Appropriately Challenging Your Party

[not.a.newb]

I'm looking for help with my biggest struggle as a GM; I can't seem to find the appropriate level of challenge for my players.
For some background, I run Pathfinder campaigns, with a renaissance-era technology level; depending on the specific location the players are in, guns are (emerging) in a few areas, (commonplace) in most areas, and (everywhere) in one nation. Magic is fairly common, and we have, for the past year, used the Pure Steam campaign setting (roughly) so technological items are also fairly common. Governments tend to be fairly corrupt, outsiders to meddle in mortal affairs fairly regularly, and generally big things are going on in the world that the players are at least aware of, if not involved in. That just about sums up the kind of settings I play in.
As for the players themselves, I'm pretty lenient about what they can do within the rules, with the tradeoff being that I generally don't allow 3rd party material or player creations, unless I've extensively examined them and compared them to existing material, in which case I typically point players towards an existing archetype, spell, weapon, etc. I tend to favor my players as far as rolls go (players usually win ties when I roll hidden dice, regardless of how the tie is supposed to go) and when players roll stats, I have them keep for totals between 70 and 80 (so that I can keep the minimum fairly close to the cap; I don't like having players with ridiculously different stat totals)
Now, I don't think any of this is terribly unusual; the problem I have is that my players beat pretty much everything I throw at them.
It's ridiculous. I have parties of (optimized but not min-maxed, if that makes any sense) 3rd level characters taking on CR10+ encounters and pulling through, to the point where it seems I'm left with only two options; give my characters an encounter of an appropriate CR that I am 100% certain they will take out in 1-5 rounds, or give them an encounter twice that difficult, see them succeed, and watch them level like crazy, quickly spiraling beyond my ability to provide reasonable encounters.

How do you guys handle this issue??

[Kelb_Panthera]

So, just to get this straight, you provide your players with a multitude of advantages and then you're overwhelmed by their capability to the point you feel a need to ask for help.

Have you considered -not- giving them so many advantages?

More productively, you know better than to use singular high CR monsters instead of groups of middle CR foes, right?

[emeraldstreak]

it's easy

analyze their builds and challenge appropriately

[Raphite1]

Just curious - how many characters are in this party of level 3s, and what classes?

They're beating things like clay golems, fire giants, and young red dragons?

[not.a.newb]

Alright, so firstly, I need to admit to a (I think) small GM problem: I tend to give my characters lots of (mundane) stuff, and compensate by giving them tough (combat and non-combat) encounters and very little magical stuff, and I'd kind of anticipated that that would balance out. After all, you can only wield so many weapons, or drive so many wagons, or carry so much clothing. However, my bard tends to screw with those plans by convincing other people to help them out; I can't always turn down his 35+ rolls on diplomacy and perform oratory, after all. On top of that, the party manages to, even in the small amount of OOC conversation I allow, develop plans that pretty much maximize their combat potential, and in normal non-combat encounters, the bard very nearly can't fail. So I'm stuck with either bending/breaking RAW against my characters (which I don't see as a reasonable option, although that is kind of a double standard) or giving them incredibly difficult encounters, and those encounters come with more experience and more loot... And it becomes a spiral, where even if I have some of their loot destroyed in fires, lost on the trail, too heavy to carry, etc, they level fast, they accumulate wealth fast, and I have yet to find a way to handle this without giving them simply impossible encounters.

As an example, they were trying to find the source of some undead, and convinced some downtrodden folk from a large city to help them, in return for food and weapons. The players sell nearly all of their loot, and they're outside the city with a small camp of townsfolk-vigilantes and way too many gold pieces (some of it tied up in raw materials and trade goods, all of it resulting from the above issues of trying to give them a challenge). They arrange for some scouting parties, and find an umbral dragon involved; the bard goes to the local engineering school, and by knowledge: engineering, perform: oratory, and diplomacy, manages to convince them to manufacture some basic steam engines (which are fairly common in this world) for him, along with a couple of big guns. Oh! The party remembers they have found some carriages in an abandoned town nearby! I check, and they did. Can the townsfolk help them mount the guns and engines on the carriages, since they used to be locomotive workers and builders and probably have some applicable knowledge? Seems reasonable to me, so I allow it; the bard manages to haggle for some ammunition, and suddenly you have a party capable of taking down the young umbral dragon. They do. And every issue they encounter goes something like that.

Does that help with suggestions? Any thoughts?

[EisenKreutzer]

Do you usually pit them against single boss-type enemies? Because this is a sure way of pretty much guaranteeing that the players will stomp all over the encounter.

Generally try to use powerful single foes with multiple less powerful minions. This way, the players can't dominate the encounter because of the action economy. Also, try and keep the CR of the entire encounter a couple of levels above the average party level. A CR 3 encounter is not a challenge for an APL 3 party of adventurers, especially if they are more than four.

[Amphetryon]

So to clarify, yes I tend to give them big benefits, and I'm fine with giving them encounters as if they were 2+ levels higher than they are, but even when I do, they still destroy those encounters. This is a party of 3 players, (currently actually at level 4), a bard, a ranger, and a barbarian (who just recently charged into a death pit and died, and rebuilt as a cleric.) I try to pit them against 1-3 bigger enemies; trolls, elementals, dragons, etc, and then a bunch (As few as five, and on one occasion as many as 30) of smaller enemies; zombies, skeletons, goblins, street thugs, etc. This has worked out pretty well, but even when I correct my loot mistakes (I random generate a scroll of summon froghemoth and don't realize my mistake soon enough; next encounter, it gets destroyed in a fire, that kinda thing.) so that I don't have these fuys running around with crazy magic items, they still manage to find a way to crush any encounter I throw at them.

Edit: Will write another post with more info, didn't want to make a wall o' text with my phone.

With a Bard, a Ranger, and a Cleric, battlefield control seems like the immediate suggestion to consider. Enemies that can trip, entangle, obscure sight-lines, or just fly would appear to be significant issues for this party to overcome, particularly if the enemy has the ability to dictate the terms to start the encounter.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

You're using the "soft" enemy types plus guns. "Soft" enemies are those that have high HP/damage/AC overall but can be gradually whittled down and thus action economy is king. Guns are also a huge issue vs monsters - they negate natural armor and thus guarantee hits in close distances, making the whittling a lot faster.


Use "hard" enemies.
Enemies with lots of unconventional defenses and abilities are considered "hard" because they got protections that flat-out stop attacks; they're unlikely to be whittled down and instead you need to find what they're vulnerable to. A big elemental, construct or undead with increased Damage Reduction or Hardness (via feats, for example) could be shot at by an entire army at range and not be hurt in the slightest. At melee, when people see the first 15-20 damage from every blow get outright resisted, they tend to rethink their expectations of an easy fight.

Use elusive enemies.
There's no bigger gamechanger to a party's easy victory plans than an enemy who strikes but refuses to be struck back. The invisible sniper is a good example - he can attack slowly and methodically without being exposed to easy counterattacks and while the party could get a one-round victory if they caught him, catching him is the whole fight. Similarly but using different skills is the infiltrator demon. A succubus in a town is a nightmare. She could be anywhere, wearing the face of anyone. And the PCs might not even know they're under attack when the mind-controlled city watch arrests them, takes their stuff and puts them to prison, where the succubus can simply appear out of their cells' bars and use her ranged mind control while they can't reach her.

[Harlot]

Tuckers Kobolds - i.e - hit-n-run tactics and sneaky enemies - not even encounters at all, just very challenging.
Also do they have a rogue? If not: Traps, traps and TRAPS, and then loads of enemies after that.
For actual encounters, action economy is King - make sure the enemies overall have slightly more actions than the group - so that for every action they have, the enemies have two or even more.
(Read this: chttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1nx-o8VAjhUwh3nnfzDQT-JA5eFLnN_BZJiBitGjBMDg/edit)
For the bard, would something as simple as language barriers work? I the bard can't talk to the people/creatures in that particular area, he can't pursuade them to do much. What languages does he know?
Also you can simply pit them in environments where nobody can really help them, like extended dungeon crawls or wilderness trekking.

[Lightlawbliss]

Back when I was starting DMing, an experienced DM told me how he handled this sort of situation:
He adjusted the CR of the rewards to the CR he felt the fight actually was.

ECL 3 party kills cr 10 dragon with little resource use, he might reward them for a cr 4 or 5
ECL 20 party get's nearly TPKed by a cr 2 fight, he might treat it as a cr 22.

However, don't reward player stupidity. Don't up the reward because they were casting magic missiles at a force dragon.

You are DM, you control the rewards. If you think a fight would give more loot then you want the players to have, adjust things.

[emeraldstreak]

Also, don't give them the opportunity to plan everything. Introduce an antagonist organization and have it set up ambushes/assassinations regularly.