[Prompt] In your game, who is the biggest threat to the PCs right now?

[Thinker]

In your game, what faction(s) or individual(s) is/are the biggest threat to the player characters right now? How did they get to be a threat? What do they want from the PCs? What did the PCs do to attract their attention?

[BWR]

Most immediately the Night Spider, an Immortal who wants to kill them, and they are (probably) on her home plane. They defeated a weakened avatar version of her previously an survived (and by 'survive' I mean 'at least one party member was still alive to raise the others'). The only survived the most recent encounter because of her treacherous daughter sharing a weakness with the PCs, and the NS buggered off before they could capitalize fully on it. First they have to survive Her son-in-law, a vampire monk (highly buffed version of PF monk) that drains 6 levels per attack.

[Toofey]

The answer to this is ALWAYS themselves. But other than that I have some fighters who have started taking jobs from a front for a green dragon, and my investigator is on the radar of a powerful sorcerer noble woman.

[Scripten]

Themselves.

But seriously, my (5E) party is currently hunting down an escaped Mind Flayer prisoner who was stuck in an ancient stasis tube in some prehistoric ruins. They let it out after the cleric received a vision from it and went to negotiate.

Spoiler

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What they don't know is that the Mind Flayer arcanist is seeking to become an Alhoon (a sort of proto-lich) and then a true Illithilich, while staying one step ahead of them. It's freeing some of its buddies as well.

[Jama7301]

Immediate threat that they're aware of: the local group of bandits and thieves who operate out of a travelling caravan around town, making it harder to root them out.

Soon they're going to be introduced to a prince of an island nation who brought a detachment to the mainland. They'll be an opposing team for the overarching 'race for the treasure' main plotline. How antagonist they'll be will depend largely on how the players act.

[Kaptin Keen]

Always themselves. Secondly, their inability to roll average or better on critical rolls. Third, I have enemies waiting in the wings to finish them off if these first two fail. Somehow.

[RazorChain]

Right now it's Selena Giovanni, the black rose of Sicily. The PC's are trying to thwart her as she carries out the orders of prince William III the son of King Tancred of Sicily. Her mission is to kill Barone Rosefort before he marries Duchess Livia of Apulia and revolts and allies himself Heinrich VI the Holy Roman Emperor.

[Jaelommiss]

Strangely enough, in my game it's NOT themselves. My players are sufficiently terrified of me that they are cautious and will back down from a threat if they do not feel suitably informed.

Recognizing this, the greatest threat to them is misinformation, generally from difficulty involving language barriers. Using a hybrid Draconic-Dwarven language that limits effective communication really threw them off balance.

Second to that, starvation and being underequipped. Starting with a cross-planar shipwrecking left them in a hostile environment with very limited supplies and forces them to be imaginative in using what little they have.

[Dimers]

The greatest threat is the invading demon army that can apparently penetrate deific teleportation shielding. But that's too broad to make a good answer here.

The biggest physical threat is a boss monster that's sorta a cottage-sized flail snail that's also an avatar of decay.

But they're the most likely to face serious danger from the merchant secretly arranging price-fixing to take advantage of the war conditions for personal gain. (I'm kinda anti-corporation IRL, can you tell?) That kind of thing could implode or explode in ways that effectively leave the PCs with no support, no safe haven.

[legomaster00156]

The PC's themselves in the primary campaign I am playing in. In the campaign I am GM'ing, the cold of winter and level 1 FORT saving throws.

[ijon]

I can't speak for any of the other PCs specifically, but right now the biggest threat to my PC is the plan he may or may not (read: will and definitely will) be putting into action

it's a combination of getting launched out a catapult, using a ring of spell storing to cast enlarge person and delay death, then curling up and turning to stone in midair, to basically become a 50 ton projectile hurtling straight towards a castle wall

there is absolutely no way this will go well, but that's the best part about it

[Logosloki]

Themselves, naturally. The next biggest threat to them is what they are facing off against - a werezodiac.

[NRSASD]

Hmmmm... right now? There's a lot of people gunning for my Troubleshooters' party. The noble family whose house got torched and children got maimed/gassed when the PCs were fighting tortoises. The druid circle who lost their city friend when his garden went up in flames due to a reckless fireball. The necromancer whose long term plots were foiled when the PCs collapsed his lab. The Yuan-Ti nation whose slave-trading ring got disrupted when the PCs sank their ship by drilling through the bottom in a misguided attempt to find cheese.

My other party's arch nemesis is definitely themselves. The convoluted, weirdly elaborate plans to avoid combat are truly spectacular. On the flip side, their tiefling wizard has been declared the messiah of no fewer than three different religions now.

[DigoDragon]

The GM? (I mean, he did think we were level 11 instead of level 8 and tossed a CR13 encounter at us.)*

We're playing a sandbox D&D game, so there's nothing specifically the biggest threat to us right now. The threat is whatever we're fighting in a given adventure. Haven't had any reoccurring villains. We've been told by a god here and a god there that there's some sort of primordial force that threatens us, but the deities are vague on whether this is a force with a conscious that's aware, or something more general, like (for example) the planet's sun is about to explode. It would qualify as a primordial force, but not something that had it out for us specifically.


*Not in 'sarcasm' blue cause this actually happened.

[Drache64]

Always the Town Guards. My players always try their best to be "good" aligned in theory, but they have a huge problem with authority. It's so easy... the gate guard is a jerk, eventually some one throws a punch. Boom. Prison time.

[ImNotTrevor]

The PCs. For the most part.

Aside from that, the Venandi. (Who are basically the setting's version of the Illuminati)

Or maybe a gal named Lucy, who will soon become the Goddess of Death.

[TeChameleon]

Well, aside from the obvious answer (themselves), probably the law of unintended consequences (as applied to time travel) at this point. The party currently has an excellent chance of causing an extinction event, as our airship has just been tossed several millennia into the past (courtesy of a drunken halfling wild magic sorceror learning, and promptly abusing, Wish ) to shortly before the most devastating war the planet has ever seen... with the artifact that is commonly believed to be the cause of the war in our hold.

Given that the war originally ended when one side attempted to drop one of the local moons on the other... I say 'attempted' because their aim was bad, not because they didn't succeed in dropping the moon... well... yeah. This should be interesting

[graymagiker]

Generally, themselves. Specifically, splitting the party or a bit of murder hoboing.

Let me explain. I am running a game for my two kids, 13 and 8. To assist them, and because he also has no games atm, is my father in law who started with OD&D and played every edition but 4th. Now I don't allow evil characters, especially for teenager's first campaign. All of them chose to be good aligned of some variety (this is kinda important for the first story).

Our first threat is the party fighter, Moona, who is an elf. I like to be generous as a DM so I gave each player a magic item to start with. Moona has a sword that does an additional d6 of electric damage. After a day of investigative work, the party meets in the local tavern (tropes are tropes for a reason kids). I ask my assistant (father in law) if the tavern is populated with normal vilagers or adventurers. He chooses adventurers, naturally. I use an online generator, and among them is a human fighter who is NE. I inform Moona that she knows this person to be a jerk and not a good person at all.

Operating on cartoon black and white logic, Moona unsheathes her sword and attempts to "cut" the nerdowell. She misses her first attack, and mass combat breaks out in the bar. She lands her second attack and kills the former evil gaurd of the town watch. Several other patrons proceed to murder each other, and the party winds up lighting the bar on fire with a spell. To their credit, the other spell caster put the fire out right away.

Next we have the 13yo player, who's character is Kyoya (yes from that anime the kids watch now days, but only the name is taken). The adventure is to stop goblins and kobolds from burning human farmland. The party has traveled to the goblin camp, and night has fallen. Kyoya and Moona are on watch. Desiring more information, nightfall be damned, Kyoya leaves her sleeping party and sneaks closer to the camp, with Moona in tow.

Me: "you see a large group, about a dozen or so, goblins leaving the camp heading west. In the center is a larger goblin, about your size, and several of the goblins have lit torches."

K: "They are probably going to burn the crops, aren't they."

M: "No way to know for sure at this point, but you'd guess it's likely."

K: "I will cast firebolt at the large one in the center!"

M: "Are you sure?"

K: "Positive!"

The goblins return fire with a volly of arrows, but only one hits Moona in the shoulder. Kyoya flees, but returns with the rest of the party. Now faced with three able bodied adventurers (cleric NPC) the goblin war party and our heros parley for the moment.

Don't you think for a second I wouldn't kill my 13 year old child's character over this, because I would. But some expert handling by our veteran player saved the day, this time.

[Sajiri]

In the latest one I played, there isnt a major threat right now as we're sort of in an in between section between arcs, but one of them on hiatus it's kind of uncertain who the biggest threat is right now.

I suppose overall it's the Plague- creatures kind of like warforged that come up from the combustion layer in the earth who are searching for a specific crystal that will release some god dragon from it's egg down there that they will then kill and reset the world to it's default state which will be cataclysmic. Also that specific crystal is inside my own character's body right now so...kinda dont want them to find that out.

There are two more immediate threats though. One is the nation Aztlaca is about to resume it's war on our side of the sea after they've already taken over a good portion of it, so we gotta handle that, but then there's an npc who betrayed my nation at the beginning of the war to Aztlaca and she has the power of sight. Been trying to keep out of her eyes gathering allies to go attack her before Aztlaca arrives so she cant be spying on us.

[JBPuffin]

As a player right now, our largest current threat is probably ourselves. Sure, sure, the cult of the evil lightning god and the goblins running amok are arguably significant dangers, but honestly? The thing that will lead to a TPK is the relative inexperience of the players and lack of a strong “face”. I have the diplomatic attitude, and have done alright without having to actually use my 12 Charisma on any rolls...but I’m positive my team’s policy of “stab first, ask questions later” (not to mention having two pre-teen players who are neither subtle nor rational actors) will end up screwing us before I have to leave the game for Basic.

Great example: first death was a direct result of splitting the party, a preteen’s rash decision-making, and a severe oversight on my part (killing the last bad guy rather than stabilizing the orc who’d been hit while unconscious). Preteen in question was handed a new character and got to be a badass during his second first appearance, but I still felt bad about the whole deal.

[Sebastrd]

The answer to this is ALWAYS themselves.

I simply set the stage and let the PCs go to town. They ALWAYS find more trouble on their own than I ever could have planned for them. They're their own worst enemy.

[braveheart]

Daegon Chesterfield, a Wizard who after taking thorough notes on all the creatures throughout the planes, has become obsessed with figuring out what makes heroes special enough to take them on. He plans to use the party as a case study and push them to their limits hoping to glean whatever information he can from them.

[LordCdrMilitant]

Their own incompetence, obviously.

After that, the forces of Chaos.

[Bogwoppit]

The dungeon itself - it's filled with traps, misdirection and mazes, and the PCs low enough in power and competence that these are a problem.
After that, probably the Lich Queen.

[Lord Raziere]

A perfectionist sun demigod egomaniac with delusions of grandeur, and his fate-manipulating adviser celestial bureaucrat who believes in predestination and iron law and order above all else both trying to take over the universe, one for his own egomania and other out the belief that everything is too messy and needs a competent iron hand to set things right. they want the PCs to either bow or die, and basically attracted their attention by killing the former and killing an alien emperor whom the latter supported.

[Cluedrew]

Having played campaigns where the biggest threat was and others where the biggest threat wasn't the party itself. "Themselves" appears to be the ideal answer. Well I supposed a really worked out villain/organization might also be as fun, but that takes a lot longer to set up.

[PopeLinus1]

Oh god...Themselves.

Rogue spots a pressure plate that triggers a trap: he doesn’t tell anyone.

NPC slightly disagrees with a player: instantly executed by the Barbarian.

Wizard’s fighting the guards who are asking for his surrender and is out of spells: Punch them.

Towns under attack by demons: Bards first priority is carrying of a keg of beer.