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First of all, let me explain why I’m posting this: I am very, very disappointed with Mythic Adventures. I’ll try to explain why in as short an amount of text as possible.
To use an analogy of sorts, say that your current Campaign is a Volkswagen – a dependable, versatile vehicle that gets you from A to B (in other words, it gets you through the story)
Now, Mythic Adventures is pure rocket fuel. It says on the tin that you can safely pour it into your Volkswagen and watch the magic happen. So let’s say you bite and chuck the rocket fuel in the gas tank.
Sure enough, you’ll be in for a wild ride and have lots of fun! But your car isn’t going to last...
Naturally, there are going to be people reading this post and saying “That’s complete nonsense – Mythic works fine with me!” And I’m sure it does. But those are the people (we continue here with our little analogy) who have traded in their Volkswagen for an actual rocket ship, which runs on rocket fuel. And what does a rocket ship do? It goes thousands of miles per hour in a straight line and takes you to the stars at breakneck speed while you leave the normal world behind entirely. And that is what Mythic Adventures does. You either sign up for the power trip campaign where it’s all taken to the next level, or you don’t and you end up with a car wreck.
Permit me to explain in a little more detail here. I do not have a problem with the Mythic abilities being overpowered. After all, this is Mythic Adventures, it’s supposed to be high-powered. What bothers me to no end, however, is that the powers are all but trivial to use.
As famously quoted by a certain superhero: “With great power comes great responsibility.” I’ve always liked that theme. Take Clerics, for example. They are allowed a small modicum of divine power, but are restricted to using it responsibly, lest they anger the Divine and lose their powers altogether. Or Paladins, whose tenets are even more restrictive. Heck, even Wizards are kept in check by the need to keep spellbooks, ingredients and all – they owe respect to the art of Wizardry, you might say. Now I imagined that Mythic Power (cue children’s choir) would have a similar caveat to encourage responsible use. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Each day, Mythic characters gain a pool of ‘power points’. How much? Three plus double their Mythic Tier. That’s 5 points right from the onset, all the way up to 23 points at the high end of the scale. Consider now that these points fuel the really neat powers – those who can really turn around encounters. Even the most lowly Mythic characters (assuming a party of four) have 20 of these to spend each day. And they don’t even need to do anything to get them. When was the last time you threw over five respectable encounters at the party each day? Unless you keep the pressure on 24/7 (and that means you’re flying a rocket ship!) there is no way you’ll be able to deplete the party’s power points before they refresh at the start of the next day – let alone present them with continually believable challenges.
So, If you were hoping to hear something like this at the table:
“OK, we’ve wounded the Mythic Troll King and he seems staggered. Should I use my Mythic Ability now or wait until we really need it? Oooh – this is so exciting – I can’t decide!”
Forget it. Prepare instead for something like this:
“OK, I still have four points of Mythic Power left for today and we’re nearly in the city anyway. I’m going to use them all on those two kobolds for a bit of fun. Whee!
There’s nothing wrong with you if you think that the second situation sounds like fun. It IS fun. But it can hardly be called Mythic, can it? Some of you might argue that the DM should, in this case sic some bandits or monsters on them in the city to ‘punish’ the players for flaunting their powers. As soon as you, as a DM, agree to step into such an arms race, however, you are boarding the rocket ship and mumbling good-byes to your good old Volkswagen campaign.
I’ll say it again: the problem is not the powers. The problem is that they can be used so trivially that it all becomes a joke.
On the meaninglessness of rewards
Mythic Rocketship... err... I mean ‘Adventures’. Also has a chapter devoted to Mythic Boons. A Mythic Boon is a reward you receive for performing an act of Mythic proportions. To name but a few:
- Exceed the DC of a skill check by 20 or more
- Defeat a Mythic creature who is at full hit points in a single blow
- Score three critical hits in a row without failing an attack roll.
All pretty much entirely luck-based and unlikely to happen. Still, when it DOES happen, I agree that the PC has indeed committed an act of epic proportions. So, what does he get, you wonder?
One Mythic Power point.
Oh.
Go on – re-read that bit and count em. One. It’s completely and utterly pointless. Say we’re back in the Mythic Troll-King’s chambers and the Fighter somehow manages to land three crits in a row. The whole table gasps in awe as that final threat confirmation comes up a nat twenty and the DM grants the PC a Mythic Power point. Cool. What’s he supposed to do with it? In all likelihood, the Troll-King is now very, very dead. It was probably the final climactic encounter in the adventure, right before the heroes collect the loot and rest up. Remember how you automatically regain all of your power points every day? That Boon was meaningless.
Of course, this might be the sort of Campaign where the Mythic Troll King was only defending the door to the chambers of the Troll Emperor who bursts into the room seconds later... But then I dare say you’re flying a rocketship through a galaxy chock-full of Mythic Monsters. And as we all know: if everyone’s special, no-one is.
I’m nearly at the end of this litany now, so if you’ve stuck with me this long, you might as well read the final bit.
Mixing it up: Mythic PC’s in an ordinary world.
In short, the book boldly states: “You can do this, and it will be fine!” In other words, the text on the tin says that it’s entirely safe to pour rocket fuel into your Volkswagen. I’m here to tell you that that’s a bad idea.
The reasoning according to the designers is simple:” Mythic Ranks fit right into the CR system.” Har-har! Seriously guys - pull the other one!
Now hold up for a bit: I like the current CR system. It provides fairly accurate, at-a-glance information on how encounters might go. It’s simple and flexible. Of course, if you’ve played Pathfinder at all, you know it can be broken in several ways. Abusing templates, exploiting certain combinations etcetera. However, that potential for abuse does not make CR a bad system. Let’s continue.
The math goes like this: for every two Mythic Tiers a character has, add +1 to its Challenge Rating.
Excuse me?
Let’s take a closer look, shall we? I’m DM’ing for a party of 4 first level adventurers tonight and I’m going to have them face off with 4 average encounters with 4 Mythic NPCs, one at a time. To keep things simple, we’re making four 1st-level Fighters with two Mythic Tiers. A 1st-level Fighter is a CR1/2 encounter. So, bumping that up by a point to account for Mythic Tiers, we’ve got a CR1 encounter; a perfectly average fight that should cost the party around 20% of their resources. No biggie. Or so, they would have you believe...
I’m not even looking at the stats, not looking for loopholes or obscure synergies to beef up these guys. All I’m doing is giving them their standard allotment of Mythic Power points – 7, if you remember correctly – and two Mythic Path abilities. In fact, let’s just give them one ability (to keep things ‘fair’). That ability would be Absorb Blow and its as common and obvious a choice as, for example, the Power Attack feat. Only without any prerequisites.
What have we created? That would be a CR 1 encounter with in excess of 80 hit points! Absorb Blow is a little bit of awesome that allows you to ignore up to 10 points of damage from a single source at the cost of a single Mythic Power point. Also, it gives you DR1/epic for a full minute afterwards. Yes, our CR1 Mythic Fighter NPC can pull that neat little trick 7 times a day (naturally, he’ll blow it all on a single encounter), effectively giving him over 80 hit points! If the party manages to defeat him, they’ll gain 400xp for their troubles. His three buddies are waiting down the road, by the way.
It doesn’t take a genius to spot that this is just sloppy design. It’s bad math. Worst of all, it can’t be countered. What are you going to do? Toss in more Mythic monsters? Prepare for takeoff!
So, is Mythic Adventures a complete waste of time and money?
Well, no – I believe there’s stuff to be salvaged. Here’s four bits of advice to make it work if you wish to run a long-term Mythic Campaign in an ordinary world where the heroes are special, but they are also challenged and choices are hard. If you prefer the inexorable powertrip rollercoaster ride, the book is fine for you.
1) Reduce the maximum amount of Mythic Power points per day to HALF the character’s Tier, with a minimum of 1. So, A 1st Tier Character has a single point and doesn’t gain an extra point until Tier 3. I’m willing to bet they’ll treat those powers as special now. Don’t forget to make the same adjustment for Mythic Monsters.
2) Characters regain a single point of Mythic Power after a minimum of 8 hours of rest. The rest is mandatory and cannot be circumvented by other powers and abilities that allow you to regain ability uses without rest. That means a 6th-Tier character will need to rest at least 3 days in order to fully regain his 3 Mythic Power points if they were expended.
3) Remove the ‘mythic’ requirement from all Boon conditions. The only requirement is that the foe has a CR above the character’s ADJUSTED level (see below)
4) Consider that each Mythic Tier possessed by a creature adjusts its CR by +1. So, A 1st level/1st Tier character is CR 1. A 3rd Level/2nd Tier character is CR 4.
What we’ve done here is diluting the rocket fuel a little, so we can still drive our trusty, sturdy, proven, Volkswagen campaign through the world, only this time it goes quite a bit faster and has an awesome little flame coming from the tailpipe.
It might still blow up if the mechanic (aka the DM) doesn’t give it a regular checkup, but overall, you’re good to go now.
Hope this was useful to you. Feed-back is welcome.
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Volkswagen's run just fine on rocket fuel...
Thing is, mythic is mythic - it's meant to be one step above and over the top.
Giving Mythic tiers to a level 1 character isn't really intended. My read is that the infusion of mythic power is really meant to occur more around the 4-6th level area.
Secondly, mythic characters are meant to meet mythic threats - which have some tricks and toys of their own. You can't really compare a mythic character with non-mythic monsters.
It's not going to suit all playstyles - which is why it's not going into all of Paizo's future APs - just Wrath of the Righteous... where the PCs are going to need the leg up to compete.
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DM, yours is a comment I've come across several times when voicing a particular concern or gripe regarding the Mythic rules elsewhere.
As I've explained in my lengthy post, your view is not wrong. As I understand, you're perfectly alright with the idea that a Mythic Campaign is meant to be a rocketship ride. And there's nothing wrong with that view or play style.
But the point is: I'm NOT a fan of that. I bought a book which promised me repeatedly that it was not the high-powered fiasco of Epic d20 and that it would enable DMs to tell the tale of low-level characters who slowly advance to become legends.
There's entire paragraphs in the book devoted to 'enabling' this specific style of play, where Mythic Power is rare and the PCs are special. That's what I bought, that's what I came for.
To find out that's pretty much nonsense and that the system - as is - will in fact NOT work at all, unless you make everything Mythic did make me feel a little cheated, to be honest.
I signed up for Hercules, not Dragonball Z...
You say it does not suit all play styles and that giving Tiers to L1 characters is not really recommended. I agree. The problem is that the book explicitly states that it DOES support all play styles and it's FINE to add Tiers to pretty much anything.
Instead of going on to gripe about this on the Rules fora (I did ask for some clarifications there, but I don't intend to rant and rave about how I think it's not 'right'), I decided to outline my concerns here under advice in order to forewarn DMs who wish to run a Mythic Campaign to either adjust their expectations, or join in discussion on how to properly house-rule the thing so it does support this preferred (and advertised) style of play.
Mythic is meant to be over the top. And I agree with that. But I'm sure it's not meant to be trivial.
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When has D&D/Pathfinder ever been a Volkswagon? D&D has always been a rocketship. It's always been about the high-fantasy, suped up power game. It's been the complaint for years from the segment of players that want to do gritty, realistic fantasy adventures.
Your average lvl 10 figther can cut down an army of orcs. Your average wizard can launch fireballs, teleport, control minds, and the like. Your average cleric can bring back the dead, call upon his god for might holy powers, and call upon celestial beings to serve him. And so on and so on.
I don't understand your Volkswagon analogy. It doesn't work because Pathfinder was never a Volkswagon. It's always been a rocket ship. Mythic sounds like special, suped up rocket fuel. That's about it.
From what I've noticed with Mythic is that since the PCs can handle more, you pretty much throw more bad guys. So you can, for example, have the fight where there are tons and tons of minions. As per normal, in dungeons, I do tend to already throw more than five "meaningful" encounters, so with mythic, I can increase the amount more. So I see it as extending the longevity of an adventuring day and dungeon rather than turning everything up to 11.
Also, I believe it states that you generally don't want to give a creature more Mythic Tiers than its level. Mythic Skeleton is a good example of this. So I probably wouldn't throw on two mythic tiers on a level one person.
But again, I also don't make house rules and tinker until I actually run the campaign. So many things look awesome/terrible on paper until you actually run it.
I suppose what I don't really get here is how it's trivial? I guess I'm not getting the meaning of what you're trying to say.
The system does still work with your mythic PCs fighting non-mythic creatures - just that the PCs are... you know... mythic. The PCs absorb / deal more damage and can handle more than a regular PC.
A Tier 1 Guardian can soak up to 10 HP from a single blow by using mythic power... but he's still susceptible to death by attrition, or a powerful enemy. An orc can penetrate DR 10 on a good swing.
I still think you can tell a Hercules story if you like (though I'd question the reference, considering that Hercules most definitely fought against creatures that I'd define as mythic) perhaps you just need to be a bit more careful with how you apply the rules.
But as you said yourself, if it's a real concern for you... drop the amount of mythic power the characters get a bit and it seems like that solves most of your issues?
I think your concern is mostly at the very low levels anyway yes? - so hold off on the mythic power until a bit later.
I can definitely see how the balancing of encounters might completely ruin suspension of disbelief.
"Hello level 1 commoner. I am sorry I was late, I had to kill three different red dragons, plus this one group of black dragons, while I was walking to get my groceries. How was your trip?"
With the sheer density of challenges you have to throw, it is hard to believe normal humans could live in the same world at all as the mythic characters.
Now, this might not entirely be a bad thing with their packaged system. I am not entirely familiar with Wrath of the Righteous, but I have read enough fluff about other plains. When reading about dark pits like the Abyss or alien lands like Leng, I could never imagine a mortal man even attempting to explore the areas since one can stumble over nests of insane beasts that hurt your head to even look at, each with a high CR over every corner. But a party of mythic characters tasked with exploration and domination?
Well, if we are on a rocket ship, we might as well go to the stars, right? You will miss out on some of the more human elements though. And I agree, that can lose out of a lot of the flavor. Trying to recapture that might either run the risk of using only stock stereotype or trivializing the creature's inhuman natures (Drinking tea with Cthulhu basically)
While I share a lot of your concerns, I think your post may be premature. We should take a look at what Paizo considers an appropiate mythic adventure and that would be with the second module of Wrath of the Righteous, when the PC's are already mythic and the challenges ( and the pace of challenges ) should be accordingly so. That module comes out early next month, if Paizo can keep its schedule ( of which I am a bit doubtful at the moment ).
CR design for normal adventuring is completely and utterly broken after levels 9-11, by the way. I am beginning to seriously doubt that many Paizo writers have actually run campaigns in the upper level range, instead of only plunking down what "by the rules" appears to be a level-appropiate CR.
I suppose what I don't really get here is how it's trivial? I guess I'm not getting the meaning of what you're trying to say.
It's trivial since the powers are used thoughtlessly. PCs will happily squander Mythic Points since they'll simply get more the next day and start out with an obscene amount anyway.
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It seems like your forgetting that the CR system, while great and very useful, has always been broken when you start adding things on top of existing creatures. By your own admission CRs get wonky when you start adding templates onto creatures. Well mythic is just another type of template, and you should treat it like that. Namely, that the CR adjustments as written are flawed and as a GM you need to account for that just like you would if you put 2-4 templates onto a normal creature. It's not a good thing that it's flawed like this, but it's nothing unique to the Mythic rules and you shouldn't treat it that way.
Also, it seems you're forgetting how over the top Hercules actually was. Hercules didn't fight roving gangs of 4-6 goblin raiders, he fought entire goblin warbands on the march. So yeah, if you throw a fight at a mythic party the way you'd throw one at a non-mythic party of course it's going to be trivial. Even at level 1/mythic 1 throw armies at the players, with mythic as written they can take that and that's kind of the point. The only real way non-mythic enemies, even CR appropriate ones, are going to hurt mythic players is through attrition. (I'd also suggest playing on the slow exp track so they don't level up crazy fast)
I can definitely see how the balancing of encounters might completely ruin suspension of disbelief.
"Hello level 1 commoner. I am sorry I was late, I had to kill three different red dragons, plus this one group of black dragons, while I was walking to get my groceries. How was your trip?"
With the sheer density of challenges you have to throw, it is hard to believe normal humans could live in the same world at all as the mythic characters.
Now, this might not entirely be a bad thing with their packaged system. I am not entirely familiar with Wrath of the Righteous, but I have read enough fluff about other plains. When reading about dark pits like the Abyss or alien lands like Leng, I could never imagine a mortal man even attempting to explore the areas since one can stumble over nests of insane beasts that hurt your head to even look at, each with a high CR over every corner. But a party of mythic characters tasked with exploration and domination?
Well, if we are on a rocket ship, we might as well go to the stars, right? You will miss out on some of the more human elements though. And I agree, that can lose out of a lot of the flavor. Trying to recapture that might either run the risk of using only stock stereotype or trivializing the creature's inhuman natures (Drinking tea with Cthulhu basically)
I agree - that would work! Point in fact is that I don't really want my players to take off to distant worlds yet, but it could be a very good Mythic Story arc.
I'm curious about that also...
The adventure included at the back of the book already set an example. And while it looked pretty amazing, I can see myself struggling to come up with bigger, better, harder, faster stuff each time...
I'm curious, it's been forever since I read through the Mythic playtest document. How much did they change from that to the final printing? I know amazing initiative changed dramatically, did anything else?
But as you said yourself, if it's a real concern for you... drop the amount of mythic power the characters get a bit and it seems like that solves most of your issues?
Whoops - I missed this one.
Well, yes - I think it would! Hence my suggestions in the original post. Do you think it would work like that? Too severe? That's what I'd like to know.| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah, well. If there is one thing I have been constantly vocal about during my years here, it is about how much I dislike Paizo's prevalence for dungeons and too many combat encounters per day over roleplaying scenarios in their AP's. And that I want a Swashbuckler base class. And that Mikaze is awesome. Well, dammit, that are three things already.
But, back on topic, I kinda do hope that their solution for a mythic AP isn't "10 encounters back to back every day", because then the next modules will be very, very combat-heavy and combats take so much longer to play out than roleplaying scenarios. :-/
I'm curious, it's been forever since I read through the Mythic playtest document. How much did they change from that to the final printing? I know amazing initiative changed dramatically, did anything else?
Just a quick overview:
Some powers have been scaled or toned down a bit (the powers in themselves are not bad actually!). You get a lot more uses of Mythic Power per day though. Then there's some new feats, new spells, Mythic treasure,Nasty Mythic Monsters...
It's really neat, basically - if only they would've added the option of toning things down a bit it would be excellent.
Edit: Oh, and 'To the Death' has been pretty much nerfed. Finally :-)
Aspects of encounters that often get overlooked, and from what I can tell are not addressed in Mythic Adventures, is the action economy, which is odd given the fact you can spend mythic points to effectively change the action economy at large. Using the CR system on its own is not a way to prepare an encounter for Mythic characters, but addressing how many actions the monsters get apposed to the PCs is more on the right track. To keep the powers from being trivialized, the first place to look is the action economy, to force the players to spend points to use their excessive points to keep up with the fight. In short, allowing the PCs to have their "move, standard, swift" actions multiplied by the number of party members in an encounter have one, two, or even three monsters' worth of actions may be where combat becomes trivial. Your kobold duo may be an APL+3 encounter, but if they have only two sets of "move, standard, and swift" actions, they're most likely going to be skinned for party gear.
Yeah, well. If there is one thing I have been constantly vocal about during my years here, it is about how much I dislike Paizo's prevalence for dungeons and too many combat encounters per day over roleplaying scenarios in their AP's. And that I want a Swashbuckler base class. And that Mikaze is awesome. Well, dammit, that are three things already.
But, back on topic, I kinda do hope that their solution for a mythic AP isn't "10 encounters back to back every day", because then the next modules will be very, very combat-heavy and combats take so much longer to play out than roleplaying scenarios. :-/
Personally, I really like dungeons as an environment :-) It's the number of combat encounters that tends to be bothersome, as you do mention yourself. And I'm afraid that challenging Mythic characters in the current rules might very well lead to combat-heavy scenario's - I really fail to see any other option for them right now.
Yeah, well. If there is one thing I have been constantly vocal about during my years here, it is about how much I dislike Paizo's prevalence for dungeons and too many combat encounters per day over roleplaying scenarios in their AP's. And that I want a Swashbuckler base class. And that Mikaze is awesome. Well, dammit, that are three things already.
But, back on topic, I kinda do hope that their solution for a mythic AP isn't "10 encounters back to back every day", because then the next modules will be very, very combat-heavy and combats take so much longer to play out than roleplaying scenarios. :-/
Well we ARE playing a game called DUNGEONS and dragons. It's strongly orientated towards fighting hordes and beating traps. Since the very beginning of the box set.
Anyway i totally agree with you in that sense. Its IMHO and in my game style not fun to throw 10 encounters just coz you're mythic.
I love roleplaying not rollplaying.
I love Margrave's idea in order to tone it down a bit but then I understand that some people love to be super-uber heroes.
Have these mythic points be extremely precious make it more special and more mythic IMHO. the players then have to think twice to use it against the troll king and save their lives.
There w&s a time where dragons where really epic fights. Now you can kill dragons at lvl 4-5 (i'm not talking about baby dragons). No fun. But I understand some people want it...
Have these mythic points be extremely precious make it more special and more mythic IMHO. the players then have to think twice to use it against the troll king and save their lives.
Thanks for responding to the topic Major Longhorn! ;-)
I think it would be a good alternative to the high-powered version, but I'm still a bit conflicted on how to calculate CR when the Mythic PCs are thusly nerfed.
+1CR per Tier is a big step away from the original +1 per 2 Tiers, especially considering the power points have been drastically reduced. Still, it feels right enough, but I haven't done the math yet.
Wolf Joshua makes an excellent point of considering action economy, but that seems a lot of work to do for each and every encounter. I'd much rather use a more-or-less accurate CR system and adjudicate the challenge ad hoc by experience.
EDIT: Again, I'm not looking to change the rules so that those people who want to play superheroes can't do that anymore - I just want to expand them to accomodate lower-key Mythic Campaigns. Options are a great thing to have in PFRPG!
CR design for normal adventuring is completely and utterly broken after levels 9-11, by the way.
Isn't everything completely and utterly broken after levels 9-11? And hasn't that always been that way since 2000?
CR design for normal adventuring is completely and utterly broken after levels 9-11, by the way.Isn't everything completely and utterly broken after levels 9-11? And hasn't that always been that way since 2000?
IMHO it's not really broken in the normal game, per se. It's just that, at lower levels, there are less variables involved and CR will usually provide a good indication of what your characters can handle.
As play progresses, and everyone rises in level, the number of variables increases drastically and the deviation of the 'actual' CR will be greater.That does not make it completely broken - only less and less useful as a DM tool in later levels. I'd define 'broken' as completely and utterly incapable of producing correct results and that's not necessarily the case here. Unless you pour Mythic into the mix ;-)
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Let me start by saying: I agree with most of what you said.
Mythic Rocketship... err... I mean ‘Adventures’. Also has a chapter devoted to Mythic Boons. A Mythic Boon is a reward you receive for performing an act of Mythic proportions. To name but a few:
- Exceed the DC of a skill check by 20 or more
- Defeat a Mythic creature who is at full hit points in a single blow
- Score three critical hits in a row without failing an attack roll.All pretty much entirely luck-based and unlikely to happen. Still, when it DOES happen, I agree that the PC has indeed committed an act of epic proportions. So, what does he get, you wonder?
One Mythic Power point.
This part is not entirely correct.
Mythic Vital Strike will one-shot any mythic opponent that does not have specific defenses.
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CR design for normal adventuring is completely and utterly broken after levels 9-11, by the way.Isn't everything completely and utterly broken after levels 9-11? And hasn't that always been that way since 2000?
No it hasn't been broken since 2000
Let me start by saying: I agree with most of what you said.
Mythic Rocketship... err... I mean ‘Adventures’. Also has a chapter devoted to Mythic Boons. A Mythic Boon is a reward you receive for performing an act of Mythic proportions. To name but a few:
- Exceed the DC of a skill check by 20 or more
- Defeat a Mythic creature who is at full hit points in a single blow
- Score three critical hits in a row without failing an attack roll.All pretty much entirely luck-based and unlikely to happen. Still, when it DOES happen, I agree that the PC has indeed committed an act of epic proportions. So, what does he get, you wonder?
One Mythic Power point.
This part is not entirely correct.
Mythic Vital Strike will one-shot any mythic opponent that does not have specific defenses.
You're absolutely correct.
And I'll admit that there are a few other actions that can be pulled of by careful planning and/or optimal use of powers. However, there are still a fair amount of Boons left that are either fully or partially based on luck.Anyway, I don't even mind that they're luck-based - that's beside the point. The reward of a single Power point just seems very meagre to me in comparison to the act; especially when the points are so easily regained anyway.
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Well we ARE playing a game called DUNGEONS and dragons. It's strongly orientated towards fighting hordes and beating traps. Since the very beginning of the box set.
Actually, we are playing a game named PATHFINDER.
CR design for normal adventuring is completely and utterly broken after levels 9-11, by the way.Isn't everything completely and utterly broken after levels 9-11? And hasn't that always been that way since 2000?
Nah, I don't think the game is broken per se, unless you do it on purpose. But aspects of it are broken. From my perspective, it's either the design of high-level monsters or the way the challenge rating is calculated. One has to accept that high-level characters are capable of pumping out impressive numbers, but it seems simply that the monsters can't keep up. It's one of the dangers of using the same math for them as we do for player characters, I guess. Increasing their damage output isn't even the right thing to do, since the one thing you can't easily max in Pathfinder as a player character are hitpoints, but their own durability in regards to hitpoints, saves and so on needs some adjustment upwards.
I haven't actually tested it yet, but from a read-through I'm also very worried that it just brings things too far over the top.
My players will be 12 soon, so they're already very hard to challange, if I add even a single Mythic Tier on them, it will probably get completely out of hand.
I was thinking making these adjustments to it.
a) You don't get your full Mythic Points restored on a rest, but only when you level up.
b) You get one Mythic point for doing something amazing, subject to GM ruling. This will probably happen a bit more often than the Boons mentioned above, but not often enough that they can count on it happening all the time. Coming up with ingenious plans to solve a situation in a completely different way than they were planned. Etc. If what you did was something absolutely unbelievable you might get two points or probably even something else. (This is usually on a player by player basis)
c) MAYBE give them a single point for each day of rest back. I'm not sure about this yet.
d) If a Mythic Power turns out to be overpowered compared to other powers, it might cost 2 or even 3 points to use.
I think that might make Mythic abilities and so a bit more "special" and not something you can easily burn through before going to rest.
I haven't actually tested it yet, but from a read-through I'm also very worried that it just brings things too far over the top.
My players will be 12 soon, so they're already very hard to challange, if I add even a single Mythic Tier on them, it will probably get completely out of hand.
I was thinking making these adjustments to it.
a) You don't get your full Mythic Points restored on a rest, but only when you level up.b) You get one Mythic point for doing something amazing, subject to GM ruling. This will probably happen a bit more often than the Boons mentioned above, but not often enough that they can count on it happening all the time. Coming up with ingenious plans to solve a situation in a completely different way than they were planned. Etc. If what you did was something absolutely unbelievable you might get two points or probably even something else. (This is usually on a player by player basis)
c) MAYBE give them a single point for each day of rest back. I'm not sure about this yet.
d) If a Mythic Power turns out to be overpowered compared to other powers, it might cost 2 or even 3 points to use.
I think that might make Mythic abilities and so a bit more "special" and not something you can easily burn through before going to rest.
I thought about using points A and B together as well, while keeping the current amount of Mythic Points per tier (i.e. 5 at 1st, 7 at 2nd etc). It's an idea that seems equally workable to me, from a mechanical point of view, but I was worried that the PCs would hang on to their points too long and thus miss out on a lot of cool stuff they can do.
It's not that I don't want them to use the power, they should just use it sparingly. Hence my idea of reducing the total amount and allowing for a slow but steady refresh each day, possibly aided by heroic action.In any case it's nice you brought that up, since it still remains an option to me - only I think MY players will hold back too much in that case. Of course, YMMV.
Concerning C: I'm still thinking about this also. Maybe the resting requirement is a bit too easy also. You might link this to a Mythic flaw / dependency. For instance, the dependency on fresh blood. If you have consumed some today, you refresh your point. If not, then no.
D: At first glance I thought that simply reducing the power points / day sufficed to lower the powerlevel to the point where I considered it palatable. I'm not too keen on rewriting too many things from the book (that's an awful lot of houserules to keep track of if you're not careful) but I might end up making changes as well, if they're still needed...
Thanks for your input!
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I've found when you make a resource rare (like hero points or mythic points) it just discourages players from using such resources creatively and encourages hoarding said resource using them only for defence/self-preservation.
Higher mythic points encourages PCs to spend those points and use those abilities.
Secondly, I can appreciate wanting to control the throttle as a GM. My recommendation is to just be super slow with mythic advancement. The baseline assumption is 1 tier for every two levels so when players hit 20 they will soon gain access to teir 10. I'm running Jade Regent as a mythic campaign, I am thinking 1 tier roughly every 3-4 levels. I want PCs that have a Mythic edge like in "Journey to the West". This means I only need to convert a handful of mythic encounters each level.
Yup - I agree! Still, if you call a resource 'Mythic' it does not seem fitting that you can spend it almost thoughtlessly on trivial encounters. I'm sure there's a sweet spot to be found somewhere and the idea of having a single point at your disposal every day (with more to follow as you accumulate Tiers) seems like a good starting point to me. The players are almost certain to spend that point during the adventuring day, but they will carefully consider when they will do that. And when the decision does fall, it's a special moment.
I believe the book recommends something along the lines of '1 Tier every two levels' I didn't think that was a bad guideline to start with, but I suppose you could even slow it down further. Still, I'd like my players to eventually reach Tier 10, so I would personally prefer lowering the power output per Tier and gradually compensating with the challenges without having to go overboard.
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The characters are mythic, which means that exploding trivial encounters should be part of the repertoire. Nobody remembers the hundreds of men Achilles slays on his way to fight Hector. He spends a couple of Mythic points, slays everything in his path in a round or two and faces off against his nemesis.
In the same vein if a player throws down some points to curb stomp some kobolds then let them. The player feels powerful, the kobolds are a non-significant encounter anyway and you move on to whatever is next.
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Very interesting topic, I will post in more detail later but I happen to disagree on many parts, particularly when it comes to the mythic points.
However your reservations are justified, crafting a mythic campaign with the right mix of mythic and non-mythic enemies is quite challenging, and I am quite interested what Paizo will do with the current AP.
I am very, very disappointed with Mythic Adventures. I’ll try to explain why in as short an amount of text as possible.And allow me to point out why I am replying. In some places your bias against MA blinds you to a few things and in others you flat lie to make the book look bad. Now I haven't read anyone else's responses, I'll do that after I post, so they may have already called you out on some of this, and if so, good, you deserve to be called out.
Shadowcat, please read the other posts first, lest we start sidetracking and nitpicking about little things here. At this point, I just want to state two things:
1) I LIKE Mythic! It's a good book and I'm not biased at all. I AM disappointed that it does not cater to my play style and merely wish to rake up a discussion to see how we can fix that. i.e. how we can accomodate something EXTRA - not take away.
2) If you want to aid in accomodating a lower-level Mythic option (as apparently several people have agreed would be nice to have) your opinion is very welcome. If you're here to nitpick about the book's layout (so, OK, Boons is not a chapter) or simply advocate that since the book is called Mythic, everyone should adhere to a superhero play style or stay away and shut the hell up, that's all far from helpful and beside the current point.
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crafting a mythic campaign with the right mix of mythic and non-mythic enemies is quite challenging, and I am quite interested what Paizo will do with the current AP.
...and that's all this is about. :-)
I think it can be done, and that MA missed an opportunity by ignoring this play style. Regardless, it would be a nice option to have besides the high-power campaign which is already accomodated nicely.
In regards to mythic power charges (or points, whatever), I've also observed in one group that hero points get hoarded, to prevent any sudden instances of death. OTOH, in the other group where we use them, we are spending them constantly, although there the feeling of general danger is much higher, too, considering we got 4 players there vs. the 6 of the other group.
First of all, let me explain why I’m posting this: I am very, very disappointed with Mythic Adventures. I’ll try to explain why in as short an amount of text as possible.
First of all, let me explain why I’m posting this: I am very, very disappointed with Mythic Adventures. I’ll try to explain why in as short an amount of text as possible.
Your point, DM?
I can't be disappointed in the product and still think there's plenty of good stuff in there? It's a missed opportunity and I'm trying to gather enough momentum here to plug that hole.I fail to see how that can be a bad attitude to have.
Margrave:
Just highlighting that you're all over the shop as far as what you're actually talking about in this thread.
Firstly you post a quite long highly negative thread about how bad Mythic Adventures is... then now you're saying you like the book and you can solve all of the 'problems' you had by just reducing the amount of mythic power.
You put up fairly ridiculous strawmen to try and 'prove' your point (like a level 1 character with 2 mythic tiers) and are derisive and insulting to those that disagree with you.
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Reducing the number of mythic points seems like a neat, minimalist solution.
The other suggestion I'd make as an alternative would be to make them replenish at a slower rate (like one a day, one a week, one a month or whatever resulted in the desirable rarity). That approach would mean you could really blast through an important encounter - but you couldnt do it willy-nilly, just for the real showpiece moments.