Mythic Fail – A review of Wrath of the Righteous and Mythic Adventures


Wrath of the Righteous

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Am I being condescending? I think you're reading too much into it. Much like yourself however, I am stating my opinion. Simply because mine is different from yours doesn't mean I'm trying to belittle you in anyway.

I think where our opinions differ here is that you concentrate on Mythic being broken. I'm trying to tell you D&D, the system Pathfinder is based on is broken.

If you're going to play high level, you're going to have to tweak. Mythic or otherwise. Mythic does not create this problem. The foundation does. Well, the foundation and a table that wants to maximize. Seriously, if your table likes the max stuff you should probably stick to the lower level ends.


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I've run three homebrewn campaigns to level 20 since 3.0 came out. I've run four AP's to their conclusion. So please don't try to tell me that I probably should "stick to the lower levels". That doesn't even enter into this discussion.

You are trying to make it out as if I can't deal with high level complications. I'd say that I'm better equipped to deal with them than many GM's who are on this board, because the majority of groups (according to what James has said many times over the years) tend to stick to low- to mid-level games.

And the problem is not an inability to adjust the game to high level gaming, the problem is that the math doesn't fit for mythic. Yes, normal high level gaming has its own problems and needs tweaking, but on a far less obvious level than mythic gameplay does. Sure, if you got people twinking their characters to the nth degree, you get builds like AM BARBARIAN with his pounce build, but most players don't tweak to that amount (and it's the GM's duty to prevent one player kidnapping the campaign like that). One of the big problems with mythic is that it basically hands out such twink characters out to everyone in the group, except the GM himself.


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I found the comments to be condescending, which is why I responded. Seeing I was a huge fan of Mythic? I can see this from both sides.

There are some significant problems with Mythic. There are also problems with the AP as written where it fails to compensate even for the challenge rating that Mythic in theory would be at. The AP also fails to consider that players can, upon third tier, hole up for an hour and regain all spells and other limited-use abilities... which means underpowered encounters aren't really needed. Constantly challenging the players isn't as big a problem because by hiding for an hour? The players can come out at just-about full strength.

Finally, the whole point of an AP is to minimize the work the GM puts into it. In theory, a GM should be able to run an AP without a computer, using just the books and some scrap paper to track hit points and the like.

WotR is not in this category. A GM either has to significantly rework stuff or watch the game fall apart. And if the GM doesn't have a program like Hero Labs or the like, then it's a lot of hard work - especially for a higher level encounter.

Let's say a GM does this. Using pen and paper, he or she reworks encounters to make them more challenging. And then the players still walk through every encounter. They are bored. And the GM spent hours checking rules and redoing stuff and to have it not be a challenge. What is that GM going to think about the AP? Or of Mythic?

I really wanted Mythic Adventures to be the adventure that soars. And to be perfectly honest, I have plans to use it with my Runelords group - once they defeat Karzoug, I'll revamp books 4 and on, have the party by level 18 (and tier 2) for Book 4, level 19 (and tier 2) for Book 5, and level 20 (and tier 2) for the final book. It'll take a bit of revamping to get it so it works. But by limiting Mythic, I'm hoping it'll still be fun.

But that's the thing. I'll be limiting Mythic to Tier 2. Because once you go past that... things fall apart.


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I'm sorry man, I really am. I'm not out to pull your tail. I guess we're just going to have to agree to disagree here.

I see the problem of high level play going all the way back to first edition and walking through every phase the game has ever had. This new Mythic spin? More of the same, with the same solution as well. "If you(the players) can do it, I(the DM) can too." Problem solved. For me, maybe not so much for you. Like I said, different tables different values.

That aside, I give props to Paizo for doing anything even remotely like Wrath. Took courage. You get enough barking on the regular stuff, and 100 times more on the high level stuff. As you might be aware. Kind of like Scotty said," The more plumbing they put in, the easier it is to gum up the works."

S'all good man. Forget I said a thing. Hope your next run is a better one.


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No problem. I'm running RotRL next, which I have experienced (actually, am still experiencing, although we are nearly done) as a player. So I know the highs and lows of that particular AP pretty intimately. I think I can make a good showing there. :)


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One of my players asked me about my decision to limit them to Tier 2. I told them about Mythic players able to do 500+ points of damage a round. Or 200+ on a critical hit.

My player's thoughts? "No one should be able to one-shot Black Magga."

Just food for thought.

Dark Archive

I haven't actually tested the mythic rules in play so I can't speak to their implementation, although I'm not exactly encouraged by what I'm reading. D&D should not be a shoot first to win type experience, mythic obviously has serious implementation issues.

What I don't like personally is the whole mythic flavor, the whole "super special snowflake" thing going on, with the mythic power sources and the mythic trials. 3.x's epic level system was much cleaner in this regard, you can be the guy who just clawed his way to the top through sheer skill, determination and luck. Like Greyhawk's Lord Robilar, a highly experienced adventurer who is just tough enough to make it to 24th level after a lifetime of adventuring.

Anyway, I just don't understand why Paizo was so hell-bent on not updating the epic rules, yes they needed some work in places, but it would have been a much better option to update them than to create a whole new system with an even narrower range of use than epic had. In the end they just ended up (seemingly) breaking high level play even more than epic already did.


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Atrocious wrote:

I haven't actually tested the mythic rules in play so I can't speak to their implementation, although I'm not exactly encouraged by what I'm reading. D&D should not be a shoot first to win type experience, mythic obviously has serious implementation issues.

What I don't like personally is the whole mythic flavor, the whole "super special snowflake" thing going on, with the mythic power sources and the mythic trials. 3.x's epic level system was much cleaner in this regard, you can be the guy who just clawed his way to the top through sheer skill, determination and luck. Like Greyhawk's Lord Robilar, a highly experienced adventurer who is just tough enough to make it to 24th level after a lifetime of adventuring.

Anyway, I just don't understand why Paizo was so hell-bent on not updating the epic rules, yes they needed some work in places, but it would have been a much better option to update them than to create a whole new system with an even narrower range of use than epic had. In the end they just ended up (seemingly) breaking high level play even more than epic already did.

I think the issue was that Epic is fairly niche, and most groups just never get anywhere close to using epic rules before a game ends. Mythic I think is a smart idea in that hypothetically groups can employ it at low levels. I just tend to agree with other people that the power level of mythic in player hands was underestimated.


MMCJawa wrote:
Atrocious wrote:

I haven't actually tested the mythic rules in play so I can't speak to their implementation, although I'm not exactly encouraged by what I'm reading. D&D should not be a shoot first to win type experience, mythic obviously has serious implementation issues.

What I don't like personally is the whole mythic flavor, the whole "super special snowflake" thing going on, with the mythic power sources and the mythic trials. 3.x's epic level system was much cleaner in this regard, you can be the guy who just clawed his way to the top through sheer skill, determination and luck. Like Greyhawk's Lord Robilar, a highly experienced adventurer who is just tough enough to make it to 24th level after a lifetime of adventuring.

Anyway, I just don't understand why Paizo was so hell-bent on not updating the epic rules, yes they needed some work in places, but it would have been a much better option to update them than to create a whole new system with an even narrower range of use than epic had. In the end they just ended up (seemingly) breaking high level play even more than epic already did.

I think the issue was that Epic is fairly niche, and most groups just never get anywhere close to using epic rules before a game ends. Mythic I think is a smart idea in that hypothetically groups can employ it at low levels. I just tend to agree with other people that the power level of mythic in player hands was underestimated.

it was said that the Mythic rules were 'needed to tell this story', but by all appearances it was quite the opposite - they used the AP as an excuse to drive the mythic rules. This story could have been told by something as simple as just advancing at a faster rate. One of the reason my players appreciated the approach we took is that you never, EVER get to use your character's capstone abilities in AP's and very rarely do you get to enjoy all those abilities and feat chains that top out around level 15-17. By simply advancing the characters levels instead of handing out mythic tiers they FINALLY got to use those high-level spells and abilities, those capstones and were thrilled to be able to do so. In the effort to push an unfinished or poorly crafted product, I feel like Paizo missed a really good opportunity.

Saying that characters need to be level 5/Mythic 1 in order to face an encounter is ridiculous - simply have the character face that same encounter at level 6 or 7. The difference is negligible and its much easier for the GM to adjudicate.


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Atrocious wrote:
Anyway, I just don't understand why Paizo was so hell-bent on not updating the epic rules, yes they needed some work in places, but it would have been a much better option to update them than to create a whole new system with an even narrower range of use than epic had. In the end they just ended up (seemingly) breaking high level play even more than epic already did.

Paizo has gone out of their way to point out that Mythic isn't their answer to Epic, that it's a different animal entirely. Since they went out of their way to make the point, I suspect that Paizo intends to release an Epic book (or something that they make clear is their response to Epic. We just haven't seen it yet.

I do like the idea of limiting Mythic to the 1st 2 tiers for most campaigns, including WotR (though that does require some tweaking in the end stages that an AP ideally shouldn't need). Outside of an AP, the Mythic stuff is much more balanced- then the idea that 'anything you can do, I can do' is much easier to implement.

Your martial crits for 500+ damage? So do my 5 NPC martials. Your wizard has that Arcane Bonded cheese? So does my NPC wizard. Both of them.

Mythic isn't intended to be balanced against non-mythic. That's the point. Going Mythic puts the PCs on a whole new playing field. Yes, WotR has some balance issues, with or without Mythic. And yes, an AP should require only minimal tweaking before use. I don't dispute any of that. But just because WotR has some issues, that doesn't make Mythic a problem.

Mythic isn't broken internally. Internally, it works just fine, most of the time (nothing is perfect after all). It's broken when you try to compare it to anything else. But why would you? We don't compare a Corvette to a Civic then complain the the Corvette is broken because it outperforms the Civic. We don't compare a kid's Little League tournament with the World Series then get mad that the adults are stronger players. So why are we complaining that Mythic stuff wipes the floor with non-Mythic stuff? It's meant to. The problem comes when my Mythic PC regularly wipes the floor with your Mythic NPC. But that's an AP issue, not a Mythic issue.

A GM designing his own Mythic game has near total control over how the encounters are designed. If it's the GM's (or the players') first time using Mythic, then the first couple of encounters will probably be unbalanced one way or the other. But that's learning curve. Both players and GMs are basically re-learning the game at Mythic levels. But after a couple of sessions, the GM learns how to design encounters that challenge Mythic players the same way he learned how to design regular encounters when he first took his place behind the GM screen. As GMs, we're all still learning, even years or decades later. Of course, none of this really helps WotR, since APs are assumed to need less adjustment before running.

A lot of the issues with WotR have gotten squashed together with Mythic as though they were the same thing. They aren't. Don't get me wrong, I love WotR. But sitting down with it, I know that as a GM I'm going to be putting more time into prepping and adjusting it than I would nearly any other AP (including some of the old, pre-conversion stuff). If I don't have that kind of prep time available, I know to choose another AP. But don't throw Mythic out just because WotR needs more adjusting to make it work.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Maybe you're right, but I don't think so. Just go through the mythic book and you can find example after example of things not balanced against each other. So much so that the rules seem pointless and there is an even bigger sense of railroading feats and abilities than exists in normal PF rules.

And yes, NPCs can do anything that PCs can but that doesn't solve any problems either. Hurray! I can one shot my heroes and make them feel completely normal and non-mythic.


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I'll probably give Karzoug in RotRL one mythic tier of Archmage, to make the final encounter more memorable and give him some options. But that's about as far as I am willing to go. There may be an agile template in the future of more monstrous BBEG's.


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Once again I see people saying, "Oh, the problem is the players, not the mythic rules. There's no problem with the ruleset. The problem is that your players are min/maxing munchkins."

I beg to differ.

My party LOVES roleplay. To the point that in my Jade Regent campaign, I just essentially granted them a Wish from a ghael azata, and their wish was, "Please resurrect this 1st-level NPC whose name we didn't even know because he died trying to defend us."

That's the kind of group I'm running.

And yet in mythic rules, they find things akin to:
- "Take +1 to attacks"
- "Take +1 to spell DCs"
- "Have butterflies follow you through a field of poppies."

As team players, they cannot in good conscience take the "field of poppies" option. But anything else you take is broken.

Mythic takes damage levels that were formerly the realm of min/maxing optimizers, and turns them into the de-facto standard if you take any mythic feats at all that match your path.
Mythic power attack? Mythic vital strike? Fleet warrior? All broken!
Wild arcana? Inspired spell? Broken!

It moves from, "You have to work hard to build a broken PC," to, "You have to work hard to build a non-broken PC."

THAT, in a nutshell, is the problem with mythic.

Damage goes up by a factor of 10. Hit points go up by a factor of 2. Somehow, that leads to everything dying in a single round. Go figure.

Liberty's Edge

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Starfinder Superscriber
Quote:
My party LOVES roleplay. To the point that in my Jade Regent campaign, I just essentially granted them a Wish from a ghael azata, and their wish was, "Please resurrect this 1st-level NPC whose name we didn't even know because he died trying to defend us."

That's so awesome. I want your players.

Silver Crusade

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I think at this point, I can repeat a something a very smart person (well me obviously ^^ ) said about the whole issue:

“Mythic Adventures works (well mostly the CR system tends to break down a little quicker and thus many of the published mythic monsters are under CR… but you can make it work), WotR as an adventure path works ( obviously part 1 works, but benefits from some more fleshing out and it has issues like other APs, but on the whole the concept works), they don’t work together.

Explanation: A number of Mythic abilities put quite a lot of pressure on adventure design, players tend to have exactly the right spell at the right time, and have a lot more endurance either by being able to spend mythic power instead of other resources, or by spending mythic power to regain limited class resources.
Slightly worse than that, some abilities allow players to go nova, getting access to additional standard actions, ignoring power attack penalties and plenty of other things.

This makes adventure design rather hard, you need to put enough pressure on the players, to force them to use their mythic abilities on regular combat, so they can’t just go nova in the important fights.
Obviously this means, that exhaustion tactics, do not work unless you are capable to pressure the players into a rather narrow time frame for their actions (that or do it like tomb of horrors and “regenerate” everything).

In other word mythic adventure designing is rather hard. And frankly this is something a writer needs to learn, and internalize before writing an adventure. This will quite likely clash with the usual CR calculations, I have stopped using XP, but I appreciate the fact, that a number of GMs still like them.
After the “comments” Paizi received after Dragons Demand, and they way it chose to handle that particular issue, it is apparently a topic high so… yeah.

Oh and by “don’t work together” I mean, that the adventure requires significantly more work that previous adventure paths.


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NobodysHome wrote:

Once again I see people saying, "Oh, the problem is the players, not the mythic rules. There's no problem with the ruleset. The problem is that your players are min/maxing munchkins."

I beg to differ.

My party LOVES roleplay. To the point that in my Jade Regent campaign, I just essentially granted them a Wish from a ghael azata, and their wish was, "Please resurrect this 1st-level NPC whose name we didn't even know because he died trying to defend us."

That's the kind of group I'm running.

And yet in mythic rules, they find things akin to:
- "Take +1 to attacks"
- "Take +1 to spell DCs"
- "Have butterflies follow you through a field of poppies."

So thats why i can't catch that f*++ing Bird!

i get a field of goddamn flowers and that Jerk Canary takes Dual Initiative!
i need a new agent


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Sebastian Hirsch wrote:
“Mythic Adventures works (well mostly the CR system tends to break down a little quicker and thus many of the published mythic monsters are under CR… but you can make it work), WotR as an adventure path works ( obviously part 1 works, but benefits from some more fleshing out and it has issues like other APs, but on the whole the concept works), they don’t work together.

Objection! Mythic Adventures clearly does not work, for the reason so eloquently stated by NobodysHome:

NobodysHome wrote:
Damage goes up by a factor of 10. Hit points go up by a factor of 2. Somehow, that leads to everything dying in a single round. Go figure.


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Yeah, before WotR I never had a conversation like this.

Jake's Player: NH, are you OK if I re-work my feats from the last level?
NH: Well, I don't normally allow such things, but if you're finding a real problem I suppose it's OK just this once. What seems to be the issue?
Jake's Player: Well, I took "foe biter", figuring it would be handy for the really tough bad guys, but whenever I use it I end up one-shotting the bad guys, and Kariss and NoPrey's players are getting frustrated. I just don't feel like I can use it without frustrating my fellow players... every time I use it I just one-shot whatever it is we're facing, and they're getting tired of it.

What kind of conversation is THAT?!?!?!

(Yes, we really had it, and he finally decided to keep foe-biter for a while, but after doing 800+ damage to a glabrezu with it, he's thinking of dropping it again...)

EDIT: And it's not just the fighter. I was asked to stop casting mythic Holy Smite as the GMNPC cleric. The players have asked me isn't there SOMETHING I can do about the bard's "Beyond Morality" because his behavior is just getting out-and-out disturbing. And on and on. A multitude of complaints and backports to try to deal with a ruleset where, if you don't choose extremely carefully, you turn the game into a cake walk.


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magnuskn wrote:


Objection! Mythic Adventures clearly does not work, for the reason so eloquently stated by NobodysHome:

Sorry, but that's way too simplified. Saying a thing 'clearly doesn't work because <reason>' completely ignores all the folks for whom Mythic Adventures (or anything else under contention) works well.

Apparently Mythic Adventures doesn't work the way you want it to. That's fine and valid. But it works very well for other people, and that's equally fine and valid.

This comes down to 'agree to disagree'. At this point, it seems pretty clear that a meeting of the minds on this topic isn't going to occur. And that's also fine.

Dark Archive

To be fair I thought it worked well at first as well but after starting to dm a second group through it with a party that is far from optimised I have to say yeah Mythic on the players end is pretty broken (Still seems to work okay on the Dm side of things going by the mythic monsters ive seen in Iron gods and Mummy's mask.


Considering Magnuskn has been Play-Testing mythic adventures with WotR for over a year now i think he's allowed to be a little testy if he wants to be:-)


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Amanda Plageman wrote:
magnuskn wrote:


Objection! Mythic Adventures clearly does not work, for the reason so eloquently stated by NobodysHome:

Sorry, but that's way too simplified. Saying a thing 'clearly doesn't work because <reason>' completely ignores all the folks for whom Mythic Adventures (or anything else under contention) works well.

Apparently Mythic Adventures doesn't work the way you want it to. That's fine and valid. But it works very well for other people, and that's equally fine and valid.

This comes down to 'agree to disagree'. At this point, it seems pretty clear that a meeting of the minds on this topic isn't going to occur. And that's also fine.

Allow me to respectfully disagree here. (Yes, I know we already agreed to disagree, but I thought I'd get my $0.02 in as well.)

We are GMs. We are the gods of the multiverse. We build entire campaigns that enrapture, enthrall, and delight our players. Can we make mythic rules work?

To paraphrase Santa Claus from The Nightmare Before Christmas,
"Of COURSE we can make it work! We're GMs!"

The question in my (and hopefully magnuskn's) mind is, "Just how much work does it take to make it work?"

I've now run 21 AP books (of the 89 published), and played through another 9 as a player. So I have knowledge of about 1/3 of all APs ever published.

And in *NO* other APs has the re-work been so massive to make the AP challenging for the players, nor has the burden of non-optimization been placed so heavily on the players' shoulders. "You have to choose carefully, or this AP is going to be a cake-walk."
I believe Captain Yesterday put it well: "Wrath of the Righteous is an AP set on Easy mode."

So I will certainly concede that you *can* make mythic work. We're GMs. We can make ANYTHING work. I just purchase APs so that I don't have to home-brew my own campaigns, as I'm running 3 weekly campaigns and I just don't have that kind of time. With Wrath of the Righteous, the universal answer I am hearing from both pro-mythic and anti-mythic groups is, "In this AP you have to massively rewrite to make the encounters challenging."

I would argue that this counts as "broken".

I'm curious: As a GM, did you run the AP as-written (as I've been doing) and have it provide any challenge at all post-Book-2?

EDIT: Case in point: Last night in Jade Regent the group encountered everyone's favorite shark-eating crab. If not for its stat block ("Flees when reduced below 30 hp") and the heroic actions of the summoner's eidolon (hit-hit-crit on the critical round), I would have killed 2 PCs. Can't remember the last time anything was anywhere near that close in WotR.


What i have found is that those that love or like Mythic Adventures use it primarily in home-brew campaigns or to add into non-mythic APs.
i've yet to hear "Mythic Adventures and Wrath of the Righteous, both used as written, present a challenge to my party once they hit 9th level/3rd tier"

it may work splendidly in your campaign but as has been stated many many many many many times it does not present much challenge in WotR as written or without heavy modification, which of course takes time, which i personally don't have much of:)


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NobodysHome wrote:

And in *NO* other APs has the re-work been so massive to make the AP challenging for the players, nor has the burden of non-optimization been placed so heavily on the players' shoulders. "You have to choose carefully, or this AP is going to be a cake-walk."

I believe Captain Yesterday put it well: "Wrath of the Righteous is an AP set on Easy mode."

I agree completely. WotR needs more adjusting than any other AP I've currently come across in order to make it work as (apparently) intended. And while the endless arguments about min/maxing, optimization, etc have been covered in exhausting detail, it is safe to say that even 'normal' (whatever than means) players can cake-walk it unless they are careful to de-optimize. I think it's safe to say that we're in total agreement on that front.

All I'm saying is that "Mythic can unbalance WotR" is not the same as "Mythic doesn't work". Just because a single application of a product doesn't perform as expected doesn't make it a bad product. The Mythic stuff that has appeared in other PF resources, as well as Mythic material used in home games hasn't had nearly the issues of balance that WotR did.

This thread is titled 'A REVIEW OF WRATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS AND MYTHIC ADVENTURES'. I'd say WotR has gotten a pretty reasonable treatment, which boils down to "it has a lot of potential, and can be lots of fun, but takes a lot more work than is usual for an AP to correct issues of balance and 'easy mode'".

I don't think Mythic in general has gotten similar treatment. Folks continue to combine Wrath and Mythic into one big issue, when in fact they are 2 separate (though interconnected) issues. I'm not defending how Mythic shakes out in WotR. Even most of the folks who really enjoyed WotR will probably admit that Mythic skewed things in it.

But going from 'Mythic in WotR is a problem' to 'Mythic is a problem' is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

That's what I object to.


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Amanda Plageman wrote:
NobodysHome wrote:

And in *NO* other APs has the re-work been so massive to make the AP challenging for the players, nor has the burden of non-optimization been placed so heavily on the players' shoulders. "You have to choose carefully, or this AP is going to be a cake-walk."

I believe Captain Yesterday put it well: "Wrath of the Righteous is an AP set on Easy mode."

I agree completely. WotR needs more adjusting than any other AP I've currently come across in order to make it work as (apparently) intended. And while the endless arguments about min/maxing, optimization, etc have been covered in exhausting detail, it is safe to say that even 'normal' (whatever than means) players can cake-walk it unless they are careful to de-optimize. I think it's safe to say that we're in total agreement on that front.

All I'm saying is that "Mythic can unbalance WotR" is not the same as "Mythic doesn't work". Just because a single application of a product doesn't perform as expected doesn't make it a bad product. The Mythic stuff that has appeared in other PF resources, as well as Mythic material used in home games hasn't had nearly the issues of balance that WotR did.

This thread is titled 'A REVIEW OF WRATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS AND MYTHIC ADVENTURES'. I'd say WotR has gotten a pretty reasonable treatment, which boils down to "it has a lot of potential, and can be lots of fun, but takes a lot more work than is usual for an AP to correct issues of balance and 'easy mode'".

I don't think Mythic in general has gotten similar treatment. Folks continue to combine Wrath and Mythic into one big issue, when in fact they are 2 separate (though interconnected) issues. I'm not defending how Mythic shakes out in WotR. Even most of the folks who really enjoyed WotR will probably admit that Mythic skewed things in it.

But going from 'Mythic in WotR is a problem' to 'Mythic is a problem' is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

That's what I object to.

I have no response beyond, "Well said!"


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Amanda Plageman wrote:
magnuskn wrote:


Objection! Mythic Adventures clearly does not work, for the reason so eloquently stated by NobodysHome:

Sorry, but that's way too simplified. Saying a thing 'clearly doesn't work because <reason>' completely ignores all the folks for whom Mythic Adventures (or anything else under contention) works well.

Apparently Mythic Adventures doesn't work the way you want it to. That's fine and valid. But it works very well for other people, and that's equally fine and valid.

This comes down to 'agree to disagree'. At this point, it seems pretty clear that a meeting of the minds on this topic isn't going to occur. And that's also fine.

Hmmm, no. I think it most certainly does not come down to a "agree to disagree" in this case. See, there are certain parameters which we can take from how the game has always worked since its inception. One of those parameters is that you need multiple hits to kill opponents of equal CR. There has been something of a "damage ratio", where you could assume that you'd do certain amounts of damage to an opponent in one or multiple full attack(s) to put him down. Mythic has thrown this completely out of the window, because theoretically you can one-shot multiple CR-appropriate opponents.

Unless the goal of the developers was to trivialize combat to a degree which robs opponents CR and threat of any meaning, I think it can be safely assumed that they didn't calculate the math properly.


magnuskn wrote:
Hmmm, no. I think it most certainly does not come down to a "agree to disagree" in this case.

As I mentioned, it seems unlikely that we're going to achieve a 'meeting of the minds' on this. And so, I shall respectfully bow out now. :-)


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

And, yes, you can rework mythic adventures to a degree where it works, by nerfing a lot of stuff and bringing other stuff up. But, that's not the point I am making.

The point is that the math in the work as published is off. Massively off. We know this because the book contains a bestiary which shows proof that the calculations of what would constitute an appropriate encounter were just wrong. We know this because a lot of mythic monsters have since then been published in Bestiary 4, the different WotR modules and other books.

So what I was hoping to accomplish (aside from warning off GM's from this AP, unless they want to put in a ton of time to balance it), was to hopefully make the developers invest the time to fix things. Which is of course something they will very probably not do, because, as I said in the review, they got a schedule to keep.

Mythic Adventures stands as the starkest example yet of why this approach of "look forward, not backward" is lately disrupting the trust a lot of players have in Paizo.

Silver Crusade

magnuskn wrote:
Sebastian Hirsch wrote:
“Mythic Adventures works (well mostly the CR system tends to break down a little quicker and thus many of the published mythic monsters are under CR… but you can make it work), WotR as an adventure path works ( obviously part 1 works, but benefits from some more fleshing out and it has issues like other APs, but on the whole the concept works), they don’t work together.

Objection! Mythic Adventures clearly does not work, for the reason so eloquently stated by NobodysHome:

NobodysHome wrote:
Damage goes up by a factor of 10. Hit points go up by a factor of 2. Somehow, that leads to everything dying in a single round. Go figure.

Oh why thank you Magnuskn, now whenever I see your avatar, I'll see phoenix wright, objecting to things^^

I feel pretty confident that I can deal with that particular complaint, by pointing at this accursed table,

Monster Statistics by CR (bottom of the page)
.
you can find it in the Bestiary Nr. 4. It started bad and has gotten worse, with the expansion, but if you feel motivated to follow the CR guidelines as written... you end up with enemies to weak and fragile for a decent challenge.
So following my +3 chain of circular logic (thank god not my superstar item, even if the stats would have been fun to write^^) increasing the CR budget can help a lot. Especially if you spend your CR budget on something to increase survivability (arcane template to add mirror image, blink, vampiric touch; Invincible template to get block attacks and more hit points; etc).

Obviously Mythic Adventures has some scaling issues especially considering some mythic feats (mythic power attack, vital strike) and class abilities (channel power), but yeah it could work, you just have to avoid using some options, and remember "DR is pretty worthless, AC and saves are better, but avoidance effects like mirror image and blink are your first choice."

But one of these days, I will post my own "how to fix your mythic in 74 easy steps " thing... and I am not saying that it works very well, but frankly not that much worse than some of the worst stuff Paizo has published. I'll try not to go into a tangent on FAQs and Errata (but the fact that I am currently buildinga whie haired witch does not help.. at all), but there are plenty of archetypes/spells/magic items that are ... not conductive to a balanced play.

Without going into excessive details: archers, characters with goz masks, darkvision and darkness... Breaking the game is easy, and mythic does it very well, and frankly the core of that particular subsystem is worthy of a saving throw to avoid utter irrelevance.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

That still doesn't address the issue of one-shotting everything but demon lords. If you don't really work only a bit at doing so, which is when you become able to do that, too. ^^


When people hear about legendary battles in the myths of old, they don't hear that Hercules ran up to the hydra, did one shot that cut off all five heads in one blow, and did so with such speed and strength that the blade was red-hot just traveling through the air and caused the heads and stumps to spontaneously burst into flames. No, you hear about a long battle in which this son of the King of Gods fought hard to overcome, and finally used his brains to burn the stumps of each head after severing them so they could not grow back.

Under Mythic Adventures, Hercules one-shots the hydra and then boosts his charisma to bed the women of the town he saved and have the men grateful for his doing so.

This is not mythic. This is not enjoyable. This is God Mode for Doom. It is boring and uninteresting. Mythic should be about being tough as nails and hard to kill... and doing unusual and mystifying things that are beyond the abilities of normal heroes. One-shotting enemies isn't mythic. Taking a jawbone and fighting an army and killing off everyone you fought is, even though it took a day or more of fighting to do so. That is being hard to kill, not just able to kill anything around you.

Silver Crusade

magnuskn wrote:
That still doesn't address the issue of one-shotting everything but demon lords. If you don't really work only a bit at doing so, which is when you become able to do that, too. ^^

Yeah, I guess adding the tier to the character level instead of half the tier, should help on that front. Yeah, we have discussed this issue often enough this point, I suspect, that this is for the benefit of "new" readers to this issue. I suspect you would only have to make a number of changes to "restore sanity and/or fear"

Still working on that suggestion to Paizo to find some way to incentivise them to spend some time to improve the current state of the system. Write some FAQs, maybe some errata ... Not buying softcover releases (they don't get FAQs) and not buying hardcover releases (dead tree or pdf) since... well just look at the FAQs for the ACG. I get it Paizo is incredibly busy, so if we can find a way for them not to lose money and still retain to ability to publish books on a plethora of topics in future... win/win?

Silver Crusade

Tangent101 wrote:
When people hear about legendary battles in the myths of old, they don't hear that Hercules ran up to the hydra, did one shot that cut off all five heads in one blow, and did so with such speed and strength that the blade was red-hot just traveling through the air and caused the heads and stumps to spontaneously burst into flames. .

Well discussions on these boards can get a bit heated but, not quite that bad :P ^^

Tangent101 wrote:

When people hear about legendary battles in the myths of old, they don't hear that Hercules ran up to the hydra, did one shot that cut off all five heads in one blow, and did so with such speed and strength that the blade was red-hot just traveling through the air and caused the heads and stumps to spontaneously burst into flames. No, you hear about a long battle in which this son of the King of Gods fought hard to overcome, and finally used his brains to burn the stumps of each head after severing them so they could not grow back.

Under Mythic Adventures, Hercules one-shots the hydra and then boosts his charisma to bed the women of the town he saved and have the men grateful for his doing so.

This is not mythic. This is not enjoyable. This is God Mode for Doom. It is boring and uninteresting. Mythic should be about being tough as nails and hard to kill... and doing unusual and mystifying things that are beyond the abilities of normal heroes. One-shotting enemies isn't mythic. Taking a jawbone and fighting an army and killing off everyone you fought is, even though it took a day or more of fighting to do so. That is being hard to kill, not just able to kill anything around you.

Yeah I get it, the living bulwark, that defends the lonely mountain pass against an invading army of evil barbarians (*sigh* Final Fantasy VII sure was good and will be forever) is much more mythic than... let's be honest Dynasty Warriors (another favorite of mine), killing enemies by the dozens.

And frankly if you regularly kill CR appropriate enemies with one attack, well that isn't great. One full attack might be enough, since that is quite often the case in regular Pathfinder games (including buffs).


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Amanda Plageman wrote:


Sorry, but that's way too simplified. Saying a thing 'clearly doesn't work because <reason>' completely ignores all the folks for whom Mythic Adventures (or anything else under contention) works well.

Apparently Mythic Adventures doesn't work the way you want it to. That's fine and valid. But it works very well for other people, and that's equally fine and valid.

This comes down to 'agree to disagree'. At this point, it seems pretty clear that a meeting of the minds on this topic isn't going to occur. And that's also fine.

This line of though is actually very unhelpful, because it is saying "Well everything is just opinion so nothing can be good or bad". Since everything is opinion, then any design choices do not matter.

Since this is obviously false, discarding this line of thinking is the correct choice. Things really can be well designed or poorly designed, and it is possible to determine which is which.


Tangent101 wrote:


You have another ability in which someone moves, gets an attack that ignores damage resistance, and then the player can do a full attack afterward. Including bonus attacks from Haste or other abilities. Thus meaning a player wielding two weapons and with a high enough level and the proper feats can, with Haste, move and then attack 10 times in a round.

Hey Tangent, honest question here, but you can't move and then full attack right? Because Full-Round actions expressly forbid movement:

PRD wrote:
The only movement you can take during a full-round action is a 5-foot step before, during, or after the action.

At least that's how I've been running it...


Limitations don't apply to mythic characters:

Mythic Rules wrote:

Fleet Warrior (Ex): When making a full attack, you can move up to your speed either before or after your attacks. This movement provokes attacks of opportunity as normal.

So mythic increases damage while removing restrictions like, "No move and full attack."

That's why mythic melee characters turn into massive engines of destruction. You can really stack attacks up to a silly degree in mythic.


NobodysHome wrote:

Limitations don't apply to mythic characters:

Mythic Rules wrote:

Fleet Warrior (Ex): When making a full attack, you can move up to your speed either before or after your attacks. This movement provokes attacks of opportunity as normal.

So mythic increases damage while removing restrictions like, "No move and full attack."

That's why mythic melee characters turn into massive engines of destruction. You can really stack attacks up to a silly degree in mythic.

Oh wow! Hadn't seen that yet. My party is still tier 1, so thanks for the peak ahead!


Ssyvan wrote:
NobodysHome wrote:

Limitations don't apply to mythic characters:

Mythic Rules wrote:

Fleet Warrior (Ex): When making a full attack, you can move up to your speed either before or after your attacks. This movement provokes attacks of opportunity as normal.

So mythic increases damage while removing restrictions like, "No move and full attack."

That's why mythic melee characters turn into massive engines of destruction. You can really stack attacks up to a silly degree in mythic.

Oh wow! Hadn't seen that yet. My party is still tier 1, so thanks for the peak ahead!

Yeah, 3rd tier is where your Champion PC is looking over the abilities, takes Sudden Attack, a legendary weapon with Foe Biter, and Fleet Warrior, and suddenly he or she is Hasted, moving across the entire map, getting an extra 2 attacks in addition to his or her full attack, and doubling damage on everything.

It's ugly, ugly, ugly.

You need to teach your players that if they do that, the game will no longer be a challenge for them.

EDIT: OK, technically the scenario I just listed doesn't come along 'til 4th tier, since both Fleet Warrior and the second Legendary Item are 3rd-tier abilities, but it's only one example of the kind of nonsense melee characters can build. Casters don't get really silly until 6th tier... though the whole, "Cast any spell on your spell list by using a mythic surge" completely changes the dynamics of casters in the party. They *always* have exactly the spells they need!


The champion in my group took Fleet Charge instead of Sudden Attack, so at least there's that. =\


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Well.... with fleet charge you can get into the discussion on whether or not you can full attack with it, as it is only a swift action. Then maybe with that extra move action from mythic haste too. Not that it matters as fleet warrior does solve that discussion.

If you actually bother with full attacks instead of mythic power attack, mythic vital strike and foe biter. All part of really corner case builds so the mythic rules are still relevant and viable :)


Seannoss wrote:
Well.... with fleet charge you can get into the discussion on whether or not you can full attack with it, as it is only a swift action. Then maybe with that extra move action from mythic haste too. Not that it matters as fleet warrior does solve that discussion.

Yeah, we've ruled that you can't move and do a full-round action unless you have something specifically allow it. Extra actions or combining actions (like with fleet charge moving as a swift) aren't enough.

Fleet Warrior specifically allows it (for full-attacks only), so I'd have to let them do that.


I ruled that Fleet Charge is a Move action, not a Swift action.

The end-result is that it gives the character a second attack with movement - you can move and attack, and then get a standard action attack. If you use Mythic to get another action (one thing I eliminated), you get a third attack. However, it's still less than what having Fleet Charge as a Swift action allows.


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NobodysHome wrote:


Damage goes up by a factor of 10. Hit points go up by a factor of 2. Somehow, that leads to everything dying in a single round. Go figure.

This is lies and balderdash. I don't know how you can end up getting a PC's hit points to go up by a factor of two with Mythic, and what sort of PCs are you running with that only multiply their damage output by ten?

---

Are there any 'Making Mythic Actually Mythic' projects around? Shouldn't there be?


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There used to be. Mythic is old news now, and Paizo has seemingly mostly abandoned it except for the occasional monster.

There are three things that help keep Mythic from being broken. First, nerf Critical Hits - if only damage dice are multiplied on a confirmed critical with no other damage bonuses (thus a level 12 Ranger with Power Attack and 18 Strength who gets a crit with a +2 longsword would do 2d8+14 damage, similar to the normal Feat Vital Strike), then you eliminate what is broken with crits, and how Mythic makes it worse. And that's even with keeping Mythic Power Attack otherwise the same.

Second, all Mythic abilities with spells are standard actions, not swift, except for the Archmage ability where you turn spell levels into extra damage in a melee attack. You can still cast a spell as a Swift spell, and a second as a standard action, but you'll ever need a Metamagic Swift Spell Rod or the Metamagic Feat Swift Spell.

Third, Fleet Charge is now a Move action.

This negates a bit of what's wrong with Mythic. It doesn't do enough, but it does help.


Sounds to me like Paizo simply didn't balance their encounters is all. I like the feel of the mythic rules. I like the amount of power they provide given the system is supposed to put them near godhood to the point of granting spells and domains to worshipers and including in the core assumption for scenarios like direct sons and daughters of actual gods.


Got to give credit to Paizo for having a couple of people actually look at and respond to this thread, but will it be possible to get out any kind of bug fix? Even if it is publishing a non-Mythic Wrath of the Righteous Anniversary Edition in a few years?

* * * * * * * *

I have been following a PbP (sometimes more than one) of every AP, so even though I don't have the books, I know a bit about at least the early parts. And one thing that I have noticed about Wrath of the Righteous is that as written it has one of the most railroaded starts (Skull & Shackles being the other worst offender. Now, being a railfan, I wouldn't mind a railroad start if the track layout was interesting, but these start out like some rusty abandoned single-track stub in Skankee, Missihoma. This alone caused me to search through several instances of both of these APs, trying to find an exception, but then in addition, Wrath of the Righteous seems to be one of the APS with the highest mortality rates, with PbP campaigns dying before even getting to the Mythic stage. Spooky . . . .


If you actually run/play through it, the first 3/4 of Module 1 is just plain epic. Yeah, it's a railroad, but hardly more so than, "Goblins are attacking the town!", or, "You meet in a tavern!" Most Book 1's are railroads, with the notable exceptions of Serpent's Skull and Kingmaker (of the AP's I've run).

I personally LOVE the beginning of this AP, and yeah, Module 1 and the trip all the way through the first half of Module 2 is very perilous for PCs.

Unfortunately, at that point, two things happen:
(1) Beyond visiting a very interesting city in Book 4, the characters are basically on a "killed that, what's next?" track from the second half of Book 3 on. Someone tells them, "You need to go here and kill this bad guy," and they do it. There's not a lot of time for nuance, alternative solutions, or anything other than, "We walk over and stomp him/her." I've never encountered an AP with so few "sidebar quests" in the later books.

(2) The "easy switch" gets turned on. Not to repeat myself ad nauseum, but the CRs of all encounters get dropped too low for even non-mythic PCs. (Generally from character level to character level - 2). For mythic PCs, the encounters are just pathetic. I've heard it was for XP reasons, which (if true) is just yet another argument for dumping XP entirely.


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NobodysHome wrote:
(2) The "easy switch" gets turned on. Not to repeat myself ad nauseum, but the CRs of all encounters get dropped too low for even non-mythic PCs. (Generally from character level to character level - 2). For mythic PCs, the encounters are just pathetic. I've heard it was for XP reasons, which (if true) is just yet another argument for dumping XP entirely.

Well, I'll disagree with the bolded part (which I added). I think it's yet another argument for fewer encounters in a book, so that the encounters that do exist are more story-based and less "just because." The occasional encounter to allow the heroes to feel like heroes is great, but we don't need adventures that have 19 of them and two worthy ones. We need more APs that focus on great story and great story-based encounters. You do that, there's no issue at all with the XP system.

I've been running games for 20 years (nigh on, anyway), and I've never had an issue where the XP system inhibited my storytelling capabilities. If such happens, that's a flaw in designing the story, not the XP system itself.

Not saying that playing without XP is a bad thing, mind you! If that works better for you, then by all means do so! Whatever is most fun for you and your group, I say go for it! However, I don't believe for a second that it's an issue of pointing the finger at the XP system and saying, "It's all your fault," is accurate.

It's the design decisions that make or break a system. Paizo has focused their current design for their adventures on a plethora of meaningless encounters with a couple significant ones thrown in, which leads to this outcry that XP is to blame. Tweaking that design philosophy slightly so that there are fewer insignificant encounters and more story-based, meaningful encounters would also fix the problem without having to eliminate the XP system.

-----------------------------

On a separate note! For those of you that have run Mythic, I could use some of your input here. I'm planning on adding a Mythic adventure at the end of my current AP, but will only be granting my players 5 mythic tiers. I've heard that 3rd Tier abilities are where things break down. Any suggestions as to changes I should make to see to it that no one can one-shot or easily eradicate Cthulu (CR 30) would be appreciated!

Everyone is awesome! Thanks in advance! =D


Sorry for the double post! I just got back here too late to edit the last one!

I've found enough info to make a pretty good dent in what I need to do with Mythic up to Tier 5, so don't bother answering the second part of my post above! (Unless you want to!)

My apologies again!

Merry Christmas everyone!


There are a multitude of threads concerning this.

I'd say nerf Mythic Power Attack, don't allow the Mythic Improved Critical, all spellcasting Mythic abilities are Standard actions, and Fleet Charge is a Move Action.

That will reduce part of the problem.

Another thing is: ignore damage if needed so to create an interesting end-fight. If they're fighting Cthulhu, then have it be epic. You don't have to use his hit points or the like. You can modify it to be whatever you want it to be.

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