I only see one option for you, sunder monks. Make an entire encounter with nothing but 14th level (incert any race you want here, even monsters work) monks that specialize in sundering, taking feats from 3.5 and go to town on them.
Reasoning behind the advice. One Monks are one of the best classes to go up against spell casters due to their high saves and high touch ac; 2, while a fighter, paly, and barbarian might be able to out fight a monk they can't do it without their weapons, even a swordsage needs his weapons to use his nifty diciplins, that and monks have a full CMB and sundering is a combat manuver; 3 there are weapons that improve sunder checks.
so in sumation sunder the Sh!t out of their weapons and watch as they fall hard.
http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?board=9.0
Behold the Min/Max It! section of the Brilliant Gameologists boards. Pay particular attention to the Dirty Tricks handbook.
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Mind Flayers. Everyone is Scared of Mind Flayers.
Step 1. Mind Blast
Step 2. Charm person whos left
Step 3. Grapple stuned player.
Step 4. Consume Brains.
I present an Advanced Quickling Mindflayer Monk 12.
A pair of these bad boys would be CR 18, an Epic battle.
CR16 (mind flayer base 8, Advanced +1, Quickling +1, Monk lvls +6)
LE Medium humanoid (aberration)
Init +17 (+9dex, +4 imp int, +4 template) Senses Perception +23
-----------------------------------
DEFENSE
-----------------------------------
AC 37, touch 33, flat-footed 23
(+9 dex, +5 dodge, +4 natural +9 monk)
hp 180 (20d8+110)
Fort +17, Ref +21, Will +22
-----------------------------------
OFFENSE
-----------------------------------
Speed 130 ft.
Melee Unarmed Strike +25,+20,+15,+10(2d6+5) Or
Tentacles x4 +25(1d4+5+ grab)
Special Attacks
Flurry of Blows +19/+19/+14/+14/+9 (2d6+5)
Stunning Fist Dc 26 fort
Spell Like abilities Mind Blast (dc22 Will), detect thoughts (dc 18), suggestion (dc 19), Levitate, Plane Shift, Extract, Telepathy 100ft, flurry of blows, Stunning Fist, evasion, maneuver training, Still mind, Ki pool (9 points), Purity of Body,Wholeness of Body, Improved Evasion, Diamond Body, Abundant Step
-----------------------------------
STATISTICS
-----------------------------------
Str 20, Dex 28, Con 20, Int 24, Wis 22, Cha 22
Base Atk +16; CMB +21 (+25 for grapple); CMD 50
Feats,Combat Combat casting, Improved initative, Weapon Finesse, Toughness, Agile Maneuvers, Defensive Combat Training, Ability Focus(mindblast), Greater Grapple, Imp natural Armor, Dodge, Mobility, Quick Draw, Quicken Spell, Combat Reflexes, Improved Grapple, Improved Trip, Improved Unarmed Strike,Stunning Fist
Skills Acrobatics +34, Climb +20, Escape Artist +24, Intimidate + 21, Perception +23, Stealth +24
Special Qualities Rapid Attacks, Quick casting, Fast Healing 1,
Languages Common
Magic Items (100k in total)
Manual of Quickness of Action +2 (55k)
Belt of Physical Might con/ str +4 (40k)
Cloak of Resistance +2 (4k)
1kg left over
A quickling uses all the base creature’s statistics and special
abilities except as noted here.
Initiative: A quickling gains a +4 bonus on initiative rolls.
Speed: Each of a quickling’s speeds is quadruple the
corresponding speed of the base creature. If the quickling
has a fl y speed, its maneuverability increases by two
categories (maximum perfect).
Armor Class: Th e base creature gains a +4 dodge bonus to AC.
Conditions that cause the quickling to lose its Dexterity
bonus to AC also cause it to lose this dodge bonus.
Special Attacks: A quickling retains all the base creature’s special
attacks and gains those described here.
Rapid Attacks (Ex): A quickling may make an extra ranged
attack at its highest attack bonus during any attack action
and when making a full attack. Furthermore,
it may modify any or all of its melee attack
rolls with its Dexterity modifi er instead of its
Strength modifi er, if desired. When it makes
this substitution for all its melee attacks in an
attack action or a full attack, it gains an extra
melee attack at its highest attack bonus.
Quick Casting (Ex): When casting any spell with a casting time
greater than 1 action, the quickling can cast it in 1 action.
Special Qualities: A quickling retains all the base creature’s special
qualities and gains the one described here.
Fast Healing (Ex): A quickling regains 1 hit point per round.
Abilities: Increase from the base creature as follows: +8 Dex.
Skills: A quickling rapidly gains an understanding of its
environment, which grants it a +2 racial bonus on Listen,
Search, and Spot checks. In addition, it gains a +10 racial
bonus on Tumble checks and can use Tumble as though
trained even if it possesses no ranks in the skill..
Feats: A quickling gains Dodge, Improved Initiative, Mobility,
Quick Draw, Quicken Spell, and Spring Attack as bonus
feats, assuming that it meets any prerequisites and the base
creature does not already have them.
Challenge Rating: Same as the base creature +1.
The archer will be easy to find, if he fires 4 arrows per 6 secs. And besides, stickly with the rules, the archer cannot see the PCs either.
Rest is ok.
Not so sure about that being easy to find on the first few rounds, especially with a round devoted to moving in between. Also, the sniper would get the benefit of taking 20 to start the combat, perception enhancing items and some serious circumstance bonuses for knowing exactly what area they're in.
I would plague the party with gremlins who can turn regular magic items into cursed ones. Your endless bags of holding for all your loot? The gremlins turned those into bags of devouring and those are now trying to eat your arm. Meanwhile, your scarab of protection now thinks its a scarab of death and is trying to burrow into your chest.
After the gremlins have left them wounded, damaged and possibly dead, let them deal with some fey lords who sent the gremlins as the advance guard to soften them up.
I removed a post that was the opposite of constructive criticism.
Bard with optimized Inspire Courage (Words of Creation, Inspirational Boost, Dragonfire Inspiration, Song of the White Raven) and a lot of melee critters. Even at low levels, she adds massive to hit and damage bonuses. When a PC bard does this for a party, it is amazing. When an NPC bard does it for lots of bad guys, it is apocalyptic.
Bard with optimized Inspire Courage (Words of Creation, Inspirational Boost, Dragonfire Inspiration, Song of the White Raven) and a lot of melee critters. Even at low levels, she adds massive to hit and damage bonuses. When a PC bard does this for a party, it is amazing. When an NPC bard does it for lots of bad guys, it is apocalyptic.
A dip into Marshall can give all the little baddies the her Cha bonus to damage when flanking (or as a bonus to CMB if you want to get trip/disarm/whatever-crazy).
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Quite honestly, if they're optimized, they have dump stats, and monsters that target those dump stats will mess with them very badly.
An alchemist armed with smoke sticks, an anti-magic field (the mana wastes would be great), and some variety of stirge attractant? Actually, no. He's the only one who has the formula for the stir repellent, isn't sharing, and scheduled the battle with the overtwinked PC during the great stirge migration. It's like passenger pigeons that suck blood. Throw in something like smokesticks so no one can see and wait to see how soon until someone drops.
Of course, that may no be what you want, but honestly, just sit down and talk with your players about what they want from the game.
+1
Flying Arcane Archers with arrows infused with Anti-Magic Field. :D, sure you have to have to plink them down, but it takes away all their magic items and any supernatural or spell like abilities
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I'm really appreciating all of the suggestions. Thanks everyone!
I'm working on a list of templates I like right now. Since my PCs are going up against Aberrations, esp. Mind Flayers, I found that the Half-Farspawn and Thoon Thrall templates gave some pretty hefty power boosts.
One of the characters the PCs will go up against next session is a group of Githzerai thralls led by a Half-Farspawn Githzerai Weapon Adept Monk 6/Weapon Master Fighter 3/Swordsage 1. Blindsight takes care of the invisibility, I've got a decent AC coming from the supercharged Dex and Wis, and I added in some Abyssal Heritor feats from Fiendish Codex 1 to further boost attack rolls and AC with Precognitive Visions and Demon Skin.
All of this remains within the flavor of my game, as the Mind Flayers have been traveling the planes for over a century before the game started, explaining how they got all of those disparate influences packed into their unspeakable fleshcrafting labs.
The other Githzerai is going to be a Cleric of the Dragon Below, a Divine Metamagic-Quicken/Persistent Spell buffer in order to present a second decent attacker to the party that will also be able to buff the Monk further into the stratosphere, but I haven't actually built her yet.
Now that I look at the stats again, they might make good minions for Solarious's Mindflayer monk, making for a really good boss fight (and breaking me free of my reliance on "solo" boss fights). I'm going to keep working on other ideas inspired by this thread for future sessions, too.
I'm actually curious as to the builds/sheets/characters/whatever you want to call it of your players. Swordsage with dex to damage isn't as scary as a charging fighter who does like five times their damage with triple strength to it as far as damage goes, after all.
I'm really appreciating all of the suggestions. Thanks everyone!
I'm working on a list of templates I like right now. Since my PCs are going up against Aberrations, esp. Mind Flayers, I found that the Half-Farspawn and Thoon Thrall templates gave some pretty hefty power boosts.
One of the characters the PCs will go up against next session is a group of Githzerai thralls led by a Half-Farspawn Githzerai Weapon Adept Monk 6/Weapon Master Fighter 3/Swordsage 1. Blindsight takes care of the invisibility, I've got a decent AC coming from the supercharged Dex and Wis, and I added in some Abyssal Heritor feats from Fiendish Codex 1 to further boost attack rolls and AC with Precognitive Visions and Demon Skin.
All of this remains within the flavor of my game, as the Mind Flayers have been traveling the planes for over a century before the game started, explaining how they got all of those disparate influences packed into their unspeakable fleshcrafting labs.
The other Githzerai is going to be a Cleric of the Dragon Below, a Divine Metamagic-Quicken/Persistent Spell buffer in order to present a second decent attacker to the party that will also be able to buff the Monk further into the stratosphere, but I haven't actually built her yet.
Now that I look at the stats again, they might make good minions for Solarious's Mindflayer monk, making for a really good boss fight (and breaking me free of my reliance on "solo" boss fights). I'm going to keep working on other ideas inspired by this thread for future sessions, too.
MM3 has a neat template that gives a critter a mental tentacle, an acid breath weapon, and some neat mindflayer puppet powers.
Shadows.
In 3.5 they only need to the the touch AC, unless they have a ghost touch they have a 50% miss chance even with magic weapons, and as a CR 13 you can send 32 of them or a pack of four greater shadows as a 12.
Even assuming that the party is killing one on ever hit and can only miss on a 1, it will still take a bit for each of them to kill off there 8. In that time they will take some serious str damage.
Oddly this works even better if they manage to turn some of the undead (although things get a bit tricky if there is a cleric with the Sun domain, or someone who is likely to turn at twice there level). The cleric scare off a bunch of the undead. Undead flee for 10 rounds at max speed. Since they incorporeal nothing stops them. 11th round undead return to normal. Undead head back. Since they hate all life they stop to kill anyone they come across on the way who is a humanoid. Undead and newer undead under first undeads control now head back to kill the party.
By this the time the party has healed up/removed debuffs but many buffs are gone, rage is out, etc.
If you really want to mess with party, have a few wizards who cast Enervate will do wonders to soften them up before the fight with the wizards.
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MM3 has a neat template that gives a critter a mental tentacle, an acid breath weapon, and some neat mindflayer puppet powers.
Is that one of the "Thoon" creatures? I'm seriously considering doing some broken things with the Thoon creatures, considering the fluff is already Mind Flayer appropriate.
Shadows
Good idea, though the Swordsage's touch AC is pretty scary. Some of those greater shadows might do the trick anyway...
I'm actually curious as to the builds/sheets/characters/whatever you want to call it of your players. Swordsage with dex to damage isn't as scary as a charging fighter who does like five times their damage with triple strength to it as far as damage goes, after all.
It's not the damage output that's the issue, as much as the saves, defenses, and evasive abilities. Unfortunately, I don't have the character sheets handy, but the Swordsage and Warblade have AC in the high thirties and saves in the low twenties, and all of those Shadow Hand school evasive abilities (teleport 50ft as a move action, spider climb at will as a stance, hovering 1 foot above the ground as a stance, and a ring of invisibility (go invisible as a standard action, with no limit on duration or uses).
Bard with optimized Inspire Courage (Words of Creation, Inspirational Boost, Dragonfire Inspiration, Song of the White Raven) and a lot of melee critters. Even at low levels, she adds massive to hit and damage bonuses. When a PC bard does this for a party, it is amazing. When an NPC bard does it for lots of bad guys, it is apocalyptic.
Neat...I've got to try it. Should really boost up the Monk/Fighter/Swordsage's slightly lackluster attack bonus.
Once I'm done with them, I can post the sheets of the next enemies the group will be facing. Fair warning, though, I'm using two house rules - the class defense bonus and armor as DR rules from UA.
Fair warning, though, I'm using two house rules - the class defense bonus and armor as DR rules from UA.
Are the PC's using these rules also? If so they are probably taking the money that would have went to armor and putting it elsewhere. That is what I did when I used those rules. The rules do free up treaure for NPC's too though. Another trick I learn was that instead of buying expensive weapons and armor. Buy the potions/oil that increase the enhancement bonus to armor and weapons. You get the +5 bonus to your weapons without spending +5 money. It also cuts down on the gear they get back, which could eventually get them back to normal wealth for their level.
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Are the PC's using these rules also? If so they are probably taking the money that would have went to armor and putting it elsewhere. That is what I did when I used those rules. The rules do free up treaure for NPC's too though. Another trick I learn was that instead of buying expensive weapons and armor. Buy the potions/oil that increase the enhancement bonus to armor and weapons. You get the +5 bonus to your weapons without spending +5 money. It also cuts down on the gear they get back, which could eventually get them back to normal wealth for their level.
Fair warning, though, I'm using two house rules - the class defense bonus and armor as DR rules from UA.
Yes, the PCs are using this rule as well.
Thanks for pointing that out. I have a bad tendency of forgetting that the PCs will be a little more powerful than normal.
I've been trying to use potions whenever possible - when the NPCs are able to start or predict the combat. When they're caught off guard (often, with the Swordsage around), either they've got the enhancement items or they're using their base stats, so I tend to give them the enhancement items.
Stat up Sarah Palin... I'm thing Werebear as a starting point...
Face,
I totally sympathize. I'm DMing a game and the PCs rock. Truly, they are killing machines. Everyone has a good time, though. Still, it doesn't matter if the PCs are too strong, players know the game too well, or they just strategize well together.... as a DM I know you want to challenge them.
There were a number of interesting ideas on this board to consider. However, I have a very simple solution:
Double or triple the number of monsters. Instead of one Linnorm there are now two! Or better yet, double or triple the HPs for your monsters and then consider adding a second one (especially if there is a witch in the party).
Give it a try, but maybe start with a medium-level encounter and start adding bad guys, maybe have them show up a couple of rounds late after they hear the commotion.
If for some reason the encounter starts to spin out of control, maybe the bad guys got a couple of lucky crits, then you can always scale down their hit points again. You're the DM, you want it to be fun and exciting for everyone. At level 14 character death isn't that big of a deal if there is a divine caster in the group.
MM3 has a neat template that gives a critter a mental tentacle, an acid breath weapon, and some neat mindflayer puppet powers.Is that one of the "Thoon" creatures? I'm seriously considering doing some broken things with the Thoon creatures, considering the fluff is already Mind Flayer appropriate.
Voidmind Template, page 187 of MM3. Basically, a cabal of 3 mindflayers alter a critter by eating part of its brain and filling in the missing bits with goo and acid and stuff. They can use their powers through the critter, and use it as a spy.
I think all the Thoon stuff is in MM4 or MM5.
So it's a little different than the Thoon, but still has the mindflayer flavor.
Is there anyone that can't teleport on their own?Yes, though some dirty tricks involving high-end storage items allow the Swordsage to bring people along if time is not an issue. If time *is* an issue, the Warblade and Artificer are stranded.
Anticipate Teleportation (and the Greater version thereof, see the Spell Compendium) makes a wonderful way to smack down a teleporting party. The party arrives and WHAM - readied full attacks on them before they know WTF is going on.
Also, on boss monsters, yeah never let them go in solo. Someone suggested 2 CR 15s. I'd say, keep your CR 17 and add three or four CR 14s or 15s. That way the minions are a threat on their own, and can't simply be ignored.
With characters like this, you can afford to make the encounters insanely difficult. And, you know what - if the players survive by the skin of their teeth (or a couple get killed and need to be Resed) then they will think it was the most awesome battle ever, because they pulled it off.
Lets see, if you have an abberation theme....
Shoggoth (CR 19) with two Neothelid (CR 15) minions.
Assuming the PCs have gained a level since your Linnorm battle, that should be about right for them.
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How are you readying full attacks?
You cannot. You can only ready up to a standard action because ready is a standard action. You can, however, delay if you take no other actions and take your initiative at any time after you decide to delay before your next turn comes about. So this is a semantics thing, it's still possible to delay and full attack.
I think you're ALL going about this the wrong way.
All of the posts above are just going to encourage MORE escalation, which is the problem the OP was complaining about to begin with.
I think you need to spend about two hours overcoming challenges like six orcs, or a 10'ft pit, or a giant with a hammer.
The group will wade through these, unscratched. Keep going until they start to seem bored.
Then, devote an hour to TALKING about "Why do you think that is? How can we make this more fun?" Make the pitch for lower-powered characters, and a lower-powered game. It's actually a better test of their gaming skills.
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If, and only if, they decide that what they want is more everything, then you need to seek out high-level 3.5 stuff written with tons of optimization in mind.
Apologies for the lack of details. I'll attempt to clarify.
They do have more gear than they are supposed to, only because they have an artificer party member. The actual GP amount I give to the party is far below the wealth-by-level charts, but they manager to use the Artificer's abilities to get almost three times the gear out of it.
Example encounter:
I sent them up against an Ice Linnorm (CR 17) last game. CR 17, being 3 above the party, should be pretty challenging - possibly involving someone dropping below 0 hp. The party started at full strength. The True Seeing negated all of the supernatural stealth the party had, which makes this the first fight the party did not start at a major advantage - no surprise round. The Linnorm rolled badly on Init and got to go last.
In the second round...
In the third round...
Whoa whoa whoa, the PC's went first and there was a second and third round?
Don't worry about your PC's they are not over optimized. Welcome to high-level play. Bad things happen extremely quickly, especially in single enemy encounters. We fought the exact same Linnorm at level 15 and it lasted exactly 1 round.
Something I'm interested in though is "They used combat maneuvers to break out of the paralysis". I assume this was Iron Heart Surge. Are you decreeing it "a purely mental action" in relation to paralysis?
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I feel your pain. I am currently running my 1st Pathfinder game, and I explicitly told everyone at character creation that the only things they should assume to be allowed are Core Pathfinder things, everything else needs my approval first (I also straight-out banned ToB:Bo9S since I knew that book is trouble and I am very glad that I did having read some of your examples, I also banned psionics and incarnum in any shape or form and the only classes allowed were the classes from Core/APG).
Then the guy playing the Inquisitor of Iomedae informs me he has taken the Law Devotion feat from Complete Champion.
Me: "What makes you think that this feat is allowed?"
Him: (aghast) "You mean you're not going to allow any of the Devotion feats?"
Me: (flips through my campaign player's guide hand-out to the character creation and house rules and points to the rule he is currently breaking) "I mean you didn't ask me if you could take that feat or not. I will let you take it, however you can only take it once and if you ever multiclass as Cleric the 'use up turn undead to use feat again' (or what would be channel energy in our new game) thing does not apply, you can only use it once per day until the end of time. Next time you want to use something not in the Core Rulebook or APG please ask beforehand."
Him: "OK"
(This same player, about 10 games into the campaign when we are taking a break and I am expressing a wish for more players to only use the Core Rulebook and APG, tells me, "In the next game I run it's going to be Core Rulebook only, no exceptions." I had the impulse to whine, "You mean you're not going to allow any of the Devotion feats?" but it passed.)
So a couple other players do the same thing, I have the same conversation with them and that stops, and luckily they worked with me to compromise and make some things up or adjust them so that they will be more compatible with Pathfinder if they want to use something from 3.5. Backwards compatibility has been fairly consistent, if a bit over-powered in some areas.
It took a while to adjust the game to the power level of the players (our group consists of life-long RPGers in our 30s who know how to get the most out of everything), but now I always do the following things and I have been able to keep the game good, tension-filled, with at least one combat per session where they have to really pull off some heroic stuff to avoid a TPK:
1. All enemies (monsters and NPCs) have max hit points. If all 7 players show up (we have 4 core players who come every week and 3 who are too busy to come every week but show up when they are able to) I either double the amount of enemies or give enemies double hit points, depending on what's most appropriate for the encounter.
2. Calculating APL for encounter design I take the actual average party level, and add 1 or 2 depending on who I expect to show up. CR for epic encounters is this modified APL +4. Any CR below this modified APL is always a cake-walk (even with max/double hit points).
3. As others have said, templates are your friends, quick templates are good friends in a pinch especially for adjusting pre-made adventures to your players. Since your party is pulling out all the big guns from 3.5, I highly recommend checking out the Advanced Bestiary by Green Ronin for 3.5, here's a link.
YMMV
There are some great suggestions on here, so I am going to help add a bit of fluff.
Never, ever underestimate the power of Kobolds. Kobolds may not be able to kill your PCs, but they can control the battlefield for you big baddie.
Construct a dungeon with a main hallway (10ft wide) and have a massive interconnected series of tunnels designed only for creatures of kobold size to run through. Have an alchemist area of the dungeon, that is set back with secret doors and very difficult to find. fill the dungeon with equal level minions of the BBEG. The kobolds act as the "mail delivery system" running through the labyrinth like tunnel system, to deliver all the alchemist bombs, potions of web / entangle, not to mention, kobolds make wonderful archers. Outfit some of the kobolds with rings of invisible, greater shadow armor, and stealth focus in order to pick pocket the PCs while they are watching the rogue disarm a trap. You can even build up some of the kobolds to higher levels, to serve as the dungeon archery unit, and while the PCs are crossing that very narrow, unsteady bridge to the other side, you can have them unleash a furious series of arrows at them from the sides of the cavern (and if they decide to fly, it eats away time from there special ability/spell...or, even better have a kobold caster start a gale/windstorm/tornado and use it like a fly swatter to eat away some more hps. [whew, just realized how evil I can be]
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to ways to mess with your players. Any BBEG with an intelligence of 20, who has been around awhile, would easily know all of these tricks, and more in order to bring the PCs to their knees. And if you don't want to kill them, take all of their stuff to add to his treasure horde, because hey, a villains gotta collect enough goodies to qualify for the treasure listing ;)
Hope this helps.
And this is without using the crazy Kobold of Doom exploit to give him a Str of 1000.
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Something I'm interested in though is "They used combat maneuvers to break out of the paralysis". I assume this was Iron Heart Surge. Are you decreeing it "a purely mental action" in relation to paralysis?
Unless I read the description wrong, anybody frozen by an Ice Linnorm's breath weapon can break out by using a PF Combat Maneuver check.
(I also straight-out banned ToB:Bo9S since I knew that book is trouble and I am very glad that I did having read some of your examples, I also banned psionics and incarnum in any shape or form and the only classes allowed were the classes from Core/APG).
Originally, I had allowed the ToB for a few different reasons, some of them no longer apply. When I started the game, PF was still in Beta and we decided to use 3.5 rules for the time being, which left traditional melee classes out in the cold, considering CoDzilla was still a problem and the fighter class was not yet very exciting.
The other reason I originally allowed the ToB is because I imagined it would be a cure to "basic attack" syndrome - the problem where many combats boil down to the melee characters just standing toe-to-toe taking full attacks on each other. To a certain extent, that issue was solved, but now I'm not sure it was worth the cost. I and one of the other players have contemplated coming up with our own homebrew, ToB-like system with better balance and compatibility with PF, since I still like combat maneuvers, and I still like the idea that fighters can pull off some superhuman tricks, but overpowering them to compete with CoDzilla is no longer necessary. Even with Divine Metamagic, I'm actually having a hard time breaking the PF Cleric.
Devotion feats are possibly a bigger offender than the ToB. I wish they did not exist. Law, Protection, and Trickery are driving me insane.
All you have to do is stop softballing them (which if AC 37 means anything at level 14, is exactly what you are doing) and everything will be fine.
I suppose it doesn't help that the CR system doesn't always work. There are plenty of monsters in the CR 13-15 range that can't hit a 37 except on a 20, and several monsters that hit a 37 unless they roll a 1. Once again, PF is better at this than 3.5, but boy does the 3.5 MM2 not balance CRs correctly. At least the CR 14 version of the Umber Hulk from the MM1 seemed like it was a challenge. That fight (against two of them) , which occurred quite a while ago (party was still lv14) was the last time someone actually dropped to single digit HPs.
As others have said, templates are your friends, quick templates are good friends in a pinch especially for adjusting pre-made adventures to your players. Since your party is pulling out all the big guns from 3.5, I highly recommend checking out the Advanced Bestiary by Green Ronin for 3.5, here's a link.
Much appreciated. Also allows me to get a lot more mileage out of monsters, when I can start re-using the weaker beasties with some nasty templates stacked on. With any luck, the PCs will underestimate them and then get a nasty surprise.
... at best average. 37 AC? Level 14 stuff hits that on a 5... maybe. Probably lower than that. Saves in low 20s at best? ...
A power party would have at least +10 to all of those numbers.
Sorry but +10 that would mean >47 AC > 30 to all saves at level that would be a [b]bit[/c] over the level we play at (pf core/apg).
So your GM can't play with you any standard module/adventure path? He never can send a standard CR monster after your party, because you servnets might kill such stuff? How fun is that?
The real point you are missing is that you do not play pathfinder ... you play godfinder. That is exactly the kind of party the OP complaiins about maybe even worth. If you, your party and GM like it that way why not but that is not the style of game most peaople prefer.
@ OP:
[sarcasm]
If you really want to mess you party take a level 11 warlock:
-24/7 fly, invis, see invis
-15+ touch attack to max 3 targets per round all have to make a fort save (23+) or be nauseated for 10 rounds.
- Beld of Battle (should have been banned too) to make this 2 times in the first round of combat.
After all party memers lay nauseated on the ground, steal all items and fly away screaming "I am the 3.5 Min/max Partykiller"
[/sarcasm]
Serious you better discuss with you party the issues you have instead of outright killing them. Some 3.5 stuff (expecialy Tome of Battle etc.) is so unblanced that playing and GM is not fun. I like min/maxing and effectiv character building but 3.5 takes this to a level where min/maxing and building a cheesy Uber Superman are the same thing, and Uber Superman is not fun to play or in this chase DMing for.
Breiti
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Remember lairs.
Every good nemesis has a lair. Every powerful monster has a lair. These lairs have a CR value. Make them dangerous.
One CR 17 Ice Linnorm? Not very dangerous. CR 17 Ice Linnorm in a CR 12 lair? Quite dangerous. Two Ice Linnorms in said lair? Now we're talking really hard.
What's fair when you're building a lair? Usually, it has effects that are triggered by the big bad, somehow. Ideally, it is triggered when the big bad guy does something he was going to do anyways. Sometimes, a lair has passive effects that occur in certain places (as terrain) or merely every round.
- Any effect that hits the party for extra damage.
- Use of any spell (Dispel Magic, Grease, Web, Tentacles, Hold Person, Cloudkill, Sleet Storm, Control Winds, Reverse Gravity, Symbol of ___, Anti-Magic Field) is fair game at your level.
- Poison or disease.
- Anything in the trap segment. If there's a scything blade trap right where the PC wants to be, and it goes off every turn... they might think twice about standing there.
- Any terrain that limits the number of attackers on the big bad.
- Any terrain that forces the PC's to move into vulnerable spots.
- Any terrain that grants the big bad a surprise round.
So. Ice Linnorm buried in the snow. Easiest way to make that one Ice Linnorm into a hard fight for these badass characters is to do the following:
Round 1: Ice Linnorm gets a surprise round. It's buried under snow. Any PC who gets a very high number on their Perception check gets to act in the surprise round. Ice Linnorm grapples whoever is the biggest threat to it.
Round 2: If the Linnorm gets to act in this round, which it probably will, it drags the grappled character down underneath the snow (causing damage just by burrowing into solid ice) and into a windy ice tunnel lair.
The lair causes nonlethal cold damage to any PC in it.
The lair is slippery, and anybody on the ground must roll Acrobatics to move at full speed or make a full-round attack.
The lair is windy. Any flying character must make a Fly check or be unable to act.
Round 3: One character faces off against the Ice Linnorm alone while the other three charge after it. In order to do so, they must navigate the tunnel that the Linnorm just dug (which is windy and slippery and cold). The Ice Linnorm slams the captured character against a spiky surface, dealing Xd6 additional damage with each attack that hits. And pins the character.
Round 4: As soon as the three characters arrive, the Linnorm hits the roof of his lair, causing giant icicle spikes to fall, dealing damage as an Ice Storm. The assorted effects last until combat ends and the damage lasts two rounds.
That is a much more challenging fight than "the party meets an Ice Linnorm on open ground." And I didn't even add minions or companions, which I agree that a good DM should add.
If your characters are meeting a creature in open terrain or bland terrain, this counts as favorable terrain for the party.
Is there anyone that can't teleport on their own?Yes, though some dirty tricks involving high-end storage items allow the Swordsage to bring people along if time is not an issue. If time *is* an issue, the Warblade and Artificer are stranded.
Anticipate Teleportation (and the Greater version thereof, see the Spell Compendium) makes a wonderful way to smack down a teleporting party. The party arrives and WHAM - readied full attacks on them before they know WTF is going on.....
I was asking because one of the builds I sent to him uses the Wall of X + cloud kill combo. If they can't teleport out they have to get though a wall of Stone(doable) or force(good luck).
Something I'm interested in though is "They used combat maneuvers to break out of the paralysis". I assume this was Iron Heart Surge. Are you decreeing it "a purely mental action" in relation to paralysis?
They were not really paralyzed. The linnorm has an ability that renders you "motionless", but allows you to break out with a CMB check.
edit:ninja'd by hours.
Decrying Tome of Battle here is silly, and even sillier is claiming you'd only play a Core Only game.
I'd rather have a group of warblades, swordsages, and crusaders, then a group of clerics, wizards, and druids.w
Your party is, well, being a high level party. It IS vaguely average. The problem is that you're using only one or two monsters to fight a party of four - that's losing odds regardless of the situation.
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Actually, I don't like the Tome of Battle at all. It lets your players play 4e (where I think no PC has ever died once) while you play Pathfinder.
You need to start talking about the off-balance created by backwards compatibility. In my game, anyone can come to me with a 3.5 option ad they'll get it, but we'll work to make it Pathfinder. The only thing i've straight said no to was the request to combine the luck feat that turns a 1 into a 20, and then allow that change and a reroll to apply to a vorpal sword.
So, with that dialogue planted into their mind, find yourself an alchemist with crazy ability scores and give him some outrageous ranged feats. Improved invisibility, deadly aim, and some ranged feat from ToB to really put out a ridiculous amount of damage. Make him the artillery piece and guard him with lackeys that are very low CR and just HUGE hit points. While they waste time carving into your boys, the alshemist chooses which squares not to affect and poison bombs the party until the cows come home. No lie: your job is to tella great story, provide an exciting encounter your palyers don't mind being tough, and target someone for elimination. Killify them.
That's one encounter. You'll need more. Week after the alchemist claims one of your cheesball PCs, hunt them down with buffed out inquisitors. Make one of them an elven dispel magic specialist and turn off their stuff. Hold actions to cancel spells. Include one antipaladin and smitify the crap out of someone.
Third wave in: a lich with Spell Perfection casts quickened extended suffocation and another extended suffocation. At CR 17, your lich with only a 22 Int and Greater Spell Focus is asking for multiple DC 25 Fort saves. Anyone who screws that up is going to die. Spellcasters affected won't be spellcasters, they'll count as nauseated. Note Spell Perfection doesn't say you ahve to be able to cast 9th level spells, just that the spell can't have been modified to higher than 9th level. Also, have higher than a 22 Int, and look at the nonsense you can develop to raise the DC being backwards compatible. Guard him with some lumbering jackass with a reach weapon. Give said jackass Lunge, Combat Reflexes and Combat Patrol. Make them a pole arm specialist, arm them with a huge keen sharrash from Eberron. When anyone tries to approach your lich to prevent further stupid suffocation spell from happening, kill them.
Week Four: find something with fast healing or regen that's big enough to swallow a big fighter whole and then cast stoneskin on it. Deal damage to that guy every round while he struggles to do enough damage with his tiny piercing weapon (no power attack, hole closes up every round, DR 10/-) without having to spend an action. Spend your actions putting the hurt on the cleric.
Week Five (this will tickle you): Go to the 3.5 MM, page 111 and witness one of the most awesome, curiously underused monsters in the game. Advance that bad boy to 23 HD, Gargantuan, and CR 16. For their new feats from HD and being Pathfinderized, give them Ability Focus (trill), Furious Focus, Greater Ability Focus (trill), Improved Critical (bite), and Power Attack (they'll be biting at +35 for 3d8+36+1d8 cold). Find two obscure feats that make them even more awful. By the time your party gets to week five, note that four of these magnificent screwups is only CR 20. Every round, 1 trills, 1 breathes, and two murdify. You're testing your party with a high DC Will save and a high DC Reflex save every round. When one of them dies, it explodes for 20d6 damage to everyone within 100 feet, though the worms ignore 12d6 of it. Kill everybody.
Note that you've declared war on your PCs. Only you know whether targeting them for genocide will break up your game or challenge them to make things even harder on you. If you have to go to week 6, get an epic bard with doomspeak, and an epic cleric with extended implosion. Make them ethereal or invisible, and after the bard sings to make your epic 9 swords NPC even tougher, have him doomspeak one person per round (that's all it will take). Give your bard fatespinner to lower the saves of the PCs every doomspeak. Then have the cleric implosion each one (with a -10 save!), once per round.
If the optimization war isn't you real problem, consider story development that will keep their interest more than optimal violence. My current palyers are a healthy dose of both things (you should see the crap I go through every week. One Lion massive samurai/barbarian has taken to throwing a tetsubo every combat. When he finds out about hurling charge, the campaign is over).
I love killing me some PCs, but not at the expense of telling a good story. If the story in your game is suffering because of the adversarial nature of the game, be honest with them: guys, we're gonna get you some truly epic fights to show what all the resources of past games can do to you. If you like these no-mercy-here-are-your-buttocks fights, we'll keep doing them. If you want to back off, and tell a good story with a more manageable set of rules, we can talk about it.
Email me and let me know what happens.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32
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Attention Mr Steven T. Helt (Contributor),
What a wicked combo of encounters, feats and tricks! I hereby yoink them all to throw into my Savage Tide game and spice up the Lightless Depths!
Of course, the Frost worm will be a Stone/acid worm etc etc for that underdark vibe, but it's brilliant! Thank you for the ideas!
Now do you have a blog where you post five of these every week? If not, please do!!!
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LOL - though does sound like the kind of game that presses all their buttons :-)
I am enjoying all the scary ideas in this thread - there are great things to tweak and frighten my own players with - as per the OP's request.
I humbly request everyone to stay on topic - the OP asked for stuff to frighten his players, not a debate on whether they're "playing it right" or tips on how to play a different game. I think we can respect that.
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(I also straight-out banned ToB:Bo9S since I knew that book is trouble and I am very glad that I did having read some of your examples, I also banned psionics and incarnum in any shape or form and the only classes allowed were the classes from Core/APG).Originally, I had allowed the ToB for a few different reasons, some of them no longer apply. When I started the game, PF was still in Beta and we decided to use 3.5 rules for the time being, which left traditional melee classes out in the cold, considering CoDzilla was still a problem and the fighter class was not yet very exciting.
The other reason I originally allowed the ToB is because I imagined it would be a cure to "basic attack" syndrome - the problem where many combats boil down to the melee characters just standing toe-to-toe taking full attacks on each other. To a certain extent, that issue was solved, but now I'm not sure it was worth the cost. I and one of the other players have contemplated coming up with our own homebrew, ToB-like system with better balance and compatibility with PF, since I still like combat maneuvers, and I still like the idea that fighters can pull off some superhuman tricks, but overpowering them to compete with CoDzilla is no longer necessary. Even with Divine Metamagic, I'm actually having a hard time breaking the PF Cleric.
Devotion feats are possibly a bigger offender than the ToB. I wish they did not exist. Law, Protection, and Trickery are driving me insane.
I guess I should have been a bit more clear; let me re-tract the statement that I "straight-out banned" the entire book, but I did ban the classes because, as another poster said, I didn't want to run 4th Ed.
That being said, I do like a lot of the feats from that book, and the reason is that if a player is asking me about a character concept and one of the manuevers or stances I know of fits it then the Martial Study feat and associated feats are a good thing, but the sheer amount of rechargeable get-out-of-jail-free cards each of the ToB classes gets made me ban those classes for this campaign.
As for the Devotion feats: I would not allow the Trickery Devotion Feat in the game I run because it's a major PITA for both the player and the DM. Any feat where the explanation of the way the feat works takes up almost an entire page of text is a turn-off just because of that.
The Law Devotion feat limited to 1 use per day for 10 rounds is working out fairly well. I think the only other ones I would allow in my current campaign are the other alignment Devotion feats, especially Chaos Devotion, with the same limitation of 1 use/day for 1 minute (I'm being lazy and don't feel like looking up the Good and Evil ones but I mostly remember them being fairly innocuous).
The main point of my game is that I want the players to be able to have a character concept and watch it grow to fruition throughout the campaign while giving them something entertaining and challenging to do, and whatever the players have access to their enemies also have access to because, if what's good for the goose isn't what's good for the gander, then my campaign world becomes grass and the PCs become lawnmowers.
I think I am doing well so far, in that I enjoy coming up with stuff and running the game and they enjoy playing it and we all have fun, which is the point.
I will admit that for a couple weeks there I wasn't having fun and I let them know, and since we're all mature adults and friends and have played together for many years we were all able to make compromises, they traded some things out that weren't helping the situation and things have been running much more smoothly. I hope the same works out for you.
Most of the issue comes from being unable to challenge the party. I've actually gotten a reputation for running pushover combats. Last session was the first time in several weeks that a PC has taken a double digit amount of damage. When the PCs are out of combat, utility abilities make them more or less able to infiltrate anything and fast-talk anyone.
I had that happen as well...
Honestly, your best bet is to just tell them that. Say:
"Look, I am not really having fun GMing because with all your splat books and 3.5 stuff, you guys are just plowing through everything, no matter what I do. I know it is great for you guys to win, but doesn't the fact that nothing is challenging you make it boring?
I think if we are going to make this cooperative story/game work (as it is intended), we need to either scale back some power or restart without using all that other stuff.
My only other option is to throw monsters at you that so far beyond where you should be that it would be just as one-sided, only the other direction. I don't want that, and you don't want that, because it won't be fun for either of us.
Let's talk about it, guys, what do you say?"
I pretty much threw in the gauntlet when the party reached that point. They agreed, and we moved to Pathfinder, dropped all those other books, and run Core only. This are better, not perfect, but better.
Windquake
If you think switching to Pathfinder Core will eliminate all issues with super powerful characters, you're in for some Paris Syndrome style pain.
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RPG Superstar 2013
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Attention Mr Steven T. Helt (Contributor),/QUOTE]
Grazi!
I once tried to start an RPG blog where I chronicled starting out as a writer and then ultimately I'd link it to some self-publish stuff. Turns out blogs are hard. How a person maintains a blog and doesn't ignore their family, work, church, football, tv, pets, home games and movies is beyond me. : }
Seriously, thank you for your kind words and let your palyers know who killed them when their time comes. WHich should be next game.
Also, Superstar 2011 is coming up. If I can get through the bridesmaid round, come by and support a rookie designer!