Over the weekend, our group made level 20, mythic tier 10 PCs and ran the characters against high-CR monsters (we took turns running different monsters while also running our own PCs).
Party members:
Barbarian 20/Champion 10
Sorcerer 20/Archmage 10
Witch 10/Fighter 1/Eldritch Knight 9/Archmage 10
Oracle 20/Guardian 10
Fight 1: Tarrasque (CR 25)
A warm-up that immediately showcased some problems with mythic rules. The barbarian wiped about half the tarrasque's hp with one attack, while the sorcerer used mythic time stop to queue up 5 delayed blast fireballs that finished the beast off nicely. He then wished it dead and we moved on. The tarrasque fell in one round of play, effectively.
Fight 2: Malcanthet (CR 28) [from Dungeon 149, I believe]
Lonely Mal was so far down in the initiative chain that she never really had a chance to do much. She wounded the barbarian pretty badly with a full attack, but since her abilities weren't mythic in origin, no one had to save against them. The oracle also used holy aura to screen out mind-affecting effects, which nullified a lot of her efficacy.
Fight 3: Orcus (CR 32) and Demogorgon (CR 33) [from Dungeon 149 and 150, respectively]
Finally something more closely resembling a true challenge. Orcus summoned a marilith and Demogorgon brought in a balor, which made us have to spread out our resources more. The sorcerer used his capstone ability to smash the balor and bury him under rubble. The barbarian took out the marilith in about two rounds. The eldritch knight stood at a distance and used Arcane Blast and Spring Attack to get in digs as possible at the heavy hitters while the oracle was on healing duty. The barbarian DID drop during this fight (going toe to toe with Orcus is never a good idea!), at which point the sorcerer cast his ridonkulous 20-hour time stop and the oracle and eldritch knight used breath of life and heal to get the barbarian back up and running. This fight ran long, and we were really tired by this point in the combat, so we called it a night - but we did some number crunching and estimated that although we'd expend a lot of resources to do so, we still had enough juice in us to polish off Orcus within two or three rounds and then chew Demogorgon to bits after another time stop rest.
Our Thoughts:
Mythic time stop is broken beyond belief. The design folks probably know this by now, but it bears repeating.
Mythic saves definitely need some rethinking, too - a lot of the oomph and flavor in these high-CR monsters is their special abilities, and those are effectively nullified by mythic saves. We're going to circumvent this by adding simple mythic templates to high-CR creatures (Graz'zt is likely to be next on the list, and we did finally get ahold of a copy of James Jacobs' CR 32 build for use in playtesting.)
From a personal standpoint, the archmage path seems less than ideal for anything that isn't wizard or sorcerer. My witch-based eldritch knight had very few spells he could use from the given list of mythic spell options, and the oracle could generally do those better. Mage strike was useful when I could get a hit in, however. Archmage seems very much geared toward a nuke mage build, which the witch just isn't. Some options for making hexes more effective or fun would be greatly welcomed in the final book. The barbarian-champion is highly effective, though, and nuke archmages work just fine.
For our next round of playtesting, I'll be switching my eldritch knight to the marshal path. It makes way more sense for me to continue acting as an artillery and mobile melee unit while granting additional actions to allies (I'm the party leader in-game anyway, so this makes more sense thematically as well). The sorcerer is going to try trickster because he's disillusioned with how easy the archmage's mythic time stop makes everything for us. The oracle is going to switch over to hierophant for the additional boost to healing. The barbarian build isn't likely to change, though there was some discussion of him going dual-path and taking abilities from both champion and guardian to boost his defense - his AC is pretty low, and he is soaking a lot of damage from being on the front line of every skirmish. That plus the addition of a hierophant should make us more resilient.
More to come once we all have another day to get together and hash out some battles. If I can add any more detail to these reports to boost their helpfulness, please let me know.
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Part of the reason those early encounters was so easy is that you had a party with an effective level of 30 fighting threats that were a CR 2-5 levels below what was appropriate for them. Meanwhile Orcus and Demogorgon would have been more in line with an appropriate challenge.
Also, I don't have my playtest in front of me, but I believe that mythic Time Stop specifically says that you cannot benefit from rest during the duration of the spell, so that factors in as well.
I'm going to go double check that real quick...
**EDIT** Yep, found it "Creatures
affected by this spell gain no benefit from rest or sleep while
the spell is active".
Unless you just meant "stopping to heal up" as opposed to taking an actual "rest".
Another thing you probably should think about doing is applying Mythic tiers or one of the mythic templates to appropriate creatures. Since it didn't exist when the creatures you used were drawn up, that can prove to be an unbalancing factor. A big part of the mythic idea is that they should be facing mythic threats.
Ssalarn: Yeah, I meant stopping to perform healing.
And yeah, we knew the tarrasque and Malcanthet were below acceptable range. But we had one player who REALLY wanted to fight a tarrasque, so we did it anyway. (That still doesn't mean that mythic time stop is without flaws, though.)
As my original post indicates, we'll be adding mythic templates to monsters for future runs so that their abilities aren't null and void due to mythic saves.
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Ssalarn: Yeah, I meant stopping to perform healing.
And yeah, we knew the tarrasque and Malcanthet were below acceptable range. But we had one player who REALLY wanted to fight a tarrasque, so we did it anyway. (That still doesn't mean that mythic time stop is without flaws, though.)
As my original post indicates, we'll be adding mythic templates to monsters for future runs so that their abilities aren't null and void due to mythic saves.
I definitely feel like Mythic is just a tiny bit too strong vs. non-mythic threats. Instead of auto-failing saves I feel like there's room for a softer mechanic. Maybe non-mythic characters/creatures should be forced to roll twice to save against mythic abilities and take the worst result?
Would you buff up Malcanthet to CR 32 and have the players go at her again? I want to see how well a mind-controller does against mythic PCs, and it would help James Jacobs when statting up Sorshen and Nocticula.
Hrmmmm... challenge accepted.
Here's my take on Malcanthet as a mythic demon lord. I used the base stats given for her in Dungeon #149 (pages 70-71), but I'm not going to retype them in their entirety here - one, I don't have time, and two, I'm not sure if I can do so legally.
First, Malcanthet's HD were increased by 2, from 33 to 35, which should correspond to a 2-point bump in CR, from 28 to 30. Next, I applied the Invincible mythic monster template from the playtest, bringing her total CR to 32 (technically, CR 30/MR 2). Additionally, bridging the gap from D&D 3.5 to Pathfinder requires adding hp to account for the Hit Dice change for outsiders and also adding seven feats to her stat block. Her skills were also recalculated.
Malcanthet gains a total of 125 hp: 33 to convert her to PF standards, 11 for the additional 2d10 HD, 26 for her Con bonus over 2 HD, 20 from the Invincible template, and 35 from the Toughness feat (see below). This boosts her from 429 hp to 554 hp.
All of her saving throws increase by 1, to Fort +36, Refl +34, Will +33.
Her SR is increased to equal her new CR + 13, to a total of 45.
Her BAB increases to +35; this, plus Weapon Focus (scourge), brings her attacks to scourge +49/+44/+39/+34, and +43 for her other natural attacks (claw, 2 wings, and tail). Her CMB is +43 and her CMD is 64.
Her existing resistances to acid, cold, and fire increase to 15, and she gains resist electricity 15 from the Invincible template. Since the DR 10/epic granted by the template is less than her standing DR 20/cold iron, epic, and good, her DR doesn't change.
Her natural armor increases by 4, giving her AC 54 and 43 flat-footed (no change to her touch AC of 38).
Since Mal has a stated caster level of 24th for her spell-like abilities and her Cha score didn't increase, her special ability DCs did not change. Her Poison save DC might need to go up though; I didn't check that while doing my notes last night. Anyone have a suggestion? Should the CL be arbitrarily increased?
She also gains the Recurring Saves and Block Attacks abilities detailed in the mythic playtest document.
I gave Malcanthet the following feats to complement her existing suite of abilities: Greater Trip, Greater Vital Strike, Improved Vital Strike, Quicken Spell-like Ability (greater teleport), Toughness, Vital Strike, and Weapon Focus (scourge).
Finally, Malcanthet's skill points were recalculated and redistributed according to PF standards with the following results: Acrobatics +49, Bluff +55, Diplomacy +55, Disguise +52, Escape Artist +46, Fly +46, Intimidate +55, Knowledge (local) +43, Knowledge (nobility) +43, Knowledge (planes) +46, Perception +48, Sense Motive +48, Stealth +49, Use Magic Device +55. (Int 26 at 35 HD gives an outsider 490 skill points; divided over 14 skills, that's 35 ranks per skill. Forgery no longer exists and Listen/Spot are folded into Perception, so I rolled those extra points over into Fly since she has a Fly speed, and Stealth since all outsiders gain that as a class skill in PF and she's sporting a +12d6 sneak attack.)
I'll let you guys know how it goes!