I am about ready to sum up my Kingmaker campaign, and have played through half of Crimson Throne, half of Difficult Terrain (also known as Serpent Skull) and almost half of Jade Regent. And throughout it all, I have noticed something.
Players tend to have an easier time dominating the encounters from levels 2-9 than the latter half of the levels. As a GM I found the encounters in Kingmaker parts 1-4 frustratingly unchallenging compared to what my players could dish out in terms of damage and control. Next to nothing was able to hit, as AC ramps up like crazy as soon as full plates and crafting feats become available, making it so all but the craziest combat monster needs mostly 20s to hit.
The same I observe with the GM when I play. The GM invariably increases the CR so it it APL+3 or higher in order to make fights a challenge (having disposed of XP, making it so we level when he says so, otherwise, we would be 2-3 levels over par).
However, in recent encounters, the players have been more on their toes, with the threat of death being a constant part of combat, forcing them to actually fight for their lives and experience a lack of control.
I completely understand this from a design standpoint; After level 10 you should through the druid/cleric/oracle/paladin be able to bring people back to life. And at 13 even the wizard can pull off this feat with Limited Wish. Death is just a really inconvenient debuff at that point.
Anyone else noticed this, or is it just that we are so war-gamey that stuff seems to be on easy mode until death becomes acceptable by design?
What I have seen is similar.
1st - Everyone has an excellent chance of dying. This is why we almost always start at 2nd level.
2nd-4th Full casters and many roguish builds (squishy types) seem to always be on the verge of death. Melee types dominate.
5th-8th PC's seem to dominate pretty easily. Archers and casters really begin to come into their own and the melee types are still really solid contributers.
9th+ Seems to be very unpredicatable. At least partially because we just haven't played alot at those levels so I don't think we do as good a job. But also the PC's tend to become very strong in their specialty. The melee types are kicking buttocks, right up until they have to make a few saving throws. The wizard can handle almost anything, then a slaad makes it into melee range and he's ribbons. The rogue can find and disarm almost anything, but if he rolls a 1 the trap is lethal. Etc...
That's an interesting observation. I'm playing Kingmaker now, and I did notice that some of the hardest fights in the game came just after we gained the ability to raise the dead.