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Solo bosses don't work well in Pathfinder. Avoid them whenever possible. Barring that, make sure circumstances are likely to be in their favor, and make them retreat otherwise. Single enemies should never attempt a fair fight unless they're suicidal.
Apart from that, you're playing with experts. Ramp it up. Put them on the slow XP track or slower, and raise the CR of all encounters by 1 or 2.
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To answer your last question first- you really can't create a solo enemy that challenges five players, because the most powerful thing in Pathfinder is extra turns. There isn't really a monster that can make up for getting 1/5 as many turns as the party, nor would anybody want to see a monster that does 250 Damage a round to make up for it.
To put things in perspective, they don't make an Evil Dragon a Paladin can't one-round. So don't try. The Mammy Graul fight is a good start, you actually want the party outnumbered if you can help it.
As a general rule, Paizo Adventure Paths expect a party of 4 15 Point Buy Characters with decent optimization. So you have five expert players and if they rolled for stats, used higher point buy, etc, this will dramatically increase their power.
Good news: you can talk to them. If they are all designers, programmers, they should get it. Have them help you brainstorm ways to make things more challenging. Here are some tips to start:
*Never, ever, ever end a monster's turn next to somebody if you can help it. Don't let that Paladin Full-Attack anything. Rough Terrain, Flyby Attack, etc.
*That Rogue pretty much can't have good DEX if his STR is that high. If he has both, his WIS is probably garbage. So Dominate him.
*Concealment can really ruin an archer's day, Wind Wall ALWAYS ruins an archer's day. Rough Terrain puts the archer at significant risk.
If you give us the character's stats, we can help you to challenge them. But the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path as presented won't do so very often.
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First off, the most common refrain is the encounter was designed for 4 characters with a 15 point buy. You have five characters and an unknown point buy. This means the encounters need to be made tougher. For no other reason then to balance exp.
First off know the weakness of the party.
The rogue cannot get the extra damage without a flank. Use terrain, mooks, and spells to deny this to him. A rogue saves (Fort and Will) are low, hold person, dominate person or poisons can hurt him.
The paladin cannot smite neutral creatures. Elementals, Golems are all immune to this. Does the paladin charge on a mount? If so, obscuring mist or difficult terrain will stop him from charging in. Also smite evil is limited in times per day. More encounters means he will run out.
There are a number of spells like wind wall or protection from arrows to counter the ranged attacks. Spells like slow will counter the effects of haste.
The monk can only flurry with a full attack, use hit and run tactics or positioning to prevent these.
I hope these help
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DR+Neutral enemy+Immunity to Sneak Attack[or even just something like Fortification] will let you give an encounter that challenges the monk and bard [who will have difficulty overcoming DR], the paladin[who can't do uber-smite-of-death], and the Rogue[who is losing sneak attack, and still has DR]. You can get 2/3 of this through armor [adamantine armor with fortification] or templates added. Neutrality can be explained off as BBEG thinking of himself as doing something evil for the greater good.
Do your players find the lack of challenge to be an impediment to their fun?
Min/maxing, from my perspective, is the players way of saying "tell us a story where we win fast and look good doing it." It's basically a great deal of effort put into making the combats as short as possible.
They've got the winning part down, so make sure you're telling them a good story in between the combats (however brief they may be) and letting them help shape it. If they're designers, they're probably going to be far more entertained by the RP and story aspects of the exercise than confirming criticals.
Try the Kingdom Builder rules, perhaps (UC). Or get them to tell you what they want those characters to do in the world aside from stomp mud-holes in badguys, and then sketch out a way for it to happen without a massacre and let them go for it. Or throw an army at them, if they just want blood and glory.
If they really just want longer combats, you've already got a solution in hand. Just use your average damage per round, multiply it by how many rounds you want the encounter to last, and adjust HP accordingly.
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i think perhaps you just arn't thinking enough "outside the box" casters can use fly before combat starts and just stay out of range of your melee heavy party members, forcing them to use their craptacular ranged weapons they only held onto "just in case" and your bard can easily suffer a debuff or two on turn one such as blindness/deafness. this would pretty much let you mess around with them as you please until your bbeg is out of spells to cast for the day. if they survive this, kudos to them, but its not likely unless they come up with a creative way to get at the bbeg, in which case everyone wins because fights are always more fun when they're an intellectual challenge.
just make sure you cripple any PC's that can also cast fly as soon as possible.
also keep in mind that as the GM, theres nothing stopping you from fudging information (such as the bbeg goes first on initiative) if you fear a one turn kill. GM fiat exists for a reason...this is part of it.
also, try creating your own adventure entirely, monsters and environment and mission included. this way you know what to expect from the PCs and your monsters and encounters are made to match.
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If the party is finding the campaign not a challenge;
1. Max all creatures hp - this way you might chew up some of there more valuable resources
2. Dial back on the magic items - force them to rely on each other than there own possessions
3. Don't play every encounter to there strengths - it is obvious very strong melee/mobile party. Find a means around that strength.
For solo boss structure
1. Add obstacles - summon monsters, terrain effects (difficult terrain, water, fire, pits etc), hazards (molds, slimes etc),
2. Add area effects - light continual toll damage may force them from offence to defense. Eg an energy effect the boss is immune to (red dragon fighting in larva)
3. Make sure the boss is prepared - buffed and ready. Has a good set of options for defense/offence eg resilient sphere for when fighters get close or globe invulnerability/spell turning for enemy spell-casters
4. Force saves and often - two failed saves by party members can drastically change the outcome of any battle
5. Consider using fumbles - extra attacks mean extra chance they could role a 1.
6. Illusions are a GMs best friend - they lack a strong arcane cater
7. Change the dynamics for a battle - why wait for the good guys to come to the bad guy stronghold, try changing it up. Eg the PCs fight in a prior room to the throne room, the boss is alerted and starts his/her assault there. He can then ambush/retreat/calling allies etc.
Most important though, if your currently players seem to be satisfied why change a thing. GMs responsibility to set achievable targets in which if completed the party comes out satisfied with the session.
I wouldn't use something like this all the time but http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/mighty-cr-5
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I know your pain.
In the Jade Regent AP I'm running, I let the players roll and one of them rolled excessively well and I readjusted the other PCs in the spirit of equality. Now, after adding some other players and some side quests, the PCs are two levels higher than planned in the adventure, and with their overwhelming stats and equipment, they're besting AP encounters at CL+4 with ease.
I won't mention the short life spans of all the dragons and boss monsters they've met along the way.
Re-balancing the adventure is a lot of work. I'm fortunate that I have Hero Labs and the community made AP in that format so boosting the encounters is relatively quick.
Some feats I regularly use when I boost melee combatants:
- Vital Strike
- Improved natural attack
- Toughness
- Improved critical
- Fortified armor training + heavy wooden shield (awesome against improved critical katana wielding paladins)
- Lunge (for lots of ganging up and keeping away from pointy swords)
If appropriate, the Improved/Greater combat maneuver feats can really surprise the PCs (the paladin never thought he'd get disarmed by one baddy and have a second one pick up his sword and throw it away).
For casters, instead of just adding more and more spells, metamagic feats make things simpler. With higher levels of summon monster, have them use the spell to summon multiples of weaker monsters that have spell-like abilities.
And of course, the environment. There are a lot of little rules that can make it tougher and some spells that can take advantage of it. For example, I once used Control Water to raise the water in a beach fight and essentially created a very big wall of water that separated the group and have some stuck in suddenly very deep water and wearing heavy armor (and low swim skill).
All in all, it's going to be extra work to be a challenge without risking a TPK.
One step further in Onyxlion's line of thought is the "Eternal" Template. It simply does not die, unless you kill it with the very specific item, material or mcguffin that is it's antithesis. Granted they can kill it for a time but it just keeps coming back, even if they do so forever it will simply get back up in a few minutes. I'm sure this will give them a heck of a surprise, even more so the second or even third time. Now I'm not saying make something they can't ever beat. For them this will hopefully be a reason to start a whole new quest, finding what could possibly kill this creature that won't stay dead and won't stop hunting them.
So Mammy Graul flies.
How were they all doing all this damage with her flying?
This brings up a far more general point: Your party's going to stink at range. Yeah, they're fantastic at blasting away at things on the ground. Give me a single cleric with Air Walk and Wind Wall and I don't see what your party is going to do about it.
Many, if not most, of the "boss monsters" in the later modules of Rise of the Runelords fly. As people have said, use flight. Use terrain. If their tactics are just, "Walk up and hit them and outdamage them," then the last thing you want to do is walk up and hit them and try to outdamage them; you'll either lose (which is what you're doing), or you'll frustrate them by beating them at what they're good at.
My single worst GM ever was a guy in Champions where I built an earth elemental: Huge damage resistance and hand-to-hand damage, but slow movement, no flight, and no mental defenses. Instead of challenging me with something that exploited my weaknesses, he just built tougher and tougher enemies until he could get through my defenses, resulting in enemies that one-shot any other party members.
Your players have optimized for ground-based hand-to-hand damage. Let them enjoy it and win easily most of the time. When you get tired of losing...
...fly, my pretties, fly!
(Honestly, any non-evil flying creature with Stoneskin or natural DR seems like it would give your party fits. If the bard's that good a shot, do a flyby grab and drop him a few hundred feet.)
I just want to say that I feel like Mirror Image should have seen some use here as well as Black Tentacles. According to D20pfsrd Mammy didn't have the spell prepared, but I would tailor the spell list to accommodate better spells than what she came with. For a spell caster, spell selection is everything.
Construct swarms. Golem swarms. Undead swarms. Ooze swarms. Any swarms, really, so long as there's lots of them, especially golem swarms. Throw swarm after swarm at them until they break.
They are level 8 and didn't get scratched, Do I keep ramping?
I don't think a battle that lasts 3 rounds is a problem - that's fairly normal for any group with effective damage dealers. But why didn't they get scratched if you're casting four spells a round? Do they have sky high ACs and saves?
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Do your players find the lack of challenge to be an impediment to their fun?
This is probably the most important question here.
Secondly, are you not having fun running the game as is?
Both of these should be explored as a group. Sit down with everyone and talk about what's going on at the table. Find out if they enjoy killing a boss in 12 seconds. Explore what they want out of the whole experience.
Moreover, ask them what they think would add to their / your fun. If these folks are game designers, they may have a better idea of how to tackle this issue than you do. They know their characters and their flaws better than anyone.
I'll fully admit to just skimming the thread, so this might've been suggested a dozen times already. Apologies for that.
*Never, ever, ever end a monster's turn next to somebody if you can help it. Don't let that Paladin Full-Attack anything. Rough Terrain, Flyby Attack, etc.
This is interesting, but with the exception of Flyby Attack, how do you pull it off exactly? Most monsters can't move, attack and move again. Even if a monster starts adjacent, attacks then moves 30 ft., it triggers one or more attacks of opportunity which are made at full BAB. At least if it is full attacked, the BAB decreases with each attack.
I'm going to be running some underwater combats where the enemies will be able to move 60 ft. as a move action because of swim speed while most of the PCs will be moving 10-15 ft. as a full round action. How do I take full advantage of that? Ranged weapons from the monsters will still be suffering range increment penalties so probably won't be so effective, given the PC's armor classes.