balancing without mythic


Wrath of the Righteous


hello everyone im planing on starting to run a new game soon of this campaign and after looking over all the mythic stuff and the problems with it I had an idea to scrap mythic all together have the party start with higher stats and give everyone a template from lvl 1 and then have everyone go really heavily into creating interesting storys of everyone gaining their templates and joining each other to start this adventure.

im looking for sugestions on this idea or sugestions for chanign mythic i know theirs alot of different things i could change with it or try so im looking for imput from those who have more experience.

Silver Crusade Contributor

Well, can you give us an idea of what sort of "higher stats" we're talking about? 25-point buy? 35-point buy? +4 to everything?

Also, what sort of templates? I'm guessing half-celestial, half-fiend, etc. Is this what you had in mind? Or something less/more powerful?

Once we know where you're starting from, we can help refine either your parameters, or the adventures. :)


higher points would be 25 points. and yea half-celestial, hald-dragon (obviously half-fiend wouldnt work)

Silver Crusade Contributor

Declindgrunt wrote:
higher points would be 25 points. and yea half-celestial, hald-dragon (obviously half-fiend wouldnt work)

I dunno, I feel half-fiend could work (for the same reason tiefling does) It could be interesting to use one of the specific variants from Demons Revisited. A half-devil invested with power by the lords of Hell could work as well, depending on the PC/group/etc.

The biggest concern is that many of the spell-like abilities are ineffective against demonkind - unholy blight, blasphemy, etc. However, some of the demon-specific variants trade those out. I'll have a look over the templates and see what I come up with.

I'd suggest getting a list of templates together. We've already touched on half-celestial, half-dragon, and half-fiend. In a few minutes, I'll fire up Herolab and see what's in their database. :)


half fey is one ( i got a character going that in a different campaign) but the thing im concerned about is that even with the templates they wont be strong enough for the enemy bosses


I could see a vampire or a mummy working as well, though mummy would have serious issues with all of the fire.
Half-succubus daughter of Arushelae could be a really interesting one to do. And has much better SLA's as well. And I'm sure any oracle/sorcs would love you for it. Don't let a paladin do it though. Dear god don't let a paladin do it.


also the first 2 modules will be jokes with the templates unless i buff stuff somehow


i only know of one of the party members so far and hes a pally (who will definetly go half-celestial)

Silver Crusade Contributor

Sorry about that; I got, uh, tied up.

hides collar

Anyway, if you're worried about the template strength (not wrongly), you could build a progression for each, using Dragon Disciple as a guide. You might not need to buff too much, though - the first two books have their moments. The vescavors and ghouls almost got my group.

Vampire is problematic for a few reasons; however, this is was mythic. Why not lich? Maybe with an accelerated respawn rate. I like half-fey as well. I personally would love to play a half-succubus daughter of Arueshalae... but instead I have to run the campaign. :/

You could tie the templates to the traits (so Chance Encounter becomes half-fey, Touched By Divinity becomes half-celestial, Exposed to Awfulness becomes half-dragon, Stolen Fury becomes half-fiend, etc). This way, they won't necessarily know the ins and outs of what they're getting. I'd still foreshadow the result, though; someone might be upset if their super-cute character becomes half-glabrezu or something. :)

In fact, I'd probably scrap the traits and make new ones. Tie half-dragons to Terendelev, for example.

That's all I've got for the moment, but keep posting. Hopefully others will come to help. :)


Mmm, collars!

The vampire one also has support in it inside the Way of the Wicked with feats and magic items to support their weaknesses. I believe those are on the SRD too. The big one is the 'crossing running water' and sunlight. A swim speed negates the first, but the second you'll want to get a permanent Protective Penumbra magic item.

Lich requires that wonderful lvl 11, but if a caster wants to wait that long, then it's certainly a good one. Lots of ways to flavor a good lich too.

I also really like the idea of a guardian mummy, as it's quite easy to make mummy into a template and mummies don't even need to be evil canonically.

I really really really wish they'd have a half-protean template already also. Before I end up making my own... And a half axiomite or Inevitable as well would be awesome.

And half-psychopomp. Srsly, half grim reaper, come to take the demon's souls?

Silver Crusade Contributor

There's also having to haul the coffin, and the hunger for blood. Transmute wine to blood will help there, though. I nearly had a vampire (N)PC in Carrion Crown, so I spent a fair amount of time thinking about potential issues. :)

An alternate such as nosferatu or jiang-shi could work, of course, but who wants to be one of those? They lack the culture and beauty of the moroi.

As for lich, given what we're doing here, the prerequisites are likely to be unnecessary.

As one of the least evil-flavored undead types, mummy has pretty good potential. Fire resistance is easier to manage than sunlight, for one thing. There are two mummy templates already on the books; Bestiary 4's Mummified Creature and Pyramid of the Sky Pharaoh's Mummy Lord.

Undead templates are still lower on the list for me, though, since in canon Golarion, undead have about the same non-evil rate as evil outsiders. Not half-fiends, which are a native flavor, but demons and such. The exception are ghosts, which I wouldn't recommend here. Of course, the actual GM is free to tinker with the canon as he or she wishes. :)

I'm with you on half-proteans... or any new proteans, really. As for psychopomps, at least we kind of got a planetouched for the Boneyard - look up shabti.

Finally, I went over a list of templates looking for ideas. I should be asleep, but w/e.

Templates:
The advanced template, while simple, could be an option for someone who wants to be "normal".

Animal lords, from Bestiary 3, might deserve a deeper look.

Devilbound, from Bestiary 4, could be an interesting option for Asmodean demon hunter types.

Fey creature, from B3, is probably our go-to for half-fey; that or dig out the Fiend Folio.

Fungal creature, from B4, is a bit on the icky side, but looks to be at about the right level from a cursory glance.

If we're doing undead, graveknight (B3) definitely deserves a closer look.

Half-janni (Qadira: Gateway to the East) is outdated and off-flavor for the region, but might be worth a look.

Siabrae (The Worldwound) are a local flavor of druid-lich. If we're considering lich, it probably deserves some consideration.

I can't believe we didn't bring up lycanthropes yet.

If you can find references for those, check them out. If not, let me know.

I have to sleep - I have a campaign session in less than eight hours. I'll check back when I can. Hopefully this gives people some ideas to work with. :)


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Forgot about the coffin, but the blood one is easy. I mean, babaus are covered in it haha. And imagine how tasty a succubus has to be. A balor or brimorak is probably spicy as hell... ya know, I'm surprised vampires don't hunt demons more often.

True, could waive the lich CL 11 and 120,000 gold cost. And crazy 'if you f+%* up your soul is forfeit' for failing the spellcraft heh.

But yeah, I do like the mummy option. Shabti aren't really psychopomps though like aasimar are to celestials. Being that they're created by nobles in an effort to cheat death more than say a Morrigna banging an undertaker and having a kid.

Sooo want more protean support. I love the Imentesh and Keketar, and their awesome flavor. I want more Jandelay info as well as the Maelstrom is sorely lacking content.

Yeah, can't believe we left out lycanthropes. And here I'm actually playing one in Mummies mask, a necromancer of Nethys wereviper vishkanya. Got turned into a natural lycan when a spell was disrupted by Akhentepi's fake sarcophagus at lvl 1. Natural wereviper at lvl 1... man, was so OP. Now I've got two poisons and my DM let me make a custom magic item that lets me poison undead with my bite hehe.


I really apperciate all the help!! im really teying to stay away from anythign too evil (no lich sorry) if I went this route i would definetly tie the half dragon to Terendelev (which would make that opening scene even better for that player!) new traits might be nice but id have to think about their effects cuz the wotr traits get really good

(a werewolf fighting deomons sounds awsome)

an idea just struck me! what if Iomedae didnt take an indirect route to help the party and apeared before them make the party her champions after the events of the grey garison and gives the entire party the half celestial template. it would let the first book still be a challenge plus it could really motive the group to contiune the crusade to continue to fight the demon hoards etc...

Scarab Sages

One idea I had: have everyone play gestalt, with one of the two classes required for thematic reasons to be a divine caster (presumably of one of the good gods fighting the worldwound). You could even make it so that each of the story benchmarks where you're supposed to get a mythic tier, you get a level or two of the divine class to keep that flavor of gaining some specific worldwound fighting prowess.

That would up the strength of the characters directly and tangibly without dipping into mythic and yet retaining a very thematic and story-based rationale for why they were getting this extra power.


sounds cool, but im a little confused on what you mean, what does gestalt mean?

Scarab Sages

Declindgrunt wrote:
sounds cool, but im a little confused on what you mean, what does gestalt mean?

Oh, it's a fairly common homebrew set of rules (I think there's a writeup for it somewhere as a campaign option). Basically all characters have two classes that run in parallel, so whenever you level up you get everything from both classes. Where there is overlap (i.e. like saves or BAB) you take the better of the two.

It makes for more powerful characters of course, but a lot of the increased power is from additional options at any given time, but you're still constrained by the basic action economy of the game.


im freaking out about setting this campiagn up way too much lol maybe ill just let their character stomp over everything and run the module the way i was made, id still buff the enemies, im just feeling really discouraged about the campaign

Silver Crusade Contributor

Don't get too down; it's not necessarily as bad as we make it sound.

There's always the Hero Point option. And of course, you have nearly the entire first book before any mythic or variant options are needed. If your group is really awesome at the game, you could even run without Mythic or a replacement system. The foreword to each volume has some suggestions for so doing.

Even Mythic can be OK with a fair amount of work - if you're new to GMing and worried about getting run over by players, you might decide against this, but if you decide to go this route, we can help.

And if all else fails, there are other Paths. One of those might help you build confidence/experience for this one. :)


im not a new dm but im not a highly experienced one either, for now im just gonna run it with mythic and stand and ill use scorpions buffs and ill buff as i see fit to atleast make the fights interesting


Well the biggest thing with mythic is this:
No mythic haste, no additional action economy from mythic initiative
Nerf or outright remove mythic power attack and don't even consider mythic vital strike strike.
Mythic Improved Critcal, also one to look out for/ban.

Those are the biggest offenders of the rocket tag. There are others, but they require more system mastery than 'oh that looks cool, GABLAM'.

Silver Crusade Contributor

I'd look at changing Fleet Charge as well; maybe make it a move action. Also, consider restricting Wild Arcana and Inspired Spell to certain lists - I went with "hardcover only" as the simplest method. :)


Honestly as someone GMing the end of book 3 now, you don't need to change anything if the party is not mythic. It is actually less work than trying to run it with a mythic party. I threw a non mythic CR18 encounter against the Level 11, Mythic Tier 4 party and they crushed it. But if you insist on keeping epic the advice already given is sound. I wish I had the sense to take mythic away from the PCs.

Silver Crusade Contributor

Your avatar goes very well with your statements. :)

Can you tell me more about how things are going? I'm in Book 3 now, but my party is nonstandard. I'm curious which aspects of Mythic have been most problematic, as well as parameters (party size, classes, optimization, etc.)

Thank you for your assistance! :)


Fleet Charge, Wild Arcana, Mythic Heroism/Mythic Haste, Advance, Stand Tall, Words of Hope, Amazing Initiative, Divine Source. Not to mention the AP gives out way too much loot. I cut out the medals and some of the artifacts and it is still a cakewalk. They're only a 4 person party with 20PB. None of them are bleeding edge optimized mind you. It's a monk, divine strategist paladin(read no smite evil), ranged investigator, and a summoner who's eidolon can't fight. I did make some houserules in their favor but even without them they'd crush this mod if I didn't do anything.

There are way too many CR=APL or APL +1 fights. I cut most of those out to save time and frustration.


Well I'm finding so far that with Sc8rpi8ns changes my two single player WotR games are going fine. Both players are gestalt mind you.


Combine encounters. Take three or four of the APL or APL+1 fights and make it one fight.

My big three though are this: Mythic Archmage spellcasting is a Standard Action to bring it in line with the Hierophant. Swift Charge is a Move Action. ALL critical hits are treated as non-mythic Vital Strike - you only multiply the number of dice rolled with no other modifiers multiplied. This will significantly and massively alter how the Mythic crits work, and to be honest I half-wonder if that's how Criticals were originally going to be done, because even non-Mythic crits can be overpowering.


Tangent101 wrote:

Combine encounters. Take three or four of the APL or APL+1 fights and make it one fight.

My big three though are this: Mythic Archmage spellcasting is a Standard Action to bring it in line with the Hierophant. Swift Charge is a Move Action. ALL critical hits are treated as non-mythic Vital Strike - you only multiply the number of dice rolled with no other modifiers multiplied. This will significantly and massively alter how the Mythic crits work, and to be honest I half-wonder if that's how Criticals were originally going to be done, because even non-Mythic crits can be overpowering.

This pretty much. I usually run it so that enemies in the adjoining rooms get perception checks (and possibly a few rooms out, remember combat starts at DC -10 perception modifier, so these enemies should be acting accordingly).

End of Book 2 stuff:
Sorry, I need to add my most recent experience with this. In my game Barrid escaped from the Ahari Bridge, it says he flees to the Sally Port. The Sally Port says that they retreat back to the Vrock if the PCs start to leave. So by the time my party got to the Vrock, they had 4 Level 4 Rangers, and a Level 8 Sorcerer to tangle with.

NOTE: You SHOULD have Barrid cast Rage and Bull's Strength on the Vrock. And don't forget the Vrock has Heroism!


Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Something I'm planning on doing with any mythic npc is to give them the ability to spend a mythic power point to negate a crit coming at them. Have it do normal damage instead.

This way, even though the PCs were prevented from critting a foe, they still took a power point away from them.

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