They are opting for "Mythic Rules". The book is already in progress. There is a thread on it. Mythic Levels* work alongside levels, and one does not impact the other.
An example of a mythic ability would be that you could move and still make a full attack action. Just to be clear you can move before or after the full attack action.
*Levels is not the correct word. I think it is tiers
Good news, Paizo will be releasing Mythic Adventures. The playtest for which will be available later this month.
No, Paizo won't be releasing 'Epic' rules. Next year, they will be releasing a book called Mythic Adventures.
Mythic is NOT Epic though, it's different. You can have up to 10 Mythic Tiers that are not tied to Experience points, but are, instead, only given at the GM's discretion. Typically, you earn a Mythic Tier by completing great Deeds, things that add to your Myth or Legend.
However, Mythic Tiers can be gained as early as level one. As a guideline, a character should have no more than 1 Mythic Tier for every 2 Character Levels.
There was a Podcast of the Paizo Announcement of Mythic Adventures at GenCon. I listened to the Podcast and recorded everything they revealed at the announcement. You can read that record here.
[Edit] Whew! At least I was only Ninja'd by Lord Wraithstrike and A Ninja!
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It's important to note that the Mythic rules, as described, won't really help a party keep playing past lvl 20.
That’s actually not true.
Jason has said more than once that the mythic rules are designed just as much to continue the mythic levels (tiers) post 20th as they are to take earlier on. So you can very much do all 20 levels and then continue right into the 10 Mythic tiers.
You might try Legendary Levels from Red Goblin for post 20 play. From what little I've seen it seems like OK stuff. You can buy the pdfs off this site......somewhere.
Try here for Little Red Goblin Games and their Legendary Levels products.
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It's important to note that the Mythic rules, as described, won't really help a party keep playing past lvl 20.That’s actually not true.
Jason has said more than once that the mythic rules are designed just as much to continue the mythic levels (tiers) post 20th as they are to take earlier on. So you can very much do all 20 levels and then continue right into the 10 Mythic tiers.
Do you have a link to that quote? I'm not trying to be argumentative, but as I understood it, the Mythic Tiers were a separate system overlaid on the normal level progression. That is, you could (in theory) be level one and 10th tier, or level 20 and 1st tier, or anything in between.
So yeah, you could start at level 20 and just keep adding mythic tiers instead of levels (or in addition to them), but it isn't really designed for 20+ play any more than anything else, it just makes levels 1-20 more powerful.
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It's important to note that the Mythic rules, as described, won't really help a party keep playing past lvl 20.That’s actually not true.
Jason has said more than once that the mythic rules are designed just as much to continue the mythic levels (tiers) post 20th as they are to take earlier on. So you can very much do all 20 levels and then continue right into the 10 Mythic tiers.
Do you have a link to that quote? I'm not trying to be argumentative, but as I understood it, the Mythic Tiers were a separate system overlaid on the normal level progression. That is, you could (in theory) be level one and 10th tier, or level 20 and 1st tier, or anything in between.
So yeah, you could start at level 20 and just keep adding mythic tiers instead of levels (or in addition to them), but it isn't really designed for 20+ play any more than anything else, it just makes levels 1-20 more powerful.
Your understand (level 1/tier 10 or level 20/tier 1) is accuarate, but what this is supposed to allow you to do is fight creatures of a higer CR than the present early 20s.
The recommendation is to keep it to 1 tier per 2 class levels though.
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I'm not quite sure you have any concept of what "e20" (or e6, or any of the other variations) really is, MassivePauldrons.
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Good gods I hope we never see an Epic Handbook.
Why? All the flavor of the game with infinite permutations can be experienced between levels 1-20.
The kind of power creep and epic destinies seen in mmopgs, and all the slashing and hacking at 10,000 hp monsters is a true bastardization of of the milieu.
If such creatures exist, why even bother playing L1-10 heros in your fantasy game. If such creatures exist, the world should feel quite nihilistic, and live in fear of that 1 creature walking by and destroying civilization daily.
The "epic" conceit, imho, is an excuse for gamers who lack the roleplay skill to make every story "epic" at whatever level they're at. It is nothing more than inflated scores, numbers, and machismo bragging rights. The "epic conceit" works in mmorpgs and video games because mostly the computer is doing the number crunching, and in video games we're used to having glass walls and other conceits which would otherwise damage any tabletop believability. For those who don't know what I mean, just imagine a tabletop GM saying, sorry the town ends there where John is sitting at the table - the town you're in just dropps off, and there is no world beyond because its the edge of my game table. This is a conceit we accept in video games. The rise of fantasy gaming video games in the past decades had made it's way into D&D due to its popularity - but as a result gave birth to munchkins, min-maxers and machismo statblock inflaters who'd rather boast about their gnome wizard who can destroy an army of 10,000 orcs. While this may be true statistically---it is far removed from the purpose of tabletop roleplaying. When 1 character so powerful can skip and jump across the lands, it breaks the believability of the quasi-medieval fantasy world setting. Thus, I hope we never see an epic level handbook again.
I cannot help but feel much of what was once roleplay got hijacked by powergamers who'd rather hide behind statblocks than give a character any depth.
Right now, I'm interested to see where the Mythic Adventures takes us. I'm going to playtest it, and see if it perhaps can restore verisimilitude to this genre of gaming. My hope is that it becomes an amazing alternative right within the existing game to address those mythic creatures and villains worthy of legendary powers, yet don't break the game setting.
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Are you being obtuse, or did you miss out the "Entirely Different" in my post?
Do you find humor obtuse?
What's the difference between a feat and a class feature?
If such creatures exist, why even bother playing L1-10 heros in your fantasy game. If such creatures exist, the world should feel quite nihilistic, and live in fear of that 1 creature walking by and destroying civilization daily.
The same could be said of the difference between 1st and 10th level, and 10th and 20th level.
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The kind of power creep and epic destinies seen in mmopgs, and all the slashing and hacking at 10,000 hp monsters is a true bastardization of of the milieu......If such creatures exist, why even bother playing L1-10 heros in your fantasy game. If such creatures exist, the world should feel quite nihilistic, and live in fear of that 1 creature walking by and destroying civilization daily.
...The "epic" conceit, imho, is an excuse for gamers who lack the roleplay skill to make every story "epic" at whatever level they're at. It is nothing more than inflated scores, numbers, and machismo bragging rights.
If you can't come up with any examples of good epic stories then you aren't trying hard enough. While I can see the reasoning behind some of your complaints - I've seen plenty of people who think super high numbers are teh roxxor (and in fact this is why I'm incredibly pessimistic about joining most higher level games on message boards) - chocking up an entire genre of play to such individuals is pretty sad.
There are epic stories to be told that do not fit within the scope of twenty levels. There are heroes with powers that go beyond what fits into the twenty level system. As with everything else in the d20 system, epic play is what you make of it. If you make it a monster of the week rotating selection of new CR 25 or CR 30 enemies, with players simply out to kill things and take their stuff, then you can make epic simply a boring extension of 1-20 play. If on the other hand you are telling a story that goes beyond twenty levels - e.g. challenging the prince of demons or killing an malign demigod - then you open up the opportunity for a vastly different style of gaming with every bit the legitimacy of any other level of play.
My current game has been going for more than four years and will almost certainly reach epic levels before it's done (currently 14th/15th level). The characters are all well developed individuals with their own histories, goals, and relationships with a cast of NPCs that is now in excess of twenty pages long in 10 font word. Does going from level 20 to 21 invalidate that and turn us into power gamers out for higher numbers?
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Good gods I hope we never see an Epic Handbook.
Why? All the flavor of the game with infinite permutations can be experienced between levels 1-20.
The kind of power creep and epic destinies seen in mmopgs, and all the slashing and hacking at 10,000 hp monsters is a true bastardization of of the milieu.
If such creatures exist, why even bother playing L1-10 heros in your fantasy game. If such creatures exist, the world should feel quite nihilistic, and live in fear of that 1 creature walking by and destroying civilization daily.
The "epic" conceit, imho, is an excuse for gamers who lack the roleplay skill to make every story "epic" at whatever level they're at. It is nothing more than inflated scores, numbers, and machismo bragging rights. The "epic conceit" works in mmorpgs and video games because mostly the computer is doing the number crunching, and in video games we're used to having glass walls and other conceits which would otherwise damage any tabletop believability. For those who don't know what I mean, just imagine a tabletop GM saying, sorry the town ends there where John is sitting at the table - the town you're in just dropps off, and there is no world beyond because its the edge of my game table. This is a conceit we accept in video games. The rise of fantasy gaming video games in the past decades had made it's way into D&D due to its popularity - but as a result gave birth to munchkins, min-maxers and machismo statblock inflaters who'd rather boast about their gnome wizard who can destroy an army of 10,000 orcs. While this may be true statistically---it is far removed from the purpose of tabletop roleplaying. When 1 character so powerful can skip and jump across the lands, it breaks the believability of the quasi-medieval fantasy world setting. Thus, I hope we never see an epic level handbook again.
I cannot help but feel much of what was once roleplay got hijacked by powergamers who'd rather hide behind statblocks than give a character any depth.
Right now, I'm interested to see...
Stormwind Fallacy. Me wanting to kill deities, does not make me less of an RP'er. I surely don't see anyone doing so within the current mechanics so extra power would be needed whether it be epic rules or mythic rules. Yeah the GM could send the party on a quest to build/find a device to depower the deity, but maybe that is now what the party or GM wants to do. In that case they have to increase their power. Yeah the GM could say deities are about as powerful as a CR creature, but maybe they don't like that either.
There is no arbitrary level that once one passes it you automatically become a powergamer or bad RP'er.
PS:I don't really want to kill deities, that was just an example.
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Stormwind Fallacy. Me wanting to kill deities, does not make me less of an RP'er. I surely don't see anyone doing so within the current mechanics so extra power would be needed whether it be epic rules or mythic rules. Yeah the GM could send the party on a quest to build/find a device to depower the deity, but maybe that is now what the party or GM wants to do. In that case they have to increase their power. Yeah the GM could say deities are about as powerful as a CR creature, but maybe they don't like that either.
There is no arbitrary level that once one passes it you automatically become a powergamer or bad RP'er.
PS:I don't really want to kill deities, that was just an example.
The Stormwind Fallacy is itself a fallacy. Fact of the matter is, that exaggerated characters whether in power level, extremely oddball races or whatever raise the bar of difficulty in telling a good story, because their oddities cast that much a larger shadow. Mortals killing gods require a lot of special handling if the story isn't going to be nothing more than the shadow of a silly or Monty campaign. It means that certain questions need to be asked about the nature of mortals, heroes, and divinities. And on those answers will hang the merits of the saga.
The real question as always will be does the gimmick rule the story? If so, than no amount of Stormwind invocations will save it.
It is not a fallacy at all. What you are arguing is that more power makes the story harder to tell. That is completely different from someone that is good with mechanics and uses that knowledge is a bad RP'er.
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RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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Good gods I hope we never see an Epic Handbook.
Why? All the flavor of the game with infinite permutations can be experienced between levels 1-20.
The kind of power creep and epic destinies seen in mmopgs, and all the slashing and hacking at 10,000 hp monsters is a true bastardization of of the milieu.
If such creatures exist, why even bother playing L1-10 heros in your fantasy game. If such creatures exist, the world should feel quite nihilistic, and live in fear of that 1 creature walking by and destroying civilization daily.
The "epic" conceit, imho, is an excuse for gamers who lack the roleplay skill to make every story "epic" at whatever level they're at. It is nothing more than inflated scores, numbers, and machismo bragging rights. The "epic conceit" works in mmorpgs and video games because mostly the computer is doing the number crunching, and in video games we're used to having glass walls and other conceits which would otherwise damage any tabletop believability. For those who don't know what I mean, just imagine a tabletop GM saying, sorry the town ends there where John is sitting at the table - the town you're in just dropps off, and there is no world beyond because its the edge of my game table. This is a conceit we accept in video games. The rise of fantasy gaming video games in the past decades had made it's way into D&D due to its popularity - but as a result gave birth to munchkins, min-maxers and machismo statblock inflaters who'd rather boast about their gnome wizard who can destroy an army of 10,000 orcs. While this may be true statistically---it is far removed from the purpose of tabletop roleplaying. When 1 character so powerful can skip and jump across the lands, it breaks the believability of the quasi-medieval fantasy world setting. Thus, I hope we never see an epic level handbook again.
I cannot help but feel much of what was once roleplay got hijacked by powergamers who'd rather hide behind statblocks than give a character any depth.
Right now, I'm interested to see...
I find it interesting that you think powergaming is derived from a videogame mentality, when I can say from direct experience that munchkinism was alive and well back during the Atari era. I don't really see an argument that playing Space Invaders and Pac Man directly led players to concoct Pun Pun like schemes where killing centaurs led to an limitless increasing power spiral, in OD&D/1e.
Not everybody that wants to keep playing past level 20 wants EXTREEM stats and the ability to fire collapsed suns at Turbodragons. Although, if they do want that, who am I to tell them they are wrong? There are just some high-powered fantasy tropes that can't explored with the existing rules. How can I, under level 20 as the game currently stands, do these things?
Create an entire army of undead overnight?
Instantly reshape a mountain range?
Turn an entire sea to dust?
Build a flying castle?
I'm hoping Mythic will allow these sorts of events to happen, in a way that isn't just GM plot handwaving (works fine for NPCs, less fine if PCs want to do this stuff). I really do want PCs to be able to make real changes to my campaign world in ways that I can't necessarily anticipate.
Oh, for those interested in the OD&D centaur thing:
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I find it interesting that you think powergaming is derived from a videogame mentality, when I can say from direct experience that munchkinism was alive and well back during the Atari era. I don't really see an argument that playing Space Invaders and Pac Man directly led players to concoct Pun Pun like schemes where killing centaurs led to an limitless increasing power spiral, in OD&D/1e.
You'll quickly learn that "video game mentality" is the standard go-to accusation for the "powergaming" complaints pretty much everywhere. Nevermind that D&D and tabletop games predate pretty much all video games, much less those that actually have a D&D-like leveling/growth capability. 95% of the original NES Final Fantasy for example was based on D&D, with names changed for copyright purposes on some of the monsters.
Any claim that powergaming didn't exist in older editions is wishful thinking or nostalgia goggles, pick one or both.
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Wow, I've never seen this discussion before! I better chime in.
Oh, wait ... :-)
So, clearly, I've been Doing It Wrong since 2006 :) Or we're still sinking to our level of incompetence. Or whatever ....
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All the "NO EPIC LEVLS!!1!" arguments just sound like one-true-wayism to me.
While I may or may not agree if someone said that Paizo doesn't need to produce an actual epic levels handbook (and I definitely do agree that Mythic is looking like a good thing), saying that no one needs levels past 20 is just flat out wrong.
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Yeah, I started playing D&D before I ever owned a NES and well before SNES was invented. I'm pretty confident video games didn't inspire my childhood powergaming fantasies (I've long since grown out of that phase).
The kind of power creep and epic destinies seen in mmopgs, and all the slashing and hacking at 10,000 hp monsters is a true bastardization of of the milieu.
As for switching the argument to "MMORPGs inspire power creep," well, it's possible I suppose. Certainly for a select subset of powergamers, I'm sure MMORPGs were their inspiration. Then again, an entirely different subset of powergamers may have been inspired by something else - power creep stemming from PnP RPGs. A weird concept, I know, but I hear that it can happen and has been happening since the 70s; which makes things even stranger since that implies the "milieu" has been "bastardized" since its inception.
Maybe we can just blame the whole thing on movies or radio, after all, those things have been around since forever. Damn radio, destroying our beautiful and pure hobby.
Why? All the flavor of the game with infinite permutations can be experienced between levels 1-20.
As for infinite flavor permutations between Levels 1 to 20, I call shenanigans. Certainly, there is a chance to experience infinite flavor within the entire offering of PnP RPGs as there is a game for everyone and every style of play and every possible type of story. However, Pathfinder is designed to meet the needs of a specific subset of stories and play styles. Granted, it's a large subset but it's still finite. Adding Epic or Mythic Tier play to that enlarges the subset of stories that can be told.
If such creatures exist, why even bother playing L1-10 heros in your fantasy game. If such creatures exist, the world should feel quite nihilistic, and live in fear of that 1 creature walking by and destroying civilization daily.
As for this bit, I'm going to echo what others have said and say that you can make the same comparisons and arguments for the power level discrepancies between low, mid, and high level play as it currently stands. After all, if CR 18 creatures exist in the world why even bother playing L1-5 heroes in your fantasy game.
The "epic" conceit, imho, is an excuse for gamers who lack the roleplay skill to make every story "epic" at whatever level they're at. . . . [Followed by a bunch of high-handed, derogatory statements]. . . I cannot help but feel much of what was once roleplay got hijacked by powergamers who'd rather hide behind statblocks than give a character any depth.
I almost didn't consider this part of the post worth responding to but I'm going to take the bait just a little. Yes, these types of people do exist but claiming such sweeping generalizations smacks of elitism, stereotyping, and baseless accusations unless you have some form of statistical proof that these types of players are the majority among high-level gamers. I'm going to assume you do have such proof as I would like to think someone whose posting name means "Peace and Truth" wouldn't stoop to making false and incendiary statements.
If his roleplay is subordinate to his mechanics than it's questionable, if it's purely to excuse a questionable corner use of mechanics, then not only is he a bad "RP'er" he's a bad gamer as well.
It is not a fallacy at all. What you are arguing is that more power makes the story harder to tell. That is completely different from someone that is good with mechanics and uses that knowledge is a bad RP'er.
I was speaking for the general idea, not a specific player, but I agree that if he is using trying to use flavor/RP to bypass the rules then he is a bad gamer.
The "epic" conceit, imho, is an excuse for gamers who lack the roleplay skill to make every story "epic" at whatever level they're at. It is nothing more than inflated scores, numbers, and machismo bragging rights.
You dont think that maybe they just like something different than you?
(Or me for that matter - double digit levels is too much for me. :/)
Actually, the biggest problem with eipic levels is the lack of a monster manual for those levels. Having 3 beastiaries filled with opponents to toss at your players is the biggest reason why low level games go so smoothly. Even then, a bad DM can railroad a group into an utter mess, powergaming or not. Everyone wants an epic level player book, no one asks for an epic level monster manual, this is the problem right there. Thats why you get responses like Pax's, obviously a guy whose had a bad experience with a bad DM who had no epic level monster manual to utilize.
The 3.5 ELH had epic monsters in it. They would have to be reworked for PF though. They new mythic book will have mythic monsters.
One big flaw of the Epic Level Handbook is that it took classes whose balance was already becoming questionable at 20th level and tried to set them up for unlimited advancement. Unlimited advancement is not a good idea -- at some point, you take on the biggest and baddest possible enemy, and after that there are no worthwhile challenges left. So every campaign should have some level target as its end point.
Note that I am not saying that 20th level should always be the end point -- a DM is always free to end his campaign earlier (and most do), or he can do some work of his own to take the campaign to an end point higher than 20th level. I know of some products based on the d20 system that are set up for end points of 25th and 30th levels. So far I am not aware of any reasonable system for advancement past 30th level.
I agree, but there was a poster on here playing a level 99 game earlier this year. I remember because at the same time another post made a sarcastic remark about playing to a similar level. I think what is reasonable depends on the group. At such levels it is hard to keep everyone within the same power range. I would probably never go higher than 25, which is high enough to take on high level demon lords, and some deities.
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While I doubt I'd ever reach, say, level 40, I just dislike of the idea that anything outside of me or my group says "This is where your character ends. You can't play him past this point." Of course, if you ask anyone that's actually made it to that point, they'll say they keep playing anyway.
That's my biggest problem with the "stop, play new characters, 'cause change can be fun!" mentality. That phrase irks the living daylights out of me. Yes, change can be fun. Playing new characters can be fun. But playing my current character IS fun. And if s/he and my fellow partymates don't think our story is done, why should it end just because we reached an arbitrary mechanical point?
That's my biggest problem with the "stop, play new characters, 'cause change can be fun!" mentality. That phrase irks the living daylights out of me. Yes, change can be fun. Playing new characters can be fun. But playing my current character IS fun. And if s/he and my fellow partymates don't think our story is done, why should it end just because we reached an arbitrary mechanical point?
You can always go Pokémon Adventures style and make new characters the succsesors of the previous ones.
I could, and have, though mostly in Neverwinter Nights after server wipes/continuity reboots. But it's still essentially the same thing - having to stop playing a character you're enjoying and swap to another, when character 1's story may not be done in your eyes.
I just think there's room for more solutions to the "post-level 20" problem than simply "stop here, end of story, start new characters if you want to keep playing". An Epic system, using the upcoming Mythic rules as supplementary levels instead of lower-level power boosts, treating it E6-style where you stop leveling at 20 but every time you gain a certain amount of XP you get a feat/new skills or spells/some other bonus(es), or some other method. Really just depends on what your group wants to do, and how interested they are in continuing playing this particular batch of characters. I still have players clamoring for a way to reboot an abandoned campaign we stopped back in 2007 due to players moving away. If we'd been able to keep playing that group would be post-20 by now.
Another option is to stop leveling and start gaining feats instead of levels. This slows the power growth of the PCs, but eventually they become so rich and have so many extra feats that most level 20+ challenges become easy.
Even if you adopt an E20 level cap the PCs need rules for crafting artifact level items and monster powerful enough to challenge them..
Humbly,
Yawar
I might not want epic rules, but I sure need them. Basically we have a core campaign that we always return to, and that more or less defines our group. At least once a year we play it, and our characters are mid twenties...
@Yawar: *nodnod* Yep, that's one of the options I mentioned =)
Personally I think artifact rules are probably one of the things better done homebrew. For most magic items the crafting rules as-is are workable, but for true artifacts, I prefer "You wanna make this? Alright, let's go on a quest."
You could always make exteensions of the class that you're playing if you're really interested in it.
On the Dicefreaks board, I've made:
Ranger
Favored Soul
go up to 40 with that as the absolute final advancement in the class and it turned out incredibly well. If a game I was in was said from the start to go that high, I would definitely choose one of those classes or just make my own as I did before.
For PrC's I have done:
Epic Geomancer
Epic Warhulk
along with 5 or so Epic Vestiges.
Just fun stuff to make and I'm happy that it would all work correctly too :) I wouldn't mind trying my hand at an Epic Summoner for PF tho..
By artifact level items I meant something more like Cloack of Resistance +6 or the Sword of Kas, items that break the rules and are outside normal adveturers reach, but aren't exactly a divine gift/curse from the gods to manking.
Humbly,
Yawar
I agree that one of the main reasons the ELH fell apart, for most people, is that it tried to appeal to everyone and be a bit of everything while not actually being really good at anything. It ended up being unfocused and not settling on a level cap (or even range) of any kind really hurt it.
Now, does it work for some people? Absolutely, yes. But for many of us, not so much. There needs to be a cap, at least for me. One of the biggest arguments I hear on "why do we need Epic" or "What should be done about a cap" all seem to come down to 2 things:
1) If you want Epic and want to go past 20 what's the point of having another cap. After all, eventually you'll just want to be able to go past that cap as well.
2) If you insist on sticking with a hard cap on Epic Levels then why even bother. IF you're fine with caps then why not be satisfied with 20.
Simple, setting coherency. Infinite levels can break down settings pretty fast unless you're doing homebrew. Now, homebrew is fine but it doesn't suffice for rules that have to jive with a published setting. So for the sake of setting coherency we need a cap. Why shouldn't that cap just be 20? Because many settings (including Golarion, the one that matters for the publishing company in question) have established that there is "life" beyond 20, definable heroes and villains already beyond the core system.
So what should the cap be? The highest needed level to properly detail and define the greatest of the setting's heroes as well as the highest level needed to defeat the greatest of the setting's villains. Done. There should be no need or desire to "beat" the Epic level cap if the cap allows the players to defeat the greatest villains in existence. There's no where to go from there other than to roleplay divine ascension or political ambition. And you don't need specific levels for that. Once those sorts of things become player goals, be it at Level 15 or 20 or 30, you focus on the story and not the numbers to make a great end to the campaign and that character's career.
Character retirement through ascension or something similar can be done at any time in a campaign (as the GM allows) but once you've defeated the most ancient of evils it's usually the only thing left. That is, unless you're characters want to continue play as gods or whatnot, but that goes beyond the scope of Epic Levels and so shouldn't be applied when determining the level cap.
So, if the most powerful Demon Lords (Abraxas, Orcus), Archdevils (Mephistopheles, Beelzebub), and more Earthly Villains (Tar-Baphon) all hover around CR 34-35 then make the cap 30. If the villains can hit CR 40, then make the cap 35 or 36. And then leave it alone.