So the party is currently within Spires of Xin-Shalast and it seems they are walking over these encounters like they are nothing.
1) The ranger and Wizard/Rogue have Fog cutting goggles.
2) Cleric/Wizard has wand of obscuring mist
3) fighter/Barbarian is the tank he get's up front, and then the Cleric stands right behind him and uses the wand.
4) Enemies are now blind to everyone except the fighter in front.
5) Wizard/Rogue now uses Scorching Ray as sneak attack.
6) Ranger just pin cushions the enemy.
7) If enemy takes 5' step away from Fighter/Barbarian, he follows because of feat
I had one enemy try Control winds to dissipate the mist, but the cleric went next and says he casts control winds and says it negates my control winds, since he's pushing wind other direction. I try to argue stating the obscuring mist would still be dissipated and he argues.
Then if the creature has true seeing, and was a Rune Giant which is 40' tall, the wizard used sleet Storm and cast it above his vision level. So no the party sees him and he can not see them.
Then, after a battle if they are low on supplies, they Wind Walk until they are outside the Spires(Occluding Field) and then they Plane Shift back to Dwarven Strong hold.
I'm not trying to kill the party, but I would like to encounters to at least be interesting. Other then Barbarian attacks and criticals 1-2 times and is doing about 160 damage, and then Ranger and Wizard attack next, and bring the creature down under 30 hitpoints left.
So even if my creature get's one last full attack in he's only standing next to Fighter with 240+ hit points.
And the Cleric is right behind him, but they can only see the 5' in front of them because of the obscuring mist.
So even if they do 100+ points of damage, Cleric heals him.
So between Sleet Storm and Obscuring Mist, how do I make the encounters more balanced?
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1. Give the enemy Fog-Cutting Lenses
a. Karzoug as an intelligence of 25+ IIRC. He's not dumb. He will see the weakness and be able to counter. If any of your players have a sihedron medallion or ring, and aren't actively countering the scry ability he automatically has, then he can see/hear all of their plans and have already prepared for them.
b. The stats for monsters are NEVER set in stone, nor are their items and/or abilities. Give them tremorsense or blindsense. Or change a feat to Blind-Fighting.
2. Have the rune giant crouch. That isn't "squeezing", and should negate the blind effect with no arguments. Also, the storm says it affects the ground, which I would argue means that it must be anchored TO the ground.
3. Is the fighter/barbarian being affected by the 20% miss chance for being next to the giant in the fog?
4. When they Wind Walk out of the Occluding Field, are they making their saves? I ask, as you make no mention either way about their inventory items.
The Spire is a fluid place, and Karzoug's realms. Use it as such. Make the bad guys coordinate and counter attack if you feel your party is having too easy a time. While yes, they should have fun, so should you. This area and the battles should be EPIC. Use their own tactics against them. Make up magic items like disjunction bombs that create mage's disjunction when thrown. Or use some of the Mythic stuff. There's all sorts of things you can do. DO NOT limit yourself to only what appears in the adventure.
What William said.
In addition:
How do you start your encounters, i.e. at what range?
If the group is not particularly stealthy the monsters could/should spot them at range and open fire using spells/projectile weapons.
Ruyan.
So much trouble here...
1. Clerics cannot cast Control Winds. It is a Druid spell.
2. Regardless, I fail to see how one Control Winds can be used to negate another control winds spell to the extent it saves a lowly 1st level spell like obscuring mists. If the wind is set to rotate, the mist is going to be torn up no matter how it might be "countered."
3. Obscuring Mist is stationary. The NPC's can simply retreat. How many charges does he have left?
4. William Sinclair has a good point. And you don't need disjunction bombs (though that's a cool idea,) dispel magic works just as well.
5. Fire destroys the mist. The Rune Giants Spark Shower power should work just fine and vision is not needed to aim a cone. Fireballs are good too and also do not need to be aimed.
6. The sleet storm should blind the pc's as well. Nothing in that spell description suggests it is "magical and normal fogs, mists, and similar obscurement." (From fog-cutting lense description.)
7. The pc's can't really hide in the fog. NPC's and monsters can move into the mist and get within 5' of the pc's. Yes, they would have a 20% miss chance, but the wizard and ranger will be taking attacks of opportunity if they want to shoot or cast. And a 20' radius mist is big if you are 5', not so much if you are 15' or 20' square. A Rune Giant takes up 16 squares and another 20 squares are immediately adjacent to him.
8. The cleric is the problem. The NPC's/monsters should be concentrating their fire on him. Why waste your time trying to kill the fighter if the cleric is just going to heal him? Kill the cleric first.
Before combat cast:
Mind blank
Moment of prescience
Magic jar
Eyes of the void
Use the magic jar to posses one of your allies.
While in this body cast greater invisibility when you believe the party is about to enter.
Karzoug uses moment of prescience to add 20 to his initiative. This should make him go first. If this is not enough to guarantee that he goes first have him spend a wish to wish to go first.
Karzoug casts Wall of Supresion at his caster level -1 (19) Remember you can cast at a lower caster level, it just has to be high enough to still cast the spell. This should turn off any spell effect and all items that are not at least caster level 20.
While under time stop place a hungering darkness spell on top of the party.
Then cast a quickened Prismatic wall in front of them. Unless they have "see in darkness" it is unlikely that they will be able to see it. You cast eyes of the void so you can see fine.
Use the remaining rounds of time stop as you see fit, probably to wall them in further.
If they do manage to get out of this predicament, they will do so with basically none of their gear functioning and without any off their buffs.
The key that makes this work is how wall of Suppresion works. By lowering your caster level by 1 when casting it, you make your spells immune to it. Also remember that while under mind blank, spells like see invisibility and true seeing do not work against you.