Is Mythic Adventures viable?


Product Discussion

51 to 100 of 156 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | next > last >>

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

WotR unfortunately is a poor way to measure Mythic rules. This is mostly because the vast majority of the opponents are Chaotic Evil Outsiders, even those that are not demons. When you add in the fact that almost all are CE, a holy evil outsider bane weapon is an incredibly powerful item. The somewhat limited scope of the enemies means that narrow abilities like the Ranger favored enemy become super overpowering.

Sovereign Court

j b 200 wrote:
WotR unfortunately is a poor way to measure Mythic rules. This is mostly because the vast majority of the opponents are Chaotic Evil Outsiders, even those that are not demons. When you add in the fact that almost all are CE, a holy evil outsider bane weapon is an incredibly powerful item. The somewhat limited scope of the enemies means that narrow abilities like the Ranger favored enemy become super overpowering.

I would have to strongly agree with that too. WotR of course was written to be like that, good holy heroes fighting demonic hordes. But yeah, it's a bit hard to counter pcs when your party is composed of everybody harmed to the teeth with holy powers, favored enemies demons, demon bane weapons because why the hell not? etc...I mean they basically came prepare to fight demons and that's what they get.

Silver Crusade

Regarding Mythic Crafter etc.:I might be wrong, but as I mentioned above, aside from mythic bane I see little advantage for a non-mythic crafter to craft those items.
Getting ambrosia (the one from MA not the other one from the aasimar book) and the other mythic power recover item, at half cost isn't really all that troublesome to me. The fact, that it doesn't have a daily limit is far more bothersome.

But yeah, should mythic crafter be required, seems so, but on the other side, it seems to be an unfair feat tax on one character. I am frankly not worried, a player spending a path ability and a mythic feat to craft everything or just a path ability doesn't make a whole lot of difference in the grand scale of things.

Mythic Arcane Strike - and I have been saying that since the playtest - is insanely powerful, and allow the combination of mythic bane and normal bane with every application.

Regaring WotR, the ability to play the AP with non-mythic heroes might be a factor, but frankly I would not be surprised that a moderately well optimized group could succeed at this adventure with little to no alterations (at least from part 1-5).


Sebastian Hirsch wrote:


Mythic Arcane Strike - and I have been saying that since the playtest - is insanely powerful, and allow the combination of mythic bane and normal bane with every application.

Oh yes, ban or change mythic arcane strike too, the only thing that keep it below mythic vital strike levels is because it's a swift action in a book that choke fills characters with swift actions.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Mythic Adventures is viable with a GM that can handle it. Newbs need not apply.

Grand Lodge

Hold the PCs to a 15-point buy, max, and to standard wealth by level. Don't allow crafting.

Resist the temptation to give them nice toys outside of mythic stuff.

If they have trouble with the first book or two, put more consumables in the loot or have an NPC ally or two put on a couple levels. By book 3 they should be holding their own just fine.


voska66 wrote:

I found nothing wrong with mythic adventures. Ran home brew game with it and it worked great.

Now the AP Wrath of the Righteous, that has problems. I think these problems come from the AP being designed to be run with out mythic. So if you have mythic you are over powered for most if not all of the encounters.

I quickly rework some of the encounters in the book. Some I leave easy for the players to feal mythic. When I tweak an encounter I increase hit points sometime up to max. I add the the advanced template or increase the monster count. I've advanced the mythic tier on some monsters that already mythic as well. This seem to work well.

I'd like an example of what you consider "nothing wrong". I'd like to know class composition and what options your players took. If your fights are over in 2 to 3 rounds with Mythic creatures, I consider that not "working great" and "something wrong".

I'm dubious anyone using the mythic rules, especially the mythic monsters, with players that know what they're doing made for a challenging game. Maybe you're the type of DM that doesn't care if your players obliterate everything or your party runs subpar class options, I don't know.

My entire group is experienced, they run optimized PCs, and they go for hard, fast kills. They don't screw around. I have already listened to the 400 plus point damage calculations for their attacks with Foebiter and mythic power attack and mythic improved critical. Not sure how you counter this against mythic foes without giving every fore some kind of crit immunity.

By the way, if you're tailoring all your own encounters, then you're not using Mythic Adventures as written. Which gets back to my original post that it is not viable as written. If you're beefing everything up, boosting hit points, writing up insane monster abilities to challenge your PCs while using homebrew, that is not following the rulebook. That's doing exactly what I am going to do to make WotR more challenging. If a fight against a mythic dragon doesn't last ten or more rounds, I've have failed. That's my standard.


Exocrat wrote:

Hold the PCs to a 15-point buy, max, and to standard wealth by level. Don't allow crafting.

Resist the temptation to give them nice toys outside of mythic stuff.

If they have trouble with the first book or two, put more consumables in the loot or have an NPC ally or two put on a couple levels. By book 3 they should be holding their own just fine.

We never use 15 point buy. Whoever came up with 15 points as the standard amount of points for stats has a real low opinion of human capability. None of the players are most likely 15 point buy. None of us want to play characters that start off worse than we did. We generally go for 20 point buy minimum.

Silver Crusade

Brother Fen wrote:
Mythic Adventures is viable with a GM that can handle it. Newbs need not apply.

I am not sure, if you are calling the experienced GMs running the adventure path newbs or the writers. When it comes to writing and running mythic adventure paths everyone is a newbs - nothing wrong with that unless your refuse to learn from it.

Piccolo Taphodarian wrote:
voska66 wrote:

I found nothing wrong with mythic adventures. Ran home brew game with it and it worked great.

Now the AP Wrath of the Righteous, that has problems. I think these problems come from the AP being designed to be run with out mythic. So if you have mythic you are over powered for most if not all of the encounters.

I quickly rework some of the encounters in the book. Some I leave easy for the players to feal mythic. When I tweak an encounter I increase hit points sometime up to max. I add the the advanced template or increase the monster count. I've advanced the mythic tier on some monsters that already mythic as well. This seem to work well.

I'd like an example of what you consider "nothing wrong". I'd like to know class composition and what options your players took. If your fights are over in 2 to 3 rounds with Mythic creatures, I consider that not "working great" and "something wrong".

I'm dubious anyone using the mythic rules, especially the mythic monsters, with players that know what they're doing made for a challenging game. Maybe you're the type of DM that doesn't care if your players obliterate everything or your party runs subpar class options, I don't know.

My entire group is experienced, they run optimized PCs, and they go for hard, fast kills. They don't screw around. I have already listened to the 400 plus point damage calculations for their attacks with Foebiter and mythic power attack and mythic improved critical. Not sure how you counter this against mythic foes without giving every fore some kind of crit immunity.

Mythic Mage Armor seems like a reasonable effect, alternatively I suggest judicious use of the templates on page 224 of mythic adventures. Agile and invincible are great, and giving tough monsters a 75 & version of fortification (page 227 for the 50 % one) seems reasonable.

Personally I would like some way to increase their AC against critical hit confirmation rolls.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I haven't ran or played mythic but I would throw my hat in the 'it's how you run it' camp. Many GMs in Pathfinder refuse to use a monster's really bastardy abilities against PCs or will only do so once even though it has multiple uses available AND the creature is written like it would plausibly do so.


Buri wrote:
I haven't ran or played mythic but I would throw my hat in the 'it's how you run it' camp. Many GMs in Pathfinder refuse to use a monster's really bastardy abilities against PCs or will only do so once even though it has multiple uses available AND the creature is written like it would plausibly do so.

I suggest you give it a read. Some of the combination options are pretty nutty.


Sebastian Hirsch wrote:
Brother Fen wrote:
Mythic Adventures is viable with a GM that can handle it. Newbs need not apply.

I am not sure, if you are calling the experienced GMs running the adventure path newbs or the writers. When it comes to writing and running mythic adventure paths everyone is a newbs - nothing wrong with that unless your refuse to learn from it.

Piccolo Taphodarian wrote:
voska66 wrote:

I found nothing wrong with mythic adventures. Ran home brew game with it and it worked great.

Now the AP Wrath of the Righteous, that has problems. I think these problems come from the AP being designed to be run with out mythic. So if you have mythic you are over powered for most if not all of the encounters.

I quickly rework some of the encounters in the book. Some I leave easy for the players to feal mythic. When I tweak an encounter I increase hit points sometime up to max. I add the the advanced template or increase the monster count. I've advanced the mythic tier on some monsters that already mythic as well. This seem to work well.

I'd like an example of what you consider "nothing wrong". I'd like to know class composition and what options your players took. If your fights are over in 2 to 3 rounds with Mythic creatures, I consider that not "working great" and "something wrong".

I'm dubious anyone using the mythic rules, especially the mythic monsters, with players that know what they're doing made for a challenging game. Maybe you're the type of DM that doesn't care if your players obliterate everything or your party runs subpar class options, I don't know.

My entire group is experienced, they run optimized PCs, and they go for hard, fast kills. They don't screw around. I have already listened to the 400 plus point damage calculations for their attacks with Foebiter and mythic power attack and mythic improved critical. Not sure how you counter this against mythic foes without giving every fore some kind of crit immunity.

Mythic Mage Armor seems like a...

I'll look at the templates. So far I've been familiarizing myself with player options. I've read the pre-generated mythic monsters, they are woefully inadequate.

So far Foebiter, Improved Critical, and Power Attack at the mythic level seem to be a highly desirable combination. It is very apparent why. A mythic balor would die in a single round to a PC with that combination, if I did not boost his hit points. He might survive to a second round if for some reason the PC rolled poorly.

Mythic Combat Reflexes is going to be insane for the Come and Get Me barbarian. I'm glad I don't have a ninja or summoner with Undetectable Legendary Item ability.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

To be fair, even if we are talking about non mythic rules, battles taking 2 or 3 rounds at levels 10+ (especially 13+) and solo encounters being a joke is the norm with the current system.

For example when i played Jade Regent, the final battle was run pretty much as written (minus the stupid stuff) and was added an adult forest dragon, the battle was over in 3 or 4 rounds (i don't remember) and there were 5 PCs. When i DMed shattered star, with A LOT of changes which ended up making the battle a CR 22 (and that doesn't include the second life of the BBEG) against lvl 17 PCs, the battle managed to last 8-10 rounds (i wasn't counting after 4th) and mind you i don't think that the PCs had more than 20%-30% chance of losing.
In the Jade Regent the battle was against 4 (5 with the dragon) and in Shattered Star the battle was against 8.

What exactly is your problem with 15 point buy? i am not sure i understood.

Grand Lodge

Cerberus Seven wrote:
I'm curious, for those that have run mythic games, how often did you use the five simple mythic (Agile, Arcane, Divine, Invincible, Savage) templates instead of actually adding mythic ranks to something?

So far 4 books in...once

Silver Crusade

leo1925 wrote:

To be fair, even if we are talking about non mythic rules, battles taking 2 or 3 rounds at levels 10+ (especially 13+) and solo encounters being a joke is the norm with the current system.

For example when i played Jade Regent, the final battle was run pretty much as written (minus the stupid stuff) and was added an adult forest dragon, the battle was over in 3 or 4 rounds (i don't remember) and there were 5 PCs. When i DMed shattered star, with A LOT of changes which ended up making the battle a CR 22 (and that doesn't include the second life of the BBEG) against lvl 17 PCs, the battle managed to last 8-10 rounds (i wasn't counting after 4th) and mind you i don't think that the PCs had more than 20%-30% chance of losing.
In the Jade Regent the battle was against 4 (5 with the dragon) and in Shattered Star the battle was against 8.

What exactly is your problem with 15 point buy? i am not sure i understood.

Yeah high level encounters have a durability problem, PC damage does scale way better than monster HP, and DR is quite often only an afterthought.

Silver Crusade

Popupjoe wrote:
Cerberus Seven wrote:
I'm curious, for those that have run mythic games, how often did you use the five simple mythic (Agile, Arcane, Divine, Invincible, Savage) templates instead of actually adding mythic ranks to something?

So far 4 books in...once

I am quite curious on the details of your group, if you have the spare time, posting the composition of your group would be quite welcome. Preferred combat style and level of powergaming would be a very nice extra.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Piccolo Taphodarian wrote:
We never use 15 point buy. Whoever came up with 15 points as the standard amount of points for stats has a real low opinion of human capability. None of the players are most likely 15 point buy. None of us want to play characters that start off worse than we did. We generally go for 20 point buy minimum.

Heh. No, I'm pretty sure you just have a different expectations of what most humans can accomplish compared to the d20 systems base presumptions.

Insomuch as a game like this can be compared to real life (which it can't) humanity is probably roughly around 5th level, give or take. Most anything that we accomplish in our lives is explained at this level or lower, and blah, blah, there's lots of stuff about this elsewhere, and I won't preach more on it.

Similarly, most males squat around 125 lbs., making their strength score somewhere between 11-12, with a presumed (in-game) average of 10.

(This article seems to put the woman's strength between 7-8 (I'm not weighing in on how accurate this is).

Averaging 7, 8, 11, and 12 nets us 9.5 ~ 1 pt less than the '10.5' expected in presumed average scores for a typical human, but we'll let the system pass for having folk live in typically rougher conditions that require more use of strength than we do normally across the board.

((This is, of course, presuming squatting and dead-lifting being roughly analogous to carrying capacity... I'm not sure that it is.))

Similarly, knowledge checks have this to say about themselves:

Quote:
Answering a question within your field of study has a DC of 10 (for really easy questions), 15 (for basic questions), or 20 to 30 (for really tough questions).

To borrow someone else's example, Einstein could have done quite well as a 6th level character: 18 for INT, 6 ranks in knowledge (physics), +3 class bonus, +3 for skill focus.

((18 is easy enough to get to with a 15 pt-buy - simply purchase a 16, put the 14 in charisma - Einstein had decent charm and presence - and use the human favored to bump the 16 to 18).

That's a +16 bonus. Masterwork tools, and an Aid Another put the bonus to +20.

That means that - even lacking the masterwork tools - he always knows the easy and basic questions, and can usually answer the tough questions. When he studies and uses all of his resources, he can answer really tough questions, or even, on occasion, come up with things that no one has ever considered (DC 40).

((NOTE: non-geniuses, and even average-intelligence folk could usually answer basic questions at 6th level - and if they're practicing, they could answer tough questions, more often than not, too.))

((NOTE 2: If you use old D&D synergy skills, it's far easier to net these bonuses - getting an extra +5 by having appropriate ranks in profession (physicist), for example, allowing your knowledge to net you a +5 to that profession...))

Of course, with 15 pt-buy, you can have half of your scores 12s, and half 13s (pre-racial +2, of course). You can move several of those around to get up to three 14s and three 10s (still before racial adjustment): not bad at all. A 16 and a 14 are easy to net - and once again, that's before racial adjustment.

Not to mention standard and elite arrays are things. Bear in mind, these are still before the racial adjustments.

If you guys really, honestly do "score higher" (relatively speaking) in real-life, than +1 in all of your ability modifiers: congratulations, you're relatively elite.

If you score up to 15 one or two areas: congratulations, you're normal, bordering on elite.

Humans can do amazing things. But you don't need amazing scores to do amazing things.

That said, I usually go with 20-or-higher point-buy myself (usually higher - much higher).

It's lots of fun!

Just so long as you bear in mind that doing so is above the standard presumptions most of the game is balanced around.

No wonder you characters feel powerful, though - you've got a higher presumed power-curve than the game is balanced for.

I do want to say that you can disagree with how potent people are, in general, and how such things function. It's your right. But seriously: come up with a typical person that can't be accomplished by a properly built 15 pt.-buy character.

I've not really found much. And those who are higher are, generally speaking, more elite anyway.

Grand Lodge

Tacticslion wrote:

((This is, of course, presuming squatting and dead-lifting being roughly analogous to carrying capacity... I'm not sure that it is.))

I'd go with:

Lifting and Dragging wrote:
A character can lift as much as double his maximum load off the ground, but he or she can only stagger around with it.

Sounds like a deadlift to me. Going with your livestrong link, the average untrained male can DL 155 lbs, which would make his max load 77.5 lbs. That puts him between 7 and 8 strength.

Or, you could use clean & jerk to represent lifting max load overhead, but that's a much less common lift and you're not likely to find average numbers for it.


Okay! :D

(I literally looked that link up in about five minutes of Google search. I dunno how accurate anything is.)


leo1925 wrote:

To be fair, even if we are talking about non mythic rules, battles taking 2 or 3 rounds at levels 10+ (especially 13+) and solo encounters being a joke is the norm with the current system.

For example when i played Jade Regent, the final battle was run pretty much as written (minus the stupid stuff) and was added an adult forest dragon, the battle was over in 3 or 4 rounds (i don't remember) and there were 5 PCs. When i DMed shattered star, with A LOT of changes which ended up making the battle a CR 22 (and that doesn't include the second life of the BBEG) against lvl 17 PCs, the battle managed to last 8-10 rounds (i wasn't counting after 4th) and mind you i don't think that the PCs had more than 20%-30% chance of losing.
In the Jade Regent the battle was against 4 (5 with the dragon) and in Shattered Star the battle was against 8.

What exactly is your problem with 15 point buy? i am not sure i understood.

My problem with 15 point buy is that I know I'm more than 15 points. I'm not an ambitious adventurer whose very life relies on well-rounded attributes.

I picture adventurers as the best of the best of their professions (classes). If you were to measure professional athletes and some highly physical professions like Special Ops soldier, you would find they were well above a 15 point buy campaign. For example, you do not have to take a low strength to have a high intelligence. There are many athletes that lift I excess of 400 to 500 lbs, which is an 18 to 20 strength that have IQs in excess of 150 and can run, move, and engage in athletic endeavors that would both indicate a higher dexterity and con. They also don't lack Charisma or Wisdom. The 15 point model encourages an idea of human development that isn't true: that you have to give up something to have something else.

In fact, physical training builds up all three physical stats at the same time. This is well known by anyone that engages in physical training. It in no way damages your mental capacity to do so. If you were a friendly, intelligent charismatic person that had a high degree of common sense prior to engaging in physical training, it will not change afterwards.

That is why I don't enjoy 15 point buy. I don't think it mirrors human (or any race) development. I feel adventurers (at least the ones that survive) would be amongst the best of the best as far as physical and mental ability. Otherwise, they wouldn't even make it in their chosen profession fighting what adventurers fight.


Tacticslion wrote:
Piccolo Taphodarian wrote:
We never use 15 point buy. Whoever came up with 15 points as the standard amount of points for stats has a real low opinion of human capability. None of the players are most likely 15 point buy. None of us want to play characters that start off worse than we did. We generally go for 20 point buy minimum.

Heh. No, I'm pretty sure you just have a different expectations of what most humans can accomplish compared to the d20 systems base presumptions.

Insomuch as a game like this can be compared to real life (which it can't) humanity is probably roughly around 5th level, give or take. Most anything that we accomplish in our lives is explained at this level or lower, and blah, blah, there's lots of stuff about this elsewhere, and I won't preach more on it.

Similarly, most males squat around 125 lbs., making their strength score somewhere between 11-12, with a presumed (in-game) average of 10.

(This article seems to put the woman's strength between 7-8 (I'm not weighing in on how accurate this is).

Averaging 7, 8, 11, and 12 nets us 9.5 ~ 1 pt less than the '10.5' expected in presumed average scores for a typical human, but we'll let the system pass for having folk live in typically rougher conditions that require more use of strength than we do normally across the board.

((This is, of course, presuming squatting and dead-lifting being roughly analogous to carrying capacity... I'm not sure that it is.))

Similarly, knowledge checks have this to say about themselves:

Quote:
Answering a question within your field of study has a DC of 10 (for really easy questions), 15 (for basic questions), or 20 to 30 (for really tough questions).
To borrow...

Adventurers are elite human beings in my opinion. Most humans don't go wandering into areas filled with dangerous monsters, studying arcane forces that few can understand, fighting the forces of evil on behalf of their god, or going toe to toe with a giant.

See above for more explanation as to what I consider the equivalent in the modern day and what physical training like learning to fight will do for your overall physical stats, not just strength.

It doesn't have much to do with having a single high stat or two. I think human beings are more well rounded than 15 points allows. Adventurers would probably fall into the top 5 to 10% of human beings. Unless you were going for the average joe starting adventurers by choice, 15 points is very, very low for supposedly extraordinary people.

Why would anyone think that Adventurers were in anyway average human beings? Why do people think that humans that train to do extraordinary physical things aren't far superior to 15 point buy? Do they have little understanding of what a genetically gifted physical specimen is capable of? He certainly doesn't have to be dumb to be great physically.


leo1925 wrote:

To be fair, even if we are talking about non mythic rules, battles taking 2 or 3 rounds at levels 10+ (especially 13+) and solo encounters being a joke is the norm with the current system.

For example when i played Jade Regent, the final battle was run pretty much as written (minus the stupid stuff) and was added an adult forest dragon, the battle was over in 3 or 4 rounds (i don't remember) and there were 5 PCs. When i DMed shattered star, with A LOT of changes which ended up making the battle a CR 22 (and that doesn't include the second life of the BBEG) against lvl 17 PCs, the battle managed to last 8-10 rounds (i wasn't counting after 4th) and mind you i don't think that the PCs had more than 20%-30% chance of losing.
In the Jade Regent the battle was against 4 (5 with the dragon) and in Shattered Star the battle was against 8.

You stated the exact reason why Mythic Adventures doesn't seem viable. It takes the inherent problems with Pathfinder and exacerbates them by two or three times, maybe more, and doesn't provide much help providing a foil for the augmented abilities. The game is already hard to run at high levels, and they made it nearly impossible without more rules tinkering than I've done yet.

In regular Pathfinder, I usually augment hit points and a few abilities to boost damage. That does the job. Now I had to rewrite the monster template. I'll have to do more to challenge my players more than likely.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Piccolo Taphodarian wrote:
voska66 wrote:

I found nothing wrong with mythic adventures. Ran home brew game with it and it worked great.

Now the AP Wrath of the Righteous, that has problems. I think these problems come from the AP being designed to be run with out mythic. So if you have mythic you are over powered for most if not all of the encounters.

I quickly rework some of the encounters in the book. Some I leave easy for the players to feal mythic. When I tweak an encounter I increase hit points sometime up to max. I add the the advanced template or increase the monster count. I've advanced the mythic tier on some monsters that already mythic as well. This seem to work well.

I'd like an example of what you consider "nothing wrong". I'd like to know class composition and what options your players took. If your fights are over in 2 to 3 rounds with Mythic creatures, I consider that not "working great" and "something wrong".

I'm dubious anyone using the mythic rules, especially the mythic monsters, with players that know what they're doing made for a challenging game. Maybe you're the type of DM that doesn't care if your players obliterate everything or your party runs subpar class options, I don't know.

My entire group is experienced, they run optimized PCs, and they go for hard, fast kills. They don't screw around. I have already listened to the 400 plus point damage calculations for their attacks with Foebiter and mythic power attack and mythic improved critical. Not sure how you counter this against mythic foes without giving every fore some kind of crit immunity.

By the way, if you're tailoring all your own encounters, then you're not using Mythic Adventures as written. Which gets back to my original post that it is not viable as written. If you're beefing everything up, boosting hit points, writing up insane monster abilities to challenge your PCs while using homebrew, that is not following the rulebook. That's doing exactly what I am going to do to make WotR more challenging. If a fight...

Not everyone plays super-optimised like your group. The AP's aren't written for people like your group, and if Paizo DOES start writing them that way, I'll cancel my subs. They're written for 15 point characters with a wide variety of builds. They're written so that they don't have to be played by the "ONE RIGHT BUILD" and the ONE right set of characters. Monsters not powerful enough for your group... buff them up, introduce more split tatics...that's the art of GMing.


@LazarX
I don't know how optimized his group is and what point buy uses instead of 15 but from personal experience (running and playing APs) i have to say that they have to up the difficulty of high level content, it's way too easy as it is now. Yes i know that high level content is very difficult to create and the "xp problem" makes things worse but still... they are very easy.
I am starting to think that APs are either written for 3 averagely optimized PCs or 4 PCs with no optimizing at all (or players who play their second 3.X campaign at most).

@Piccolo Taphodarian
First of all the rest of the world is on the NPC standard array (3 point buy) or the elite array (13 point buy) in the cases where someone is truly the elite.
Secondly you are seriously undervaluing the ability scores, a 14 is more than enough for any proffesional level, that 20 is almost superhuman. And please don't bring athletes into this, the overwhelming majority of proffesional athletes is so pumped up with drugs that we can't trust anything concerning them when we are talking human capabilities.


They don't assume optimization at all. Plus, they create against an even spread of classes (melee, [skill|range], arcane, and divine). In my groups there's quite usually 2 or 3 of something be it armored melee or arcane caster. Larger groups can't help but cover the same roles.

It's probably better to add or remove enemies as necessary while keeping the XP the same. Taboo, I know, but the various Paizo folks' long standing advice is to do what's best for your games. If a fight needs to be tough but not something that should be practically a level in a bottle, then make it tough one way or another while keeping the reward about equal. When I've tried to run AP content as written bad things happen. It needs tailored to your particular group unless you run a 4 person team, 15 point buy, and a class spread like I mentioned.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
leo1925 wrote:

@LazarX

I don't know how optimized his group is and what point buy uses instead of 15 but from personal experience (running and playing APs) i have to say that they have to up the difficulty of high level content, it's way too easy as it is now. Yes i know that high level content is very difficult to create and the "xp problem" makes things worse but still... they are very easy.

I'm also in a Wrath group and we're in the 10th level range right now. I can safely say that even mythic as we are now, we're no where near to having characters that can punch out 400 points of damage per round, they don't even do that combined. Our GM has in addition spiked things by adding some dimension to the AP. (what happens to the sentience when you smash a sentient weapon... apparently it doesn't just go away as my Paladin found out when she sundered an evil intelligent glaive.)


2 people marked this as a favorite.

APs are balanced with the assumption of four 15 pt characters, run by players who may be playing Pathfinder for the first time and aren't heavily optimizing or, worse, actively trying to break the system.

If you're doing five 20 point characters, you'll need to make adjustments.

If your players are setting out to do 400 points a hit, you'll need adjust more.

Heh. Foebiter totally falls into the short list of "things that are too good." That and fleet warrior are both things you'll probably want to tone down.

Also, the only thing that stops you from throwing these tactics right back at the PCs is a desire to avoid killing them all =P

With the sort of group you're describing, if you don't want to tell them "hey guys, I don't want to spend hours rewriting stuff (or buff encounters to the point where I'll auto-kill you all by accident), can you do me a favor and dial it back just a bit?" I'd recommend just waiving XP and going nuts with later encounters - buffing the hell out of enemies, adding one or two rolls from the random encounter table to each fight, etc.

I recommend either (1) telling your group that you don't want an arms race and request that they show some restraint in the abilities they take (you can do a lot of NEAT things with mythic that aren't rocket tag-related), or (2) embracing the arms race, taking the gloves off, and seeing what your PCs can actually survive.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Piccolo Taphodarian wrote:

Adventurers are elite human beings in my opinion. Most humans don't go wandering into areas filled with dangerous monsters, studying arcane forces that few can understand, fighting the forces of evil on behalf of their god, or going toe to toe with a giant.

See above for more explanation as to what I consider the equivalent in the modern day and what physical training like learning to fight will do for your overall physical stats, not just strength.

It doesn't have much to do with having a single high stat or two. I think human beings are more well rounded than 15 points allows. Adventurers would probably fall into the top 5 to 10% of human beings. Unless you were going for the average joe starting adventurers by choice, 15 points is very, very low for supposedly extraordinary people.

Why would anyone think that Adventurers were in anyway average human beings? Why do people think that humans that train to do extraordinary physical things aren't far superior to 15 point buy? Do they have little understanding of what a genetically gifted physical specimen is capable of? He certainly doesn't have to be dumb to be great physically.

You make a lot of assumptions here, some of which is presumptive of what people thing folk are capable of and what others feel or think.

I will leave this conversation with: you're incorrect in your assumption of what ability scores do, and how people can use them, and what they can accomplish with them. You undervalue them.

Now, on to your question...

The fact is: you're playing on a higher power level than the game presumes, and then you argue that the game is under-powered.

If you grant all of your people all 18s, maximum hit points, and extra cash, you're going to make adjustments to the monsters or enjoy them walking over the encounters, for the most part, and have few fears.

This falls into the "no duh" clause.

Playing with 20 point buy is a much less extreme version of the same thing: you are playing with more powerful-than-expected folk, and thus they will be more powerful.

This becomes more true the more optimized your group is.

The best thing of this game is that it's exceedingly variable. Scale it up or down at your option. That's great. The fact that you state that your group is optimizers, that you're using higher-than-standard point-buy, and you complain about mythic not being usable as-written, you're not proving your point.

You are instead indicating that you want a particular kind of play style that isn't inherently catered to with the pre-published stats, that do, in fact, cater to other play styles.

This is a different argument entirely.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

It also depends on encounters.

Our Wrath group killed off a wandering glabrezu. Yet they almost ran to the hills when faced with several swarms of blood drinking ticks. It's encounters like those that really humble just about everyone without powerful AOE effects.

Paladin made her contribution by summoning a huge air elemental that formed a whirlwind to contain one of the swarms while the wizard and oracle blasted the others.

Seeing a Paladin summon sure surprised the other players.

Paizo Employee Design Manager

voska66 wrote:

I found nothing wrong with mythic adventures. Ran home brew game with it and it worked great.

Now the AP Wrath of the Righteous, that has problems. I think these problems come from the AP being designed to be run with out mythic. So if you have mythic you are over powered for most if not all of the encounters.

I quickly rework some of the encounters in the book. Some I leave easy for the players to feal mythic. When I tweak an encounter I increase hit points sometime up to max. I add the the advanced template or increase the monster count. I've advanced the mythic tier on some monsters that already mythic as well. This seem to work well.

Actually, Mythic was written specifically for Wrath of the Righteous. The entire rulebook was written because they wanted to do that AP. The problems came in after the AP was already mostly laid out though, when late in the Mythic playtest they dropped the value of a mythic tier from being equivalent to one level when determining APL, to being worth 1/2 a level. While you don't get all the benefits of an actual level, the power of some of the mythic abilities are at least equivalent to a level advancement, so the whole CR system is out of whack. They also went in and juiced up all of the magic items and potential character bonuses and boons to try and an extra level or two to party APL to make up for the supposed drop from +1 to .5. Most of the CR's in WotR are a little borked as a result since Mythic tiers were undervalued during playtesting.

Silver Crusade

So let's see what I would define as barely reasonable:

Human Paladin level 10 Tier 3, 16 STR, wielding a +2 dwarven waraxe. Feats: weapon focus, power attack, exotic weapon prof. dwarfen waraxe, improved critical. Mythic feats: power attack, improved critical.

Just threw together a paladin that isn't optimized:

Pala Test:

Pala Test
Human Paladin 10/Champion 3
LG Medium humanoid (human)
Init +4; Senses Perception +4
--------------------
Defense
--------------------
AC 24, touch 12, flat-footed 23 (+11 armor, +1 Dex, +1 natural, +1 deflection)
hp 89 (10d10+25)
Fort +12, Ref +8, Will +13
Defensive Abilities hard to kill; Immune charm, disease, fear
--------------------
Offense
--------------------
Speed 20 ft.
Melee +3 dwarven waraxe +15/+15 (1d10+23/19-20/×4)
Ranged +1 adaptive composite longbow +12/+12 (1d8+6/×3)
Special Attacks mythic power (9/day, surge +1d6), channel positive energy 4/day (DC 17, 5d6), smite evil
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 10th; concentration +12)
. . At will—detect evil
Paladin Spells Prepared (CL 7th; concentration +9):
. . 3rd—
. . 2nd—communal protection from chaos{super}UC{/super}, shield other{super}M{/super}
. . 1st—bless weapon, divine favor{super}M{/super}, honeyed tongue{super}APG{/super}
--------------------
Statistics
--------------------
Str 20, Dex 12, Con 13, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 14
Base Atk +10; CMB +12; CMD 27
Feats Exotic Weapon Proficiency (dwarven waraxe), Extra Lay on Hands, Improved Critical (dwarven waraxe), Improved Critical[M], Iron Will, Power Attack, Power Attack[M], Shield Focus
Skills Acrobatics -2, Appraise +1, Diplomacy +15, Handle Animal +7, Heal +5, Intimidate +3, Knowledge (nobility) +4, Knowledge (planes) +2, Knowledge (religion) +5, Perception +4, Ride +0, Sense Motive +13, Spellcraft +5
Languages Common
SQ amazing initiative, aura of courage, aura of good, aura of resolve, divine bonds (weapon [2/day] 2/day), lay on hands, mercies (mercy [exhausted], mercy [fatigued], mercy [staggered]), recuperation
Other Gear +2 full plate, +1 heavy steel shield, +1 adaptive composite longbow, +3 dwarven waraxe, amulet of natural armor +1, cloak of resistance +2, ring of protection +1, 150 gp
--------------------
TRACKED RESOURCES
--------------------
Amazing Initiative (1/round) (Ex) - 0/1
Divine Bond (Weapon +2, 10 mins, 2/day) (Sp) - 0/2
Lay on Hands (5d6, 9/day) (Su) - 0/9
Mythic Power (9/day, Surge +1d6) - 0/9
Paladin Channel Positive Energy 5d6 (4/day, DC 17) (Su) - 0/4
Smite Evil (4/day) (Su) - 0/4
--------------------
Special Abilities
--------------------
Amazing Initiative (1/round) (Ex) As a free action, use 1 power to gain an extra standard action (can't be used to cast a spell).
Aura of Courage +4 (10' radius) (Su) You are immune to Fear. Allies within aura gain a morale bonus to saves vs Fear.
Aura of Good (Ex) The paladin has an Aura of Good with power equal to her class level.
Aura of Resolve +4 (10' radius) (Su) You are immune to charm. Allies within aura gain a morale bonus to saves vs charm.
Detect Evil (At will) (Sp) You can use detect evil at will (as the spell).
Divine Bond (Weapon +2, 10 mins, 2/day) (Sp) Weapon shines with light and gains enhancement bonuses or chosen properties.
Fleet Charge (Ex) As a swift action, use 1 power to move speed & attack (+3 bonus, bypass all DR).
Hard to Kill (Ex) Automatically stabilize when dying, and only die at neg Con x 2.
Immunity to Charm You are immune to charm effects.
Immunity to Disease You are immune to diseases.
Immunity to Fear (Ex) You are immune to all fear effects.
Lay on Hands (5d6, 9/day) (Su) You can heal 5d6 damage, 9/day
Mercy (Exhausted) (Su) When you use your lay on hands ability, it also removes the exhausted condition.
Mercy (Fatigued) (Su) When you use your lay on hands ability, it also removes the fatigued condition.
Mercy (Staggered) (Su) When you use your lay on hands ability, it also removes the staggered condition. This does not help if the target is at 0 HP.
Mythic Power (9/day, Surge +1d6) Use this power to perform your mythic abilities.
Mythic Smite (Su) Recover 1 smite w/mythic power, attacks vs. evil creatures bypass DR for rest of turn.
Paladin Channel Positive Energy 5d6 (4/day, DC 17) (Su) Positive energy heals the living and harms the undead; negative has the reverse effect.
Power Attack -3/+9 You can subtract from your attack roll to add to your damage.
Power Attack [Mythic] Use 1 power to eliminate attack penalties of Power attack for 1 min.
Recuperation (Ex) Fully heal after 8 hrs rest, use 1 power and 1 hr to heal half and restore all non-mythic abilities.
Shield Focus +1 Shield AC
Smite Evil (4/day) (Su) +2 to hit, +10 to damage, +2 deflection bonus to AC when used.
Surge (1d6) (Su) Use 1 power to increase any d20 roll by the listed amount.

Hero Lab and the Hero Lab logo are Registered Trademarks of LWD Technology, Inc. Free download at http://www.wolflair.com
Pathfinder® and associated marks and logos are trademarks of Paizo Publishing, LLC®, and are used under license.

Full attack with power attack: +15/+15 1d10+23 on a crit (1d10+10+(13x2))x4. Average damage on a confirmed crit 184.

And that is without smite, fleet charge, spending mythic power to get another standard action, using divine bond..... and he is only slightly more than half above its suggested wealth. not using a bane weapon...


@Ssalarn
Yes but at least half if not most of the WotR was being written while the mythic rules were being playtested/written, that left the WotR writters to work with something that wasn't the mythic rules we know. When we have another mythic AP we will see how good or bad it was.

Buri wrote:


It's probably better to add or remove enemies as necessary while keeping the XP the same. Taboo, I know, but the various Paizo folks' long standing advice is to do what's best for your games. If a fight needs to be tough but not something that should be practically a level in a bottle, then make it tough one way or another while keeping the reward about equal. When I've tried to run AP content as written bad things happen. It needs tailored to your particular group unless you run a 4 person team, 15 point buy, and a class spread like I mentioned.

I agree, since the CR system is tied to the xp system and the CR system is wonky at best, i also advise to drop xp entirely and make encounters that can challenge your group.

The issue is that by using that way where you have to rebuild entire encounters, then rebuild entire floors of encounters, then an entire book of encnounters. Then you ask yourself why are you buying APs, i buy them because i don't have the time to make my own campaign but i end up having to create my own encounters for big chunks of the campaign...


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

The Paladin in my WotR campaign, at lvl 13/tier 6 is doing 508 points of damage on a critical hit at this point, with Critical Mastery, Foe-Biter, Mythic Improved Critical and Mythic Power Attack. One such attack one-shots everybody until the final opponent of module five.


leo1925 wrote:

@Piccolo Taphodarian

First of all the rest of the world is on the NPC standard array (3 point buy) or the elite array (13 point buy) in the cases where someone is truly the elite.
Secondly you are seriously undervaluing the ability scores, a 14 is more than enough for any proffesional level, that 20 is almost superhuman. And please don't bring athletes into this, the overwhelming majority of proffesional athletes is so pumped up with drugs that we can't trust anything concerning them when we are talking human capabilities.

I'm not undervaluing a 14 at all. I'm saying that having multiple 14s is not all that uncommon.

No. You are incorrect about professional athletes. When using drugs, they're probably closer to 25 to 30 points. Off drugs they are easily 20 to 25 points naturally. You don't have to give up anything mentally to be bigger, faster, and stronger.

Spec ops people tend to be very well rounded. Or are they all on drugs as well?


Tacticslion wrote:
Piccolo Taphodarian wrote:

Adventurers are elite human beings in my opinion. Most humans don't go wandering into areas filled with dangerous monsters, studying arcane forces that few can understand, fighting the forces of evil on behalf of their god, or going toe to toe with a giant.

See above for more explanation as to what I consider the equivalent in the modern day and what physical training like learning to fight will do for your overall physical stats, not just strength.

It doesn't have much to do with having a single high stat or two. I think human beings are more well rounded than 15 points allows. Adventurers would probably fall into the top 5 to 10% of human beings. Unless you were going for the average joe starting adventurers by choice, 15 points is very, very low for supposedly extraordinary people.

Why would anyone think that Adventurers were in anyway average human beings? Why do people think that humans that train to do extraordinary physical things aren't far superior to 15 point buy? Do they have little understanding of what a genetically gifted physical specimen is capable of? He certainly doesn't have to be dumb to be great physically.

You make a lot of assumptions here, some of which is presumptive of what people thing folk are capable of and what others feel or think.

I will leave this conversation with: you're incorrect in your assumption of what ability scores do, and how people can use them, and what they can accomplish with them. You undervalue them.

Now, on to your question...

The fact is: you're playing on a higher power level than the game presumes, and then you argue that the game is under-powered.

If you grant all of your people all 18s, maximum hit points, and extra cash, you're going to make adjustments to the monsters or enjoy them walking over the encounters, for the most part, and have few fears.

This falls into the "no duh" clause.

Playing with 20 point buy is a much less extreme version of the same thing: you are playing with more...

I think I'm quite correct about what ability scores do as described. I think I could more than prove my point concerning human capability if you wanted a protracted debate. I deal in physical training. I know a lot of regular folk that are quite athletic and strong from training that would be very common for a fighter or similar profession to undertake that lack absolutely nothing in the mental department. I am using Paizo's listed parameters to judge what an ability score means. As I said in an earlier post, it's not a matter of having an 18 or 20, it's about how well rounded extraordinary human beings usually are.

I prefer a 20 or 25 point buy because I think it allows for a more well rounded adventurer rather than a hyper-focused min-max build. In fantasy terms, the well rounded nature of most of the characters is even more pronounced, yet we're supposed to play the big dumb fighter because we don't have enough points to make the big, athletic fighter who is a leader of men and an extraordinary scholar. Yet those types of warriors existed even in history. They might have three to four 14 ands a couple of 12s or 13s. Or even better here and there. 15 point buy doesn't allow for that.

The better argument in these types of debates is that the statistical system in D&D is a poor example of how human development works. But it makes for a simpler and easier to run game, so we go with it. I get that part. But I understand physical ability very well, I don't feel like having my fighters be all brawn and little brains because that is usually not a very accurate representation of a soldier's physical and mental capabilities. The best soldiers are physically fit, strong, and mentally on top of it in almost every aspect that D&D uses as a measure of such abilities. I tailor the ability generation system to better fit what I know to be an accurate representation of ambitious, physically and mentally gifted people...which is what I think adventurers are. If you want to differ on this view, so be it. We'll agree to disagree.

As far as the rest of your argument, you don't much understand what I'm saying. Some options are far too good regardless of the point buy level. I am reading that even 15 point buy at higher level is breaking the game.

I modify encounters all the time. It is difficult at best regardless of point buy to modify for a combination like hasted Fleet Charge, Foebiter, Mythic Power Attack, and Mythic Improved Critical even if you're 15 point buy. That produces a damage output that the extra 100 points a dragon may (if he is tier 10) have that the system doesn't account for very well.

Have you play mythic? Do you run with characters using the combination I listed? Do the monsters as written for a 15 point buy campaign stand up to that damage output? My calculations indicate they do not.

If you have played mythic, maybe you can tell me? So far from what I'm reading, the answer for other DMs has been no. Mythic requires extensive modification because the ruleset as written does not provide sufficient challenge even if you play within the recommended framework.

I ran Kingmaker no problem with rolled characters and each character having a henchmen to level 20 and provided a sufficient challenge for my PCs. I have extensive experience modifying encounters to deal with powerful challenges. I'm at a loss reading Mythic Adventures and calculating the numbers for damage output. The demon lords in the back of the Wrath of the Righteous Module are going to die and die quickly to a paladin that gets to fire 9 to 10 times a round with full smite with most of his attacks hitting for full BAB. It's a little crazy.

I'm looking for specific examples of viability at high level. Do you have any? Or are you making the standard "It's how you do it" argument. Have you played Mythic? Do you have to modify nearly everything even for 15 point buy?


To be fair the statblocks we have for demon lords are very much a joke for mythic PCs, that is true. However there are a couple revised demon lords' statblocks (written by players) in the WotR forum and from what i have heard those are more up to the task.


leo1925 wrote:
To be fair the statblocks we have for demon lords are very much a joke for mythic PCs, that is true. However there are a couple revised demon lords' statblocks (written by players) in the WotR forum and from what i have heard those are more up to the task.

That's the confirmation I'm getting. I'm going to have rewrite a ton to deal with the mythic capabilities of PCs.

So the book is not viable as written. I will have to modify extensively outside the rules more than I usually do to deal with it requiring a quite a few house rules.

That was all I was wondering about. I can use Mythic Adventures, but the challenges were far too weak to deal with the PC options.

That is what I will do. Not sure I'll ever use Mythic Adventures after this AP. I guess I was hoping for a better designed book with appropriate challenges rather than more options for the PCs to beat the game easily. Some things are just way, way out of whack.

Very disappointed. Fortunately the Wrath of the Righteous AP is so well done that I want to run it badly enough I'm willing to put the work in. Wrath of the Righteous AP is a great story. A war with demons with the powers of righteous good backing you up is big fun. My players are having a blast so far.

I'll just make things as crazy for the monsters as for the PCs. And reign it in or pump it up as needed.

I think I've learned what I wanted to learn in this thread. Mythic Adventures is not viable as written as my calculations indicated. But it is usable with extensive modification to enemies to match PC capabilities.


Mythic adventures may* also have other uses, one of them is to more easily/less time consuming buff encounters in other non mythic APs/modules.

*i say may have because i haven't tried any yet


2 people marked this as a favorite.
leo1925 wrote:

I agree, since the CR system is tied to the xp system and the CR system is wonky at best, i also advise to drop xp entirely and make encounters that can challenge your group.

The issue is that by using that way where you have to rebuild entire encounters, then rebuild entire floors of encounters, then an entire book of encnounters. Then you ask yourself why are you buying APs, i buy them because i don't have the time to make my own campaign but i end up having to create my own encounters for big chunks of the campaign...

So only run 4 player, 15 point build, nonoptimized characters, with a set number of roles that only one character can occupy and you're set. It's untenable for Paizo to anticipate every party combination.


4 people marked this as a favorite.
leo1925 wrote:
The issue is that by using that way where you have to rebuild entire encounters, then rebuild entire floors of encounters, then an entire book of encnounters. Then you ask yourself why are you buying APs, i buy them because i don't have the time to make my own campaign but i end up having to create my own encounters for big chunks of the campaign...

For the story.

This is 100% of the reason I buy APs. I know I'm going to have to rebuild them, retailor them, retool them for my group. I know I'm going to swap out, drop out, drop in encounters left and right. I know I'm going to end up with something that resembles the original AP only at the start and possibly at the end.

I buy APs for the plot. For a skeleton of a story with suggestions, starting points, and pregenerated character personalities (if not actual mechanics) to build on.

I tried running APs out of the box when I first started, back when I took my first shot at Savage Tide. I learned two things very quickly - one, Paizo writes for a baseline, and the more you vary from that baseline the less an AP is going to be pre-done work for you. And two, the majority of the plot is bare-bones and expects... no, demands that a GM flesh out the parts they or their players enjoy or are interested in and reduce or ignore the parts they don't. Otherwise the first time you run into something where your players want to go right when the AP goes left, you're going to hit a brick wall and either call a halt to game or improv anyway.

I think there's a bit of disservice done by someone along the line who apparently got the idea out that the APs are supposed to be fully-pre-packaged, everything-done-for-you campaigns in a box. Because that's simply not possible. Groups are too different in play style, mechanical capability, roleplaying preferences, party composition, party size, and countless other factors for someone to write a campaign that will cater to all of them, so Paizo does the next best thing: provides the very basics, which as-written can work as a challenge to a small group of players brand-new to the game, and expects anyone with any more experience than that to understand that, to get the results they need, they'll need to make adjustments.


leo1925 wrote:

Mythic adventures may* also have other uses, one of them is to more easily/less time consuming buff encounters in other non mythic APs/modules.

*i say may have because i haven't tried any yet

I'm running a mythic game myself, a highly-modified Kingmaker, and I can confirm that tossing a mythic template or a couple of tiers on a monster/enemy can make for a pretty interesting twist to combat, even without mythic-ifying the PCs themselves. At the very least, the book has its uses there, if nothing else seems to sing to you.

Scarab Sages

leo1925 wrote:
What do you mean by mythic bane?

Take the example of a magus or inquisitor that can add bane to a weapon.

I add: evil outsider bane, chaotic outsider bane and mythic bane to my +3 weapon. I now have a weapon that counts as a +9 enhancement bonus dealing an extra 6d6 damage.

The problem was already there, mythic as a third option just made it more apparent.


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

I wish you luck in your endeavor.

Mythic Adventure rules were rather ne when Wrath of the Righteous was released. It was a prototype in how mythic adventures could be run, and a lot of things were illuminated.

- The designers seem to have underestimated the mythic abilities. The supposed mythic tier equals a half level does not stack up as actual play shows each tier seems to be a force multiplier from a previous mythic tier.

- The threats PCs face will need considerable rework. This is true of all adventure paths since each group is unique. Wrath of the righteous just needs more tweaking than average.

- Still has potential. It may require work, yet it can still be very fun for players if handled correctly.

Hopefully Paizo will have another mythic AP in the future. Maybe not a full 20 level, 10 tier advancement AP. Maybe a 17 level, 4 tier advancement track? Things get wonky once PCs gain more than 3 or 4 mythic tiers (much like 18+ level PCs).

Paizo Employee Design Manager

Artanthos wrote:
leo1925 wrote:
What do you mean by mythic bane?

Take the example of a magus or inquisitor that can add bane to a weapon.

I add: evil outsider bane, chaotic outsider bane and mythic bane to my +3 weapon. I now have a weapon that counts as a +9 enhancement bonus dealing an extra 6d6 damage.

The problem was already there, mythic as a third option just made it more apparent.

That's incorrect. You can't stack bane with bane (though you can stack it with mythic bane apparently), so there is no C outsider bane and E outsider bane, you have bane (chaotic outsider, evil outsider), that does +2/+2d6.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Orthos wrote:
I tried running APs out of the box when I first started[...]

I tried doing that with the Shattered Star AP and it went horribly. I actually feel bad because that campaign ended in a shitty way and I was super new to GMing and was timid to change things. I feel the story Xin truly needs told since that's the AP that explores how all this stuff got going in the first place and can easily serve as the background to Paizo's iconic AP, Rise of the Runelords.


Buri wrote:
Orthos wrote:
I tried running APs out of the box when I first started[...]
I tried doing that with the Shattered Star AP and it went horribly. I actually feel bad because that campaign ended in a s&$$ty way and I was super new to GMing and was timid to change things. I feel the story Xin truly needs told since that's AP that explores how all this stuff got going in the first place and can easily serve as the background to Paizo's iconic AP, Rise of the Runelords.

Yeah I've learned a lot since then. I'll be re-running Savage Tide once I finish my current Kingmaker game, and doing a lot of things differently. (Also I will probably never give players Mythic tiers again, or if I do no more than one or two, and/or make them temporary.)


@Orthos
Ok then AP are worth for you a lot, but i buy them for the maps (that you do battle in) and the encounters, sure the story is nice to have (when such a thing exists in an AP, not all of them have a story) but it's a not an issue with me.

Buri wrote:
leo1925 wrote:

I agree, since the CR system is tied to the xp system and the CR system is wonky at best, i also advise to drop xp entirely and make encounters that can challenge your group.

The issue is that by using that way where you have to rebuild entire encounters, then rebuild entire floors of encounters, then an entire book of encnounters. Then you ask yourself why are you buying APs, i buy them because i don't have the time to make my own campaign but i end up having to create my own encounters for big chunks of the campaign...

So only run 4 player, 15 point build, nonoptimized characters, with a set number of roles that only one character can occupy and you're set. It's untenable for Paizo to anticipate every party combination.

I already only run for 4 players with 15 point buy but what do you mean by unoptimized and a set number of roles?

I am not asking for APs that cater to any combination, what i want is to be advised if an AP can't handle (mechanically) particular classes (gunslinger and witch in most APs i have seen) and more importantly to have encounters for high-ish level (11+) characters that assume that the players have played again 3.X at those levels (most APs i have seen seem to assume a level of inexperience found on players who have never played on those levels).


2 people marked this as a favorite.
leo1925 wrote:
what i want is to be advised if an AP can't handle (mechanically) particular classes (gunslinger and witch in most APs i have seen) and more importantly to have encounters for high-ish level (11+) characters that assume that the players have played again 3.X at those levels (most APs i have seen seem to assume a level of inexperience found on players who have never played on those levels).

You will not get what you want then.

The APs are, as stated several times by several people, written for brand-new players to the game. They are written so people who have never played before can pick it up, make a fairly simplistic character, and get through the plot in more-or-less one piece.

Anyone who has played enough to get into high levels, given how many campaigns die before reaching high levels, probably has too much experience to qualify for the low-player experience level the APs are designed for. The Paizo writers assume anyone with that much experience will be willing and able to put in the time and effort to adjust the APs to fit their groups.

Paizo Employee Design Manager

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Orthos wrote:
leo1925 wrote:
what i want is to be advised if an AP can't handle (mechanically) particular classes (gunslinger and witch in most APs i have seen) and more importantly to have encounters for high-ish level (11+) characters that assume that the players have played again 3.X at those levels (most APs i have seen seem to assume a level of inexperience found on players who have never played on those levels).

You will not get what you want then.

The APs are, as stated several times by several people, written for brand-new players to the game. They are written so people who have never played before can pick it up, make a fairly simplistic character, and get through the plot in more-or-less one piece.

Anyone who has played enough to get into high levels, given how many campaigns die before reaching high levels, probably has too much experience to qualify for the low-player experience level the APs are designed for. The Paizo writers assume anyone with that much experience will be willing and able to put in the time and effort to adjust the APs to fit their groups.

Orthos is spot on here. APs pretty much have to be written assuming that this is the first campaign your group is playing, otherwise they're shutting off the ability for that product to grow their player base and help bring new players and GMs into the game. If you want maps, encounters, and more difficult challenges and the plot is not what you want out of your APs, I strongly suggest you look at the 3pp materials out there. Rappan Athuk, Rise of the Drow, and Way of the Wicked are all excellent 3pp resources that will provide you with the maps and encounters you're asking for with a bit more bite than the Paizo APs, which are aimed at the larger casual player base. Way of the Wicked and Rise of the Drow actually have really solid plots and stories to them, but Rappan Athuk is more the classic Tomb of Horrors style super-dungeon.

Razor Coast is another great resource... Basically, anything by Frog God Games, plus a few other great 3pp publishers.


leo1925 wrote:

I already only run for 4 players with 15 point buy but what do you mean by unoptimized and a set number of roles?

I am not asking for APs that cater to any combination, what i want is to be advised if an AP can't handle (mechanically) particular classes (gunslinger and witch in most APs i have seen) and more importantly to have encounters for high-ish level (11+) characters that assume that the players have played again 3.X at those levels (most APs i have seen seem to assume a level of inexperience found on players who have never played on those levels).

Certain classes will always be optimal for different situations. You need to determine for yourself if a class is overpowered for a majority of the encounters.

The roles I meant were to have only one martial character, one skill or ranged character, one arcane character, and one divine character. Unoptimized generally means you enforce the gold expenditure guildines in the Gamemastering chapter in the CRB under the Wealth By Level table for gear. For build, it follows the same kind of advice. You need to make sure your players don't spend a lot of build choices on doing just one or two things and ensuring they're generally proficient in several scenarios.

51 to 100 of 156 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Paizo Products / Product Discussion / Is Mythic Adventures viable? All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.