Thanks, Tels
the encounter with the Tarn Linnorm we were level 13/MT 3.
If I were to consider the group as 16th level, I could live with this, kinda.
the encounter with the Mariliths we were level 12/MT 2,
This one is harder to reconcile. If I were to consider the group APL at 14, that's still too much of a disparity.
This one is harder to reconcile. If I were to consider the group APL at 14, that's still too much of a disparity.the encounter with the Mariliths we were level 12/MT 2,
Well, that encounter we won because of the Wizard using Dazing Wall of Fire while the GM rolled badly. So most of the mooks were dazed, which let the Ranger/Rogue move around and lay into them. The Barbarian and Fighter each went after a marilith (3 mariliths, 1 was summoned), while I went after the Mythic Marilith and kept her focused on me as the Monk who had the highest AC and could take her beating without dieing. She actually dropped two Blade Barriers, stacked on top of me. I didn't bother moving because, at that point, I had a +23 Reflex save (with buffs) and Evasion. Was pretty confident I could make the save and I never failed it.
It was an interesting fight as we could both only just hurt each other. She took personal affront to the fact I disarmed her of all her weapons, and so it became a slug fest between the two of us.
After the Fighter and the Barbarian killed 2 of the mariliths, they tag teamed the remaining one before we all 3 killed the Mythic Marilith. After that, it was mop up on the mooks.
This one is harder to reconcile. If I were to consider the group APL at 14, that's still too much of a disparity.the encounter with the Mariliths we were level 12/MT 2,
It was an interesting fight as we could both only just hurt each other. She took personal affront to the fact I disarmed her of all her weapons, and so it became a slug fest between the two of us.
How exactly, did the monk disarm the mythic marilith? Her CMD is 47 to be disarmed. At 12th level, what is his CMB to disarm? Even disarmed, she can use Greater Infuse Weapons as an immediate action to apply the Dancing ability to her weapons. The monk should have been attacked all those rounds by dancing weapons as well as the mythic marilith’s slam attacks.
I can’t help but think I’m missing something here. At 12/tier 2, your group basically took on a CR 22 encounter. (Epic Marilith = CR 21, 2 Mariliths, 10 Vrocks, and 10 Succubi). I can’t think that mythic is that unbalanced.
@ Raltus - your points seem good. I just can't comment as I don't have access to the AP. I'm more interested so I can give advice to my DM, who does not alter APs and doesn't read these boards.
@ Tels - I'm not trying to derail the topic by over analyzing your scenarios. However, if I can apply a formula of Tier = class level (approximately) then I may have a solution that will work for our group. It appears possible with some of your examples, but your APL 14 vs EL 22 is out there, even if it was a tough fight.
Another solution may be to do this in addition to the enhanced stat sheets mentioned earlier in the thread.
Just upping hit points isn't a reasonable solution because it eliminates the effectiveness of the other party members (blaster caster, fighting/buffing cleric). Do I just tell them, "Sorry, but the fighter does so much damage I'm afraid I have to make you even more ineffective than you already feel."
It's far more complex than just hit points. I liked Eusteryiax because his incorporeality reduced the fighter's damage by half, but didn't affect the blaster's mythic magic missiles. It ended up being a balanced fight where party members did roughly equivalent damage.
That's the kind of solution I'm looking into; more of a, "How do I make sure everyone can contribute?", rather than, "How do I make monsters so tough the fighter can't one-shot 'em, and everyone else should be focusing on battlefield control 'cause they're not going to get in enough damage anyway..."
I agree that increasing HP doesn't sound like a solution. I'd love your thoughts on what I proposed above without giving too many spoilers.
If the challenges are a better match, I think it would work for us, but your opinions thus far have been pretty reasonable and well thought out.
Otherwise, I'm about done following this thread entirely.
How would it change the dynamic if the PC tiers were treated as class levels and encounters were adjusted accordingly?
Say for example, you have 4 PCs who are Level 17 / Tier 6, so their APL is 20. We now want to treat them as APL 23.You then have an encounter that was CR 22 consisting of 1 CR 20 and 3 CR 17. We now want to increase that to a CR25. So we’ll double the encounter (CR 20 x 2, CR 17 x 3 and add in a CR 21).
This would increase the enemy’s action economy and the overall challenge to the party.
As a side, I’m playing this sometime in the future. I’ve been avoiding spoilers, but this thread caught my attention. I know the DM pretty well, and I don’t see him adjusting stats. However, increasing or adding in some opponents to match the party may be a simple solution for us. I’m just wondering if this may be going too far.
I'm hoping this is the one you wanted; there's a LOT to sort through around here.
Personally, I still haven't had a TON of trouble; it's just beginning to rear its ugly head on the horizon as I start Book 3.
I think your idea is excellent -- the major issue I'm seeing with Mythic right now is that the fighting classes run about one-shotting things. Adding more enemies helps immensely, and gives other PCs something to do and something to worry about.
It takes more bookkeeping, but I'd also either maximize the enemy hit points and then let spells and anyone lacking Mythic Power Attack do double damage (so those non-fighting-types can feel useful) or cut fighter damage in half.
My party tends to be extremely tactics-oriented, but now that they've learned that the rules of Mythic are, "Buff the fighter and drop him on the bad guy's head" that's what they're doing. Adding enough bad guys that this would be unhealthy for the fighter and the rest of the team would make them re-think their tactics in interesting ways, and I think would definitely lead to more satisfying combats.
In other words, a long-winded way of saying, "I like."
How would it change the dynamic if the PC tiers were treated as class levels and encounters were adjusted accordingly?
Say for example, you have 4 PCs who are Level 17 / Tier 6, so their APL is 20. We now want to treat them as APL 23.You then have an encounter that was CR 22 consisting of 1 CR 20 and 3 CR 17. We now want to increase that to a CR25. So we’ll double the encounter (CR 20 x 2, CR 17 x 3 and add in a CR 21).
This would increase the enemy’s action economy and the overall challenge to the party.
As a side, I’m playing this sometime in the future. I’ve been avoiding spoilers, but this thread caught my attention. I know the DM pretty well, and I don’t see him adjusting stats. However, increasing or adding in some opponents to match the party may be a simple solution for us. I’m just wondering if this may be going too far.
I'm hoping this is the one you wanted; there's a LOT to sort through around here.
Personally, I still haven't had a TON of trouble; it's just beginning to rear its ugly head on the horizon as I start Book 3.
I think your idea is excellent -- the major issue I'm seeing with Mythic right now is that the fighting classes run about one-shotting things. Adding more enemies helps immensely, and gives other PCs something to do and something to worry about.
It takes more bookkeeping, but I'd also either maximize the enemy hit points and then let spells and anyone lacking Mythic Power Attack do double damage (so those non-fighting-types can feel useful) or cut fighter damage in half.
My party tends to be extremely tactics-oriented, but now that they've learned that the rules of Mythic are, "Buff the fighter and drop him on the bad guy's head" that's what they're doing. Adding enough bad guys that this would be unhealthy for the fighter and the rest of the team would make them re-think their tactics in interesting ways, and I think would definitely lead to more satisfying combats.
In other words, a long-winded way of saying,...
Yes, that was it. Thank you.
In a way, I wish I had access to the books to play around with increasing the CRs on the encounters. I can imagine that the last books would be especially problematic. I may be wrong, but I believe the PCs end up at level 20 with 10 tiers for an APL of 25. If I treat tiers to equal class levels, that is then an APL of 30. It gets harder to add difficulty, if say the bad guy isn’t close to an appropriate CR.
Yes, that was it. Thank you.
In a way, I wish I had access to the books to play around with increasing the CRs on the encounters. I can imagine that the last books would be especially problematic. I may be wrong, but I believe the PCs end up at level 20 with 10 tiers for an APL of 25. If I treat tiers to equal class levels, that is then an APL of 30. It gets harder to add difficulty, if say the bad guy isn’t close to an appropriate CR.
Look upthread a few pages and you'll find helpful lists of the mythic feats and abilities that are considered "broken".
I out-and-out banned Mythic Vital Strike and my fighter's player agreed wholeheartedly.
I think a combination of increasing hitpoints and saves, and surreptitiously reducing the fighter's damage might be enough to keep a higher-CR critter alive.
There are two threads in this AP section all about issues with mythic game balance. It takes a while, but sorting through them was worth my time.
EDIT: The point being, as you get higher and higher my hope is that you don't have to adjust quite so much upward. I'm nowhere near there yet, so I just don't know.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
What is needed is a bunch of actual unique Mythic Feats, rather than what I call "re-Feats" that enhance existing Feats.
For instance: Arrow Storm. You fire an arrow into the air and everything within a 10-foot radius of a specified region takes 1d8 piercing damage per Mythic Tier. If the player burns a point of Mythic, the damage ignores Damage Resistance.
Or Mythic Blowback - The player can, on a successful hit, force an enemy to take a Fortitude Check (with the difficulty level going up per Mythic Tier) or be pushed back 10 feet. With a point of Mythic, the target also need to make a Reflex Save (that also scales upward in difficulty) or they are knocked down as well.
And Enhanced Mythic Blowback - the player can make an attack that pushes anyone within his/her reach to save vs. Fortitude or suffer from Mythic Blowback.
Basically, new stuff. Stuff that isn't in the existing rules or is tangential to the existing rules. Not stuff that just repeats the old existing feats.
The same should be true for Mythic Spells. Rather than "enhanced spells" the Mythic spells should ALL be unique for Mythic casters. Further, they shouldn't be based on character level, but Mythic Tier. Thus a 2nd Tier spell requires a player with 2 Mythic Tiers to cast... but can be used by ANY class, even Fighter, who took Mythic Spellcasting.
Doesn't this sound a hell of a lot better than what Mythic has ended up being?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Look upthread a few pages and you'll find helpful lists of the mythic feats and abilities that are considered "broken".
I out-and-out banned Mythic Vital Strike and my fighter's player agreed wholeheartedly.
I think a combination of increasing hitpoints and saves, and surreptitiously reducing the fighter's damage might be enough to keep a higher-CR critter alive.
There are two threads in this AP section all about issues with mythic game balance. It takes a while, but sorting through them was worth my time.
EDIT: The point being, as you get higher and higher my hope is that you don't have to adjust quite so much upward. I'm nowhere near there yet, so I just don't know.
Thanks, again. I've read through this whole thread, and took notes on some items. I may have skipped some posts or series by some posters, but I got the gist. I'll try to avoid some of the feats and abilities, though I'm aware my DM will TPK me if I limit myself too much. We're very good friends though and if something isn't working we'll adjust and be fine.
I know he won't take the time to tweak too many things. His schedule barely permits getting prepped for our game normally. If I can give him a formula for increasing the CRs accordingly, that may be easier for him. It wouldn't be too hard for me to assist on that either, since him telling me the CRs of the next encounters isn't really spoiling too much. At the end of the day we both want a fun game, and that takes both sides.
I've been avoiding your game thread only because it contains too many spoilers. This is the only one I've really dove into.
Thanks again, and good luck with your game.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I would suggest trying to tie in as many powers as you can to mythic tier. That way abilities, feats and spells aren't all or nothing.
Like inspired spell and its lot being limited by using it on spell levels equal to half your tier. Many feats could be limited by using this method to only have a bonus at x tier.
I think this gives another control to how powerful things get and how fast.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
What is needed is a bunch of actual unique Mythic Feats, rather than what I call "re-Feats" that enhance existing Feats.
For instance: Arrow Storm. You fire an arrow into the air and everything within a 10-foot radius of a specified region takes 1d8 piercing damage per Mythic Tier. If the player burns a point of Mythic, the damage ignores Damage Resistance.
Or Mythic Blowback - The player can, on a successful hit, force an enemy to take a Fortitude Check (with the difficulty level going up per Mythic Tier) or be pushed back 10 feet. With a point of Mythic, the target also need to make a Reflex Save (that also scales upward in difficulty) or they are knocked down as well.
And Enhanced Mythic Blowback - the player can make an attack that pushes anyone within his/her reach to save vs. Fortitude or suffer from Mythic Blowback.
Basically, new stuff. Stuff that isn't in the existing rules or is tangential to the existing rules. Not stuff that just repeats the old existing feats.
The same should be true for Mythic Spells. Rather than "enhanced spells" the Mythic spells should ALL be unique for Mythic casters. Further, they shouldn't be based on character level, but Mythic Tier. Thus a 2nd Tier spell requires a player with 2 Mythic Tiers to cast... but can be used by ANY class, even Fighter, who took Mythic Spellcasting.
Doesn't this sound a hell of a lot better than what Mythic has ended up being?
An excellent resource for this might be Runequest's "Hero Powers". The idea is that by going on dangerous quests and emulating gods or heroes from Godtime you gain some of their abilities.
For example, we freed an Air rune during such a quest and received these powers (straight out of the book):- Small, mobile guy: The ability to run up walls, similar to Aang in the Last Airbender
- Archer: The ability to target hit locations and ignore cover when shooting
- "Bard": The ability to learn any language just by listening to it for one uninterrupted hour.
Obviously Paizo can't publish such powers (silly copyright laws), but homebrew GMs can grab the Runequest book on hero powers to get some ideas...
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
Having read through most of this thread (great points in a lot of places, skipped the trolls so excuse me if I missed anything terribly important there) I've got a little bit of input:
I've DMed 4 APs now (CotCT, JR, CoT, and LoF) and must say that in nearly every case I've had to do some--if not extensive--modifications to opponents, rules subsystems, or even the storyline. However, from my point of view, this is no problem. As someone who's been very active in numerous modding communities for numerous videogames (I even take part in custom card creation for MTG: I was a finalist for the last "you design the card!" by WotC =D) I see a lot of games as foundations for players to expand upon. The analogy I keep seeing is that buying a Pathfinder AP is, or should be, like buying a car. It should run without a hitch for a majority of the time, without wheels falling off, the engine breaking down, etc. Now, I see this as a bit faulty (absolutely no offense meant) as an analogy, because games like Pathfinder are inherently difficult to balance for every group, with game-breaking issues becoming prevalent for certain groups but completely nonexistent for others.
I'd say that buying an AP for a DM is more like building a model car than buying an actual car. All of the pieces are there, you've got a bit of glue, and when all's said and done you should have something that looks pretty neat. Except you have to go buy some paint. And you'll probably need an Xacto knife to get those rough edges smoothed out. And a piece might be a little loose or end up too big because of a manufacturing error. Your dog chews on a piece. You glue something in the wrong place.......
For me, and probably for a lot of DMs out there, the APs really are a hobby just like a model or building computers or fixing lawn mowers or whatever. Part of the fun comes from making adjustments and seeing things fit together, and although there are frustrations almost every time because of some stupid, random little detail, it's kind of... Part of the fun. I think WotR might have a bit more of that fiddling going on, but from what I'm reading it's less a matter of the AP having failed or Paizo completely botching the modules and more that we as players and Paizo as developers have different ideas of what Mythic might mean and do in our games. This is coming from someone who hasn't played the AP. I'm just checking on each one to have a baseline understanding of the problems and difficulties inherent in running them while my players get close to deciding what they want to play next.
For me, I love modding my APs to challenge and involve my players more. I see them as a blueprint and (almost always) a great storyline to either take whole cloth or to use as a foundation for any additions or adjustments I'd need to make to tailor it to my group. Every time I do a campaign I do this. I've run custom sandbox campaigns where the next session is decided on in the week immediately following the last one, where I have to constantly adjust and adapt on the fly. I've changed pieces of the storyline for CotCT (one of my favorite campaigns in any edition of any game!) and naturally had to adjust encounters dozens of times. WotR seems pretty much like it's the same deal, only this time the disappointment is stemming primarily from the Mythic system.
I'm currently DMing an e6 Mythic campaign (which is super fun) and with 6th-level T8 Mythic characters, yeah. The system is pretty much bonkers. But I've also played Champions, where I had a character with an attack that teleported dudes into the sun, so it's really just about what you're expecting Mythic to mean. I think the issue here seems to be that Mythic doesn't amp things up to 11: it amps them up to 9,000, and neither Paizo nor the players (ostensibly) were really prepared for how much carnage a Mythic party can produce. I don't really see this as a failure of the system, necessarily, because from what I've been reading it delivers exactly as promised. Insane things are happening, constantly, and the whole thing turns into God of War. That's cool. That's super sweet. But we've rehashed the fact that for most groups posting here the bosses are too weak, the power of Mythic characters underestimated.
If I'm running Mythic, I want damage to be in the thousands. I want things flying off the wall. I want to see my party take on Diablo and Belial and Beelzebub and Azmodan and Brock Samson at the same time, because that's legendary. That's not epic, that's Mythic, as in this stuff is so off-the-chain kids will be saying, "Baloney grampa, you need to go take your meds!" But I think a lot of people weren't expecting that, including Paizo. I even think, from this thread, a lot of people don't want that. But! The efforts to adjust are admirable and in some cases very, very smart. And I think that's entirely within the spirit of an AP for a lot of people, myself included. Most of the characters my groups come up with could walk through a majority of APs pretty easily. Sometimes they do, but then I ramp up the difficulty to adjust.
It just so happens that when the players are Mythically overpowering everything, it might just take some Mythic adjustments and Mythic fiddling to make sure the game is fun. If/when I run this and my players get bonkers, defeating challenging enemies, I'll chalk it up to them really being that Mythic and then get bonkers right back at them. If they do 2,0000 damage in a turn, I'll just have a boss with 14,000 HP. I mean, really, it sounds like we're playing a different (but totally heavy metal) version of Pathfinder, where we cleave demons instead of goblins. We're up against the forces of hell; the staggering amount of firepower the players possess really should be tested by waves of dudes. It's really just reorienting what you see as a trivial challenge and playing to that. Personally, I'll be embracing that if WotR is my group's next AP.
Thanks for the posts everyone, and all of the great commentary and efforts to make things happen! And really, no offense is meant with any of this. In the end your game of Pathfinder/D&D/whatever is yours and yours alone. The APs, from my perspective, are really there to inspire and guide, not be algorithms for fun.
Edit: clarificationz
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
<beautifully-written summary snipped for space>
Most of the time I don't post "me too" posts, but you really hit the major points so beautifully and so succinctly you deserve a bit of extra applause.
Yes, I've run multiple APs, including CotCT (high five! Awesome AP), and yes, all of them involve adjustments to the plot to make it your own. Honestly, I've never had to adjust the bad guys before (3 APs, no combat adjustments). Either I have a 15-point party of 4 that's perfectly happy if their outstanding tactics give them a win in 2-3 rounds, or I have a group of 6 buffoons who can't handle the extra mooks.
And you hit the nail on the head: Without warning, the "mythic AP" made it so the PCs one-shot everything that stands in their way, even with fairly conservative builds (no mythic Vital Strike, for example).
So I think the surprise is twofold:
(1) How much adjustment to the bad guys is necessary to make them last,
(2) How simple hit point adjustments don't work because the melee classes so far outstrip all the other classes in damage output.
So I've been posting my experiences on this thread as I get through them: Books 1 and 2 had plot issues I had to resolve, but the fights were all perfectly fine except the Gray Garrison (too many NPCs) and the dungeons under Drezen (under-CR'ed enemies).
I look forward to running Book 3 with as-written enemies and seeing how it goes. Everyone tells me it will be a disaster. But after 3 APs of not having to do adjustment to my bad guys at all, I'd at least like to give the AP a chance. If it breaks, everyone here will know and know why.
Anyway, looking forward to hearing your experiences as well!
This one is harder to reconcile. If I were to consider the group APL at 14, that's still too much of a disparity.the encounter with the Mariliths we were level 12/MT 2,
It was an interesting fight as we could both only just hurt each other. She took personal affront to the fact I disarmed her of all her weapons, and so it became a slug fest between the two of us.
How exactly, did the monk disarm the mythic marilith? Her CMD is 47 to be disarmed. At 12th level, what is his CMB to disarm? Even disarmed, she can use Greater Infuse Weapons as an immediate action to apply the Dancing ability to her weapons. The monk should have been attacked all those rounds by dancing weapons as well as the mythic marilith’s slam attacks.
I can’t help but think I’m missing something here. At 12/tier 2, your group basically took on a CR 22 encounter. (Epic Marilith = CR 21, 2 Mariliths, 10 Vrocks, and 10 Succubi). I can’t think that mythic is that unbalanced.
Well, my Monk is playtesting a series of houserules to try and make the Monk more appealing as a class. One of the big ones, at that time, was allowing him to add his Wisdom modifier to attack rolls (but not damage) in addition to his Strength/Dexterity, but only for Monk Weapons/Unarmed Strike. At first, it worked out great, my Monk was able to consistently hit things, but as levels and Mythic increased and he was able to boost both Dex and Wis via gear/levels/Mythic, it got kind of ridonculous. If we kept that houserule, he'd have +14 to attack rolls from ability scores alone.
Anyway, at that point in time, he had BAB of 12 (Monk level for CMB), +14 from stats, +5 weapon, +2 Improved Disarm, +2 Disarm Weapon for a total of +35 on disarm attempts. Combined with the +5 attack bonus we were getting from Inspire Courage (+2) from the Bard and Heroism (+2) and Haste (+1) from the Wizard, I was sitting on +40 on attempts to Disarm.
I have since removed that ability as it worked fine at lower levels, but became kind of broken at higher levels. Instead, Monks can add their Monk AC bonus (+1 every 5 monk levels in Core) to their attack rolls with Monk Weapons/Unarmed Strikes.
However, even without the Wisdom bonus, I would have succeeded as my bonuses would have been at +33, meaning I only needed a 14 or better to succeed. It took me a total of 3 rounds (due to some really crappy rolls), but I disarmed her of all her weapons.
The reason she focused on me was because I used Fleet Charge to jump and move towards her, and as I landed, I made a Disarm attempt and disarmed her of one weapon. Then I did a non-flurry full attack of disarms and got another weapon disarmed. For a demon that is so focused on being a sort of weapon master and general, it really incensed her that some puny mortal managed to knock 2 weapons out of her hands and she unleashed hell on me. She dropped Blade Barrier as a swift action and then full-attacked me but with my high AC (I could hit over 40 at that point if necessary), she missed quite a bit, which further pissed her off.
Mythic helped quite a bit in the fight with the Marilith as I surged twice to disarm her of her weapons. This stopped me from using Ki in following rounds, but I ultimately got her weapons.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
a friendly response!
Thank you! I think it really all boils down to expectations. I expect my APs to give me a great story and a solid foundation from which to build off of for my particular group. I imagine I'm among company here. I'm also entirely certain many others expect their APs to be as close to plug-n-play as possible. I'd say that both sides have an equal amount of footing, although I can see it being particularly frustrating for the latter group, especially if adjustments take too long to fit in their schedule or (in certain cases, for newer DMs)that adjustments are just overwhelming. It just so happens that this AP seems to be pretty far from plug-n-play as far as its combat encounters go, primarily due to an underestimation of parties with Mythic abilities.
CotCT is a fantastic campaign (I like it just as much as my Eberron Eyes of the Lich Queen campaign, which incidentally would've loved Mythic rules), so great that I've actually gone through it 3 times now. The first time I played it pretty much RAW, as we were playing 3.5. Still, I added in some elements to make the story more engaging for my players in particular, and I added my own sections just to make it more fun for me. The second time we did it with Pathfinder's CRB, sort of a mix of 3.5 and 3.P (but mostly CRB) and it was great. I had to change encounters a bit to match the increased power level of the PCs and I changed even more of the story to make it an even tighter narrative. The third time, the campaign I run now on Wednesdays, I changed almost every encounter to encompass all of the material released since the CRB and my players even had an entire 6 session stretch of time of material I had made up just to get them deeper into the story. I have to say, this group and the campaign this time around has created some of my favorite memories of Pathfinder yet. With all of the adjustments and tweaks and additional work, would I say CotCT has failed? Not remotely. I wouldn't even consider that as a possibility.
That said, I do understand how frustrating it can be to have a campaign just not deliver. And I also understand that changing what the developers put out there feels a little like one might've been short-changed, or given a faulty product. I just personally consider the adjustment aspect of a tabletop RPG to be one of the primary draws for a DM/GM, and I've always (for nearly 15 years now) approached products as guidelines. This, though, I see as different from something like a Battlefield game or Halo or any number of other properties where you're entirely limited by the mechanics of the system while in "real" play, and there's no possible way outside of cheating to change what's been given to you by the developers.
I've been reading your posts, @NobodysHome, and they've been pretty informative as to what to expect from this AP, should I ever run it. I think our groups are probably pretty similar. Sometimes I get a party that has under-utilized builds but win with great tactics, and other times I have parties with copy-pasta builds off of optimization forums who have no idea how to use them and end up getting killed by goblins. It's a crazy diverse game. Hell, when I play at my LGS we often have two other Pathfinder games, a couple 4th ed. games, and then PFS running on RPG night and the difference in tone, play-style, and ability is staggering. I've even had DMs come up to me at the end of the night and ask about changes I've made to an AP they themselves ran, or why I did a certain thing a certain way, or what my players were getting all excited about (that rising "ooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" coming from the corner). I've overheard encounters go a way where I've shaken my head in wonder as to why so many people were becoming naked, or how many times the elven princess was going to hit on the party's rogue.
It's really everybody's and anybody's game. I think that's important to keep in mind when we consider how these APs are designed.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
a friendly response!Thank you! I think it really all boils down to expectations. I expect my APs to give me a great story and a solid foundation from which to build off of for my particular group. I imagine I'm among company here. I'm also entirely certain many others expect their APs to be as close to plug-n-play as possible. I'd say that both sides have an equal amount of footing, although I can see it being particularly frustrating for the latter group, especially if adjustments take too long to fit in their schedule or (in certain cases, for newer DMs)that adjustments are just overwhelming. It just so happens that this AP seems to be pretty far from plug-n-play as far as its combat encounters go, primarily due to an underestimation of parties with Mythic abilities.
That said, I do understand how frustrating it can be to have a campaign just not deliver. And I also understand that changing what the developers put out there feels a little like one might've been short-changed, or given a faulty product. I just personally consider the adjustment aspect of a tabletop RPG to be one of the primary draws for a DM/GM, and I've always (for nearly 15 years now) approached products as guidelines. This, though, I see as different from something like a Battlefield game or Halo or any number of other properties where you're entirely limited by the mechanics of the system while in "real" play, and there's no possible way outside of cheating to change what's been given to you by the developers.
I've been reading your posts, @NobodysHome, and they've been pretty informative as to what to expect from this AP, should I ever run it. I think our groups are probably pretty similar. Sometimes I get a party that has under-utilized builds but win with great tactics, and other times I have parties with copy-pasta builds off of optimization forums who have no idea how to use them and end up getting killed by goblins. It's a crazy diverse game. Hell, when I play at my LGS we often have two other Pathfinder games, a couple 4th ed. games, and then PFS running on RPG night and the difference in tone, play-style, and ability is staggering. I've even had DMs come up to me at the end of the night and ask about changes I've made to an AP they themselves ran, or why I did a certain thing a certain way, or what my players were getting all excited about (that rising "ooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" coming from the corner). I've overheard encounters go a way where I've shaken my head in wonder as to why so many people were becoming naked, or how many times the elven princess was going to hit on the party's rogue.
It's really everybody's and anybody's game. I think that's important to keep in mind when we consider how these APs are designed.
And that's where I think the dissatisfaction with WotR is arising. Every GM with whom I've interacted on these forums is an intelligent, clever person. Maybe I've disagreed with them or disliked their styles, but I've never questioned a GM's intelligence.
And yet such GMs are posting that WotR is particularly egregious in that you can't just apply a blanket, "Here's the fix that'll make the fights workable," across the campaign. As mythic tiers increase, the adjustments you have to make change in unpredictable ways, so you as a GM have to adjust *again* to account for *these* mythic abilities.
The complaint is that many, if not most of the GMs who buy APs do so because their work/home life is so busy they need something that can be run "mostly out of the box". WotR seems to be (from the posts of GMs whose opinions I respect), "For this book make these adjustments until you hit this mythic tier. At that point you're going to need to make these adjustments as well."
And even such a table would probably be welcomed by most GMs on this (and other) forums. But we don't even have that as of yet. We have, "Book 5 doesn't work because all the encounters are one-shots. Our PCs were doing 2000+ hit points a round."
Yes, I can start working from there to get something done, but the combined uncertainty of it plus the varying nature of it is probably the source of the massive frustration with this AP in particular.
(And everything I've heard is that Sc8rpion's stat blocks fix everything, but I'm worried that my group will get slaughtered by 'em. No offense, Sc8rpion...)
Uncharted territory is the hardest to navigate, you never know whats over the next hill
|
I dare say, that I am not the only one who has players that could kill themselves with a full attack. Now changing the enemies/encounter is always an option, but when the confused barbarian kills other characters with single attacks ...
Well that happened in my kingmaker game, in my Wraith game this could kill ..several player characters.
Are barbarians ever really NOT confused?
In general, I don't think that my PCs would have been able to hit themselves so they'd be fine :) Not that they ever failed saving throws to start with.
You may be right in a sense, maybe the failure came from that there are too many variables to adjust for... or that certainly added to it. I do think that the base Mythic Adventures is horribly balanced even within itself. That in itself makes it very challenging to do anything with the rules.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
This is how were rolling.
Briefly for now as I have scales to practice.. The crux is on the players involved.
.
Firstly we don't munchkin our characters (no slumber for a witch, no doubling damage before multiplying mythic power attack etc) as we've been playing long enough to know what is and isn't abusive - we the players made those decisions.
.
Secondly, three players is enough for this AP. Action economy is so important when weighing up balance. Having 5 players is a 20% increase in actions per round, don't underestimate the difference that will make round after round. It doesn't even have to equate to extra damage, a simple extra dispel magic vs something like black tentacles will make an enormous difference to an encounter, and that's just one round. And it is one round as Wild Arcana and friends must be standard actions.
Group make up - we have no full casters (eliminates 7-9th level spells unless being used via UMD which gets expensive very fast) and no dedicated healer (Magus/WHW, Monk, Bard - duelist archer)
.
Thirdly, talk to the group about everything you'd like to take and discuss how it will impact on the game. We do this as a group. It's not players vs DM ever. For the game to work you need to be honest, open and prepared for the DM to say no and not argue about it. There is a plethora of available options for every character but we all know power creep exists and if you compared newer materials with core it isn't rocket science working out what is most likely to cause problems.
.
Fourthly, or DM has altered many NPC's changing out stupid/useless abilities for ones that make sense and make the monster more of a challenge. Hit points need increasing on a group by group basis, there isn't a one size fits all equation that will magically work for every group.
I have piano lesson now but will expand on this if there is any interest..
Mel X