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First, thanks to Paizo for making this playtest public. I'm really excited to part of this process and making Mythic Adventures great!
I just started reading the document and was looking at the Mythic Flaws, and the dependency flaw stands out to me as an odd duck. All of the other flaws rely on something external to the mythic being happening to them (crit hit, certain type of damage or spell, etc.) and as such is largely outside of their locus of control. It happens to them when it happens to them and there is not much they can do about it.
Dependency, on the other hand, is internal to the mythic being and therefore they have much more control when they would suffer its effects. This to me makes it seem less like a true weakness and more like an inconvenience. Why wouldn't the character just stock up to a ridiculous degree before setting out on an adventure? In addition, through the use of magic this can be mitigated in a number of ways. Bags of holding could hold a lifetime supply. What about just magically creating the food? When teleport becomes available whats to stop you from going back to town to get more whenever you need it? Sure, the GM can conspire to steal the spinach from Popeye but even then it takes 24 hours before the effects kick in and this seems contrived to me anyway.
IMO, this flaw needs more teeth in it otherwise it will be the top pick as a non-weakness weakness. Off the top of my head how about something like the Popeye effect, where the food/drink needs to be consumed shortly before or during battle for the mythic abilities to work? This would cost them a full round action to pull it out and consume it, which would be a real weakness if they are surprised or caught sleeping.
At first glance this might be seem like a steep penalty but remember that the character has a large degree of control over this weakness. Compare this to someone who has a weakness to fire or silver, for example. Once the BBEG figures out your vulnerability you can expect them to exploit it, and there is not much a PC can do to prevent this. This is just one idea, but this type of internal weakness needs to be carefully designed or it will be too easy to mitigate.
I agree with what Hanged Man said, but I also love the idea of the Dependency flaw because it takes something which is often overlooked in games (at least in my experience) and makes it incredibly important. Needing to consume it shortly before combat makes it even better, IMO.
Lead Designer
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Well, since the penalty was a eventual loss of most of your powers, I felt that the acquisition should not be all that difficult.. that said, I will be interested to see some playtest feedback on the issue.
As for the item dependency... lets just say I am keeping a list of good ideas to make sure make it into the final version. The list of flaws is by no means finite.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
Well, since the penalty was a eventual loss of most of your powers, I felt that the acquisition should not be all that difficult.. that said, I will be interested to see some playtest feedback on the issue.
I would honestly ask, how do you want this to be playtested? Before the playtest, I was going to run some combats with various level/tier characters for playtesting purposes. However, some of the flaws really requires an entire campaign per data point. I mean, the entire effect of dependency is going to be by GM fiat. Whether you choose spinach or dryad tears, the acquisition of this item will be entirely dependent the GM's personal decisions. Whether you can acquire dragon's blood or whether iron rations are an appropriate choice are a GM concern, and don't really seem like something that can be playtested in a universally useful manner.
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Well, since the penalty was a eventual loss of most of your powers, I felt that the acquisition should not be all that difficult.. that said, I will be interested to see some playtest feedback on the issue.
As for the item dependency... lets just say I am keeping a list of good ideas to make sure make it into the final version. The list of flaws is by no means finite.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
Another issue I have with food/item dependency is that PCs are already dependent on them. Take a wizard's spellbook or a fighter's weapons away what can they do? How long can a person last without food or drink in any case?
Personally I feel that these weaknesses need to be something special that just isn't just a tweaked version of something that already exists.
Obviously, the dependency has to be for something that cannot be created by a simple create water or create food and water spell -- that would trivialize the dependency. In fact, there should probably be a ban on magically creating the substance that the character is dependent on unless it is via a spell with a costly material component.
I could also see having a campaign where all characters have this flaw for a precious subtance that all mythic characters must seek constantly to retain their abilities. Does anyone remember the Savage Coast setting for the D&D game world of Mystara? I could easily see running a mythic campaign there, with all mythic characters dependent on cinnabryl.
You think Dependency is the easiest flaw?
How about Weapon Weakness (Siege Engine)? When was the last time you were attacked by one of those?
I'm in favor of the dependency one. It's the same as someone relying on super items, they can be damaged, lost, stolen, spoiled, any number of things. Not to mention the "golden ale" of your dependency that you bought at the inn could actually be just beer and waste in a cask, and you don't even need to know until you pop it open two days out on your journey.
That and the loss of powers is very strong, so I agree, the acquisition there should be the easiest, given that you can easily go from mythic to non with a tiny little DM-shove.
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Well, since the penalty was a eventual loss of most of your powers, I felt that the acquisition should not be all that difficult.. that said, I will be interested to see some playtest feedback on the issue.I would honestly ask, how do you want this to be playtested? Before the playtest, I was going to run some combats with various level/tier characters for playtesting purposes. However, some of the flaws really requires an entire campaign per data point. I mean, the entire effect of dependency is going to be by GM fiat. Whether you choose spinach or dryad tears, the acquisition of this item will be entirely dependent the GM's personal decisions. Whether you can acquire dragon's blood or whether iron rations are an appropriate choice are a GM concern, and don't really seem like something that can be playtested in a universally useful manner.
I'M NOT THE ONLY PERSON WHO SAW THIS AND THOUGHT "POPEYE!"
Yes!
How does Dependency interact with a Ring of Sustenance, the Sustained by Faith Hierophant Path ability or other similar items/abilities?
You're mythic. Maybe not every kobold will be able to exploit your weakness, but a BBEG wizard who knew about your dependency would probably be able to have a major impact on the global supply of it. It also acts as a way to keep you down after you've lost a battle - you're immortal, so the villain binds you to a dungeon chamber where you're unable to maintain your powers. Your allies have three days to rescue you before you're sent to the true death.
How does Dependency interact with a Ring of Sustenance, the Sustained by Faith Hierophant Path ability or other similar items/abilities?
Ring of Sustenance and Sustained by Faith sustain you and keep you from dehydrating/starving and dying. The Dependency weakness keeps you from loosing your mythic powers.
I, personally, am a strong supporter of Dependency (Sweets).
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Definitely dependency on cola for Frankie from One Piece was what came to mind.
On another note though, I'd say that a lot of these could change depending on the situation the GM wants to put you in and thus fall under GM fiat. That is part of the system as what even gives you credit for what level of trial is up to the GM.
Off of the top of my head:
Elemental Vulnerability: Vulnerability to acid would probably be safest, but your DM could throw any number of things at you (acid flasks, alchemists with acid bombs oozes, etc..)
Furious Rage: You are good with this one until you have to face like one bard with the feat that does so as an aoe.
Hubris: I don't think I would want to be in the boots of someone with this when once again a bard is in play.
Insanity: I'm not convinced that this one is actually so bad on a BSF I mean if you are failing your save versus something in this category you might be better off uncontrollable by those who are trying to do so.
Material weakness: selecting wood might suck a little early on, but I could see it being hilarious with a sunder build. I mean the weapon you're weak against is less than half as hard to destroy as normal with half the hardness and 1/3 the health of normal iron.
School aversion: Transmutation honestly doesn't seem that threatening of a school and isn't often used offensively as far as I can remember.
Point being that this system should not be used if you don't trust your GM not to screw you over and if he feels that you are trying to get off too light he can either say no or ramp the difficulty of avoiding your weakness.
Keep in mind, you can't benefit from any spell from the associated school you are averse to.
For instance, your school aversion is Transmutation, and your character is a Druid, you can't use your Wildshape at ALL because you benefit from it's use and Wildshape is a transmutation (polymorph) effect.
Yeah, I think School Aversion is by far the worst choice as a Mythic Flaw.
-4 Against all saves AND effects lasting twice as long against you is bad enough. But no benefit from spells (or effects) from that school? That's brutal.
Transmutation isn't used offensively? Enjoy never benefiting from Feather Fall, Expeditious Retreat, Haste, Fly (and similar flight abilities), all the good polymorph effects, Time Stop, and a bunch of other common buffs.
And oh god, could you imagine taking School Aversion: Conjuration? How would you heal???
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Yeah, the school aversion is WAY too brutal.
The dependecy one seem pretty meh to me as well unless it has more bite. Like the food item must be either complex or hard to get. So an apple that only grows in your home town...or a you must eat that opera cake with a side of clotted cream and mint.
The weapon one kinda reminds me of harold and kummar...bullets my only weakness, how did you know.
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Actually the dependency flaw doesn't list how much of the substance in question you have to ingest . So, maybe this was just me as a kid, but I kinda liked to make bread pills, and if I were a mystic character, I would carry something like an empty potion bottle full of slivers of my favorite food. So yeah bread might be the first choice depending on your campaign setting (especially if your GM is a Terry Pratchett fan, and allows you to use dwarven bread as a weapon).
It might be cool for a poor monk player to be totally dependant on his daily bowl or rice, of course requiring alcohol could be fine too. IIRC Jacky Chans character in the Forbidden Kingdom movie required it to survive.
So yeah this could be fun, but some kind of size/quantitiy limit would be nice, otherwise this might result on homeopathic doses.
I haven't had a look at the pdf yet, but does it let you do the following?
Dependency: Air.
School Aversion: Divination.
I see Mythic more as a tool for GMs than PCs, and Dependency is great for those purposes. Putting it on a monster fits a lot of myths and gives the PCs a new way to fight the monster without actually engaging in direct physical conflict.
I think the Dependency does specify food or drink.
Think you can do the SA one though.
I think the dependency is a reference to Taoist Immortals. Now, I know nothing about them at all, but I remember watching The Forbidden Kingdom where it mentioned the Tao Immortals each had their one substance that fueled their powers. In the movie, Jacki Chan was mistaken for an immortal who's substance was wine, when in actuality, he was a drunk.
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You can't select divination for your school aversion as they prohibit it.
Even if you could...can never benefit from detect invis, true seeing or pretty much any detection spells...oph. Yeah it is the least painful school...but honestly ANY school with the listed penalty is just WAY too much compared to all the other flaws.
I think dependency is a great one to add more flavour to your character. My character has dependency on a npc's cooking, and given that the npc isn't going to leave the town to go adventuring with her, it should lead to interesting times. I'm hoping that 1) the GM will work with baked goods counting for it and 2) I can convince the npc to bake me things to take with on trips :).