Feedback on the Player Options

[Alexander Augunas]

First off, I wanted to say that I really, really like the ideas of the Mythic system and feel that its already doing its job quite nicely. That said, while I was reading through the Player content, I wrote down notes and questions I had. Many of these questions can be solved with a little bit of Common Sense, I think, but I figured they warranted asking considering that these rules will be used to construct an Adventure Path down the line, and if the system is ever allowed into PFS, it might as well be as rules-tight as possible.

Here it goes:

Notes:

Basic Mythic Rules:

• Mythic Flaw (Furious Rage): Doesn't specify if the flaw also doesn’t give you a bonus on Will saves. Assuming that it does not, but should be clarified.

• Mythic Flaw (Hubris): Are you staggered in addition to the fear effect’s normal fear effect if you select this mythic flaw, or does the staggered condition replace the fear effect’s normal effect, effectively granting you immunity to fear? Also, how does this flaw function for a paladin with Aura of Courage? Do they effectively have no mythic flaw because they are immune to fear effects and therefore never need to make a saving throw against a fear effect? Or does this ability expect all paladins to make saving throws against every fear effect, penalizing them when they fail a saving throw that would have normally given them almost no penalties.

• Mythic Flaw (Insanity: Do any bonuses or immunities to confusion apply to my saving throw if I select this mythic flaw?

• Amazing Initiative: This seems like it would be better as a feat instead of something that every player receives. Unless the intent is that you almost always act before non-mythic creatures, which again seems cooler as an Improved Initiative (Mythic) instead of something I just hand out to all my players.

• Mythic Saves: Baseline improved evasion to all saving throws against all non-mythic sources is a little ridiculous power-wise. I feel like this ability encourages DMs to throw nothing but mythic obstacles before a group of players and if they do so, this benefit isn’t really a benefit. I think this ability would be better if you had to activate it as an immediate action; that way you can assure that you minimize the one thing you really don’t want to be hit by without becoming a juggernaut of unstoppableness all the time. At the very least, make the player pay mythic power in order to use this ability.

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

Archmage Path

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

• Channel Power (Archmage Path Ability): How does the 50% increase to damage stack with Empower Spell? Does the spell deal 100% additional damage, or are the two cases applied separately for a total of 125%? (i.e. 100 damage + 150% = 150 damage + 150% = 225 damage)

• Enduring Armor (Archmage Path Ability): How does this ability function with spontaneous spellcasters? Can they select this ability at all?

• Familiar Mind (Archmage Path Ability): Can I select this ability if I do not possess a familiar? It’d be nice if it granted the archmage a familiar if they did not already possess one.

• Spell Endurance (Archmage Path Ability): Just wanted to call this one out for being really, really cool.

Champion Path[/p]

• [b]Distant Barrage (Champion Strike): Is this attack made with a ranged weapon?

• Sweeping Strike (Champion Path Ability): How does this ability function with a reach weapon, such as a guisearm? How about the infamous spiked chain?

• Wall Smasher (Champion Path Ability): This seems pretty useless unless it ignores the wall’s hardness; an average of 1d6 + ½ Strength is not going to mean much to most walls.
  

Guardian Path

• Dimensional Grapple (Guardian Path Ability): Does your equipment go along for the ride?

• Quick Recovery (Guardian Path Ability): How does this ability function against permanent conditions, such as permanent blindness? Seems like an oversight that a 3rd level spell (aka Blindness) can completely thwart a 2nd+ tier path ability.
  

Hierophant Path

• Plantbringer (Hierophant Path Ability): Giving all plant creatures fast healing seems like something a bad GM could use to grief their player. I’d either allow the player to decide if a creature receives the benefits or increase the starting attitude of all plant creatures who receive the benefits.

• Servant of Balance (Hierophant Path Ability): This seems pretty terrible. It saves you from additional critical hit damage at the cost of assuring that you AND your companions can never critically hit? No other mythic power I’ve seen so far has a penalty like this yet.
  

Marshal Path

• Fight On (Marshal Path Ability): Does the creature ignore being staggered based upon its hit point total while you concentrate on it?

• Loyalty (Marshal Path Ability): Do you ignore Leadership’s usual prerequisites when you gain it as a bonus feat?
  

Trials

• Lesser Trials look more like a list of video game achievements than anything wondrous or mythic.
  

Feats

• Dual Focus seems too good. Its like a scaling version of the Additional Mythic Power path ability.

• Dual Path should specify whether your tier applies to both paths. For example, does me being a 6th tier Marshal with this feat (Archmage) allow me to select 6th level abilities from both the Marshal Path and the Archmage Path?

• Great Fortitude / Improved Lightning Reflexes / Improved Iron Well: Can I use the feat to reroll the saving throw that I rolled two of with my Mythic Power?

• Heroic Arrogance doesn’t really look like an attractive feat. Might be better as a Path ability instead, though even then almost no path abilities actually come with a drawback. Might be better as a Heroic Flaw?
  

[Hama]

Alexander Augunas wrote:

Wall Smasher (Champion Path Ability): This seems pretty useless unless it ignores the wall’s hardness; an average of 1d6 + ½ Strength is not going to mean much to most walls.

Honestly, even if it automatically ignored the hardness of the wall, unless it was made of paper or glass, it wouldn't break.

What about the bull rush check, doubled against the break DC of the wall? If the character succeeds, he can
a)Burst throught the wall
b)Shove someone else through the wall

[Alexander Augunas]

Hama wrote:

Alexander Augunas wrote:

Wall Smasher (Champion Path Ability): This seems pretty useless unless it ignores the wall’s hardness; an average of 1d6 + ½ Strength is not going to mean much to most walls.

Honestly, even if it automatically ignored the hardness of the wall, unless it was made of paper or glass, it wouldn't break.

What about the bull rush check, doubled against the break DC of the wall? If the character succeeds, he can
a)Burst throught the wall
b)Shove someone else through the wall

You're 100% right.

Something like this would work a lot better:

You can make a bull rush, ki throw, or reposition combat maneuver to smash a foe into a wall (or similar solid object). After making the combat maneuver check, divide the result by 10 and deal a number of d6s of falling damage to the foe from the force of the attack (rounded down). If your combat maneuver check result equals or exceeds the wall's break DC, the impact breaches the wall, causes the creature to tumble through and land prone. If your combat maneuver fails to breach the wall, the creature lands prone in the nearest available space instead. By spending one use of mythic power, you may add double your mythic tier to your combat maneuver check as a mythic bonus.

[Defade]

Alexander Augunas wrote:

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

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

Alexander Augunas wrote:

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

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

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