Our GM has admitted he's running low on brilliant ideas to put us through our paces.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Party (all level 5)
Dragonborne (Gold) hermit druid
Mountain dwarf Outlander Ranger
Half Elf Folk Hero Cleric
Human (variant) Sage Wizard
The Ranger has a custom build towards hunter traps,
Many thanks in advance for any suggestions.
What are the characters' goals? If you have goals to pursue, it should be a simple matter of the DM placing challenges between you and your goals.
Yeah, putting character goals foremost can work wonders for inspiration. That’s pretty much all I’ve been doing in my current campaign, and it’s challenged me and taken me down some new and exciting paths.
What are you chacracters back stories as well, that can be a good source of inspiration to motiviate your characters to go adventuring as well.
Stop looking for brialliant ideas and start stealling them. Like others say figure out what the characters want and how they feel. Challenge their ideals and dangle possibilities in front of them. Also your DM can go back into what has already happened. Hopefully he (or she) has taken notes. Start making links that we neither intended nor obvious. It can be between two events or two groups. An event and a group. Character history. Maybe something pops back up for some reason. Re-exploring old enemies, groups, or ideas can lead to big things and re-solidify their importance in the game world. For exampel I dropped a couple of clock work scouts from pathfinder into my game well over 15 months ago. The initial intention was that they were ancient remnants of a long dead cyclops empire. A bit of a story hook. However, despite collecting the eye crystals which store audio data they never even tried to sell them let alone see if they were magical. Now, almost 8 levels later, the PCs are going through backlogs of what they're carrying. Conviently they came up with these and I was able to use them as a plot device for my world's version of Modrons. The intent was used but the usage changed. A year and a half real-time later. Who needs brilliant new ideas when you have brilliant old ones?
I agree with most of the above posts. By level 5 your DM should have a good idea of what his players enjoy, and hopefully where they want to go with their characters.
From a purely encounter perspective, the group appears has a great deal of spell versatility, but not a lot of high armor brawlers (Paladins, Fighters, or Barbarians) to defend the front line. A challenging fight could include enemy groups made up of front line bruisers, who won't fall to a single fireball and can prove dangerous should they manage to close the distance into melee. (Veterans, Berserkers, Gladiators) Groups of these work two fold, since they are often expendable mooks and keep coming in multiple waves, but if one or two of these enemies manages to make it into melee, lightly/unarmored targets may be in trouble. The other advantage is that bruiser enemies are often low intelligence, so the players still get a chance to shine with their traps and magic.
Another challenge would be creatures that are naturally resistant to spells and certain types of damage, like fiends who often have magic resistance, elemental immunities, and resistance to non-silvered weapon damage. Unless the ranger carries silver arrows, this affects them as well. Another powerful enemy would be the flameskull: Immune to cold and fire, and resistant to lightning and piercing. It also flys, shoots fireballs, and requires a special ritual to put down for good. Just one was enough to traumatize my party for an entire dungeon. 
Hope these are at least mildly helpful
I just ran my Tiamat group against a half-dozen "flying" dragonsouls. The group took down 5 / 6, but took damage to 6 / 8 caravan wagons plus one PC down to Death Saves.
They were a little bewildered that I did not spend much time attacking them. I'm letting them think about it for a week and will ask for their thoughts next session.
I knew the Bard took Revivify, so the near-death experience was no problem.
Our Wizard got a chance to try out some new spells. He surprised me with one ! He also found a good tactical set-up for Lightning Bolt that I had not seen.
The group does not yet know that these guys were the Enforcers for an old-style Cult of the Dragon cell's protection racket. This particular caravan master did not pay his fee to be left alone. Their job was to cripple the wagons - they succeeded.
The group is also now aware that the Misty Forest elves have a real problem with security (dozens of police squads patrolling the Trade Way EXCEPT for where this caravan was). When the green dragon raid adventure begins, they will have some background on the problem.
I've also dropped a few hints - to be expanded at a later date - that the old-style Cult members are not happy with Severin's takeover or his new direction / goals for the organization.
How does all this apply to the thread? Sometimes things are not as simple as they look...
BRJN wrote:
Cheers guys and gals
Truely amazing.
Thanks again for all your imput
the_wandering_alchemist wrote:
Or just pick a cool theme. Like for example, it's all underwater, or... it all revolves around a volcano. Pick a cool location and theme, and then write a plot around it.