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*gets on his rocking chair, pulls out his 1st edition AD&D books, and shouts at those darned kids to get off his lawn!* ;)
Actually, Lochar, the first D&D product I owned was Basic. (I bet that's still lying around somewhere. No idea where, however.)
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I'm probably going to sound REALLY old here, but I played 2E 20 years ago and the optimization and broken character myself and others built was kind of absurd. I could crank out some pretty disturbing combat focused characters once I pulled in the different handbooks and setting specific books while a friend could do the same with casters. So the optimization was still there.
As was stated above a few times, sharing those optimizations without the internet as prevalent was not as easy as it is today. However, the big difference here is the complexity of characters. Pathfinder characters have a ton of options between class abilities, racial abilities, feats, and all the alternates and so on. PF characters are considerably more complex than 3.x characters because each one has more options to pile on.
And this is where I feel the power level of high-end characters comes from. Compare a level 15 fighter in Pathfinder to a level 15 fighter in 3.5 and the number of feats alone shows a significant rise in power. So, designing adventures for low-level, and to a certain extent mid-level, characters does not require a major departure from D&D philosophy, however, high-level characters have left the predecessors behind and so the philosophy of design is different.
All of this, I feel, boils down to the simple fact that characters in PF, especially once Mythic Adventures is added on, are different beasts entirely than they were in other games.
Well to be fair, fighters in 3.5 were pretty much s@#@, when compared to clerics and pretty much everything else. In Pathfinder fighters are much better.
And while I do agree, that the internet makes it far far easier for “normal” players to get the expert advice and builds, the aren’t really that necessary.
Take a look at Ravingdork’s Crazy Character Emporium, while he makes use of a variety of Pathfinder sources, most of his characters are very good at what they do, without having to access that many sources.
A CRB Fighter with a two handed weapon, is a force to be reckoned with, and that is without much powergaming, obviously with access to all the material he gets better, but it is not essential. But he is quite likely still far weaker than a 3.5 cleric straight from the PHB.
The problems many high level adventures tend to have, is based on the fact some some high level options are simply very powerful.
So yeah the power level might have risen a bit, but in that cases the adventures could have adapted years ago (if they had that intention or even that capability).
TLDR: Pathfinder gets quite hard for the GM and adventure designers, but the problems still come from some pretty basic concepts. ^^
Also, I am now 29 and have almost 20 years of experience with RPGs myself, so yeah .... you might beat me on years, but I should beat you on hairs lost (ripped out homer simpson style, after years of froustration with a certain german RPG) :P
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Actually, Lochar, the first D&D product I owned was Basic. (I bet that's still lying around somewhere. No idea where, however.)
Chainmail for the win!
*grudgingly hands over rocking chair*
Shouldn't you have been put into a home by now then? :D
You all know perfectly well, that it doesn't count how old you are or how old your books are.
Only the multitude of scars from various edition wars count ^^ That and the total pages of messageboard threads about LG/Paladins count....so I assume that Mikaze has ultimate grognard status on these boards.
Ravingdork's characters aren't exactly the best representation of that claim as Ravingdork himself spends lots of times on these forums and is a very rules savvy person in general. Ha also does pull from multiple and many resources. When he comes across something that is good, he will include them into a character if he can or possibly build a character with the spell, feat, or ability in mind.
For example, he made a recent change to Riva Sarjenka when someone pointed out the use of the Planned Spontaneity feat.
He also built a Bumi Mei Fong based off the posts of Cao Phen.
When he was first posting characters, I pointed out he could use the magical treatment rules to make Helegur's Ice Fortress even tougher than it already was. Later on, he discovered an even better version of beefing it up in Ultimate Campaign.
My point is, even though Ravingdork is very rules savvy, even he still gets advice, or ideas, or learns about combos from the forums.
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Ravingdork's characters aren't exactly the best representation of that claim as Ravingdork himself spends lots of times on these forums and is a very rules savvy person in general. Ha also does pull from multiple and many resources. When he comes across something that is good, he will include them into a character if he can or possibly build a character with the spell, feat, or ability in mind.
For example, he made a recent change to Riva Sarjenka when someone pointed out the use of the Planned Spontaneity feat.
He also built a Bumi Mei Fong based off the posts of Cao Phen.
When he was first posting characters, I pointed out he could use the magical treatment rules to make Helegur's Ice Fortress even tougher than it already was. Later on, he discovered an even better version of beefing it up in Ultimate Campaign.
My point is, even though Ravingdork is very rules savvy, even he still gets advice, or ideas, or learns about combos from the forums.
Yeah you have a point there, the point I am trying to advocate is that the adventures as written or still already to easy for a group without that level of online support.
And of course guides on the internet make everything worse^^Still I really like his characters, but I have a very soft spot for classy powergaming^^
Circling back for Magnuskn because I said I would, Karzoug the claimer did not last 3 rounds against the PCs, so yes, it was a short, ridiculously easy battle for the PCs; they had much more trouble killing groups of 7-10 giants.
But in spite of that I have to say that I liked the level of the encounter.
If I'd chosen to, I could have destroyed the PCs by having Karzoug hit them with a Greater Dispel Magic (or even a Mage's Disjunction) the moment they arrived in the Eye of Avarice, and then had the storm giants, rune giant, and dragon all hit them with area effect spells for 50d6+12d8 with no protections up. (Or in the case of the Mage's Disjunction, at least the dragon's breath and physical attacks from all the giants.)
Even with successful Reflex saves that's an average of 114.5 per PC, and Karzoug's second round with Meteor Swarm would have finished off at least the sorcerer, if not the bard as well.
Instead, I played it as-written, so with Energy Resist up for fire, electricity, and cold, the PCs took little damage from Karzoug's initial onslaught, and with Haste and Bard's Escape they bypassed Karzoug's protections and dropped the barbarian and paladin with full round actions right next to him. (It didn't help that the barbarian then crit with an earthbreaker and the paladin crit on 3 of 5 hits while Smiting Evil.)
Good preparation by the PCs, good tactics by the PCs, and Karzoug fell.
I could have made it a far more dangerous, long-lasting encounter with a Greater Dispel Magic and Dimension Lock, so I feel like I could easily have killed the PCs just by rearranging Karzoug's tactics and spells. Playing him as-written, he fell.
To me, that's a decent balance. You as the GM can choose whether or not to exterminate the party based on your BBEG's tactics.
If that's not the case in WotR, and clueless PCs with no prep and bad tactics can still win just because they're so much more powerful than the bad guys, then yes, something should change.
But I haven't run WotR yet, so I have no idea.
Yeah, the tactic blocks often are terrible and the things a level 20 Wizard can do if he puts his mind to it...
Anyway, since I am a player in RotRL I am in position to look up the encounter and give counter-tactics. Since I've been a member of this board since the alpha, I am thoroughly spoiled on Karzoug as being the end encounter for the AP, but for more than that, I'll keep away from detailed spoilers about how the encounter goes.
As for WotR, one of my players just chatted with me yesterday about how his damage output will reach about 1000 damage per round and how the other PC's will be near that or not far behind. The toughest opponent in the AP has 742 HP.
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As for WotR, one of my players just chatted with me yesterday about how his damage output will reach about 1000 damage per round and how the other PC's will be near that or not far behind. The toughest opponent in the AP has 742 HP.
Still working on my "thing" about that one, I should be able to post a work in progress later. I kinda lost my motivation after several pages of pointing out the flaws....^^
I can just imagine. ^^ It gets more discouraging to GM this AP the farther I look ahead. :p
To be honest, it seems a lot like the GM feedback will only continue to go in the one direction of "this system is making PC's way too crazy powerful for this AP". Is there any GM who so far has been able to get into the last modules and has not experienced that the opposition of the party is vastly outclassed?
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I may be lucky in that my group is a good mix of inexperience and experienced players. And I stress to my players that I prefer good 'characters" vs Good 'Optimizers'.
We are only just staring the third Book, and no one has died yet. I like to put them on the brink of destruction and see if they can pull through the encounters. And I haven't had to use advanced templates or double hp, sometimes ill add 25-50 hit points just so they monsters last a bit longer, but for the most part I just use tactics and crowd control.
My party consists of an Inquisitor/Dragon Disciple, Magus, Dwarf Ranger, Pig Farmer(Druid),a Drow Rogue, and a cleric/fighter (Redeemed cultist of Bahopmet).
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i plan to add a series of high level casters to the mix for the end bosses. high level witches with mythic tiers and the retaliation hex do wonders for making a party not try to deal 100000 damage in a round.
i also plan to add a "0" to the end of all the HPs of demon lords mythic fights ought to be mythic. the players should feel like they earn it.
also tick swarms at level 9 can murder mythic players.
Baconus: Offer this challenge to your players then: Give them a couple more levels (and let them keep the stat bonuses) but strip away the Mythic itself. Same characters. Just no Mythic ability. Then continue the game.
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Told y'all.
Most AP's don't have a high enough difficulty for optimized or above average parties. In those cases the GM will have to alter things.
That doesn't excuse the lack of high-level playtesting for the Mythic rules, whose flaws are exceedingly obvious by now. And we had groups which nerfed themselves from the start still trample all over the last two books encounters.
I'm still in the first book and my player's arent't even optimized or mythic yet and after they hit level 5 combat is still to easy as written.
I have updated the stats of the most important foes and I'm playing the enemies smart and proactive which helps alot. But since I'm playing with some new players I choose to play with XP to stick with the core rules as much as possible, and now my player will earn way to much XP as a result. I should have stuck with my original plan and used the slow XP progression table.
That doesn't excuse the lack of high-level playtesting for the Mythic rules, whose flaws are exceedingly obvious by now. And we had groups which nerfed themselves from the start still trample all over the last two books encounters.
ok, I see what you mean.
I think the mythic levels are about 0.75 to 1 level and definitely not a half level. I don't have those books, so the difficulty of the written encounters may also be a factor. I want to run a mythic game just to test them out.
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My group just finished book one and given the feedback on these boards I am going to be changing a few things, namely removing the boons that the group gets through the first few books. There are a few things in book one that I will need to take away but my players are pretty good sports and should be okay with losing abilities they previously gained, especially if I explain why I'm doing it.
Given everything I've read that won't be all I have to do to even things out but it should go a long ways toward helping. My group also just lost a player dropping from four to three and I'm handing out levels instead of XP so that should also help a lot.
I fear that the same thing will happen with my group too, we're just starting book 4. I have started to limit mythic tiers and stat increases, that may not be enough but it may help in the last parts if we make it that far.
I think that Paizo put themselves in a bind by tying an AP to an upcoming rulebook.
Lie about the XP then Mortagon. "That wasn't a CR 6 encounter, it was a CR 4. here's your XP."
That's what I have done so far, but the more experienced players where on to me so I just told them that I was going to use the original XP values with the beefed up encounters and they seemed cool with that.
Maybe running this badboy without the mythic element at all would be a better way to approach it. I know from experience high level d20 comes off the rails, I can only imagining adding all this mythic stuff on top of it.
15+ level characters are still "mythic" in my book. This campaign sounds like a lot of fun but I am leary of buying in because of the mythic stuff.
My group is running a Mythic Legacy of Fire game, and one of the big things I've noticed is simply the Champion abilities and some of the Mythic Feats being just too good. Namely Mythic Power Attack, Mythic Improved Critical and the Champions abilities. Last session our Two-Handed Fighter 12/Champion 4 dropped a Tarn Linnorm before it could even act. Due to Impossible Speed, Mythic Augmented Haste and Fleet Charge, he was able to move ~200 feet across a vast chamber and get a free attack (which crit) followed up by a full attack (with 2 more crits) totaling some 700 points of damage. This was in addition to the ~150 points of damage my Monk did immediately prior to the fighter, which wasn't needed as the tarn linnorm would have died without the Monk's damage.
My GM was quite astonished and dismayed that we'd killed his uber!boss in a single round before it could act. He'd given the Linnorm the Advanced Template and maxed his HP and it didn't really matter.
Mythic Power Attack is a real killer when it comes to crits because the bonus damage is doubled before multiplying it with a crit. So at level 12 he takes -4 to hit and gains +18 to damage (2-hand) which is doubled to +36 before a crit, and thanks to Mythic Improved Critical, he's got a multiplier of x3, so he's getting 108 damage just from those two feats. That's on top of his strength, enhancement, and magical buffs (we've got a Bard that can give us something like +8 to hit and +6 to damage in two rounds) and anything else that comes up.
Damage already tended to out-scale HP in normal Pathfinder, Mythic took that damage and multiplied it by a factor of 3 at least, making HP completely obsolete. I'm leaning towards rolling 1d4+1 and making the result the number of rounds a creature survives after their HP is gone, just by default; bosses would probably last 2d4+1 rounds or something like that.
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I'm leaning towards rolling 1d4+1 and making the result the number of rounds a creature survives after their HP is gone, just by default; bosses would probably last 2d4+1 rounds or something like that.
All mythic enemies must use a number of move or standard actions equal to their Mythic Rank?
So a MR10 creature has to last at least 5 turns(standard+move actions), unless it starts burning Amazing Initiative or something else for extra actions.
I'm leaning towards rolling 1d4+1 and making the result the number of rounds a creature survives after their HP is gone, just by default; bosses would probably last 2d4+1 rounds or something like that.All mythic enemies must use a number of move or standard actions equal to their Mythic Rank?
So a MR10 creature has to last at least 5 turns(standard+move actions), unless it starts burning Amazing Initiative or something else for extra actions.
Neat idea, but it doesn't help for things like the Tarn Linnorm, a CR 20 creature taken out by a Fighter 12/Champion 4, supposedly a CR 14 creature. Remember, only 1/3 of all encounters should include 'Mythic' creatures, so the other creatures that are supposed to be tough, but not mythic are still going to be slaughtered.
Take that Tarn Linnorm that we killed, if my GM had used the above method he would have survived: rounds after the fighter 'killed' him. Basically, the monsters get their HP + the bonus rounds from the dice.
I am thinking of making up a mythic ability to multiply hit points by 1.5 or even 2 because if you crit a PC with mythic power attack the PC might also be dead.
Either that or tune it down in some other fashion.
Increasing the Power Attack bonus to +3 and the doubled before multiplied ability are both very strong options, and together, they are just too powerful, especially since most people 2-hand now days. I mean, by the time they hit 20th, they're getting a +27 damage bonus while 2-handing, which is doubled to 54 points of damage before the crit is multiplied. Depending on the crit multiplier of the weapon, this varies from 108 (x2) points of damage to 270 (x5) points of damage (possible 324 if a Fighter with capstone and Mythic Improved Crit).
Honestly, I hoped Mythic would include more abilities like Seven League Leap or Improbable Prestidigitation; really cool abilities that don't really increase damage so much as increase options. Increasing Combat Options is fine, like Uncanny Grapple, Blowback or Punishing Blow, but out-and-out increasing damage shouldn't have been the way to make creatures Mythic.
Impresion I got playing through and reading these threads is that deciding that 1 tier= half a lvl in power was possibly the main problem with it being closer to 1 tier = 1 lvl.
Given this, do people think WotR would be better balanced for an experienced group if the PCs only earned half of the listed mythic tiers? I.e. ending the campaign at level 20/tier 5?
I have ignored the bonus damage from mythic power attack, being able to do extra damage with no downside is good enough for me.
I have also warned my PCs that mythic progression will slow down and they will not achieve tier 10, possibly not tier 9.
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While I'm not running WotR, I have added Mythic to the JR campaign I'm running. Mythic Power attack seems out of line in its power, I'm thinking of changing it to be in line with Mythic Deadly aim, which simply increases it buy 50% (+2 per -1 to +3 per -1). No bonus for crits, and no use of power to ignore the penalty to hit
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That doesn't excuse the lack of high-level playtesting for the Mythic rules, whose flaws are exceedingly obvious by now. And we had groups which nerfed themselves from the start still trample all over the last two books encounters.
Impresion I got playing through and reading these threads is that deciding that 1 tier= half a lvl in power was possibly the main problem with it being closer to 1 tier = 1 lvl.
I fear that the same thing will happen with my group too, we're just starting book 4. I have started to limit mythic tiers and stat increases, that may not be enough but it may help in the last parts if we make it that far.
I think that Paizo put themselves in a bind by tying an AP to an upcoming rulebook.
With all due respect, post the character sheets of your party, because I'm all but certain that the disconnect starts with basic foundations of character building long before you add in mythic. Look at some Paizo Pre-gens and compare them to your party. Is your party stronger? On average I've found most forum posters to average between four and six points higher on spell DCs and between 6-10 points higher on attack bonus, armor class, saves, and other meaningful statistics at mid to high levels.
That's as a baseline.
Add in mythic and optimization there to any real extent and you start to slip way outside of what they project for, but that is less to do with mythic, and more to due with the nature of how designers view game vs. how dedicated posters here do.
On the other hand, frankly, scaling up is a lot easier than down, and I don't have that much sympathy for people that encourage metagaming and / or high end optimization then cry foul when they need to work to adjust for it.
There are a few pieces of mythic that I think need some tweaking downward in my opinion (mythic power attack, fleet charge, mythic hexes, ect), but overall I think condemning an entire system because you trashed one AP is a little rash.
I don't think a tier is worth a level (save perhaps the first tier, for some of the base options it provides in offense with fleet charge, wild arcna, ect). I think if you compare, for instance, a higher level character to a lower level character with mythic to make up the difference you will usually find it lacking. That said, I also don't think you can easily just say X mythic tiers = 1 level, because the nature of mythic means you have to adjust the nature of the campaign to include specific mythic threats.
Since it is obvious that you are not playing mythic nor this AP, I think people who are actually doing so have a better idea how it goes in practice than you do.
I can't speak myself yet for how the last three modules are going to go, but the GM's/players who already did so are posting in unison extremely discouraging stuff in terms of game balance. And at least one of those groups started the AP already very nerfed in regards to the baseline on purpose and still stomped all over the AP's official writing.
Since it is obvious that you are not playing mythic nor this AP, I think people who are actually doing so have a better idea how it goes in practice than you do.
I can't speak myself yet for how the last three modules are going to go, but the GM's/players who already did so are posting in unison extremely discouraging stuff in terms of game balance. And at least one of those groups started the AP already very nerfed in regards to the baseline on purpose and still stomped all over the AP's official writing.
At this moment, you're right. I'm not playing mythic. My group did however spend upwards of six months (or more? I lost track of time) playtesting with the original beta rules, which were in many ways stronger. The conclusion we reached was that other than that first mythic tier, the party would always rather have a level, and that after building a dozen different characters with mythic and without that a level was worth a lot more than a tier to the vast majority of characters.
I'm not actively playing through WotR either, but I have it on hand, and the optimization level seems about the same as previous APs (e.g. very low).
Here is my monster pc who blew up encounters. Note: I have a HUGE mount so that I could have it available in the least amount of places possible because huge horse is cool, and I basically never used the cleric.
Also, while mythic power attack is good, I think there are a lot of better things. Mythic power attack doesn't give you any more options, while many other things (Wild arcana lol) let you react to basically any situation
The highest level pre-gen I have on hand at this moment is a 17th level paladin. For reference:
Str 20, Dex 10, Con 18, Int 8, Wis 14, Cha 18.
Fort +23, Rel +14, Will +21. AC 36
Melee +27/+22/+17/+12 (1d8+9 17-20x2)
Also, while mythic power attack is good, I think there are a lot of better things. Mythic power attack doesn't give you any more options, while many other things (Wild arcana lol) let you react to basically any situation
(An aside: while I understand people's concern with Mythic Power Attack---every damage boost makes things more unbalanced---I think CWheezy is right that this is a relatively minor offender. I think this is true even if we focus on feats which do nothing but increase damage.
For a 18th level full-BAB class PC, Mythic Power Attack adds +5 damage per hit, for about +20 damage in a round.
Whereas Mythic Rapid Shot and Mythic Manyshot each effectively add an additional ranged attack. And against evil outsiders (e.g., pretty much every opponent), each ranged attack from my player's 18th lvl ranger does an average of +66 damage (+81 if she's also using Mythic Deadly Aim).
So as a DM, I've found things like Mythic Rapid Shot and Mythic Manyshot to be a much bigger problem than Mythic Power Attack.)
@Peter Stewart:
Here's the wizard in my campaign...nothing special I'm guessing from the posts. In fast she compares well to 12th lvl Seoni.
12th lvl enhancement, 4th tier archmage
Str 10, Dex 14, Con 14(17), Int 24(28), Wis 12(16), Chr 12
spell focus/tattoo: trans, spell spec/greater: haste, craft arms/wonderous items, spell pen, empower spell, extra traits
mythic: wild surge, harmonious mage, abundant casting, crafting mastery, component freedom(m), enduring armor, mythic spell lore
major items: robe of archmagi, headband +4 int/wis, 3 lesser meta rods.
almost all of those provided by the AP
I don't consider this an outlaying character; other than the player didn't pick feats randomly like some pregens do.
I'm a bit curious as to how much an issue paladins and barbarians cause in the AP? or is it all classes equally?
I don't rightly see the difference between a Paladin, Barbarian, Fighter or Ranger in damage output in this AP. Or any of the other melee-heavy classes.