My players are unstoppable

[haakon1]

Use more enemies, not tougher enemies. It works surprisingly well.

I agree with that. One big bad goes down easy "Concentrate all fire!". Lots of medium bads means, of different types, strengths, and vulnerabilities, is much tougher.

Oh, and don't be afraid to go to a pretty tough Encounter Level -- d20srd.org has a good calculator for multiple monsters of any combo of CR's v. multiple PCs of any combo of levels.

 

[TKDB]

Oh, and don't be afraid to go to a pretty tough Encounter Level

Definitely gonna second this. The CR/EL system works ok as a rough guideline, but ultimately it's really only good as a jumping off point to get you in the ballpark of where the encounter should be. Having more PCs will naturally make encounters easier than CR would indicate, and highly optimized PCs can easily handle encounters far above their level.

For instance, I ran a one-shot over Christmas break for my family in which the final boss was (according to the guidelines in the MM and DMG for calculating EL) an EL 14 enounter, for a party of five level 9 PCs. Should have been fairly challenging...but my players plowed through it with minimal difficulty. And this was with evenly matched numbers of enemies, too, not just a single big nasty they could concentrate fire on.

 

[chaochou]

Any suggestions?

Only a few general ones.

Tl; dr version: Never run a game you're not enjoying. Never run a game the players are not enjoying. Discuss with them why either you, or they, or both are not enjoying it.

The common thread amongst all the good GMs I've ever known is that they put their own unique stamp on it. It's their creative process which happens there in the moment of the game. I've met very few GMs who can do that across the board - with supers (which is essentially what you're playing with a fantasy skin) and gritty fantasy and urban chic and open ended space opera and gothic horror and Arthurian politics, etc, etc.

Bluntly, if you're not finding ways to challenge your players - with access to all the knowledge of their skills and equipment and spells and blah, blah, blah - I start to wonder whether challenging them mechanically really interests you.

I don't believe anyone develops a GM-ing style until they start fiinding the right game(s). So I'd take a step back and ask how and why you've ended up running high level (?) 3.5 in the first place. Reading between the lines of your post I couldn't help but get the feeling that it wasn't your choice.

*** edit: I had the impression it was high level 3.5, but that is not stated in the OP. I'll leave it in, but if that's not the case, my bad.

 

[blargney the second]

*facepalm*

Good stuff here. /fiendish laugh

Dear self, repeat after me: Don't give your DM ideas.

*double facepalm*

 

[mkill]

... I'd take a step back and ask how and why you've ended up running high level (?) 3.5 in the first place. Reading between the lines of your post I couldn't help but get the feeling that it wasn't your choice.

D&D 3.5 is a fine game, but it requires deep system mastery on the side of the GM that matches your most tactical-minded player. As a DM who is still learning the ropes and finding his style, it's not the best system to run. What you describe can happen too easily.

Ask yourself: Do I really care about tactical combats? Do I want to optimize encounters until I perfectly challenge all players? Or Do I want completely different things out of my games, such as a great evening with friends, exotic locations, great stories, great dialogue?

Now, you can have that in D&D 3.5, but it requires to to heavily control the powerlevel of the players. This eats up time and effort that can be spent to improve the game in other ways.

I usually don't recommend switching RPG systems, but here I find it a good solution. At least, this will take the system mastery advantage from your players, while you all learn the new RPG.

 

[Dordledum]

I'm currently playing in a 3.5 campaign with an experienced group of players with a relatively inexperienced DM. We were having a bit of a cakewalk initially too. Just some things we pointed out to him:

- Challenge rating is very fickle. Dragons, Demons, Devils are generally overpowered for their challenge rating. A lot of other stuff is underpowered. To keep it excited use CR of party level +1 to +3 for most encounters.

- If your group exceeds the standard number of players (3-4), encounters get exceedingly easy.

- don't alow the adventurers to rest after each encounter. slow atrition of spells and resources can make the third encounter in a row epic.

- use terrain! make sure the terrain benefits the enemies, don't funnel them through a 10 foot corridor, etc.

- no problem with being stingy with (magical) loot

there was more, but can't really remember right now.