Why can't I kill my pc's. Just once?

<self loathing>
I am not a soft DM. I play for keeps. When in position for a Coup De Gras, I take it. My Villains always flank. Incorporeal undead, strike out from the walls. Dragons always buff with at least Shield, Mage Armor, and Shield of Faith,

I put the Elder Tojanida encounter in quicksand instead, to make it more difficult.

I raise the ceilings in the encounter with the Gargoyles, and give them all aerial combat feats.

I add/switch templates all over the place, moving the Half-Fiend Ogre Mage to a Half Dragon Ogre Mage.

The NPC's USE their scrolls, and expendable magic items against the PC's. 2 seesions ago a Silenced Boxed in Wizard used a scroll of Stilled and Silenced Passwall to get out of a death trap. It bought him 6 more seconds.

The PC's are constantly challenged over their CR, usually by 3-4 levels. Nothing touches them. Let's look at my last session:

Fiirst combat; Annis Rngr 5, Cleric 11 with a template that gives her DR 5/Law + Adamantine, Energy Resistance 15 (Fire, Cold, Acid, Electricity, Sonic), Fast Healing 1, SR 22, and a Spectre.

I put the Spectre inside the Cleric's Shield readying an action against the first PC to engage melee against the Cleric.

Round 1 of combat.
Annis Rngr 5 dies before acting,
Cohort of a PC attacks Cleric in Melee, misses, and eats 2 Negative Levels from Spectre.
Cleric off of script, casts defensively and HARMS Cohort for 110 points of damage. Cohort is unconsious.
PC's then heal Cohort, and drop Cleric before the Spectre can go again.
Spectre dies.

Try combat 2, the next day:

Okay, Young Adult Red Dragon's (Female) hoard has been looted by the PC's and she's very angry, waiting for them to cross the 250 foot long bridges she knows they will.

Buff Dragon with Mage Armor, +4 to AC.
Check.

Spot PC's crossing Bridge with Spot roll of a Natural 20.
Check.

Scare the Bejeezus out of the PC's by casting Enlarge Person on self, upping your size to Gargantuan, and looking like a CR 21 Red Dragon.
Check.

While flying towards PC's, Continue buffing by casting, Shield, Mirror Image and, Shield of Faith. AC is now 38 with 5 mirror Images.
Check.

Fly within 50 feet of the party, and Breathe 10d10 breath weapon, which the entire party fails the saving throw on and do 64 points of damage.
Check.

Frightful Presence causes the party Druid, Rogue, and a Cohort Fighter to become shaken.
Check.

Shrug off the attacks of 3 Spiritual Weapons (From items), 2 as they simply can't hit your armor, 1 as it fizzles against your SR.
Check.

Laugh as the Druid's Summoned Greater Air Elemental (With Augment Summoning) misses badly from first attack.
Check.

Fail Fortitude Save vs. Baleful Polymorph by roll a 3 from the Druid in the first round, get turned into an iguana, and die that round, before the Breath Weapon comes back.
Oops.

I feel so pathetic.

I haven't killed a PC since February 2004. The Cohort dropping to negatives was the first since then.

I need motivation. Why should I keep going on?

Should I just give up and turn into a Monty Haul DM?

</self loathing>

go reverse, start removing magical items and not replacing them.

CrusadeDave said:

Should I just give up and turn into a Monty Haul DM?

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The game was designed to be beaten. It isn't your fault.

That said you could:

1) Increase the number of monsters you toss at the party. Look at lower CR critters and use more of them.

2) Crowd control. Slow, hold, sleep, and fear are all your friends. Remember, you only have to get lucky once.

3) Increase the caster level for raise dead, reincarnate, and ressurect by two. That takes away the safety net a bit.

4) Stop rolling poorly. Make ammeds to whatever spirit has cast a hex on you. Sacrifice a chicken if you must, just rid your self of this negative voodoo!

Don't up the CR of your opponent, up the number of opponents. A party of 4 10th level characters can handle a single CR 14 far easier than they can handle 8 CR 8s. Especially if they are as you say they are. And if you are really gunning for them, move on to 16 or 32 opponents.

Blind Kobalds. They are the answer. They are to small to be of notice, but there intellect is beyond repoarch. They set up traps that are the works of a genius.

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Of course you may have guano for smarts when it comes to tactical preparations. Your PCs are smater than you. That 250 foot bridge should have had blind knife weilding kobalds. They cut the ropes (except 1) good bye PCs. They either dropped to there death or are hanging on. At the mercy of even more traps. Than when they are all but beaten, your dragon's dad shows up to harm the living for messing with his daughter.

Gamecock said:

Blind Kobalds.

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Blind and losing hair?

jmucchiello said:

Don't up the CR of your opponent, up the number of opponents. A party of 4 10th level characters can handle a single CR 14 far easier than they can handle 8 CR 8s. Especially if they are as you say they are. And if you are really gunning for them, move on to 16 or 32 opponents.

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<More Self Loathing>
Two sessions earlier, (Same Day adventuring as the Spectre/Cleric/Annis Battle)

Same Level 11 Cleric, 4 Medium Elementals (One of each prime type), 2 Dark Nagas, 2 Flesh Golems, 3 Minotaur Barbarian 2/Rogue 2's, 8 Ogres War 2's (Just enough to give them no experience), 8 Bugbears Fighter 3 (Same), 12 Advanced Grells (Just enough to give them no experience.

I don't even know if the party even sweated.

This is RttToEE, and I've been treating every bridge garrison and temple force as 1 big combat, where everyone runs in to repel the PC's. Or counterattacks en masse the PC's. No picking off 1 Bad Guy at a time.

Heck the only guy they haven't been able to kill is the Greater Barghest with a ring of counterspelling (Dimensional Anchor) so he can d-door away. He picked up 2 levels each of Monk and Blackguard but still can't beat the party, always having to run.

</sigh>

Goodness me, your PCs have a druid in their party no wonder you have a hard time offing them.

Also you're not using your monsters to their fullest advantage. Cleric casting Harm? pfft! That is so 3.0. Nowadays, my villain clerics cast Blasphemy with bead of karma and orange ioun stone to paralyse the entire party. I managed a few TPKs without trying until the entire party consisted only of clerics and druids.

Your dragon can cast cleric spells too, make sure they learn the ever broken divine spells and you'll be TPKing to your heart's content.

BiggusGeekus said:

4) Stop rolling poorly. Make ammeds to whatever spirit has cast a hex on you. Sacrifice a chicken if you must, just rid your self of this negative voodoo!

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BG, this explains so much....

You know what Joe uses to kill us? Death dice. I swear to god those buggers roll more crits than I care to remember.

To second the motion, use more creatures of lower CR. Not only is it harder to manuver and maximize attacks (from the PC's perspective), it will chew through their magical resources when you get longer combats with more enemies standing after the 10th round of combat.

suzi yee said:

To second the motion, use more creatures of lower CR.

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I disagree.
Use more creatures of higher CR.
If one were-rat Troll Cleric 5 won't take the PCs down, use 12.