I´ve been running our campaign since the Rulebook first came out, with the odd break, etc they are now up to over 8000 xp each and getting pretty powerful - or so they thought!

In preparation for Tattered Fates I ran a little scenario where they were hunting down the "Beast of Solomon", which turned out to be several beasts collecting for the Hellhouse. All the way through the scenario they were getting "interference" from... something else... it wasn´t making sense for them - there was some seriously freaky supernatural stuff going on which didn´t jibe with the beast hunt.

When the PC´s eventually met the source of the "interference" they realised just how weak and insignificant they were... it was an Unbound Daemonhost! This thing was hard as nails and really only played with the Player Characters, appearing and disappearing at will to ruin their day and cause havoc for some unknown reasons. As they were deep under Solomon at the time they couldn´t even reach their Inquisitor to squeal for help, being pretty much at this things mercy as it herded them toward trouble with the Hellhouse!

Of course, this is part of an ongoing plot - the Daemonhost needs them to accomplish a few deeds way down the line and is simply making sure that they are in the right place at the right time to be taken advantage of, tattered Fates fits nicely into this as it will take them into deep space. What they don´t know is that they will be having an encounter with a not-so-derelict ship as they return home (assuming they survive Tattered Fates that is!).

The point is that they felt that they were getting very tough and could face almost anything - when the Daemonhost turned up they realised just how wrong they were, it basically slapped them round like children and made it very clear that it was only playing with them. They could do very little or nothing to even scratch him.

I did something similar to my players in my Star Wars Saga campaign. They were tough - 12-15th level. They had a simple task: infiltrate a secret base located on Hoth, run by the Empire (they were using it for an out of the way, secure computer site).

They arrive, fight a couple of wampas and sneak into the base. Upon arrival, there are 5 storm troopers per character waiting for them. They start to talk attack, when one of them notices the at-st's, cannons, et all behind the storm troopers. They surrender after deciding that they couldn't beat them all.

They are taken to nice quarters and told to freshen up, they are having dinner with the base commander. At dinner, he answered their questions. Asked a few pointed questions of his own (why did you think that firing the turbo laser on your ship in a docking bay was a good idea? how did you find the cultists? why did you leave home and join the jedi?) He then took them on a tour of the base, making sure to show them where all the areas they wanted to check out were.

He then leaves them in an unlocked suite for the night. They immediately split up and search the base. They avoid confrontation as they are trying to determine what his game was. In the morning, as they are getting ready to leave, he asks them if they found what they were looking for. He then provides an escort out of the system and tells them to feel free to return.

They are still trying to figure out what the deal was.

Simple answer, he was working both sides of the conflict (Imperial and Republic). Long answer, that's a secret they have yet to learn.

There's always a bigger fish.

Oh yeah gotta love the bigger fish. PCs always think they are badass until you put them in supernatural situations where their gear and even player experience fails them. One of my favorite plot points was when the PCs were travelling across a desert and all of their food mysteriously spoiled, even the emergency ration stuff. I had them talking about which PC they would eat first and practically killing each other. There was a ton of other horrible things too like freezing cold that came from within, distorted magnetism, rapid draining of power cells. Everyone that watched ghost hunters thought they would be facing some kind of ghost but it was actually a huge energy gathering device that was buried under the desert.