| Tinalles |
Fluff Changes
- The tree was once sacred to Curchanus, and had been fondly looked over by Desna as a memento of her lost mentor. Desna left a stone marker saying, essentially, "don't cut this down" by the tree, but it was written in celestial.
- An agent of Lamashtu (Myrrhine, see below) persuaded the Glencross woodcutters to cut the tree down.
- Desna punished the villagers, with Myrrhine smirking from the shadows.
- Erastil stepped in to appease Desna, and the price she demanded was that the villagers (or their champions) remove the Coiled Beast.
- Myrrhine convinced a treant guardian of the forest (Cambios) that the PCs were responsible for the tree's demise.
- On confronting the PCs, Cambios prayed to Gozreh for aid and got the 2 savage grizzlies.
- The Coiled Beast itself became sacred to Lamashtu instead of Gozreh.
- Myrrhine lived with the coiled beast, using the Serpentfriend ability from her sorcerer bloodline to communicate with it.
Mechanically, everything worked identically to the presentation in the document.
Mechanical Changes
- Encounter 1: ditched the two snakes, gave the three ordinary wolves the Agile mythic template, and switched the dire wolf from Agile to Invincible.
- Encounter 2: as written.
- Encounter 3: gave the treant the advanced simple template and named him Cambios. Allowed Cambios to use his animate trees ability. Rain and bears as written.
- Encounter 4: changed the location to a swamp (shallow bog, per CRB 427) for more difficult terrain, and exempted the hydra from treating it as difficult terrain due to its swim speed.
- Encounter 4: added Myrrhine (MEER-in-ee), a medusa sorceress 3 (serpentine bloodline), with 3 mythic tiers (dual path Trickster/Champion). Here is her stat block. Doubtless it doesn't conform 100% to paizo spec, but all the info is there in case anyone is interested.
The Party
The party consisted of the following, including the mythic tiers gained after accepting Erastil's gift:
"Eh" -- male sylph bladebound magus 6. Took dual path Archmage/Champion.
Felonious -- male vanera gunslinger 6. Not sure which paths he took.
Manius Petronicus -- male human oracle of metal 6. Took Hierophant/Champion.
Sharp -- male catfolk knife master rogue 6. Took Trickster.
Encounter 1, A Village Attacked
The encounter wasn't terribly challenging. The lowest AC in the party was 25, and the wolves therefore had trouble hitting anyone who wasn't a villager.
We did have fun with a caber toss in which the oracle won first place (a prize pig).
Encounter 2, Ascension
For role playing reasons, half the party were strongly reluctant to take the arrows. But they eventually agreed.
Mythic build notes:
"Eh"
- Archmage 3
- Mythic Feat 1: Dual Path (Champion)
- Archmage Arcana: Wild Arcana
- Champion Strike: Sudden Attack
- Mythic Flaw: Cold Iron vulnerability
- Path Ability 1: Extra Mythic Power
- Path Ability 2: Extra Mythic Power
- Path Ability 3: Extra Mythic Power
Felonious
- I didn't get the details of his build, but his flaw was Hubris.
Manius Petronicus
- Hierophant 3
- Mythic Feat 1: Dual Path (Champion)
- Mythic Feat 2: Mythic Spells
- Mythic Flaw: Food dependency (spinach)
- Divine Surge: Inspired Spell
- Champion Strike: Sudden Attack
- Path Ability 1: Faith's Reach
- Path Ability 2: Water of Life
- Path Ability 3: Feat of Charisma
- Mythic Spell (feat): Cure Light Wounds
- Mythic Spell (feat): Cure Moderate Wounds
- Mythic Spell (feat): Cure Serious Wounds
- Mythic Spell (path): Heat Metal
Sharp
- Trickster 3
- Mythic Feat 1: Weapon Finesse
- Mythic Feat 2: Unsure
- Trickster Attack: Surprise Strike
- Path Ability 1: Improbable Prestidigitation
- Path Ability 2: Assured Skill
- Path Ability 3: Path Dabbling (Epic DR)
Encounter 3, Grove
As noted in the mechanical changes section, the treant (Cambios) got the advanced simple template and permission to animate trees. The two animated trees only got half hitpoints, and didn't use their power attack.
The bears went down fast.
The magus did incredible amounts of damage with frigid touch and scorching ray before finally getting pinned by one of the animated trees. After a few rounds he escaped the grapple and got pounded into negatives with AoOs. The oracle healed him, and he proceeded to take out the treant while lying prone.
After the fight the party healed up using Recuperation.
This was easily the most challenging encounter, but the party handled it with aplomb. I did a couple of things to ease the fight (one of the animated trees got confused and beat up the dead bears for a while), but I'm pretty sure that if I had eliminated the bears outright and just gone with 2 animated trees they could have handled it with no particular problem even if I hadn't pulled any punches.
For rewards, they all got Ambrosia, plus one item each:
- For "Eh", the Fire Goddess's Blade
- For Felonious, the Book of Perfect Jokes
- For Manius Petronicus, a Golden Holy Symbol of his deity (Gorum)
- For Sharp, the Dagger of a Thousand Bites
Sharp was the only one to make any use of his reward. "Eh" ignored the sword because his bound blade was better. Manius didn't wind up casting any spells with focus components. And Felonious just shot stuff for the rest of the adventure.
Encounter 4, the Bridge over the Howling Chasm
They were more or less stumped. They lowered a rope into the chasm, climbed down, and once they determined that they would get hit by lightning if they approached the far side, they hiked downstream for half a day till the chasm petered out into a swamp. Then they camped, got bitten by mosquitoes, and spent half the next day tromping back on the far side of the ravine.
Encounter 5, the Hydra
"Eh" rolled very high on his knowledge check and learned all its weaknesses in short order. Furthermore, the party had lots of fire and acid. They steamrolled it in 2 rounds.
Halfway through round 2, Myrrhine stepped in to protect her pet, and managed to petrify two party members (Felonious and Manius) before they finished killing the hydra. At that point she ran away. She could very likely have taken the two remaining party members by herself, but one of those two players had to leave anyway. So I had her run. Pity, I would have liked to see if she could have won against the magus and the rogue, both of whom where extremely effective.
Closing Thoughts: Competing Point Pools
The player of the magus commented that the mythic rules were frustrating because the magus mechanics and the mythic mechanics are identical. In both you get a pool of points that you can spend as a swift action -- but you only get one swift action per turn, so while the other characters could routinely fit a mythic ability use into their turn, the magus was constantly having to choose which pool to draw on. One possible adjustment to address this might be a feat or path ability which allows you to swap a move action for a swift action. Under core RAW, you can swap a standard for a move, but that's it. Some way to continue exchanging larger actions for smaller (give up a standard for a move, give up a move for a swift) would let a magus do something like spend an arcane pool point to recall a spell (swift action), cast it (standard action), then spend a mythic power point to make a Surprise Strke (swift action instead of a move action).
Hope this helps.