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So I am running an Abomination Vault campaign, and I have one player who always wants to run either super complicated builds or super optimized builds. So he just created a 10th level Minotaur monk who leverages a drake heart mutagen at the beginning of every combat. He basically pegs a 34 AC and manages +18 or higher on every save. The rest of the party has ACs from 25 to 31.
Is it just me, or is the 34 AC super above par for a 10th level character? Even CR 12 mobs are going to have less than a 50% chance to hit on their first attack. Add to this he is using the Taunt mechanic to insure he is the primary target in most fights. Definitely a well thought out and constructed character, but it just seems a little too uber to me.
Thoughts?
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Not sure how they're built, but I just want to be sure they're not stacking the item bonus to AC from the mutagen with existing armor, and are correctly taking into account the mutagen's dex cap of 2.
I think with this method they could be getting to 34 while raising a shield and perhaps a status bonus to AC from somewhere.
Drakeheart should also be dropping their will and reflex saves, which helps.
Taunt isn't mind control and is a Guardian ability, not monk, so I'm not sure how they're taunting, but if it's multiclassing they're really going all in on tanking which isn't really a bad thing.
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Not sure how they're built, but I just want to be sure they're not stacking the item bonus to AC from the mutagen with existing armor, and are correctly taking into account the mutagen's dex cap of 2.
I think with this method they could be getting to 34 while raising a shield and perhaps a status bonus to AC from somewhere.
Drakeheart should also be dropping their will and reflex saves, which helps.
Taunt isn't mind control and is a Guardian ability, not monk, so I'm not sure how they're taunting, but if it's multiclassing they're really going all in on tanking which isn't really a bad thing.
This is all on Foundry, which does an amazing job of keeping bonuses from overlapping. I audited the character today. His dex is definitely capped at +2 and he is getting no benefit from his normal armor.
10 + 14 (10th level and expert) + 2 (dex) +3 (fortress shield) +5 (moderate drakeheart mut).
All equals 34. It’s legit, just super broken (in my opinion).
As for the saves, monks have really good saves (expert in fortitude and reflex, master in will). So like average of +18.
He gets the taunt from the guardian archetype.
A lot of this is he uses a fortress shield and one normally does not picture a monk with a shield.
He really enjoys doing a lot of research to optimize his character and I can’t fault him for that. But I do like running a challenging campaign, and builds like this make that hard. I can compensate with more powerful mobs, but that “punishes” the other players.
Out of curiosity, how many Encounters a day are you normally running? (I run AV, it tends to go 3-4 encounters a day for my group.) And, given the answer to that question, how is your player keeping their Monk in Drakeheart? I'm assuming they're not making it themselves, as you mentioned Guardian archetype.
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Out of curiosity, how many Encounters a day are you normally running? (I run AV, it tends to go 3-4 encounters a day for my group.) And, given the answer to that question, how is your player keeping their Monk in Drakeheart? I'm assuming they're not making it themselves, as you mentioned Guardian archetype.
I average about the same.
The party has an alchemist who makes 6 to 8 drakeheart muts a day. And the monk bought a device (collar of the shifting spider) that allows him to inject the mutagen as a free action.
He gave this a LOT of thought.
Don’t get me wrong. I tend to minmax when I build a character, but not to this degree.
In my opinion, it's not really that overpowered. The speed penalty and action cost of raising the shield is helping a lot, but also the bulk cost shouldn't be ignored, as well as the action cost to set up with the mutagen at the start of combat.
For all his effort he's ~3 ahead of another character not really doing much special. A normal monk with taunt might actually be better in many scenarios because they could more easily juke and keep the taunt debuff up.
Personally, I wouldn't even blink at such a character joining my games.
Have you found yourself missing so much you're growing frustrated?
Are they not feeling challenged?
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In my opinion, it's not really that overpowered. The speed penalty and action cost of raising the shield is helping a lot, but also the bulk cost shouldn't be ignored, as well as the action cost to set up with the mutagen at the start of combat.
For all his effort he's ~3 ahead of another character not really doing much special. A normal monk with taunt might actually be better in many scenarios because they could more easily juke and keep the taunt debuff up.
Personally, I wouldn't even blink at such a character joining my games.
Have you found yourself missing so much you're growing frustrated?
Are they not feeling challenged?
I have always loved the teamwork element of a party. When you have an uber character in a game, sure it’s fun for the other players at first. But eventually, the imbalance gets frustrating.
But yes, it’s frustrating as a GM as well. I like a game where the battles FEEL like they could go either way, with the PCs triumphant at the end. I like this kind of game as both a player AND as a GM. His total build is designed to funnel most if not all of the enemy attacks at him, and not get hit much. As I have stated multiple times; it’s a great build. But I also think it’s too great. It relies on holes in the fabric of the system. If this was MTG, this would probably lead to restricted or banned cards
This is one reason (of many) I prefer PF2e over 5th Edition. It’s a HARDER system; less forgiving of mistakes.
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This character isn't unhittable, just harder to hit, and isn't dishing out a ton of damage. They have a neat debuff for the enemy if they're not targeted, which is nice for all players. They also aren't solving all problems solo. That party could very much still run into bad luck and fail.
You may be overthinking how strong the build is, since this level of AC difference has been achievable for a long time now on different builds.
If you're not having fun because you don't like missing so much, then I would talk to the players about it. Maybe you could propose upping the difficulty just to add some spice. They might like to brag about that even.
It's very easy to raise or lower difficulty in this system if you're all on board.
Is he actually taking the speed penalty from the fortress shield and spending two action each turn to raise the shield?
Edit: The Hefty +2 actually only means he needs strength +2 to raise it as one action, so that's probably okay.
But he's still losing speed and spending an action each turn to raise his shield.
If an enemy saw this turtle on the battlefield...they should probably avoid him and target something else. Yes, with the guardian dedication and the Taunt ability it is a somewhat annoying debuff to endure, but after a swing or two they should realize they're going to have a hard time hitting this guy that isn't doing much else.
Alternatively, ask you're playing simply to not do this.
Tell him to either get rid of the shield or the mutagen, as you feel it's too much and you would need to either adjust the enemies to hit him (which punishes the others) or leave them alone, which doesn't challenge him.
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This character isn't unhittable, just harder to hit, and isn't dishing out a ton of damage. They have a neat debuff for the enemy if they're not targeted, which is nice for all players. They also aren't solving all problems solo. That party could very much still run into bad luck and fail.
You may be overthinking how strong the build is, since this level of AC difference has been achievable for a long time now on different builds.
If you're not having fun because you don't like missing so much, then I would talk to the players about it. Maybe you could propose upping the difficulty just to add some spice. They might like to brag about that even.
It's very easy to raise or lower difficulty in this system if you're all on board.
Not a bad solution. I have definitely been pondering approaching the player to discuss my concerns.
I’ve been reading the Monster Core 2, and one of the things I’ve noticed is pretty much all CR 10 monsters hover around a 29 AC. They don’t usually get into the 30s until CR 11. Not that PCs are equivalent to monsters, but in general monsters should have higher ACs because they are usually in one battle and then defeated. Whereas the PCs persist from one fight to the next. Which is why a lot of monster abilities aren’t suitable for PCs.
I suppose I am pretty old school when it comes to TTRPGs. I like a challenging game. A lot of the current crop of YouTube gaming influencers (think Ginny Di) seem to take the opposite view.
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Is he actually taking the speed penalty from the fortress shield and spending two action each turn to raise the shield?
Edit: The Hefty +2 actually only means he needs strength +2 to raise it as one action, so that's probably okay.
But he's still losing speed and spending an action each turn to raise his shield.
If an enemy saw this turtle on the battlefield...they should probably avoid him and target something else. Yes, with the guardian dedication and the Taunt ability it is a somewhat annoying debuff to endure, but after a swing or two they should realize they're going to have a hard time hitting this guy that isn't doing much else.
Alternatively, ask you're playing simply to not do this.
Tell him to either get rid of the shield or the mutagen, as you feel it's too much and you would need to either adjust the enemies to hit him (which punishes the others) or leave them alone, which doesn't challenge him.
The sorcerer character in the party usually hastes him first thing.
I’ll have to check on the speed thing, but I imagine Foundry applies the speed penalty. It’s good at automated rules enforcement.
And yes, my original thought was to have a talk with him and ask him to either stop using the shield or the mutagen as the combination is too much.
His normal routine is thus. Free action, inject the mutagen. First action, raise the shield. Second action, either move or taunt (usually a different foe than the one he is attacking). Third action, flurry of blows.
But I do tend to have most of the mobs continue on to their original target, regardless of the taunt. At least the new taunt itself isn’t broken like it used to be.
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Let's not pretend the speed penalty is at all meaningful in the cramped areas of a paizo AP or when the monk speed bonus means the -10 is balanced out by the inherent +15 on top of fleet and possibly boots of bounding.
Damage is probably not too big an issue either if they're at least popping 3 inner upheavals per fight. If it's free archetype or they added adopted human maybe even add rogue sneak attack on wolf strikes through multitalented rogue and sneak attacker at 9-10.
Monk with a big shield is the most common way to play a melee monk so this isn't really unexpected either.
None of this seems particularly super optimized. The taunt is funny but only inflicts off guard which should always be happening anyway, and a -1 you can mostly ignore. The drakeheart thing is just basic party support, but they could accomplish so much more by bringing a non-alchemist instead so that's not particularly concerning.
Usual iron brick problem I guess? Just kill everyone around them or stop wasting time with moderate fights.
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Let's not pretend the speed penalty is at all meaningful in the cramped areas of a paizo AP or when the monk speed bonus means the -10 is balanced out by the inherent +15 on top of fleet and possibly boots of bounding.
Damage is probably not too big an issue either if they're at least popping 3 inner upheavals per fight. If it's free archetype or they added adopted human maybe even add rogue sneak attack on wolf strikes through multitalented rogue and sneak attacker at 9-10.
Monk with a big shield is the most common way to play a melee monk so this isn't really unexpected either.
None of this seems particularly super optimized. The taunt is funny but only inflicts off guard which should always be happening anyway, and a -1 you can mostly ignore. The drakeheart thing is just basic party support, but they could accomplish so much more by bringing a non-alchemist instead so that's not particularly concerning.
Usual iron brick problem I guess? Just kill everyone around them or stop wasting time with moderate fights.
Now this one made me laugh, specifically the last part.
I mean, the alchemist has a 31 AC and I honestly have trouble hitting her. Most mobs they fight have a first attack modifier of +21 or less! I suppose I could just start eliting every mob they encounter….
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It also feels like this setup would be vulnerable to larger numbers of enemies. If facing two or three enemies, then yeah, taunt one and face off with another and that doesn't leave much for the rest of the party to deal with.
If there are six enemies, that is a different story. Having two of them square off with the monk and there are still four left to go cause problems for the sorcerer.
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Have the (Boss) monster target the shield,
And what rules are you using to do that?
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So the alchemist is supplying the monk with mutagens, and the sorcerer is supplying the monk with haste.. it seems like the players have decided that this is going to be their team plan. It IS teamwork, but the shape of the teamwork is that they all decided to pitch into making one of them very tanky.
Normally this is more something I'd see in the 18-20 levels of a campaign, but I guess here it's at level 10, but at an AP that runs to level 10. But there's a moment in a campaign where as a GM you can just decide "well, the players are doing some broken stuff now, but we're also in the last stretch to the end of the campaign, so just let them finish on a high..."
I'd care a lot more about this if I was still in the middle of the campaign, than at the end of it.
I'd also consider telling people "yeah, that was clever, but now you should challenge yourself to find a different gimmick for the next character".
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The creature sees this really big thing in the way and smashes it...
A Fortress Shield has a hardness of 6 and 24 HP. Give it eighteen points of damage and it's broken.
It may not be standard tactics, but the Minotaur isn't a standard build either.
Having creatures attack attended items directly isn't just something the rules don't support, it's also an unbelievably bad precedent to set to change that. Shields are basically the only thing with durability that can deal with this at all, after the early levels. Everything else becomes made of tissue paper, compared to the scaling of Strike damage. Object durability is not something that PF2 handles well at all.
Addressing a character with high AC by houseruling in a world where it's easy to destroy any equipment used by any enemy at any time is not a way to make things better.
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Have the (Boss) monster target the shield, it should be broken (-2 AC) after the first hit.
so the boss uses an action to invalidate a core of the players tactic
the player will be annoyed at the very least
even if pf would handle item attacking/damaging better then it does, if you just go in and snipe one of the core equipment parts, that would feel very bad for the player
its basically the same as stealing the sword of a fighter or the alchemists satchel or a gunslingers rifle
always consider both sides of such an action
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Not sure how they're built, but I just want to be sure they're not stacking the item bonus to AC from the mutagen with existing armor, and are correctly taking into account the mutagen's dex cap of 2.
I think with this method they could be getting to 34 while raising a shield and perhaps a status bonus to AC from somewhere.
Drakeheart should also be dropping their will and reflex saves, which helps.
Taunt isn't mind control and is a Guardian ability, not monk, so I'm not sure how they're taunting, but if it's multiclassing they're really going all in on tanking which isn't really a bad thing.
This is all on Foundry, which does an amazing job of keeping bonuses from overlapping. I audited the character today. His dex is definitely capped at +2 and he is getting no benefit from his normal armor.
10 + 14 (10th level and expert) + 2 (dex) +3 (fortress shield) +5 (moderate drakeheart mut).
All equals 34. It’s legit, just super broken (in my opinion).
As for the saves, monks have really good saves (expert in fortitude and reflex, master in will). So like average of +18.
He gets the taunt from the guardian archetype.
A lot of this is he uses a fortress shield and one normally does not picture a monk with a shield.
He really enjoys doing a lot of research to optimize his character and I can’t fault him for that. But I do like running a challenging campaign, and builds like this make that hard. I can compensate with more powerful mobs, but that “punishes” the other players.
His Reflex save should be at +16, not +18. Trip the turtle. If possible with a Reach attack. And then Reactive Strike when they stand up.
Dispel Magic against the Haste.
A Polymorph spell to counter the Mutagen.
Disarm against the shield.
Swarms should do well too.
The creature sees this really big thing in the way and smashes it...
A Fortress Shield has a hardness of 6 and 24 HP. Give it eighteen points of damage and it's broken.
It may not be standard tactics, but the Minotaur isn't a standard build either.
That isn't a rules citation for being allowed to target and attack the shield.
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Also, after 'dealing' with their shield, next you are going to target their armor yes? And then their weapons.
Then after the lieutenant deals with destroying the majority of the characters accumulated wealth so far in the entire campaign, the boss can come in to mop up.
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Have the (Boss) monster target the shield, it should be broken (-2 AC) after the first hit.so the boss uses an action to invalidate a core of the players tactic
the player will be annoyed at the very least
And the judge is already annoyed, or DMchucky69 wouldn't be asking for advice. The judge has to enjoy the game as well, or what's the point of judging?
even if pf would handle item attacking/damaging better then it does, if you just go in and snipe one of the core equipment parts, that would feel very bad for the player
You only have to do it once. Like the threat of death, an unusual set-back adds tension/suspense to the game.
its basically the same as stealing the sword of a fighter or the alchemists satchel or a gunslingers rifle
always consider both sides of such an action
Which is different from Disarm how? (or Dispel Magic on the Haste?)
Throw the party a curve ball now and then.
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This is a player that has definitely pushed the FA rule to make their character more powerful, not more capable of handling a wide variety of problems. It also seems like a character built at level 10 with a bunch of brand new toys they never had to buy or be without over the course of a campaign. Hopefully none of the gear their last character had got funneled into party wealth.
Also a large PC in AV would have been terrible for many levels of play, having to squeeze to get through regular doors fairly frequently. The opportunities to get separated from the party would have been all over the place. I point this out because it is easy to say “this build is busted” when it is only really good in a pretty limited part of the campaign you are playing through.
My table also likes to do the team builds. They are good enough I don’t like doing FA without them agreeing to me dialing up the difficulty of the campaign, not by adding more monsters but by making the dungeon more intelligent and coordinated. There are some creatures in that dungeon who can work together and make life really hard for a party. I would do that. Although it also seems like a character built to just burn through the end of a campaign. Did their last character die? If not and they just switched at this point because the build would really be hitting stride at this level, I would probably just speed run the rest of the campaign, let them have their big win and then tell them that you are going to be more restrictive about options in the next campaign, at least as far as what is available to any character at the start of their part in the adventure. They can earn different options later on, but they won’t be able to just build into anything from the get go.
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Have the (Boss) monster target the shield, it should be broken (-2 AC) after the first hit.so the boss uses an action to invalidate a core of the players tactic
the player will be annoyed at the very least
And the judge is already annoyed, or DMchucky69 wouldn't be asking for advice. The judge has to enjoy the game as well, or what's the point of judging?
even if pf would handle item attacking/damaging better then it does, if you just go in and snipe one of the core equipment parts, that would feel very bad for the playerYou only have to do it once. Like the threat of death, an unusual set-back adds tension/suspense to the game.
its basically the same as stealing the sword of a fighter or the alchemists satchel or a gunslingers rifle
always consider both sides of such an action
Which is different from Disarm how? (or Dispel Magic on the Haste?)
Throw the party a curve ball now and then.
you suggest that sounding like a standard tactic to deal with perceived high power of a character that is perfectly within the rule expectations
if the shield gets destroyed because the player deemed it better to use it, its fine, if it gets destroyed because the dm decides it is a problem it leaves a bad aftertasty
Can I trust the gm to leave me my fun or will my shield always get sniped whenever it is inconvenient for them?
It is a question of trust as much as of game design
a disarmed sword can be picked up, a destroyed shield that just gets sniped turn one is out until at least the next combat
dispelling haste is also a valid tactic - if it happens once in a while. But if it would happen every other combat or just every hard combat, it starts to feel like counterplay
of course you now and then have to play out the weaknesses of the players, just as much as you have to give them opportunity to shine with their strengths
The character uses the normal system math and is slightly optimized, which means most enemies still can hit them and if they fight against above party level threats they still gonna suffer
while pathfinder 2 is not a perfect system, its tight math is in questions of balance a very solid foundation. If a player reaches close to or the maximum ac for their level, it is perfecty fine. If nothing seems to be able to stop them, encounters must be made a bit harder
now and then disabling haste is valid, now and then disarming is valid, putting so much pressure on the tank that the shield breaks is valid
Sniping the shield of the frontline tank and circumventing raw and rai to do so will leave the players with any number of negative emotions
Have the (Boss) monster target the shield, it should be broken (-2 AC) after the first hit.so the boss uses an action to invalidate a core of the players tactic
the player will be annoyed at the very least
And the judge is already annoyed, or DMchucky69 wouldn't be asking for advice. The judge has to enjoy the game as well, or what's the point of judging?
even if pf would handle item attacking/damaging better then it does, if you just go in and snipe one of the core equipment parts, that would feel very bad for the playerYou only have to do it once. Like the threat of death, an unusual set-back adds tension/suspense to the game.
its basically the same as stealing the sword of a fighter or the alchemists satchel or a gunslingers rifle
always consider both sides of such an action
Which is different from Disarm how? (or Dispel Magic on the Haste?)
Throw the party a curve ball now and then.
you suggest that sounding like a standard tactic to deal with perceived high power of a character that is perfectly within the rule expectations
if the shield gets destroyed because the player deemed it better to use it, its fine, if it gets destroyed because the dm decides it is a problem it leaves a bad aftertasty
Can I trust the gm to leave me my fun or will my shield always get sniped whenever it is inconvenient for them?It is a question of trust as much as of game design
a disarmed sword can be picked up, a destroyed shield that just gets sniped turn one is out until at least the next combat
dispelling haste is also a valid tactic - if it happens once in a while. But if it would happen every other combat or just every hard combat, it starts to feel like counterplay
of course you now and then have to play out the weaknesses of the players, just as much as you have to give them opportunity to shine with their
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A big note here is that a Dispelled item is temporarily disabled, a lost item can be recovered and a broken item can be repaired, but a destroyed item is just gone forever. Shields are the one thing that really gets durability scaling in a way that won't be immediately Destroyed (at least if they use Reinforcing Runes), but other items don't, and that's why the idea of letting attended gear be directly targeted with Strikes gets bad really fast.
These things just aren't equivalent.
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Which is different from Disarm how? (or Dispel Magic on the Haste?)
Throw the party a curve ball now and then.
Disarm very specifically targets a held item. That's what it does. Dispel targets an active spell. Both use player defenses.
There's nothing in the rules to support targeting a held shield, but even if you did allow it, you'd be using the same AC as the player because it's attended and it still gets player defenses. So the creature is spending multiple attacks targeting player AC but not damaging the player in order to try to break a shield... which I guess is a thing they could do but a fortress shield with a reinforcing rune is going to be pretty tanky in its own right.
In fact, earlier errata to spells suggests the intent is specifically to disallow the thing you want to do:
Pages 316-407 and 573: Damaging spells and items meant to harm PCs do way too much damage for your gear to survive if it could be targeted, so such spells almost never are supposed to be able to damage objects. A few target lines slipped by with "creatures or objects." Remove the ability to target or damage objects from acid splash, acid arrow, eclipse burst, polar ray, sunburst, fire ray, moon beam, force bolt, and the horn of blasting. Limit hydraulic push to "creatures and unattended objects."
The fact that they distinguish attended vs unattended objects frequently in the rules for targeting makes the intent clear, just like how they removed Sunder from the game entirely with PF2. There are very specific creatures and abilities that can target gear that are set up with that in mind. General purpose attacks can't.
"Throwing a curveball" is a good idea. "I'm changing the rules to counter you because you're annoying me" is not. A GM that wants to do that should create a house rule and talk it over with the players, not just show up mid combat and go "oh by the way I changed the rules specifically to nerf you."
(If anything, this is an example of how FA can grant unintended power and why some limitations around what can be taken with it can be a good idea to put some guardrails in place.)
The campaign is nearly over, somebody lost their character and created a new one focused on defense: I don't really see the issue.
AV has loads of rather difficult fights, if you feel as if your group is no longer challenged adjust the encounters accordingly.
I didn’t get the sense the OP’s player lost a character. I got the sense they just decided to bring in a different character that they just discovered or thought up a build for. I think it can be fine to let players have characters retire that they are not into or who’s connection to the plot feels done, but I have also seen the “I just want to try out this new character idea” type players who want to make new characters every couple of months just because there is a new shiny toy they want to use or just learned about. Again, I am not inherently judging that style of play, but if they are doing it often and to bring in more and more optimized characters who are less and less connected to the story, especially if they are doing it at critical moments in the campaign, that can be disruptive behavior, as it appears to be in this case, since it is frustrating the GM.
That is why, for future campaigns, if this group is going to use variant rules that can make characters more powerful than baseline, and the GM doesn’t want to turn up the difficulty mobs to compensate, that it might be a good idea to limit what options are available as FA choices to start and for character to meet NPCs and such that open up training in new ones once the NPC grows to trust that character. This can at least encourage not character skipping just to do some new mechanical thing and help establish that the GM is interested in encouraging characters that really fit in the story, so that should be a player consideration as well.
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If anything, this is an example of how FA can grant unintended power and why some limitations around what can be taken with it can be a good idea to put some guardrails in place
But the character in question is only using FA to get Guardian dedication for taunt, which isn't really the problem.
I suppose the alchemy party could be an archetype on another character (we know another character is supplying the mutagen), but I don't really think FA is the issue here either.
The character has optimized for AC.
There are ways to challenge such a character, but it start to feel targeted or punishes the entire party which aren't good outcomes.
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One of the ways to handle this is to create a fight with no back line. Have magic mirrors that the enemies can leap into and out of, teleporting them around the room. Have a bunch of ropes and have enemies swinging everywhere around the battlefield (I did that in my adventure PFS2 7-02 Shipyard Sabotage, just to spice things up.) Have flying or burrowing enemies that come in from everywhere.
Don't do this everytime, but once in a while it can shake things up.
Hmm
Another note:
if the defense is too high, debuff the character
there are surely ways to make them clumsy, off-guard, sickened and other using one of the not-so good saves
especially off-guard is a really easy tool if you have a few more mooks
again, something that should not be done every combat, but can be used once in a while to make it easier for enemies to fight the optimized character
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This doesn't really sound like an over optimized character to me, just a competently built one. It's difficult to build actually broken PF2 characters because of the way the math is level bound. There are extremes on either end of where numbers can be a given level, but that is not an indication of something being broken because those extremes are (usually) known to the designers.
Your players working as a team to help everyone out is fantastic. I would be careful that, whatever decision you make, that you don't send the message that you don't like when they play as well as they can or when they work as a team.
I recall Abomination Vaults being very difficult. When I played through it, my group HAD to optimize the crap out of our party to get through it. What your players are doing now might be in response to just how over-tuned Abomination Vaults is.
There are some things you can do to make encounters more challenging for the monk and the rest of your team and more fun for you. Many of these things are what DM's should do in adventure paths anyway:
-Rework enemy spell lists. Experiment with spells that that make the ground difficult or hazardous terrain, or give people speed de-buffs, or block the monks vision (walls) and/or vocalization so that he can't effectively taunt anything he wants all the time. Remember they need to see or hear the taunt, there are spells and consumables that can mitigate that.
Experiment with spells that give debuffs even if the target succeeds so that in longer more drawn out fights you can debuff the monk's AC and saves to make him more hitable. Give some of your enemy casters dispel magic, even if it's just a scroll. It's an essential in any casters kit, and that Pazio refuses to give it to enemy's in adventure paths is a travesty. I wouldn't give it to every caster all of the time, but some of them some of the time will keep your team on their toes.
-Remember that there are LOADS of one action things enemies can do to get advantage on foes, just like players. From tripping, to demoralizing, to disarming.
-Enemies can buff each other and themselves! They can use Aid actions just like the party to help them hit in combat. You can give casters guidance to help each others out or sure strike to help them hit with a spell.
-You mentioned making enemies elite. This could be good tactic, but don't make them ALL elite. In a large group, one or two elites to focus on the monk while the others focus on the rest of the team might feel good. In smaller groups one elite should feel better.
-You could put traps and hazards on the field before combat that the enemy know about but that the group doesn't then position enemies to lure your players into them. I would make them more annoying and scary than deadly though.
-Remember that anything they can do, you can do. So give your enemies potions and mutagens too! Or maybe a fulu or a gadget here and there. Change up their equipment to make them more optimized with weapons that have more interesting and useful traits for them and their team. An enemy with a steel shield could have a tower shield or a fortress shield of their own! Tinker with what skills they have so that they (you) have more interesting options. In other words, create some of your own synergies in the enemy groups that your players fight.
You don't have to do all of these things all of the time, and probably shouldn't. If you do some of these things some of the time, not only will you be having more fun, your players will as well. Remember that the goal shouldn't necessarily be to make an encounter harder, the goal should be to create more opportunities for fun and surprising moments for you and for them. Making something FEEL more dangerous is more important than actually making it more dangerous.
If your players notice you changing up tactics and having more answers to the things they do, well why shouldn't Belcorra and the dungeon denizens have heard of this group rampaging through their home and made plans of their own? Players are adjusting their tactics and strategies to fight better, so the residents of the dungeon should be doing the same. Don't make every enemy fight to the death, have some run away so they can report the parties strengths and weaknesses to others so you have an excuse for future groups to target them a little more thoughtfully. You could even make this part of the banter of enemies when they meet the party. ("Hey, isn't that the invulnerable guy we've been hearing about?")
It sounds like your players are bringing you their A game. Are you bringing yours? Your tool box is just as interesting and varied as theirs are. I would encourage you to dig deeper and bring the same thought and attention to your enemies approach to combat as your players have.
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The above was what I was going to send, but before I did I wanted to do a quick analysis of AC and saves that you say are broken. I was pretty surprised. Here's some results.
At level 10 a Champion can have an AC of 31 without anything special. Just a +1 resilient full plate.
10 + 7(resilient full-plate) + 14 (prof)
34 if they raise a fortress shield. Exactly the same as the monk but I didn't need to use a mutagen that reduces my will saves and reflex saves.
For saves: Fort 21, ref 15 (18 against damaging AoE's) and Will 19. For an average of 18/19 (Same as the monk).
The champion could take the defender feat, but they already have really good protecting reactions that don't require them to use an action to taunt.
Also the champion has shield block right out of the gate and free reinforcing rune options as part of it's class kit so it can make excellent use out of that raised shield. It will probably have more HP because it would need less varied stats all around to make this build work.
This example is at least as effective as the monk you have a problem with, and I didn't even take anything special to get there. I would argue that, side by side, it would actually outshine the monk in the roll of being a defender. This is standard character building stuff: try to get the best AC you can, pay attention to your saves, improve your action economy.
Your player didn't really optimize too much here. They used a few tricks to turn a class that is not traditionally a tank into a tank. Anyone can take a fortress shield, a drakeheart mutagen, and a class archetype feat and many classes have saves that are at least as good as the monk. Most martial classes have options to get two attacks out of 1 action, so even using flurry of blows to squeeze out an extra attack isn't that special of a synergy here.
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Just wanted to make a note on FA, having read back some of the comments here that point out that it could have resulted in this 'problematic' build (which I show is not problematic at all in my post above).
I have a group I've been playing and DMing with for the last 5 years, me and another guy swaps out DM duties when we want a break. In any case, we used all cool shiny alternate rules. FA, Ancestry Paragon, Automatic Bonus Progression and so on and so fourth but over time we got rid of one after another until we were not using any of them, not even FA. When I said I'm not running any games with FA any more everyone was skeptical, but we've come to love it. Pathfinder 2 without any optional rules, it turns out, is a really fun game!
Instead of FA, we do have bonus campaign feats that players can earn if they impress someone or do an exemplary job at something. So there are still free feats every now and then but not one every other level and certainly not whatever they want. Players really seem to enjoy searching for opportunities to get these feats as rewards. For agents of Edgewatch for example, characters that did well on their missions could receive training from the guard to get an archetype or dedication feat from an extremely short list (but only at 4, 8, 12 and so on IF earned).
I guess I just don't think FA is as good as the community likes to think it is. I would encourage DM's that see problematic character builds and power creep to try running some games without FA and see how going back to vanilla PF2 works out.
That's just my little soap box.