My Serpent's Skull Campaign is nearing its climax, and in an effort to make sure it is appropriately difficult (and epic) I decided to give mythic power to several of enemies in the final dungeon in the book "Sanctum of the Serpent God".
Obviously, there will be spoilers here. Also, I am using the updates to the mythic rules that were posted on 12/21/12.
My players do not have mythic power, but they are a bit better equipped than they should be at this point in the game. I'm having to give the advanced template to most of the enemies just to make things a challenge. Certain enemies are getting mythic power instead of (or in addition to) the advanced template. I'll post the results of each mythic encounter here so you can see how this affected the fights.
Here is the makeup of the party (most are around level 15-16):
Human Stormborn Sorcerer (uses word of power, blaster)
- Cohort: Sasha (Ranger/ninja)
Half-Elf Paladin (has the sword Eroeme)
Human Mobile Fighter (uses two weapons)
Human Barbarian (uses a Greatsword)
Ratfolk Ranger (Bow focused)
Human Hedge Witch (healing patron)
So far my players have only encountered one mythic enemy: The Emperor of Scales. I gave him and both of his golem allies the advanced template, and I also gave the Emperor the Agile Mythic template. An important thing to note about the Agile template is that unless I am mistaken creatures with this template still receive two full turns. They were not affected by the changes to Amazing Initiative. The emperor also had the Mythic Combat Reflexes feat, and I had him spend a mythic point on this ability every round.
The party's Sorcerer, Fighter, Paladin, and Ranger were present.
Here is how the combat went:
Round 1: Emperor went first, and his second turn in the initiative was after the initiative of two of the players. He used his two actions to buff himself and attempt to dominate the party fighter (the fighter succeeded at his save).
The sorcerer flooded the room with summoned elementals, preventing the golems from effectively reaching the players due to their size. The fighter and paladin moved in and nearly destroyed one golem. The Ranger failed her save vs insanity and became confused (beat herself over the head).
The golems went last, and smashed one of the elementals into the floor.
Round 2: The emperor five foot stepped up and full attacked the Paladin with his reach, and also grappled her with his first action.
With his second action I noticed something odd. Technically, with Swallow Whole, you can only swallow someone if you're grappling him/her at the START of your turn. Did his second action count as a new turn? It probably wasn't supposed to... but it didn't make sense that he had to waste his extra action maintaining the grapple. After all, if he had instead grappled on his second action, he would not have had to wait. I decided that it would make the most sense if he could use his 2nd action to immediately us swallow whole. He succeeded.
The hilarious thing is, this was the Emperor's undoing. The players realized that Eroeme could re-size itself into a small sized weapon, allowing the paladin to wield it *inside* the Emperor's stomach. She was already using smite, haste, and divine bond (for holy and axomatic). On top of that, all the attacks auto-hit because of the low AC of the stomach. The paladin proceeded to tear the Emperor apart from the inside, doing 150+ points of damage in a single round. She would have done more if she wasn't limited to using it one handed. She actually wanted to stay inside the stomach because it was safer (and more effective), but I didn't see any way she wouldn't ether fall out or be coughed up after doing all that damage. I'll have to look for specific rulings later.
The ranger also attempted to attack the emperor, but had trouble hitting him due to his AC of 36. The fighter finished off the golem he was fighting. The sorcerer hit the emperor with a blasting spell, but rolled badly on damage (I forgot to apply evasion from the agile template).
The remaining golem tried to kill another elemental since that was the only thing in his reach.
The elementals had become ineffective and only basically prevented the enemy from maneuvering. The emperor's insanity effect started causing several of them to lose their actions, and they weren't able to hit the emperor's AC of 36.
Round 3: The emperor tried to kill the paladin that had just ripped him apart from the inside. He full attacked her, but she stayed alive by using a paladin spell to heal herself as an immediate action.
The party sorcerer used one of his WoP spells to teleport the paladin away from the fight before the emperor got a second full round attack on her. If this had not happened, the emperor would have killed the paladin (with a total of 18 attack rolls!) before she even got another round.
The emperor instead tried full attacking the party's fighter, but had trouble hitting him due to his high AC of 35. He did some damage, but couldn't get a grapple off.
The rest of the party began whittling the emperor down. They had trouble doing much damage due to his high AC of 36 and his DR 15/good and silver, but the paladin had ripped him up so much it didn't matter. He had very little time left to live. The fighter barely managed to get an acrobatics check of around 53 to avoid attacks of opportunity from the emperor's Mythic Combat reflexes. Yes, he managed to do this due to a combination of high Dex, Greater Heroism, Skill Focus, and being able to take a 20 due to his mobile archetype.
Round 4: After attempting another full attack, the emperor's final action was to try to dominate the party's fighter. The fighter failed the initial save, but broke out when he was ordered to hunt down and kill the party's paladin before she finished healing. The party managed to kill the emperor soon afterwards.
Thoughts so far:
I believe the agile template made the fight much more interesting than it would have been. Giving the boss two full sets of actions per round made him a much more effective (and frightening) threat to the party. The only issue I had was trying to figure out whether or not he should have had to wait longer before using swallow whole, but it just seemed silly to me that he would not have had to wait if he had instead grappled on his second action.
I do think that the Agile template probably should give a CR 2 increase on high level monsters. The emperor had a potential of getting off two full round attacks per round. This can be incredibly devastating, and would have killed off the party paladin if the sorcerer hadn't saved her.
Mythic Combat Reflexes seemed like it could have been deadly, but went to waste since the only person who provoked attacks actually managed to dodge them with his insane acrobatics. The emperor actually wasted several mythic points on rounds where he prepared for people to move in, but they never came. Maybe this feat would be more effective if its mythic effect could be activated as an immediate action instead of a swift action.
In any case, I really love this template and I am looking forward to using it in future games.
I expect my players to have to deal with two Archmages and a Champion/Guardian in their next battles.
Hmm, I probably should have put this in the Adventure Feedback section. Feel free to move this if you feel it is necessary.
My players just finished going through the rest of the Sanctum of the Serpent God, except for the final battle. Out of this, my players fought three battles involving mythic enemies and I will go over the results of the fights here.
I have to say though, I am really pleased with the effect adding mythic power to an enemy has on a combat. It makes what would normally be a pushover enemy much more threatening.
I'm going to do a much more simplified overview of these fights. This was a much longer game session, so it is harder for me to remember the round by round details of each fight.
The players present for this game were the Barbarian, Sorcerer, Ranger, Paladin, and Witch. Because my players are overpowered, all enemies were at least buffed with the advanced template. Those who already had an advanced template instead got an additional level in their primary class.
Enemies: Nazith-Yol (Advanced Serpentfolk Transmuter 14 Archmage 1), two Advanced Siege Serpents, four temple guards (Advanced Degenerate Serpentfolk Cleric of Ydersius 8/fighter 2)
I gave Nazith-Yol one archmage teir with the Arcane Surge arcana, Abundant Casting path ability, and the Mythic Spells feat. His mythic spell was Globe of Invulnerability. Also, I gave him the Spell Perfection (Baleful Polymorph) with his extra wizard level so he could cast that spell quickened.
This fight was actually fairly easy for the players. The Siege serpents briefly held back the party's melee, and the archmage used the time they gained to try and make use of his spells. The archmage cast his globe of invulnerability, and tried to baleful polymorph and disintegrate the barbarian. Both failed due to his insane saves because of Superstition. Next, he cast a Arcane Surged Prismatic Spray on the witch and the sorcerer's cohort Sasha. The witch failed his saves due to having to roll twice and was turned into stone, while Sasha resisted it.
The archmage barely survived the next round and then would have tried to teleport away like his tactics suggested, but I had forgotten to take into account that this wouldn't work because of his mythic globe of invulnerability. Whoops! He instead tried using Abundant Casting + Arcane Surge to cast a double Baleful Polymorph on the paladin and barbarian before they could get him, but they both made their saves. He died shortly afterwards.
So, the mythic archmage abilities only really accomplished turning one character to stone. They also kind of got him killed because he couldn't teleport with his mythic globe of invulnerability. The players also simply didn't cast any 5th or lower spells on him once they realized what the globe would do. Maybe a better mythic version of this spell would make the spell ignore his own spells so he could properly buff and protect himself?
Enemies: Khorak (Advanced Troglodite Fighter 13 Guardian 1) and two temple guards (Advanced Degenerate Serpentfolk Cleric of Ydersius 8/fighter 2) from east passage
Nylla-jas (Advanced Serpentfolk Transmuter 14 Archmage 1) and four temple guards (Advanced Degenerate Serpentfolk Cleric of Ydersius 8/fighter 2) from north pasage
Nylla-jas had the same build as the last serpentfolk wizard/archmage. Khorak was a guardian with the Sudden Block guardian's call, snatch spell, and took Dual Path to get Champion and Fleet Charge.
Now, this fight was a bit more frightening for the players, though a good part of this was simply because of the number of enemies. Still, the mythic templates did make a bit of a difference.
Khorak died in the first round before he could even do anything. The party's barbarian would have killed him outright if Khorak didn't use Sudden Block to force the barbarian to reroll a crit. The party's paladin finished him off shortly afterwards. That was... kind of disappointing.
Nylla-jas hid behind his wall of temple guards and cast spells at the party. She opened up with Chain Lightning, and cast several quickened Baleful Polymorphs. The sorcerer's cohort (Sasha) failed her save vs this and was turned into a snake. A bit later she got a chance to hit the Paladin, Witch, and Barbarian with a Arcane Surged Prismatic Spray. The forced double roll made a huge difference here. The witch got lucky and only took 20 points of fire damage. The paladin had to save vs insanity, and had to use a hero point to add +4 to one of her rolls to avoid going insane. The Barbarian had to save vs both Petrification AND being sent to another plane. He badly failed the latter, and after looking up a chart I rolled that he was sent to the negative energy plane. Well, that is one way to get rid of someone!
Nylla-jas tried casting her own Abundant Casting + Arcane Surged Baleful Polymorh at the Witch and paladin, but they both managed to make both saves. She died soon afterwards when the ranger stuck arrows in him. After that, the party's witch rushed to cast scry + plane shift + teleport + plane shift (using pearls of power) to save the barbarian before the Negative Energy plane killed him. She *barely* made it in time.
Thoughts: The mythic templates also made a difference here, but it was much more noticeable. Making the players have to roll twice on their saves made things much more dangerous and meant that had to try and kill that archmage as fast as possible. The guardian was a bit more disappointing, but at least he was able to distract the paladin for a moment by surviving the barbarian's pounce.
Enemies: Raviaza (Agile Advanced Marilith Demon), Khestath (Advanced Degerate Serpentfolk Fighter 6/Ranger 5 Guardian 1), three temple guards (Advanced Degenerate Serpentfolk Cleric of Ydersius 8/fighter 2)
Khestath used the same mythic build as Khorak from the previous fight.
This was a very tough fight for the players. The enemy had the temple guards at the front to soak up the opening attacks, and the Marilith went first because of her Agile template. She cast a blade barrier in front of the players, which the barbarian promptly ran through. The paladin waited for the sorcerer to use antimagic to negate the barrier before going through as well.
The paladin ended up fighting Khestath, and the barbarian ended up fighting Marilith. The paladin had wanted to fight the Marilith (and smited her), but Khestath was able to use fleet charge to get to her and full attack before she could do so. Khestath ripped her apart and got her down to very low health. She had to use an immediate action lay on hands spell to stay up. The Marilith moved up and full attacked the barbarian with her reach, but missed with many attacks due to his high AC and did reduced damage because he happened to have a fire resist spell on him. She tried to grapple with her tail, but his CMD was far too high to succeed.
Seeing this, the Marilith moved back a bit on her next action (agile is amazing) and cast another blade barrier. This did good damage to both the paladin and barbarian, and the paladin fell unconscious. The barbarian pounced the Marilith, but he failed to drop her due to her DR. The ranger focused on finishing off the fodder serpentfolk, and the party's witch cast heal on the paladin by sending her familliar.
The paladin had to spend the round getting away from the blade barriers, and Khestath used another Fleet Charge to knock the paladin unconscious again. The Marilith came within 40 hit points of dropping the barbarian, but she lost a huge amount of damage potential due to his fire resistance. Both mythic enemies died the next round.
I have to say that Fleet Charge and the Agile template both made these melee bosses a much greater threat to the players. This was especially good for these bosses because they both relied upon full round attacks. I think that I could have actually (finally) killed a player if I had the enemies act a bit smarter.
Khestath never got a chance to use his sudden guard ability because he was always using fleet charge to attack things, but oh well.
So many mythic enemies and still no player deaths! I intend to fix this with the final battle... muahahaha.
Well, I must admit that I think there would have had a few deaths (and an insane paladin) if it wasn't for the fact that I let them use hero points. In any case though, I am loving using mythic templates to make specific enemies actually pose a threat to my overpowered players. It is much better than simply increasing the enemy's levels or other numbers.