I have been reading through the Mythic Adventures book, and I just found this little item.
Pasted from the PRD:
SANDS OF TIME
Source sands of time
You age the target by two categories instead of one. The damage dealt to objects, constructs, and undead increases to 5d6 points of damage + 1 point per caster level (maximum +20).
Augmented (8th): If you expend four uses of mythic power, the duration changes to instantaneous. If the target is a living creature, its age increases to venerable, regardless of its current age. A non-mythic creature receives no saving throw against this, but a mythic creature can attempt a Fortitude save against the spell's DC to reduce the duration to 10 minutes per level and the effect to two age categories instead of automatically changing to venerable.
If the target is an object, construct, or undead, it takes 30 points of damage per caster level. A mythic creature that succeeds at a Fortitude takes only half damage.
Was this spell intended to do 30 points of damage per caster level, with no save unless you are mythic (at which its a fort for half damage)? Was it mistyped and supposed to be 30 points per tier? I don't know of any other spell that deals 30 damage per level, with or without a saving throw.
As some background into why I am so worried about this spell; I am GMing a Carrion Crown adventure right now, and there are only 3 PC's (Summoner, Cleric, and Paladin). To make up for their low numbers and because we have all been wanting to play with the Mythic rules, I upgraded them to mythic during the lightning storm at the end of book 2, and now they are having fun tearing it up in the woods, and battling mythic werewolves. So far, its a blast, and upgrading select enemies to mythic tiers has just heightened my player's sense of accomplishment.
I am really worried about later in the adventure path though, once my cleric player discovers this spell. He is 9th level right now, and the ability for a cleric to deal 270 damage, no save, to any undead he touches is crazy strong. That far outstrips the healing or smiting abilities of the other party members, even the Heal spell suddenly becomes obsolete when he gets this.
Admittedly, you cannot augment the spell till 4th tier, but by the time the players get to tier 4 they will be right at books 5 and 6 and fighting primarily undead enemies, none of which are going to have the 450 hp required to survive even one casting of this spell O.o
For the numbers people:
Mythic Finger of Death: 15 damage/level (no limit), 3d8+1/lvl damage if they make their save.
Mythic Heal: 15 damage/level (limit 225), Will save for half. (against Undead)
Mythic Sands of Time: 30 damage/level (no limit), fort for half (only if Mythic).
It seems that while Sands of Time takes 5 uses of Mythic Power instead of 1 for the other spells, its also both lower level and deals twice the damage, and doesn't even allow a save unless the target is mythic themselves. That seems crazy powerful for a third level spell, even a mythic one.
I had planned for the PC's to maybe end up fighting the Whispering Tyrant in some expansion after the adventure path ends, but I can already see how it will go.
Tar-Baphon: "Foolish mortals! You stand before the closest thing to a God you will ever see! Meet your doom!"
Cleric: "I make a touch attack. *hit* Okay, take 600 damage, with a save to reduce that to 300. Oh btw, I heightened it to 8th level to bypass that pesky globe of invulnerability of yours. Also, I am casting it again as a quickened spell. Take another 600 damage!"
Tar-Baphon: *death noises*
Oh you are right, sorry I misread the 4 uses as tier for some reason. So I could solve the entire problem by just not letting them get that high in Mythic (I think I had planned for them to reach 6th tier at the end of the adventure path).
I suppose since it requires such a high tier and costs at least 4 mythic power to use, the spell isn't That broken, but the fact still remains that it deals more damage than any other spell in the game, including mythic disintegrate, wail of the banshee, meteor swarm, or any of the other big damage spells. I still think it's quite overpowered for a 3rd level spell.
As far as the spell immunity and such, I am not going to get into that, or we will start the long discussion about offense vs defense for casters :)
@Victor, I was worried about that myself, but the climactic fight at the end of book 2 was a perfect place to insert mythic, and so far the player's mythic status hasn't detracted from the horror at all. Most of the horror comes from being confronted with situations and creatures that they know nothing about, mysteries they have to solve, etc, where they are dealing with some unknown evil that seems all powerful and hopeless to fight. The player's ability to hit things super hard or cast any spell they want hasn't helped them with the investigation or discovery aspect (probably because they are really bad at remembering what they can do).
As far as the near hopeless battles against overwhelming odds that are the hallmark of Horror games, I still have those. Adding mythic ranks and advancing certain monsters keeps them at the same relative power level compared to the group. Mostly what Mythic ranks have given them is the ability to deal with the weaker fights and wade through the dungeons without taking as much time to rest, which I am not overly concerned with. After all, the role of fodder monsters is to be killed and delay the PC's so they don't just walk up to the boss.
Also, I have seen one overwhelming benefit to adding Mythic to the horror themed game. Letting the PC's kill non-mythic monsters makes them feel like heroes, and more importantly, makes them Dangerously overconfident. Their first encounter with a mythic powered boss monster brought the horror back to their faces in a real hurry ^_^
