Sprain Ogre's page

Who are you?
What do you want?
Why are you here?
Where are you going?

I'd have much rather seen kobolds in the new core than goblins. Seems like this might decrease their utility as fun and crazed enemies to fight.

Thank you so much, Gilfalas. And to the Starfinder/Paizo folks, these are some great looking sheets!

Wrath is weird. While you could certainly beat it with fewer mythic tiers, too few will be slashing your own throat. Good luck.

I was expecting Jade Regent or shattered Star to be the next AP they would turn into an audio drama. Not upset that it's going to be Mummy's Mask, just a little surprised is all. Also happy to see the run time for each has been doubled. If there was a weakness in the Rise of the Runelords series, it was that they had to fit so much into hour-long episodes. Especially with the later volumes of the AP (I think some really aggressive reworking of the entire second half of the AP would have been needed to make them fit into each episode's hour run time). But with double the time, and almost certainly some careful editing, I think this will be a good one. I think I'll subscribe to this over the weekend (when I can be on MY computer, not a work computer! lol) I'm glad to see Rise did well enough to justify a second season with a longer format!

To sum up: as some unsolicited feedback, the shift to two hour episodes is a big part of my decision to subscribe to Mummy's Mask. Rise was okay, but felt rushed and cramped in the last few volumes. :)

And no, I don't remember what horrible trickery the wizard used to get silence on his spell list. But I signed off on it when it came up, so he must have figured it out somehow. *shrug*

If you do allow foe biting an undetectable for the baddies, I'd advise using them both sparingly (especially since you banned it for PC's).

Let's see here, the Thursday Night SWAT team was made up of a half-orc cavalier (marshal) that was all about the mounted combat, a human sorcerer/dragon disciple (guardian) who rocked his natural attacks as a damage beast, gnome rogue (trickster) who liked to switch it up between two weapon fighting and sniping, a human inquisitor (hierophant) who was all about the buff and support before putting his smack down, human oracle of life (hierophant) who truly understood the power of alignment channel in disturbing ways, and human evoker (archmage) who was simply magnificent and liked to energy to sonic. We had a paladin as well to start, but his life got busy so he had to drop the campaign about the end of book 3.

The Saturday Night Specials were composed of a human barbarian (guardian) who fought every foe by axeing them a question (power attack vital striking hit point beast), aasamir ranger/rogue (champion) that was a master archer, aasamir paladin (hierophant) who served as the primary healer when not smiting, aasamir magus (archmage) for artillery and melee damage, samsaran conjurer (archmage) who was specialized in permission magic and debuff. There was a human oracle of battle (marshall) that made game when he was able, but he was busy with life. Did some support and healing when there.

Thursday night was a well oiled machine, and nothing escaped their wrath or DPS. The evoker had problems keeping up with damage output at late levels, especially when they group would put the high 40 str dragon disciple (with foe bitter for his natural attacks), and the dual weapon rogue into flanking. They could deal over a 1000 hp in a round when they were popping mythic hard. To say nothing of the cavalier and his x7 damage per charge, able to make multiple charges per round. They never went into battle without a mythic haste going (later augmented mythic haste). The flexibility this gave the group to position and full attack simply became a part of every battle. The oracle of life really dug deep into channel feats and with her mythic alignment channel, could clear groups of fodder demons fast, or heal the group quickly and effectively. Now, just because I didn't mention other characters, does not mean they were not pitching in, but they were support role, skill checking, debuffing, blasting, pulling crazy spells out of thin air with wild magic, etc.

Thursday worked well as a team, and cross supported to get the most out of their team work feats, etc. They had multiple heavy hitters, and multiple options for battlefield control. Their numbers and coordination made them a huge threat. As a smaller party, they would have been a very different group.

Saturday night was less of a well oiled machine, and more just a party of adventurers brought together. They didn't synergies or team work like Thursday, but that said, they knew their party roll and filled it. The barbarian shored himself up against mind control and spell effects with his mythic powers, which made turning him on the party harder and harder as time went on (it was a favored tactic at lower levels). He pumped out a lot of damage with the mythic power attack/mythic vital strike combo. And had just all the hit points. The paladin split herself between smiting and healing, and the group eventually just had to get good at damage management (lots of self healing options, and sending the barbarian in first to soak the damage). The archer and magus would stand at range and job spells and arrows in and got very good at it. A ranger with a lot of favored enemy outsider (evil) goes pretty far in this campaign. The conjurer was playing by Skype, so he shifted his initial focus from summoning to permission mage. Mythic silence is an incredible spell for shutting down casters, and I had to plan every fight with a spell caster around that spell being dropped. Every damn one. He had silent spell options loaded and ready to go, and was always ready to counter spell as well. Mage encounters all needed to be heavily retooled or just written off. He was also careful to have layers of spells and barriers to hide behind. While I'd drop him from time to time, he adapted fast.

Saturday also benefited form a large and diverse party, but since they were not cross-built as heavily, reducing party size would have meant more battlefield tactics changing, and not build tactics. And even then, hit hard and hit fast is almost always a good tactic. And if the barbarian would have had a foe bitting weapon, it would have been that much worse.

The big thing I'd watch for with your group is mythic power attack and mythic vital strike. They up the damage output something fierce. Pay attention to what mythic spells (if any) the inquisitor takes. Mythic silence alone can change a lot of battles. Like I said though, in general, be aware of what the PC's are doing.

All that said, don't shut them down for it. Those abilities are what makes a character feel like a big damn hero after all, but they should go into how you're thinking about the campaign for sure.

Oh, and the stat block document was a HUGE help!

Sure, Kalindlara. The basic fixes I did was to add hit points. Lots of them in some cases. Like, 1000's at a time in the last few books. Increase stats here and there. Rebuild a few encounters. And it late game (the last book), I just had the characters describe how they were overcoming an enemy or obstacle without bothering to role for it (let the character just get creative as they wanted to with it). In the earlier books, I gave certain non-mythic enemies "banked actions" (i.e. burn a swift, get a full round action, useable only once or the ability to cast another spell as a free action twice in the fight, stuff like that), but this was mostly because I was running for two larger than average groups, and I needed to even out the action economy for the bigger badies without just adding more minions. Although I did that too. Generally I found that adding more hit points solved a lot of the problems for me, and a little bit of digging into stat blocks and redoing characters solved the rest. Sometimes that digging meant making up a new mythic ability that was exclusive to them that patched a hole in a build. Giving a legendary item with undetectable to the right enemies changed a lot of fights. I had to keep in mind that some of the fights, especially as they go up in power, really should be cake walks. They are some of the most powerful mortals around after all.

Issues came up with the hit point adding in that it made some high level spells kinda worthless (any of the power word spells), but things like mythic holy word were incredibly powerful. I'm not sure how I would address that if it came up again. In general, high level blast mages lose a lot of oomph. I toyed with the idea of letting casters add surge dice to the save DC's of their spells, but I never went through with that. Not sure how it would work out.

I also eased most of the players away from foe-biting legendary items by giving them custom ones items, tied to their build/backstory that were not weapons. So, while they didn't have to make them the legendary items, most players choose to make them their legendary items as they were interesting/potent enough to choose.

Things to watch for, generally, is the action economy. Mythic plays with that hard, and you need to be aware of it on both sides of the cardboard curtain. Next, legendary items can be insanely potent, so be aware of what your players are doing with them so you're not caught blind sided. In fact, generally knowing what your players are doing with mythic is helpful. You don't need to shut down what they're doing, but it will help keep the challenges actually challenging. At least a little. :)

While I can understand the advise to drop mythic, as it has some issues for certain, my players and I all found it fun. They generally thought of themselves as super heroes. So, while I probably won't run this deep into mythic again any time soon (but a tier or three in the right game could be a lot of fun, and the same with adding it to really nasty monsters/villains), it was really fun for this campaign.

Soundboarding? LOL, love the turn of phrase. And neither of my groups required that oh so gentle reminder. While they didn't read back suggested responses, they were well within the spirit of the answers, and passed all of those tests swimmingly. They also all agreed that if they had fouled them up, they'd have deserved the slap on the wrist that she was handing out. I mean, it's not that much damage...

I wrapped one of my two wrath groups this evening. The other group ought to finish this Saturday. Then, sometime next month, I'm going to bring both groups together to fight Deskari, pumped up and with some truly terrifying minions, for one last throw down to end this demon lord once and for all.

This marks the first time bringing a Pathfinder adventure path to a close (although I've also run a party all the way though Age of Worms, so not the first Paizo AP I've finished). Certainly the highest power game I've run for this long. And while it was fun, I'm looking forward to some power levels that I find more manageable!

Ran it through law school and studying for the bar exam, and it helped keep me sane. Ran it to the end despite my own problems with running high level games. It's been very satisfying despite some of the new wrinkles in the game that mythic has added. I've enjoyed mythic, and it's an interesting rule set, although I have had to modify, tweak, and retool aspects of it to make it work at my table a little bit better. Especially because all of my players are VERY clever.

So I'd really like to thank the writers on this path because it's been a lot of fun, the good folks at Paizo for putting out a game I've enjoyed and has helped me weather the stress of the last few years, and the good folks on this message board for providing insight, arguments, and some nasty new stat blocks.

And then, as my group commented, there's a slap on the wrist. High level mythic character's, yo.

As for question 1, it's a knowledge religion check. Just to ID undead, both of my groups have put ranks into that skill enough to make that with some reliability. Why I can't speak for all groups, it's a logical skill to have a few ranks in, especially for a campaign with this sort of focus. And, further, if you know your group is lacking in those ranks, switch it to a knowledge skill they do have ranks in. Or if your group is just that deficient in any knowledge skills, seed it in a handout sometime in late book 4.

For question 2, the group that's already gone through this has had some discussions on the topic that have gone for hours in real time over the last year of playing this path. Hours at a time. I was worried that they would spend to long, instead, realizing that the Goddess was waiting for an answer, they discussed it for a minute or two, and let the Oracle of Life devoted to Sarenrae answer it. Again, this is my group and I can't speak for all. however, since we're just using examples of playing, since this is hardly scientific, the above was MY example of how a group did deal with it. My group had not reached an agreement over the previous books, but were still able to answer the question after some small debate, but not stretched out.

And even if they did, again, it's a slap on the wrist.

Okay, this week there was the critical geek mass needed to play and we got started on this adventure! Group 1 navigated all the questions well within what I thought were solid responses. I did explain the consequences of wrong answers though. There were some appreciative whistles at the damage (sonic no less) that could be dished out and some quick math to see who could survive max damage. Apart from that, their feed back could be summed up as this:

1) How could a group that's been paying attention answer those questions incorrectly? I mean, we guess it could happen, but really...?

2) So, Iomedae slaps us on the wrist for getting her questions wrong. That makes sense.

About what I expected.

Now, down into the Labyrinth itself.

Anyone have any interesting tricks they used for this part? I'm not too hot on just having strings of Random encounters, and was thinking about putting in some more set piece type encounters. Thoughts?

I ran one of my groups through this scene, they navigated all the questions well within what I thought were solid responses. I did explain the consequences of wrong answers though. There were some appreciative whistles at the damage (sonic no less) that could be dished out and some quick math to see who could survive max damage. Apart from that, their feed back could be summed up as this:

1) How could a group that's been paying attention answer those questions incorrectly? I mean, we guess it could happen, but really...?

2) So, Iomedae slaps us on the wrist for getting her questions wrong. That makes sense.

About what I expected.

Now, down into the Labyrinth itself.

... And then half the group can't make it. *sigh*

Ah well, next week!

Going to begin this book, at long last, tonight. Wrap up from book 4, treasure management, and then onto Iomedae. I've been waiting for this for months, can't wait to see what my players do with this.

You know, I'd take Mags complaints more seriously if he'd stop trying to compare issues with Mythic and Wrath to car failures and errors in math and language books. It's a faulty comparison for product liability, as well as in scope of potential and real damages.

While I guess it does illicit an emotional response, I don't think it's the one that is intended...

I like alteration #4. Wish I'd have thought of it. Might still thread that into one of my groups narrative (if you don't mind the blatant theft!).

One of my groups had some VERY strong reaction in character. The players think it's an awesome story being told, but the characters don't see it the same way. It has made for some wonderfully intense games. Can't wait to see how it all feeds into the opening of book 5...

Have Nurah talk to Arles and 'Roll badly' and accidentally encourage him to go over the edge and desert taking with him a few friends who will promptly be ambushed by her allies and their desecrated corpses be found in the path of the army. Then she can be distraught over her mistake and how terrible the prolonged suffering death of this man was and how this shows we must all be careful or face the same feat as not even our great leaders can protect all of us all the time we must take responsibility for our own safety , should hurt army morale nicely and everyone rolls badly occasionally

That is solid!

There are some spoilers in here, so players stay away...

The exploration part of book 3 was weak, no doubt. I was able to work in a lot of character stuff and NPC interactions though. The low CR fights I just narrated through, but some of the random encounters were pretty tough (the cultist one was surprisingly challenging for one of my groups, which was nice). Pacing and guiding the exploration is important for the exploration part was another thing I found. I didn't really mind that the personal mythic trials were kinda easy, I tried to emphasis the wider, or personal, implications. There was a bit much of "look how cool ultimate campaign is everyone! Don't you want to pick it up??" in the inclusion of exploration. I didn't dislike it, it gave me a chance to seed some key items, and let the players play their characters, not the underlying doom-math, a bit more. That would be my suggestion for how to use it. It's a chance to maybe have the NPC's interact a bit more. Hogrus becoming a decent guy. The Riftwarden working with any Riftwarden Orphans to explore their legacy. Irabeth settling into her roll as leader of the city. Work on the redemption of NPC's, if that's there (Nurah is SO problamatic to one of my groups, all but one of the players want to kill her SSOOOOO bad!) Of course, I did the normal beefing up for those encounters that I felt warranted it (extra HP, advanced template, other templates, banked actions, & whatever else seemed fun/interesting).

Hell, I completely forgot about most of the raids from enemy forces, so I just narrated that as background stuff.

That's my suggestion for what to do with it. Figure out in the encounters in the broader scheme of things. Or, make them speed bumps to show how totally awesome the players are. STOMPY STOMPY!! Then I hit them with something mean to remind them that I can always Summon Bigger Fish on them... :)

@ GentleGiant: I think that would depend on how philosophical they wanted their brand new shiny living weapon to be. Do YOU want a living weapon that does not follow their orders because of the subtle nuance of a supposed redemption?

Does the Cult want that in their living weapon?

Excellent things to think about in our own games!

Great iconic! I for one loved the "lady or the tiger" ending. Stories should go on after what happens on the page.

Quote:

What can change the nature of a man?

** spoiler omitted **

What is that from? I like it!

If he knows they're coming, he could throw a sacrificial summons right outside the door to report in to him when the heroes arrive. Alternatively, Invis (with Undetectable) going. Even if they can purge or something, he'll have a round or two of free and clear prep casting.

Good luck. This fight was an exciting one for both my groups (6 and 7 players).

Tentacles and vortex of teeth (or Cloudkill for a edition proper spell) put the tension levels at just the right place for me.

I really like the mythic rules, and while I don't think they need to be a big part of the setting, I'd like to see some continued support.

Magnuskn, if you're up for some minor reshuffling of Xanthir and need to potentially make him a bigger threat, I'd recommend giving him legendary item for one of his other path abilities, and giving the item Undetectable. This confounded both of my groups to different degrees. And if your group doesn't have a cleric that can pull Invisibility purge off (or Xanthy has moved to be clear of it's area of effect...), he'll get a lot of mileage out of the ability.

I also had him drop the doom combo of black tentacles and vortex of teeth (3.5 spell that I uplifted just for him, and didn't let my players get ahold of mind you) to go along with the cloud kill.

And I actually had one of my players running Arueshalae for that fight (the paladin was off on his own little side quest for a bit, so his player ran a heavily redacted Arueshalae). She did okay just getting into the right position and putting the hurt on foes and picking off stragglers with her bow. The player was using her mythic power pretty regularly to sneak attack, so that helped. (I also swapped improved crit for precise shot...)

A lot of my time spent playing 3.0/3.5 was behind the cardboard curtain. While I like to run games, it does leave me with a back log of character's I'd like to run. (Like my idea for a warforged Jade Phoenix mage in Eberron. The "See everyone, I have a soul, it's a class feature!!!" character. Some day, some day...). I can't imagine always being stuck back there though.

I'm Lucky there are a number of really good DMs in my circles of friends/fellow gamers, so of late I've been able to play too, even if I still run a decent amount.

James, I'd originally heard that Mythic was supposed to be the 20+ level play rules. Obviously that's not what they are now, it's more super heroes (with a dash of Exalted) for Pathfinder. Personally, I like that a lot more as that means mythic is going to see a lot more play at my games. But what brought about the shift in focus?

And any hope for some more official mythic splat support? I'd love to see some more work on legendary item abilities and some more monstrous mythic abilities (path abilities that require being a monster of some sort to take).

Finally, you mentioned a bit further up that you'd pitched limiting the number of buff spells that can be running at once on a character. Can you elaborate any more on that? How were the limits going to be set for example? I'm very interested in that if you can share it here.

Out of curiosity...what kind of 3pp mythic material would you all be interested in seeing published?

Two things right off hand.

I wouldn't outlaw all mythic feats. They're a big part of what makes mythic cool. If you want to nerf or throw out some, that's what I'd do.

All in all, remember that your PC's are super heroes and tailor accordingly.

I'd focus more on lay on hand and channel energy. Those are much more versatile for the paladin's healing abilities, as well as bolstering your saves. Lay on hands can remove a wide variety of status conditions, and you can use it on yourself with a swift action, and channel energy can heal many of your friends at the same time. A decent wisdom isn't a bad thing, but a high charisma will serve you much better in that regard.

For a paladin, I'd focus on charisma for your support needs, and strength for your combat needs in equal measure. Unless you want to do a dexterity focused combat scheme.

Your group really does look like it needs a healer and a damage sponge. I'd go with Paladin, if playing one is in your wheel house. Running one of the healing focus archetypes will really make them shine, and should add some survivability to the character.

Failing that, look into a cleric or oracle of life. Your group is down on healing pretty hard. Alchemist, with the right archetype and discoveries can make for a fun character and effective healer as well, but it's not as natural of a course for them.

Good luck!

And, ah, don't try and bargain/negotiate with the twisted fallen souls that have been reshaped into personifications of sin. It (almost) never goes well...

Good to know. My book one and two are in rough shape.

No plan of battle survives first contact with the enemy.
No RPG book, play tested or not, survives first contact with players.

What should they have done to fix mythic? Just the blanket more HP? Futzed with the action economy even more? Powered down the mythic feats like vital strike and power attack to make them barely more than a normal part of the feat chains out there? (Although, mythic power attacks function on crits is pretty sick, I'd have enjoyed being a fly on the wall when they were working on that one..)

You end up with Mythic being blah and not that much of a change from normal games (powered down abilities). Or mythic is super powerful and new players can't wrap their heads around it (powered up mythic monsters). Instead, it's a tool kit that shows super powered fantasy heroes, and the beasts of myth and story that they can fight. I think that they struck a pretty good balance. Not perfect, of course not perfect, but serviceable and useable.

Honestly, it's easy as pie to just add more hit points, and solve a lot of the problems of critters dropping too quick. Consider it a template. Add +1 CR for adding X hit points (where X is whatever you feel is appropriate). Combine that with advanced and you have quick and dirty fix.

This is going to be a long one. Sorry, don't mean to ramble on, but here we go!

We're just getting into Midnight Isles with both groups.

Mine are both built with 25 pt buy, only restrictions on crafting I've done are time constraints (didn't feel a need to ban stick crafting, but I have in the past). I don't give out XP anymore, because that was just more math I didn't want to do (I went to law school to do less math, not more, thankyouverymuch). Biggest restriction I think I did was no race with more points than aasimar (15 rp for them?). I've even thrown in a few custom magic items since the list of powers for legendary items were limited for anything but weapons and armor, and I didn't want everyone to go intelligent item (I only have so many silly voices...).

I've done modifications on most encounters, even if it's just bumping up hit points, adding more monsters, or giving solo baddies a pool of extra actions (and more hit points!). I've still been dropping characters here and there when they stick their necks out too far or just in the course of a tough fight, and the fights have been going pretty well. The Worm at the end of 3 was a GREAT fight.

I've been using Scorpion's stat blocks here and there too. Especially as inspiration for my own mods. They're solid, and have reduced some of my own modification times.

Now, the changes I've made are the end result of years of suffering and multiple versions of 3rd ed. and are rooted in issues I've seen with 3e and how my friends interact with it. This is not a Pathfinder or AP thing, Wrath is the first AP I've run to any extent (played in a few others, and started Jade but school got in the way). But whenever running book adventures, I've learned to play fast and loose as needed.

I have two philosophies when it comes to rebuilding an encounter:
1) Hitting the monster with attack or spell is fun, and players should be able to more often than not.
2) Everyone should feel like they're involved in some way in almost all encounters, locking them down is not involved.

A big thing I've done is be liberal with adding the advanced template (when in doubt, make it advanced). This works well with encounters that have a number of enemies in it. I don't let it bug me if my player ROAR THROUGH these encounters. They're hero's, they're mythic, they're PC's. Let them have their fun and I'll gnaw away a little at their hit points. It's cool, and makes them feel like Big Damn Heroes.

Then we get to the encounters with a more potent monster. This modification starts with adding more hit points to the BBEG, and that might be a couple hundred or just an "X" (while I could get a similar effect by using tricks to boost their AC, this goes against point 1 above). This let's everyone hit more, and hit as hard as they want, which I like as a player and my friends seem to like as a group. I'll add minion fodder if the encounter lends to it. I'll also add some healing abilities as this plugs into the action economy as well. This has been something that I've been doing a lot of in this game: playing with the action economy. Which leads into the next thing I've been doing, adding extra actions.

Many of the foes they face have had demonic cysts (in future games, this will just be re-skinned in various ways as needed). So, a foe might have 3 extra move actions, or 2 extra spell casting actions, or 3 extra standard actions, or a mix of the above and others. Often a list (So, for example, Jestak the Barbadian from Sword of Valor, had a bank of: 2 move actions (swift action), and 3 heal effects (3d8+10) (swift action). The group got so frustrated with her, that they began to think outside the box and took great efforts to disarm her and make her stop moving around). I've gone more elaborate since and adding extra feats, abilities (class and monster), etc just to make them more interesting. Big baddies with whirlwind attack are not uncommon. I've not yet combined this bank of actions/extra abilities with mythic, but I probably will eventually (although, I'll refrain myself from giving extra mythic powers without just boosting a tier/rank, but I'm careful about that because of what goes along with them). This was mostly done to deal with my larger groups (7 players and 6 players), without making up a sidekick or adding minions. I felt that it would change the flavor of the fight too much in some cases, so I worked around it. All in all, it's been working well, and when I've had only a half group there, I've ramped them back down to pretty much book levels as needed.

One thing that I've avoided doing too much of is spells and effects that take people out of the fight. While it would be super easy to drop silence spells and effects to shut down casters, and to mind control the barbarian (I have done both to great effect), using too many abilities that make a few players flee the battle, or get locked away from being able to take part, just sucks. All of my players have said it. I feel the same way when I'm on that side of the cardboard curtain, so despite the tactical utility of doing this, it is done rarely. Especially with the big fights. (This will not be the case the in demon lord encounters, I will be using every mean and dirty trick they have.)

I have a slightly different design philosophy that has risen out of play and running, that informs what I do. More hit points makes the baddies last longer, weather it be in one flesh bag, or another dozen. More actions are needed to deal with more players, and since I have nearly double or 50% more, I use that as a bench mark, and fit their extra actions into the existing action economy (trading up swift for something else).

My players make powerful characters, and they always have. So I just take the needed steps to make them different.

I've had to modify mid to high level play for a long time now, this just is a manifestation of that. These modifications are, sure, partly because of Mythic. They're also just because every monster in the system can't take my players at the appropriate CR way too often. So, we change things up.

The amount of changes away from the by-the-book CR just seems par for the course for any other game I've run or played in at high level. The CR system has NEVER worked beyond just into double digits (I've found 12 or so to be the typical high end, sometimes lower depending on how clever players are with their crafting). Hence why I'm not seeing a big deal with making aggressive rules changes as needed. *shrug*

Less ignore, and more message to what I want. I like the mythic power mechanic. I like the addition of mythic powers, and what they can let a player do. I like to use mythic as a framework to plug some weird varieties and odd ball powers into. Legendary item is something I've been waiting for something like that for awhile.

And all the changes I make to the game are, in some ways, the changes I've made to almost all of my games since I started running 3rd ed, and some of what I did in 2nd (my dragons have always had d12's). In fact, I wish I'd been more aggressive with this level of rule modification years ago! It'd have saved the end game of Age of Worms, that's for sure (and for that moment of realization, I tip my hate to Mythic and this AP).

So, again, if Mythic/Wrath is failing for these reasons, then all of 3rd ed and it's lineage should be thrown right off my shelf. These are all things I've been doing for years.

Ignore the rules that don't work. Change them to work for you. Just like you're supposed to. It's what I've done for every game I've ever run, and what the other people I know who run games do as well.

I'm okay with high power games, but gestalt is just too much. I get a little bit too much cognitive dissidence with gestalt.

And E6/M6 is a really neat idea.

I know that when I run, it's with the idea that the fights will be tough, but beatable. I've already told both my Wrath parties that Baphomet and Deskari are playing for absolute keeps. Why wouldn't you modify the tactics for both to deal with your party? These are demon lords, taking on a group that has been wrecking their plans for some time, and that has an insane amount of mythic power. They should be rolling up with all the right spells, all the right minions, and all the right abilities to slaughter the PC's.

These fights are varying degrees of world changing. I want to make my PC's run from them. I'm going to try and wipe the party in both, just without making it an utterly foregone conclusion. This is the balance that a DM has to strike in a fight like this. It'd be super easy for either of these demon lords to just send 20 mythic balor's at the group and call it a day. But that means they don't get to mix it up. They don't get to walk in and put down these upstart ants who have been in their grills, wrecking centuries worth of planning, AND THEY'RE JUST MORTALS! So it's the mix.

Not stupid, but arrogant.
Well prepared, but not invincible.
Commanding minions, but not hiding behind an army.

And if you're worried about damage output stoping the fight, just give them more hit points. It's the easiest fix in the world! Or add a blur, displacement, blink, whatever, and there's a miss chance. Worried about crits? They now have some bracers of armor with heavy fortification. No more crits! Know your party, and plan for them. It's not like they're growing every natural attack in all of the monster manuals and have pounce. Mythic is EASY to deal with.

I'm still toying with the idea of running Baphy right out of the box, see what I can do with him as written against the different approaches of the two parties (7, maybe 8 players in one, and 6 in the other, all but two players rocking decades of gaming experience). I'm pretty sure, as is, he can take out multiple party members before they can get their damage dealers into position. That just seems boring though, so I'll probably modifying him a little here and there (something I'm looking very much forward to!)

It really depends on your DM and your party. This is a know your table moment. There will be certain advantages to playing an evil character and certain disadvantages. (In both the theater of combat and RP).

It's certainly doable. But, as written, it is discouraged. The path is about capital G heroes after all.

I don't think he'd be a strait investigator because of what he did in Cantard. While he never goes that deep into it, he knows how to use martial weapons. Even if we only really see him use a sword cane, clubs, and a heavy crossbow. (Maybe more in Sweet Silver Blues). Hence some foundation in a martial class, that he leaves behind when getting home to become an investigator.

Morely as a Slayer into Assassin maybe? I like that, and those favored target bonuses do transfer to skills. And it's not hard to pick up diplomacy as a class skill.

You know, I'm going to shift a little on Saucerhead. Maybe Brawler? I think him punching people when I think of him in a fight.

Winger just doesn't seem like that GOOD of a tracker sometimes... lol. But, yeah, Urban Ranger for Winger could work. And she is that character you kinda hoped wouldn't show up. And is probably being played (badly) by a dude. lol

Singe with expert levels? I do kinda like that. And she'd have to be a different version of ratfolk (looked at the Pathfinder version again, and while it is a rat-person, not the right type of rat person...)

Garrett, Morley, and Saucerhead are the usual PCs; The Dead Man is the GM's NPC mouthpiece used to keep investigations on track. :)

The alchemist abilities do synch up with that really well, don't they? I like it more and more! And the Dead Man really is more of a DM's mouthpiece, isn't he?

Garret probably has some fighter level (or maybe Slayer?) to reflect his time in the Corps.
Morley is a half-drow rogue with some fighter dip and an archetype to make him slicker than slick? Just bonus to cha skills everywhere. Every. Where. And leadership for sure. Downtime rules to own his own business on the side.
Saucerhead is probably an urban barbarian.
Winger is a fighter with maybe some level dip in rogue.
Singe is a ratling ranger classing into investigator herself.

There's a difference between bad design and a basic need to adapt to your table.

No movement speed. Undead (naturally). Telepathy as a form of communication. Big boosts to Int and some to Wis, but probably a Cha hit. Some spell like abilities to reflect his, basically, psychic powers. Some weird chance to just finally slip beyond the veil and be dead-dead at the start of each new adventure?

And Cook put out a new book (Wicked Bronze Ambition) as of last summer...

If it's as noir as I'm hoping, the Gumshoe Archetype seems like a good idea for Garret. And the Dead Man is clearly another PC...specifically, one who's player is often absent.

I'd go with a heavy mace (possibly masterwork) for the lead-lined club.

I think I know just the player. I wonder how weird of a custom race the Dead Man is? Now I kinda want to write him up.

Like the idea about the heavy mace.

Wait, it just occurred to me that the sleuth might let me roll up something close to Garret (at long last! squee!), mama Garret's favorite blue eyed ex-marine problem solver. Even with a wonky sneak attack, this is my next character! What would the rules for a lead-filled club be I wonder? Just masterwork? Not to figure out what the Dead Man is (totally a cohort, or maybe Garret is his cohort... huh....)

So you get a bonus equal to half your level to you to hit and damage for a number of rounds equal to your int mod, with a move action to start it off. You can cancel this effect early to do sneak attack like damage.

At low levels that doesn't sound like too bad of a deal. Not much use for full attacks, and the bonus to hit and damage can push you into fighter to-hit ranges. That's nice. I'm just not sure what a class that's the hybrid of rogue and alchemist doesn't just get sneak attack though. Seems like a lot of work just to have a "not quite sneak attack, but might be better for some times, but never as many dice as sneak or bombs would get you" ability.

I am uncertain of this abilities utility, but I suppose I should wait for the final release to see how it fully plays out.

No RPG that I've played has not needed to be modified in some way to run the way I want it to. Ever. Not in my 20+ years of gaming. I buy big books full of tools for my storytelling. This one is no different.

Paizo puts out good quality stuff that needs only de minimis tinkering on my part to run the way I want it to. They give me options I wouldn't have thought of myself and I find their world setting fun. Also, trying to compare what you see as failings in their products to cars and appliances not working is laughable. It's comparing apples to bricks. I don't think it's helping your arguments any...

I just house ruled away the "high enough bonus overcomes a sort of DR" thing. I like forcing my players to have the right type of weapon to do a job. But that's just me. Still not sure how I'm going to house rule DR/Epic (or if I am). Maybe "enhancement bonus on weapon plus highest weapon special ability bonus must be > 6 to overcome DR Epic" or shift the total bonus up to a 7 or 8. Not sure, will have to see how it plays out.

It's probably a bit much to push him all the way to evil. I might not even shift him all the way to true neutral yet (although, considering the circumstances and the results of his action, its a viable consequence!). If he continues down the path, shifting him to evil is certainly apt. Solving with the fist what ought to be solved with the tongue is not the actions of the good and just.

Good luck with it!