The group number is 10 and we have played together so long that we know each others strategies and generally we do very well.
That being said I moved away and now that I return occasionally to play with this group I can see that we have gotten in the bad habit (as GM's since we share the role) of allowing the challenges to be fairly linear.
GM: THERE IS THE PROBLEM so what do you do to solve it?
TEAM: Well we can just attack and win.
GM: Ok, do you want to do any prep work or research?
TEAM: Yeah we will prep, lets buff for two rounds before going in...
Anyway. I have been saddles with providing adventure ideas that will bring this group from 13th level to 15th level and I want then to be on the seats of their pants.
I can challenge them in combat. Add more baddies, archers, some enemy monks.
I need to challenge them from a narrative perspective without turning them off to the game. Do I make them make tough choices? What Type?
What do other GM's do to keep experienced players on their toes?
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A good bit comes from facing consequences, especially when faced with opposing goals. For example: They have a mission to stop the cult from kidnapping people and bring the leaders to justice. They are also asked by the Lord of the city to rescue his son. Turns out the son is leading the cult... if they bring him to justice, the Lord will be angry. If they don't, they will let a criminal free.
Then, after they carry out the choice, follow up. If they bring him to justice, the Lord calls it a farce and orders the group to be arrested and put on trial, so the players have to face normal soldiers doing their job (as opposed to evil cultists or demons - probably shouldn't just arbitrarily kill them). If they turn over the son, he murders his father and takes over the Lordship and releasing the other cultists; now the players have to face up to the fact that they helped an evil guy do evil things.
Make combat the poor choice in a situation. You can kill the thieves guild leader, sure, but it turns out that another guy just takes over and the guild is back to work the next day (and more violent). They need to negotiate a peace, get some kidnapping in, plant their own leadership, etc etc.
Give them a situation where two armies have met in a neutral town and are fighting, killing civilians. The players are hired to keep the peace but it is getting out of hand. Players cant just walk in and kill the bad guys (can't fight entire armies and the armies aren't really evil either), so instead they have to focus on figuring out how to save the innocents in the city one way or another.
You don't want to be too married to any solution; take what your players suggest and run with it. Having the "desired path" in mind can lead to player frustration as they try to figure out what you want them to do, as opposed to coming up with ways to do it themselves. Your better off deciding what won't work, and why, so you can explain consequences and the reasons why they don't work.
Murphy, I want to play in one of your games so badly after reading your post.
That all sounds great on the non-combat side. On the combat side of things, consider giving them an overpowered foe - say a total of CR5 or 6 or more over APL, counting minions. BUT, tell them that beforehand, give them the stat blocks for the minions and give them *half* the stat block for the Boss. Give them a deadline with a time frame long enough to let them craft or buy specific items, but not long enough to level up.
Then leave it to them to figure it out.
Since they're experience players, they'll know that such a high CR is unbeatable with the standard buff & rush approach, but at such high level they'll have the resources to
A) Divinate & Research to find out the information in the second half of boss's the statblock.
B) Scry and divinate to find out the terrain of the encoutner area
C) Develop an approach tailored to that specific encoutner to make it beatable, by negating the Boss's resistantces and advantages, while creating weaknesses and exploiting weakensses.
They may balk at first, being so used to buff&rush, but I think if you stand firm and press them, they'll start putting their heads together, start getting engaged in the problem soving aspect of it, and in the end be really proud of themselves when they put it all together and beat an encoutner that's supposed to be unbeatable.
All god ideas and noted! I appreciate it guys! I think I do need some tough choice scenarios and I like the idea about a perfect warning to an difficult foe. Cool thanks.