lycanthropes DR stacking and only overcome by Cold Iron instead of Silver; Good undead(they're still filled with negative energy, they're just not evil). Part of this is because after a while players are like, "oh, we're dealing with a Troll, bust out the fire.", and I don't want the game to become predictable or routine.
I also giving the party an ambiguous choice between two bad things happening; such as letting a bad guy become a demi-god by feeding upon the souls of corrupt dead, or releasing these evil spirits into the world by interupting his ritual.
I'm finding the monster section in every Pathfinder adventure path books a great ressource for this... Most monsters there are new, and almost all of them get my players pretty worried the first time they encounter them ("What the heck is THAT???").
Use known creatures to the best of their ability... Have the group fall in a 15ft pit as they are walking in the middle of a field, then have a dozen kobolds appear over the sides with short bows (since kobolds like using traps). Then have them flee if two PCs manage to get out...
Mix natural hazards with mundane monsters... Quicksand and stirges, for example. Use the AREA around the PCs to add flavor (and danger) to each encounter. Icy paths, thick fog, chest-high water, low ceilings, are all great at sticking thorns in the side of PCs, and it makes random encounters way more memorable.
Ultradan
I'm running a swashbuckling campaign, and they spent a long time tracking down the 3 keys to a magic treasure chest on La Isla Invizabla. The PCs then found a SECOND treasure chest. This chest was chained to the wall with an adamantine chain. The lock on the chain was triple-trapped.
1. It squirted acid onto the rogue's thieves tools, rendering them useless.
2. It targeted the rogue with an empowered or maximized acid arrow.
3. It cast acid fog that filled the room the chest was in.
The acid fog not only damaged all the PCs, but it slowly corroded the floor. The evoker dispelled it before it ate all the way through the floor, but then the trap got triggered a second time! The floor disolved, dropping the PCs 60 feet into a big room-shaped pit. The acid fog also descended to the bottom of the pit. The bottom of the pit also had some summoning circles that conjured a pair of elder arrowhawks (me being the DM, I rolled the minimum of 1d4+1!), which have Blindsight and immunity to acid (or at least acid res 20). The big treasure chest was still chained to the wall, but was dangling 30 feet above the floor of the room-pit, with the rogue hanging on!
magic treasure chest on La Isla Invizabla
I didn't see that coming!
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Do check out a thread I started a while ago, called "Nasty DM Tricks", I think.>> Linky <<
(used to be in archive, but now that someone's posted to it, the URL changed...)
Well, most of my players are HUGE fans of Firefly. In the course of their quest to find 3 magic keys, they went to a town called Beestone that was famous for their beeswax candles, honey, and mead. It was ruled by an evil aristocrat called the High Chandler, and his guards were gulgars mounted on yerthaks. One of the PCs is named Max, and he gave me permission to add a little bit to his backstory. So the PCs go to the local tavern to hear what's what, and there's a bard on stage and he begins to sing the Ballad of Max!!!
Max....the man they call Max!
He robbed from the rich and he gave to the poor
Stood up to the man and gave him what for
And you'll love this man when you know all the facts
The Hero of Beestone, the man they call Max!
Our Max saw the waxxers backs breaking
Saw the waxxers were droppers
And he saw the High Chandler taking
Every silver and leaving 2 coppers
He said "You can't do this to my people
You can't crush them under your heel."
Max strapped on his hat
and in 10 seconds flat
Stole everything there was fit to steal.
He robbed from the rich and he gave to the poor
Stood up to the man and gave him what for
And you'll love this man when you know all the facts
The Hero of Beestone, the man they call Max!
And here's what separates heroes
From common folk like you and I
The man they call Max
Turned round his Yrthaks
And let that money hit sky
He dropped it on our houses
He dropped it in our yards
The man they call Max
Dropped coins by the stacks
And headed out for the stars
He robbed from the rich and he gave to the poor
Stood up to the man and gave him what for
And you'll love this man when you know all the facts
The Hero of Beestone, the man they call Max!
So the cruelty I laid down was me singing at my players.
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I usually run 4 to 5 session "story" arcs within my overall campaign, and when we start at the beginning of a new one, I generally put the characters in the middle of something; you're in the middle of a Bar Brawl; you've just been thrown into Jail; you're Fighting unarmed with 10 monsters who are; "you're falling, make dex rolls"; "the tree you were sleeping under, just got kicked over by a hill giant, roll con"; you wake up, and there's a dead goblin in your bed; the vampire is sucking your blood, make a str check...
possibilities are endless. I always start things out with a bang, or least something interesting.