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Is it fun just to escape attacks?
Player deaths are typically either the result of either poor planning or an encounter too difficult for the players. The latter is the GM's fault, the former is the player's fault. There's nothing you can do against a GM throwing encounters at you that you can't handle, apart from trying to explain that. But there are plenty of things you can do to rectify poor planning.
Smart play is about having contingencies in place for every possible thing that can happen to you (There's even a spell literally called contingency).
Sometimes even the best plans don't work out. When that happens, you have to withdraw and regroup. That doesn't mean you give up. It just means that you sometimes have to realize that if you keep going the current course, everyone is going to die and the mission is going to fail. A tactical withdrawal is nothing to be ashamed of and is often the smart play.
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Is it fun just to escape attacks?Player deaths are typically either the result of either poor planning or an encounter too difficult for the players. The latter is the GM's fault, the former is the player's fault. There's nothing you can do against a GM throwing encounters at you that you can't handle, apart from trying to explain that. But there are plenty of things you can do to rectify poor planning.
Smart play is about having contingencies in place for every possible thing that can happen to you (There's even a spell literally called contingency).
Sometimes even the best plans don't work out. When that happens, you have to withdraw and regroup. That doesn't mean you give up. It just means that you sometimes have to realize that if you keep going the current course, everyone is going to die and the mission is going to fail. A tactical withdrawal is nothing to be ashamed of and is often the smart play.
I think you're missing epicmeepo's point.
Archmages and guardians can't function in the same encounter, according to his experience.
That is a potential problem: rather than dismissing it you might want to test it with some playtesting of your own.
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There seems to be a few ways to fix the issue.
Mythic Toughness is a godsend.
Wild Arcana and throwing out protective magic is another.
One trick you might allow is some sort of Mythic point use to put up a Mage Armor/Shield of Faith type bonus in fights. Costs and has a duration, but useful.
Just a thought.
But I agree. Mythic has turned the casters into massive glass cannons. Even more so than usual.
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If anyone's experience includes playtest sessions involving parties with wizard archmages, I welcome any and all of playtest data that refutes my own. I'd feel much better if my results were an outlier.
I'd also be curious to hear from low-level groups whose front-liners are all non-guardians, as compared to low-level groups whose front-liners are all guardians. Can the front-liners in the non-guardian party rise to the same combat challenges as the front-liners in the all-guardian party?
In my tabletop playtest (Level 17/Tier 8 characters), the Sorcerer/Archmage was the only one to be dropped. Details Here
But that only happened because he advanced WELL past the Fighter/Champion & Paladin/Guardian to engage with fireballs & chain lightning. He got to eat a bunch of undead-giant-thrown-rocks for his stupidity.
That being said...a mage who doesn't invest in defensive spells (or who just puts himself out on the front line without protecting himself) is asking to get pasted.
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Is it fun just to escape attacks?Player deaths are typically either the result of either poor planning or an encounter too difficult for the players. The latter is the GM's fault, the former is the player's fault. There's nothing you can do against a GM throwing encounters at you that you can't handle, apart from trying to explain that. But there are plenty of things you can do to rectify poor planning.
Smart play is about having contingencies in place for every possible thing that can happen to you (There's even a spell literally called contingency).
Sometimes even the best plans don't work out. When that happens, you have to withdraw and regroup. That doesn't mean you give up. It just means that you sometimes have to realize that if you keep going the current course, everyone is going to die and the mission is going to fail. A tactical withdrawal is nothing to be ashamed of and is often the smart play.
I think you're missing epicmeepo's point.
Archmages and guardians can't function in the same encounter, according to his experience.
That is a potential problem: rather than dismissing it you might want to test it with some playtesting of your own.
I have read his playtest extensively, and I'm trying to determine where the problem is coming from. I don't really view the archmage class as being particularly weak, especially when you consider that Arcane Surge basically allows you to get free spells with a Persistent Metamagic feat applied against non-mythic monsters (which is what Epicmeepo was running).
I did notice there were a few fights in the lowest level encounters where the mythic encounters were slightly more difficult than non-mythic. His non-mythic party had a APL of 2, while his mythic party had an APL of 3. Yet in some fights, the CR of the non-mythic fight was APL +1 or +2, while the mythic fight was APL +2 or +3. I'm not saying that this completely invalidates the playtest or anything ridiculous, but it's hard to make a comparison when the fights aren't all scaled identically.
Archmages have quite a few tools in their basic toolkits for taking care of fights. As I already said, they get Arcane surge, they can cast mythic spells, they get big bonuses to their primary casting stat, and have powerful abilities like Metamastery and Endless Power, and they need to take DOUBLE con damage to die.
If I see anything particularly frustrating about the Archmage class, it's that Mage Strike is a pitifully weak power compared to something like Arcane Surge.
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Well, my Mythic Bard took two balista bolts to the chest! in my last playtest and stayed up. But that's only because of how tough Mythic characters are and I didn't crit either of those shots. Still all but crippled the PC for half the fight.
Casters may not step out past the defenders, but it's very possible for mythic foes to bypass most protection and get long range attcks on casters. That's what my NPCs were doing. Kill the healers was the priorit in their logic.
What percentage of the OP's difficulty revolved around the Archmages leaving themselves open to melee engagement?
It seems like mythic martials are more equipped to operate more or less at the front lines because their defenses have been boosted but mythic mages are still typically squishy until pretty late on.
Considering that PF mages have been able to get by with being more exposed than mages in previous editions could some of the problem be rectified with returning to tactics common in previous editions where the archmages stay in the center of the group protected by meatshields (either PCs, NPC, or summons?)
Yeah fort save attacks are still going to rock them but that's not necessarily a bad thing and encourages the archmages to invest in things that they might not normally buy.
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I noticed building several Level 4/Tier 2 pregens for our test that everyone could benefit by Dual Path with guardian. I don't necessarily think that's a problem in play, but it's something worth mentioning.
My bigger concern is paths that don't work with their intended recipients rather than certain paths working well for everyone. In a perfect world, everyone would have 3+ good options, so guardian being at that point doesn't bother me.
Cheers!
Landon
If anyone's experience includes playtest sessions involving parties with wizard archmages, I welcome any and all of playtest data that refutes my own. I'd feel much better if my results were an outlier.
I'd also be curious to hear from low-level groups whose front-liners are all non-guardians, as compared to low-level groups whose front-liners are all guardians. Can the front-liners in the non-guardian party rise to the same combat challenges as the front-liners in the all-guardian party?
I don't know yet if I can agree. Party of 6 with each representing the separate classes/paths (current level 2/tier 1).
I think that some of this will be the misconception that "Now I'm Mythic! You can't hurt me!". If they play as a low level party should (with caution and good party tactics like keeping the squishy mage protected) then they won't have much of a problem at APL+2 encounters.
The Guardian/Monk is cool (although he hasn't gotten yet a chance to truly shine, which he should in the 3rd playtest), but the Marshal/Bard combo has REALLY made the encounters a breeze. Sleep/Hideous Laughter and a Mythic Point to allow all party members within 30 ft to re-roll and take the highest? Wow...it's been killer.
I hear ya...I've got a couple summaries, but I'll work on getting them organized nicely!
If anyone's experience includes playtest sessions involving parties with wizard archmages, I welcome any and all of playtest data that refutes my own. I'd feel much better if my results were an outlier.
I'd also be curious to hear from low-level groups whose front-liners are all non-guardians, as compared to low-level groups whose front-liners are all guardians. Can the front-liners in the non-guardian party rise to the same combat challenges as the front-liners in the all-guardian party?
I am playing a 4th tier wizard, and chose Dual Path: Guardian as his first tier feat. His Guardian's Call is Absorb Blow.
I chose Dual Focus, too. but that is now OBE. If you chose Dual Focus and need to retrain, a wizard can't go wrong with Absorb Blow.
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I am playing a 4th tier wizard, and chose Dual Path: Guardian as his first tier feat. His Guardian's Call is Absorb Blow.
I chose Dual Focus, too. but that is now OBE. If you chose Dual Focus and need to retrain, a wizard can't go wrong with Absorb Blow.
I was looking at the possibility of taking Dual Path: Guardian for my archmage, but I'm troubled by the language in Dual Path and Absorb Blow. The feat Dual Path reads (in part):
Benefit: Select a mythic path, other than the path you selected at your moment of ascension (see page 3). You gain the 1st level ability of that path (archmage arcana, champion strike, divine surge, guardian’s call, marshal’s order, or trickster attack). Whenever you gain a path ability, you can select from list of abilities presented for both paths, as well as from the list of universal path abilities.
While the Guardian path ability Absorb Blow reads:
Absorb Blow (Su): You can expend one use of mythic power as an immediate action whenever you take damage from a single source, such as a dragon’s breath, a spell, or a weapon. You take 10 fewer points of damage from this source per guardian tier you possess. In addition, for every 10 points of damage prevented by this ability, you gain DR 1/epic and 5 points of energy resistance against all energy types (acid, cold, electricity, fire, and sonic) for 1 minute. This DR and resistances stack with DR or resistances you possess from sources other than this ability.
(Emphasis mine)
My problem with this is that I don't have any Guardian tiers. All I have is Archmage tiers. As a result, a reading of Absorb Blow seems to say that when I use it, I take 0 fewer points of damage from a particular source (i.e., 10*0 = 0). Nothing in the description of Dual Path says that I can use my Archmage tier in place of my Dual Path tier (i.e., Guardian in this case), and I think it may be a stretch to read that feature into the feat.
Now, this still makes Dual Path useful, as there are plenty of excellent path abilities that are not dependent on tiers in that path. (See, e.g., Epic DR.) But, as I read the rules, Dual Path does not allow anyone but a Guardian to effectively use the Absorb Blow ability.
Does anyone else have a thought on this issue?
My understanding is that a 4th Tier Dual Path PC has 4 tiers in both paths. On the other hand, he has a TOTAL of 4 path ABILITIES. Don't confuse tiers with tier abilities. Just because you have 4 archmage abilities, that does not mean that you have no guardian tiers. In fact, my archmage has 4 universal abilities including 3*Extra Mythic Power. That does not mean he has no levels of archmage.
What percentage of the OP's difficulty revolved around the Archmages leaving themselves open to melee engagement?
It seems like mythic martials are more equipped to operate more or less at the front lines because their defenses have been boosted but mythic mages are still typically squishy until pretty late on.
Considering that PF mages have been able to get by with being more exposed than mages in previous editions could some of the problem be rectified with returning to tactics common in previous editions where the archmages stay in the center of the group protected by meatshields (either PCs, NPC, or summons?)
Yeah fort save attacks are still going to rock them but that's not necessarily a bad thing and encourages the archmages to invest in things that they might not normally buy.
The issue I've observed is that many standard defenses for mages don't work at mythic. Beings with fleet charge can move around meat shields, close with casters, and full attack them to death even if the casters are hiding behind everyone else. Agile enemies can throw so many blows in a single round that they render things like displacement meaningless and exhaust mirror images immediately (lets not talk about TWF Agiles, which I've seen as popular in various threads).
The dynamics of caster defenses have radically changed as a result of the mythic options available to attackers. They've gotten almost nothing on the defensive end to make up for that. Guardian defenses are a raw deal for casters. Immediate action to mitigate one attack? Great, so no quickened spell or shift away next round, and I negate one of the multiple attacks coming at me. Raw deal.
Something needs to be changed, because right now it seems like if we applied mythic consistently in my game we'd have a pile of caster corpses.
My understanding is that a 4th Tier Dual Path PC has 4 tiers in both paths. On the other hand, he has a TOTAL of 4 path ABILITIES. Don't confuse tiers with tier abilities. Just because you have 4 archmage abilities, that does not mean that you have no guardian tiers. In fact, my archmage has 4 universal abilities including 3*Extra Mythic Power. That does not mean he has no levels of archmage.
This seems to be the only logical way to run this, and if it isn't RAI I don't know what is. Keep in mind this is a poorly polished playtest document, not a final release. There are going to be some rules ambiguities. Go with what seems reasonable, not what seems unreasonable (e.g. breaking the ability so it is absolutely useless).
The issue I've observed is that many standard defenses for mages don't work at mythic. Beings with fleet charge can move around meat shields, close with casters, and full attack them to death even if the casters are hiding behind everyone else. Agile enemies can throw so many blows in a single round that they render things like displacement meaningless and exhaust mirror images immediately (lets not talk about TWF Agiles, which I've seen as popular in various threads).
How close are the squishies staying to the meat shields? I know I've had a hard time as a GM getting to the back rows when the PC frontliners bring that front line farther away from the casters.
Party tactics should definitely change with the addition of Mythic, but that makes sense. If you run into a creature that has some sort of mythic abilities, you'd likely know by looking that it's a powerful creature and should be treated differently than most encounters.
But, you are dead on about the playtest being a rough and unfinished product, and only a subset at that. I am confident that the finished product will have these sorts of things accounted for, and will at least have PC tips and GM tips to make things balanced.
It will be more work in general, though.
How close are the squishies staying to the meat shields? I know I've had a hard time as a GM getting to the back rows when the PC frontliners bring that front line farther away from the casters.
I would say given our typical battle zones it is somewhat unusual for casters to be more than 30ft. from meleers. Among other things, they start to move out of range of healing / buffing when they get further away. In interior zones the problem is even more pronounced in terms of distance, though it becomes easier to outright block people in narrow halls.
And I could easily imagine it getting boring to always "form a protective ring around the caster".
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My understanding is that a 4th Tier Dual Path PC has 4 tiers in both paths. On the other hand, he has a TOTAL of 4 path ABILITIES. Don't confuse tiers with tier abilities. Just because you have 4 archmage abilities, that does not mean that you have no guardian tiers. In fact, my archmage has 4 universal abilities including 3*Extra Mythic Power. That does not mean he has no levels of archmage.This seems to be the only logical way to run this, and if it isn't RAI I don't know what is. Keep in mind this is a poorly polished playtest document, not a final release. There are going to be some rules ambiguities. Go with what seems reasonable, not what seems unreasonable (e.g. breaking the ability so it is absolutely useless).
I'm not entirely certain that I agree that it's the only logical way to interpret the Dual Path feat. It's certainly a way to interpret it. It's even a perfectly reasonable way to interpret it. But as you say, these are not meant to be final rules, and there are bound to be ambiguities in them. This, I feel, is one such ambiguity. In fact, that's why I raised my concern here in the Mythic playtest forums.
As I see it, there are two possible interpretations of the operation of this feat:
1.) You can select a second mythic path, other than the path you selected at your moment of ascension. You gain the 1st level ability of that path, and whenever you gain a path ability, you can select from the list of abilities presented for both paths, as well as from the list of universal path abilities. For the purposes of your secondary mythic path, you have an effective tier level equal to the tier level in your primary path.
2.) You can select a second mythic path, other than the path you selected at your moment of ascension. You gain the 1st level ability of that path, and whenever you gain a path ability, you can select from the list of abilities presented for both paths, as well as from the list of universal path abilities. For the purposes of your secondary mythic path, you have no effective tier level. This may limit the path abilities you can choose for the second path.
The first of these interpretations is obviously the more powerful of the two. It allows you to effectively operate as if you were a mythic character in that second path with respect to the 1st level ability and the abilities you choose. And that may be what Paizo intended by the feat. I don't pretend to have any insight into the original intent of the drafters of these rules. That makes it an excellent feat, and one that many people will want to take.
However, the second interpretation, while less powerful, still seems viable. It allows you to get some (really, most) of the abilities of the secondary path, though it reserves the most powerful abilities (those that rely on tier level) for characters who have chosen that path as their primary path. Characters with the Dual Path feat can still pick from a large number of path abilities, just not all of them. This makes Dual Path a nice feat to get in some circumstances, but hardly a "must have" feat. And while this certainly weakens the feat as compared to the first interpretation, I wouldn't characterize it as rendering the feat totally useless.
Consider a character contemplating the feat Dual Path: Guardian, our central example, under the second interpretation. At the start, he must pick a Guardian's Call. Based on this interpretation, Absorb Blow will not serve any purpose, since he doesn't have any tiers in Guardian. However, Beast Fury and Sudden Block are both completely viable.
Next, he has the option to pick Guardian path abilities when he gains access to a new ability. Devastating Smash, Mythic Companion, and Unmovable all have effects tied to your Guardian tier (though only Mythic Companion is totally useless without any Guardian tiers). However, Additional Call, Ally Defense, Call Arrows, Cage Enemy, Catch Hazard, Dimensional Grapple, Drive Back, Epic DR, Quick Recovery, Snatch Spell, and Sweeping Strike are all fully effective without any reference to Guardian tier.
Thus, under the second interpretation, the character that takes the feat Dual Path: Guardian can choose from 2 out of the 3 Guardian's Calls, and can choose from 11 out of the 14 Guardian path abilities. The loss of access to that one Guardian Call and those three Guardian path abilities may be frustrating. But I can't bring myself to say that it makes the Dual Path feat absolutely useless.
As an aside, I note that some path abilities have tier requirements before you can select them. However, in each case, they say "you must be at least [Nth] tier before selecting this ability." They never require levels in any particular tier. Thus, for example, a tier 4 Champion with Dual Path: Guardian could take Dimensional Grapple (which requires you to be 4th tier) since he is tier 4 - just in Champion, not Guardian.
In the end, I think it comes down to what Paizo was trying to accomplish with the feat. Were they trying to open up all the goodies from a chosen path (well, except for the bonus HP and 10th tier ability) to someone who takes the feat? Or were they trying to give people the option to add in some aspects of the chosen path, while reserving some of the aspects for those who chose that path as their primary path. Again, I could see it going either way. I had hoped that this question might get the attention of someone from Paizo so that we could get an official answer.
As it stands, I believe that there is an ambiguity in the rules as they are currently written, and I don't put forth either of the possible interpretations as being correct. All I'm arguing is that they are both valid interpretations that don't appear to violate the spirit of what the Mythic rules are trying to accomplish. Heck, I'd be happy if the first interpretation were the correct interpretation. In that case I'd go right out and take the Feat Dual Path: Guardian for my Mythic Archmage.
Of course, that brings me to my final thought. One thing the designers seem to want to avoid is any sort of "must have" feat or ability. If a feat or ability is so good that everyone is going to want to have it in their build, then that fact raises a red flag for the balance of the feat or ability. In this case, while I wouldn't go so far as to say that Dual Path: Guardian, plus Absorb Blow is a "must have" combo, it is good enough to be extremely popular. That alone gives me pause in favoring the first interpretation over the second.
I believe the only logical and reasonable interpretation of dual path is that you count as your tier for the purposes of both tiers.
I would also say that absorb blow is not a must have ability, or even an especially good ability at high levels. Indeed, it is an ability that is only really of benefit characters who are at risk from a single deadly blow (e.g. high AC at risk to a lucky crit).
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I believe the only logical and reasonable interpretation of dual path is that you count as your tier for the purposes of both tiers.
Then I suppose all we can do is agree to disagree. I recognize that it is a logical and reasonable interpretation of dual path that you count as your primary tier for the purposes of both tiers. But I also contend that it's an equally logical and reasonable interpretation of dual path that you count as your primary tier only for the purposes of your primary tier, and are tier 0 for your secondary tier. (For all the reasons I set forth above.) Meanwhile, I'll keep hoping for an official comment on my question.
I would also say that absorb blow is not a must have ability, or even an especially good ability at high levels. Indeed, it is an ability that is only really of benefit characters who are at risk from a single deadly blow (e.g. high AC at risk to a lucky crit).
That may be true. I haven't delved deeply enough into the nuts and bolts of a lot of mythic character builds to tell for certain. But one thing I have observed is that Dual Path seems to be a very popular feat (much as Dual Focus was before they changed the rules on how MP is determined). Is it too popular? Maybe not. But I was just tossing that out there as an observation.
I really think that this is an issue with bad wording. There's nothing in the context of the playtest document that implies you can multi-class mythic paths.
There should be a note somewhere about when dual-path'ing that 'mythic tier' is used in place of the specific path requirements... or, when these powers are listed in the final print, it should just say 'mythic tier' for all options.
I'm going to jump in here and side with The Burninator on his second option for how the tiers work. And I quote:
"MYTHIC PATHS
Every mythic character belongs to one mythic path. Each path represents a character’s journey into legend, and each tier in that path grants abilities and features related to that pursuit. Upon achieving the 1st mythic tier (called the moment of ascension), a character must choose one mythic path to follow. Characters can choose from the
following mythic paths."
So it seems to me, and how my games will run,that if you are an Archmage, and you take Absorb Blow from your Duel Path feat, you have wasted it, since while you may be a 5th Tier Archmage, but are a 0 Tier anything else.
Add to this:
"To become mythic, a character must first undergo a moment of ascension (see the sidebar on page 3). This is the point at which he gains his first tier and must select a mythic path, which determines the majority of his mythic abilities. A character’s mythic path is much like an additional class."
If its like a class, we know how multi-classing works, and Duel Path Feat is pretty clear that it doesn't give you multi-tier, only an expanded list to pick from later on.
You are absolutely free to believe whatever you wish, but I think you are doing mental gymnastics to arrive at the conclusion you are reaching. If the intent of the feat is to provide access to abilities from an alternative mythic path, and the options in your reading are that you are treated as tier = level or tier = 0, the logical conclusion barring other evidence is that the intent is probably to expand options with tier = level rather than immensely limit options and render many choices either completely ineffective (e.g. absorb blow) or terrible after tier 1-2 (everything that provides a numerical bonus).
That's just my thinking though, and I tend to assume the designers are not here to troll people who want to multi-path, and that they legitimately wanted to have the feat fulfill its stated purpose.
That's just my thinking though, and I tend to assume the designers are not here to troll people who want to multi-path, and that they legitimately wanted to have the feat fulfill its stated purpose.
Nicely put
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Again, I respectfully disagree. I don't think it's a matter of the designers trolling people. Rather, I think it's a matter of determining what exactly the designers are trying to achieve with a given ability, feat, etc. With the Dual Path feat, were they trying to make it a powerful feat that granted full tier access to another path, making it very much like multi-classing (what I'll call "the first interpretation"), or were they trying to grant some, but not all, of a path's abilities to a character not on that path, making it a little less than multi-classing (what I'll call "the second interpretation")? It's also a matter of where, precisely, they felt that the balance of the feat's worth came down. Did they feel the first interpretation is too powerful as compared to other feats? Did they feel the second interpretation is too weak as compared to other feats?
For my part, I tend to think that the designers are doing their best to keep the game balanced as they add new feats, abilities, etc. It's a heroic task, and one I don't envy them for. They have to make some very hard decisions, and no matter what they decide, some portion of the players are likely to think they were wrong. But they try hard and have done a pretty darn good job so far. And when it turns out that they made a bad call, they do their best to fix it. In fact, they're allowing us to participate in this playtest to raise issues like this so that they can consider them from a play balance standpoint before publication.
But this methodology and consideration is not unique to this situation. Let's look at two existing feats by way of example: Augment Summoning and Empower Spell. When Pathfinder was first released, people had difficulty interpreting them in every situation. Some people wondered, if you used Empower Spell on a Cure spell, would it multiply by 50% just the amount healed by the dice (the weaker interpretation), or would it multiply by 50% the amount healed by the dice and the amount resulting from caster level (the more powerful interpretation). Paizo ultimately answered this question in the Official FAQ, siding with the more powerful interpretation.
Similarly, with Augment Summoning, some people wondered whether you could use Augment Summoning to augment a creature you summoned from a scroll or a wand (the more powerful interpretation) or whether you could only augment a creature you summoned by casting the actual spell (the weaker interpretation). Paizo ultimately answered this question in the Official FAQ, siding with the weaker interpretation.
In both cases, the feat was phrased to leave some ambiguity as to its interpretation. The fact that people asked about the interpretation of these feats, and Paizo addressed these feats in their FAQ tends to support that assertion. (In fact, in both cases, Jason Bulmahn posted unofficial answers for these feats that were the opposite of what was ultimately posted in the Official FAQ.) But Paizo didn't uniformly pick the more powerful interpretation (nor did Jason). Rather, they looked at issues of balance and playability and picked the interpretation that seemed best to them. I don't think that they were trolling people who wanted to play summoning type characters, just because they put a limit on the feat Augment Summoning. (Nor do I think Jason was trolling casters just because he wanted to put a limit on the feat Empower Spell.)
Likewise, in the present situation, I don't think that using the second interpretation would be trolling people who want to multi-path. All it would do is put a limit on the power they could achieve in their second path. This interpretation would reflect a design decision that (for reasons of fairness and play balance) a character should face certain limitations in the second path they choose (i.e., being forced to expend a feat to gain the second path, being limited in the total number of abilities they can choose from both paths by the total number of abilities they would get in their first path, foregoing the tier ten ability in their secondary path, and being restricted from using those abilities in the other path that rely on tier level in that path). In essence, this would reserve some path abilities to those who chose that path as their primary path. This interpretation means that dual-pathing is not the same as dual-classing. It sets forth a position that your primary path really is the core of your mythicness, and that you can't properly be a character with two full paths, all you could do was shade your primary path with a secondary path. True, this position means that you can't multi-path the way you multi-class. But that may be what the designers intended - not as a way to troll players who want to multi-path, but for considered play balance reasons (i.e., they thought true multi-pathing was unbalancing).
Let me say again, I make no claims to know what they designers were thinking when they wrote the Dual Path feat, only that I think the feat lends itself to some ambiguity. Based on what's written, I think that either the first interpretation or the second interpretation are supportable. I'm not advocating one over the other. (In fact, I'd be happy if they came down on the side of the first interpretation.) All I'm saying is that there appear to be two distinct, yet perfectly valid, interpretations of how the Dual Path feat operates. In the legal world, when a law is unclear, it goes to the courts for interpretation. In this case, I'm posting to the playtest forum in the hopes that one of the designers (i.e., the court) will interpret this rule (i.e., the law) for me.