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Hi all!
On first read-thru it seems to me that this is just a different way to add more prestige classes to the game. The tier progression is only from 1 to 10 just like a prestige class. There seems to be at least one path to follow for each standard class: Fighter, Mage, Cleric, and Rogue.
There are, however, some really great feats and skills for Mythic characters to use.
The really nice thing is that true heroes (like "Hercules" for instance) have some really good foes to fight. Just look once at the Mythic Hydra.
The Mythic Rewards available in the playtest seem more like artifacts to me.
Although I'm not sure =if= you can do this, but a generic "mythic" template would be nice to add to virtually any monster in the game.
Well, this is only my opinion, and Your Mileage May Vary.
They do have Mythic Templates, check out near the bottom of the doc!
Or do you mean something even more generic? One of the little red boxes in the Monster section does give guidelines for applying Mythic Ranks to a monster.
I'm hoping there are more paths on release. I know they've said this is JUST the playtest and it wasn't near done, but I sure hope what is in now isn't representative of the final amount.
The product description for the book says
Six powerful mythic paths for characters to explore; the mysterious archmage, the deadly champion, the stalwart guardian, the enlightened hierophant, the tactical marshall, and the capricious trickster.
so, that's probably unlikely to change.
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One thing to remember, this is not just about adding more power to a character. This is about adding depth as well. The character also has a mythic flaw, some of them which can add a heavy roleplaying influence.
Well, now that it's over, maybe we'll see some of our problems with this idea addressed - I hope so.
Bruce
Creative Director
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While there are certainly some similarities between tiers and prestige classes... they're just that: similarities.
Mythic tiers add a lot more to your character than a prestige class in many ways, but they lack the tight focus and specific theme associated with a prestige class.
Furthermore, there's only ever going to be 6 different mythic paths (although there's a lot of "general" powers you can choose that don't belong to any path)... each path more or less corresponds to one of the 6 ability scores, after all. In order to build a 7th path, we'd have to invent a 7th ability score.
Hmmm... maybe it's time to bring back Comeliness! ;-P
Furthermore, there's only ever going to be 6 different mythic paths (although there's a lot of "general" powers you can choose that don't belong to any path)... each path more or less corresponds to one of the 6 ability scores, after all. In order to build a 7th path, we'd have to invent a 7th ability score.
What? Whoa, that's a big, big change from the playtest document. Very interesting as well. I'm looking forward to seeing how this works out, especially for the Charisma stat since that one is used for all sorts of very distinct classes.
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Creative Director
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Furthermore, there's only ever going to be 6 different mythic paths (although there's a lot of "general" powers you can choose that don't belong to any path)... each path more or less corresponds to one of the 6 ability scores, after all. In order to build a 7th path, we'd have to invent a 7th ability score.What? Whoa, that's a big, big change from the playtest document. Very interesting as well. I'm looking forward to seeing how this works out, especially for the Charisma stat since that one is used for all sorts of very distinct classes.
Actually, it's not a change at all. There are 6 paths in the playtest, correct? And those 6 map to the six ability scores.
I had asked the Design Team to include that bit of behind-the-scenes text in the playtest document, because when I first looked at the 6 paths I had a similar reaction to why they were what they were and was nervous they weren't the right choices, but then Jason explained they mapped to the 6 ability scores and it all CLICKED for me. And I figured if it confused and then made sense like that to me, it'd probably help some folks out there in the Internets as well.
Anyway... it's not a change. It's just some hidden, behind-the-scenes design philosophy I guess.
Definitely clicks for me now...I kind of suspected but I wasn't sure. Thanks for the insight James!
Would there be plans on supplementals to expand on the powers/feats/etc. if there are no plans to add more paths?
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The content going into the book is much bigger than what was shown in the playtest preview. Chapter 1 (with the path info) is close to 50 pages in the book.
Woohoo! Thanks Sean!
Actually, it's not a change at all. There are 6 paths in the playtest, correct? And those 6 map to the six ability scores.
I had asked the Design Team to include that bit of behind-the-scenes text in the playtest document, because when I first looked at the 6 paths I had a similar reaction to why they were what they were and was nervous they weren't the right choices, but then Jason explained they mapped to the 6 ability scores and it all CLICKED for me. And I figured if it confused and then made sense like that to me, it'd probably help some folks out there in the Internets as well.
Anyway... it's not a change. It's just some hidden, behind-the-scenes design philosophy I guess.
Ahh, I thought you were talking about a sort of built in link involving the ability scores that would lead Sorcerers and Oracles to be Marshals (instead of Archmages and Hierophants).
each path more or less corresponds to one of the 6 ability scores, after all.
I dont see it...
Archmage: Master of arcane magic, the archmage effortlessly casts extremely powerful spells and shapes reality with a whim.
Arcane magic can come from int or cha.
Champion: Unparalleled in combat, the champion stands triumphant on the battlefield, surrounded by bruised and broken foes.
As a melee it can come from str or dex (strength more likely intended).
Guardian: None can get past the impervious guardian—none can threaten what this devout hero protects.
Seems to be the most con focused, but dex and str can play a role for this character too...
Hierophant: Drawing on power that goes beyond the gods, the hierophant is an inviolate vessel for the divine.
Clearly more wis than any other.
Marshal: Inspiration and courage make the marshal the greatest leader, capable of leading troops to victory over any challenge.
If I had to guess I'd go with charisma.
Trickster: Skill, training, and savvy make the trickster the master of the impossible—defying unbeatable obstacles and traps, tricking the wise, and hitting unattainable targets.
Clearly int based... probably what was chosen for the dex stat though...
It seems to me that these are much more pointing at class and even more so at character role.
Archmage: Sorcerer, Wizard, witch, ... Caster
Champion: Fighter, Barbarian, Ranger, .... Melee DPR
Guardian: Fighter, monk, Paladin ... "Tank"
Hierophant: Cleric, druid, oracle ... Healer
Marshal: Bard, cleric, paladin ... Buffer
Trickster: Rogue, bard, alchemist ... skill person
I think if you were to take away the notion that they are based on a particular skill and focus on the rolls you could come up with some more paths that people would want to pursue.
Currently there doesn't appear to be a choice for many classes. Take a sorcerer for example, there will rarely be anyone who picks anything other than archmage as their path for their sorcerer...
each path more or less corresponds to one of the 6 ability scores, after all.I dont see it...
The idea is that the 6 paths were based on the main themes of each ability score, not the classes that make use of each ability score.
Sorcerers will still become archmages, despite the fact that their primary ability score is Cha and not Int.
The content going into the book is much bigger than what was shown in the playtest preview. Chapter 1 (with the path info) is close to 50 pages in the book.
I'm sure a bunch of new material that sees no playtesting will work out well. After all, the playtesting of the limited initial release didn't demonstrate any problems with the rules, path options, or anything of the sort.
Snark aside, I am deeply concerned by the problems that have cropped up with these rules in only a few months of use with a group of fairly moderate players on my Saturday night game. The most glaring to me seeming to be that mythic tiers as of the last update we saw months ago did not in any way equal a level in so far as character power (with the possible exception of Mythic 1, which granted access to wild arcana / fleet charge). A second major problem seemed to be that they did not perform equally - or remotely so - when applied to high level characters.
Perhaps these concerns are poorly founded and perhaps the final release will be a marvel to behold. That said, we've got to be getting relatively close to publishing deadlines, and nothing I've seen to present had suggested that any of the concerns raised in the playtest other than mythic initiative and mythic power (which went the opposite direction) were even considered. Further, that an entire ruleset being dropped on top of the system writ large saw less playtesting than the classes in the APG seems bizzare.
But why base it on attributes or even the rough themes of attributes instead of basing it on the actual roles the characters have in the group?
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I'm sure a bunch of new material that sees no playtesting will work out well. After all, the playtesting of the limited initial release didn't demonstrate any problems with the rules, path options, or anything of the sort.
"The most important rule: Don't be a jerk. We want our messageboards to be a fun and friendly place."
It's right there under the "Submit Post" button. Perhaps you somehow missed it.
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Creative Director
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But why base it on attributes or even the rough themes of attributes instead of basing it on the actual roles the characters have in the group?
That's a good question to ask Jason, I suppose.
If it were me, I'd do so to limit the number of paths to 6 (plus generic path powers) despite any further expansions we do to Mythic, but also to give me and other designers obvious themes to build new path powers on in the future.
I'm sure a bunch of new material that sees no playtesting will work out well. After all, the playtesting of the limited initial release didn't demonstrate any problems with the rules, path options, or anything of the sort."The most important rule: Don't be a jerk. We want our messageboards to be a fun and friendly place."
It's right there under the "Submit Post" button. Perhaps you somehow missed it.
With all due respect, doesn't it go both ways?
The playtest ended and it took a month and a half - and a post on the subject - to get JB to even make note of it on the forums. A month and a half in which hundreds of posts were made that by JB's own words were likely ignored.
While I'll not pretend you guys are under any obligation to read the posts or respond in anyway, isn't it sort of inconsiderate to let people waste hundreds of man hours when a 5 minute "Thanks for all the feedback, the playtest is now closed," post would have saved them the trouble?
Well, let's see:
Part of that was the holiday week.
Part of that was Ultimate Campaign was very late and we were scrambling to ship it on time.
Part of that was Jason was out of the state for a convention, and then was so sick with a stomach virus that he almost had to go to the hospital for IV fluids, and then he was told to stay away from the office for 10 days because he was recovering and contagious and we didn't want to knock out half the company for a week when we had serious deadlines.
So he was a little distracted and we were all working our butts off.
None of which makes us jerks, and certainly doesn't justify you being a jerk.
So this isn't a "both ways" thing at all.
And now that's twice in a row you completely ignored the most important rule of these message boards.
Peter's been repeatedly called out by multiple people for his less than helpful tones. It unfortunately makes most of what he has to say easy to disregard because he fosters a lack of respect in the tone he takes in most of his responses on the Mythic boards.
Also, as far as releasing a bunch of new content without playtesting it...I'm sure you understand that it is only a public playtest that did not happen. Playtesting in Paizo's house and most likely with each of their own respective groups has happened. They are all very experienced RPG developers/designers/writers/GM's/players who have a wealth of experience most of us might have as only a player and possibly as a GM.
"Something something two way street" do you smack a random pedestrian in the street because some other person was a jerk to you? Jason's time lapse on posting about the end of playtesting is in no way Sean's or James' fault. And it wasn't even a circumstance that he could have avoided as Sean layed out. Plus, the ending date of the playtest was given to us when the playtest opened so a post wasn't even necessary...it was a nicety.
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Peter's been repeatedly called out by multiple people for his less than helpful tones. It unfortunately makes most of what he has to say easy to disregard because he fosters a lack of respect in the tone he takes in most of his responses on the Mythic boards.
I'd encourage anyone who is tempted to put stock in this statement to take a few minutes to track down the posts I got tagged for, and make their own value judgments.
Also, as far as releasing a bunch of new content without playtesting it...I'm sure you understand that it is only a public playtest that did not happen. Playtesting in Paizo's house and most likely with each of their own respective groups has happened. They are all very experienced RPG developers/designers/writers/GM's/players who have a wealth of experience most of us might have as only a player and possibly as a GM.
I'd raise a couple thoughts on this.
First, lets look at the public document, where dozens if not hundreds of problems of various kinds were observed. Everything from incorrectly worded mythic weapon finesse to enduring armor being a worse option than a 1st level spell to questions of how things like wild surge work (and whether they require a spell to be expended). Now, while I'm certain the document was somewhat rough in how it was produced to meet a deadline, the sheer number of observed issues that raised questions for many people should raise a few eyebrows. Surely a document that was edited for formatting and to add art got a few reads by designers. It wasn't JB's notebook stolen out of his office and scanned into a PDF. With that in mind, the suggestion that purely internal testing is going to produce no problems seems somewhat questionable to me.
This isn't an attack on the competence of any of the designers, simply an observation that in a closed environment there are limited perspectives that can be offered, and when you've read something fifty times and can talk to the guy who wrote it things might seem more clear than when you're a player at a table discussing it with a GM and trying to clear up ambiguity.
Second, while I can be openly dismissive of the opinions of some, I do put value in having lots of sets of eyes on something, if only to point out problems in areas some don't focus on. I don't believe that a document that had a dozen readers is going to be as good as one with - as the Mythic Rulebook advertises - over 50,000 sets of eyes. Incidentally, I find that claim somewhat questionable of we saw less than 1/3rd of the material in the first chapter alone, but that isn't really my point.
"Something something two way street" do you smack a random pedestrian in the street because some other person was a jerk to you? Jason's time lapse on posting about the end of playtesting is in no way Sean's or James' fault. And it wasn't even a circumstance that he could have avoided as Sean layed out. Plus, the ending date of the playtest was given to us when the playtest opened so a post wasn't even necessary...it was a nicety.
If you create a phony argument you can easily win it. Making an analogue between a complete lack of developer feedback for 6 weeks and a sarcastic post in response to a developer and assault on a random pedestrian seems like a stretch to me. Perhaps I'm alone in that regard.
Let me take a moment to point out the only place I saw the end of the playtest dated was on the document download page - a page I'd be very skeptical many people ever opened more than once.
Well, let's see:
Part of that was the holiday week.
Part of that was Ultimate Campaign was very late and we were scrambling to ship it on time.
Part of that was Jason was out of the state for a convention, and then was so sick with a stomach virus that he almost had to go to the hospital for IV fluids, and then he was told to stay away from the office for 10 days because he was recovering and contagious and we didn't want to knock out half the company for a week when we had serious deadlines.So he was a little distracted and we were all working our butts off.
Honestly this line of discussion is of marginal interest to me, but for the sake of argument lets explore it briefly. I'll use the only information I have publicly available (since I don't stalk you guys).
I'm not debating any of the points you raised about office difficulty, but let me point out that my comment spoke only to a "Hey guys, playtest ended on X" post. That's a marginal amount of effort and time. The equivalent of perhaps 5 minutes of work.
The playest ended on January 14th.
Between January 14th and March 5th (when JB responded to my post about the end of the playest) JB had time to post ~50 times on his Game Designer facebook page. Pretty much every single one of those posts required more effort than a "Playest Over" post would have (often including pictures and links). Many of them were in discussion of his weekly game, which consumed hours of time.
While I'm not of the opinion you guys are obliged to spend every waking moment doing game design and working for us (or even of the opinion that you should spend time out of the office on it) the suggestion that there wasn't five minutes to spare to save hundreds of hours of work seems a little hollow to me. I doubt it was intentional dickishness, because JB doesn't rub me as that kind of guy, but there was a certain lack of consideration.
In any case, I'm not trying to be a jerk (well, I haven't been since my first post). I don't think you guys owe me anything (even a response), but the suggestion that my comments were completely without merit doesn't seem to add up. Perhaps I'm wrong though.
but the suggestion that my comments were completely without merit doesn't seem to add up. Perhaps I'm wrong though.
Sarcasm and snark are not welcome, productive, fun, or friendly. "Don't be a jerk" is a really simple rule to follow.