Ok, this may have been covered already, but I couldn't find it. So, I will pose the points here.
Immortal:
To me the difference between a Mythic Hero and a Demigod is that a Mythic Hero can die. Yes, you have to complete a huge amount of quests to get there, but it is such an unbalancing power that it will very easily deter GMs from allowing Mythic Characters in their campaign for fear that they have an unstoppable hero on their hands.
There are also a lot of unexplained features of this power. Where do they appear? What happened to their equipment? Does the original body vanish? It is very MMORPG in style and I don't really like that.
Finally, it takes away the excitement of gaming. If you can just respawn and charge back in, what's to keep you from conquering the world? There has to be some chance of failure. It is best to always leave death on the table.
My recommendations:
A. Replace it with
Undying: The hero stops aging and begins regenerating all injures at a rate of 2/mythic tier/hour. This will regrow limbs and possibly bring the character back to life (if wounds are not fire or acid).
B. Reduce Mythic Tier by 1
When the character returns to life he loses 1 Mythic Tier.
After all, it took performing great feats to achieve this power. Dying should set you back. Yes, this means he may lose the power of Immortality, and have to regain it.
Just my thoughts,
Ken
I agree that maybe there should still be a way to kill a high tier mythic hero -- especially since otherwise I can see both players getting too much out of this and GMs abusing this to create enemies that can never truly be destroyed. Maybe that can be cool and valuable in a well done story with a well written villain, but I can see people going crazy with it in a way that was not intended. Now, 9th and 10th tier characters, PC or villain, should not be a dime a dozen of course, but they still can now exist and the ramifications need to be explored.
Plus, while I don't know whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, I can see someone pulling Nameless One tactics, getting himself killed specifically to achieve a particular end, knowing he will regenerate later.
It is worth noting that a 9th tier a mythic being can still be killed if they essentially take massive damage from a mythic being (and my sense that there is no saving throw as it should be). Which I think is a good limitation. Perhaps maybe leaving it at that would be fine, not removing this possible way of being killed at 10th tier.
Or making a 10th tier mythical being only killable by a very specific thing -- a certain weapon, a certain energy type, etc. Maybe what can kill you could be determined based on your mythic flaw.
They could also make it take longer for you to return. I find a story where a hero reawakens decades later more interesting than one that just shows up the next day saying, "Sorry about the whole death thing."
As for the vagaries with what happens when you die and come back, I am okay with some of those vagaries -- I think it really should depend upon the mythic being and what conditions made them mythic as to how you return, where you show up if, say, you were disintegrated. If you're the mythic champion of a god, showing up in an area sacred to them, whereas if you were made mythic by touching a certain artifact, showing up where that artifact was forged, etc. etc.
Stuff like what happens to gear to me should be obvious -- if it was destroyed (as in disintegration), it remains destroyed (mythic artifacts perhaps excepted). Otherwise it'd be up to the mythic being's allies to collect the gear and keep it safe.
Huh? They absolutely can die. They just need to take the damage from mythic creatures or characters. Which isn't a big deal because by the time you get the ability you'll pretty much only be fighting mythic enemies anyway. Mythic Flaws can also be taken advantage of to get around it.
I see nothing wrong with Nameless One tactics either. They tend to be pretty cool, and mythic villains can do them just as easily.
How about the Dragonball Z approach, you die, go on a quest through some road (or land), and then you're back stronger than ever!
Or the Malazan books where you *could* be brought back through Hood's gate...or become one of his generals.
Huh? They absolutely can die. They just need to take the damage from mythic creatures or characters. Which isn't a big deal because by the time you get the ability you'll pretty much only be fighting mythic enemies anyway. Mythic Flaws can also be taken advantage of to get around it.
I noted this in part, when I talked about the 9th tier being killable. Rereading, I realize they don't have to take the damage all at once, they just have to have mythic damage in excess of half (9th tier) or all (10th tier) their HP. So I think that's alright.
Having a further fatal flaw would still be interesting though.
I see nothing wrong with Nameless One tactics either. They tend to be pretty cool, and mythic villains can do them just as easily.
As I said, not necessarily a good or bad thing. But something to be aware of.
Yeah, keep in mind that Tier 9 means CR 27-28 and Tier 10 means CR 29-30, unless the GM is doing something wonky with the Tier progression.
Which puts Immortality, as it currently stands, only in the hands of Demigods. Which is exactly where the OP said it belongs. Since the beginning of DnD/PF cosmology, Demon Lords and their ilk have shown time and time again that they are capable of returning from the dead and that no normal mortal can kill them. This is why.
I agree with the OP. In fact, I was planning to participate in a mythic playtest, where this would have probably been a significant issue: Sole Mythic Character After I read about the immortality powers, though, I am not so sure anymore, as the immortality issue makes this exact type of playtest (mixing a mythic character with non-mythic characters of higher levels) somewhat pointless.
To be honest, although I am not a proponent of immortality (or resurrection) possibilities at low and medium levels, these concepts do have their place in high-powered play, so including them as mythic abilities does make some sense. Immortality, even in Mythic play, however, should be (much) more circumscribed than it is in the current playtest document.
1) There need to be ways for signature/powerful non-mythic creatures to kill mythic characters. Legendary dragons and outsiders (and indeed heroes - say X levels higher than the character concerned), for example, could be allowed to deal mythic damage, even if they are not strictly-speaking mythic.
2) Like legendary creatures, legendary weapons should also be capable of killing mythic characters (e.g. by also dealing mythic damage), even when wielded by non-legendary hands. This should include all artifacts and some other major magic items.
3) Each character should have a weakness that allows even weak creatures to kill the character (in theory - they might find it hard to accomplish in practice) if they exploit it properly. The 'mortal weakness' could be based on the mythic fault or be an entirely separate concept.
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Yeah, keep in mind that Tier 9 means CR 27-28 and Tier 10 means CR 29-30, unless the GM is doing something wonky with the Tier progression.
Which puts Immortality, as it currently stands, only in the hands of Demigods. Which is exactly where the OP said it belongs. Since the beginning of DnD/PF cosmology, Demon Lords and their ilk have shown time and time again that they are capable of returning from the dead and that no normal mortal can kill them. This is why.
Um...what? Tear 9 means +9 to CR and tear 10 means +10 to CR. Where did you get 29-30?
The 29-30 comes from the currently assumed progression that Mythic Ranks should be limited by half of total Level/CR. So, yes, Tier 10 does mean +10 to CR, but the CR should already be around 19 to 20. So Tier 10 should be translating to around CR 29-30, unless you're playing around with Tier progression.
Should have made myself more clear. Just as powers like "Precision" (for example) are designed for Tier 3 with the assumption that they'll only be useful to characters of Level 6 or higher. I think the base powers of Tier progression such as Mythic Saves, Unstoppable, and Immortality, are designed with the same idea in mind - that they'll be utilized by characters of "appropriate" Level.
It's a product of repeated posts from Paizo. It's no coincidence that he caught on to what I was referring to.
Hama, no need for bolded statements here. I guess you did miss it.
First, page 33, on Common Mythic games:
"In this campaign, the PCs begin play with mythic power and see it grow as they gain levels, roughly at the rate of one mythic tier per two character levels."
Now, granted, there are other recommended game types (Rare, Limited, and Uncommon) but in all of those cases the playstyle advocates giving LESS not MORE Mythic Tiers per level. So even at the most Common level, they're still not recommending more than 1 Tier per 2 Levels. So no Level 8/Tier 10 NPCs or PCs. Unless you're playing around with the Tier progression. Which is what I've been saying.
As for monsters, see page 47, under Building a Mythic Creature:
"Start by determining the creature’s mythic rank by dividing its base CR in half,rounded down. Use this number, as well as a few other vital statistics to apply the mythic subtype to the creature."
So it's the same for monsters. That's why the Ice Devil (CR13) has MR6, why the Fire Giant (CR10) has MR5, and the Mythic Vampire only qualifies for MR 9 or 10 (and the accompanying Demigod-level power) if it has at least a CR of 18 or 20, respectively.
At this point I think it's safe to say it's not an assumption.
You kind of left the GM out of the loop in this. If the GM is afraid of 10th mythic tier, he could simply choose not to allow characters to progress that far storywise. The Mythic System ultimately sounds like it's going to be heavily GM-based for the purposes of gaining Mythic Tiers. Also, unless some wierd campaign, you as the mighty mythic heroes of the world are probably not going to be waited on by the big bad to try and scrounge up another mythic tier or so.
Plus, they aren't unkillable. There's this tidbit here:
At 10th tier, you have reached the
height of mortal power. You regain uses of your mythic
power at the rate of one use per hour, in addition to
completely refreshing your uses each day. In addition,
your immortal ability now applies as long as you do not
have mythic damage in excess of your full normal hit
point total at the time of your death.
You just have a mythic bad guy maul their faces to the nine planes and back, and bam: They are dead. Make Soul Gems for good measure. (Mythic creatures deal mythic damage).
Edit:
No Mythic Allies? No problem, I assume with your evil fortune and favors, you could arrange for some of your top dogs to have Ascension cast on them.
No allies period? Go kill the darn heroes yourself, and do it with mythic bad***ery!
Not mythic? ... Just quit your job. You were doomed the moment the good guys became mythic... Not too late to do something with those favors.
Exactly. And in most campaigns, assuming current guidelines, the party is also going to have an APL well above 25 at this point. Pretty much everything they fight is going to have Mythic Tiers and do Mythic damage since every threat is going to be above CR 25.
I think that Immortal quality should be divorced from specific Mythic Tier and instead be additional quality that is granted to all mythic creatures of a Tier specified by the GM while developing his mythic campaign.
I don't see Immortality as written as integral part of the mythic campaign. It should be optional to give it to mythic heroes, but also GMs should be free to grant it to mythic characters earlier.
Maybe as a Mythic Boon? If a PC does something truly spectacular it should definitely be within the GM's purview to grant.
Not sure how I feel about getting it at a specific tier, but, it could make for an epic climax to a huge AP. 2 immortal beings locked in eternal combat...
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The thing with Mythic is that you, as a GM can decide how high you want to take it. If you only intend for them to make it tier 4 then great!
However, I think Paizo intends to allow for almost any kind of campaign to be had, and this was possibly meant to handle such a situation as passing the Star Stone test and becoming full blown gods.
EDIT: Also, once you hit that tier, perhaps it is time to retire your character.