Playtest Results: Complicated Rules, Slow Play

[Epic Meepo]

This feedback is based on my "Heroes of Hibernia" playtest campaign.

As I've taken my playtest group from 2nd-level/non-mythic to 8th-level/4th-tier, I've noticed that the mythic rules get complicated at mid- to high-level as fast or faster than the core rules for mid- to high-level play. Of particular note: my playtest included an adventure for 12th-level/non-mythic characters, and that adventure was easier and faster to run than an 8th-level/4th-tier adventure for the same PCs.

To some degree, the slow-down in play resulted from a lack of familiarity with the new rules, but the new rules aren't doing anything to offset that slow-down. Here are some specific problems I've noticed at my table:

-There are areas in the rules where wording is confusing, inconsistent, or just plain unexpected, and this is an impediment to rules familiarity. There are, for example, several abilities that count as epic for the purpose of overcoming DR, and several other, similar abilities that overcome all DR. My players and I are constantly having to look them up to remember which is which, and we often find ourselves asking, "Wait, does that particular mythic ability also overcome DR?"

-The mythic rules involve a lot of extra bookkeeping. Tracking uses of mythic power is easy, and tracking who has swift actions available after a round's worth of immediate actions is not so bad. Tracking stacking DR/epic that changes based on damage taken, plus swift actions that alter attack rolls, plus immediate actions that force re-rolls, plus mythic vs. non-mythic damage, plus weird, corner-case spells which can be pumped with with inspired spell and wild arcana... All of that starts getting tedious.

-Large numbers of extra and immediate actions lead to players doing lots of cool stuff, which is good. But those extra actions also slow down the initiative count by a considerable amount. Every extra minute it takes to resolve one player's turn (or immediate action out-of-turn) is another minute everyone else at the table is sitting around, waiting for their next turn. The flow from one turn to the next has turned into a trickle, with nearly every player's turn each round taking as long as the longest non-mythic turn I'm used to seeing at my table.

-In addition, many of the mythic abilities lead to increasingly complex tactical considerations. Before mythic, warriors would decide where to move and who to attack; spellcasters would read through a modest list of available spells and decide which one or two to cast. After mythic, warriors are also deciding how often to move between attacks, when to spend their swift or immediate actions, which of their opponent's multiple attacks to block, etc.; while mythic spellcasters are reading through internet databases of every spell ever published and deciding how many multiple spells to cast from that pool during their next turns.

-Because of the above options and extra actions, the battlefield can change incredibly fast on any given turn. Players who were once able to spend the time between their turns deciding what they will be doing next round are finding that no amount of advance planning helps (assuming they have time for advance planning between deciding whether or not to use their immediate actions in response to anything and everything that happens). The battlefield might be completely rearranged on the turn immediately preceding their own, especially with spellcasters pumping out three or more spells per turn, as needed.

Don't get me wrong: it's nice that characters have all these options. But none of them make an 8th-level/4th-tier game any faster or easier to run than a straight 12th-level/non-mythic game. Those two level/tier combinations seem to have similar ratios of work required to fun added.

And I would absolutely not recommend the current mythic rules for novice or casual players, especially those wanting to play dedicated spellcasters. Nothing I've seen so far makes mid-level mythic play any simpler or easier than high-level non-mythic play.

[Landon Winkler]

Thanks for the breakdown. I haven't had a chance to test anything at high level (and my players aren't familiar with normal high level play anyway), but I was worried about this from reading the rules.

Immediate actions are widely regarded as one of the biggest culprits of 4e's long combats. I wouldn't want that to happen here, but there are a lot of immediate actions in these rules.

Overall, I really wish there were a lot less going on in these rules. Even my players who are okay playing any class now would probably back away to playing simpler classes only with these.

Cheers!
Landon

[Saint Bernard]

Thank you for your insights, my own play testing has run into some of these same issues. However, I was not as able to describe them as you. I completely agree these rules are not for the novice or casual players. Mythic rules allows a level tactical combat I have not seen since I dabbled with Iron Heroes (IH). The tokens I acquired for IH have come in handy with mythic rules. For one play test I was playing a magus and had tokens for my arcane pool, mythis power pool, hero points, and spell and feat cards. Even my least favorite classes, fighter and rogue, are more complex and interesting with mythic rules.

[AlgaeNymph]

One rule which really needs attention from Jason is Arcane Surge/Wild Arcana. Can I cast multiple spells a round or not? It looks like I can since it doesn't say I can't, but wouldn't that make for a more problematic situation than amazing initiative?

[Avatar-1]

Epic Meepo wrote:

This feedback is based on my "Heroes of Hibernia" playtest campaign.

Can I just say Epic Meepo, this level of feedback is amazing. The community needs more people who contribute just like this.

[Jason Bulmahn]

Thanks for the feedback.

These are some issues we are looking at as we develop the rules. High on our list of priorities is making fewer abilities that are themselves "additional actions" and instead wrapping them into existing actions. We are also working to standardize our terminology quite a bit, to prevent constantly having to look up a rule (the epic DR issue for example).

There are a few other areas here worth looking at and I hope to share some of our progress with the playtest soon.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

[Epic Meepo]

Jason Bulmahn wrote:

Thanks for the feedback.

These are some issues we are looking at as we develop the rules. High on our list of priorities is making fewer abilities that are themselves "additional actions" and instead wrapping them into existing actions. We are also working to standardize our terminology quite a bit, to prevent constantly having to look up a rule (the epic DR issue for example).

There are a few other areas here worth looking at and I hope to share some of our progress with the playtest soon.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

Thanks for listening, Jason. Standardizing terminology and giving characters fewer (but more effective) actions will go a long way towards speeding things up.

Your amazing initiative fix will also play a large roll in determining how quickly combats with mythic PCs can play out. (I was using Option #2 from your Amazing Initiative Alternatives thread, and the PCs were bloating their combat turns by spamming extra standard actions almost continuously.)