Need new challenges

[doomtarot]

D&D 3.5
My group needs new challenges. They tend to push through stuff and I'm finding it hard to challenge them.

I got them tonight (and upset 2 of them) with a puzzle dungeon. No traps, other than my mine sweeper room, and no mobs. I did it to change pace as most of our games seems to be a simple tank and spank.

But I'm looking for more ideas. Stuff to throw them off and intrigue. One guy is extremely paranoid and his characters are the same. He also always seems to pass his rolls, so I've been either just telling him "no it doesn't work" or questioning his numbers.

Another guy relis WAY too much on his spells and rarely does anything other than cast spells and over thinks even the simplist of situations.

The other two tend to tank and spank.

I'm just getting tired with the go in, kill all, collect loot, leave, and repeat.

The En Route books have been helpful is adding little mini quests (and humorous mostly) but I would still love ideas!

[Uncle Pine]

What are their levels and classes/character concepts?

[Eldariel]

Use enemies with spells. Illusions can make the party waste time. Combine with a bunch of real enemies for a classic scene from Baldur's Gate II: bonus points if the illusions become real if attacked. Perhaps some enemy magus is attacking through Project Image. Perhaps the enemy is affected by Delay Death and Beastland Ferocity becoming effectively invulnerable for a duration and keeps coming at the party unless they can figure out a way to take him out non-lethally. Perhaps enemy ambushing the party unless they're careful. Overall, things like Mirror Image, Abrupt Jaunt, Wings of Cover, etc. require the party to do more than throw numbers at the enemy to overcome, so caster-enemies playing it smart can be a nice change of pace.

Spell traps are obvious, complex ones in particular. A Gate-trap bringing in a Balor with orders to kill everyone: bypassing it requires some insider knowledge plus e.g. doing multiple things at once or solving riddles or things of that nature. Reward creativity - if they come up with a way to bypass the trap, let them. Make the trap logically structured though, with judicious use of antimagic and anti-teleportation effects.

Complex political circumstances are one: have the party assailed by a group of mage enforcers for unauthorized use of magic/"stealing" some state property artifact from a dungeon/suspicions of murder/enemy faction spreading baseless rumours, and force them to slime their ways out of a courtroom or escape (becoming outlaws in the process). Actions have consequences, after all, and there is more than one way to skin a cat (just write up the political system and various factions into your story so this doesn't come outta nowhere).

Perhaps the party gets thrown in the middle of a savage humanoid invasion á la Red Hand of Doom. Suddenly they're not dealing with individual random monsters but a whole host of troops that they have no hope of attacking directly unless they're very high level. And the host can have high level troops. Forces them to fight strategically and find allies and so on.

Perhaps there are some greater degree calamities at works. E.g. Bastion of the Broken Souls is a campaign that features all the world's newborns becoming weak and sickly. Gods are silent on the matter, as there's a divine agreement to not meddle with the birth of new life. Thus the party, should they want to prevent the end of the world as they know it, needs to figure out the cause of the issue and solve it, while divinations can do naught to help.

Of course, there's always bigger fish. Throw some big monsters at the party, big enough that the party can't plow through them. Optimize them a bit with spells, Potions and such and watch the party have to pull off all the stops to try and overcome the party. Hell, sometimes you can throw something really big and see if the party has the wits to try and negotiate/escape a nigh' hopeless fight.

[Rerednaw]

D&D 3.5
My group needs new challenges. They tend to push through stuff and I'm finding it hard to challenge them.

I got them tonight (and upset 2 of them) with a puzzle dungeon. No traps, other than my mine sweeper room, and no mobs. I did it to change pace as most of our games seems to be a simple tank and spank.

But I'm looking for more ideas. Stuff to throw them off and intrigue. One guy is extremely paranoid and his characters are the same. He also always seems to pass his rolls, so I've been either just telling him "no it doesn't work" or questioning his numbers.

Another guy relis WAY too much on his spells and rarely does anything other than cast spells and over thinks even the simplist of situations.

The other two tend to tank and spank.

I'm just getting tired with the go in, kill all, collect loot, leave, and repeat.

The En Route books have been helpful is adding little mini quests (and humorous mostly) but I would still love ideas!

Well before completely changing things...what kind of game does everyone want? If your players only want Diablo style...then puzzles and roleplaying may not be appropriate. I'd have a talk with your group and get their feedback. Let them know you want to move the game into new directions and see if it may fly.

Now if they are game:

Give the party a mystery to solve. By a town whose laws does not accept magically induced/assisted evidence. Time for some brain power. There are tons of mysteries...even that old brainteaser game Mindtrap will have several you may adapt.

Diplomacy. Several factions may start a war and it is up to the PCs to defuse. Note if the PCs are amoral chaotic greedy murder hobos this may be contraindicated. :)

Find and then escort the macguffin. Roleplay the interviews and conversations...it's not 'click on the guy with the gold question mark to get a quest.'. It's more like "the aged farmer scratches his begrizzled beard with his left hand as his face scrunches in thought. 'You folks may want to try Bradley down at the market, he runs a stall of fresh fruits and may have heard of your <insert macguffin>' "Of course Bradely refers the PCs to someone else, and so on.

Kingmaker. Be the power behind the throne and build an empire.

Stop a plague, natural disaster, etc...not something you can sword and board your way through.

[daremetoidareyo]

Give them cool stuff and see which ones they want to exploit and then build a plot around that.

A lamp with a three wish genie can do the trick.

[Bucky]

You can try some less straightforward combat encounters.

Put them up against some spread-out archers in a large open area with only a little cover. This takes a bit of finesse to run on a normal combat map; you may need to split the grid and use the old "represent the distance between them on a d20 (x10 feet)" trick to slide the grids relative to each other as the archers move around.

Put them up against some more archers... on the other side of a trench. Maybe there's a bridge that's a bit out of the way with a troll warrior plugging it Of course, they can jump or climb across... but if they do, run a similar encounter with the troll ready(ied action) to intercept them as they cross the pit.

Put them in a mostly dark area where the enemies have control over some spotlights. The enemies are also willing to disarm/sunder the party's light sources and have a one-shot dispel item to try to get rid of magical lighting. And good luck finding that sniper in the dark without taking control of the lights (a Listen check that beats his Stealth by 20+ might work). For best results, the enemies mostly don't have darkvision.

Have some enemies that try to tumble past the front line and engage the caster while a grapplemonster ties down the front line. Go ahead and run this encounter as a difficult one (+1 CR) as the first encounter of the day, so that you can afford a larger grapplemonster.

[Eldariel]

There are the obvious monster-types like Ghosts, Swarms (particularly in conjunction with anything else), Incorporeals, Hydras, Earth Gliders (Elementals in particular), anything in water (seriously, check the rules for water-based combat: shorebound creatures are ****ed), etc. They tend to require some specific approach to defeat. Earth Elemental attacking from inside the earth; it has Tremorsense to locate its targets and enemies only get readied actions to hit back, and even then at improved cover. Same with incorporeals attacking from inside walls, plus incorporeals have a 50% miss chance too. Hydras move and get million attacks and have fast healing; very tough to deal with unless you can nuke them or sunder their heads. Swarms are immune to most weapons and such, and ignore AC and things of that nature. Ghosts are ethereal and can manifest as incorporeals and they won't die permanently unless the cause of their existence is solved. One can haunt the party for the whole of its adventure coming back every few days. And ghosts can have class levels: one with spellcasting is triply as tricky.

Then you can combine enemies like Stirges or Pixies, annoying hard-to-hit ones that are small and thus hard to focus down but still dangerous, with some big main encounter monsters. Swamp encounter with a Black Dragon plus Stirges, or perhaps a forest encounter with a Gargantuan Monstrous Spider plus Pixies or Stirges or anything can be quite brutal.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Use opponents that can do stuff, not just piles of stats. Enemies who cast spells or can't be reached due to flight or similar will be more fun than just standing toe-to-toe and swinging swords. For example:

An Umber Hulk and a Drider, just go with the typical Sorcerer spells known. Buff both with Mage Armor, distract the party with Silent Image (an open treasure chest overflowing with coins should be easy enough) then throw a Web on them and spam Lightning Bolt. The Umber Hulk can stand nearby and engage anyone who gets free and comes after the Drider, and use its confusing gaze on everyone stuck in the web. Extremely simple tactics, potentially deadly for an extremely simple-minded party. Switch the Umber Hulk's feats to Multiattack, Combat Reflexes, and Ability Focus: Gaze, and the Drider's feats to probably Improved Initiative, Ability Focus: Poison, and Improved Toughness. Remember he gets Faerie Fire as a spell-like ability.



The PCs have to go across a very sturdy, well maintained rope bridge over a vast chasm in their underground adventure. It still swings a bit and they can't go too fast. As they're making their way across two or three Gauth Beholders dart out of recesses in the ceiling and attack them.

Note that a gaze attack can be manually activated with a standard action, and the target must save vs the gaze even if they're not looking or already looked and made the save that round. Note that stun causes you to drop anything you're holding, which can be bad on a rope bridge (I'd say any light weapon falls through 75%, one-handed weapon or light shield/crossbow falls through 50%, and two-handed weapon or heavy shield/crossbow falls through 25%). If the PCs are using flaws give them Ability Focus: Stunning Gaze and Ability Focus: Eye Rays, so everything is a DC 16, otherwise replace their Iron Will and Improved Initiative feats with those.

Tactics: Gauths dart out and get a surprise round, they make no noise but if the PCs have light sources anyone with low-light vision or Darkvision gets a Spot check, to act in the surprise round. They standard-action target their gaze on anyone who didn't get stunned by looking. Preferred targets are anyone with a spell component pouch, then anyone with a bow or net or harpoon, then anyone with any other ranged weapons. Note they don't all go at once, so if the first tries to stun someone with a spell component pouch and they make the save, the next one tries on that same target.

Two eye rays can target a given 90 degree arc, so they can use two eyes against the front half of the party and two against the back half. There doesn't need to be any consistency on which particular eye ray targets what area, only that any two per gauth targets a given 90 degree arc. All three will use their Sleep ray on someone in heavy armor, their Paralysis ray on someone in light/no armor, Exhaustion on someone with ranged weapons who isn't exhausted or paralyzed, and either Dispel Magic on anyone with spell a component pouch or divine focus or Scorching Ray on the weakest looking target that's not disabled. This is all during the surprise round, gauths fly silently and if the PCs are distracted crossing the bridge then there's little chance that they're spotted.

First and subsequent rounds: Flyby Attack allows them to (eye rays) move (eye rays) stunning gaze (eye rays) move (eye rays), so the limit of two eye rays per 90 degree arc is a bit irrelevant as those two eyes per arc can change each time they move. They'll all use every eye ray at their disposal every round unless they're prevented from moving. Continue gaze-stunning anyone who's not already stunned, asleep, or paralyzed. Keep dispelling anything magic, summoned creatures are recognizable without Spellcraft ranks because they appear out of nowhere. Keep using paralysis and sleep until everyone has failed vs both, then keep using it. They'll all three concentrate their Inflict Moderate Wounds and Scorching Ray on a single unparalyzed awake target until it goes down, then switch to focusing a different unparalyzed awake target.

If one is reduced below half health it will retreat back to its alcove in the ceiling, if a second is reduced to below half health the rest will also retreat. They have about a dozen Cure Light Wounds potions on a ledge in their alcove from adventurers they've killed, they'll use two or three on each gauth that's below half health and then they'll all three come out shooting again two rounds after retreating. Repeat retreat tactics if it comes to it, if they run out of cure potions they'll just not reengage that group.