lats1e's page

Here's an extra set of graphs with a few more curves. Alt 2-Round Runesmith is the same combo but without invoking the etched Whetstone Rune. Alt 1-Round Runesmith follows from this.

lats1e wrote:

Here is a link to my graphs:

Playtest Runesmith Damage Curve Plot

Well these are two round curves. Round 1 the fighter will sudden charge and then certain strike. Turn 2 is strike, Exacting Strike, certain strike. So a total of 5 strikes.

Otherwise you're comparing a 2 round dpr to a 1 round dpr which is apples to oranges.

Ah, I see. I was not aware we were doing 2 rounds.

Here's a link to a new graph that uses a 2-round rotation. Runesmith is using first action of first round to Stride and using quickened action to apply preservation rune. This one is using SuperBidi's 2-round rotation in particular:
Playtest Runesmith 2-Round Rotation Damage Curve Plot

Here is a link to my graphs:

Playtest Runesmith Damage Curve Plot

lats1e wrote:

Why is the damage curve for the fighter so big? The max I could ever get it to go with Strike -> Exacting Strike -> Certain Strike @ High AC no Off-Guard is 96.6 at Level 20.

Are you including weapon specialization, greater weapon specialization, apex items, stat boosts at 10 and 20, legendary proficiency at 13, using a d12 weapon, considering flatfooted on a crit with swords, considering 1d10 and 2d10 persistent damage from flaming and greater flaming runes (going 2 rounds on average), 3x damage runes adding 1d6 each, the plus 5 to strike 3 on a failed strike 2, increased fighter crit range? etc. The damage is pretty typical to what I can get routinely. Maybe you're using the wrong high ac numbers or have shifted the table values one level up or down?

The community damage tool is pretty well built and removes the barrier to entry for folks to participate in generating math and analysis. You just need to be able to pick the right built in modifiers.

Even if I do 3 MAP-less strikes with crit spec, flat-footed, and the persistent damage from flaming rune crit, I cannot get the Fighter damage graph to break through 200 damage or anywhere near close to the graph you made.

I would like to see the exact settings you used for the Fighter graph.

Why is the damage curve for the fighter so big? The max I could ever get it to go with Strike -> Exacting Strike -> Certain Strike @ High AC no Off-Guard is 96.6 at Level 20.

Lvl 20 Runesmith vs PL+0 High AC (45) High Fort (+36)
Runesmith Attack: +35
Runesmith DC: 44

Engraving Strike (Atryl) w/ Whetstone:

Strike:
Damage Roll: 4d8 + 3d6 + 6 + 6 + 16 (8 Persistent Damage applied over 2 turns) [Average: 56.5]
55% chance of hitting (50% success | 5% crit): 0.6x Damage Modifier
Expected Damage: 0.6x * 56.5 = 33.9

Atryl:
Damage Roll: 20d6 [Average: 70]
5% chance of crit fail | 30% chance of fail | 50% chance of success: 0.65x Damage Modifier
Expected Damage: 0.65x * 0.55x * 70 = 25.025

Total Expected Damage: 58.925

______________________________________________________________________

Atryl Only

Damage Roll: 20d6 [Average: 70]
5% chance of crit fail | 30% chance of fail | 50% chance of success: 0.65x Damage Modifier
Expected Damage: 0.65x * 70 = 45.5

lats1e wrote:

I wanna try something fun.

Let's pretend a cold invoke rune exists for this hypothetical to work. At level 20, a Runesmith with Shades of Meaning, a pre-buffed weapon that has Whetstone and Corrupting, and an unarmed strike with Whetstone and Intensity, they could:

Tracing Trance -> Stride -> Engraving Strike (Fire + Preservation) + Thunder (Intensity) + Cold (Intensity)

Next turn:
Invoke -> Engraving Strike (Thunder + Intensity) + Invoke

That is 8d8 + 6d6 + 24 + 8 persistent + 140d6 + 6d4 persistent + 24 damage, or 607.5 damage over two turns.

Not trying to gate guardian here but accuracy and saves matter. Average dice damage is not actual DPR. It'll always be worse in analysis space because you'll have lost 45 to 40% on your strikes and some other % on save effects. So for simplicity let's say over 2 rounds you do 50% your damage you listed. That is ~150 dpr per round. Fighters are doing 120+ per round with pretty basic builds. But the big difference is you mostly just loaded up 300 damage on one enemy in round 2. This is of less value than the fighters damage because damage sooner can kill off enemies before they get a second turn and you have multiple strikes that can be redirected to enemies if your primary target dies. Thus the runesmith totally pasted that one enemy bits,but lost say 30% of the damage to overkill. So you can easily do more damage on paper but but be less effective than someone that does less damage. That metric is often called time to kill and is a better measure of effectiveness than DPR.

All that being said I just gave you handwavy numbers (I suspect they're pretty close to reality). But we should wait for real numbers before we judge.

It would be around 179 damage per round if we're dealing with a PL+0 creature with High AC and High Fort saves yeah, so you're close.

With that said, you could do something similar on round one by doing Engraving Strike (Fire + Preservation) -> Trace (Thunder + Corrupting) -> Invoke. This does about 150 damage on average on round one if the Runesmith is benefiting from flanking, plus an extra 45 on the next turn with Preservation. If we also invoke Whetstone on round one, it's about 195.

I wanna try something fun.

Let's pretend a cold invoke rune exists for this hypothetical to work. At level 20, a Runesmith with Shades of Meaning, a pre-buffed weapon that has Whetstone and Corrupting, and an unarmed strike with Whetstone and Intensity, they could:

Tracing Trance -> Stride -> Engraving Strike (Fire + Preservation) + Thunder (Intensity) + Cold (Intensity)

Next turn:
Invoke -> Engraving Strike (Thunder + Intensity) + Invoke

That is 8d8 + 6d6 + 24 + 8 persistent + 140d6 + 6d4 persistent + 24 damage, or 607.5 damage over two turns.

I somehow seem to have forgotten that a considerable number of the mythic feats in the game, especially the ones in the Mythic Destinies, target saves. So it seems that Mythic Resilience doesn't just affect casters and kineticists, but even martials won't be able to enjoy using their Mythic abilities due to Resilience, which feels antithetical to the kind of game and feel that Mythic is going for. Seems lame to be fighting against a mythic enemy and not be able to use your mythic abilities against them.

lats1e wrote:

Dr. Aspects wrote:

Xenocrat wrote:

I'm positive it needs errata.

They’ve already stated it will have errata in the fall.

I would like to know where you read this from. I need something to get my hopes up.

The alternate mythic rules document contains some minor errata and at the top of that page it says that errata for WoI will be released for Fall 2024 Errata cycle.

That's cool. I really hope that errata will, at the very least, fix the most egregious parts of the book, like Mythic Resilience and the lack of Kineticist support. I feel alot more optimistic about WoI now.

Is there some place where I can read more about this errata cycle?

Xenocrat wrote:

I'm positive it needs errata.

They’ve already stated it will have errata in the fall.

I would like to know where you read this from. I need something to get my hopes up.

Paizo cooked with Mythic Destinies. I have many criticisms about the book but if there's one thing Paizo did right with the Mythic Rules it was the fantasy of being someone who is larger than life and the ability to play/run higher-power campaigns where you do stuff like fight demigods and ascend into divinity.

There is something really really great here, which makes me really really desperate for an errata.

Honestly, even if Paizo gives Kineticist support for mythic by giving them +3 gate attenuator or access to Mythic Kineticist DC, they're still absolutely disadvantaged due to Mythic Resilience being a thing. Kineticists in particular are hit super hard by this since they mostly target Fortitude/Reflex, so a monster with resilience in even one of these is going to screw them over really hard.

CorvusMask wrote:

I don't think us getting errata is impossible tbh considering 2e has been more active with errata than 1e has been overall

It's not impossible. It's just there are a number of glaring problems (considered such by at least a substantial part of local community) that are either not considered a problem by designers or simply ignored for years. We don't have any confidence that this case would be considered a problem and not ignored. (Assuming it's noticed at all)

I hope they notice how big of a problem this is, because it makes mid-high level mythic unplayable, or at least unbearable to play in as a caster/kineticist.

Do you think we'll get some sort of errata or statement about this? I wanna play and/or run a mythic game, but the way mythic monsters are right now makes me super apprehensive to get in one and I don't want to have to homebrew my own fix to tone down mythic resilience.

I could see a scenario where your immanence has a time limit, like you need to use an action to shift into it and it lasts until the end of your next turn. Though that might be overly punishing.

I'm kinda with the Cabbage on this though. A while back I was talking to somebody on bluesky who described how "most pathfinder options are mid" and I can see the argument for even a balanced game system to have a little swingyness. And even if this is a solid enough option that everyone in a party will want it, it's diverse enough that everyone will take different Ikons and the game doesn't end up samey.
For that matter, for all everyone's freaking out, the culture of the game born from every option being so balanced lends itself a lot more to grounding your choices in characterization than something like 5e. If you've been in this game this long and you're still hunting for the "broken" options, congrats, you found it, it's the I'm-A-Little-Bit-A-God limited use archetype, shocker there!

I don't think that's a good way to handle discussions of balance. The big thing about Pathfinder 2e balancing options against one another is that I don't have to worry about picking "sub-optimal options" over the most optimal ones because the floor and ceiling for most builds is so close together that I can get away with taking flavor or roleplay-oriented options without feeling like I'm shooting myself in the foot with it. I love min-maxing and making optimized builds but I also enjoy taking narratively-appropriate options, and the way PF2e handles it actually lets me have my cake and eat it too.

But Exemplar MC breaks this basic assumption of PF2e by making an archetype dedication that is so wildly unbalanced when put against every other dedication that if I want to make an optimized build as a martial I feel forced to take it.

One thing I noticed about this archetype is that it's the only ranger edge whose main damage booster is tied behind a limited resource with a high chance of failure.

The other ranger edges are just "you hunt prey and then you get to do more damage against this guy you don't particularly like." It works automatically and it only costs one action and nothing else.

Vindicator Edge however requires you to Hunt Prey for 1 action and then Vindicator's Mark for 2, which costs 1 focus point and requires that you succeed on a spell attack roll, which you are very bad at due to the fact that your spellcasting stat isn't your key stat and your spell attack proficiency only goes up to master.

If you somehow failed your spell attack roll to apply Vindicator's Mark, you just wasted 3 actions having accomplished nothing, on top of having wasted a limited resource. If you were somehow unlucky enough to have missed all of your Vindicator's Marks, then you are essentially a ranger with no edge since your damage booster relies solely on that mark landing.

Vindicator's Mark is a super unreliable and inconsistent way of boosting ranger damage compared to Flurry or Precision ranger, and I think this feels incredibly bad to use, especially since the damage bonus from Vindicator's Mark is only on par with Precision and the initial spell damage is not really much to speak of.

I love War of Immortals so much but my god there is so much jank in this book that deserve big errata, this one being among them.

I think the immanence and transcendence for Exemplar MC ikons should be gated behind some higher level feat, and even then they shouldn't be benefiting from the full scaling.

It seems like a mythic caster casting a spell attack roll spell with a mythic point is going to have a nasty spell on their hands that mythic resilience won’t do anything for. Right now those options are fairly limited, but something like holly light is going to tear up a mythic demon. I am waiting to call foul until I deep dive the mythic spell casting options.

I wouldn't get your hopes up. There is only one mythic spell in the book that has the attack trait and it does a whopping 4d6 damage at max upcast.

As a primary wizard player, I have always enjoyed a well-placed golem encounter in an adventure, I just wouldn't want every boss creature to be a golem without that being incredibly broadcast from session 0.

As long as creatures with 3 saves at Mythic resilience are less than 10% of creatures encountered, I don't think it will be too big a deal for me, although I think Kineticist players might have a lot more trouble, especially as 2 or even just one resilient save could be a problem for them, especially if it is Fort/Reflex. I guess they can then at least make blast attacks and the creature isn't likely to have mythic resistances that will give them too much trouble. It actually sounds like every mythic caster is going to want some more spell attack roll spells in some high level slots again, so hopefully we get more of them in the near future.

Eh, it's still a really problematic mechanic. Regardless if someone is using 3 mythic resilient saves on their monsters or not, the fact that it even exists and is allowed by the rules is a very big problem.

This isn't exactly like designing a monster to have 3 extreme saves, because that is something the system's guidelines forbids and warns against, while having 3 mythic resilient saves is something the system makes no effort to warn against and actually makes it a base assumption of monster creation by introducing a basic monster template that has 3 mythic resilient saves.

I also don't think alot of casters will appreciate being forced into playing a buff-bot, and spell attack rolls are very few and far between, and aren't as impactful as save effect spells. There's also, as you mentioned, Kineticists and Toxicologists, and maybe some other more classes that rely on using Class DCs as well, and I don't think I'd enjoy playing a Kineticist where I'm relegated to only using my very underwhelming 5d6 Elemental Blasts or playing a Toxicologist who can't use their poisons, even if that's not every encounter, but it certainly is gonna be a considerable and meaningful number of them.

Didn't realize Mythic lvl 13 creatures were that common in Golarion

Well yeah... That's like, that's what the Godsrain did. And you need mythic creatures for like... y'know, a mythic campaign.

Squiggit wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

Kelseus wrote:

Xenocrat wrote:

GMs should simply not put mythic resilience on everything.

This right? Like, you the GM are building this creature. Just like building any other monster, you need to be sure to not overpower them. leaving one save as a "bad save" is basic monster design.

And if you boost all saves, it's because it fits the Mythic story you want to tell. It's the beauty of NPC creation not being the same as PC creation.

"We're not in PF1 anymore."

I mean, you're not wrong but I'm not sure that's really meaningful here. Yes, as GM I can make changes to avoid overusing the bad mechanic but it's still a bad mechanic that shouldn't exist in its current form.

No. It has its uses to create a Mythic monster who is specifically extra strong against save attacks.

And has to be taken down with other means.

If the GM throws such Mythic monsters willy nilly in random encounters knowing they shut down a big part of a caster's arsenal...

That's a GM problem.

Makes me realize we need the Mythic henchman creature.

It's hard to think of it as a narrative device when it is part of the basic mythic monster design process. As the system is set up right now, a monster with 3 mythic resilient saves is a basic assumption the system makes that the players will encounter semi-regularly, and something the system assumes that the GM is expected to make for basic encounters.

The mythic monster creation guidelines say nothing nor does it warn GMs about making monsters with 3 mythic resilient saves with no limitations, and Paizo seems to intend to let GMs make monsters with 3 mythic resilient saves for basic mythic monsters becasue the Ambusher role template exists, which, as I have stated in a post above, specifically requires that it gets all mythic resilient saves by level 13. This isn't some "big-mega-boss" template for Treerazer, Oliphaunt, or the Tarrasque, this is just a template for your basic unnamed bad guys for your PL+1 or PL+2 encounters.

Until Paizo has made an errata or a statement about this, I'm likely just going to run Mythic Resilience the same way Mythic Resistance works by making Mythic Resilience only apply against save effects made by non-mythic creatures. As it is, mythic creatures heavily and disporportionately penalize mythic casters, kineticists, and any other classes that rely on DCs to contribute to fights.

I'm still unsure and confused why Paizo made mythic creature abilities the way they are. Mythic Resistance is worthless RAW and the alternative interpretation for how it works (resistance to non-mythic strikes/weapons) is easily bypassed through other methods. Mythic Resilience is just totally busted since there is no way to bypass it.

lats1e wrote:

The Level 10 feat is basically Impossible Flurry but for 2-handers. While in the Level 4 feat stance, you can spend three actions to do 2 strikes at no MAP, one with your weapon and one with your haft, and then another 2 strikes at max MAP, one with your weapon and one with your haft.

So basically -0, -0, -10, -8 to hit for three actions?

yup

Xenocrat wrote:

GMs should simply not put mythic resilience on everything.

This right? Like, you the GM are building this creature. Just like building any other monster, you need to be sure to not overpower them. leaving one save as a "bad save" is basic monster design.

One of the mythic templates that Paizo printed which can be put on top of mythic creatures is the Ambusher template, and one of the restrictions of that template is that they cannot take Mythic Resistance, which means they're always forced to take Mythic Resilience.

This means that any level 13+ mythic creature with the Ambusher template will always have all three mythic resilient saves. Paizo intends on letting GMs make creatures that have mythic resilience in everything. Having 3 mythic resilient saves is an intentional part of the monster design.

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

I saw some people talking about new Fighter feats. Did any other classes get additional feats, outside of class archetypes?

Yes, the Avenger Class Archetype section has a little section stapled onto the end that provides two spear feats for the Rogue Ranger AND Fighter.

Spear Rogue you say, now that could be interesting.

The Level 4 feat is essentially Polearm Mastery. If you're holding a 2-handed spear, hammer, or polearm, you get into a stance that lets you treat the haft of your weapon as if it's a separate weapon, which is a 1d4 simple club weapon, has the agile and finesse traits, and benefits from fundamental runes of the main weapon. Since this counts as you holding a separate weapon, you are treated as if you are dual wielding for the purposes of feats such as Twin Takedown or Double Slice.

The Level 10 feat is basically Impossible Flurry but for 2-handers. While in the Level 4 feat stance, you can spend three actions to do 2 strikes at no MAP, one with your weapon and one with your haft, and then another 2 strikes at max MAP, one with your weapon and one with your haft.

Is there nothing in any of the caster focused Mythic paths or destinies that address Resilience?

I could see it being something gated to characters representing the most mythic spell casters in the world, and not any random mythic character.

The most that Mythic Casters could do is cast a spell at Mythic Spell DC, which as I have stated in the beginning of the thread, does not help enough. I've given the mythic feats and destinies a read and I have not seen anything of the sort that lets a caster ignore Mythic Resilience.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

That does pretty much ruin casters with nothing for them to do about it. That is not great. It is really going to slant mythic towards martials by quite a margin.

If this was PF1 I would cheer, but PF2 casters aren't the god kings they used to be.

When I initially started reading this thread I was thinking, a mythic creature 2 levels above a mythic party should be scary, but as I continued reading, and realizing that most mythic defenses are bypassed by also being mythic/having mythic power it does disproportionately affect casters.

In my mind, "by the numbers" if you are mythic and fighting a mythic creature, it should (almost) be the same as if neither of you were mythic. I say almost because I'm thinking mostly in numbers and "extra abilities" that are basically just numbers, like mythic resistance. Not accounting for things that are special actions or expansions beyond simple numbers.

An enemy that can only fail any save on a nat 1....isn't fun for casters to fight. I guess if you know it's coming you can mentally prepare to just buff and not directly attack, but not every caster class has that luxury, nor does every caster player want to become relegated to the cheer squad.

Probably needs to be an explicit rule that no NPC can have 3 mythic resilient saves.

I do wish to add something interesting I've heard while discussing this on reddit and discord.

One alternative interpretation people have told me regarding Mythic Resistance (which is different from Mythic Resilience) is that it's meant to give the creature resistance to attacks made using non-mythic weapons/strikes. This makes alot of sense, and makes the Mythic Strike's clause (Level 10 Mythic Feat) of bypassing Mythic Resistances actually make sense now.

If we go by this interpretation, enemy creatures would want to have a combination of both Mythic Resistance and Resilience. A creature that took all 3 abilities in Resilience would be hard for casters to kill, but vulnerable to martials due to not having resistance. A creature that took all 3 abilities in Resistance would be hard for martials to kill, but very vulnerable to spell DCs.

My only problem with this interpretation though is that:

1. If Mythic Resistance worked this way, then it's pretty much mandatory to take Mythic Strike at level 10, and martials would be shooting theirselves in the foot by not taking this.

2. Mythic Weapons bypass Mythic Resistance, and the mythic ogre example statblock in the book seems to imply that Mythic Martial PCs can get access to Mythic Weapons by as early as Level 7 or even earlier, which makes Mythic Resistance worthless if this is true.

3. Mythic Immunity at Level 23 exists, which gives Immunity to all strikes made using non-mythic weapons. This pretty much makes Mythic Resistance redundant for Mythic 23+ creatures and allows them to just take all three Mythic Resiliences anyway.

4. Mythic Martials still get access to at-will options to counteract the Anti-Martial mythic ability (assuming we pretend it works that way instead of RAW). Mythic Casters however still have no way to counteract Mythic Resilience.

And all this assumes that Mythic Resistance worked by that alternative interpretation instead of what we have in the book as of now. Right now, RAW, Mythic Resistance only grants resistance to strikes made by non-mythic creatures, which in a Mythic Campaign with Mythic PCs, is pretty much worthless outside of flavor.

Here's what Mythic Resistance does:
Mythic Resistance (1st): The creature gains resistance to all Strikes made by non-mythic creatures equal to half its level. If it gains mythic resistance a second time, increase the resistance to its full level. Mythic weapons bypass this resistance even if the creature wielding them is not mythic.

Forgot to clarify what Mythic Resilience is, so people probably don't know what I'm talking about, so I'm just gonna copy-paste what it does here.

Mythic Resilience (1st): The creature treats its saving throws with the associated save as one degree of success better than it rolled. This is not cumulative with other effects that change their degree of success, like the incapacitation trait (except for rolling a natural 1 or 20). Each time the monster gains mythic resilience, choose one save. The ability should apply to the creature’s highest saves first.

This can be taken again at levels 7 and 13, so a Level 13 Mythic Creature has Mythic Resilience in all 3 of their saves.

I have a concern with regards to the mythic resilience ability that is available to mythic NPCs. My concern is that it could make casters almost useless as debuffers and battlefield controllers at high levels due to Mythic Resilience on all three saves effectively shutting down casters as if all their spells had the incapacitate trait.

Imagine this. You're a party of level 11 PCs and you're a caster. You're going up against a mythic creature that is PL+2 with all three mythic resilient saves. A level 13 creature's low save is a +20, and as a level 11 caster you likely have a spell DC of 30 at this point. This pretty much means that the only way that the creature can fail a saving throw with their weakest save is for them to roll a 1. A caster should not be struggling this hard to hit the weakest save of a PL+2 creature.

Suppose though that we should instead be judging mythic casters by their mythic spell DC. In the case of a mythic 11 caster, they would have a mythic spell DC of 36 if they spend one of their mythic points. In that situation, the chance that that same creature gets a failure on their save would be 30%. It is as if you're targeting the low save of a creature that is PL+4. Even with mythic points and mythic DCs in play, casters seem to struggle way too much to target even low saves of PL+2 mythic creatures.

If we go up to level 20 mythic PCs, a mythic 20 caster would have a spell DC of 45. With mythic DCs in play, that would be 47. A PL+2 mythic creature with all three mythic resiliences has a low save of +33. Without mythic DCs, the only way the creature can roll a failure in their weakest save is to roll a 2 or less for a 10% chance of failing. With mythic DCs in play, the creature would have to roll a 4 or less for a 20% chance of failing with their weakest save. In this case, it'd be like targeting the moderate save of a creature that is PL+5.

This seems incredibly unfair to any class that relies on DCs to do their main thing, particularly casters, kineticists, and toxicologists. It shuts down an entire playstyle for casters and restricts them to being buff-bots. Classes like kineticist cannot utilize feats that use their Class DC and pretty much are restricted only to making elemental blasts. Toxicologists cannot use their poisons at all.

Is this the intended design? If so, is PL+2 meant to be the new PL+4 in mythic games? Or is there something I'm missing here? Because so far, mythic resilience seems to make high level mythic games feel horrible to play in for anyone that isn't a martial. Some party members would just not be able to contribute effectively in fights at a certain level.

Isn't mythic resilience really problematic? A mythic creature can get all three of them at level 13.

Imagine this. You're a party of level 11 PCs and you're a caster. You're going up against a mythic creature that is PL+2 with all three mythic resilient saves. A level 13 creature's low save is a +20, and as a level 11 caster you likely have a spell DC of 30 at this point. This pretty much means that the only way that the creature can fail a saving throw with their **WEAKEST SAVE** is for them to roll a 1. You would have to spend a mythic point to get your spell DC to 36 for a chance for them to fail their weak save and even then that chance is only 30%. Keep in mind that this is only a PL+2 creature and you're targeting their low save.

Mythic resilience just seems to f~@% over casters big time and makes being a mythic caster at high level seem awful. Please tell me I'm reading something wrong here.