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This question is probably going to make some people angry but I am curious. Why did Paizo decide to release the Mythic style content instead of Epic (lvl 21+) content?
On a note I PERSONALLY do not care for Mythic. The reason being is that I felt that Pathfinder was sort of a overpowered 3.5 and I was hesitant to start playing it for that reason and finally started playing it in the last year. Mythic just seems like an overpowered Pathfinder. Now I understand there is nothing wrong with that and some of possibilities ARE interesting. I was just curious why Paizo decided to release this instead of making rules for play beyond lvl 20 which do require all their own rules as the basic D20 system does start to break down after a certain point.
I also understand a lot of people do not like Epic (I personally am of two minds; its nice to sometimes see that character I have been leveling for 15-20 lvls keep going on to new adventures but it can get a bit ridiculous at times) but the possibility of continuing existing characters or having an adventure of Mythic like proportions (sorry bad word play pun) is nice.
So was there any particular reason this decision was made?
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So how is 20 levels plus 10 epic levels fine but 20 levels plus 10 mythic tiers not?
So how is 20 levels plus 10 epic levels fine but 20 levels plus 10 mythic tiers not?
If you just start a game at Epic lvl I would totally agree with you. They are both just extremely powerful play styles. But Epic also gives the possibility of continuing existing characters which I feel is what most people who like Epic play enjoy the most. Mythic, on the other hand, just seems more overpowered base Pathfinder. Again that is my personal opinion on Mythic as I had mentioned above.
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Mythic can fully be used for post level 20 play. In fact...level 20 might be what grants the PC's their moment of ascension. At that point forward you can continue to gain levels (gaining HP and stat boosts, etc.) but Mythic provides some more abilities without needing to make up new ones.
It's all in how the GM wants to use it.
If I make a first-level character with one mythic tier, am I overpowered? How strong am I compared to a second-level character? Compared to a third-level character? If my fifth-level character has two mythic tiers, can I take on epic twenty-first-level opponents?
If I make a first-level character with one mythic tier, am I overpowered? How strong am I compared to a second-level character? Compared to a third-level character? If my fifth-level character has two mythic tiers, can I take on epic twenty-first-level opponents?
First, as I mentioned, that is just how I fell about it. Like I said I just felt that was a large power scale shift from 3.5 to Pathfinder and Pathfinder to Mythic.
Second, I did not create this thread to talk about how I felt about Mythic. I created to see if anyone knew the reason of why Paizo decided to do the Mythic adventures instead of producing Epic content (or any other content for that matter although Epic seems the most comparable).
Pendin Fust: Without new balancing rules on Lvl.21+ the D20 system starts to get really unbalanced. You can even start to see it before that in the later lvls (16-20) on an highly optimized/focused characters. I do not feel that the Mythic rules would address that issue. If anything they would probably only make the matter worse if applied to lvl 20+ while only using the base Patfhfinder system.
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"I think mythic is overpowered."
"In what sense?"
"In the sense that I feel it is overpowered."
"How, exactly? Is it stronger than game elements that already exist?"
"That's not the point, the point is my feels."
"Epic is broken, the d20 system gets really unbalanced beyond level 20, and even approaching level 20. So, why didn't Paizo do Epic?"
Five star thread you have here.
Thank you for answering your own question Lord, just extending the level progression out another 10 levels is incredibly unbalanced.
That is why you need Epic content rules to support it....
"I think mythic is overpowered."
"In what sense?"
"In the sense that I feel it is overpowered."
"How, exactly? Is it stronger than game elements that already exist?"
"That's not the point, the point is my feels.""Epic is broken, the d20 system gets really unbalanced beyond level 20, and even approaching level 20. So, why didn't Paizo do Epic?"
Five star thread you have here.
Wow..helpful much? As I said to LovesTha: You need Epic balancing rules to make Epic play work. To the rest of your comment I made it clear that I feel that Pathfinder is an overpowered version of 3.5 and Mythic is a MORE POWERFUL version of the base Pathfinder. 3.5 does not get Rogue Talents, Barbarian Rage powers, bloodline abilities, weapon group training, etc. There is your simply proof that Pathfinder is MORE POWERFUL that the old 3.5. To MY PERSONAL preferences I feel that it is overpowered. I still enjoy the game, I enjoy the more customization that are those things provide but I definitely feel MUCH MORE powerful in basic play that my characters did in 3.5.
So far I have still not received a even remotely straight answer to my question with the exception of Pendin Fust who I disagreed with but at least provided a possible answer.
If your feels say mythic is mad broke and you're not interested in actually discussing the contents of mythic because that doesn't matter to your feels, I'm not sure what sort of responses you're looking for here.
If your feels say mythic is mad broke and you're not interested in actually discussing the contents of mythic because that doesn't matter to your feels, I'm not sure what sort of responses you're looking for here.
Ummmmm...here for my question. Which was why Paizo decided to release Mythic instead of Epic or any other content?
Epic is definitely content very similar to the style of rules that Mythic uses which is why I had the question. A similar question could be presented for a Spell Compendium, a non-golarion Prestige Class book, or ANYTHING else but the similarities in rule styles necessary for the Mythic rules is similar the type of rules that would have to be developed for Epic play.
So now that the question has been well established...does anyone have an answer?
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James has been pretty vocal about his feelings towards 3.5 Epic rules (and Epic in general) which he helped write some of, and I am fairly certain this is one of the reasons they did not do an Epic Pathfinder ruleset.
It would seem they do not really want to go over level 20, but instead would like to get more mileage from lower levels. And it gives them a chance to stat up NPC's like Baba Yaga. And it allows James to write some adventures (like the upcoming Wrath of Righteousness) where the PC's eventual fight a Demon Lord.
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You already gave the answer. LovesTha and I already told you you already gave the answer.
But I guess answers you don't feel don't count.
Pendin Fust: Thank you for that answer! I didn't know about his feelings towards Epic and that explains a lot.
Roberta Yang: Actually all you gave me was snarkiness and were pretty rude and unhelpful. You also constantly wanted to discuss why I felt that Mythic was overpowered which was never the intention of this thread and was irrelevant to the question. Your only possible answer was because Epic is unbalanced. Which, as I responded, is why you need Epic Rules as the D20 system doesn't support it well without modifications to maintain balance.
But Pendin Fust answered the question quite well and I am satisfied. Sad that Epic Content will probably never appear but at least I have a reason now.
Long story short, the way the game is set up, the math starts to break down at higher levels. The first attack of every sequence might always hit, but the last one will almost always miss. You character might always fail level appropriate Fort save DCs, but always save against Ref save DCs. Fights become incredibly short in character, but drag on for hours out of character.
HP makes sense at lower levels, because as you become more skilled, it's reasonable that your character can mitigate the damage an identical attack better, resulting in less damage as a percent of overall HP. At high level, you can swim unbuffed in lava or sky dive, sans parachute.
The design goal of epic was never to make big numbers bigger, but to make your character feel more powerful and stand out as something more than mere human (or elf, halfling, orc, etc). Mythic is after that same fundamental goal, without the negative externalities that resulted from epic.
Nothing short of completely rebuilding the game from the ground up would make the math work. It just isn't worth it.
Lead Designer
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Hey there all,
We went with Mythic for a variety of reasons, but the largest among them was that mythic allows us to tell some of the same stories as epic, but it does not tie the rules set to 20+ level play, which is an area that few groups ever achieve. We wanted to put out a book that was more usable and "friendly" to a larger percentage of our audience, but still allowed us to take the game in a new direction.
I realize that Mythic may not be for everyone. That is ok. I hope that you will be able to find some parts of it that you can use. If not, this book does not preclude us from doing Epic at some point in the future.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
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Lord Phrofet, I address some of the problems with level 21+ play here, and there is more discussion before and after that post in that thread about the "why didn't you just go levels 21-30?"
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Ok I need to say something. Although Paizo and Pathfinder might have some issues that the boards scream and cry about endlessly, the fact that Sean K Reynolds and Jason Bulmahn actually took the time to come around and comment on my question is simply amazing. Thank you for trying to help your fans/customers so much even if we don't deserve it.
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Pathfinder is not an overpowered 3.5. I was able to get 15+ attacks a turn at a 10+ modifier at lvl 8 in 3.5, by stating prestige classes from books that were nigh unheard of. You can't do that in pathfinder. Pathfinder may be a little bumped up in power, but so are the monsters. And they removed all the loopholes and lvl stacking choices from 3.5. I'm sorry that you view it that way, I would suggest you reevaluate your views. Go read the disscusions on the matter.This question is probably going to make some people angry but I am curious. Why did Paizo decide to release the Mythic style content instead of Epic (lvl 21+) content?
On a note I PERSONALLY do not care for Mythic. The reason being is that I felt that Pathfinder was sort of a overpowered 3.5 and I was hesitant to start playing it for that reason and finally started playing it in the last year. Mythic just seems like an overpowered Pathfinder. Now I understand there is nothing wrong with that and some of possibilities ARE interesting. I was just curious why Paizo decided to release this instead of making rules for play beyond lvl 20 which do require all their own rules as the basic D20 system does start to break down after a certain point.
I also understand a lot of people do not like Epic (I personally am of two minds; its nice to sometimes see that character I have been leveling for 15-20 lvls keep going on to new adventures but it can get a bit ridiculous at times) but the possibility of continuing existing characters or having an adventure of Mythic like proportions (sorry bad word play pun) is nice.
So was there any particular reason this decision was made?
I have to agree. 3.5 had developed to a point where many of the base classes were inferior choices, with splat books galore introducing increasingly more potent options. Anyone remember the Dragonfire Adept and his 90d6 standard action breath weapon attack? Pathfinder did a lot to level the playing field and give you a real reason to actually take levels of a class like sorcerer past level 5 instead of jumping into the first Prestige Class that pulled up in a fancy car with spell advancement.
I would agree that 3.5 got ridiculous with all the prestige classes and Tome of Battle (a book I refused to use since it made doing cool things to easy and made me feel like it was doing all the work of character creation for me) and the combination of stuff you could do. But a lot of those were the massive dipping style builds (which pathfinder does as well as can be shown on the boards) which I usually found to be excellent on paper and in numbers but lacking and stupid in RP and usually avoided.
I also really do enjoy the fact that Pathfinder, with the archetypes and new abilities, has made playing a base class from 1-20 feasible and enjoyable. But the same thing that makes playing those base classes from 1-20 more feasible is a large increase in power. This increase in power made me hesitant to play pathfinder for many years.
I play Pathfinder and 3.5 currently and enjoy playing both but I think I might always have that sense that Pathfinder is simply a more powerful version of 3.5 which is a sense that only increases as Paizo releases more books therefore giving players more options just like 3.5 did. There is NOTHING WRONG with this and I am glad to continue to purchase Pathfinder material and enjoy using it. It is simply my PERSONAL feelings on the matter.
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Rant that's on topic, spoilered to save space in the thread.
Epic (21+) content would not have done the same thing. Above level 8, you start having particularly potent spells and the single-target damage from a martial begins the rocket-tag scenario in most combats. Encounters become much more difficult to GM effectively and play feels stunted. Skill DCs start to break down, with some DCs (say, Diplomacy or UMD) hardly changing relative to your rapidly increasing ability, while others ramp to whatever degree the user chooses to invest in them (Perception vs Stealth, Bluff vs Sense Motive, etc).
SKR has posted numerous times about the math breaking down around 15 or 16 and I absolutely agree with him on that point. Personally, I find it breaking down sooner. Mythic not only keeps the inevitable breakdown further off by bringing in larger challenges earlier in the character's life, but it can also extend the usable life of the working portion of the game up through 17 or 18 because some of the numeric challenges ramp against the players with the APL adjustments applied for their Mythic Tier. If a party is level 17 / Mythic Tier 8, then the APL is 25 and, as such, they can be taking on relatively huge challenges.
Don't get me wrong. The math still breaks down. The lethality of high level play is significantly higher than that of low level play, and that is true regardless of your Mythic Tier. I think the game continues to break down at high levels of play, and the main reason that I can point to is legacy. Because this was designed on the 3.5 base, there was a certain inevitability to this problem. In my opinion, though, Paizo has made the best choice available for extending out the life of play in the Pathfinder system by choosing to make Mythic instead of Epic.
Rant that's on topic, spoilered to save space in the thread.
** spoiler omitted **...
This, right here, is what I was going to say but much less reasonably. The game just breaks after 20th lvl. If you really want epic content then start layering on levels in other classes. There are enough archtypes to make pretty much all of the classes potentially interact in interesting ways.
Mythic is really an attempt to redefine the existing game not raise the level cap so OP PCs can get even more OP.
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I would agree that 3.5 got ridiculous with all the prestige classes and Tome of Battle (a book I refused to use since it made doing cool things to easy and made me feel like it was doing all the work of character creation for me) and the combination of stuff you could do. But a lot of those were the massive dipping style builds (which pathfinder does as well as can be shown on the boards) which I usually found to be excellent on paper and in numbers but lacking and stupid in RP and usually avoided.
I also really do enjoy the fact that Pathfinder, with the archetypes and new abilities, has made playing a base class from 1-20 feasible and enjoyable. But the same thing that makes playing those base classes from 1-20 more feasible is a large increase in power. This increase in power made me hesitant to play pathfinder for many years.
I play Pathfinder and 3.5 currently and enjoy playing both but I think I might always have that sense that Pathfinder is simply a more powerful version of 3.5 which is a sense that only increases as Paizo releases more books therefore giving players more options just like 3.5 did. There is NOTHING WRONG with this and I am glad to continue to purchase Pathfinder material and enjoy using it. It is simply my PERSONAL feelings on the matter.
What most people don't get, is that while PCs had an increase in power, so did the monsters. A lot. I man Paizo devs say that if you're going to use a 3.5 monster in PF, you need to bump it's CR down one notch for it to be correct.
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Dear OP,
I have a lot of friends who play Exalted. I like to think that Mythic is the sort of thing that would attract them in to playing Pathfinder.
Different people have different expectations of the game, and mythic opens up the options for that without requiring the broken maths of extreme high levels.
If your group doesn't want to play Mythic that is all good. I suspect my group will likely never use these rules, but I still approve of their existing (and will, even, almost certainly buy the book).
A larger range of stories is a good thing, and if GM don't want to use mythic stories (and I'm assuming they usually will not) then they don't use them. If they do, then players get to play with some fun new features and experience a different kind of Pathfinder.
Variety = good.
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On the Opinion that Mythic rules made Pathfinder even more powerful, then yes, thats true. The main diffrence why I believe that Pathfinder made Mythic prior to Epic is simple. I have been gaming for over ten years, I have yet to play in a Epic Campaign. Because of this, I would never buy an Epic Level book, as I am sure there are many more people out there in the same situation. Now, Mythic on the other hand, I'm getting geared up for. Reason, I'm a level 3 Half-God. Since there are really no rules for this, Mythic takes the cake.
Think of it like this, playing a regular character you are doing what every person in Galorion can do, at least, have the potential for doing. But what about that the Deamons and Celestials plaqueing the lands. What about Rovagague coming down after you have slain one of his Generals. Well now you are messed, as are your pants. However, by introducing Mythic Tiers, now you can create characters that can actually do the adventures that others cower from. What's better about it, is that its not just the player's getting this great boon. The GM as MANY diffrent resources he can use to make it a Mythic Campain. And sets the PC's to be the better choice for any assignment by the King.
Having done some playtesting I really like Mythic play, and I think it will work fine.
However it does make me a little sad that this probably makes a epic level handbook(20+) less likely too happen. I would have preferred that to Mythic I think (I really liked the D&D epic level handbook).
I know this is a little off topic, but I mist say.. some of the earlier posts in this thread are the MEANEST I have ever seen on these message boards, and I've read a lot, even if i have only commented on about a dozen.
Back on topic... I don't think the 3.0 Epic Handbook is covered under the open gaming license. And unfortunately, I think it is probably one of the only way to continue playing past 20 without breaking the system (well, at least it slows down the rate at which the system breaks, anyway). Is there anyone who can confirm that? I don't know where my copy of that book went, can't exactly check it...
Actually most of the epic level book is OGL. They have even pulled a few monsters from it (although significantly lowered their power level)
Having done some playtesting I really like Mythic play, and I think it will work fine.
However it does make me a little sad that this probably makes a epic level handbook(20+) less likely too happen. I would have preferred that to Mythic I think (I really liked the D&D epic level handbook).
Well.. and this is just speculation not special insight... I think much will depend on how Mythic Adventures is received. If people like the book, like Wrath of the Righteous, and there is a strong demand for more material then anything is possible.
People requested and received Asian flavored material for Tian Xia and Jade Regent. I think those forays were successful but there's been no concerted effort to demand more content. So it shouldn't comes as a surprise that we haven't had a lot since.
I really believe fans have a big impact on the publishing schedule. Paizo likes to write and publish material people want to buy. So have some hope and once Mythic Adventures comes out, talk about it, use it, and let your voice be heard. Don't let it be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
If it sounds like I am telling you off—it wasn't my intent. I'm trying to encourage you. :)
Actually most of the epic level book is OGL. They have even pulled a few monsters from it (although significantly lowered their power level)I know this is a little off topic, but I mist say.. some of the earlier posts in this thread are the MEANEST I have ever seen on these message boards, and I've read a lot, even if i have only commented on about a dozen.
Back on topic... I don't think the 3.0 Epic Handbook is covered under the open gaming license. And unfortunately, I think it is probably one of the only way to continue playing past 20 without breaking the system (well, at least it slows down the rate at which the system breaks, anyway). Is there anyone who can confirm that? I don't know where my copy of that book went, can't exactly check it...
I'm sorry, this is pedantic of me, but the Epic level Handbook was in no way released under the Open Game License. Rather, some parts of it were added to the SRD, which by that point had been released under the OGL.
It's a subtle difference, but an important one.
So subtle it doesn't cancel out the purpose of my reply, which is that rules content from that book are indeed OGL
So why was my thread raised from the dead?
The rules break down 20+ because the game is based off a d20. numbers start to go of whack because of it. It because a exponential function. then increase. +20 anything you are more then likely going to hit or pass any save. so to fix it you have to make higher + items, to make it a challenge for those with that +20. But this make it impossible for those that don't have +20 in what ever that is to make the roll. The actual D20 become less and less meaning full. This also increase the need for magic mart even more so then now.
Well, since we've necro'ed the thread anyways ...
I just wanted to raise the point that if you use the 3.5e epic rules solely as a way to have combats where the PCs are above level 20, then yes, post-20 play turns into broken rocket tag.
IF that's what you do. :)
On the other hand, some people don't do that .....