Mythic Minis 2: Champion Path Abilities (PFRPG) PDF

So, to start out with, I want to say I've bought several of LG's PDF's. In general I've been very satisfied, or even impressed.

Not so here.

So, each PDF is $1 ok, that's not so bad, right? Well, each PDF is also 1 page. Wait, what? 1 page? yep. Now yes, there's a cover, and some legal stuff, but you get exactly ONE PAGE for one dollar. So, lets say your favorite book is 400 pages, are you going to spend $400 to read it? Not me... Sadly I bought these (I got Guardian, Trickster, and Champion) around the same time, so I (foolishly) didn't read one before the other (again, I've had pretty good luck with LG stuff up to this point).

Now, you say, yes, but if it's REALLY good stuff, that you just HAVE to have in you're campaign, surely that's not so bad.... right?

Nope.

First up, (and this is what truly enrages me) they're REPRINTING from one to the next, they're not even original. ALL 3 have a path power called Analytical Eye as a first tier power, and they are identical (gee.. maybe put it in the Universal Path...) then 2 of the three have the follow-up power "That Trick won't work on me Anymore", while the third (Champion) has "Two can Play at that Game". To be fair the Champion version is different, though not by much (almost an inversion), still, at least they bothered to type something instead of cut-n-pasting it. Further, both Guardian and Champion have the powers "Mythic Rider" and "Trick Rider" again cut-n-paste. Since I'm not planning on blowing anymore cash on this series, I can't prove it, but I'd almost be willing to bet a dollar <innocent grin> that Marshall is going to have pretty much all of these as well...

Now, I know... It's only a dollar. But, for a dollar, for one one-sided page... really?

The only other irksome thing is that the Champion book doesn't even have a 6th tier power... too bad there wasn't enough room... If only there was something they could have left out.... but oh well.

As for the quality of the powers themselves. Meh. Most of them read like better-than-average feats as opposed to anything truly MYTHIC. They're not bad, and there are one or two that I'd consider taking, or even recommending to another player... but they're not must-haves, they're more like high-quality fillers for a tier when nothing else tickles your fancy.

And if you're wondering, the answer is yes. I'm cut-n-pasting this review for all three books. Hey, if they can do it and charge me a dollar for it, why can't I review them that way... and I'm not even charging for it!

The "Big Picture"...
Would I buy it again? NO
Would I recommend it? Nope.

[Please note this review is for Mythic Minis 2, Champion Path Abilities, the other two (almost identical) reviews are over at DriveThruRPG]

This pdf is 3 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 1 page of content, so let's take a look, shall we?

We kick these new abilities for the champion path off with 3 new 1st tier abilities:

-Analytical Eye: When a creature has attacked you, spend one use of mythic power as an immediate action to learn about int-mod combat feats your foes may have. That's...exceedingly boring and feels rather un- mythic, not starting with the metagamey aspects of the mechanics.

-Combat Feat Mastery: Spend one use of mythic power, practice for one hours, get access to one combat feat for 24 hours. At 4th tier, instead get 1/2 mythic tier combat feats. At 6th tier, spend two uses for a training duration of only 1 minute per feat. This ability is insane, even for mythic power-levels - this essentially is not only a wildcard feat - it's potentially a wildcard feat-CHAIN. Not gonna happen in my game, even when going Mythic.

-Smashmouth: 1 use of mythic power to accompany your bludgeoning damage allows you to penalize bite-attacks and verbal spellcasting. Very specific - why not make this work for all types of natural attacks, potentially with arms correlating to miss-chances for somatic components? This ability has potential, but should have more benefits/options.

We also get 5 3rd tier abilities:

-Mythic Marine: Ignore just about all penalties associated with fighting underwater. Okay, I guess.

-Mythic Rider: Use mythic power to prevent being dismounted or having your mount fall prone. Alternatively, grant your mount hard to kill, recuperation and mythic saves for 24 hours. Solid for mounted characters.

-Reaping the Chaff: Make one full BAB-attack as a full-round action. If you hit and against foes with HD less than your mythic tier, you may follow up the attack with a movement to the next adversary and repeat the process until you miss or attack a foe with HD > your mythic tier. This movement does not provoke AoOs from foes with less HD than your mythic tier and you may move up to twice your movement rate. I had a similar ability in my home game once - it puts the game to a grinding halt. Attack upon attack, damage upon damage. It's just boring for the other players. Not a fan of this ability. It looks nice on paper, but in game...

-Trick rider: Gain one bonus feat from a mount-related short list for every 2 mythic tiers you have. Boring, but not without merit.

-Two Can Play at that Game: When learning of combat feats via analytical eye, you can spend one use of mythic power to be able to choose 1/2 mythic tier feats thus determined and gain access to them for 24 hours. Essentially a more limited additional way of getting feats - less OP that Combat Feat Mastery, but the requirement of a waste of a mythic path ability with analyzing eye mean I wouldn't choose that one either.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to Legendary Games beautiful 2-column standard and the pdf comes sans bookmarks, but needs none at this length.

The duplicated cover artwork eats about 1/3 of the space available for the content, which is something you should be aware of. Jason Nelson is a great designer...but I don't know what has happened here. I'm seriously stumped. Combat Feat Mastery is very powerful even by Mythic Adventures standards - to the point where many will yell "broken". Mythic Rider and Mariner are solid abilities, but all the others herein either are very specific, fall short of their potential or are downright lame. I would only take most of these under very specific circumstances and generally, was thoroughly disappointed by them. While not per se bad, many of the options herein feel bland - the mythic path equivalents of taking a skill-bonus increasing feat. With a bit more space and versatility, the Smashmouth ability could have been made awesome and more useful by expanding its focus. Honestly...I thought long and hard...and my final verdict will clock in at 2.5 stars, rounded down to 2. Why? Because I can only see my table ever using at best 1/4 of the content herein - the rest is simply off on one end or the other of the balance scale or simply not that interesting. Even Legendary Games seems to get it wrong once in a while.

Endzeitgeist out.

The second release in Legendary Games new Mythic Minis product line is an expansion of the Mythic Champions path abilities. I found each of the new abilities to be both flavorful and functional. Additionally each ability felt thematically appropriate for the Champion Path in its role as the premier mythic combat specialist.

The abilities featured in this expansion are: Analytical Eye, Combat Feat Mastery, Smashmouth, Mythic Marine, Mythic Rider, Reaping the Chaff (my personal favorite), Trick Rider & Two Can Play At That Game (an advanced Analytical Eye ability).

The layout is gorgeous. The rules are functional and thematically appropriate. The art is beautiful. And the price is simply Legendary. The bang-for-your-literal-buck is unbeatable. Grab yourself a copy today.

Legendary Games has an excellent reputation and a great line of designers behind it, so let's look and see what this product has to offer!

Crunch:
So, I was really looking forward to diving into this product. At one page, I was immediately reminded of Rogue Genius Games' bullet point line. Short, sweet, and inexpensive.

That said, the path abilities in this product are underwhelming. Sitting at eight abilities in all, there is nothing here that feels mythic, and there are a couple that appear to be in direct violation of the inherent 'balance' of Mythic Adventures. I'm going to specifically call out Combat Feat Mastery, which lets you spend Mythic Power to gain a handful of Mythic Abilities whenever you want. It is essentially a Mythic version of the Martial Maneuvers core class feature of the recent Advanced Class Guide playest's Brawler class. For what you get, this Path ability quickly grows to outshine the Versatility universal path ability by 10th tier.

Smashmouth, on the other hand, has the opposite problem. I like the concept of this Path ability, but it is too specific; it essentially causes your attacks against the target to penalize an opponent's bite attack. Why wasn't this expanded to allow you weaken any type of natural attack and called "Limbwrecker" or something along those lines instead? Reaping the Chaff is a very confusing read and has a very limiting focus; it can only be used against opponents whose Hit Dice do not exceed your Tier. That means my Legendary Hero can't use it on anything about 10th Level.

Overall, these Path abilities are uninteresting at best and cheesy at their worst. 1 / 5 Stars.

Flavor:
Taken from the product's introduction:

Mythic Minis are not about exposition, philosophy, and campaign-building; they are just flat-out fantastic ideas and great mechanics for GMs and players alike, written by the same designers that helped create the official mythic rules.

That about sums it up, except I didn't find these path abilities all that fantastic, as you just read. Star rating isn't applicable.

Layout:
After saying all of the above, I will comment that the layout on this product is *gorgeous. The only other Legendary Games product that I own is Ultimate Rulership, and this product's layout and design is much better than the aforementioned product's layout. The text is TINY, however, and I was straining to read it. They also reused the cover art on the interior page too; I'm sure it wasn't intended to fill up space, but that's the first thing I thought after I did a double take. Its cool to reuse art across multiple products, but twice in the same product? Not cool. 4 / 5 Stars.

Final Score & Thoughts:
Crunch: 1 / 5
Flavor: N/A
Texture: 4 / 5
Final Score: 2/5

I wasn't a fan of this product. The path abilities mostly revolve around granting the champion temporary bonus feats, which doesn't fit into Mythic Adventures. There is a precedent for this sort of power that clearly wasn't followed and it is clear that the author didn't follow Paizo's Advanced Class Guide playtest when designing this product; even if the Brawler doesn't exist as a class now, as-written this would be like making a better version of Smite Evil a Champion path ability that anyone could select. The focus on feats and the lack of ingenuity was noticeable and I won't be showing this product to my players, if only because these path abilities can't stand up with the existing ones in terms of coolness. If it comes between any of these path abilities and Aerial Assault, you can bet that I'm going to pick the path ability that lets me charge my opponent through the sky and send them spiraling into the dirt face-first. Every. Time.

—Alexander "Alex" Augunas