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Mythic iconic Seelah will still one-shot most evil CR appropiate mythic evil enemies, if she takes the expected mythic feats/ path abilities.
What we expect and what James/devs expect are likely two separate things, as far as I can tell. Which is why I'd like to see what their expected builds at book end are for this AP.
I'm looking that Baphomet and it looks like tough fight. I think the suggested tactics in the book make him and easy kill though. Time stop is better than imprisonment. The PCs have too high of saves with mythic powers. Better maximize the damage out put. Use Time stop to get 3 balors on his side. Let them go first while he makes use of Shape change to become a huge giant then power attack like crazy, make good use of Combat Reflexes to dish out the AOO. The party might be him quick but not before he take one or two of them with him.
By the book Baphomet has an init modifier of 23. Before I gave up running this, I had a couple of players that forecasted matching or exceeding that, with Mythic Improved Init, one of which was a hasted, foe-biting Radiance wielding paladin.
By the book, Baphomet likely wouldn't get an action (especially if he's supposed to kill off his allies before turning on the PCs!) before being smited, Amazing Init to move up, and five attacks on Baphomet, each attack damn near guaranteed to hit. God forbid the paladin manage to get a crit on his first swing as the mythic power attack multiplier/first hit extra damage smite/foe bite would likely end up to be 300 or so damage. On the first swing.
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Baphomet can Mythic Time Stop and then casually walk to where the PCs are. By the time initiative is rolled, he should suddenly appear near them, be buffed with (perhaps literally) every Buff Spell in existence and have all his summons out.
The tactical advice is indeed really poor, but the guy has all the options there are (what with effectively unlimited money and the ability to use any scroll he likes at CL 27).
Sure, we can make up our own tactics for him and then he can rock at least one PC (although the question if he even has Mythic Time Stop is a bit iffy). But if the point of the AP were "TPK the party", it'd be no fun for anyone. The point is to give the player characters decent fights while telling a good story. And in that the AP utterly fails, because of the Mythic Adventures rules.
Also, Lochar is underselling the damage which can happen on a first swing, depending if the PC took the Vital Strike feat chain or not. ^^
Litany of Righteousness (x2 damage) + Foe-Biting (x2 damage) + Mythic Greater Vital Strike (x4 damage) + Amazing Initiative (2nd action, for another Vital Strike)= Weapon Damage, with Bonuses (including paladin smite) x32 damage.
Doesn't exactly work that way, additional multipliers just add another instance of damage instead of multiplying again, so more like x6 damage, but two times per Amazing Initiative.
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I know that when I run, it's with the idea that the fights will be tough, but beatable. I've already told both my Wrath parties that Baphomet and Deskari are playing for absolute keeps. Why wouldn't you modify the tactics for both to deal with your party? These are demon lords, taking on a group that has been wrecking their plans for some time, and that has an insane amount of mythic power. They should be rolling up with all the right spells, all the right minions, and all the right abilities to slaughter the PC's.
These fights are varying degrees of world changing. I want to make my PC's run from them. I'm going to try and wipe the party in both, just without making it an utterly foregone conclusion. This is the balance that a DM has to strike in a fight like this. It'd be super easy for either of these demon lords to just send 20 mythic balor's at the group and call it a day. But that means they don't get to mix it up. They don't get to walk in and put down these upstart ants who have been in their grills, wrecking centuries worth of planning, AND THEY'RE JUST MORTALS! So it's the mix.
Not stupid, but arrogant.
Well prepared, but not invincible.
Commanding minions, but not hiding behind an army.
And if you're worried about damage output stoping the fight, just give them more hit points. It's the easiest fix in the world! Or add a blur, displacement, blink, whatever, and there's a miss chance. Worried about crits? They now have some bracers of armor with heavy fortification. No more crits! Know your party, and plan for them. It's not like they're growing every natural attack in all of the monster manuals and have pounce. Mythic is EASY to deal with.
I'm still toying with the idea of running Baphy right out of the box, see what I can do with him as written against the different approaches of the two parties (7, maybe 8 players in one, and 6 in the other, all but two players rocking decades of gaming experience). I'm pretty sure, as is, he can take out multiple party members before they can get their damage dealers into position. That just seems boring though, so I'll probably modifying him a little here and there (something I'm looking very much forward to!)
@Ogre : You absolutely correct about changing and ignoring or making things up as you go. However it is humorous and helps prove the point of mythic not working if the most common (and best) advice is to ignore the rules.
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Why wouldn't you modify the tactics for both to deal with your party?
Then why waste precious space in the adventure by including them at all?
Mythic is EASY to deal with.
Yes, it's very easy to deal with thing by ignoring the rules.
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Less ignore, and more message to what I want. I like the mythic power mechanic. I like the addition of mythic powers, and what they can let a player do. I like to use mythic as a framework to plug some weird varieties and odd ball powers into. Legendary item is something I've been waiting for something like that for awhile.
And all the changes I make to the game are, in some ways, the changes I've made to almost all of my games since I started running 3rd ed, and some of what I did in 2nd (my dragons have always had d12's). In fact, I wish I'd been more aggressive with this level of rule modification years ago! It'd have saved the end game of Age of Worms, that's for sure (and for that moment of realization, I tip my hate to Mythic and this AP).
So, again, if Mythic/Wrath is failing for these reasons, then all of 3rd ed and it's lineage should be thrown right off my shelf. These are all things I've been doing for years.
Ignore the rules that don't work. Change them to work for you. Just like you're supposed to. It's what I've done for every game I've ever run, and what the other people I know who run games do as well.
Ignore the rules that don't work. Change them to work for you. Just like you're supposed to. It's what I've done for every game I've ever run, and what the other people I know who run games do as well.
Great idea for when there's one or two niggling little errors or things you disagree with. When you've houseruled more rules than you keep, or when more than half the system doesn't function properly... that suggestion stops working so well.
@Sprain Ogre
i don't think they're disagreeing with you exactly.
what they are saying is, sometimes the changes to the rules to restore challenges is more work then what it should be with WotR as written. these are all experienced groups for the most part and theirs and your opinion should not be discounted.
and yes i'm as much a fan of pathfinder and MA as the next guy but WotR does need a big adjustment upward in how challenging it is.
Doesn't exactly work that way, additional multipliers just add another instance of damage instead of multiplying again, so more like x6 damage, but two times per Amazing Initiative.
Litany is an effect on the target, doubling the damage it takes, so that does double the damage. Foe-Biter is up to interpretation, but it says "when this item deals damage, its user can use mythic power to double the total amount of damage it deals", which from that wording would make sense that it's doubling the damage that's been calculated already, letting a Vital Strike deal double it's normal damage. Amazing initiative is a whole separate action, so obviously that's doubling the damage from that point as well. Unfortunately, for 3 mythic points, it very well could be x32 damage. This is all pre-critical strike, of course. I'm not an advocate of this, just further pointing out how silly the damage a mythic paladin can deal is.
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The amount of changes away from the by-the-book CR just seems par for the course for any other game I've run or played in at high level. The CR system has NEVER worked beyond just into double digits (I've found 12 or so to be the typical high end, sometimes lower depending on how clever players are with their crafting). Hence why I'm not seeing a big deal with making aggressive rules changes as needed. *shrug*
The amount of changes away from the by-the-book CR just seems par for the course for any other game I've run or played in at high level. The CR system has NEVER worked beyond just into double digits (I've found 12 or so to be the typical high end, sometimes lower depending on how clever players are with their crafting). Hence why I'm not seeing a big deal with making aggressive rules changes as needed. *shrug*
Interesting... How far into WoTR have your players gotten?
I'm curious because I've experienced pretty much the exact opposite of this... I've run my players through a couple of other APs, and found the balance there to be more or less fine, requiring relatively little work on my part. By contrast, WoTR has been crazy. Since I'd heard some early complaints about balance, I imposed a number of restrictions on my players from the start (10 pt buy, slow XP advancement, no crafting, restrictions on magic item purchases, etc). And by book 3 I was still having to group half a dozen encounters together to keep things challenging, and by book 4 even that stopped working...
Thankfully, I found Scorpion's upgraded stat blocks, and that (with some further HP boosting) has made things challenging again. But the amount of time and work Scorpion has put into compiling that document is staggering. Even if I had his gift for coming up with creative ways to make things challenging (which, sadly, I don't), I couldn't afford to spend that much time revamping things...
But I know things vary a lot from party to party, and it sounds like your experiences have been very different. So I'd be curious to hear more about how your players have been doing in WoTR, and how you've managed to avoid the balance problems that some us have been running into.
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This is going to be a long one. Sorry, don't mean to ramble on, but here we go!
We're just getting into Midnight Isles with both groups.
Mine are both built with 25 pt buy, only restrictions on crafting I've done are time constraints (didn't feel a need to ban stick crafting, but I have in the past). I don't give out XP anymore, because that was just more math I didn't want to do (I went to law school to do less math, not more, thankyouverymuch). Biggest restriction I think I did was no race with more points than aasimar (15 rp for them?). I've even thrown in a few custom magic items since the list of powers for legendary items were limited for anything but weapons and armor, and I didn't want everyone to go intelligent item (I only have so many silly voices...).
I've done modifications on most encounters, even if it's just bumping up hit points, adding more monsters, or giving solo baddies a pool of extra actions (and more hit points!). I've still been dropping characters here and there when they stick their necks out too far or just in the course of a tough fight, and the fights have been going pretty well. The Worm at the end of 3 was a GREAT fight.
I've been using Scorpion's stat blocks here and there too. Especially as inspiration for my own mods. They're solid, and have reduced some of my own modification times.
Now, the changes I've made are the end result of years of suffering and multiple versions of 3rd ed. and are rooted in issues I've seen with 3e and how my friends interact with it. This is not a Pathfinder or AP thing, Wrath is the first AP I've run to any extent (played in a few others, and started Jade but school got in the way). But whenever running book adventures, I've learned to play fast and loose as needed.
I have two philosophies when it comes to rebuilding an encounter:
1) Hitting the monster with attack or spell is fun, and players should be able to more often than not.
2) Everyone should feel like they're involved in some way in almost all encounters, locking them down is not involved.
A big thing I've done is be liberal with adding the advanced template (when in doubt, make it advanced). This works well with encounters that have a number of enemies in it. I don't let it bug me if my player ROAR THROUGH these encounters. They're hero's, they're mythic, they're PC's. Let them have their fun and I'll gnaw away a little at their hit points. It's cool, and makes them feel like Big Damn Heroes.
Then we get to the encounters with a more potent monster. This modification starts with adding more hit points to the BBEG, and that might be a couple hundred or just an "X" (while I could get a similar effect by using tricks to boost their AC, this goes against point 1 above). This let's everyone hit more, and hit as hard as they want, which I like as a player and my friends seem to like as a group. I'll add minion fodder if the encounter lends to it. I'll also add some healing abilities as this plugs into the action economy as well. This has been something that I've been doing a lot of in this game: playing with the action economy. Which leads into the next thing I've been doing, adding extra actions.
Many of the foes they face have had demonic cysts (in future games, this will just be re-skinned in various ways as needed). So, a foe might have 3 extra move actions, or 2 extra spell casting actions, or 3 extra standard actions, or a mix of the above and others. Often a list (So, for example, Jestak the Barbadian from Sword of Valor, had a bank of: 2 move actions (swift action), and 3 heal effects (3d8+10) (swift action). The group got so frustrated with her, that they began to think outside the box and took great efforts to disarm her and make her stop moving around). I've gone more elaborate since and adding extra feats, abilities (class and monster), etc just to make them more interesting. Big baddies with whirlwind attack are not uncommon. I've not yet combined this bank of actions/extra abilities with mythic, but I probably will eventually (although, I'll refrain myself from giving extra mythic powers without just boosting a tier/rank, but I'm careful about that because of what goes along with them). This was mostly done to deal with my larger groups (7 players and 6 players), without making up a sidekick or adding minions. I felt that it would change the flavor of the fight too much in some cases, so I worked around it. All in all, it's been working well, and when I've had only a half group there, I've ramped them back down to pretty much book levels as needed.
One thing that I've avoided doing too much of is spells and effects that take people out of the fight. While it would be super easy to drop silence spells and effects to shut down casters, and to mind control the barbarian (I have done both to great effect), using too many abilities that make a few players flee the battle, or get locked away from being able to take part, just sucks. All of my players have said it. I feel the same way when I'm on that side of the cardboard curtain, so despite the tactical utility of doing this, it is done rarely. Especially with the big fights. (This will not be the case the in demon lord encounters, I will be using every mean and dirty trick they have.)
I have a slightly different design philosophy that has risen out of play and running, that informs what I do. More hit points makes the baddies last longer, weather it be in one flesh bag, or another dozen. More actions are needed to deal with more players, and since I have nearly double or 50% more, I use that as a bench mark, and fit their extra actions into the existing action economy (trading up swift for something else).
My players make powerful characters, and they always have. So I just take the needed steps to make them different.
I've had to modify mid to high level play for a long time now, this just is a manifestation of that. These modifications are, sure, partly because of Mythic. They're also just because every monster in the system can't take my players at the appropriate CR way too often. So, we change things up.
And yet most GMs didn't sign up for that. They want to use the product as-is, with as little need for massive rewrites as possible.
Mind you, I've done significant rewrites for Reign of Winter. I had to, I had players at 3rd and 4th level starting the campaign (just took my existing game and moved it to RoW). And I started Runelords off at 2nd level and the players rolled entirely too well for stats (so that I'm now blanket-adding +3 to every stat for all of the monsters to compensate). So I'm not someone who "just doesn't want to be bothered."
But not everyone has the amount of time I do to work on this. (And for that matter my time constraints are slowly eating away free time. Fortunately(?) my groups are pretty much monthly so...) So when some GM picks up WotR and after book 3 finds the players just walk through even Mythic encounters without any difficulty... that suggests something is wrong with the adventure as-written.
It definitely needed a proper playtest. And yes, I know certain parties find this utterly offensive and snarl whenever I bring up that topic. But if the encounters had been tested in advance then Paizo would have realized something was wrong... and have made the adventure more difficult. Or fixed Mythic.
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No plan of battle survives first contact with the enemy.
No RPG book, play tested or not, survives first contact with players.
What should they have done to fix mythic? Just the blanket more HP? Futzed with the action economy even more? Powered down the mythic feats like vital strike and power attack to make them barely more than a normal part of the feat chains out there? (Although, mythic power attacks function on crits is pretty sick, I'd have enjoyed being a fly on the wall when they were working on that one..)
You end up with Mythic being blah and not that much of a change from normal games (powered down abilities). Or mythic is super powerful and new players can't wrap their heads around it (powered up mythic monsters). Instead, it's a tool kit that shows super powered fantasy heroes, and the beasts of myth and story that they can fight. I think that they struck a pretty good balance. Not perfect, of course not perfect, but serviceable and useable.
Honestly, it's easy as pie to just add more hit points, and solve a lot of the problems of critters dropping too quick. Consider it a template. Add +1 CR for adding X hit points (where X is whatever you feel is appropriate). Combine that with advanced and you have quick and dirty fix.
Yeah, I happen to have this strange obsession with getting working products. I am sure outside of the RPG industry I am not alone.
And, YES, I would expect them to increase the HP of mythic monsters by a large amount. If damage output of PC's increases by the factor of x2 to x4 (or even more), you can't just increase HP by x1.5.
Ya, its a bit silly to have mythic tiers and ranks be worth only 10 hp at max. PCs get it worse there but if they are really shooting for that super hero feel then all mythic hp's should be raised sky high.
An early report on Book 2 already has me seeing warning signs: The Inspired Spell ability allowing the cleric to spontaneously cast an extra 5 Create Food and Water spells a day, on top of her original 3, plus Sosiel's 3, has turned army resources into a bit of a joke.
110 mounted people take 440 resources a day (110 people + 330 horses).
Two clerics are generating 228. So food and water just isn't an issue, at least for quite a while.
It's certainly not game-breaking in any sense, but having a cleric able to spontaneously cast 5 spells a day and a sorceress able to cast any arcane spell 5 times a day is definitely making me think of the trouble they can start causing once they can cast higher-level spells...
Make sure that you're aware of the errata for those abilities. And remember that they can only be used for spells with a 1 standard round cast time, cuts down on some spells.
Edit: lol, like create food and water.
Oooh -- where's the errata? I don't find a Mythic errata on the resources page, and there's nothing about the "1 standard action" casting time in the PRD or my version of the book:
Inspired Spell (Su): You can expend one use of mythic power to cast any one divine spell, treating your caster level as 2 levels higher. This spell must be on your divine spell list (or your domain or mystery spell list) and must be of a spell level that you can cast using that divine spellcasting class. If you are a spontaneous spellcaster, you don't need to have the spell prepared, nor does it need to be on your list of spells known. Using this ability does not expend a prepared spell or available spell slot. You can apply any metamagic feats you know to this spell, but its total spell slot level must be a slot level you can normally cast.
EDIT: Found it: linky.
Yup, on the help/FAQ page.
Oddly enough in my experience that ability isn't as powerful in combat as martials and the damage they can do. But it does give spellcasters the ability to overcome any miscellaneous challenge that's in front of them. Although the free metamagic part is completely broken.
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NH,
Inspired Spell and Wild Arcana are abilities to keep in the back of your mind with spellcasters on the Hierophant and Archmage tracks. Alone, they don't completely alter the face of the game. However, they do mean that at any moment, the caster can belt out almost any spell their hearts wish to toss at you. It can make the magic element a touch unpredictable, and it can mean that they always have the one trick that they need to get out of a jam, regardless of the situation.
In the end, they tend to make appearances in our group more as a means for the divine spellcaster to throw down almost endless collections of Heal spells and Mythic Heal spells on the party, something that, with Divine Reach, will make it very difficult to bring down a party with a well trained cleric or oracle of life behind it. So, keep in the back of your mind that in due time, your healer may be doing that (even with turning it into a standard action).
Our Arcanist chose Arcane Surge, which creates an entirely different set of problems with their sky-high DCs and spells like Baleful Polymorph. Beads of Newt Protection are regular loot these days on boss characters.
I disagree. Say you purchase the game Stratego. You expect to be able to play the game using the rulebook and materials in the box, without having to guess at rules or customize rules. While you CAN modify the rules to a game (like Monopoly), ultimately you should be able to play the game as-written out of the box and have the game be fun and without play issues.
The Pathfinder Core Rulebook is such a system. It is fun to play, you don't need to customize it, and while there are some issues at higher levels for the most part it is perfectly functional.
Mythic Adventures is not, from what has been reported by multiple gamers, once you hit the 3rd Tier. And given how integrated Mythic is to WotR, the module itself becomes unplayable without significant modification starting in the third book and especially the fourth and higher.
Let's take, for example, Baphomet. The adventure suggests that even 18th level characters at the 8th Mythic Tier should have troubles with Baphomet and should be encouraged to flee. Soon after the book was published, people started talking about how Baphomet was taken down in one round.
This is the big bad of that book. And Mythic groups just curbstomp him over and over and over, until people started coming up with methods of manipulating the rules and providing ways that maybe, just maybe, Baphomet could remain a threat. This includes bringing scrolls along, hitting the group with a Mythic Time Stop, twiddling his thumb for over 20 hours, and then in the last couple of minutes summoning thousands of minotaurs and the like to act as a speed-bump before he becomes a smear on the blades of the heroes.
Rasputin was a bigger threat to players in Reign of Winter than Baphomet is to Mythic heroes... despite being a much higher CR.
I just want to add to this that I think Baphomet is a really cool and well executed character, as far as demon lords and adventure path-villains go. The image and lore of Baphomet is very prevalent in modern culture as both an occult symbol and caricature of satanic belief. In fact, just recently a satanist group from New York successfully managed to get a Baphomet statue outside the Oklahoma courthouse greenlighted (Iomedae won't be happy when she hears about this!). I really like what Paizo did with him, they referenced his historical origins in relation to the Knights Templar and the Crusades, but they also brought in the whole labyrinth/minotaur aspect and gave him a backstory with Asmodeus. Altogether, he's a pretty neat bad guy and it's a shame that he doesn't provide a difficult or dramatic challenge for players in this adventure path.
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Well, my fears were (so far) misplaced. Even though this seems to be a GM thread, I'll be polite:
Today they set about searching the abandoned temple on their way to Drezen, and the temple hammered them. The ghoul clerics summoned only one babau, but it was on the other side of the room from the fighter and ripped into the party's cleric something awful. Nulkineth lasted long enough to burn a lot of their resources, so when Maugla showed up she caused all kinds of mayhem: She held the fighter, successfully summoned another Nabasu, drained the cleric of 4 levels on her first enervation, and was generally a near-TPK'ing menace. The sorceress got the fighter in the air so he could fight her and he got in a couple of solid crits to bring her down, but it was a wonderful nail-biting fight that could have gone either way.
So the party just arrived at Drezen, and so far, so good.
(Yeah, I'm trying to update only one book at a time, but I talk too much...)
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Technically a player, but we just started book six, so you're not spoiling anything. ^.~
That was largely our experience at that location, NH. Mythic wasn't really smacking hard just yet. The Transmuter had a limited number of mythic spells at that stage and saves could go abysmally much more easily, which was very dangerous against the latter two of the NPCs you mentioned (Not to mention our Paladin hadn't retrained to their final build-direction, which they did after book 2.). We came to dread that particular class of enemy until the next book, at which point the power-scales had tipped significantly in the party's favor. But, several levels and 2 mythic tiers will do that.
So, yeah, we definitely found that particular series of encounters challenging.
Well, awesome!
I am extremely disappointed with Paizo. Without needing to verify or acknowledge, it is very obvious that little or no playtesting has been done for this AP. Having already bought the six books, pawns and map pack, I can only thank you guys from saving me from buying $300 worth of painted figs for this path. In fact, I am moth-balling the project and will not buy anymore AP's.
After reading all nine pages of this thread, it seems bazaar that some will come out and defend Paizo at the outset, only to later admit that they have done a mountain of prep and rejigging just to run this...!
You buy a product, you expect it to work, very, very simple. Voting with my wallet, walking away!
Thankyou to the community for this heads-up and good gaming to all.
if you picked this AP as your first, or are judging all other APs by this one then good riddance to you, don't need you around to be honest:)
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I beg your pardon?
Meh, mind over matter!
This is exactly the right place to indicate to Paizo and the public at large that this product in particular is of little value if they purchased it with the assumption that it is up to Paizo's normally high standards, and perhaps also purchased on the assumption it could be used without hours of prep work, as marketed, out-of-the-box.
I was not rude, and I have not bagged the crap out of Paizo. I have done my research, found the product to be wanting IMO and posted here to offer my opinion. I have spent the cash, and guess what?
I certainly can have my say, without the disrespectful responses, thank you.
Good gaming peeps.
Well, awesome!
I am extremely disappointed with Paizo. Without needing to verify or acknowledge, it is very obvious that little or no playtesting has been done for this AP. Having already bought the six books, pawns and map pack, I can only thank you guys from saving me from buying $300 worth of painted figs for this path. In fact, I am moth-balling the project and will not buy anymore AP's.
After reading all nine pages of this thread, it seems bazaar that some will come out and defend Paizo at the outset, only to later admit that they have done a mountain of prep and rejigging just to run this...!
You buy a product, you expect it to work, very, very simple. Voting with my wallet, walking away!
Thankyou to the community for this heads-up and good gaming to all.
i dont know this post seems extremely negative, so what kind of response were you expecting?
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Face-Palm...
Did I ask you for one?
I don't really mind though, cause you don't really matter! :P
As long as Paizo gets some feedback, it's all good!
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Girls, girls, you're both pretty.
Ah, a lady with taste!
Thanks, your not lookin' too bad yerself. :)
Be good to each other now!
@Ajag: I don't like all APs either and I left the group wanting to play this one before they started but I would suggest you rather change your approach in that you don't buy everything at the start but only buy book 1 of an AP, start playing it and if you (and your players) like it buy more.
When I started GMing kingmaker I bought the map pack, too. Now I know I would not have needed it and will do without a map pack next time. But apart from the maps I only bought book 1 at the start.
Sure, it can be nice to always have the exactly right pawns but for us it works out fine to use my metal miniatures. A dog can be any four legged monster for example.
Even if you like an AP it can always happen that your players loose interest after some TPK.
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AJAG: Instead of using the Mythic Rules, why not use Hero Points? As I mentioned in another thread, you could have a base of 3 Hero Points, +1 per Tier, and let the Hero Points recharge by 1 point per day. Hero Points do a bit of the baseline Mythic without completely overpowering things.
Also, the AP can be run without using the Mythic rules at all. Your characters will just reach level 20 at an earlier point. Between that and regenerating Hero Points, you've a viable group for the game. If they DO have difficulties, then toss in one of the artifacts that were included in Book 2, or a powerful magic item.
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if you picked this AP as your first, or are judging all other APs by this one then good riddance to you, don't need you around to be honest:)
Honestly, man, that was totally uncalled for. Paizo ain't your momma, you don't need to defend their honor by insulting people who are dissatisfied with the way they handle their new rules.
I've got to say, I'm taking this slowly and still in the 1st book (although starting the end piece of it). I've already beefed up some of the encounters that occur later in the books.
Mythic was playtested, I spent a lot of time playtesting it on the boards. It's pretty hard to be Mythical and NOT be super awesome at slaying things. It definitely does take some rejiggering to get this to be a challenge, but I felt like I signed up for that when deciding to run this.
After reading Raging Swan's recent blog post about doing the slow advancement track for PCs, I'm thinking this might be a good candidate for that. End up at level 15/MR 5. That would likely put this in a better power level for a quicker "out of the box" play.
I'm just thankful I enjoy modding the books and that my current groups are somewhat unoptimized in their characters.
if you picked this AP as your first, or are judging all other APs by this one then good riddance to you, don't need you around to be honest:)
Captain Yesterday, to me, your comment seems disrespectful and insulting. As such, I have flagged it for Paizo to review.
Well thanks Laric:) would delete myself if i could:)
it seemed at the time as if he was lumping in and judging all APs by one AP i could've said that in a more constructive manner then what i did:)
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In an attempt to bring the thread back on track, I'll happily report that Magnuskn's repeated statements that Books 1 and 2 are fine continues to run true for me:
- As expected, my players hated the army combats, so I just pre-rolled them and told them what happened.
- The "Battle of the Bridge" was perhaps the single-most-exciting fight I've run for my players, ever. It is rivaled only by the "Wing of Lust" fight in RotRL that left 1 party member dead, 1 unconscious, and the remaining two teleporting to safety.
In short, I had Soltengrebbe show up just as Barrid Isen Dimension Doored away and he took out Irabeth with his breath. So we had the time pressure of the Greased aurochs trying to pull down the bridge, the player conflict of trying to keep Irabeth alive while engaging Soltengrebbe, and my having to play Soltengrebbe's tactics as-written ("Hit the most heavily-armored PC first") to avoid killing Irabeth and the bard as well. (Anevia was already dead.) (On the other hand, the fighter was the only one doing major damage to him, so it made sense to try to kill the fighter. If I'd managed it, it might have been a TPK, or at least a retreat.)
All in all, it took the fighter all of his ridiculous hit points (Toughness, Mythic Toughness, and Exposed to Awfulness for well over 100 hit points at 7th level), the cleric almost all of her mythic surges (Faith's Reach and mythic Cure Serious Wounds to keep the fighter alive), and the fighter and the sorceress all of theirs (extra hits and lots of extra spells) to bring Soltengrebbe down.
Epic fight! So it's still, "So far, so good", but I don't want to keep forcing Magnuskn to say, "Wait 'til Book 3", so I'll report further developments as we get through Drezen...
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Well thanks Laric:) would delete myself if i could:)
it seemed at the time as if he was lumping in and judging all APs by one AP i could've said that in a more constructive manner then what i did:)
Thanks!
For what it's worth, I've often read comments by you on the paizo boards and have usually found them to be quite helpful and insightful.
I'll echo NobodysHome thoughts about the mass combat, and I'd heavily suggest omitting it and using the armies as a backdrop. The camp and the army work well for the story and RP elements but the dice rolling doesn't add anything except the likelihood of failure.
Also, unfortunately, I'll say the same thing... wait until book 3. And more specifically tier 3, then it all gets blown up.
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Alas i've let my frustration with my job and extended family (not my wife and kids, who are great) bleed thru onto the message boards lately, and thats not cool:\
i'm working on it tho:)
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@Nobodyshome
Are your PCs going to attempt to resurrect Anevia?
They already did, using the lone Scroll of Resurrection they've found in the AP so far. Even worse, the cleric failed the fairly simple caster level check and had to use her last mythic surge of the day to raise her.
So it's some awesome juicy roleplay on top of everything else, and the PCs have adamantly declared, "NO NPCs are coming with us into Citadel Drezen," which will make the fights all the more interesting...
(Of course, I can't help but cackle with glee at how I'm going to play out Konneshka -- the GMNPC cleric has "touched by divinity" and I've been totally playing up her "dreams of Iomedae", so it's just going to be a funny, fun encounter...)
I'm in a group of 3 players running through this AP and were approaching the end of book 2.
We were given 25pt buy to compensate for not having a 4th player. So far the difficulty has been pretty good. This may be due to action economy because we're all building decent character although mine is a little left field.
I appreciate that most seem to think book 3 is where things get crazy - probably because you finally get to spend a lump sum of gold.
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Having read the Mythic Rules I can't see how this is a failed AP imo
It depends if you want your players do the usual stuff between levels 1-20. Or to do epic things. I keep hearing complaints about the Mythic rules. Yet those that do seem to be missing the point imo. Their called "Mythic" for a reason as in doing things that are wroth of being a myth sung by Bard across the land.
To use a example from this thread. Which do you think will go down in history or sung by Bard across the land. The lone cleric who fed a army of 400+ all on his own. Or the cleric who fed his group and maybe a handful of others. The first cries epic legend. The second is about exciting as watch paint dry.
The players doing powerful things is to be expected in such a AP. Or anything that uses Mythic or epic levels. As a DM I expect my players to be doing more than they usually do with spells, feats, classes and equipment. If I am a 23rd level epic character as a player I sure as hell do not want to be using the same boring vanilla lighting bolts or fireballs. Or as a melee character doing the same damage as I was doing between levels 1-20.
I think people expect Epic then with PF Mythic levels to just be little different than regular levels. The spells DC going up by a point or two. The damage dice a extra die or two. Players to still be using dodge and other low level feats. Again that's not heroic. Nor epic. Or even remotely Mythic. And remember your npcs and monsters can do the same as well.
Now if the npc are not well designed or the encounters too linear I can understand. The devs told us flat out that the power levels would not be the same. It's like a vegan going into a restaurant that only serves meat. Then is shocked, dismayed and complains about a lack of food that has no vegetables.
I think a lot of the issue comes down to having to build an AP which extensively uses a new rule system while the kinks of the rule system are being worked out. I think this led to underestimation of just what the mythic PCs could do, and overestimation of the abilities of Mythic monsters.
I definitely wouldn't judge all APs by this one. And although I own this AP and love the plot elements, I would not want to run it without a whole lot more experience in running adventure paths and GMing in general.