Defade's page

I'm still interested, but if there're too many people, I don't mind pulling out. :)

I think the 'half your class level' thing was simply a suggestion, and not a strict rule you have to follow.

At the very least, developers have suggested playtesting with different combinations of class levels and mythic tiers, 10/5, 10/1, 5/3 etc to find out how the mechanics actually play out.

You could also throw force bombs at them and hope they fail their reflex saves.

It's more than likely that a normal snake would just die outright, though.

I think that it's somewhat fair, because it's also likely that you'll burn through mythic points a lot faster at higher levels, especially when fighting against foes of appropriate challenge. Things like Amazing Initiative and Force of Will are probably going to be used very often, if not every round - not to mention casters that might use extra mythic points to power their spells.

That is absolutely disgusting and I applaud you, my good sir.

Seconded! Many times I've found myself wanting a quicker way to access a specific section of the PDF.

Since I'm a little bit short of time at the moment, I just took one of the pre-made high level vampire fighters in one of the APs and slapped on him either champion 9 or MR9, as well as upgrading him to PC wealth, and then threw him into a 1-on-1 with the tarrasque, treerazer and Achaekek. His final CR ended up being 19 + 9 = 28, which makes the Achaekek a beyond epic encounter.

Mythic vampire 9 ordinary fighter:
What I had been kind of anticipating happened - both of them had trouble hitting each other. With some PC gear befitting a character of that level, the vampire's AC went over the roof with his +9 adjustment to natural armor thanks to the mythic subtype. This is taking into account his base +6 from being a vampire, and when you slap on an amulet of natural armor +5 on him, that goes up to +20 natural armor. Stick a +5 full plate(which still allows a +5 dex modifier thanks to armor training) along with a ring of protection +5 on him and that goes beyond epic. His final AC ended up in high 50s. Even Achaekak missed more often than not, with his +42 to hit. (and I'm pretty sure that's not just because I suck at rolling)

His survivability is also a lot better considering that he gets double the amount of bonus HP from the mythic subtype than the champion tier. However, the successive -5 penalty to his attack rolls really start to hurt against mythic opponents with ACs over the 40s. He can somewhat manage with his first 2 attacks, but after the -10 penalty kicks in, I need to roll closer to 20 to even scratch the three critters' ACs. This is made a lot more doable with his +1d10 to d20s, but doing this persistently means that he burns through his 9 uses of his mythic power incredibly fast. This, coupled with the fact that all three of them had regeneration/DRepic meant there were a few rounds when nothing really happened in battle as both parties failed to hit/otherwise do long-lasting damage.

Normal vampire champion 9:
His AC suffers as a result of not getting that +9 adjustment to his natural armor, and even the tarrasque can hit him more often than not. However, his increased attack rolls thanks to taking precision three times really shines here. That, and the ability to reroll a d20 per round means that he generally gets all his attacks in with 1 or 2 crits. He can actually afford to power attack now, which ups his DPR on the tarrasque to 200 even after applying DR/epic on every single strike, or closer to 160 if you take into account the tarrasque's regen. The tarrasque went down in 3 rounds, but managed to take out a little bit less than half of the vampire's HP just because it can actually hit now. The vampire ended up using his mythic power around 7 times, mostly to add 1d10 and reroll in each round, but also to use Sudden Attack.

On Achaekak, he's still dealing crap loads of damage, but the simply fact that Achaekak can hit him more means that he'll likely die before he can drop that 800 HP monster to 0, especially considering the mantis god's regen and DR20. He still managed to whittle more than half of it down before he was another full attack away from gaseous form, which I find to be quite impressive.

Overall, it seems like normal vampire with champion tiers are somewhat more glass cannon-y at higher levels, when the lack of that natural armor adjustment starts to really hurt. But they're definitely DPR beasts - and this vampire I used for testing isn't even a really optimized fighter build. I'm sure munchkins will probably be able to make a build that can take down Achaekak in 2 rounds.

Precision is one of the best abilities at late levels, when you're dealing with the AC of mythic creatures. The fact that it's a constant ability that doesn't require mythic powers is just the topping on the cake. Sudden Attack's ability to bypass DR and roll twice is nothing to scoff at, especially if you manage to crit on that one - which, with your ability to reroll one d20 per round and a high crit range, probably won't be that hard.

These short playtest encounters are all revolved around pure combat though, and I look forward to exploring some other differences between a mythic vampire and a normal vampire mythic champion. I'll also look to putting him in situations where his channel immunity and DR10/epic actually comes into play...

Edit: Ack, forgot the fact that I gave him mythic dodge and that he can get a +10 dodge bonus on his AC by using a mythic power. >_>

I wanted to see what the absolute maximum result to actrobatics could be, and I came up with 237 for a lvl 20 Monk/MT 10 Champ:

Max Ranks: +20
Class Skill: +3
Dex 46 (18 base, +2 racial, +6 Enhancment, +5 Inherent, +5 Level, +10 Mythic): +18
High Jump class ability static bonus: +20
High Jump ki bonus: +20
Fast Movement (speed enhancement bonus): +24 (racial bonus)
Skill Focus (acrobatics) feat: +6
Acrobatic feat: +4
Aerial Assault champion mythic ability: +100 (circumstance bonus)
Acrobatic (mythic) feat static bonus: +2
Acrobatic (mythic) feat auto 20 bonus: 20

End result: 59.25 feet straight up. Or a 235 foot charge across a chasm.

I like the idea of it being a skill check over a flat bonus, because it lets you add your other bonuses into the result. While I can see a need for a piece of scratch paper for first figuring out your bonus, in game it's fairly easy to add 100 and then divide a result by 4 if you already have the normal bonus to jump recorded on your character sheet.

The 235ft distance charge seems epic enough, but the high jump does seem lackluster. Perhaps Aerial Assault could also change the DC when it's used? If the DC to high jumps was also halved, we'd get 119.5 feet up, which feels more epic. The downside to increasing the height too much from a game balance point of view however, is a pretty signifigant increase to damage.

Being able to jump 60feet and upwards is more of what I expected from this path ability, but as you've resourcefully shown, the requirements(a number of feats that could've probably been put to better use, all ability bonuses being assigned to dex, a specific class that gives bonuses to jump etc.) are somewhat disproportionate when seen in this context.

Imagining this monk whose only purpose in life is to jump charging across a 235 foot chasm is quite epic, but I digress.

Definitely interested. I'd like to offer my (potential) half-elf universalist 20/archmage 10 to participate in this playtest. I drew up her character sheet at 20/10 yesterday, so it'd be pretty easy for me to dump her back down to level 2 and follow progression from there. I plan to take roughly one archmage per 2 wizard levels, conforming to the more 'traditional' combination as a control group of sorts, haha.

Question, how many levels are we expected to be at by the end of this boss rush? I've only ever read the original RotR.

Maybe make it an extra 10ft jumped per mythic tier (clarify that this bonus can exceed your movement speed). If that's too much, drop it to ~5ft per tier rather than a bonus to acrobatics check.

Extent of bonuses aside, I applaud this suggestion for the very fact that it removes the need for calculating high jump DCs and determining how much you jumped each time. (I had to pull out a calculator when I made the post)

You know, after looking it over for a few hours, I'm starting to wonder how its going to hold up power-wise. It's awesome as hell, an slap full of flavor, but is it more beneficial for a vampire to take mythic vampire, or go with one of the paths instead. Both off great benefits.

Testing this will be interesting.

Same. It seems like a lot of the mythic vampire vs mythic tier decision is going to depend on the base class of the vampire - Tom the vampire fighter might really appreciate On Dark Wings and Energy Bleed, but Bob the vampire wizard probably won't have get as much use out of those two abilities when he has overland flight and a good enough attack roll to hit a commoner but not much else.

Channel immunity, DR/epic and overcome weakness would still be a great boon for both. I might end up trying to test this on a bunch of PCs who've been contemplating a raid on an ancient vampire underground.

Out of all the champion abilities, Aerial Assault has to be my absolute favorite in terms of flavor. A character jumping impossibly high to take down a smug wizard gloating 50 feet above the ground, introducing said wizard's face to the gravel - that's certainly something only mythic characters can do.

However, the core rulebook has laid down the DCs for high jumps as roughly the amount of feet you want to jump x 4. A champion 10 gets a 100 circumstance bonus to his acrobatics modifier, and even if we assume his base acrobatics modifier to be a generous +30, that still puts his average roll at 1d20 + 130 = roughly 140. That's 35 feet on average, which translates to about 3d6 extra damage to your attack, or 1d6~2d6 damage to opponents you drag down from the air. At mythic tier 10, when characters are practically demigods, both this extra damage and jump height seems rather non-sequential, especially since it requires one use of your mythic power.

Of course, being able to cover 140feet in horizontal distance is pretty mythical, but I don't think that's quite the point of this ability. :)

Thoughts?

So the perks of being a Mythic Vampire would overlap rather than stack with being a mythic character instead?

This template is such a cool idea (and I really loved the nod to the Legacy of Kain series!)

It sounds more like an 'either or' rather than an overlap. You either get the perks of being a mythic vampire or you get the perks of being a mythic character, but not both.

And yes, the template is probably one of my favorite parts in the document, even in flavor alone. :)

Immortal: Where do you reappear when you return? If my body can be reduced to ash and then my remains are dumped into the ocean, where do you end up? Usually baseline resurrection effects say something like, “1 mile from where you died” or the like. Also, this ability references, “mythic damage” but that term is not defined in the glossary in the front of the document.

Mythic Damage is defined in that little box on page 35, although a small blurb in the glossary would've been nice too.

Mythic Spells: Do you need to prepare the spell or merely have it in your spellbook in order to cast it? Does casting a mythic spell expend a prepared spell or spell slots?

Since the wording under the archmage section says 'spend your mythic power to cast that spell with enhanced results', I assume that you'll need to prepare that spell in the first place to 'enhance' it with your mythic power. The wording in the mythic spells chapter also supports this, 'The following spells have an enhanced effect if the caster expends one use of mythic power at the time of casting.'

To me, it seems like you're not really casting a 'mythic spell', you're casting one of the spells you prepared normally but enhancing it at the time of casting so that it becomes mythic. The spell slot is consumed as normal, presumably, unless you use other mythic abilities that save you from expending a spell slot.

Hey there,

Concerning this template, we are assuming that you are either a mythic vampire with ordinary class levels and no mythic path... or... a mythic character with a path with the ordinary vampire template. You can't have both.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

I see, thank you for the answer!

I can understand how choosing to keep ranks and tiers separate could avoid a whole lot of mess in the future, but it does bring up the interesting question of how different a mythic vampire fighter 15 and a normal vampire fighter 15 with some champion tiers can be - both on a mechanics level and a story level - and which one to choose when designing encounters.

Time to gather up some players, it seems.

Get well soon, James!

I'll keep an eye out for that Cthulhu stat block. :)

I seem to recall James Jacobs mentioning that he doesn't allow smite to bypass DR/epic and DR/-, but that's his own houserule.

As DM, I would agree with him, but as Marthian has stated, going by RAW would mean smite bypasses even DR/epic and DR/-.

First off, I'll say that I absolutely love some of the abilities that mythic vampires get as part of their template, and am already looking for possible critters to apply to the template to. However, I have a question regarding how to apply the template to a vampire who already has mythic tiers.

Let's say we have Tom, the human vampire fighter 15/champion 6. On a beautiful and not so sunny day, he comes across a powerful artifact that transforms him into a mythic vampire. In this case, Tom is technically CR17(assuming PC gear), but with 6 mythic tiers. How does this factor into calculating his total CR for the purposes of determining which abilities he gets from table 6-1? For argument's sake, let's say we assume it's still CR17 and assign him MR8 according to the table. Tom gets all the nice mythic vampire abilities till overcome weakness(invitation). Cool.

But because Tom has a mythic rank, I assume that puts him into the mythic subtype as well. The mythic subtype and mythic tiers offer many of the same bonuses, such as bonus HP and increases to ability scores. How do the bonuses from these two sources interact/stack/not stack? For example, Tom gets 5 bonus HP per champion tier, but also 10 bonus HP per MR. Similarly, Tom gets his champion tier(6) + probably str modifier in mythic power, but the mythic subtype dictates that Tom also gets 8 uses of his mythic power per day due to his MR. How are MR and mythic tiers intended do work together in cases like these? Are they meant to?

Woohoo indeed!

Nothing much can pry me away from coding, but this certainly is one of them!

You think that's a lot? My party in CC consists of a witch, bard, wizard and sorcerer. :)

Suffice to say we never had a problem making any knowledge checks. However, the DM does roll randomly for each individual that made the knowledge check to see what kind of information they get, and sometimes there will be overlaps. Sometimes me and the wizard can both beat the DC by 20 or more and just be unfortunate enough to not get that one piece of information.

Are the appraise rolls made in the open? As for appraise, to my understanding the appraise rolls are to be made in secret by the DM, who adds each individual's skill modifier to it. The final results of the roll are never revealed, the DM just tells us what each character thinks an item's worth.

One perk for finishing off a Tarrasque (aside from insane experience gains) is that you get to look like a badass tearing the skeleton out of a massive creature.

Creatures with more than 20HD cannot be made into skeletons via animate dead.

Interestingly enough, the same doesn't seem to apply to zombies, going by RAW.

I'm playing a Witch 12 Spherewalker 1 at the moment and I've only ever taken something other than Extra Hex twice. Evil Eye, Cackle, Misfortune and Slumber are definitely hexes you should get as early on as possible. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any feat at that level that can possibly even compare to those hexes.

What's your base wis score, by the way? As a half-elf witch, I've never found a problem with my perception bonus, no matter which level (it's currently standing at +35 with buffs). You do get Alertness if your familiar's at arm's length(and really, it should always be close to you anyways), Perceive Cues is a level 2 spell on the witch list that gives +5 to sense motive/perception, not to mention that you'll get heroism/greater heroism further down the road which is another +2/+4. On top of that, the crone form of Threefold Aspect(level 4) grants a +4 enchancement bonus to wisdom.

As a witch, you really shouldn't be too worried about having a low perception, especially when you're going Cosmopolitan and (I assume) turning perception into a class skill. :)

It would, at that. That's a pretty elegant solution, to be sure.

I only worry that it's eclipsed somewhat with Ice Tomb, which I've no choice but to take eventually. Still, the nonlethal option is nothing minor.

Ice Tomb and Slumber do target different saves, and that's always a good thing, considering that the witch class's save or suck is heavily based on will saves. I'd go for Slumber over Ice Tomb when I want to neutralize a giant, and vice versa if I want to keep that pesky wizard from raining fireballs down the battlefield. :)

Wait, Flight doesn't take a standard action to activate? I thought all hexes did unless they say otherwise.

Even if it is, it's STILL a really useful hex, of course.

It's worded as 'at 5th level, she can fly, as per the spell'. Flying, as described in the fly spell, is a move action. The hex didn't imply that the witch was using a standard action to cast/activate the fly spell, and that's how my DM and I decided to rule it.

I've thought about flight, but I'm not a fan of flying- I will probably get some boots of.levitation to seperate myself from melee, though.

As for healing, there's an NPC cleric that tags along, and so far my use of the nonmagical heal skill has been keeping us patched between encounters. I can also cast cure spells, so the party will soon invest in a wand.

Slumber is an interesting choice to advocate. At first glance, it seemed to have a lot of drawbacks, but taking someone out of the fight instantly is obviously a huge advantage I hadn't considered.

Again, though, I'm trying to shore up the party's weaker aspects (lack of charisma, subtelty) with as little effort as possible.

But evil eye is looking better and better. I may well settle on that instead of tongues.

Slumber is especially useful in your party because you have two melees that can coup de grace the enemy quite easily, and Jade Regent doesn't seem like a campaign filled to the brim with undead, unlike Carrion Crown. Even outside of combat, it's quite useful if you want to neutralize someone (say, a trouble-causing commoner or a guard doing his job that you need to sneak past) without resorting to lethal blows. This will probably cover a part of the 'lack of subtlety' you mentioned.

Sebastian Hirsch wrote:

Evil Eye - trust me.

I'm hearing a lot of Evil Eye, but it doesn't seem action efficient. A standard action for a -2 AC? The drunken master in my party is always dirty tricking people into being entangled. -2 saves? Misfortune is statistically better, and I'm the only one with common save-dependent abilities.

My concern is that, with such a small party, action economy is king. On the other hand, so is conserving resources. Though I'd like to hear your experience with it.

Even if the enemies make their saves, they still get affected by the hex, which can be then maintained indefinitely with cackle. At 8th level the penalty doubles, and with Split Hex the action economy eases up too. Unless my party is fighting a large group of monsters, it's practically always my first choice in battle.

It does get a little less useful at high levels(though my perception is skewed considering the campaign my witch in sees progressively more undead), but I would nonetheless consider it a staple hex for witches.

Otherwise, Flight is also an incredibly useful hex considering that it allows you to split up your flight time, effectively allowing you to fly for as many encounters as you have levels (unless Jade Regent regularly has encounters that go over 10 rounds), and doesn't require a standard action to activate.

Healing hex is also an option, as your party does not seem to have a dedicated healer. I play in an all-arcane caster party (me, wizard, sorcerer, bard...), and there hasn't been a single day when I didn't exhaust my healing hex on all party members.

Slumber needs to be mentioned too. At low levels it is essentially an encounter-ender against anything that's not immune to sleep effects. At higher levels it is still deadly against anything with a low will save (and even if they don't, you can always force them to with that -4 from Evil Eye). Some DMs might have problems with this hex though, as they tend to overestimate the power of it and overlook its drawbacks(only works against single/two targets, victim just needs an ally to spend a standard to wake him up).