In prepping for a run at this AP, I've been considering what the best options might be for running the AP as is, with as few changes as possible, but not utilizing the mythic rules as written.
The primary option I came up with, since we level by story point rather than XP, was simply to have the PC's gain a character level at every point they would gain a mythic tier, accelerating their characters without adding the multi-layered and rather complex rules offered up. No one would be allowed to exceed 20th level in any one class, however.
The benefits to this approach would seem to be:
The opportunity to actually use and enjoy your capstone abilities - even if you mutli-class.
An opportunity to fully explore multi-class characters and prestige classes.
Simplified approach that will avoid the confusion of having to learn and juggle an entirely new ruleset (tracking uses of mythic power, pre-requisites for mythic feats, path abilities, etc.).
My biggest concern about taking this approach is that it might lead the PC's to actually become too powerful - it would seem to me that a path ability, a few extra hit points and a mythic feat or attribute boost is nowhere near as powerful as an entire class level... but not having actually played according to the mythic rules, that is simply my estimation.
My other thought was to also open up Mythic feats to them as an option once they began book 2 (where they officially become 'mythic') but not granting any additional feats beyond what they would normally earn. Does anyone think that this would be a viable replacement option for the mythic rules? Assuming that the AP takes them all the way to Tier 10, its effectively giving them 30 character levels to play with, advancing at approximately the same pace. This means, for instance, when they begin The Midnight Isles (Book 4), instead of being 12th level + 5 Mythic tiers, they will simply be 17th level - for full casters that means access to 9th level spells in this volume and for all characters it means use of their capstone abilities before this chapter is done. Not having the book at hand, I'm not sure if that's an appropriate power level or not.
I'm asking this question as a potential across the board option, not necessarily specific to my campaign, but for what its worth, there will be 4 PC's starting with a 20 point build with a 5th on-again, off-again GMPC who (probably) won't be Mythic and therefor would not get those bonus levels. I do not allow crafting nor do I commonly make non-consumable magic items (like potions and scrolls) available for purchase.
The primary option I came up with, since we level by story point rather than XP, was simply to have the PC's gain a character level at every point they would gain a mythic tier, accelerating their characters without adding the multi layered and rather complex rules offered up. No one would be allowed to exceed 20th level in any one class, however.
JJ said in one of these threads that a Mythic Tier was worth about CR 1/2, so that Level 20 / Mythic 10 was actually CR 25. If the above is your choice, I would have them gain a level at 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th Mythic Tiers and drop all the Mythic stuff completely.
Depending on how my guys take to Mythic, I might do the above myself.
-- david
The primary option I came up with, since we level by story point rather than XP, was simply to have the PC's gain a character level at every point they would gain a mythic tier, accelerating their characters without adding the multi layered and rather complex rules offered up. No one would be allowed to exceed 20th level in any one class, however.JJ said in one of these threads that a Mythic Tier was worth about CR 1/2, so that Level 20 / Mythic 10 was actually CR 25. If the above is your choice, I would have them gain a level at 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th Mythic Tiers and drop all the Mythic stuff completely.
Depending on how my guys take to Mythic, I might do the above myself.
-- david
I'm weighing that.
The problem I see is that my PC's will already be losing a smooth power curve, especially since we don't have a practical template for classes post-20. Think about it, you're a full caster and you hit 20th level... what do you take next - a level of Cleric? of Witch? What's the power level difference between a 20th level Wizard and a 20th level Wizard/1st level Sorcerer? Certainly nothing like the difference between a 19th level Wizard and a 20th level Wizard. The power jump from 1st to 2nd level Mythic seems to me to be about the same as from 8th to 9th level Mythic... but not so much with 1st to 2nd level Wizards and 8th to 9th level Wizards (just using them as an example).
On the flip-side, it will give my non-full casters a leg up at those higher levels, especially the ones that multi-class, and might balance the equation a little bit. The Dervishes who dipped into other classes can finish up their Bard levels, the Paladin who dipped into Oracle can gain additional revelations, etc.
I definitely want them to be there to take advantage of what would be their first Mythic tier... perhaps I'll grant them bonus levels in the story where Mythic tiers 1, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 take place... and again, give them access to Mythic feats, just so that they can have something new to go with this AP. That'll slow the jump in access to higher level spells and when they might otherwise gain their capstone abilities, but should still keep them apace with where they need to be power-wise and I won't have to make too many adjustments to the AP as written.
Creative Director
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Having the PCs gain a level when they'd otherwise gain a tier is in fact one of my suggestions, but you should watch the balance of encounters anyway.
And to be honest... I'm really not sure how not using Mythic in the last adventure's gonna be doable... one option is to super-load the PCs down with powerful magic though. They can hit the level cap of 20 in the 5th adventure, but still gain power as their magic items keep bolstering them.
Y'know, James, my biggest worry is if you guys can manage to make the endgame encounters anything else than very one-sided one-round slaughterfests for the player characters. And I mean that the enemies are going to get put down very fast, not the PC's. ^^
My Jade Regent campaign just ended with just that... a one-round curbstomp and I already had bumped up the encounter considerably from what was in the actual module.
I just fear that the final fight will go something like "Ugh the Barbarian rage-pounces Deskari for 1237 damage, Deskari looks very surprised and explodes into chunky salsa.". Not even to mention all those encounters in the last two modules, which probably will be just as curb-stompy as the final fight in Jade Regent was.
Which is why I am perfectly willing to fudge results for the villain to ensure a memorable fight. I know certain parties may protest this from other threads... but to me, it doesn't matter about the stats or the die rolls... what matters is the story and having a fun time. One-shotting the big-bad to end the game is boring. And I've seen enough threads in here where the GM said their players felt let down by the easy end that I feel justified in fudging things... both on and against the player's behalf.
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Well, here's where my simulationist sensibilities come into play... I don't want to Magical Tea Party the final encounter so that it lasts longer (I could as well say "And then everybody on the opponents side gets a True Ressurection from... somewhere". Bleagh.), I want opponents build in a way which is congruent with the damage output and the save DC's player character actually get in the late game.
There's just this huge disparity between the "expected power level" Paizo seems to assume player characters have at around levels 13-17 and then the "actual power level" player characters really have. I'm really not feeling too confident that the last three levels will be any better, rather the contrary. Things like buff synergy don't even seem to be a consideration in encounter balancing.
And another problem is that it is nigh impossible to rebalance encounters with NPC's fairly without increasing WBL dramatically, which leads of course into the problem of WBL balance (a topic which is under much dispute, although at least SKR seems to think that, yes, WBL is a definite value and consideration in game balance. I agree.).
Bleagh, just thinking about this is giving me the willies. I can't imagine how much more worried I'll be when I get the read the actual last three modules.
Well, one thing to consider is this: Yes, the players have Mythic Tiers. But so do the demons.
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Y'know, James, my biggest worry is if you guys can manage to make the endgame encounters anything else than very one-sided one-round slaughterfests for the player characters. And I mean that the enemies are going to get put down very fast, not the PC's. ^^
My Jade Regent campaign just ended with just that... a one-round curbstomp and I already had bumped up the encounter considerably from what was in the actual module.
I just fear that the final fight will go something like "Ugh the Barbarian rage-pounces Deskari for 1237 damage, Deskari looks very surprised and explodes into chunky salsa.". Not even to mention all those encounters in the last two modules, which probably will be just as curb-stompy as the final fight in Jade Regent was.
Keep in mind that if something goes wrong, part of the blame is on the GM. By the end of an Adventure Path, the GM knows his party's strengths and weaknesses FAR better than we could ever even hope to guess, and the GM should be making adjustments as needed to keep the final encounters fun, challenging, and entertaining without being impossibly hard or impossibly easy. If they're either... we can't take ALL of the blame. Perhaps a lot of it, but not all of it.
A GM is NOT a "window" through which the players experience the product, in other words. The GM IS the product in some ways. Make it your own, and don't be afraid to toss things out the window (be they encounter tactics, maps, monsters, or even rules) to make your game better.
And keep in mind that if the players enjoyed the end game even if the final battle went by super fast in a "curbstomp," then it wasn't a total loss!
Having the PCs gain a level when they'd otherwise gain a tier is in fact one of my suggestions, but you should watch the balance of encounters anyway.
And to be honest... I'm really not sure how not using Mythic in the last adventure's gonna be doable... one option is to super-load the PCs down with powerful magic though. They can hit the level cap of 20 in the 5th adventure, but still gain power as their magic items keep bolstering them.
To be completely honest, while a lot of good and exciting work clearly went into the Mythic rules, I haven't seen anything in them that would trump my players FINALLY getting to use a capstone ability and to do it for a prolonged period. The question for me becomes how to properly continue their development and growth without relying on the crutch of magic items. Clearly I'm going to lift the 20 character level cap, but the question becomes to I still keep core and base classes limited to 20, or do I try to extrapolate what levels beyond 20 would look like? I would imagine things like Fighter's feat progression and even caster's spell progression would be easy enough to determine, and in those cases it would probably offer better options than stacking a 1st level Sorcerer onto a 20th level Wizard.
The thing that we're most excited about is multi-class and prestige classes will get to finally reach the limits which up til now have been denied them. A Sorcerer/Dragon Disciple gets to reach his full caster potential, a Fighter/Arcane Archer gets to experience his capstone ability and so on. Even with the mythic rules, that would never get to happen in the AP as-written.
I understand the motivations behind the mythic rules, but for my players, this AP is offering them the chance to finally see characters made according to the normal rules finally reach their full potential.
That said, having a potential of two Capstones could be in and of itself broken. While this isn't a problem for, say, a 20-level class and a 10-level prestige, someone taking two prestige classes could in theory get two capstones in this case.
That said, having a potential of two Capstones could be in and of itself broken. While this isn't a problem for, say, a 20-level class and a 10-level prestige, someone taking two prestige classes could in theory get two capstones in this case.
Potentially, but I don't see that as being a problem in my group. I'm pretty sure I'm going to only grant bonus levels at what would be Tier 1, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10, topping them off at character level 26 in the final battle... and it would take some pretty miserly and cheezy character building to manage two potentially game-breaking capstones in 26 levels - the kind that can be just as potentially broken without them.
Keep in mind that if something goes wrong, part of the blame is on the GM. By the end of an Adventure Path, the GM knows his party's strengths and weaknesses FAR better than we could ever even hope to guess, and the GM should be making adjustments as needed to keep the final encounters fun, challenging, and entertaining without being impossibly hard or impossibly easy. If they're either... we can't take ALL of the blame. Perhaps a lot of it, but not all of it.
A GM is NOT a "window" through which the players experience the product, in other words. The GM IS the product in some ways. Make it your own, and don't be afraid to toss things out the window (be they encounter tactics, maps, monsters, or even rules) to make your game better.
And keep in mind that if the players enjoyed the end game even if the final battle went by super fast in a "curbstomp," then it wasn't a total loss!
Oh, I know that and, believe me, I already do a ton of work to make the encounters appropiate for my non-standard (six player, 20 pts buy) party when the high levels come in. Combining encounters, applying advanced templates (twice on top sometimes), adding enemies... every encounter gets worked over. But after three whole AP's I've GM'ed to their conclusion and quite a lot experience with high-level play even before that, I still can't shake the feeling that even a standard group of high-level adventurers are better than the developers think they are, which expresses itself in said curbstomp battles.
Furthermore, one aspect to keep in mind is that many of those NPC's don't get to use some of the fantastic buff spells they could have at their disposal, because they come from Ultimate Magic/Combat or even only the APG. I don't advocate Bards for most encounters, but at least making something like Blessing of Fervor or Bestow Grace of the Champion available for more enemy NPC's (which are notably some of the most complex and most difficult to re-balance opponents) would be very appreciated, because player characters will remember bringing spells like that when the important fights crop up.
And I think the most important aspect in that encounter imbalance is that damage output and hitpoint pools are not congruent. If maxed out hitpoint pools are still not enough, I think it would be necessary to put some thoughts into the question if the curve between player character damage and monster durability should not be officially adjusted. At least for the next edition of the game, because if history shows one thing, it is that player character power assuredly won't get diminished. Rather the contrary, which is not a bad thing, because giving players something new for their characters to be able to do so far has been received very well by them. It is just that monsters need to scale better in the late-game.
I think my problem mainly lies with NPC opponents here, since those are built by RAW rules in most cases and thus are the most difficult to scale without showering the player characters in expensive magic items after the battle.
Deskari won't be that much of a problem, since he is a monster and can just add natural armor or abilities at will... there's no rulebook template what a monster can't have additionally if it is required and the party does not gain an additional profit out of those abilities.
Mind you, Deskari probably is a bad example, because he will be the final opponent of the campaign. And thank you for your ideas, I will keep those in mind (hopefully in a years time ^^). :)
I've never really had a problem with the end fights, or even the tough interim fights in the APs. For me it just comes down to tactics.
I'm running a 6man team, and have for almost two years. I usually just ramp up the "grunt" NPCs to lessen the free attacks the PCs would get on the BBEG, and then apply tactics to the situation. A lot of times that means either bringing in another mob with buff spells, or at the very least looking through available spells for the character of that level to see what make sense, rather than what is given. I've grown accustomed to having my NPCs use resistance, or similar spells, to give them resistance to fire, since I have a pyromaniac in our group. Things like that. At the lower levels of the AP, I run pretty much as is, but as the PCs start to gain levels, I also let them gain noteriety, which means that a smart BBEG is going to be familiar with their most common tactics, and be prepared for them. I also have the interim NPCs escape when they can, which then leads for them showing up at climactic battles, or even at different battles along the way where they can add to the fights, and escape again. Yarzoth and Issilar in Serpent's Skull, for example, have both escaped several times, and have hindered the party enough that they are have contingencies in place to kill them both, no matter what, the next time they show up. :D
In short, get creative, use the environment against them, etc. Adding stats doesn't necessarily make the fight tougher, just longer.
"Longer" already is a win, because one-round curbstomps are anticlimactic. "Longer" also means that the enemies actually get their turn and can do something, instead of dying before acting.
And I did put up resistances, True Seeing/See Invisibility, Fickle Winds, Mirror Images, Displacements and so on and so on. Let's just say that the original encounter didn't even use all the available great buffs on the antagonists, things like Greater Heroism and True Seeing were missing on key players. Didn't help at all. :-/
I guess more mooks would have helped by blocking pathways to the main antagonists, though, so that is on me. Less than favorable terrain for PC's was not available, either, which seems to be a standard of end encounters in AP's, where all three ones I ran so far have had easy-to-move-through terrain features. Something to be careful for in this AP's finale, I hope.
Actually, without Mythic, what level does this campaign actually end at?
Mythic ruleset started to give me some heartache at about the end of the 2nd book, which is about when other GMs have to take a dramatic course correction if they stick with the rules as written. Judging from what I've read on the forums, anyway. It isn't a huge problem if you mind the following things: make sure your players understand your frustration and that you have to play a little fast and loose with some of the numbers to make it both fun and challenging for them; do as kelarith and magnuskn point out and utilize tactics such as some extra mooks (maybe make them advanced in a lot of cases), terrain; also, don't be afraid to boost HP to ridiculous levels as necessary just to help the combat last more than a round or two. I have had to more than quadruple the HP of some encounters in order to have it remain sensible. The other stats are written, including AC, seem sensible.