You know those multiclass PCs are going to have real trouble casting spells in armor, right? Make their opponents higher level but do lower damage. Target Touch AC. Ambush them and hit their Flatfooted AC. Use combat maneuvers against them.
Most of all try to get their Wealth back to normal levels again by being cheap with treasure. For spell resistance remember it works against helpful spells as well so healing and buffing in combat is difficult since you have to waste an action to drop spell resistance.
And remember it's all about having fun. If they are having a good time smashing stuff then no problem. If they find it too easy then explain the situation and see if they'd be willing to alter their characters.
You may have to call the thing a wash because there's a LOT of problems you have going - primarily that you're a little in over your head
However, you can MAYBE offset the issues somewhat by doing the following:
1) Adjust the CR of typical encounters by 1 or 2 (i.e CR8 encounters should be a "normal" fight for the CR7 party).
2) Use multiple monsters, not single ones in combat.
3) Max the monsters' HP, rather than use the average that's listed.
4) Give the Monsters DR and SR.
5) Have casters at the ready in fights specifically to launch counterspells via Dispel Magic
If you're used to Martial characters, try using enemies like Bloodragers and Warpreists; Bloodragers are barbarian-esque blaster-casters, while Warpriests self-buff just about every round as a Swift-Action, meaning the longer they're alive the more powerful they become (and can do insane things like cast Darkness on itself as a Swift Action if they have Darkvision, then Charge and Attack).
You can also make characters specifically designed to screw up casters like Barbarians (Superstition, Witchhunter, Spell Sunger, etc. are all Rage Powers which will really mess up spellcasters), and who pump up the enemy team (like a Strategist Standard-bearer Cavalier)
Believe it or not, a TPK could actually help - just don't make it the end of the campaign.
If your PCs have fallen into a lull of them having little to no problems killing enemies, then creating a well-oiled party of enemies designed to TPK them fairly will be a bit of a "Mid-Campaign Twist".
You could have this party of enemies be part of an organization behind an Ancient Conspiracy, and the actions of the party up to now have (unbeknownst to the party) affected their plans adversely, leading to the organization having to send out their cleaners to take care of the Party.
Once the Party is killed, have them awaken, several days later, in the care of another, powerful mage or character - the leader of an opposing organization, who has had the Party be Resurrected and had the Negative Level removed, so that the Party may carry on their task of stopping this opposing organization as agents of the good organization.
Take this opportunity to handwave the party having lost their magical gear (because the enemies looted their bodies and took the gear); replace these items with cool magical gear, provided by this organization - scaling items that would count as Artifacts that are objectively less-powerful but cool in their own right and tailored to the characters who're using them.
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As long as it makes for an interesting story and the party feels that they've obtained something cool as compensation, the loss of their MAD LOOTZ can be fine, especially if fights are made more intense as a result of the paradigm shift.
Also, give the party an opportunity later to re-obtain their gear once they're sufficiently-high level for the quality of their loot to be appropriate.
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Ok, so lets turn this into a learning process.
You are a new GM, your players may not. You need to create a game that works for you.
My recommendations are that you...
...Scrap your current game, but instead make a new game in its place.
...Restrict this game to the Core Rules Book (CRB).
...Restrict the party's selection to the core four: the Cleric, the Fighter, the Rogue and the Wizard.
...Have the party fight a CR APL-1, CR APL, CR APL+1, CR APL+2 and CR APL+3 per set of content.
...Only allow people to level up between sets of content (so no dings in content, but instead between games.)
Try to create NPC groups that challenge the party at your CR APL+3 encounters. NPCs are generally weaker than the PCs, so you shouldn't be able to accidentally kill them with this. However, restrict yourself to NPC classes (Adept, Aristocrat, Commoner, Expert and Warrior [use the Basic stat array], but also use the Cleric, Fighter, Rogue and Wizard [use the heroic stat array] so you get a feel for these core classes.)
...Practice using traps in your design. Every dungeon should have ...traps.
...Never give gear as rewards, but instead only provide treasure that can be sold as gold.
...Link the selling of this treasure to social encounters, E.G. finding the antiques collector.
...Link getting to the antiques collector to traveling encounters, E.G. the party has to travel to the land down under by the hill, but it is a two day journey there.
Basically, you want to design your game in such a way that it teaches you the system. Above all, just have fun.
Explain to your players that you're feeling overwhelmed and want to structure the game in such a way that lets you learn the system. Your players will understand. The best part about being around other GMs is that you can typically flat-out tell them what is in store.
If the scoff at the above limitations, just offer that you want to keep it simple so you can introduce elements as you're comfortable. Ultimately the classes used do not define the characters, but instead the personalities and RP define the characters.
Plus, two of the most powerful classes in the game are already listed: Cleric and Wizard.
Also, do not allow Crafting or Leadership right now, maybe in the future.
Taka nailed all my suggestions.
The only other thing I would add is try some of Paizo's published scenarios or adventure paths. Treat them as GM training wheels. Then, once you feel comfortable, try your own thing again.
That's a lot of pure spell casting from multi-classing. Betting the "alt classes" are homebrew, at least 2 have lvl 3 spells and one is a lvl 7 caster for a pair of rays, and no one is above 7th. That or they have 2 lvls of rog and 1 of barbarian. The lightning bolt avg of 5d6 should be 16.5 dmg less a save that shouldn't be that hard for a multiclass. The rays should avg 13 each and the monk had to be in melee, away from all the casters. It looks like a 5 man group, heavy on the blasting, at that lvl mobs start having resists, decent saves, DR, SR and decent damage output. This group should have fairly weak HP and AC. Even +3 armor sucks for casters, unless they ignore spell failure.
SR at lvl 7 and +3s at lvl 7 is too high and the DM with 20 years exp knows it, your players are taking advantage of you. Review the character sheets, it might take some work, because it seems they players might be tweeking the characters outside the normal rules. Hit them with constructs, all that firepower means nothing to certain golems. Use a tactical wizard with a premade party, invisible NPCs with Haste would be in melee so fast that no spells are going to go off. High fort save fighters/mobs are common, so stunning fists are less useful there.
They game is about having fun, if you are not, remember you are a player too.
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This game is easily salvageable. First, against an optimized party, at CR encounters will be too easy. Up the CR of standard encounters to APL+2. That itself should make combat more interesting. Mix monster types, and always use more than one, unless it's CR is FAR higher than the party (just don't make it an auto-TPK). Try to also have more encounters per game day, due to the excess of spellcasting. Also, remember that you can play enemies intelligently. Flanks, surprise attacks, disabling spells/stuns are all good ways of reminding your players how dangerous adventuring can be.
Quick Answer: Mythic Finger of Death CL 25, because GM.
Longer Answer: You dont need to be able to hit the PC, if they are built to not be hit. I suggest adding templates to most of your encounters and running them a bit dry on magic items for a while.
- poisons
- Area of Effect/reflex saves
- will saves and weird shit (dream spiders, nightmares, hags, fey)
- pugwympies or however they are called mixed with other creatures
- choice in the encounter: save one of two people. It isnt about beating people to death anymore
- Skill encounters mixed in. Traps, Spellcrafts, Knowledges
- Use many monsters/npcs
- Terrain. Difficult terrain, terrain advantage
Even Longer: Restart the campaign, I would stick to an AP as a new GM, one that is interesting for you as a GM. Stick to 15 point buy and under no circumstance change that and restrict races to a few. Follow it and learn where the balance is, add stuff when you're feeling confident.
Good luck! Look for a few threads on these forums and some blogs out there, you'll find quite a bit of info.
My understanding of the opening post is that the 2 original players each have 2 characters that they can chose to play. Is this the case or something else?
My first suggestion is the same that has been stated a few times, use more bad guys.
Second suggestion is throw standard rules out the window. Lets say they are about to encounter the big bad guy of the night and I want him to last say 5 rounds. If on the opening round they do 250 damage to him all of a sudden he has 1250 health. Note this doesn't have to be done via extra health, maybe give him damage reduction and resistance to magic types. Chaining scorching rays are canceled out with fire resistance 20-30. I do sometimes give bad guys 10X normal health though...
Third, when using human(ish) bad guys specifically throw in guys that will be strong against each player. Let them figure out that they need to switch opponents to take them out. This may be a bit tricky as you have 4 full casters...
4th suggestion is to level them up with no extra loot. Let them catch up to their gear. This could actually lead to more problems as again you have 4 full caster classes in your party.
Remember that challenge rating is based on 4 players and you now have 5. This means that even if they weren't optimized you need to use stronger challenge ratings.
If you're having problems with your campaign, my suggestion is be open with your players.
Tell them about your concerns. Ask them if they would mind if you start a new campaign and if they would mind not maximizing their characters because you are still new to GM'ing and are having trouble finding the right balance for combat challenges.
If your players really are wanting to have a good campaign that is fun for everyone (and this includes you) they should be open to such a request and willing to agree.
I would also suggest, don't feel compelled to bind yourself to the CR system. I find that for most pre-written adventures that maximized characters tend to rip it apart. I personally increase the all challenges by about +2 CR at all times, usually by adding maximized hp to all enemies, and applying the advanced template to all combatants. If this isn't enough I will add more combatants, usually 50% to 100% more of already existing enemies.
As a pro-tip, never ever ever run a single enemy versus a party. Either they're so strong they risk out right killing a PC easily even if they will ultimately be defeated by the remaining part, or they lose just based on action economy. Even if a single enemy can deal 50% more damage than any one of your PCs, your PCs are getting 4 actions to your one. Collectively, they will about 3 times the amount of damage as compared to your individual bad guy. Not to mention while the BBEG may be able to crowd control 1 individual with a spell, this leaves the other 3 to cave the BBEG's face in. In short, just don't do it.
It's better to add 3 or 4 lower level minions to screen the PCs and allow the BBEG to do things to challenge the PCs without overwhelming them.
While I agree that you shouldn't often use just one guy against a group. I wouldn't say never.
I learned DMing Wrath of the Righteous that it could be really fun to throw out a really powerful bad guy that takes multiple turns per fight. Just make sure it does different things during each of its turns.
For example, I had the team fight a monster that breathed a breath weapon the first turn each round, attacked one character with a bite attack (from a different head) on the next round, then on its third turn per round it attacked another player at range (maybe it was reach) with its tail.
This is a special case though and I wouldn't want to run it all the time. Most of the time there needs to be a team to fight a team.
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There are lots of things you can do if you feel that the PCs are steamrolling the game and you need to challenge them.
Build encounters with numerous challenges and choices in them of varying threat levels. There are a number of elements that make for a memorable encounter:
- Low level mooks to swamp the PCs. If they can't hit the PCs because of a low attack bonus, then they need to use flanking and "aid another" to stack bonuses. Better yet - have them try to grapple/pin the PCs down. Each enemy joining the grapple adds +2 to the CMB check, so a PC who is completely surrounded is facing a grapple check of at least +17 or higher if they all tackle him at once. Also they can use dirty tricks on the PCs, which is always fun. Also - a crap ton of low-level mooks with ranged attacks can still be scary. 30-40 goblins shooting at a single PC are going to hit him with a natural 20 at least a couple of times and possibly crit as well. (and you get to roll handfuls of d20s, which always makes the players nervous)
- Mid-level enforcers to deal damage. Big guys with reach and high strength. Once the mooks can grapple/pin/gum-up the PCs, these guys move in to take advantage and smack them hard. If the PCs can get through the mooks, they'll take them down, but while that's going on...
- High level Bosses to threaten and de-buff. Usually spellcasters. Blindness, Feeblemind, Baleful polymorph, etc. Save-or-Suck spells. Ugly area effects or conditions. If they aren't magical foes, then massive ranged attacks to wear down or take out the PCs and make them vulnerable to the mooks and enforcers.
- Environmental hazards. Poison gasses, falling rocks, icy floors, localized lightning, explosions, etc. PCs always get nervous when they find out that the room itself has a place in the initiative order.
The point is to present the players with choices: Which threat am I going to try to mitigate/elminate? If I sweep aside the mooks, then the enforcers will hit me. If I take out an enforcer, then the Boss will nerf me down. If I attack the boss, I have to pass through the room hazards. If I shut down the room hazards, then the mooks will have more room to swamp me. The threats all layer up on one another and the PCs suddenly have meaningful decisions to make other than "I hit it with my sword".
You don't have to use all of these elements at once, and there is other stuff you can add to the mix: hostages, doomsday devices that need shutting down, etc. You'll want to mix and match all this stuff in varying amounts.
Also, the PCs may STILL steamroll the encounter... but that's okay. If they need to make choices, then they will feel like they were challenged, even if the danger was slight.
ALSO ALSO: Don't be afraid to step outside the rules. Especially when it comes to environmental stuff. You can get real creative there without having to conform to any particular thing in the rules. High Weirdness - challenges that their regular abilities can't cope with - are good every so often. And don't be afraid to occasionally devise a challenge with no reasonable solution, and see what the PCs do with that. If they come up with something cool, then let them succeed, or else give them a chance with some kind of dice check. They have more brainpower available than you do, so don't be afraid to throw them problems that you yourself can't solve.
So the easy way to deal with this problem is to employ my favorite enemy, the CR 1 bloody burning skeleton. Unless the group has a cleric that can channel to kill all of the skeletons within 30 ft., this turns into a continual encounter.
How it works: the skeletons run up and attack. They miss. However, because they have a fire aura, everything (including other burning skeletons) take 1d6 fire damage. OF course, the burning skeletons are immune to this damage.
You have to reverse engineer the CR system to properly challenge the PCs, but it is easy. Your PCs are level 7, so they fight CR 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 encounters. The XP you should allot for building encounters is
CR 06 = 2,400 / 4 = 600 XP allotted per PC per encounter of this CR.
CR 07 = 3,200 / 4 = 800 XP allotted per PC per encounter of this CR.
CR 08 = 4,800 / 4 = 1,200 XP allotted per PC per encounter of this CR.
CR 09 = 6,400 / 4 = 1,600 XP allotted per PC per encounter of this CR.
CR 10 = 9,600 / 4 = 2,400 XP allotted per PC per encounter of this CR.
You have 5 players. Hence you should have 5 active PCs at any given time.
CR 06 = 3,000 xp encounters.
CR 07 = 4,000 xp encounters.
CR 08 = 6,000 xp encounters.
CR 09 = 8,000 xp encounters.
CR 10 = 12,000 xp encounters.
Dividing these by the number of Bloody Burning Skeletons (CR of base skeleton +2) that could arise from each CR...
If you use 1 HD creatures (1/3) and apply the bloody (up to CR 1/2) then bloody (now CR 1) you could send
CR 06 = 7 per encounter.
CR 07 = 10 per encounter.
CR 08 = 15 per encounter.
CR 09 = 20 per encounter.
CR 10 = 30 per encounter.
The thing about these undying hordes is that after 1 hr, they just reanimate and burst back into flames. Individual parts of them do as well, being treated as the creature's space. If someone decides to be crafty and take one of the femures with him, he starts taking 1d6 damage per round the moment the skeleton reanimates. All of his stuff probably catches fire as well. It could be a crafty way to start a campfire, really.
If there is a cleric in the party or someone who can channel energy in a big aura, don't both. Just send burning skeletons (they're worth 1/2 the XP of a bloody burning skeleton, so just double the above numbers) and have them jump the party. IF the party has fire resistance, just change the damage type to something else that is neither positive energy, negative energy nor force. If it is sonic then the PCs will probably be able to hear them coming, but have no idea what it is. Skeletons are mindless, you could say that they will just "follow the leader" with the leader being any skeleton that moves (thereby leading the entire army to the PCs once one of them is spotted) or that they don't attack what they can't see unless their senses tell them there is something there to attack.
My favorite ambush, however, is the hall of bloody burning skeletons hidden by illusions. The PCs walk down a narrow corridor. They take heat damage from what appear to be massive roiling lanters. When they get to the end of the hallway to check the locked door, the illusion ends. There is a large number of bloody burning skeletons that formerly couldn't see the PCs, but now can see them because that narrow corridor turns out to be a circle or square. The skeletons are just as surprised as the PCs at this development.
If your PCs are illusion wise, switch to it being walls that suddenly sink into the ground in a flash to create a monster driven trap.
So, why (bloody) burning skeletons? When a creature starts its turn next to a burning skeleton it takes 1d6 points of fire damage. If a burning skeleton hits a creature, the creature takes 1d6 points of fire damage on top of its normal claw damage. If a burning skeleton dies, it explodes, dealing 1d6 per 2 hd (min 1d6) fire damage to all nearby creatures. Basically, they more or less do fire damage regardless of what happens. They can take more than 1d6 fire damage if there are multiple burning skeletons adjacent to them or grappling them. If being grappled the skeleton deals its claw damage + 1d6 fire damage per round it sustains the grapple and does damage. In addition, the PC takes the 1d6 fire damage from being adjacent to the burning skeleton (in its square is treated as close enough for adjacent) meaning that on a successful grapple the PC is in danger of being a roasted PC. The meat falling right off the bone, finger licking good.