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Let me preface this by saying as a DM I personally do not try to kill my characters. My goal is for everyone to have fun and continue a story.
I do not intend this to be a guide to annoy your players, more so to challenge them.
I see a lot of threads titled "Help with X character because they are too strong in my campaign ect". So I wanted to give some advice as a resource to others about how to create some difficult scenarios for their players.
General Advice for all characters regardless of Class/Race
After everyone has finished making their characters and are ready to play in your campaign, . Did they add up their bonuses correctly, do they have at level 1 a skill bonus beyond +10? If so how did they get it? Is it their first time playing x type of character, if so do they have any questions, ask specific questions of your own.
Make a quick reference guide to your characters for easy reference with things like Perception bonuses, Stealth Bonuses, Disable Device bonuses. I suggest rolling such things yourself as players should be separated from the success of these rolls, at least in certain situations.
After doing your initial audit, get an idea of where your characters are weak. Fort Saves, Will Saves, do they lack perception or social skill? Tuck this little nugget away for the future in case you need to step it up a notch.
Look for dumpstats. That fighter that has 7 cha, introduce him to the Cha draining flesh eating disease. When he is at 3 Cha and thinking about how to get over being catatonic he might have a bit more fear in his eyes the next encounter.
Steath, Flying, and Favored Terrain are nice bonuses for low level encounters to spice things up. If you have used a certain monster a bit and the players have gotten used to it, add a template or make it a shapeshifter that has infiltrated the camp, after all your characters are not the only things killing these goblins or what have you.
Create situations where the players have to explain their actions to a higher authority, if they can not, into the dungeon with you! Make social skills a part of survival too, think Game of Thrones.
Environmental Hazards- What's that your a level 4 ranger that has only 1 rank in survival because you want to be acrobatic eh? Ok try to find your way back from this underground maze without starving to death.
Use Teamwork feats for your various groups of mid-level baddies. It is likely they have developed some sort of coordinated attack. A group of thieves with feint partner or gang up can be a handful.
There are certain builds that are not viable for players, yet for NPCs can be annoying in the right situation, and even be thematically plausible. That could be a whole other thread though so moving on.
I was going to give some specific weaknesses for each class, but I think I will leave it so that if you have a certain class/archetype prestige combo that is giving you trouble post it here and we will try to come up with some situations that might be more of a challenge.
My GM's been using stat damage,which is pretty interesting. By attacking INT rather than HP, you switch up which character's best suited for tanking. By attacking STR, you limit the mighty Barbarian's ability to one-shot big-bads.
He used environmental hazards too, which was relatively lame. Tense, maybe. And sure, it made us take our surroundings seriously, and pack winter gear and the like. But these are methods to 'wake the players up,' or keep them on their toes. Dying from a random die rolls is sort of lame.
I am all for GM's taking advantage of a player that built a character by dropping scores below average (10). The player using the benefits of the higher than average or exceptional scores, he/she also needs to suffer the penalties of a bad stat. NPC's would ridicule or take advantage of a stupid/naive character. People would shun or be rude to ugly characters. If someone is dumping strength, make sure you keep an eye on what possessions they are carrying. Probably very few people dump Dex or Con into the negatives, but if they do, a clumsy character is going to be dropping things at inopportune times, a low Con would mean the character could be sickly, and subject to being ill quite often.
Good players (meaning good role players), that have low scores would play the weaknesses, just as much as they play their strengths. However, some players need some "nudging" by the GM to learn that they have to roleplay all 6 stats, not just the ones that are most advantageous.
For starters, I'm always present when characters are being made. The first session of any campaign is always character creation, and we talk about concepts and stuff together. If people have ideas or concepts that they want kept secret, that's fine, we can always talk in private (preferably before the session so that the other players don't know that something is being hidden). Even veteran players have misconceptions about how things work, so it's good to get everything out in the open from the beginning.
As far as targeting weak points in a character or the party as a unit, I tend not to bother. On the other hand, I don't shy away from pitting the group against encounters that happen to be particularly tough for them. What's important to me is that my players know their strengths and weaknesses so that they can decide how to handle situations as they come up. And I always start a game with a clear disclaimer that I won't always put them up against encounters that I expect them to win. A smart party always has an exit strategy and knows when to use it.
For example, I'm currently running a game for a small, low-level party who happen to have equipped themselves almost exclusively with piercing and bludgeoning weapons (bows, spears, morningstar, etc) and depending on how the next session or two goes, there is a decent chance they'll wind up facing a lot of zombies with DR 5/Slashing. That's going to be a particularly tough challenge for them. Fortunately, the oracle is pretty decent with knowledge (religion) and will likely be able to spot their disadvantage, so at least they'll be forewarned. I honestly don't know how they're going to deal with it - but hey, not my problem. ^__^
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Good points on the roleplaying all stats Dakota and different damage types Chris. It sounds like your GM doesn't need this thread either Sanjiv, glad he is mixing it up.
One thing I forgot to add is to add a sense of urgency in your campaign. Sometimes GMs allow this 4 hour adventure day allowing the Casters to be fully charged almost every fight, let them ration out those spells a bit with some sort of time line or consequence for not making the it to the end.