Mythic Adventures: Player Agency and Responsibility


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


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So, after playing a Mythic game and running a Mythic game here are my opinions on Mythic Adventures from and Old School perspective...

So, first of all, this comes from a lens of my "Old School" view where players are expected, generally, not to abuse the rules.

Meaning players aren't expected to make optimized characters, are expected to put character and concept over power, and such...

Mythic Adventures *can* be broken. Very easily. So easily, in fact, that there is no challenge in doing so.

If you want to make the ultimate murder blender then you totally can. Moving then full attacking with a Mythic improved critical falcatta while mythic power attacking is pretty sweet. You're going to turn your target into three kinds of Julianne fries simultaneously.

If you want to cast a Mythic fireball that bypasses resistances and immunities and hits for half a grand plus damage then you completely can. It's not hard and again you're going to barbecue everything you encounter.

Being invisible to that point that nothing can see you and backstabbing for massive damage? Easy peasy lemon squeezey.

We know about those build because they're loved by optimizers and single-handedly kill games.

However there is another side to Mythic Adventures. They can let special concepts, that by no means break the game, work.

Do you want a more castery Paladin? Mythic Adventures has your back. I built one I call the Angeldin.

It was Hierophant with dual path Champion.

What did it do?

Well it was sword and shield, using Mythic Power Attack to not force it to run a 2-Hander or Suck. It could resurrect a target who died if it could LoH it within 1 round. It could move and full attack, though didn't take any of the mythic critical stuff that breaks it. Its minute per level and 10 minute per level spells lasted 24 hrs, it got 4 extra spell slots for spell levels 1-4 (topping out at 10/10/9/9 in the end) it also could grant domains and sub-domains to its followers and was unaging and respected by outsiders...

Was it powerful? Yes. Did it shatter the game? No.

Remember that a big chunk of my stuff went into granting things to followers and gaining agelessness and respect, which mechanically weren't the greatest help to me...

I saw similar when I ran it.

You have the characters that go for ultimate power and those that go for flavor.

So my personal stance on it is this:

Mythic Adventures is fine if people aren't trying to push the boundaries on power. If your players want to go for broke, they can push the power curve into insanity easily. It can add a lot of nice flavor but requires restraint on behalf of the players.

All in all it is great to add to a non-optimized roleplay heavy group. If the group has one or more "I must have +X in Y and by level Z I must hit a benchmark of A" or "I will never play X class because class Y is better" then Mythic Adventures can be kept far away.


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

Thank you.

I agree with basically everything you say.

I love mythic, and I agree that it's really easy to use it to break a game, but that should never, ever be the point.

Well said.


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Chemlak wrote:

Thank you.

I agree with basically everything you say.

I love mythic, and I agree that it's really easy to use it to break a game, but that should never, ever be the point.

Well said.

Well I think the big problem is that the gaming audience has widened over the years.

Back in the 80's - 90's it wasn't a "popular thing" and there wasn't an "internet" (mostly) that had tips on how to maximize a character to the utter gills.

AD&D, for example, there were no feats, players had less options, and the less options you have the easier it is to stop problems from happening.

White Wolf's original Mage: The Ascension had massive options, so massive in fact it was possible for a starting character, originally, to make a nuclear bomb and wipe out a city. I was actually good friends with a line developer, at the time, and Phil Brucato had to specifically put a change into 2nd Edition to make that no longer possible.

In Mage, though, the ST (their word for GM) was largely empowered by the book to often say, "I know that this is technically possible, but I'm not going to allow it." or to call for a completely ST-centric required number of successes that wasn't hard-coded into the system. Meaning that the ST had more tools than Pathfinder has to keep things in the flow.

To make an example:

I believe that the Pathfinder rules for intimidate are 10 + the target's HD + the target's Wisdom Modifier meaning that the player more or less knows what the target number is, and the GM has little wiggle room.

In a more WW like-system that would have been something much more abstract, like, "The ST should set the DC based on the enemy's position, wisdom score, and other modifiers, typically 10 + the target's HD + the target's wisdom modifier + miscellaneous morale bonuses."

But with the rise of the internet, which allowed players to "streamline" builds coupled with a widening of the player base this changed how players approached the game, and necessitated a change to how designers did too.

I often attribute this to something called the "WoW Effect" where the rise of MMORPGs made gaming much more socially acceptable but also introduced the concept of "competitive" gaming.

We have all run into the competitive gaming thing, especially in MMORPGs, they are the guys that demand that all DPS members in the group have to hit X benchmark, you need Y tier gear, and you have to pull your weight or be told to leave.

It might be shocking to imagine, but back in the 80's and 90's that wasn't a thing. That wasn't a thing because your gaming group choices weren't that big. You might only have a total of 5-6 guys to choose from. If you were in a big city it might be more, if you were in a small town it might be less.

Meaning you couldn't kick out, "Joe, the guy who isn't very good with a Fighter" because he was "dragging the group down" because he might not have been good but you didn't have anyone to replace him with. Also because you had such a small pool of players, generally, there was very much a "nerds stick together" mentality.

This meant that games didn't need to be 1:1 balanced and nobody really wanted to out-perform the rest of the group because that meant the DM would make it harder and/or enemies would realize who the real threat was and would focus fire the guy who had the "best" character.

So balance was organic.

Believe it or not, there were actually entire game lines (see anything made by Palladium) that literally were NEVER intended to be balanced (see Rifts) and in fact were "balanced" around the GM being harder on the characters that could take it.

Namely, you could run a Glitterboy in a group with a CK, a Rogue Scholar, and a Headhunter, and it was assumed common knowledge that the GB was going to be ganged up on by NPCs.

So when Mythic Adventures came out though Paizo had to appeal to both halves of their base. Their old school more concept-based crowd (these are the guys who make Mystic Theurges, or take the really weird PrC despite it mechanically being bad) and their new school more optimized crowd. The problem comes in that more options are a problem.

See, a character who isn't really all that well optimized, say a Fighter with a 14 Dex, a 16 Strength, a 14 Con, and say a 13 Intelligence might build a character who is based a bit around combat maneuvers.

There is nothing wrong with that.

If he takes Mythic Power Attack its not going to really break the game at all. Even if he takes Mythic Improved Critical. Then he takes something silly like Divine Source and the game is going to go on and it is no big deal.

However if you are the guy who is 20 Strength, 12 Dex, 16 Con, 7 Int and he goes Falcatta with Mythic Power Attack, Mythic Improved Critical, Legendary Weapon, and Fleet Warrior well... Yeah. That thing is going to be a nightmare.

The problem is though that if you take those options away, it means the concept-driven non-optimized character can't really make up for a diverse quirky build and be "mythic" and also the player who built the blender o' death isn't going to buy a mythic adventures book if they can't make their already more-deadly-than-needed character even more deadly.

So, with Mythic Adventures you really have to gauge if your group is the kind that can benefit from it or not.

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