Just ran through "the Wrath of Nature" adventure at the back of the Mythic Playtest pdf. Session lasted from 6pm to 11pm. They were the least fun five hours in gaming that I've had with my group in a while. Now we've been going on a high streak of some great session in Rise of the Runelords lately, so it could be just us regressing back to the norm. But I'll leave my first impressions of Mythic here for further discussion.
WARNING: SPOILERS FOR THE ADVENTURE ABOUND!!!
The adventure is scaled for four level 6 PCs. I had five level 7 PCs. So the first thing I did was scale up the difficulty.
First encounter was originally 1x Mythic (Agile) Dire Wolf and a bunch of CR 1 to 2 critters. I cut the critters and added two more Mythic (Agile) Dire Wolves.
Second encounter was a Treant with two Mythic (Savage) Grizzly Bears. I dropped the bears and added an additional Treant and allowed them to use their "Animate Trees" ability.
Next was a 30ft chasm they had to cross while Gozreh tossed 8d6 lightning bolts at them.
Last encounter was supposed to be a Mythic Hydra. I chose a Mythic Ettin and brought back the two Mythic (Savage) Grizzly Bears.
Party consisted of the following: Dhampir Bard (archer build), Half-Elf Ranger (archer build), Tengu Inquisitor (archer build), Gnome Fey-Blooded Sorcerer, and a Dwarven Fighter. Yes there were 3 archers in the party. Yes, their DPR was insane, even more so with Mythic Feats.
the Bard went Marshal. The Ranger went Champion. The Sorcerer went Archmage. The Fighter went Guardian. The Inquisitor went Dual Path and chose Champion and Marshal.
Encounter 1: 3x Mythic (Agile) Dire Wolves. The wolves used their high movement speeds and multiple turns per round to get into great positions for full attacks. Rarely hit anyone except for the Sorcerer (average party AC was low 20's). The party focus fired them down efficiently while taking negligible damage.
Encounter 2: Treants got a "oh ***t from the Dhampir Bard who'd chosen Wood as his Material Weakness. Treants got some good slams in against the party and managed to surround them with their Animate Trees ability. Once again, focus fire brought them down within one a few rounds.
Encounter 3: This nearly defeated the party. Simple obstacle. DC's between 20 and 30. Basically a series of Skill Checks with a dash of Lighting Bolts thrown in. Party didn't use Mythic Powers that much.
Last Encounter: Ettin was rebuilt using 3 Mythic Tiers of Champion on top of an Advanced Ettin. He got to make a few really cool attacks. But ultimately died early on to a combination Amazing Initiative, Improved Rapid Shot, and Rally. Bears died like chumps before becoming much of a threat.
Overall impressions:
There are a lot of actions flying around. Marshals grant additional actions, Swift Actions can be used to grant movement AND attacks. Amazing Initiative gives you another whole turn's worth of actions. My group is used to operating under Haste (or similar effect) almost constantly, and we felt overwhelmed.
Mythic Powers feel like they trivialize encounters. Fighting non-Mythic things means that the PCs can use Amazing Initiative to get a whole ton of damage out before their opponents can even act. Mythic Power means that you can add up to +6 on any d20 roll and the Marshal's Focus ability means that they can essentially reroll 1's or 2's for free.
Mythic adds a layer of complexity to the game that some of my players did not find necessary. Many, if not, most of the Path Abilities felt more like "crunch" than it did "flavor". As one of my players put it, "We got bigger numbers to play with but we didn't feel any cooler while we did it."
Player's didn't know when or on what to use their Mythic resources. This could be related to the lack of familiarity we had with the new rules. But My players where hoarding their mythic uses per day.
Inorganic character building felt even more obvious. The players in my group had leveled their characters from 3 all the way to 7 by playing through a homebrew. Suddenly getting 3 Mythic Tiers added on suddenly threw everyone. In some situations it felt like their characters did what the did better. But in others it felt like the players didn't know what their characters did anymore.
What we liked about Mythic:
1) The idea of accomplishing trials and earning your powers is really appealing. It's like getting your rewards for putting in your due diligence.
2) Mythic Templates on monsters or enemy NPCs is great. They can make solo encounters into epic fights, especially if that monster can balance out the action economy with things like Amazing Initiative and Fleet Charge.
What we didn't like about Mythic:
1) Mythic makes it harder to fail. Failure is a part of the game. Failure is what makes triumph so sweet. It felt like the Mythic PCs in the playtest were trouncing the encounters. There was never really any fear of death or loss.
2) It felt like we could have told the same story with a similar heroic feel without the Mythic Rules. In fact, it felt like Mythic took away from our gaming experience. Going back to a previous observation, the Mythic Playtest feels very crunch heavy. Bigger numbers, bigger bonuses, and more actions did not make us feel like demi-gods or chosen warriors. It felt like we were cheating and breaking the game.
Okay. It's 1:15AM EST and this GM is tired and dissatisfied. Those are my preliminary observations. I'll try writing up some more with a clear mind tomorrow. I'm still optimistic about Mythic overall. I just wonder if I could somehow have GM'd that session better...
Cheers!
MM