Margrave's page

Great designer - you'll be missed!

My main concern and that which I’m trying to fix is still the trivialization of Mythic power. While that’s not a problem mechanically (as several of you have pointed out, there’s always a bigger fish), I consider it a thematical issue – and that’s entirely due to personal taste. So perhaps Mythic was not meant for me.
Shadowcat suggested I look into Hero Points and I did. The HP system does indeed seem like something more to my liking, but I really do like the overall theme of Mythic and I suppose I’m really seeking some hybrid system. However, such a system will be well and truly rooted in houserule territory and almost impossible to re-use in someone else’s campaign.
As such, I will probably just start experimenting with reduced Mythic power points, as per my earlier suggestion, and a slower recovery rate while being a little more generous with rewards for heroic action.
As for the CR, it seems there’s no unanimous view regarding that (only that there’s something wrong) So I’ll just do what DM’s do: play it by ear.
On closer inspection, it seems very difficult to apply a ‘cover-all’ set of rules to MA to accomodate lower-level play where the heroes are Mythic, but the Mythic challenges are rare and uniquely climactic. That might have been the reason this play style is not really fully covered in the book in the first place.
If nothing else, this thread has encouraged people to take a closer look at the new rules (which, I’ll repeat once more, are pretty good overall) and may have sparked some ideas for those who wish to use the material to run something a little more low-profile.
If I do manage to come up with anything solid though, I’ll post it here – but taking into account a generous amount of playtesting, that will take a while.

When the party is mythic, they can face tougher encounters without being a higher level.

I suggest try playing the rules as is. Because I know for a fact that you have not. You were asking just a few days ago if mythic power refreshed everyday.

Marthkus,

I've run a campaign (still am) over several months, taking players up to level 4, tier 2, using the playtest doc.
When I bought MA, I was a little surprised to see that the powers per day had increased, instead of reduced, since in my experience it was hard enough to keep things challenging as well as believable.
I therefore sought advice on whether or not I had been reading the rules correctly concerning the refresh, which I had.

So, no - you do not know this 'for a fact.'

Kindly stay on topic.

How about we begin by asking the following and see what comes out? :

1) Have you already played or run a Mythic campaign using the playtest doc?

2) If so, what ‘level adjustment’ would you perceive makes up for a single Mythic Tier?

3) As the players accumulate levels and/or tiers, do you suppose the level adjustment needs to increase as well?

For me personally:
1 - Yes, I have.
2 - I thought +1 per tier wasn't really enough, but then again I believe +2 would be too much.
3 - I don't know. I've not advanced the players beyond Tier 2 and at that point, a +2 adjustment in total seemed ok, if perhaps not enough as mentioned above.

Margrave wrote:

Steve Geddes wrote:

It occurs to me also that part of the problem might be the concentration of four mythic beings in one party. I'm planning on running an AP as is with two mythic PCs to see how that plays. (Doesn't really help you if you do have four players, of course, but I wonder if that's part of the problem you're having).

That seems hard to do... Wouldn't the 'normal' players feel left out?

I mean in a group of two players only. One of the design goals for mythic (at least at one point) was for a smaller group, possibly even one PC, to be able to play an AP "as written".

Oh, I see! Hm - maybe that might even make it easier. I've the feeling that under the current rules a few tiers in Mythic can easily compensate for a 'missing' PC. Just a hunch though.

I think the CR conversion is problematic.

It is. Adjusting power / frequency can be done almost to suit personal taste. But assigning CR to that is where I see the issues crop up.

It occurs to me also that part of the problem might be the concentration of four mythic beings in one party. I'm planning on running an AP as is with two mythic PCs to see how that plays. (Doesn't really help you if you do have four players, of course, but I wonder if that's part of the problem you're having).

That seems hard to do... Wouldn't the 'normal' players feel left out?

Margrave wrote:

First of all, let me explain why I’m posting this: I am very, very disappointed with Mythic Adventures. I’ll try to explain why in as short an amount of text as possible.

Your point, DM?

crafting a mythic campaign with the right mix of mythic and non-mythic enemies is quite challenging, and I am quite interested what Paizo will do with the current AP.

...and that's all this is about. :-)

Margrave wrote:

I am very, very disappointed with Mythic Adventures. I’ll try to explain why in as short an amount of text as possible.

And allow me to point out why I am replying. In some places your bias against MA blinds you to a few things and in others you flat lie to make the book look bad. Now I haven't read anyone else's responses, I'll do that after I post, so they may have already called you out on some of this, and if so, good, you deserve to be called out.

Shadowcat, please read the other posts first, lest we start sidetracking and nitpicking about little things here. At this point, I just want to state two things:

1) I LIKE Mythic! It's a good book and I'm not biased at all. I AM disappointed that it does not cater to my play style and merely wish to rake up a discussion to see how we can fix that. i.e. how we can accomodate something EXTRA - not take away.

2) If you want to aid in accomodating a lower-level Mythic option (as apparently several people have agreed would be nice to have) your opinion is very welcome. If you're here to nitpick about the book's layout (so, OK, Boons is not a chapter) or simply advocate that since the book is called Mythic, everyone should adhere to a superhero play style or stay away and shut the hell up, that's all far from helpful and beside the current point.

Yup - I agree! Still, if you call a resource 'Mythic' it does not seem fitting that you can spend it almost thoughtlessly on trivial encounters. I'm sure there's a sweet spot to be found somewhere and the idea of having a single point at your disposal every day (with more to follow as you accumulate Tiers) seems like a good starting point to me. The players are almost certain to spend that point during the adventuring day, but they will carefully consider when they will do that. And when the decision does fall, it's a special moment.

I believe the book recommends something along the lines of '1 Tier every two levels' I didn't think that was a bad guideline to start with, but I suppose you could even slow it down further. Still, I'd like my players to eventually reach Tier 10, so I would personally prefer lowering the power output per Tier and gradually compensating with the challenges without having to go overboard.

I haven't actually tested it yet, but from a read-through I'm also very worried that it just brings things too far over the top.

My players will be 12 soon, so they're already very hard to challange, if I add even a single Mythic Tier on them, it will probably get completely out of hand.

I was thinking making these adjustments to it.
a) You don't get your full Mythic Points restored on a rest, but only when you level up.

b) You get one Mythic point for doing something amazing, subject to GM ruling. This will probably happen a bit more often than the Boons mentioned above, but not often enough that they can count on it happening all the time. Coming up with ingenious plans to solve a situation in a completely different way than they were planned. Etc. If what you did was something absolutely unbelievable you might get two points or probably even something else. (This is usually on a player by player basis)

c) MAYBE give them a single point for each day of rest back. I'm not sure about this yet.

d) If a Mythic Power turns out to be overpowered compared to other powers, it might cost 2 or even 3 points to use.

I think that might make Mythic abilities and so a bit more "special" and not something you can easily burn through before going to rest.

I thought about using points A and B together as well, while keeping the current amount of Mythic Points per tier (i.e. 5 at 1st, 7 at 2nd etc). It's an idea that seems equally workable to me, from a mechanical point of view, but I was worried that the PCs would hang on to their points too long and thus miss out on a lot of cool stuff they can do.

Concerning C: I'm still thinking about this also. Maybe the resting requirement is a bit too easy also. You might link this to a Mythic flaw / dependency. For instance, the dependency on fresh blood. If you have consumed some today, you refresh your point. If not, then no.

D: At first glance I thought that simply reducing the power points / day sufficed to lower the powerlevel to the point where I considered it palatable. I'm not too keen on rewriting too many things from the book (that's an awful lot of houserules to keep track of if you're not careful) but I might end up making changes as well, if they're still needed...

Thanks for your input!

Let me start by saying: I agree with most of what you said.

Margrave wrote:

Mythic Rocketship... err... I mean ‘Adventures’. Also has a chapter devoted to Mythic Boons. A Mythic Boon is a reward you receive for performing an act of Mythic proportions. To name but a few:

- Exceed the DC of a skill check by 20 or more
- Defeat a Mythic creature who is at full hit points in a single blow
- Score three critical hits in a row without failing an attack roll.

All pretty much entirely luck-based and unlikely to happen. Still, when it DOES happen, I agree that the PC has indeed committed an act of epic proportions. So, what does he get, you wonder?

One Mythic Power point.

This part is not entirely correct.

Mythic Vital Strike will one-shot any mythic opponent that does not have specific defenses.

You're absolutely correct.

magnuskn wrote:

CR design for normal adventuring is completely and utterly broken after levels 9-11, by the way.

Isn't everything completely and utterly broken after levels 9-11? And hasn't that always been that way since 2000?

IMHO it's not really broken in the normal game, per se. It's just that, at lower levels, there are less variables involved and CR will usually provide a good indication of what your characters can handle.

That does not make it completely broken - only less and less useful as a DM tool in later levels. I'd define 'broken' as completely and utterly incapable of producing correct results and that's not necessarily the case here. Unless you pour Mythic into the mix ;-)

Have these mythic points be extremely precious make it more special and more mythic IMHO. the players then have to think twice to use it against the troll king and save their lives.

Thanks for responding to the topic Major Longhorn! ;-)

I think it would be a good alternative to the high-powered version, but I'm still a bit conflicted on how to calculate CR when the Mythic PCs are thusly nerfed.

+1CR per Tier is a big step away from the original +1 per 2 Tiers, especially considering the power points have been drastically reduced. Still, it feels right enough, but I haven't done the math yet.

Wolf Joshua makes an excellent point of considering action economy, but that seems a lot of work to do for each and every encounter. I'd much rather use a more-or-less accurate CR system and adjudicate the challenge ad hoc by experience.

EDIT: Again, I'm not looking to change the rules so that those people who want to play superheroes can't do that anymore - I just want to expand them to accomodate lower-key Mythic Campaigns. Options are a great thing to have in PFRPG!

Yeah, well. If there is one thing I have been constantly vocal about during my years here, it is about how much I dislike Paizo's prevalence for dungeons and too many combat encounters per day over roleplaying scenarios in their AP's. And that I want a Swashbuckler base class. And that Mikaze is awesome. Well, dammit, that are three things already.

But, back on topic, I kinda do hope that their solution for a mythic AP isn't "10 encounters back to back every day", because then the next modules will be very, very combat-heavy and combats take so much longer to play out than roleplaying scenarios. :-/

Personally, I really like dungeons as an environment :-) It's the number of combat encounters that tends to be bothersome, as you do mention yourself. And I'm afraid that challenging Mythic characters in the current rules might very well lead to combat-heavy scenario's - I really fail to see any other option for them right now.

I'm curious, it's been forever since I read through the Mythic playtest document. How much did they change from that to the final printing? I know amazing initiative changed dramatically, did anything else?

Just a quick overview:

Some powers have been scaled or toned down a bit (the powers in themselves are not bad actually!). You get a lot more uses of Mythic Power per day though. Then there's some new feats, new spells, Mythic treasure,Nasty Mythic Monsters...

It's really neat, basically - if only they would've added the option of toning things down a bit it would be excellent.

Edit: Oh, and 'To the Death' has been pretty much nerfed. Finally :-)

But as you said yourself, if it's a real concern for you... drop the amount of mythic power the characters get a bit and it seems like that solves most of your issues?

Whoops - I missed this one.

I'm curious about that also...
The adventure included at the back of the book already set an example. And while it looked pretty amazing, I can see myself struggling to come up with bigger, better, harder, faster stuff each time...

I can definitely see how the balancing of encounters might completely ruin suspension of disbelief.

"Hello level 1 commoner. I am sorry I was late, I had to kill three different red dragons, plus this one group of black dragons, while I was walking to get my groceries. How was your trip?"

With the sheer density of challenges you have to throw, it is hard to believe normal humans could live in the same world at all as the mythic characters.

Now, this might not entirely be a bad thing with their packaged system. I am not entirely familiar with Wrath of the Righteous, but I have read enough fluff about other plains. When reading about dark pits like the Abyss or alien lands like Leng, I could never imagine a mortal man even attempting to explore the areas since one can stumble over nests of insane beasts that hurt your head to even look at, each with a high CR over every corner. But a party of mythic characters tasked with exploration and domination?

Well, if we are on a rocket ship, we might as well go to the stars, right? You will miss out on some of the more human elements though. And I agree, that can lose out of a lot of the flavor. Trying to recapture that might either run the risk of using only stock stereotype or trivializing the creature's inhuman natures (Drinking tea with Cthulhu basically)

I agree - that would work! Point in fact is that I don't really want my players to take off to distant worlds yet, but it could be a very good Mythic Story arc.

I suppose what I don't really get here is how it's trivial? I guess I'm not getting the meaning of what you're trying to say.

It's trivial since the powers are used thoughtlessly. PCs will happily squander Mythic Points since they'll simply get more the next day and start out with an obscene amount anyway.

DM, yours is a comment I've come across several times when voicing a particular concern or gripe regarding the Mythic rules elsewhere.

As I've explained in my lengthy post, your view is not wrong. As I understand, you're perfectly alright with the idea that a Mythic Campaign is meant to be a rocketship ride. And there's nothing wrong with that view or play style.

But the point is: I'm NOT a fan of that. I bought a book which promised me repeatedly that it was not the high-powered fiasco of Epic d20 and that it would enable DMs to tell the tale of low-level characters who slowly advance to become legends.
There's entire paragraphs in the book devoted to 'enabling' this specific style of play, where Mythic Power is rare and the PCs are special. That's what I bought, that's what I came for.

To find out that's pretty much nonsense and that the system - as is - will in fact NOT work at all, unless you make everything Mythic did make me feel a little cheated, to be honest.
I signed up for Hercules, not Dragonball Z...

You say it does not suit all play styles and that giving Tiers to L1 characters is not really recommended. I agree. The problem is that the book explicitly states that it DOES support all play styles and it's FINE to add Tiers to pretty much anything.

Instead of going on to gripe about this on the Rules fora (I did ask for some clarifications there, but I don't intend to rant and rave about how I think it's not 'right'), I decided to outline my concerns here under advice in order to forewarn DMs who wish to run a Mythic Campaign to either adjust their expectations, or join in discussion on how to properly house-rule the thing so it does support this preferred (and advertised) style of play.

Mythic is meant to be over the top. And I agree with that. But I'm sure it's not meant to be trivial.

First of all, let me explain why I’m posting this: I am very, very disappointed with Mythic Adventures. I’ll try to explain why in as short an amount of text as possible.

To use an analogy of sorts, say that your current Campaign is a Volkswagen – a dependable, versatile vehicle that gets you from A to B (in other words, it gets you through the story)

Now, Mythic Adventures is pure rocket fuel. It says on the tin that you can safely pour it into your Volkswagen and watch the magic happen. So let’s say you bite and chuck the rocket fuel in the gas tank.
Sure enough, you’ll be in for a wild ride and have lots of fun! But your car isn’t going to last...

Naturally, there are going to be people reading this post and saying “That’s complete nonsense – Mythic works fine with me!” And I’m sure it does. But those are the people (we continue here with our little analogy) who have traded in their Volkswagen for an actual rocket ship, which runs on rocket fuel. And what does a rocket ship do? It goes thousands of miles per hour in a straight line and takes you to the stars at breakneck speed while you leave the normal world behind entirely. And that is what Mythic Adventures does. You either sign up for the power trip campaign where it’s all taken to the next level, or you don’t and you end up with a car wreck.

Permit me to explain in a little more detail here. I do not have a problem with the Mythic abilities being overpowered. After all, this is Mythic Adventures, it’s supposed to be high-powered. What bothers me to no end, however, is that the powers are all but trivial to use.

As famously quoted by a certain superhero: “With great power comes great responsibility.” I’ve always liked that theme. Take Clerics, for example. They are allowed a small modicum of divine power, but are restricted to using it responsibly, lest they anger the Divine and lose their powers altogether. Or Paladins, whose tenets are even more restrictive. Heck, even Wizards are kept in check by the need to keep spellbooks, ingredients and all – they owe respect to the art of Wizardry, you might say. Now I imagined that Mythic Power (cue children’s choir) would have a similar caveat to encourage responsible use. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Each day, Mythic characters gain a pool of ‘power points’. How much? Three plus double their Mythic Tier. That’s 5 points right from the onset, all the way up to 23 points at the high end of the scale. Consider now that these points fuel the really neat powers – those who can really turn around encounters. Even the most lowly Mythic characters (assuming a party of four) have 20 of these to spend each day. And they don’t even need to do anything to get them. When was the last time you threw over five respectable encounters at the party each day? Unless you keep the pressure on 24/7 (and that means you’re flying a rocket ship!) there is no way you’ll be able to deplete the party’s power points before they refresh at the start of the next day – let alone present them with continually believable challenges.

So, If you were hoping to hear something like this at the table:
“OK, we’ve wounded the Mythic Troll King and he seems staggered. Should I use my Mythic Ability now or wait until we really need it? Oooh – this is so exciting – I can’t decide!”

Forget it. Prepare instead for something like this:
“OK, I still have four points of Mythic Power left for today and we’re nearly in the city anyway. I’m going to use them all on those two kobolds for a bit of fun. Whee!

There’s nothing wrong with you if you think that the second situation sounds like fun. It IS fun. But it can hardly be called Mythic, can it? Some of you might argue that the DM should, in this case sic some bandits or monsters on them in the city to ‘punish’ the players for flaunting their powers. As soon as you, as a DM, agree to step into such an arms race, however, you are boarding the rocket ship and mumbling good-byes to your good old Volkswagen campaign.

I’ll say it again: the problem is not the powers. The problem is that they can be used so trivially that it all becomes a joke.

On the meaninglessness of rewards

Mythic Rocketship... err... I mean ‘Adventures’. Also has a chapter devoted to Mythic Boons. A Mythic Boon is a reward you receive for performing an act of Mythic proportions. To name but a few:
- Exceed the DC of a skill check by 20 or more
- Defeat a Mythic creature who is at full hit points in a single blow
- Score three critical hits in a row without failing an attack roll.

All pretty much entirely luck-based and unlikely to happen. Still, when it DOES happen, I agree that the PC has indeed committed an act of epic proportions. So, what does he get, you wonder?

One Mythic Power point.

Oh.
Go on – re-read that bit and count em. One. It’s completely and utterly pointless. Say we’re back in the Mythic Troll-King’s chambers and the Fighter somehow manages to land three crits in a row. The whole table gasps in awe as that final threat confirmation comes up a nat twenty and the DM grants the PC a Mythic Power point. Cool. What’s he supposed to do with it? In all likelihood, the Troll-King is now very, very dead. It was probably the final climactic encounter in the adventure, right before the heroes collect the loot and rest up. Remember how you automatically regain all of your power points every day? That Boon was meaningless.
Of course, this might be the sort of Campaign where the Mythic Troll King was only defending the door to the chambers of the Troll Emperor who bursts into the room seconds later... But then I dare say you’re flying a rocketship through a galaxy chock-full of Mythic Monsters. And as we all know: if everyone’s special, no-one is.

I’m nearly at the end of this litany now, so if you’ve stuck with me this long, you might as well read the final bit.

Mixing it up: Mythic PC’s in an ordinary world.

In short, the book boldly states: “You can do this, and it will be fine!” In other words, the text on the tin says that it’s entirely safe to pour rocket fuel into your Volkswagen. I’m here to tell you that that’s a bad idea.

The reasoning according to the designers is simple:” Mythic Ranks fit right into the CR system.” Har-har! Seriously guys - pull the other one!

Now hold up for a bit: I like the current CR system. It provides fairly accurate, at-a-glance information on how encounters might go. It’s simple and flexible. Of course, if you’ve played Pathfinder at all, you know it can be broken in several ways. Abusing templates, exploiting certain combinations etcetera. However, that potential for abuse does not make CR a bad system. Let’s continue.

The math goes like this: for every two Mythic Tiers a character has, add +1 to its Challenge Rating.

Excuse me?

Let’s take a closer look, shall we? I’m DM’ing for a party of 4 first level adventurers tonight and I’m going to have them face off with 4 average encounters with 4 Mythic NPCs, one at a time. To keep things simple, we’re making four 1st-level Fighters with two Mythic Tiers. A 1st-level Fighter is a CR1/2 encounter. So, bumping that up by a point to account for Mythic Tiers, we’ve got a CR1 encounter; a perfectly average fight that should cost the party around 20% of their resources. No biggie. Or so, they would have you believe...

I’m not even looking at the stats, not looking for loopholes or obscure synergies to beef up these guys. All I’m doing is giving them their standard allotment of Mythic Power points – 7, if you remember correctly – and two Mythic Path abilities. In fact, let’s just give them one ability (to keep things ‘fair’). That ability would be Absorb Blow and its as common and obvious a choice as, for example, the Power Attack feat. Only without any prerequisites.
What have we created? That would be a CR 1 encounter with in excess of 80 hit points! Absorb Blow is a little bit of awesome that allows you to ignore up to 10 points of damage from a single source at the cost of a single Mythic Power point. Also, it gives you DR1/epic for a full minute afterwards. Yes, our CR1 Mythic Fighter NPC can pull that neat little trick 7 times a day (naturally, he’ll blow it all on a single encounter), effectively giving him over 80 hit points! If the party manages to defeat him, they’ll gain 400xp for their troubles. His three buddies are waiting down the road, by the way.

It doesn’t take a genius to spot that this is just sloppy design. It’s bad math. Worst of all, it can’t be countered. What are you going to do? Toss in more Mythic monsters? Prepare for takeoff!

So, is Mythic Adventures a complete waste of time and money?

Well, no – I believe there’s stuff to be salvaged. Here’s four bits of advice to make it work if you wish to run a long-term Mythic Campaign in an ordinary world where the heroes are special, but they are also challenged and choices are hard. If you prefer the inexorable powertrip rollercoaster ride, the book is fine for you.

1) Reduce the maximum amount of Mythic Power points per day to HALF the character’s Tier, with a minimum of 1. So, A 1st Tier Character has a single point and doesn’t gain an extra point until Tier 3. I’m willing to bet they’ll treat those powers as special now. Don’t forget to make the same adjustment for Mythic Monsters.

2) Characters regain a single point of Mythic Power after a minimum of 8 hours of rest. The rest is mandatory and cannot be circumvented by other powers and abilities that allow you to regain ability uses without rest. That means a 6th-Tier character will need to rest at least 3 days in order to fully regain his 3 Mythic Power points if they were expended.

3) Remove the ‘mythic’ requirement from all Boon conditions. The only requirement is that the foe has a CR above the character’s ADJUSTED level (see below)

4) Consider that each Mythic Tier possessed by a creature adjusts its CR by +1. So, A 1st level/1st Tier character is CR 1. A 3rd Level/2nd Tier character is CR 4.

What we’ve done here is diluting the rocket fuel a little, so we can still drive our trusty, sturdy, proven, Volkswagen campaign through the world, only this time it goes quite a bit faster and has an awesome little flame coming from the tailpipe.
It might still blow up if the mechanic (aka the DM) doesn’t give it a regular checkup, but overall, you’re good to go now.

Hope this was useful to you. Feed-back is welcome.

From MA
Legendary Hero (Su): At 10th tier, you have reached the
height of mortal power. You regain uses of your mythic
power at the rate of one use per hour, in addition to
completely refreshing your uses each day.

I think that could prove , that they are supposed to refresh each day. It seems, they had to add this as a reminder, that regaining a mythic power (I just decided to use MP as for it in future) per hour does not replace the normal refreshing.

Ambrosia:
Eating this food
takes 1 minute, and when the meal is done, the consumer
regains all her uses of mythic power for the day.

That refers to MP per day too, I haven't found a source that the heroes have to rest to regain their MP, but it could just be like spell like abilities (which do not require rest IRRC)

Thanks for clarifying Sebastian - that does indeed prove to me that, by the book, PC's regain their full allotment of Mythic Power on a daily basis.

That leaves me wondering if the proposed CR system is not terribly, horribly wrong and Mythic Adventures has a far narrower scope than advertised (You either make it all Mythic and it works, or you don't, and it doesn't. Of course, if everyone is special, no-one is :-))

Still, that's a discussion to be had elsewhere.

Your example provides nothing except evidence that the system can be abused to generate encounters of inappropriate difficulty.

Much like templates.

True, Artanthos. But this is pretty much standard fare. I'm hardly TRYING to stage a difficult encounter here. It looks like sloppy design to me.

Another thing that seems to me to point in the direction of 'earned' MP... Say you're playing a 1st level Fighter with 2 Tiers in Guardian.

According to the rules, you are considered a Level 2 character (Class levels + half your Tiers). That equals a CR 1 encounter, appropriate (average) for a party of 4 Level 1 characters.

Still with me? OK.

Consider this NPC Guardian has the Absorb Blow Mythic ability (and some more stuff as well, of course) and an automatic FULL complement of 7 Mythic Power every day...

Your level 1 party is now facing one dude with effectively 80+ hit points (ignore 10hp 7/day + max hit die + CON, whatever that is)

...and that's an average encounter? Shy'a, right.

As it's explained in the book that the point of Mythic is NOT to run Mythic vs Mythic campaigns, this conclusion - to me - grants credence to the idea that Mythic Power points ought to be intended as rare rewards, not automatic daily gains.

Well once recuperation becomes available, you could have adventures where the players never get those 8 hours of rest.

That brings up another interesting point, actually... Do Mythic PCs need rest to recover Mythic Power? The rules make no mention of any requirements here.

I could run them through non-stop gauntlets of terror 24/7, yes - but I believe that will become tedious for both them and me very fast. It's mentioned somewhere in the book that in order to provoke the sense of 'Mythic' the GM should include plenty of common situations to make the Mythic components really stand out.

This bit of design ethos is another thing which makes me suspect Mythic Power points might be intended to be rarer than I assumed at first.

Haven't looked into the Metamagic combo yet, but your veto seems to hold water from what I remember.

The words "Each day you can expend ....." is pretty clear to me. The fact that you can regain mythic power via other means is covered below that, to indicate that you can never regain more than your maximum.

That's exactly how I read it in the first place, but I've learned from the messageboards that sometimes, a rule's true meaning is not that obvious...

The main things that caused me to suspect that MP might need to be 'won' instead of gained automatically are as I mentioned earlier the boons and artifacts. If MP points are easily regained by a day's rest, I can't imagine players going for these - it makes that which would seem heroic and legendary rather trivial.

The rule could mean that no matter how many MP you amass, you have a maximum to spend per day - though I agree that is a bit of a stretch...

Margrave wrote:

Hi there!

No, your movement isn't stopped, even if the AoO hits.

Incorrect. Your movement is stopped the instant you fail the Acrobatics check, regardless of the outcome of the AoO.

pfsrd wrote:

If you attempt to move through an enemy’s space and fail the check, you lose the move action and provoke an attack of opportunity.

I stand corrected - missed the 'acrobatics' part somehow and assumed regular movement. D'oh!

Whoa! Hold on: So, that makes - in the case of a sword - quadruple bonus damage? As in:

Base: 1d8(sword)+4(18 STR)+2(2H-weapon)+4(Mythic PA with 2H-weapon BaB <4)

On a crit, that would make:

2d8+8+4+16?!

Or would it follow the general guideline for multiplying (add +1 to the highest factor)to get:

2d8+8+4+12?

I assume it's the former, which is a big ouch, certainly at higher levels :-)

Hi there!
No, your movement isn't stopped, even if the AoO hits.

Edit: As Lord Pendragon pointed out, this is plain wrong. Nothing to see here, shoo!

Aha! I had not noticed that the wording on that had changed since the playtest doc. Thanks for pointing it out!

Just a quick question:

I always assumed the damage bonus from Power Attack was doubled, since it's neither precision damage, nor an extra damage die granted by a weapon.

However, the Mythic Power attack feat explicitly states that the bonus damage IS doubled on a crit.

Can anyone clarify?

According to the rules, Mythic Characters can:

"draw upon a wellspring of power to accomplish amazing deeds and cheat fate. This power is used by a number of different abilities. Each day, you can expend an amount of Mythic power equal to 3 plus double your Mythic tier. This amount is your maximum amount of Mythic power. If an ability allows you to regain uses of your Mythic power, you can never have more than this amount."

Now, I've run the playtest and I thought 3+(#Tier) power per day was plenty cool already.

Then I started re-reading this bit. Nowhere does it say that you automatically gain your full complement of Mythic power points every day.

Hm. Could it be so?

I looked into similar 'refresh points'-type powers in the rules. Grit points, spells per day,... you name it. They all have the specific instruction to '(re)gain X at time Y'.

Furthermore, there's the mechanic of Mythic boons to regain Mythic power uses and certain Mythic artifacts that can leech Mythic power with a succesful hit 1-5 times a day.

Interpreting the Mythic power refresh as automatic, these rules seem pretty trivial to me. In the campaign I'm running, I had trouble depleting the player's arsenal of power points each day, which stood at a mere 4. Sure, you can always chuck in more encounters, but that would have seemed contrived.

So anyway, this got me thinking. Have we been playing this the wrong way? Regardless, I believe the wording here should be adapted to explicitly state the way Mythic Power is refreshed, one way or the other.

Different views :-)

Of course I would also prefer to have a solid ruleset (which is why I'm interested in following this thread) but I'm not sure whether it's going to happen. Still, some great points are being made on both sides.

Carry on, chaps!

Malachi, I get what you're saying here - I do.

But consider that the scientific method applies only to science or things that can be considered science. Civil law isn't science, for instance and neither is the PFRPG rulebook.

So yes, you are correct when you infer the creation of imaginary hands and when you point out the confusion and lack of consistency the ruling causes. I agree that it's not pretty and the picture doesn't quite fit anymore.

Then again, there are plenty of other potential problems like this one -the rules are good, but they aren't perfect. Rather than address every single issue in depth, I tend to agree with Crash_00's idea. That 'solution' might not fit the rules (and we thus agree it's not 'correct') but it works. Until the system gets a complete overhaul (and I hope that never happens, since that will create even bigger problems) I'm happy to work with this.

All that effort might not be worth the ideal solution you're aiming for here.

I read it more as being a caveat, specific to this particular situation (A. spikes and THF). Implying that the situation gives rise to the general rule / assumption of imaginary hands seems to (needlessly?) overcomplicate things.

the ruling makes sense if you can reconcile that armor spikes require a hand to use.

My thoughts exactly - that little thing seems to be the real core of the issue.

I imagine that using armour spikes together with THF is an action that requires mental/physical resources equal to the use of the off-hand. In other words, it can't be done according to this ruling.

I don't think any character concept "breaks the theme of the game". It might push its boundaries if the build is closer to a completely different genre, such as sci-fi or spaghetti western...

But the examples you mentioned are examples of fantasy, even if they deviate from the norm.

Creating unorthodox character concepts is fun, and IMO, keeps "fantasy" fantastic. When you limit yourself to a few "main" concepts, fantasy becomes more limited, more restrictive, less extraordinary and thus, less fantastic.

At least, that's how I see it...

Sure, I can't say you're wrong - it's just personal taste, that's all. I just perceive a proliferation of special builds and exotic characters while I would personally prefer these to be rarer. Again, that's just my idea and I admit it sounds more like a whine. ;-)

Back on-topic: some combo of monk and barbarian seems like the way to go to me also (ignoring alignment restrictions) but I'm not very good at optimizing builds... Greater minds will help you out here.

Mikaze wrote:

Margrave wrote:

lemeres wrote:

If I might make a suggestion, how about this: Martial Artist Monk 1/ Invulnerable Rager Barbarian x

You can't do that. Monks are supposed to be Lawful, while Barbarians are anything but Lawful.

The Martial Artist monk archetype can be any alignment.

And you can always change alignment too... >:D

I see I spoke too soon here...

If I might make a suggestion, how about this: Martial Artist Monk 1/ Invulnerable Rager Barbarian x

You can't do that. Monks are supposed to be Lawful, while Barbarians are anything but Lawful.

You're getting into houserule territory, but there is something in either the bestiary or maybe CRB that touches on figuring out stat blocks. I want to say you subtract 10 or 11 from the score (or if below that you are looking at penalties), but am not 100% sure on this.

I'm pretty sure Skylancer's right here: I've read somewhere that all Monster scores start off from a base 10,10,10,11,11,11 allocation before racial adjustments are factored in. Exactly how the 10's and 11's are allocated is anyone's guess, I'm afraid.

I believe it's a typo. It should be +2 on CMB checks flat, but who knows. This is one of those when it's really hard to guess what the writer meant.

I agree. I don't think the rules were intended to work like that.

"If there was a +4 bonus, it would just say so."

Margrave wrote:

Lemmy wrote:

Except for the fact that many real world martial arts use 2-handed weapons with kicks, elbow strikes and even the occasional shoulder slam.

Have spikes on the ends of these limbs wouldn't get in the way of your attack if you're trained in using them (i.e.: Armor Spike weapon proficiency)

Sure, that's true enough. But I prefer simplicity as well. You could also argue that, given six seconds time, a Fighter could easily get an attack with his greatsword, another with shoulder spikes, two knee attacks, one kick and a headbutt.

It's not that he can't do it. Maybe my Fighter actually does all that during the combat round and the net atk/dam is just represented by a single die roll. He simply does not have the mental and physical resources for each of those attacks to have a noticeable effect on the combat that round.

I can understand you preference for simplicity and distaste for Greatsword + Armor Spikes... I have no problem with that...

What I really don't understand is this sentiment of "I don't like this, therefore, it should be banned" that so many posters seem to have. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying or even implying you are one of them... Only that's such way of thinking is sadly way too common around here...

People who want too see Ninjas, Gunslingers or whatever removed from the game because they don't like. Not because it's unbalanced, not because it's problematic, but simply because it's not their personal taste.

This is what annoys me in these "this should be banned" discussions... People who want everyone to lose an option just because it doesn't fit their personal preference, as if said option were being forced on them...

IMHO, unless something is too powerful, it shouldn't be nerfed or removed. If you don't like something, just ignore it. Don't try to stop others from using it.

Oh, we're on the same page here!

Well, I have my TWF player commit to his attacks before rolling them. So, yes, you roll em one after the other, but you make the attacks against the target(s) you declared before the round. I thought that's how it was supposed to work (makes sense to me) but I'm not sure that's the official way to do things.
Anyway, the kicking or kneeing could be done; I'm just saying that the two-handed fighter doing the kicking is spreading himself too thin that round for the kick to add anything extra to the outcome.
Not trying to antagonize or anything, just sharing my views - I do realize they're not gospel ;-)

Except for the fact that many real world martial arts use 2-handed weapons with kicks, elbow strikes and even the occasional shoulder slam.

Have spikes on the ends of these limbs wouldn't get in the way of your attack if you're trained in using them (i.e.: Armor Spike weapon proficiency)

Sure, that's true enough. But I prefer simplicity as well. You could also argue that, given six seconds time, a Fighter could easily get an attack with his greatsword, another with shoulder spikes, two knee attacks, one kick and a headbutt.

It's not that he can't do it. Maybe my Fighter actually does all that during the combat round and the net atk/dam is just represented by a single die roll. He simply does not have the mental and physical resources for each of those attacks to have a noticeable effect on the combat that round.

Every single rule is an abstraction. The realism involves providing a believable rationale that supports the rules.
So, yes, I imagine PC's moving about in their 5-foot squares each rounds, frantically jabbing, stabbing and slashing at one another instead of two dudes just standing there, trading a single blow every six seconds.
Likewise, I don't mind the ruling here, stating you can't use spikes as an off-hand attack together with your greatsword.
The rationale I use is this: your brain only has so much processing power to do two things at once. If one of those things requires lots of effort (strength), things get even more difficult. Having two hands perform different actions at the same time can be taxing enough - throwing in a kick / body check /whatever only compounds that.
To me, that's enough of an explanation to support and lend realism to what I think is a pretty good ruling.
Naturally, your mileage may vary.

*edit: I share Mathmuse's views on this one*

*holds can of worms while blackbloodtroll proceeds opening it up* ;-)

For what it's worth, I think Midnight_Angel's interpretation seems more correct. The rules for spectral hand specifically state 'a melee touch attack' while other spells use the term 'ranged touch attack'. Thematically, there's a difference between throwing stuff and controlling stuff and the wording in the rules seems to suggest the same.

I'm not arguing that you can't make a case for the 'it's all a ranged attack' interpretation, but I think it's more of a stretch than just assuming the (to me, at least) most logical version.

If it helps clarify things, I've noticed that several NPC wizards from the NPC codex possess the feats Point-Blank shot, Precise Shot, and WF (ray). So at least that seems to confirm that ranged spells are subject to the benefits of these ranged feats.

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/npcCodex/core/wizard.html