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We had our final playtests on 1/4 and 1/11, using the updates to the rules as requested by Jason.
This post comments only on Amazing Initiative.
We used the new rules for Amazing Initiative, and not a single person in my group liked them, including me.
This could be because we're used to high-level play under 3.5e, with spellcasters liberally using Multispell in conjunction with the full Automatic Quicken feat tree, but we all enjoyed our games pre-transition significantly more; everyone agreed that multiple turns per character instead of longer turns per character was an improvement.
When all the players had the option of taking two full turns (and before I realized there was an artificial limitation buried in the Pathfinder system that mandated no more than one spell per round, something I dislike with a keen intensity), everyone was contributing and there was no feeling of any player monopolizing the table (but see my post to follow about mythic time stop).
After the change, we ended up back in the 3.5e mode of individual players' turns taking even longer because even though they only got an extra standard action, it was glommed onto their regular action. Furthermore, there were many discussions and much confusion about what a PC could and couldn't do, given that it was only an additional standard action and additional spells were administratively prohibitied (but not spell-like abilities, supernatural abilities, etc.). Frankly, the previous rules were just plain simpler (especially since at the time I was unaware of the arbitrary "1 spell per round" limitation).
For us, this new set of initiative rules was neither simple, logical, nor something that helped the game move quickly (quite the opposite). As such, I have the following recommendations for Amazing Initiative in the final system:
- Keep the bonus of +1/tier, or even make it +2/tier, which I think would work even better.
- Put back the ability to take a full second turn at the PC's initiative count minus 20 instead of glomming additional actions onto a PCs existing turn. We need individual players' turns to be shorter, not longer. Personally, I'd add a caveat that the second initiative has to be a positive number, no going again at -12 or anything like that.
- Abolish the well hidden "you can only cast one spell per turn" for mythic characters, leaving them able to cast 2 spells per round (or 3 or even 4 with a couple quickened spells).
- Make it more expensive than 1 point; 2 points seems reasonable. In fact, I'm not against creatures with a high enough initiative count getting even more; if a legendary bandersnatch is going on +45, why not allow it to go on +25 (for 2 points) and even +5 (for an additional 2 points).
A framework such as this is straightforward and doesn't depend on all sorts of exceptions and the like:
- A creatures gets a full, normal turn.
- Should they be able, and choose, they get a second full, normal turn (or more!).
It's much more straightforward, and from what I've seen in the four games I've run, easiser to GM, easier for the players, quicker at the table, and it feels more mythic.
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Is the "no more than one spell per round" restriction really that bad? I was thinking that it would make things more interesting by forcing spellcasters to mix in spell-like abilities, supernatural abilities, and items (such as staves, which suddenly become really useful for a mythic spellcaster).
Anyway, thanks for thoroughly looking into the new Amazing Initiative rules. It is definitely a good point that we don't need rounds getting longer, and I think upping the cost of using the old Amazing Initiative to 2 points would balance things out.
Actually, how about a middle ground? Keep the extra action happening on a different spot in the initiative, but still restrict it to a standard action and keep the one spell per round limit. Anything that forces people to invest in things that doesn't involve simply doing yet another full round attack or spell is something that I would think would make the game more interesting.
Then again, I'm just theorizing. I haven't actually been able to test any of this yet.
Edit: Another option would be to allow people to spend 1 point to get an extra standard action -20 init later, and 2 points to get a full round action -20 init later. This could favor spellcasters though, if the melee doesn't invest in things like vital strike and cleave.
I've run occasional epic-level 3.5 games, and everyone involved has universally hated them, largely because Multispell and Automatic Quicken allowed spellcasters to cast umpty-bajillion spells per round. I've always found that nearly every epic action other than spellcasting is completely obsolete. By comparison, a single standard action that doesn't allow additional spells is cleaner, smoother, and more fun.
But that is exactly my point. The original Amazing Initiative rules did not do the 3.5e thing of bloating every players turn. That is what the new rules do.
As for all other characters' actions being irrelevant ... really?
I'm willing to bet that for every one of those occasional epic games you played, the characters were built for the game.
We've been playing with the same characters for 7 years. Seven years. None of the epic characters are irrelevant; they are a tight and quite scary bunch, each with their own role to fill.
And trust me, when they want something dead, they all hide behind the 67th-level fighter.
</tangent>
In any event, what I emphatically do not want is something that makes already long high level turns longer. The original Amazing Initiative rules were tight. Characters' turns were standard turns, but there were just more of them. That was cool. Bloating a players' turn is not cool and didn't feel mythic at our table.
Now, there were other issues at our table, but those had more to do with a lack of decent mythic options for alchemists and the issues with min-maxing a 20th-level barbarian as opposed to living through all the intervening levels, so I'm not concerned with those since in a real-world game that won't be an issue at our table.
Frankly I'm surprised that people are in favor of longer turns per player; the longer any player's turn is, the longer between turns for a player and the higher the risk of people tuning out, getting distracted, or getting bored. It seems to me like increasing the velocity of player actions would be a better thing.
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Is the "no more than one spell per round" restriction really that bad? I was thinking that it would make things more interesting by forcing spellcasters to mix in spell-like abilities, supernatural abilities, and items (such as staves, which suddenly become really useful for a mythic spellcaster).
Is it the end of the world? Clearly no. Is it arbitrary, illogical, and hard to justify within the context of the rules given that there's already swift action spells, immediate action spells, Magus spellstrike and the like? Yes.
Is it illogical that a spell is a standard action, but even if you get another standard action you can't cast a second one "just because?" Yes.
Those are the reasons for my dislike. It just makes no sense. It's like the (revoked) flurry of blows/two-weapon fighting thing or the completely illogical "reach weapons don't threaten corners" thing.
When rules are logical, you can assume that if you have to make a spot ruling, it has a good chance of matching the actual rule hidden somewhere in a book.
When rules are specified "just because," odds are good that someone's intuitive ruling will be wrong because it doesn't match the seemingly arbitrary rule that's in place.
Can a fighter make two Vital Strikes if they have two standard actions? Sure, because Vital Strike is a standard action. Can a sorcerer cast two spells if they have two standard actions? Uh, no. Why? "because"
I don't want someone to hack away at the rules in order to make abilities that are used less often "more useful." It just makes the rules illogical.
Anyway, thanks for thoroughly looking into the new Amazing Initiative rules. It is definitely a good point that we don't need rounds getting longer, and I think upping the cost of using the old Amazing Initiative to 2 points would balance things out.
My group has been looking forward to the mythic rules for a long, long time. We've been playing at crazy high levels for years, and were quite interested in how they'd play out. All of the games were good, but since we're used to dealing with adjudicating crazy stuff, having to adjudicate crazy illogical stuff is just an annoyance.
Actually, how about a middle ground? Keep the extra action happening on a different spot in the initiative, but still restrict it to a standard action and keep the one spell per round limit. Anything that forces people to invest in things that doesn't involve simply doing yet another full round attack or spell is something that I would think would make the game more interesting.
Then again, I'm just theorizing. I haven't actually been able to test any of this yet.
I don't understand all the dislike for additional spells, nor the desire to arbitrarily force people to use different abilities. They're all there to be used, and twisting the rules to force people to change up what they do will just be an irritation, since what someone can intuitively do (cast two spells with two standard actions) they can't do simply because a designer wants to force their spellcaster to do "something else." But just the spellcasters.
Furthermore, any spellcaster can cast as many spells as they want, they just have to use time stop, (in which case d4+1 additional spells (and an equivalent number of quickened spells) can be cast all within that same round.
Edit: Another option would be to allow people to spend 1 point to get an extra standard action -20 init later, and 2 points to get a full round action -20 init later. This could favor spellcasters though, if the melee doesn't invest in things like vital strike and cleave.
That's exactly what I'm for; in fact make it a 1/2/3 thing; pay 1 for a move action, 2 for a standard/move, and 3 for a full turn (i.e. an extra swift action). With the mythic rules as written, everyone is going to be starved for swift actions.
In any event, any optimized character will be favored in combat over a non-optimized character. That's not really something that worries me, and I like the extra actions, I really think it makes combats feel more mythic.
For me, this isn't the 1 on 1 arena. Whether the fighter can beat the wizard or vice-versa is 100% irrelevant, since they're not supposed to be solo. I intend to use the mythic rules for full parties, and in an adventuring party that plays together for a long time, everyone has their place, what they're good at, what they step forward to take care of, and what they stap back and let someone else take care of. That's what balance is about, not artificially hamstringing characters by altering the rules so they can't do things that by intuition and RAW (without the "but wait" exceptions) they'd be able to do.
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Now, all this has been only about combat because that's pretty much all we've been giving, but I've been saying for years that if all a super-high-level game is is a never ending string of super-high CR combats, it'll pretty darn quickly implode. Plot is infinitely more important than combats, and I'm quite interested to see what's in store in that arena.
It's interesting that the best element in that regard was the mythic weaknesses and mythic advancement, and I'm glad to see it being moved solely to the domain of the GM - after all, plot is the responsibility of the GM, and putting it in the hands of the players by letting them choose their flaw or define their daily set of metagame tasks really took away from that; I think the choice as defined in the update was the correct one.
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First, I want to ask if everyone realizes that the one (1) spell per round limit does not apply to spells with a swift action, immediate action (like quicken spells). So, if you have spells with swift/immediate actions, you can cast more than one per turn.
Now that I got that out of the way.
I have to agree and disagree with almost everything said so far. I love the idea of 2 turns at 2 different initiative counts. It made boss fights so much more fun when all I have to do is give them 2 mythic tiers and BOOM...boss. But, I do also have to agree (as much as it pains me to say) I do agree that an extra full-round maybe a bit excessive (although fun), BUT the extra standard action tacked on the end of your turn is just lame, not fun, and makes each players turn take that much longer.
What about this! I love the idea of the second standard action at a different initiative count. Then at tier 5 (or later), you get the ability to spend 2 points to take an extra full-round action. If you are a spell caster path, you can take a mythic feat (or power) that allows you to spend a point to cast a second spell if you have the actions to do so. So, an archmage at 2nd tier could take an extra standard at init count -20, cast another spell (like a buff) but be forced to spend 2 points to do it. Or at tier 5 (or later) spend 5 points to take an extra full-round action with a spell in there (as long as he has the feat/power)
That is a compromise on all parts, and would make everybody happy. Esp me.
First, I want to ask if everyone realizes that the one (1) spell per round limit does not apply to spells with a swift action, immediate action (like quicken spells). So, if you have spells with swift/immediate actions, you can cast more than one per turn.
Ah interesting, it does seem to say that swift action spells and quickened spells are treated the same way. They are both the exception to the 1/round limit. I'm glad that it doesn't say something silly like "you can cast an extra quickened spell, but not an extra swift action spell".
actually the rule says only that quickened spells do not count into the 1 spell/round limit, it gives no rules on the naturally swift ones, witch by a strict reading should count into the limit then. Anyway i think is a stupid ruling anyway and the fact not even the devs knowed it existed says a lot on her worth.
actually the rule says only that quickened spells do not count into the 1 spell/round limit, it gives no rules on the naturally swift ones, witch by a strict reading should count into the limit then. Anyway i think is a stupid ruling anyway and the fact not even the devs knowed it existed says a lot on her worth.
That's what I originally thought as well until I checked the actual rules.
"You can cast a quickened spell (see the Quicken Spell metamagic feat), or any spell whose casting time is designated as a free or swift action, as a swift action. Only one such spell can be cast in any round, and such spells don't count toward your normal limit of one spell per round. Casting a spell as a swift action doesn't incur an attack of opportunity."
ok makes a little more sense now. Not enough to change my opinion though.
if you followed that discussion, you would know that the devs itself was completely oblivius to that so-called rules until someone elso brought that up. It seems like it was just an abrupt and unintended bad usage of words caused by the porting mess of the core rulebook and was never intended to be an actual rule. This whole "hey it's a rule" when clearly was never intended to exist in the first place is pretty disgusting to me. I'm sick tired of all this casters and martial jumping at each throat. I'm not seeing anyone calling OP on Two-handed fighters doing 2 times 5x damage with a schyte, can't see why all starts to call names when someone drops down a double meteor swarm.
I think the problem lies with the fact that a melee is lucky to drop one opponent per round, while when casters use their big spells they can end an entire combat. Though, some of the defenses that mythic have against conditions may fix this.
I agree that the thing with this one spell per round rule is currently a mess. Paizo is going to have to straighten that out before the mythic rules are released. Whether that will involve making the rule official or correcting the text so that there is no spell/round limit, we will have to see.
if you followed that discussion, you would know that the devs itself was completely oblivius to that so-called rules until someone elso brought that up. It seems like it was just an abrupt and unintended bad usage of words caused by the porting mess of the core rulebook and was never intended to be an actual rule. This whole "hey it's a rule" when clearly was never intended to exist in the first place is pretty disgusting to me. I'm sick tired of all this casters and martial jumping at each throat. I'm not seeing anyone calling OP on Two-handed fighters doing 2 times 5x damage with a schyte, can't see why all starts to call names when someone drops down a double meteor swarm.
Yep...
You're missing the point, man. The worst case scenario for an OP fighter with exta actions is that he'll drop an individual baddie in one go. The worst case scenario for an OP caster with extra actions is that he'll finish the whole encounter.
Playing since 3.0 I've seen this happen.... once? Maybe twice. I've seen a fighter drop a BBEG on round one more times than I can keep track of. Debuff a BBEG? Yeah. Debuff a crowd? Yeah. Bluff the fighter and help him reach or find enemies that were flying/invisible/ect? Yep. Win an encounter within a single round? No.