It's basically what I have been predicting since I saw the mythic rules. ^^
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I agree. It seems like a mythic tier is much closer to a level than the designers thought, while mythic ranks are about half a CR. I will be treating higher level fights with those assumptions. And I disallow things that are too game breaking.
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All the fights that have happened in the last few books have been mostly jokes they are so easy. ... Has anyone else had this kind of experience?
Yes.
I managed to keep the party somewhat challenged up through book 4 by grouping together more and more encounters, and having them take on the PCs all at once. (So I grouped all the encounters in the Ivory Sanctum into 3 big fights, all the encounters in Nahyndrian Mine into 3 big fights, etc.) But by the end of book 4 even this started to feel too easy.
I'd recommend bringing the upgraded stats posted by Sc8rpi8n_mjd in the "Wrath of the Righteous statblocks document" thread to your DM's attention, and seeing whether he'd be willing to use those instead. I started using those in book 5 (and doubling hps) for my party, and things went much better.
The only downside is that Sc8rpi8n_mjd hasn't yet finished the upgrading the encounters in book 6, so you might have to wait a bit... But it's worth it.
If you'd like, you could have your DM try out the difficulty levels by re-running some of the encounters in book 5 with the upgraded stats (I'd recommend doubling hps too), and seeing how it goes. I think you'll find them much more fun this time around. :)
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I don’t think that the mythic tiers are necessarily the Problem here, and while mythic powers and
feats tend to “break” the rules in small manageable ways, they tend to increase the power that is already there, kinda like multiplier.
There are a number of problems with the encounters as written:
- Fights against a single opponent still do not work, (the agile template is a godsend and will certainly see a lot of use from me, even outside of mythic campaigns). Without a substantial increase in hit points, they have serious trouble surviving two rounds. And from my point of view 12 seconds is a bit short for an epic battle.
- DR can usually be ignored
- The enemies tend to use very suboptimal tactics
There are others and I will attempt to open a new thread for this one, as this one seems to be focussed on the power of the pcs.
I am seriously considering the following:
* Only +1 to a stat every even Tier.
* Half the number of Mythic Points after 1st level (ie, 1 extra per tier)
* Eliminate Amazing Initiative
* Recuperate uses 5 Mythic Points to activate
These would diminish the impact of the Tiers, perhaps down to the 1/2 level a Tier that Paizo claims is the impact.
Enact the changes I suggest. Just the +1 to each stat for the even tiers alone would help compensate for a 25-point build.
Here's another thing: I did a point comparison to determine how many points a +x to each stat would be, assuming a traditional 15/14/13/12/10/8 build.
+1 to every Stat makes the stats a 25-point build.
+2 to every Stat makes the stats a 37-point build.
+3 to every Stat makes the stats a 52-point build.
+4 to every Stat makes the stats a 78-point build.
Pretty much the big problem facing antagonists is that you need numbers. Further, your numbers need to be able to withstand several rounds of combat - you need meat shields to absorb player blows.
Thus while it is thematic, the Big Bad should never stand alone. Indeed, the Big Bad should never even just rely on one ally. He or she should have at least half a dozen allies to absorb actions and attacks. The problem becomes if the Big Bad is able to just outright kill characters with one round of attacks - inevitably in this situation the meat shields are ignored while the Big Bad is taken out.
There are ways around this: Rasputin in Reign of Winter: Rasputin Must Die is an excellent example of an enemy designed to mess with players... as he doesn't stay dead.
One other thing to consider is this: Instead of Mythic Ranks, give monsters actual Tiers, much like the players. That puts them on more of an even footing.
I am probably making myself not very many friends at the Paizo office with my "I told you so"'s. But... I told you so. ^^
I've seen the game break every time people get to high levels (i.e. around level 10 or a bit later, depending on group composition). Mythic is high-octane high-level play.
Those houserules I've implemented don't change the powerful stuff from happening, but at least they make the players spend their mythic power more judiciously.
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I must say, this damage output is immense, yet not enough to worry me.
I believe the point is that, in order to counter mythic heroes, any GM needs mythic preparation and skill, and since we all want sometimes to just relax and enjoy the game, more than ofter players will find the encounters quite easy after recuperation is in the house. That say, that 530 damage is still counterable by a "you cannot touch me" approach (+5 full plate heavy fortification, "golem armors" and such), but this may well annoy players that always dreamed to one shot a balor with a dagger! Therefore, here some suggestion ...
1) Mithic max HP for HD! Any mithic enemy gains max HP aviable for him. Hooray!This is cheap, but also simple to do.
2) Abuse of miss - try any way possible to miss by cleverness. Find way to give enemies concealment, swarm cloaks, mirror images o similar.
Like Baphomet armour (i know he like to go around almost naked, but he should put something on him, sometimes), that may grant him partial concealment still is in his minotaur by dimension phasing him or "duplicate" him, or such. I've put a post about fighting baphomet and Deskari.
3) Abuse teleport - give every mythic demon the ability to teleport as a move action (or as an immediate, if you are really cruel)few times a day on a short rage. So pcs strikes are still destructive, but you have their targets able to escape them few times before fall.
4) The demon hive - Demons have telepathy and teleport at will. If Pcs do not find ways to rest secure (like rope trick and nondetection), they should be constantly bothered by swams, ghost and others abyss related enemies. Constantly. This should became more and more prominent at any time pcs set a foot outside the sword of valor effects ... these guys should attack en masse, like mobs, and make pcs waste mythic points a lot (a mob od babaus may well have 2000 HP and a AC of 20!)
I know those are basic ideas and full of grammar mistakes (i'm italian, after all), but i believe that mythic damage output is just a way to tell our beloved fighters "Yes, you can do it! finally!"
1.) Max HP don't suffice at all to counter high-level damage output.
2.) True Seeing is a thing at high levels, too.
3.) As long as those teleports land in range of the guy doing 500+ damage on a single hit, they are useless.
4.) Magnificent Mansion also is a thing at high levels.
Just saying that there are really good reasons why high-level PC's are difficult to deal with and that isn't even counting mythic rules into the mix. ^^
As a thought exercise, what happens if a demon finds the entrance to the rope trick/mansion and dimensional locks the area?
Pcs must break the planar membrane itself, by punching it!
Either that or a side trip into the ethereal plane.|
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- Fights against a single opponent still do not work, (the agile template is a godsend and will certainly see a lot of use from me, even outside of mythic campaigns). Without a substantial increase in hit points, they have serious trouble surviving two rounds. And from my point of view 12 seconds is a bit short for an epic battle.
We completed the last encounter of book 5 with no problems. It basically lasted one round, and that is vs the herald, baphomet, and two balors baphomet summoned during a time stop.
Our fighter 1 rounded the as written baphomet, he usually swings above 50 ac for most of his attacks and auto confirms with a x5 critical (naginata) on a 19-20. When you can full attack so easily and amazing initiative, you roll quite a lot of crits.
530 damage crits is a lot of damage
This fight, is actually one worst, a demon lord that is known for his cunning and guile, charges in (at about half total hp!), doesn't bother to buff himself, or summon his minions. Then he takes the time to kill his own subordinates, while the players have time to heal and rebuff after the last combat....
I suspect, that this combat would be a lot more challenging by giving him something like deadly dodge, a miss chance and/or some kind of concealment. It is pretty clear to me, that AC and DR/epic… is not really effective.
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I am probably making myself not very many friends at the Paizo office with my "I told you so"'s. But... I told you so. ^^
I've seen the game break every time people get to high levels (i.e. around level 10 or a bit later, depending on group composition). Mythic is high-octane high-level play.
Those houserules I've implemented don't change the powerful stuff from happening, but at least they make the players spend their mythic power more judiciously.
Yeah, but even if this was not using the mythic rules, the APs tend to be based on rather badly optimized groups.
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I must say, this damage output is immense, yet not enough to worry me.
I believe the point is that, in order to counter mythic heroes, any GM needs mythic preparation and skill, and since we all want sometimes to just relax and enjoy the game, more than ofter players will find the encounters quite easy after recuperation is in the house. That say, that 530 damage is still counterable by a "you cannot touch me" approach (+5 full plate heavy fortification, "golem armors" and such), but this may well annoy players that always dreamed to one shot a balor with a dagger! Therefore, here some suggestion ...1) Mithic max HP for HD! Any mithic enemy gains max HP aviable for him. Hooray!This is cheap, but also simple to do.
2) Abuse of miss - try any way possible to miss by cleverness. Find way to give enemies concealment, swarm cloaks, mirror images o similar.
Like Baphomet armour (i know he like to go around almost naked, but he should put something on him, sometimes), that may grant him partial concealment still is in his minotaur by dimension phasing him or "duplicate" him, or such. I've put a post about fighting baphomet and Deskari.3) Abuse teleport - give every mythic demon the ability to teleport as a move action (or as an immediate, if you are really cruel)few times a day on a short rage. So pcs strikes are still destructive, but you have their targets able to escape them few times before fall.
4) The demon hive - Demons have telepathy and teleport at will. If Pcs do not find ways to rest secure (like rope trick and nondetection), they should be constantly bothered by swams, ghost and others abyss related enemies. Constantly. This should became more and more prominent at any time pcs set a foot outside the sword of valor effects ... these guys should attack en masse, like mobs, and make pcs waste mythic points a lot (a mob od babaus may well have 2000 HP and a AC of 20!)
I know those are basic ideas and full of grammar mistakes (i'm italian, after all), but i believe that mythic damage...
Nice ideas, but as Magnuskn mentioned, hight level charcters can circumvent some of them. I prefer to give things like block attacks and deadly dodge and similar effects.
#3 is the biggie, and I think the best solution is to strip away the Swift Action for spellcasters. This is not that big a leap - the Hierophant does not allow Swift casting for divine spells, and there is word that the eventual fix-sheet for Mythic will eliminate it for part of the Archmage line (the "cast-any-spell" one). Just eliminate it for ALL spellcasting. Also, I see no problem with requiring Supernatural abilities to not be doable as Swift actions.
Here's something to consider: modified Mythic spells. Have Mythic demons and the like have Mirror Images that CANNOT be eliminated by True Seeing. Also, eliminate Amazing Initiative.
Consider also this: Epic Damage Resistance cannot be overcome by Smite Evil. This will do a lot toward lessening the power of Paladins (even non-Mythic paladins!) against Mythic critters.
I also listed several above, here they are again:
* Only +1 to a stat every even Tier.
* Half the number of Mythic Points after 1st level (ie, 1 extra per tier)
* Eliminate Amazing Initiative
* Recuperate uses 5 Mythic Points to activate
These should diminish the overwhelming impact of Mythic. And mind you, Mythic can be used to improve monsters facing non-Mythic players. It can be quite the unpleasant surprise, and spiff up encounters.
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Baphomet has the Summon Demons ability just like any other Demon Lord right? So why not us that?
Summon Demons (Sp) Three times per day as a swift action, a demon lord can summon any demon or combination of demons whose total combined CR is 20 or lower. This otherwise works like the summon universal monster rule, with a 100% chance of success. This counts as a 9th-level spell effect.
CR 20 worth of demons... When I first read this a few days ago, I couldn't help but think of a post Ashiel made detailing out this very thing.
Succubus x 4 (CR 7) = 12,800 XP
Shadow Demon x 4 (CR 7) = 12,800 XP
Nabasu x 6 (CR 8) = 28,800 XP
Glabrezu x 2 (CR 13) = 51,200 XP
Marilith x 1 (CR 17) = 102,400 XP
Vrock x 15 (CR 9) = 96,000 XP
Dretch x 5 (CR 2) = 3,000 XP
This is a demon horde led by a Marilith, who commands their fiendish legions. The entire horde can greater teleport at will, and works together. Most of them can summon more demons as spell-like abilities. Here is a quick rundown of the types of things these demons might do.
Marilith uses telekinesis at range to hurl objects or even other demons at the party, or uses it to grapple an enemy magician. If she sees an opening, she will get in and attack an opponent with her tail and constrict them. Anyone who is constricted must make a DC 25 fortitude save or fall unconscious for 1d8 rounds. At this point she moves on to the next foe, as one of the succubi coup de grace the unconscious character with a caster level 12 vampiric touch, likely killing the victim and buffing the succubus to hell and back with temporary HP. Blade barrier controls the battlefield and makes moving around a pain for those without teleportation.
The Nebasu wander around spamming enervation at targets, especially those in heavy armor, inflicting 1d4 negative levels with each ray that hits, no save. There are 6 of them, so that's a potential for 6-24 negative levels. Every negative level inflicts a -1 penalty to all saving throws. When they are out of rays, they will spam telekinesis to hurl objects at the party, or force DC 19 will saves or be hurled about like a rag doll.
The shadow demons seep through the floor and attack anyone who is on land using their blind-fight feat to ignore the miss %, and since they have cover you can't make AoOs against them, and retaliating against them is something of a pain, since you can't ready a full-attack against them. Your best bet is to take to the air. Each shadow demon of course attempts to summon another shadow demon with a 50% success rate, so 4 demons becomes 6 more than likely. They too can also stand back and spam telekinesis.
The succubi screech about the battlefield charm-bombing enemies and taking pot-shots at downed foes with vampiric touch when they're down. Of course, they all attempt to summon Babau demons with a 50% chance, so that adds another 2 acid-coated demons into the mix as cannon fodder. They also will not hesitate to dominate animal companions, mounts, and similar creatures. They're not difficult to kill, but they will generally spread out and distract the party, and can turn ethereal at-will, allowing them very good tactics. If desired, they can fly around and drop nets on the party to entangle them, as they can comfortably carry plenty of them and still greater teleport around the field.
The vrocks all begin a dance of ruin, spreading out into groups of 4 vrocks for maximum effectiveness. Every 3rd round, each group unleashes a 20d6 blast of lightning in a 100 ft. radius, which all of the demons are immune to. So if you don't break up or crowd control the vrocks, you will be eating up to 4 instances of 20d6 electricity damage, which is an average of 280 damage anywhere the radius's overlap. Alternatively, they can keep flying around the party screeching hellishly, forcing DC 21 saves vs stun for 1 round. Becoming stunned can easily mean death in this battle, and you can get hit by up to 15 of these at once, making saving a harry business. That's not counting the auto-damaging spores they can shake every 3 rounds.
The Glabrezu play hell with the party's counters. They possess at-will mirror image, making taking them out difficult, and they can function as spotters for the team, utilizing their constant true-seeing ability. Each can cast power word stun to screw over any foe with 150 HP or less. All can cast reverse gravity and dispel magic, and won't hesitate to shut down the magic items of the party, since a CL 16 dispel magic can shut down the vast majority of magic items easily. Finally they can drop unholy blight every round without fail, dealing 8d8 damage to all good creatures in an area and forcing saves vs nausea. If pushed into combat, they have a 15 ft. reach and decent natural attacks.
Dretch simply skulk about the battlefield dropping stinking clouds into the fray. All the demons are immune to the cloud, but it forces a 5% chance per round to become nauseated for 1d4 rounds, potentially causing some PCs to lose several rounds worth of actions. They also use it because the 20% concealment it provides to people inside the cloud completely negates sneak attack, and thus ruins any chance a rogue has to sneak attack their bosses. With five of them, they should also be able to summon an additional dretch, allowing up to 5-6 stinking clouds throughout the battle.
All of the above is assuming, of course, that none of them are using any of their treasures themselves (such as the marilith using any superior weapons, or clad in armor, or any of them wearing rings or cloaks or anything cool like that, which may indeed be part of their treasure and thus added to their statblock by the GM).
The funny thing is, he can conjure that up 3 time a day as a swift action!!! So in three rounds, you'll have three CR 20 Demon Hordes all doing the above, in addition to Baphomet being able to summon his minotaurs and unleashing his own abilities.
A lot of things sound good, but personally I consider it bad form to change rules on a group mid-campaign. But for people just starting out with this AP (looking at Asurasan here, I want this campaign to succeed for your group, if only for Mikaze's campaign journal :p), this is good advice.
A word on the Agile template: It giving the second initiative turn at -20 of the original roll can often turn out to have the monster go two times in a row, which probably will reduce one PC to red mist. I'd advise to give the second initiative turn at -10, which is both a nerf (see: Fine Red Mist PC) and a buff (you get a better chance to act a second time before getting shish-kebapped yourself).
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I'm hoping not to start a thread war here, but has anyone had similar issues with NON-optimized PCs?
As soon as I see the word "Naginata" I wince and know that this is a group I would never get along with. It's a cheese weapon. Every optimized melee build uses one. I judge entire parties based on whether their fighters and barbarians are wielding naginatas.
Sooooo... with that out of the way, I get to the point: *EVERY* AP has at least one thread where one GM or player says, "This AP is way too easy! My uber-optimized party is curb-stomping every encounter! Even XXX, who is supposed to be hard, was a joke!"
Then you have threads on the same AP that say, "This AP is way too hard! My non-optimized PCs have 8 deaths already, and they're only in book 2!"
So, has anyone run a group that doesn't habitually optimize to the 9's and found the same problem, or is this just a problem with groups that view the build guides as gospel?
I ask because I'm starting WotR next month with a group that doesn't optimize, and got through Rise of the Runelords with a non-optimized 4-person party with only 3 deaths and a Feeblemind (not counting the final encounter with Karzoug), plus a couple of hasty retreat-and-regroup moments.
So my *hope* is that WotR will be well-balanced for a group that chooses feats, spells, and skills because they, "Sound cool for my character," rather than, "Will increase my damage output to xxx DPR." Then they make up for it with excellent tactics, rather than high DPR.
But if even groups like mine won't be challenged, I'd like to know in advance.
Whats wrong with naginatas? I think nodachis are the cheese flag, myself.
You are correct, sir.
Mixed the two up, and someone pointed out my error in PM.
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I'm hoping not to start a thread war here, but has anyone had similar issues with NON-optimized PCs? .... But if even groups like mine won't be challenged, I'd like to know in advance.
I think you have reason to be worried. My party isn't particularly optimized (and is laboring under a number of draconian restrictions), and we're definitely encountering these problems.
A benchmark to assess this against: I've run through a couple other APs with this party. The balance problems we're encountering in this AP are an order of magnitude greater than in any other AP we've played.
I'm hoping not to start a thread war here, but has anyone had similar issues with NON-optimized PCs? .... But if even groups like mine won't be challenged, I'd like to know in advance.
I think you have reason to be worried. My party isn't particularly optimized (and is laboring under a number of draconian restrictions), and we're definitely encountering these problems.
A benchmark to assess this against: I've run through a couple other APs with this party. The balance problems we're encountering in this AP are an order of magnitude greater than in any other AP we've played.
Thanks -- exactly the kind of reply I was looking for!
A lot of things sound good, but personally I consider it bad form to change rules on a group mid-campaign. But for people just starting out with this AP (looking at Asurasan here, I want this campaign to succeed for your group, if only for Mikaze's campaign journal :p), this is good advice.
A word on the Agile template: It giving the second initiative turn at -20 of the original roll can often turn out to have the monster go two times in a row, which probably will reduce one PC to red mist. I'd advise to give the second initiative turn at -10, which is both a nerf (see: Fine Red Mist PC) and a buff (you get a better chance to act a second time before getting shish-kebapped yourself).
Ask your players if they want you to enact some changes (either to Mythic itself, or to the monsters) to make things a bit more challenging. And let them know they don't have to say "yes" right off and can always ask you to do so at a later point if it becomes a cakewalk.
Ask your players if they want you to enact some changes (either to Mythic itself, or to the monsters) to make things a bit more challenging. And let them know they don't have to say "yes" right off and can always ask you to do so at a later point if it becomes a cakewalk.
If things get so out of hand that even my own guys start noticing it and even scorpions redesigns don't do it anymore, I'll go that route.
@nobodyshome: Things get only really out-of-whack at the higher levels, as far as I've seen. "Eight deaths only up until book two" would still count as low to middle levels. ^^
I think the developers are working with a different average than a lot of the people here. On a scale of 1-10 a lot of the "non optimal" builds I see around here would be like 7. But what about the 1 and 2s that are actually out there? Is the theoretical base they're working around including that meaning that as written the adventures are at a 5ish?
I say that as one of my players has spent more than half his wealth crafting stuff that is useless in combat like clockwork chairs that walk so that his character never has to exert himself with overland travel. This character is a black blade magus that focuses on crafting! Knowing full well he can't utilize his crafting on the black blade!*gasp*
He's probably a 4 at best and yet when boosted with the mythic powers he seems to be doing passably well (just ended book 4). Such has led me to ponder if we're all just blessed with non mediocrity in our players.
Creative Director
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Ataraxias has the exact right of it. Folks who really get into optimization are more likely to be folks posting in threads like this, but the game has far more play styles than that. We have to aim for a midline, and that means that groups of VERY experienced players will have an easier time of things in any adventure we publish. Mythic or not... but mythic certainly complicates that problem.
Maintaining proper challenge levels is always the GM's job, but when you have particularly experienced players (or at the other end, brand new to RPGs players), the GM needs to be ready, willing, and able to adjust.
Fortunately, threads like these are a GREAT resource for folks to use for areas that have been problems for groups with these play styles.
AKA: Things are proceeding as they should! Carry on! :-)
I am seriously considering the following:
* Only +1 to a stat every even Tier.
* Half the number of Mythic Points after 1st level (ie, 1 extra per tier)
* Eliminate Amazing Initiative
* Recuperate uses 5 Mythic Points to activateThese would diminish the impact of the Tiers, perhaps down to the 1/2 level a Tier that Paizo claims is the impact.
I'd like to suggest that you consider the way we did it. We weren't a huge fan of the Mythic rules from the outset for a variety of reasons and it was very disappointing that your capstone ability was STILL going to be pretty much unusable/unattainable even in epic-level play.
So, what we did was accelerate the leveling based on the Mythic tiers, leveling at the established points 1-20 as well as at the established Mythic tiers 1, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 which effectively gives us 26th level characters by the end of the game - six whole levels where we get to use our capstone abilities if one class is played straight through. Furthermore, upon achieving what would have been our first Mythic tier, we gained access to Mythic feats (though no additional feat slots and we still had to meet the pre-req's) and to Mythic Power solely for the purposes of Mythic Surge (gained at half the listed rate and used as a free action after the roll but before the results are revealed). No individual class was allowed to advance beyond 20, meaning that there is a lot of opportunity for dipping/multi-classing.
FWIW, the party consists of a Human Draconic Sorcerer/Dragon Disciple, a Tiefling Paladin with levels in Oracle and two twin Aasimar Dervishes of Dawn who took levels of Monk (before that ridiculous Crane Wing nerf).
All in all its worked very well and we're in the thick of the AP as we speak. Very few of our encounters thus far have had to be touched up or re-written anymore than our GM would normally be inclined to do. We've been well challenged but had no deaths as of yet.
At the end of the day, the Mythic rules just seem too complex for anyone who doesn't have a fairly high degree of system mastery, and for those who have such mastery, powerful characters that can threaten to break the game are already more than possible. Parts of it are good and some of the ideas behind it inspired, but collectively they just lead to more ways for creative PC's to break the game and a more difficult juggling act for GM's who want to adequately challenge them.
EDIT: I want to add that I agree thus far its a superbly written campaign story-wise and has been an absolute joy to play through. Love the mythology and epic feel of what we've faced and overcome. I also believe that this story could have been told perfectly well without the Mythic rules cluttering it up, especially considering that no previous AP had ever advanced beyond 17th level to my knowledge.
Ataraxias has the exact right of it. Folks who really get into optimization are more likely to be folks posting in threads like this, but the game has far more play styles than that. We have to aim for a midline, and that means that groups of VERY experienced players will have an easier time of things in any adventure we publish. Mythic or not... but mythic certainly complicates that problem.
Maintaining proper challenge levels is always the GM's job, but when you have particularly experienced players (or at the other end, brand new to RPGs players), the GM needs to be ready, willing, and able to adjust.
Fortunately, threads like these are a GREAT resource for folks to use for areas that have been problems for groups with these play styles.
AKA: Things are proceeding as they should! Carry on! :-)
Well, I think you can't just brush off the criticisms with the "we can't account for experienced players", especially when some aspects which are clearly unbalanced are baked into the mythic system (i.e. Amazing Initiative) or will be taken by everyone who can read (i.e. Power Attack and Mythic Power Attack for melee).
System mastery is a thing where you can specialize in your playstyle and still function when something unexpected comes your way. But the two-handed weapon melee brute is a very, very basic concept which even novices will pick up on. And it's those kind of characters which can insta-gib Baphomet with one hit (or at least one full-attack).
When GM's report back that even though they imposed crippling restrictions on their party, they still experience mythic rules turning the late game into rocket tag (though mostly on the monsters), then I see that as an experience which about every GM will encounter.
And to be honest, the question becomes then "what do we do about that in the next edition of the game", because that train has kinda already left the station for this edition. ^^ And has not much to do with mythic rules, but just how high-level combat works in Pathfinder, just with the high-octane mythic fuel on top of it.
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1) More bad guys (more actions for badguys, more HP to kill). A nightmare for GM logistics, and only worthwhile if the additional badguys are a reasonable threat. Adding speedbumps (monsters that cannot hurt the PCs) is a waste of everyone's game time. Many encounters (as written in the AP) include mook support that poses no threat.
2) give the badguys more actions. The Agile template is awesome. Acting twice a round is devastating for some enemies (but if they die in one round it is irrelevant). The second option is to make many of their abilities a Move or a Swift action. I typically give all outsiders the ability to teleport as a Move or Swift, and to summon more outsiders as a standard, move or swift .......
5) make something up. I know this is generally frowned upon, but at some point you need to go outside the rules. Give monsters an arbitrary re-roll, make up a "mythic demonic Crane Wing" that negates an attack, create a "greater mythic slow" that denies Swift actions to the PCs for a round or two.
I agree with your points particularly about the non threatening mooks, they really are a waste of everybodies time.
When it comes to the actions, I think quite a number of enemies could benefit from the quicken spell like abiltiy feat. Or simply more changes to the usual feats ... and things like mythic iron will are .... .
Take a look the invincible mythic template, it gives block attacks^^.
It is worth mentioning that you could give every mythic threat 50% fortification, when you look at the Storm King, just give him another mythic tier add this power. ^^
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#3 is the biggie, and I think the best solution is to strip away the Swift Action for spellcasters. This is not that big a leap - the Hierophant does not allow Swift casting for divine spells, and there is word that the eventual fix-sheet for Mythic will eliminate it for part of the Archmage line (the "cast-any-spell" one). Just eliminate it for ALL spellcasting. Also, I see no problem with requiring Supernatural abilities to not be doable as Swift actions.
Here's something to consider: modified Mythic spells. Have Mythic demons and the like have Mirror Images that CANNOT be eliminated by True Seeing. Also, eliminate Amazing Initiative.
Consider also this: Epic Damage Resistance cannot be overcome by Smite Evil. This will do a lot toward lessening the power of Paladins (even non-Mythic paladins!) against Mythic critters.
I also listed several above, here they are again:
* Only +1 to a stat every even Tier.
* Half the number of Mythic Points after 1st level (ie, 1 extra per tier)
* Eliminate Amazing Initiative
* Recuperate uses 5 Mythic Points to activateThese should diminish the overwhelming impact of Mythic. And mind you, Mythic can be used to improve monsters facing non-Mythic players. It can be quite the unpleasant surprise, and spiff up encounters.
Nice suggestions, those Mirror Images could work like the various shadow spells, so they are party real.
While it is certainly an option to make recuperate more expensive,I prefer just to give the enemies some reinforcements and buffs, but then again I use hero lab and this is easier for me.
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Ataraxias has the exact right of it. Folks who really get into optimization are more likely to be folks posting in threads like this, but the game has far more play styles than that. We have to aim for a midline, and that means that groups of VERY experienced players will have an easier time of things in any adventure we publish. Mythic or not... but mythic certainly complicates that problem.
Maintaining proper challenge levels is always the GM's job, but when you have particularly experienced players (or at the other end, brand new to RPGs players), the GM needs to be ready, willing, and able to adjust.
Fortunately, threads like these are a GREAT resource for folks to use for areas that have been problems for groups with these play styles.
AKA: Things are proceeding as they should! Carry on! :-)
Well, I think you can't just brush off the criticisms with the "we can't account for experienced players", especially when some aspects which are clearly unbalanced are baked into the mythic system (i.e. Amazing Initiative) or will be taken by everyone who can read (i.e. Power Attack and Mythic Power Attack for melee).
System mastery is a thing where you can specialize in your playstyle and still function when something unexpected comes your way. But the two-handed weapon melee brute is a very, very basic concept which even novices will pick up on. And it's those kind of characters which can insta-gib Baphomet with one hit (or at least one full-attack).
When GM's report back that even though they imposed crippling restrictions on their party, they still experience mythic rules turning the late game into rocket tag (though mostly on the monsters), then I see that as an experience which about every GM will encounter.
And to be honest, the question becomes then "what do we do about that in the next edition of the game", because that train has kinda already left the station for this edition. ^^ And has not much to do with mythic rules, but just how high-level combat...
Trust me, I'm not brushing off the criticisms. But at the same point, GMs need to remember we're not able to do all the work for them.
It's absolutely true that the higher end of game play with mythic adventures didn't get NEAR the amount of playtesting I'd been hoping it would get. Furthermore... the fact that the public playtest was limited almost entirely to character building and not to adventure writing was, in my opinion, a missed opportunity—the same missed opportunity we had with Council of Thieves back in the day.
I've learned a lot from how folks have been receiving and running Wrath of the Righteous, and I expect to learn a lot more.
I just get defensive when folks forget that the GM's job is as important as the writer/developer/editor's job in presenting a fun adventure to the players. GMing is NOT easy, and it doesn't get easier if your players are more experienced! Especially in a second-worst-case scenario when the GM isn't the most experienced one at the table, or a first-worst-case one where the GM doesn't feel he/she has the authority to be the word of law for their game. Not saying that's the case for anyone here, but it DOES happen.
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I think the developers are working with a different average than a lot of the people here. On a scale of 1-10 a lot of the "non optimal" builds I see around here would be like 7. But what about the 1 and 2s that are actually out there? Is the theoretical base they're working around including that meaning that as written the adventures are at a 5ish?
I say that as one of my players has spent more than half his wealth crafting stuff that is useless in combat like clockwork chairs that walk so that his character never has to exert himself with overland travel. This character is a black blade magus that focuses on crafting! Knowing full well he can't utilize his crafting on the black blade!*gasp*
He's probably a 4 at best and yet when boosted with the mythic powers he seems to be doing passably well (just ended book 4). Such has led me to ponder if we're all just blessed with non mediocrity in our players.
This is purely my GM style, but if a player makes "stupid" investments, he either has to be very good at the game to compensate, or the group will suffer for it.
I think, it is a terribly unrewarding feeling for players, if their good actions don't cause a better result, than potential bad choices.When it comes to the mythic rules, you don't need that much optimization, when the rules were still in beta, I tried to the the iconics with mythic rules, I later abandoned the idea since it took a lot of time (I tried to stay true to the NPC guide stats), but they were effective.
Just give our iconic barbarian mythic power attack, and a couple of champion tiers and see the carnage.
I'd like to suggest that you consider the way we did it. We weren't a huge fan of the Mythic rules from the outset for a variety of reasons and it was very disappointing that your capstone ability was STILL going to be pretty much unusable/unattainable even in epic-level play.I am seriously considering the following:
* Only +1 to a stat every even Tier.
* Half the number of Mythic Points after 1st level (ie, 1 extra per tier)
* Eliminate Amazing Initiative
* Recuperate uses 5 Mythic Points to activateThese would diminish the impact of the Tiers, perhaps down to the 1/2 level a Tier that Paizo claims is the impact.
Actually, what I'm doing is adding Mythic to non-mythic APs - specifically, Rise of the Runelords and Reign of Winter.
Part of my problem is I had rolled stats, and in one case had everyone just about at 35-point levels (and a 54-point ultra-unoptomized rogue - seriously, she runs around using the blowgun as her weapon of choice), and a second group that had a high-point roll and a low-point roll... and realizing how vulnerable the latter was, I upped her points and have since regretted it (but just recently figured out how to deal with this - adding +3 to every stat for every encounter - actually, it'll make the encounter more powerful than the PCs so it works nicely).
Add Mythic to high stats (even just one Tier) and things get... interesting, shall we say? I'd already chosen not to allow the stat increases for Mythic for the Runelords game (and they'll probably ultimately get only 4 Tiers, maybe 5) but was trying to figure other ways of reducing the impact.
To be honest, I have considered when running Wrath of the Righteous eventually to not let the players be Mythic. The drawback to that is that I'm not sure I could sell the players on that (and it'll be a year at least before I can run it, so I might end up never running the AP - I know my tabletop group would likely be interested in Mummy's Mask, while at least part of the Skype group would love the tech aspect of Iron Gods).
Another thing to consider is this: multiple people have pointed out high-level play is unbalanced. Add Mythic to ultra-high level characters and you have a recipe for disaster. The question is: how do you balance the higher levels so combats are less lethal and more thematic and dramatic. Once you find a way to do that, you can then find a way to balance Mythic within this.
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EDIT: I want to add that I agree thus far its a superbly written campaign story-wise and has been an absolute joy to play through. Love the mythology and epic feel of what we've faced and overcome. I also believe that this story could have been told perfectly well without the Mythic rules cluttering it up, especially considering that no previous AP had ever advanced beyond 17th level to my knowledge.Very interresting house rules regarding the leveling. I agree that the campaign story is very intriguing, and the mythic powers give the players the chance to feel epic.
However I think that it is fair to say, that the campaign features some things that coul baffle players (cleaning temples in the middle of a fight to retake the city) and that the first two volumes don't feature a lot of player agency.
At least, that was the complaing from my players, the often want to infiltrate and mess with encounters against armies. I guess the have been doint this for decades now and the poison is in too deep.
Trust me, I'm not brushing off the criticisms. But at the same point, GMs need to remember we're not able to do all the work for them.
It's absolutely true that the higher end of game play with mythic adventures didn't get NEAR the amount of playtesting I'd been hoping it would get. Furthermore... the fact that the public playtest was limited almost entirely to character building and not to adventure writing was, in my opinion, a missed opportunity—the same missed opportunity we had with Council of Thieves back in the day.
I've learned a lot from how folks have been receiving and running Wrath of the Righteous, and I expect to learn a lot more.
I just get defensive when folks forget that the GM's job is as important as the writer/developer/editor's job in presenting a fun adventure to the players. GMing is NOT easy, and it doesn't get easier if your players are more experienced! Especially in a second-worst-case scenario when the GM isn't the most experienced one at the table, or a first-worst-case one where the GM doesn't feel he/she has the authority to be the word of law for their game. Not saying that's the case for anyone here, but it DOES happen.
It's okay, with scorpions rebuilds and advice and discussion by you and the GM's here on this adventure path board a lot of newer GM's will get through this.
But when the next edition of Pathfinder comes around (I say this with the usual caveats of "if" and "when"), there needs to be some discussion and action about how high-level can be made more manageable and less rocket tag-y. Although that discussion already happened in the playtest of this edition of the game, not that much was actually done about it. It would be nice if we could find a way to make monsters last longer and be more of a credible threat to high-level parties.
I'll better stop now before I get carried away and start ranting about magic item crafting and encounter design. ^^
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Ataraxias has the exact right of it. Folks who really get into optimization are more likely to be folks posting in threads like this, but the game has far more play styles than that. We have to aim for a midline, and that means that groups of VERY experienced players will have an easier time of things in any adventure we publish. Mythic or not... but mythic certainly complicates that problem.
Maintaining proper challenge levels is always the GM's job, but when you have particularly experienced players (or at the other end, brand new to RPGs players), the GM needs to be ready, willing, and able to adjust.
Fortunately, threads like these are a GREAT resource for folks to use for areas that have been problems for groups with these play styles.
AKA: Things are proceeding as they should! Carry on! :-)
Well, I think you can't just brush off the criticisms with the "we can't account for experienced players", especially when some aspects which are clearly unbalanced are baked into the mythic system (i.e. Amazing Initiative) or will be taken by everyone who can read (i.e. Power Attack and Mythic Power Attack for melee).
System mastery is a thing where you can specialize in your playstyle and still function when something unexpected comes your way. But the two-handed weapon melee brute is a very, very basic concept which even novices will pick up on. And it's those kind of characters which can insta-gib Baphomet with one hit (or at least one full-attack).
When GM's report back that even though they imposed crippling restrictions on their party, they still experience mythic rules turning the late game into rocket tag (though mostly on the monsters), then I see that as an experience which about every GM will encounter.
And to be honest, the question becomes then "what do we do about that in the next edition of the game", because that train has kinda already left the station for this edition. ^^ And has not much to do with mythic rules, but just how high-level combat...
I agree, but I have to add, that I really love the mythic rules and it is not unlikely, that I will change future campaigns to include/replace some level advancement and wealth per level with mythic tiers.
Level 10/Tier 4-5 could be more interesting (giving players more ways to flesh out their character) than straight level 15.Since I my group consists of veterans of a variety of systems (and they are great tacticians) I will have to rewrite most encounters anyway.
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I agree, but I have to add, that I really love the mythic rules and it is not unlikely, that I will change future campaigns to include/replace some level advancement and wealth per level with mythic tiers.
Level 10/Tier 4-5 could be more interesting (giving players more ways to flesh out their character) than straight level 15.Since I my group consists of veterans of a variety of systems (and they are great tacticians) I will have to rewrite most encounters anyway.
Well, at the very least the Agile template can make (with some slight modifications) make single boss encounters more viable. ^^
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...Ataraxias has the exact right of it. Folks who really get into optimization are more likely to be folks posting in threads like this, but the game has far more play styles than that. We have to aim for a midline, and that means that groups of VERY experienced players will have an easier time of things in any adventure we publish. Mythic or not... but mythic certainly complicates that problem.
Maintaining proper challenge levels is always the GM's job, but when you have particularly experienced players (or at the other end, brand new to RPGs players), the GM needs to be ready, willing, and able to adjust.
Fortunately, threads like these are a GREAT resource for folks to use for areas that have been problems for groups with these play styles.
AKA: Things are proceeding as they should! Carry on! :-)
Well, I think you can't just brush off the criticisms with the "we can't account for experienced players", especially when some aspects which are clearly unbalanced are baked into the mythic system (i.e. Amazing Initiative) or will be taken by everyone who can read (i.e. Power Attack and Mythic Power Attack for melee).
System mastery is a thing where you can specialize in your playstyle and still function when something unexpected comes your way. But the two-handed weapon melee brute is a very, very basic concept which even novices will pick up on. And it's those kind of characters which can insta-gib Baphomet with one hit (or at least one full-attack).
When GM's report back that even though they imposed crippling restrictions on their party, they still experience mythic rules turning the late game into rocket tag (though mostly on the monsters), then I see that as an experience which about every GM will encounter.
And to be honest, the question becomes then "what do we do about that in the next edition of the game", because that train has kinda already left the station for this edition. ^^ And has not much to do with mythic rules, but
Love to read that, while it is ture that GMs tend to complain when they have to put in additional work, that work is pretty much unavoidable anyway.
Most of the GMs I played with, admit that they have to heavy modify premade adventures, and frankly I think that is one of the great advantages of this medium.
Maybe more GMs need to feel "empowered" to change/modify/rewrite the adventures, but finding the right place for that is most likely quite hard to find.
Reading that the feedback from this adventure path will make future mythic adventures (and I supect the occasional inclusion of a mythic creature in an adventure) better, is exactly what most of the posters here wanted to read. It is very hard, to respond to these ammounts of criticism and stay positive, but I still think that the vast majority of the posters here want to make the game better for everybody.
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I'd like to suggest that you consider the way we did it. We weren't a huge fan of the Mythic rules from the outset for a variety of reasons and it was very disappointing that your capstone ability was STILL going to be pretty much unusable/unattainable even in epic-level play.I am seriously considering the following:
* Only +1 to a stat every even Tier.
* Half the number of Mythic Points after 1st level (ie, 1 extra per tier)
* Eliminate Amazing Initiative
* Recuperate uses 5 Mythic Points to activateThese would diminish the impact of the Tiers, perhaps down to the 1/2 level a Tier that Paizo claims is the impact.
Actually, what I'm doing is adding Mythic to non-mythic APs - specifically, Rise of the Runelords and Reign of Winter.
Part of my problem is I had rolled stats, and in one case had everyone just about at 35-point levels (and a 54-point ultra-unoptomized rogue - seriously, she runs around using the blowgun as her weapon of choice), and a second group that had a high-point roll and a low-point roll... and realizing how vulnerable the latter was, I upped her points and have since regretted it (but just recently figured out how to deal with this - adding +3 to every stat for every encounter - actually, it'll make the encounter more powerful than the PCs so it works nicely).
Add Mythic to high stats (even just one Tier) and things get... interesting, shall we say? I'd already chosen not to allow the stat increases for Mythic for the Runelords game (and they'll probably ultimately get only 4 Tiers, maybe 5) but was trying to figure other ways of reducing the impact.
To be honest, I have considered when running Wrath of the Righteous eventually to not let the players be Mythic. The drawback to that is that I'm not sure I could sell the players on that (and it'll be a year at least before I can run it, so I might end up never running the AP - I know my tabletop group would likely be interested in Mummy's Mask, while at least part...
Have you considered changing the mythic ability bonus from an untyped bonus to something like enhancement (way less powerful) or inherent?
Fixing high level play is not that hard, just talk to your players and remove/weaken some of the options. That way both players and monsters are nerved equally.
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Trust me, I'm not brushing off the criticisms. But at the same point, GMs need to remember we're not able to do all the work for them.
It's absolutely true that the higher end of game play with mythic adventures didn't get NEAR the amount of playtesting I'd been hoping it would get. Furthermore... the fact that the public playtest was limited almost entirely to character building and not to adventure writing was, in my opinion, a missed opportunity—the same missed opportunity we had with Council of Thieves back in the day.
I've learned a lot from how folks have been receiving and running Wrath of the Righteous, and I expect to learn a lot more.
I just get defensive when folks forget that the GM's job is as important as the writer/developer/editor's job in presenting a fun adventure to the players. GMing is NOT easy, and it doesn't get easier if your players are more experienced! Especially in a second-worst-case scenario when the GM isn't the most experienced one at the table, or a first-worst-case one where the GM doesn't feel he/she has the authority to be the word of law for their game. Not saying that's the case for anyone here, but it DOES happen.
It's okay, with scorpions rebuilds and advice and discussion by you and the GM's here on this adventure path board a lot of newer GM's will get through this.
But when the next edition of Pathfinder comes around (I say this with the usual caveats of "if" and "when"), there needs to be some discussion and action about how high-level can be made more manageable and less rocket tag-y. Although that discussion already happened in the playtest of this edition of the game, not that much was actually done about it. It would be nice if we could find a way to make monsters last longer and be more of a credible threat to high-level parties.
Seconded, however I have already seen some pretty nice suggestions from the designers (removing iterative attacks, was something james jacobs mentioned) and I suspect that when Paizo decides that it is time for a new edition of the game, that they will be able to remove some those troublesome design decisions that were gradfathered into Pathfinder for the sake of backwards compatiblity.
And of course it should be the demon mother of giant playtests, a new german RPG called Splittermond recently did that, and they ended up delaying the core rulebook for about 6 months. It was a very good idea, it would have ended as a huge disaster otherwise.