My game has become "me vs. them"

[cdsaint]

Just set up a number of linked encounters, in kind of a linear fasion. If they want to get to encounter X, they have to make it through A, B, C, and so forth, however many you feel is comfortable or necessary. Don't make these encounters too challenging, just enough to eat up 10 or 20 % of their resources per encounter. After 5 or 6 encounters, none of which are really challenging taken separately, they should be feeling a lack of magical reserves. Which is when they're finally ready for a big challenge. If they don't push on in spite of being somewhat depleted, your BBEG has time to quietly slip away, or maybe ambush them when they try to rest. If they let him slip away, he'll relocate, set up new defenses, and they'll have to try going through the same thing again. A side effect is that until they catch on they may have a recurring villain that sticks around for quite awhile.

Chris

 

[heimdall]

Doing things like social interactions or using non-standard representatives of the species also tends to add some challenge without it becoming a slaughter. For instance, upon searching a group of Slaad perhaps they find documents or something pointing to a "rogue Slaad" who has some information (a prophecy, how an ancient magical device works, etc.) that might prove beneficial later in the adventure. Perhaps finding this rogue Slaad may mean the difference between success or failure of a key goal because the Slaad and the party share similar views. And when you get to that point, how exactly does a human or elf or dwarf tell one Slaad apart from another? They can't willy-nilly kill every Slaad, especially if it's a loner.

 

[Fieari]

At low levels, characters are struggling just to survive each encounter. They can go in, have a battle, and then retreat to rest because continuing on is likely going to be suicide. At high levels, encounters tend to be either ultra-easy, or instantly life threatening. But there is a way around that...

Time pressure. They're used to Rope Trick? That sounds like they're of the "Fight a battle, rest, then continue" mentality that is key in low level games. What you need to make sure is that SAID LUXURY IS NOT AVAILABLE TO THEM. When they're out of spells, out of potions, and they're taking a point of damage at a time and they CAN'T REST, the life is put back into the game.

The trick is to come up with a reason they can't rest. Dungeon crawls, style in the low level manner, aren't good about this usually. That's why high level campaigns tend to leave the old style behind, but you CAN do a dungeon crawl high level. You just need to give the monsters some BRAINS. Don't confine them to individual rooms anymore. Have them congregate. Have them COMMUNICATE. When the heroes arrive, have 'em send a major force after the PCs, right at the front gate. When things start turning south, have the retreat. Have them use the terrain advantage...this is their home, right? They know the lay of the land! Have 'em act like it! When building dungeons, put in secret passages, not so that the heroes can find them and find more treasure, but so the NPCs can use them to set up ambushes!

Make the goal of the dungeon something the has to be retrieved QUICKLY! Maybe there's a war, and the artifact in the dungeon can turn the tides of said war, but if it isn't recieved SOON, it'll be too late. Or make it a hostage situation. If they take too long, they LOSE because the NPCs kill the hostage, or get the information out of him/her, or whatever. Or make it so that the heroes have to be at the vault door at EXACTLY this time, like at the time of the eclipse (solar or lunar) or when the planets align or whatever, otherwise the door doesn't open. Keep track of time.

My solution was to have the arch villains of the story doing things behind the heroes' back. They loot this dungeon, the bad guys have looted the next, and so when the heroes go to the next, they find it cleaned out. And then next. And the next. Soon their racing to catch the bad guy, and now the bad guy has all this cool stuff to use on the PCs. And now with this newfound power, maybe the bad guy is applying pressure to nearby kingdoms, starting to twist the landscape into an evil likeness of himself...

Unless you pit the heroes against INSURMOUNTABLE ODDS, which you KNOW to be insurmountable, and you've already said that feels like cheating, high level characters are not often challenged. They have now aquired the tools to face ANY DIRECT and OBVIOUS problem. That's the POINT of high levels. What you now need to do, is make the problems SUBTLE and OBSCURED and INDIRECT. Add in some roleplaying, add in some story, and suddenly, just because they CAN level the opposition with a flamestrike doesn't mean that that will actually help them. Sure, if they NEED to kill something, they can, but the problem now is figuring out WHO they need to kill, WHO they need to protect, WHERE they should be right now, and WHAT the consequences are if they aren't.

Some thoughts to consider.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

I know how you feel. My PCs seem to have a similar attitude. Not to mention they never fail their saves. Not one of them has ever failed any save for as long as I can remember.

 

[Stone Angel]

Yeah I know how you feel. My average party level is 31. I have a cleric that has an armor class of about 90ish. There is nothing that I can throw at him that would not destroy the rest of the party. So I am forced to using golems and other naturally tough monsters with anti magic aura cast on them. The barbarian with his power attack can shell out about 120 points of damage. The rouge is impossible to pen down and the lingering damage is just killer. Then there is the arcane archer and the monk. They have had some intresting combats and I can seem to challenge everyone but the cleric. He walks through threatned area and casts with impunity.

But now the badguys no their tactics and it is about to get hairy just wait untill the go to sleep and find that they are actually on a demi plane that is not tied to either the ethereal or the astral plane. No teleport/planeshift/ropetirck and rest strategy.

The Seraph of Earth and Stone

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I could always wake them up unexpectedly surrounded by vicious slaad, but I'm sure my players would accuse me of meta-gaming if I did that. I can hear it now, "Oh, so the slaad just happened to be walking by this corridor with see invisibility up, yea.. that makes sense..."

It isn't something I use much, so maybe I've missed some rule, but if these slaads have been so bothered by the party, is there any reason they could not scry the party and learn where they are setting up their rope trick? Wouldn't a party likely do something like that if they were bothered all the time by the same bunch of foes?

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Use lots of dispel magics to wear down their buff spells. Save your ammo for when they try to rest and then hammer them (which, if they survive, will result in them having fewer spells or they will rest again). Continue hammering them relentlessly so they never get the rest they need. If the P teleports away, have the bad guys leave too (with all their treasure, of course). Let the bad guys use dispersion tactics to avoid the P when they're fully buffed, and attack them when they're more vulnerable.

Once you've lost control of your players' power, then you're at a disadvantage as a DM and it may just be best to hit the reset button and start over.

 

[Morpheus]

I guess I'm a big believer in the "it all evens out" philosophy. The party is cakewalking over some encounters you threw at them? No big deal. They avoid some encounters you want them to face? Don't sweat it. It all evens out. And you can begin the evening out process with "Glacier Season" from Dungeon #87. I guar-an-tee you that your party will not take much for granted anymore. Just make sure to bone up on your BADD tactics...

 

[Old One]

A couple of thoughts...

As several have said...going without specifics makes it a bit tough. However, let me start by asking several questions:

(1) Where do the PCs fit in your campaign's food chain? At their current level...are they a significant force whose reputation is spread by bards far and wide or do archmages run lemonade stands on the corners of your hamlets? The latter is not meant derisively, just trying to get a feel for levels.

(2) Is the campaign a series of unrelated adventures, loosely connected scenarios or does it have a central over-riding, well-connected theme (or several main themes)? Have the PCs run afoul of the same group and/or groups repeatedly or is each new villain an island onto him/her/itself?

Assuming there is some continuity in the campaign from the stand point of plot and oppenents, consider the following:

(1) Intelligent opponents WILL study the PCs. IMO, any villain with a 16+ intelligence who has either directly or indirectly faced the PCs before or who knows about them due to there sterling reputation or black infamy is going to do some "opposition research". Spies, scrying, buying drinks at the pub for friends, family and acquaintances of the PCs, bribery and blackmail are all methods to get info about how the PCs operate, what obvious spells/magic items/tactics the PCs have used to win their battles and what, if any, weaknesses they have evidinced.

Heck, the PCs themselves could divulge such information to that lovely young bard at the tavern as she gushes, "Oh please tell me how you defeated Foozle the Magnificent...I just love that story!"

If push comes to shove, the villain could even use Speak with Dead or other magics to interview the PCs erstwhile foes and current wormfood to find out what killed them and how.

The bottom line is...if the PCs are well-known and if they use the same standard operating procedure again and again and again without taking precautions or varying their routine, then even a moderately intelligent opponent who has done some research should be able to hand them their collective a$$es. A smart opponent might even send a couple of different types of catapult fodder against them and scry the ensuing encounter to catalog spells, defenses and after-action actions taken by the PCs.

(2) As someone above mentioned, maybe the players are better at tactics than you are...which may mean you need to brush up on tactics or throw some new ones into the mix. First, are you using the opponents skills/powers/intelligence to the best effect?

Most creatures, unless very stupid or supremely confident, will not fight to the death...yet, in my experience, that is how many DMs play things. Creatures fight to the last, even when the situation looks hopeless...but he who runs away lives to fight another day ! Tactics such as feigned retreat, playing dead, luring onto more favorable defensive ground, etc get too little play. If caught by suprise and in an unfavorable situation, well-trained critters should break, fleeing in 10 different directions and re-assemble at a rally point to launch an effective counter attack instead of sitting around waiting to get stacked up like so much cordwood.

Creatures attacked in their own lair should, unless very chaotic or completely idiotic, have contigency plans and pre-planned reactions to assaults. If the PCs slaughtered a bunch of slaad and the slaad have reason to believe they are still in the complex, then it is very reasonable to assume that they would conduct a thorough sweep - within the confines of their abilities - to root out and kill the intruders. Scrying the PCs is one way to go, as would various clerical divination spells (if available) or a locate object spell for an obvious piece of loot or treasure the PCs took with them after the first encounter. Your PCs might think it is cheese...but if they rope-tricked to rest/refit while still inside the complex, then I would say there is a very good chance the slaad would be waiting for them...and might hit them right after the first couple of PCs slither down the rope.

(3) Sunders, trips, disarms, over-runs, bull-rush, grappling, aid other, concentration of fire and ganging up on the weak link are your friends...especially nice things like bull-rushing, grabbing or grappling into enviornments the critter is protected against or resistant to, but the PCs aren't ready for. An example that springs to mind here is a giant, or other big strong critter, with stoneskin and other protections in place that imbibes a potion of water breathing, busts through the front-line tanks, grapples the party wizard and jumps off a cliff into deep lake. No matter how many hit points you have, once you start drowning...ya only got three rounds.

(4) You didn't mention alignments...but if the PCs are primarily good (and alignment has teeth in your game) then moral dilemmas that force the PCs to fight with one hand tied behind their collective backs is always fun. Dominated townsfolk, hostage interspersed with the bad guys or implications from killing certain foes are always fun. Some players may take the tact of "well...we can always raise them later."

But what if Joe Peasent doesn't want to be raised? The after-life is a whole lot better than his miserable existence, but now his wife and 12 children will go hungry. The widow sues him in court and the PCs are forced to pay support. If their actions kill a lot of innocents...they may even have a class action lawsuit brought against them...forcing forfiture of gold and goodies !

~ Old One

 

[Otterscrubber]

This doesn't sound like meta-gaming to me... Slaad aren't as stupid as they look and if they know that intruders, the PCs, are in there lair, and they have a number of missing and dead, than yeah why wouldn't the creatures look for who ever did it with what ever means they have…? :\

I agree, assuming there is a gray slaadi somewhere nearby isn't unreasonable and they have +17 Spellcraft, higher if you've bumped up stats. It's more than a little possible he would know of spells like rope trick and have ways of dealing with it.