I'm playing 5th level character that has just gone mythic. The rest of our party is slowly following suite, but my character is the first. He has 3 levels of Zen Archer Monk and 2 levels of Serene Barbarian. I'm am very much flirting with one level of Empyreal Blooded Sorcerer and possibly 2 levels of Inquisitor. I'm aware of all the pros and cons and arguments for and against multiclassing, but I have this particular character concept in mind and need to play it out. Moving on...
I have no idea which Mythic Path to take. Champion seems like the only option to me. I've been told that we are not allowed to take the Dual Path mythic feat, but I haven't been strictly forbidden from going Trickster and taking the Path Dabbling ability at each level. There seem to be few archer specific and/or interesting ranged focused path abilities in either path (including the Mythic Archer PDF). Certainly not 10. Please help me think outside of the box and come up with viable options for my character.
You can't take Path Dabbling more than once.
You can't take Path Dabbling more than once.
I hadn't considered that, I missed the part in the early desciption about abilities only being allowed once unless they are specifically stated otherwise. Bummer...
So my question then is what Champion Path abilities should I take? There are not that many Archery abilities. I have steered away from trying the ranged CMB stuff. What are some good abilities that I might be overlooking?
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Champion has a lot of good stuff for blowing people away with full attacks.
1st Tier
1st tier for champions is kinda light in great archer options. Not a lot that will boost your offense, but there are some nice tricks. Distant Barrage and Fleet Charge are both pretty solid as Strikes.
Impossible Speed: More mobility. Combines well with Fleet Warrior.
Limitless Range: Doesn't have a ton of uses, since most campaigns don't spend a lot of time fighting outdoors, but if you want to snipe people from far enough away that they can't even hit DC 0 perception checks to spot you, this is how you do it.
Mythic Weapon Training: Not great, since it isn't going to give you Weapon Focus etc versatility, but it DOES give you a huge bonus to resist sunder and disarm attempts. Those are generally a weak point for archers, so if you know your GM uses maneuvers this might be a wise pickup.
Sniper's Riposte: Don't provoke AoOs from firing ranged weapons, and spend mythic power to snipe without stealth penalties. Not useful for you due to your Zen Archer levels, but good to keep in mind.
3rd Tier
Elemental Fury: So so. It's a small amount of extra damage, and it burns a move action and a mythic power, but archers make a LOT of attacks, and you can grab energies that your enemies are vulnerable to. Using a Quickrunner's Shirt for the activation lets you still full attack. Probably not worthwhile, unless you're struggling to find good options.
Fleet Warrior: TAKE THIS. Any character that full attacks should have this path power.
Precision: Solid. Makes your iterative attacks significantly more accurate. Good to fill the gaps when you don't have other powers you're interested in, but you should probably take it at least once.
6th Tier
Very little you'd be interested in.
Critical Master: Eh. It's decent. If you've got extra path powers to burn, this is a decent way to spend them. You probably want to take it twice if you're taking it at all, though.
There are also some Universal path powers you'd be interested in.
1st Tier
Extra Mythic Feat: A fair amount of your offense boost is going to come from mythic feats.
Extra Mythic Power: Somewhat underwhelming compared to a lot of other path powers, but more mythic power is never bad.
Legendary Item: A great choice. Better than Extra Mythic Power most of the time, since it lets you do LOTS of fun stuff with a legendary bow (though you could do another item, potentially). I'll post some more details on legendary items below.
Mythic Sustenance: Doesn't improve your combat potential, but it's a cute ability to pick up if you've got a spare.
3rd Tier
Divine Source: Pick up a bunch of really nice SLAs. You might not be interested in it for RP reasons, though. Keep it in mind, especially if character relevant domains have nice domain spells.
Enhanced Ability: Minor. But another +2 to an ability score or two never hurt.
6th Tier
A few cute abilities if you've got a spare and want some flavor, but nothing really worth going into.
A large amount of mythic archery power comes from mythic feats. Remember that you can exchange up to 1/2 of your path powers for mythic feats.
Mythic Deadly Aim: Increases your benefit from Deadly Aim.
Mythic Deflect Arrows: Nice way to insulate yourself against the attacks of other archers, especially mythic ones. Burning mythic power to deflect rays is really, really good. Punt those incoming enervations out of the stadium.
Dual Path: I know your GM has banned this one, but I'm going to mention it anyway just in case. Gives you access to a few nice tricks from another path- a particular favorite of mine is Archmage; Enduring Armor and Mirror Dodge are great pickups.
Extra Path Ability: If you've got extra feats you don't want or need, you can trade one for a path ability.
Mythic Far Shot: Not an important archery feat, and this extends into Mythic, but being able to shoot someone literally anywhere on the planet (combined with Limitless Range) is cool.
Mythic Improved Initiative: Loads of extra initiative. Going first is nice, especially when you're an archer; a full attack from you can kill lots of things.
Mythic Manyshot: Blam. Take the awesomeness of Manyshot and multiply it by two.
Mythic Paragon: Improves your tier by two for path powers and feats. Check to see if any of the options you're taking are affected by this; it might be worthwhile for you!
Mythic Point-Blank Shot: Gives you a small increase to the effects of PBS... but if you burn Mythic Power as a swift action, it gives you a MASSIVE boost to attack and damage for that round. Use it just before a short range full attack to eviscerate your target.
Mythic Rapid Shot: Great in either of its forms. The extra attack is better against low AC targets, and ignoring the penalty is better against extremely high AC targets (generally enemies you only hit on a 16+).
Having a legendary item can be really, really useful; especially as a character that relies on one weapon, like an archer. A quick rundown of the reasons they're great:
• Extra surges. A legendary item has two uses of "Legendary Power" by default, that can be used to surge with a specific type of roll relevant to the item. For weapons this is attack or CMB rolls, though you might be interested in a Wrist item, which can surge your saves or ranged attack rolls.
• It can't be broken. Eventually, at least. The first time you take it, your item is just an especially powerful magic item. The second time you take it, it becomes a lesser artifact and can no longer be destroyed. The third time you take it, your item becomes a major artifact and is immune to damage.
• Path power efficiency. Every time you take Legendary Item you get a number of special abilities (or rather, your item does). Some of these are really incredible, like Foe-biting, and others are just really awesome, like Everlasting (which grants you immortality as long as you have your item).
So, have a list of which legendary item abilities are most relevant to your character. I recommend taking a look at the entire list, because they're all pretty cool!
Adroit: As a swift action and a use of legendary power, boost the next skill check you attempt- but your item has to be capable of surging to affect skill checks. Not useful for a weapon or Wrists on its own, but with Perfect Surge below, you can take advantage of it.
Everlasting: Immortality, immunity to cold and hot conditions, no need to breathe, eat, or sleep. All as long as your item is in your possession.
Foe-Biting: Only usable for a weapon. Burn mythic power when you land a hit to double your damage, or two mythic power on a crit to double the total damage of the crit. Damage from special weapon properties and stuff like sneak attack is multiplied too. For a bow, this could mean turning a critical hit into a 6x damage hit.
Intelligent: Always fun to have a companion around. Beyond just intelligence, this grants your item some nice abilities. Spellcasting, Skill Ranks, and Teleport are some of the better ones.
Legendary Fortification: Wrists qualify for this one. Expend mythic power to negate crits. Good if you don't want to get exploded by someone else with Foe-Biting.
Perfect Surge: Your item's surge (and thus, its legendary power) can now be applied to any d20 roll. You get an extra +2 if you use it to surge one of the things it originally could, however. Lets you take Adroit.
Powerful: Lets you pick up extra uses of legendary power. The reason this option is totally superior to Extra Mythic Power.
Rejuvenating: Use mythic power as a standard action to heal yourself a bunch. Not amazing, but it can be nice in a pinch. Especially if your party runs out of healing.
Returning: Not to be confused with the weapon quality. Your item can never be stolen from you again. Lets your item teleport to your waiting hands.
Undetectable: Become utterly undetectable when you're invisible. You can still get powder bombed (or glitter bombed) or hit with Dispel Magic or Invisibility Purge, though. Still, shuts down True Seeing and See Invisibility.
Unyielding: Double the hardness and triple the hitpoints of your item. Only useful if you don't plan on taking Legendary Item more than once; it becomes useless if you do.
Upgradeable: Enhance your item as if you had the relevant crafting feat. Only takes 8 hours to upgrade your item, rather than days like with crafting.
Whew, so that was more than I was expecting to write out. Hopefully it's useful to you.
You missed the following Champion path abilities that can also be useful for an archer:
1st Tier-
Blowback (works with either melee or ranged for an automatic "bull rush" against any foe)
Punishing Blow (works with either melee or ranged to suppress fast healing or regeneration)
Mythic Ki might be worthwhile for a zen archer monk if the GM considers bows "monk weapons" for them (they are treated as such in many ways).
3rd Tier-
Penetrating Damage (using cold iron arrows treated with silver weapon blanch and a magic bow, you can treat the arrows as chaotic, evil, good, or lawful as desired; only DRs requiring adamantine and/or holy/unholy remain a concern)
Unstoppable Shot (turns your bow into a line area of effect attack, which can even be "bent" up to 90 degrees twice)
It's a shame the GM doesn't allow Dual Path, since Champion with Dual Path (Trickster) could have both also take: 1st Tier- Path Dabbling (Guardian: Ranged Disarm), Ricochet; 3rd Tier- Mirror Dodge. The OP is probably better using the "leftover" path ability selections for Extra Mythic Feat, although the Universal path abilities Pierce the Darkness (1st Tier; to gain or increase Darkvision) and Mythic Sight (6th Tier; blindsense is OK, but true seeing with the second pick is gold for ignoring non-mythic illusions like blur, invisibility, mirror image, etc.) can be good choices.
Thanks so much for the great suggestions. There are several I was considering, especially the Legendary Item. I agree that it gives you a lot of great abilities by itself (basically allowing you to add two abilities at each tier), but my DM has talked me out of it assuring me that the bow I recently received is nifty all by itself. It currently has the broken condition as it has been buried for hundreds of years and needs to be put through several different cleaning and restoration rituals (basically his way of allowing it's power to scale as I level). I guess I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and go with other stuff for now, after all, receiving it prompted my mythic ascension.
As for feats, I'm not 100% sure, but I think Many Shot and Rapid Shot don't work with the Zen Archer's Flurry ability, so those won't work of me, but I did take Mythic Deadly Aim as my first feat. It worked out great because I hit level 5 at the same time as my first tier so I took Deadly Aim and the Mythic version at the same time.
Paragon is interesting, but I think it's usefulness will depend on how many tier-dependent abilities I take.
Far shot and Limitless range are interesting, but I don't see them being that useful on a regular basis (although I wonder what this might do together with Imprinted Hand).
I'm already going to be boosting my Initiative quite a bit once I get Inquisitor 2 (allows me to add my WIS to INIT which will be quite high) and my tier boosts. I'm already +4 before any of that.
Mythic Point Blank Shot is interesting. I was more looking at the mythic varieties of Weapon Focus and Weapons Specialization, but it appears as though PBS will accomplish both of those feats in one for the cost of one use of mythic power. I'm curious if there is a reason I should or should not take them all or if I can go with PBS and skip the rest for something better.
Path Abilities: Unstoppable Shot didn't impress me until I saw you could bend it twice. That should put a lot of foes within reach of that ability.
You've convinced me to go with the Speed and Fleet abilities. My speed is already 50 at level 5 with one level of Barbarian and my first Monk increase. I will be a regular Speedy Gonzales by the time I'm done.
I think I'm really interested in Climbing Master as well, mostly for flavor. It seems like having a climb speed of 80 is a pretty nice Crouching Tiger-like ability for a monk to have. It could quickly give me a nice perch to shoot from. Early on I was thinking about the Monkey Style feat tree. Combining Climbing Master with the Monkey Moves feat would put me a lot closer to that DC 40 for climbing sheer surfaces. It could turn me into Spider Man pretty early.
I'm curious about Mortal Herald and if it might be useful to me. I suppose it's always helpful to have some extra spells on hand.
Precision seemed like the only real no-brainer to me from the beginning. That seems like a huge bonus, especially for the Zen Archer and the Flurry ability.
Elemental Fury is pretty shiny, but seems like it might be better taken at a higher tier to get more use out of it.
I am interested in Extra Ki, but I haven't gotten my Ki pool yet so I don't know how badly I'm going to be jonesing to refill it every day.
It seems kinda sad that there are so few worthwhile abilities for 6th tier and above. I hope they come out with some more before I get there.
Stepping back and looking at all this, my main concern is if I've focused too much on offense and left myself too little defense. I think my strategy is going to be to hang back (or high), go first, and hope that the Mythic Barbarian, Fighter, and Dragon Disciple in front of me are enough to hold their attention.
Bump...
In General Mythic Monsters will have their main attribute increased in the same way yours do, which for most monsters will mean: More Damage and more chance to hit. Furthermore monsters advance their natural AC with mythic ranks. Add feats and special abilities and its done.
So as you increase your main attribute at the same rate, you will increase in +hit, +AC, +Will.
So your chance to hit will be a bit worse then in a normal setting, your effektive AC will be the same and your willsaves will be better then normal.
Against most monsters you break even in the defense department by default.
Full Casters are another thing, they will generally have all their attribute increases in spell dcs, so you are equal in will saves and worse in reflex and fortitude. Against them you have a deficit in the defense.
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I want to make a point for the trickster, as only the champion was really discussed so far. I will compare the two but only really highlight the big ones.
1st Tier:
-You cannot get impossible speed as a Trickster. But really: your speed will be pretty damn fast as a monk anyways. Add Haste and your battlegrid will be running a bit small very soon.
-Snipers Reposte is awailable for both Champion and Trickster
-Path dabbling: Get one Champion ability you really want to have or enduring armor from the archmage (3+tier AC is nothing to sniff at)
-Ricochet lets you ignore cover (even full) in some situations, but you still face concealment problems.
3rd Tier:
-Fleet Warrior: You only get this as a champion or with path dabbling. This is a really big one, but i dont think its that mandatory as an archer (especially with mirror dodge and fleet charge at your disposal)
-Precision: a Good one and a boring one (and one i could live without if im compensated)
-Mirror Dodge: Get out of jail free - card
-Vanishing Move: Turn invisible as a swift action. Yes pease.
6th Tier:
-Class Mimic: Depends on your group, but it can be really really nice. You could get stuff like favored enemy, sneak attack or fighter weapon training to name just a few obvious ones.
Other then those you have a big load of fun stuff in the trickster, that depend in your preference, your groups needs and your GMs playstyle, while the champion has nothing really interesting to offer.
Feats and Universal Path abilities can be taken by both.
Trickster gives you versatility, Champion gives you more raw power.
I can't understand why a DM would allow mythic stuff and then ban duel path? Is he concerned it'll be overpowered or something because it'll make very little difference, once you hit mythic stuff you're all going to be overpowered anyway?
i'm banning dual path, too. in my opinion banning it isn't really the problem of it being overpowered, but to set a binding overall theme for everyone
actually feats are rediculously strong for mythics, dual path is really expensive