I'll start off with a caveat: I have not played with the Mythic rules yet.
That being said, as I look them over, the Mythic rules appear to be a means by which to give the PCs more power to distinguish them from ordinary adventurers -- while also providing for tougher enemies. As such, I don't really see it as an issue if the PCs do not get to progress through the entire set of tiers. It would, in a sense, be akin to a campaign that stops at level 12. Nothing prevents the game from running smoothly and interestingly up to that point.
The only thing you may want to do is give the players a head's up as to what your overall plan is in terms of how many tiers as that may affect their choices (just as letting them know you are only going to go level 12 might affect a player's choices in terms of what class/feats/etc. to take).
There is no hard rule on "how often" or "when" a mythic challenge should occur.
You can get your first tier at level 1 or at level 20 without any guarantee you'll get other tiers. The WotR path is more of an exception as it serves as a showcase adventure that fully uses mythic rules.
In "normal" campaigns, a single mythic tier is enough to shift the balance in favor of the PCs and becoming legends. But more mythic tiers shouldn't be a goal, just as getting to be level 20 isn't the ultimate goal of a campaign (the players and GM having fun all along the way *should* be the goal).
But if your campaign has enough events that warrant them to by mythic (i.e. "Things will never be the same after this. Ever!"), then by golly let the gods start their wagers.
Absolutely reasonable. The rules provide a means to gauge the power of a party of PCs with M levels and N mythic tiers. As long as you use that, you should be fine.
It's a little more dicey with overdoing the mythic tiers than underdoing them. A fighter 10/Champion 10 is pretty badass compared to, say, a fighter 15.
I'm still thinking about this. I can see that even one Mythic tier will make a big difference, and I'm a bit ambivalent. It's not that it will make the PCs more powerful per se -- I'm okay with that -- but that it will make them more powerful in a way that emphasizes the 15 minute gaming day, which I don't think I like.
Doug M.
How does it emphasize the 15 minute gaming day? I'm not saying it doesn't, I'm just curious as to your reason for believing that.
I think a one or two tier game is a great way to use the mythic rules and hope your players enjoy it. But i dissagree that 3rd tier promotes the 15 min. day Why would a party rest to get powers back when they can just spen a mythic power and keep going yeah casters get more spells, barbs get more rage and pallys get more smites if you cant keep your plyers moving why not give them a mechanical explanation for the recharge of their spellsand abilitys
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15 minute workdays are always going to be a problem to the extent that the GM allows it to be (with some groups as obviously every group is different).
So the party inches its way into the dungeon, kills a few critters then retreats to rest up for tomorrow? Who says that the rest of the dungeon has to remain where they are and not try to shore up their defenses, set up ambushes, add new pitfalls, etc.? The party may soon realize that they are always simply inching their way in a few feet and never really gaining any ground.
So the party has decided to hole up in a locked room in the dungeon to rest up? Nice of the rest of the dungeon denizens to simply take a nap and wait for the party to come out. OR they could kick in the door and force the party to fight -- thereby interrupting their rest, etc.
Granted, not all dungeons would be appropriate for this sort of thing, and sometimes you should allow (imo) the party to retreat, resupply, consider alternatives, etc. But, that doesn't mean you have to play to the party's desires all the time.
Now to be fair, you do have a great point with certain adventures/adventure paths. Kingmaker for instance is particularly situated to appeal to the 15 minute workday, and there isn't a real easy way around it unless you up the random encounter probabilities. However, I would keep in mind that if you are using Mythic Tiers for your PCs, then your enemies should at least also be higher powered, so that should offset it a bit.
137ben, yes exactly. One Mythic tier = 5 uses per day. And there are SO many different ways you can use these, and they make you SO much more powerful! So the natural tendency will be to burn these in a couple of encounters, then retreat and recharge. (Note that some modules and APs not only make this easy, but positively encourage it. I love Kingmaker, but half that AP is hex exploration, typically resulting in 1-2 encounters per day.)
There are of course ways to work around this. But that's the thing: you have to work around it.
@Wycen, very good point about Recuperation. Ugh. As noted, I wouldn't give the PCs access to that third tier until the campaign's very final adventure (should we ever get that far).
Doug M.
Hmm. I'm not sure. I think if the players had this mindset already, then mythic tiers wouldn't change much. If they don't, then I don't think it will change much either.
For me as a player, I would want to go as far as I can before having to recuperate because doing a few encounters, then resting for a whole day and then repeating feels ridiculous.
As a GM, you need to talk to your group about how you feel. If you don't like that play style, they should work with you to reach a compromise. The game should be fun for you too! Beyond that, make sure they realize the consequences of their actions. Don't make things static, *that* encourages the 15 minute work day. Bring in reinforcements and have the defenders make preparations and they'll change their behavior to suit that. Check out the Grey (Gray?) Garrison section in the first adventure in Wrath of the Righteous for how to accomplish this fairly easily.
One thing that I do as a GM, just because I do dislike the idea of the 15 minute workday quite a bit, is to work with the players who rely on per-day resources to give them an at will ability that is reasonably useful. For example, the alchemist I have in my group gets at will bombs that progress in damage much slower than usual bombs. Then she gets a "power bomb" feature that I came up with where she gets a limited number of bombs that do normal alchemist damage. Then I went through the bomb discoveries and determined which ones could be used with regular bombs or just power bombs. This might require some balancing, but I think its worth it because the players feel more comfortable spreading their resources out more.
Good luck and good gaming!
I am running a mythic campaign and think that I'll allow a mythic tier in my future campaigns. I don't think that one tier changes things too much and it will allow your PCs to save themselves from bad dice (I don't use hero points)
I would probably limit the surges per day and make more of the abilities tier dependent, like the wild spellcasting path abilities.