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Or increasing the difficulty of any module for that matter...
My PCs consist of:
• Geisha (Bard)
• Rogue
• Magus
• Synthesist (Summoner)
• Wizard (Conjuration)
• Archeologist (Bard)
They are masterfully handling every encounter to the point of absurdity. Never a threat of danger save for one encounter I beefed on the fly. Only The Ticktock Man, The Nightpeddler and Zassrion remain. I want to engineer these final three encounters to be enjoyable and challenging.
Up to this point the party has only felt the sting of uncertainty when the synthesist was slept (losing his eidolon) and the bard was unconscious and near death. Their armor class, saves, attack and damage are simply beyond the scope for who this module was created. They hit almost every time and the monsters almost always miss (with attacks and spells).
My thoughts are to increase the number of threatening encounters to cause them to use a little daily resources before a final encounter with each boss. It also seems that adding at least one or two monsters to each fight while increasing the stats for each conspirator will help.
Any other suggestions?
Director of Brand Strategy
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My thoughts are to increase the number of threatening encounters to cause them to use a little daily resources before a final encounter with each boss. It also seems that adding at least one or two monsters to each fight while increasing the stats for each conspirator will help.
Ultimately, these three options will serve you best, but you'll need to feel out for yourself when to use which approach and when to combine two or all three of them together in a single encounter. I would suggest checking Table 1–1 in the Bestiary to get an idea of the effective numbers your foes should have to challenge a high-stat party. Look at the target numbers for AC, attacks, damage, and perhaps most importantly ability DCs and judge what CR you should be building toward to challenge the PCs. Since you know what AC they can typically hit and what their respective ACs are, you can use the AC and high attack columns as a general guide, and then make sure you aren't increasing things to such a level that the PCs will never be able to make any saves agains the foes' attacks.
I wouldn't suggest raising too many encounters more than a few CR levels, as the expenditure of resources can sometimes be unpredictable beyond a few levels.
Consider also imparting some sort of time limit on the adventure to give them reason to proceed as quickly as possible from one encounter to the next. The Harrowing is very sandboxy, and I imagine part of the problem is that 6 PCs can heal each other and spread out the resource expenditure fairly well during fights, then rest and recoup everything between the different Conspirators' respective demesnes. If you can create a natural ticking clock to urge them to do more encounters before resting, you can save yourself the trouble of coming up with new encounters out of thin air and maybe even avoid increasing the difficulty of the encounters at all.
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Mark, thank you so much for your comments! I gave up on a response after a day or two and got curious enough to check back again just now. I was forced to use my best judgement and fortunately it matched up nicely with the suggestions you gave here. My PCs immediately felt the difference, but each reported having a good time after each session.
I particularly like the idea of coming up with a reason for the PCs to move quickly and engage multiple conspirators in one day. I'll definitely be running this module at least once more and will consider how to employ this. However, my current group only has The Striding Fortress left, but with several encounters that I have tuned up just a CR or two each, it should prove a worthy challenge.
Again, thanks for responding. Hopefully I get the opportunity to shake your hand at PaizoCon 2012.