help, the pc's are unstoppable [Thread necromancy]

[Cutty Sark]

This might not be useful advice right now, especially since nameless suggested my solution already and it wasn't a good fit for your group, but remember it for the next time you play.

Don't give them so much stuff!

The enchanter can affect undead with enchantments? Deck of Many Things? Ninjas? I doubt the group would hate you if you didn't give them quite so much stuff the next time around. The least fun I ever had playing D&D was when a DM gave our group a bunch of draws from a Deck of Many Things. When Death came for somebody, he just drew again and wished it away. They can powergame all they want, but you can control their power at least a little bit. Challenging fights should be more fun for everybody, right? Make them sweat because they don't always have the right equipment for the job.

 

[Agamon]

One of the easiest ways I've always found to annoy my players is the copy cat thing where they have to fight mirror images of themselves.

Funny aside...I did this against my current party. They were "cloned" by a modified Mirror of Opposition that didn't release the double until an hour had passed after the reflection was first made. The party later passed through a one-way portal that took them halfway around the world.

Needless to say, when they finally got back home, they were none-too-popular, as their evil clones caused quite a bit of damage, especially to their reputation.

The thing is, the PCs eventually fingured out what happened and went to take the bad guys out. The doubles had no idea what hit them. The party snuck into their own keep, which they knew pretty well, and ambushed the clones. Seeing as they knew all their enemies' strengths and weaknesses, they formulated a well thought-out plan of attack, and finished the battle in under 3 rounds.

Moral of the story: ambushes are deadly

 

[Umbran]

Holomachamp:

You might want to address Joshua Dyal's question. Most of answers here are of the "how to make the enemy tougher" variety. If your problem is coming up with tough enemies, cool. If your problem is, as you suggested in your original post, finding the happy medium between cakewalk and decimation, then however good the advice here is, it generally only answers a part of your concerns.

 

[TBoarder]

Maybe try a group of six NPCs of equal level with equal equipment and the half-fiend template.

Speaking from experience here, this is a bad, bad idea.

I tried this tactic once with a group of PCs and they got extremely lucky and won the fight. The PCs ended up getting all of the bad guys' items, which just created a snowball effect of sending more powerful opponents after them and the PCs getting their items, until it became effectively impossible to challenget them properly at all.

 

[MavrickWeirdo]

My sugestion is: Tons of "weenies"

hundreds of kobolds,
thousands of goblins,
ten thousand rats.
Not Giant Rats, not Diseased Rats, just rats, Ordinary rats.
Not all at once, 20 to 50 at a time, every 2 to 4 hours.
Expending wands, scrolls, potions and spells.
Little experience, no treasure.

 

[clockworkjoe]

500 orc warriors from a tribe that specialize in wrestling. Result, 500 level 1 or 2 fighters with all the grappling feats you can manage. They swarm and grapple the fighters en masse and then use bolas/nets/lassos for fliers.

 

[megamania]

It's a bit mean and nasty but I the one time I ran into this I used a specialized Mercenary party to deal with the PCs whom had just ruffled the feathers of a king. I used (this was before 3e!) a
Medusa Mage (whom ALWAYS) kept covered up until a fighter engaged her...Surprise!
Psionic Monk with a ring that hasted him. That one hurt....X-men's Nightcrawler meets Wolverine
A Lich that used Illusions well. First illusion- not a lich...comere' let me touch you
A few more traditional fighter types as cannon fodder
A Psionic Ranger Thri-kreen
It was a blast- especially since the first encounter took place in a tall grass soft mud environment. We completely lost our fighter as his now solid stone body sank into the mud!

 

[ced1106]

Well, if it's just combat we're talking about, browse through the EQ RPG Monsters of Norrath. Lotsa exotic critters with ridiculous amounts of hit dice. Have a wizard commission the group to do a little taxiderming in this other dimension he's discovered.

Your players will never look at kobolds the same way again...


Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^

 

[megamania]

Another thought is I just bought Dungeon World. It is a dungeon-like world between life and death (purgatory in a twisted way). PCs come here with NO GEAR and greatly weakened Divine powers. They need to figure out the world and how/why they got there after they find some clothes.

 

[Steelhart]

you should try and modify your monsters. my dm has too, maybe make a few changes to them make the players stop and think. ya know if ya have an enchanter throw a monster in there than can nulify his abilities, or something, the barbarian is simple, reallythrow him against something stronger, the ninja that one is tough, i know i play one myself, but there are ways around his hide in plain sight. as for nearly non detectable throw them in a wild magic area or nonmagic area, both are self explanitory, that way ya have a way to make your players think, if'n ya have any other questions message me on yahoo.