Encounter Goodness

[Schylerwalker]

So I'm well into a campaign that I'm running (3.5 with some Pathfinder rules, like critical hits and stabilizing), and I'm trying to come up with encounters that effectively challenge the party without them complaining about it being to hard -- eternal challenge of the DM, am I right?

So, the party's average level is 11, after starting out at first. We're using the Pathfinder variants for races, so no level adjustments. The party's quite powerful, partly from an overabundance of magic items, and partly from overpowered homebrew (Or just overpowered classes in general). Here's the party:

Mickey Trickeyfingers, the party's leader. Human Gambler 10. Gamblers are kind of the love child between warlocks and bards, with an at will ranged touch attack that does elemental damage based on what cards he draws, bonus luck feats, and various card and dice themed abilities. The class can be found on the D&D Wiki. We severely toned it down because it was WAY too crazy damage wise to begin with. Ranged DPS and party face.

Petra von Deitrich. Wild Elf Weretiger Ranger 2/Witchknight 4. The witchknight is a custom class of mine, with various Negative Energy and Plane of Shadow themed powers, a sneaky battle-field control melee character. For the weretiger, I'm using a weird homebrew thing I came up with that's a bastardized D&D version of the WoD lycanthropes. She's also a moon-warded ranger variant. Does crazy pounce damage, melee DPS.

Tzeitel Silverbreeze. Ara'tel Archivist 11. The Ara'tel, or feyborn elf, is a race my friend came up with which is very similar to the PHB elf, but they get bonuses to Knowledge instead of perception skills, and 0 level spell-like abilities instead of the ability to notice secret doors. Tzeitel is easily the most powerful member of the party, with area effect damage, buffing, debuffing, battlefield control, healing, etcetera.

Vein Shadowborn. Drow Agent 1/Magus 9. The second most powerful character of the party. The agent is another of my custom classes, a skillmonkey with spell-like abilities, sneaky combat abilities, trapfinding, and some other goodies. The magus is a VERY powerful Pathfinder class; basically a Duskblade/Warmage on speed. Melee and ranged DPS and limited tank.

Ajorian. Lizardfolk Barbarian 10. Wears mithril full-plate, uses various two-handed weapons depending on the encounter. Shock Trooper, going for Leap Attack, Combat Brute, all those goodies. Most health in the party, melee DPS and tank, high AC even with Shock Trooper.

Monzilly, Pie-Thief Extraordinaire! Goblin Rogue 8/Swashbuckler 1. Daring Outlaw/Two-Weapon Fighting shenanigans, incredibly stealthy, party trapfinding specialist, source of much hilarity and pure win and awesome. Easily the group's favorite character. Decent melee DPS, but mostly the skillmonkey. Typically gets Hide, Move Silently, Search, Disable Device, and Open Lock in the 30's and 40's.

Braviel. Wild Elf Cleric 8, almost 9. Very unoptimized, but still pretty dang powerful, cuz, ya know...cleric. Mostly focuses on buffing and getting rid of enemy debuffs (The party hates negative levels with a passion).

So, yeah. They're currently cleaning out one of their ally's castles that has been taken by one of the big baddy's armies. The boss of the "dungeon" is a glabrezu, with a vrock, three babaus, and a currently weakened 9th level wizard (Who loves Fell Drain :smallamused:). For the next dungeon, also a castle that's been taken over by evil outsiders (Demons and devils are part of the same faction in my campaign setting), I'm thinking of using a horned devil with several chain devil minions, in a room full of hanging chains and torture devices.

tl;dr? I need some help designing good encounters for a very powerful party without killing them. Ideas? Questions on the setting or anything like that can be answered, as those may or may not change your ideas.

[Sudain]

Incorporate traps, illusions, and enchantments into your encounters. It'll keep the party on their toes. And the enchantments will really drive the party nuts.

As for the devils... notice how they all have greater teleport? You can make good use of it to really throw the party a loop. Make a point to practice tactics before hand. Port in(behind cover?), whap whap, port out. Don't allow them a formation(teleport directly next to a caster and abuse attacks of opportunity).

Just remember to port out and NOT stay there. When the party does get there, the devils should be healed. :)

That will make it difficult and memorable.

[Rorrik]

As long as we're talking about teleport, as long as you're not too averse to it, splitting the party could make for some good mayhem. Have the group with no tanks encounter a swarm of melee fighters, or a big baddie. The group with little support against ranged foes.

[Sudain]

Yup, tossing up a wall of Stone/Ice/Force cutting the group in half should also challenge them. Triply so if they run into a prismatic wall.

[JerichoPenumbra]

Have you tried some undead gishes yet? :smallamused:

You say the the party hates negative levels (I wonder why? :smallbiggrin:), that is something they have experienced and thus have a contingency for. Encounter-wise, I think rather than splitting the party (which both of us know has led to some catastrophic TPKs or close to TPKs) it would be better bring in something that is completely bizarre and/or foreign to them. Aberrations suit this well, along with some fey, like the Grey Jester, or something rooted contamination, like Taint Elementals. The Binder class works well, as does the warlock class. Having a cult of sanguimancers if the party hasn't encountered some could be rather disturbing, especially if most of them are being controlled by a Grey Jester.

Also as cliche as it maybe, you could try bringing in a "rival" group to face the party. Now I wouldn't go so far as to suggest that they all be exact mirrors of the party, but just have them be an even match in some areas. Like a Wu-jen to match the archivist or Combat Expertise/Finesse focused Fighter or swashbuckler or even your soldier class to go against the barbarian. I'd be more than happy to help you make them.

[Machinekng]

How about a plot twist?

The fiends, knowing that the party is intent on wiping them out, have set up the entire dungeon as a trap. They plan to use a ritual to shift the entire castle into Hell. Three-quaters through, the visible effects begin to appear, as chunks of the castle begin to Plane Shift into Hell.

This would create both a time limit (stress) enviormental factors (more stress) and just general stress on the party.

For a mundane encounter, a succubus posing as a captured maiden is a classic. To make it more deceptive, have her being roasted alive in an seemingly untended fire pit. The succubus won't take any damage from the flames do to her fire resistance, and some more fiends can be lurking around invisible.