I've been running a continuous game for months now, and my players haven't complained about this yet but I feel as though I have been throwing the same 3 fights at them over and over again.
Most of the time, the encounter is a specific race that is invading or attacking a particular settlement. First it was a kobold infestation on a keep, then there was goblins invading the dwarven mines, then we had orcs trying to find their way into the elven metropolis, gnolls moving south to slaughter livestock and burn down farms, and lastly there was a secret underground society of duergar who had captured a very important NPC.
But all of my encounters seem to follow the same formula, that is I have a bunch of non caster mooks, usually fighters, cavaliers, or rogues, one really strong martial character being a ranger, inquisitor, barbarian, or antipaladin, followed by the BBEG who is the groups full caster leader. I have thrown clerics, witches, sorcerers, psions, and druids at them, and I thought that provided enough variety to make it interesting, but the format is still the same.
Most of my other big encounters involve a small group of bandits who follow a very similar composition of being NPC classes or rogues, so there's an adept, a couple of warriors, and a rogue or expert.
The last kind of encounter I throw at them is a big bad monster, all by himself, usually a dragon.
Recently I tried something completely different in having the environment itself be an encounter. They were travelling through an underground cave to get to a dragon's layer to rescue an important NPC, and in doing so were traversing a very dangerous cavern. Taking a full move without a successful DC20 Acrobatics check would incur a DC17 Reflex save for 2d6 bludgeoning damage from falling rocks. If more than one character moved, there would be an additional 2d6 for each moving character. My players loved this idea.
Naturally I have thrown in random traps, but my trap design is also a bit lacking, going from something like "you fail to disarm it, a firball goes off" or "you didn't check for traps, it goes off and summons an elemental for you to fight."
I'm thinking about different designs for encounters and I want to start doing things like having multiple monsters that don't need to be leveled in a class to be above its book CR, and about throwing an actual developed party at them with their own spin on the four classic roles as to maintain the illusion that this is another traveling group of adventurers.
Another thing I wanna do is start throwing more than one full caster at them, I am thinking the lines of multiple necromancers whose hideout is the ruins of an ancient city that was destroyed during my games historic war where there are plenty of old bodies for them to raise as baddies.
I also like the idea of throwing one big evil wizard at them, but I want him to be unique and not just another stereotypical big bad necromancer obsessed with becoming a lich. I kinda wanna do something with either multiple simulacra of himself that could all be killed and still have the twist of 'it's not the real one!!" or having him pull some majic jar shenanigans mid combat on the party.
Are these good encounter ideas? Will my players find my encounters stale if I stick to the formula I have or is it pretty normal for DMs to have their games run in a formulaic way?
I think fighting humanoids with class levels is awesome and I wish more people did that. You seem to have a good grasp of how to challenge your players, keep up the good work. I find that looking through monsters of about CR-1 or CR helps because you can have 2-4 of them as a good fight. When I run I try to avoid fights with one BBEG because of the action economy deficit. Making the BBEG a few levels lower but with some minions helps a lot. This way you can easily let them get the minions while the villain gets away, they feel good because 3/4 ain't bad and they won, you feel good because you didn't have to fudge to make the villain get away and you can reuse them. A mirror party is the ultimate challenge, a true coin flip. Expect to kill people with that encounter though. It will show who optimizes/is a strong player in your style very well and most people learn a lot of system mastery fast from fighting mirror parties that are optimized. I would count any encounter with 2 or more equal or higher level full casters as a mirror party.
Oddly enough there have been several bad guys over the course of the story that have gotten away, and one major NPC who I have plans for a plot twist with that I intended to make the penultimate team of bad guys.
I also had plans for a Godzilla (King Mogaru) fight in my game worlds version of Asia.
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Vary the terrain just as much as the foes for combat encounters. Have a fight in the rain (20% concealment?) with high winds (-2 ranged attacks?) where visibility is limited (10'?) and the ground is muddy (no 5' steps or charges?)
If underground, have the enemy use dungeon features, knock over a brazier of hot coals (5' square, 1 dmg + 1d4 fire dmg for each add'l round spent in the square) or fight from behind a chair for partial cover (+2 AC?)
Use encounters that can't be solved always by combat (a cave-in, a tornado, a fire where people are trapped inside).
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Use terrain in your encounters. Put archers and spellcasters on elevated terrain (on a balcony, a branch, a ledge, up a hill, on top of a flying mount, etc...).
Throw in some difficult terrain to make charging and 5-ft stepping difficult.
Include obstacles that provide cover and break up charge lanes. Also useful can be narrow spaces too small for PCs to get through without squeezing, but large enough for their smaller opponents to move through easily.
Include hazardous terrain (fire, pits, etc...) that characters (PCs or NPCs) can be bullrushed into, or that have to be avoided. Sticking those archers and casters on the other side of a large hazard works, too.
Mix traps INTO your combat encounters. I had one encounter that I ran where the players were fighting in a hallway beset on both sides by minotaurs when the floor opened up beneath them, but it wasn't just a pit trap--it was two adjacent pit traps with a wall separating them. One player managed to avoid the traps and was standing on the narrow ledge dividing the two traps, while other characters were outside the pits on either side fighting the minotaurs who were trying to bullrush them into the pits. A couple of players who fell in opposite pits tossed a rope over the dividing wall to the other character who acted as an anchor so the other player could climb out of his pit, then pull up the second character.
Another encounter I ran included a spiked floor trap that, when the spikes came up, pinned characters in place if they got hit by the spikes. Meanwhile, there were undead with reach weapons standing outside the dangerous area, and one crawling on the walls and ceiling all attacking the now immobilized party. Some of the undead were behind a defensive barrier (imagine replacing the glass screen at your local bank with bars), and the switch for activating/deactivating the trap was back there with them.
When you use spellcasters, change up their spell lists, and look for spells that have interesting effects, rather than ones that simply cause damage. A single caster throwing down an Aqueous Orb in an otherwise unimpressive fight can really make that encounter memorable. Especially if the players manage to get the caster into his own Orb! Beguiling Gift them a poison, or an addictive drug. Use alchemical weapons like tanglefoot bags or smoke sticks to challenge them in different ways and redefine the encounter space. Foes with darkvision in a Darkness spell can be quite tough if few if any of your PCs have darkvision themselves. Personally, I prefer this sort of fight in a space large enough that characters without darkvision have room to maneuver outside of the Darkness spell--if everyone is effectively blind, with no way around it, that can be frustrating, but if they have options that will be more interesting.
Weather effects can work well.
Put the players between two opposing groups with equally valid reasons to side with one or the other: who do they fight against? What do they do? This could also mean that they're in a fight with NPCs from more than one faction.
Include other sorts of hazards in a fight. For instance, I ran one encounter where the players were fighting kobolds on a street surrounded by burning buildings. Periodically, they would hear groans or crashes from the multi-story building nearest the zone they were fighting in, then, partway through the encounter the building collapsed. Anyone within 20 feet of it had to make a Reflex save against getting buried, and those within 30 feet had to make a save to avoid the debris and fire sprayed out of the collapsed structure. In this case, the players were wary enough of the building that they gave it a wide berth and managed to get a fair number of kobolds into position between them and the building, so when it came down, it buried many of their foes.
Having to travel THROUGH a burning building can also be memorable: you've got smoke, low visibility, fire, collapsing ceilings, walls, and floors.
Flooding tunnels, shifting floors, climbing encounters (the players are climbing while being attacked).
Fights with a LOT of minion-type foes that have been buffed just enough to be a little bit of a threat (like 16 base CR kobolds with Weapon Focus, and supported by a bard).
Encounters where you're trying to avoid collateral damage or protect someone.
Chase scenes can be fun! The Game Mastery Guide (and on the PRD) has rules for adjudicating these.
Enemies could use harrying tactics in a running battle, leading or pushing players through traps.
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You could start by picking a terrain with unusual effects on the combat, and only then deciding what to fight against.
One of the better fights I've run was when the party was traveling on a rivel in two canoes, and they ran into crodociles. Some of the PCs were actually on the riverbank, so the whole party was split up a bit.
The encounter involved Swim checks for PCs who fell/got dragged into the water, jumping from canoe to canoe for some of the others, and the canoes moving with the current unless someone took action to paddle.